Tuffy the Lhasa apso barked at this, as if to confirm that his excitement at being close to Praetor Gunztar had elevated him to near bladder-voiding levels of joy.
From behind the leash, Wilson glanced over to Schmidt, who was assiduously not looking in his direction. The entire group of them, human and Icheloe alike, were taking part in a formal presentation ceremony at the royal palace, in the same private garden where the long-missing king was last seen before the mysterious disappearance that plunged his planet into a civil war. The two groups had met in a central square surrounded by low planters arrayed in a circular design, which featured flora from all over the planet. In every planter was a spray of fleur du roi, a gorgeously sweet-smelling native flower that by law could be cultivated only by the king himself; everywhere else on the planet it was allowed only to grow wild.
Wilson remembered vaguely that the fleur du roi, like the aspen on earth, was actually a colony plant, and the sprays of flowers were all clones of one another, connected by a vast root system that could extend for kilometers. He knew this because as part of his dog-minding job, he needed to find out which plants in the private garden could tolerate being peed on by Tuffy. He was pretty sure that the fleur du roi would be hardy enough if it came to that, and it almost certainly would. Tuffy was the only dog on the planet. That was a lot of territory to mark.
“Now that we have all been introduced, I believe it is time to move forward with our initial meeting,” Praetor Gunztar said, turning his attention away from the Lhasa apso and back again to Ambassador Waverly. “Today I thought we’d take care of merely procedural items, such as confirming the agenda and opening formal statements.”
“That would of course be fine,” Waverly said.
“Excellent,” Gunztar said. “One reason for a short schedule today is that I would like to offer you and your people a special consideration. You may not know that the royal palace sits above one of the most extensive cave systems on the planet, one that ultimately travels almost two kilometers into the planet and meets up with a vast subterranean river. The caves have been used by the palace as a keep, as a place of refuge and even as a catacomb for the royal family. I would like to offer you a tour of these caves, which no one but Icheloe have been in before. It’s a token of our appreciation for the Colonial Union’s willingness to mediate these possibly contentious negotiations.”
“What an honor,” Waverly said. “And of course we accept. The caves really descend that far into the planet?”
“Yes, although we will not follow them down that deep,” Gunztar said. “They are blocked off for reasons of security. But what you will see is extensive enough. The cave system is so vast that even now it has never been fully explored.”
“How fascinating,” Waverly said. “If nothing else, it will give us an impetus to get through the day’s business as quickly as possible.”
“There’s that, too,” Gunztar said, and everyone had a laugh, in their own species’ fashion, at this. Then the entire mass, human and Icheloe, was herded toward the palace, to the suite of rooms reserved for the negotiations themselves.
As they moved, Waverly glanced toward Abumwe, who in turn glanced toward Schmidt, who held back with Wilson. Wilson stood, hand on leash, restraining the little dog, who was becoming anxious at seeing his mistress wander off without him.
“So, today will just be a couple of hours,” Schmidt said. “The agenda’s already been agreed to by both sides, so all we’re doing is going through the motions. All you have to do is keep Tuffy here busy until we break. After today you and Tuffy will be at our embassy for the duration.”
“I’ve got it, Hart,” Wilson said. “This isn’t exactly rocket science.”
“You’ve got all your stuff?” Schmidt asked.
Wilson pointed to a jacket pocket. “Kibble and treats here,” he said. He pointed to a trouser pocket. “Poop bags here. The pee I’m not picking up.”
“Fair enough,” Schmidt said.
“They know he’s going to do his business, right?” Wilson asked. “It’s not going to cause a major diplomatic incident if one of the grounds staff here sees li’l Tuffy in a poop squat, right? Because I am not ready to deal with that sort of thing.”
“It’s one of the reasons you’re staying behind here,” Schmidt said. “It’s a private garden. He’s been given approval for taking care of business. We’ve been asked not to let him do any digging.”
“If he does that, I can just pick him up,” Wilson said.
“I know I said it before, but sorry about this, Harry,” Schmidt said. “Dog sitting isn’t in your job description.”
“De nada,” Wilson said, and then rephrased at the sight of Schmidt’s puzzled expression. “It’s no big deal, Hart,” he said. “It’s like working on the shuttle. Someone’s got to do it, and everyone else has something more useful to do. Yes, I’m overqualified to watch the dog. That just means you don’t have to worry about anything. And that you owe me drinks after this.”
“All right,” Schmidt said, smiling. “But if something does happen, I have my PDA set to accept your call.”
“Will you please get out of here now and go be useful to someone,” Wilson said. “Before I have Tuffy here mate with your boot.”
Tuffy looked up at Schmidt, apparently hopefully. Schmidt left hastily. Tuffy looked over to Wilson.
“You leave my boots alone, pal,” Wilson said.
* * *
I have a problem, Wilson sent to Schmidt, roughly an hour later.
What is it? Schmidt sent back, using the texting function of his PDA so as not to interrupt the talks.
It would be best explained in person, Wilson sent.
Is this about the dog? Schmidt sent.
Sort of, Wilson sent.
Sort of? Schmidt sent. Is the dog okay?
Well, it’s alive, Wilson sent.
Schmidt got up as quickly and quietly as possible and headed to the garden.
“We give you one thing to do,” Schmidt said, as he walked up to Wilson. “One thing. Walk the damn dog. You said I didn’t have to worry about anything.”
Wilson held up his hands. “This is not my fault,” he said. “I swear to God.”
Schmidt looked around. “Where’s the dog?”
“He’s here,” Wilson said. “Kind of.”
“What does that even mean?” Schmidt said.
From somewhere came a muffled bark.
Schmidt looked around. “I hear the dog,” he said. “But I can’t see it.”
The bark repeated, followed by several more. Schmidt followed the noise and eventually found himself at the edge of a planter filled with fleur du roi flowers.
Schmidt looked over to Wilson. “All right, I give up. Where is it?”
Another bark. From inside the planter.
From below the planter.
Schmidt looked over to Wilson, confused.
“The flowers ate the dog,” Wilson said.
“What?” Schmidt said.
“I swear to God,” Wilson said. “One second Tuffy was standing in the planter, peeing on the flowers. The next, the soil below him opened up and something pulled him under.”
“What pulled him under?” Schmidt asked.
“How should I know, Hart?” Wilson said, exasperated. “I’m not a botanist. When I went over and looked, there was a thing underneath the dirt. The flowers were sprouting up from it. They’re part of it.”
Schmidt leaned over the planter for a look. The dirt in the planter had been flung about and below it he could see a large, fibrous bulge with a meter-long seam running across its top surface.
Another bark. From inside the bulge.
“Holy shit,” Schmidt said.
“I know,” Wilson said.
“It’s like a Venus flytrap or something,” Schmidt said.
“Which is not a good thing for the dog,” Wilson pointed out.
“What do we do?” Schmidt asked, looking at Wilson.
?
??I don’t know,” Wilson said. “That’s why I called you in the first place, Hart.”
The dog barked again.
“We can’t just leave him down there,” Schmidt said.
“I agree,” Wilson said. “I am open to suggestion.”
Schmidt thought about it for a moment and then abruptly took off in the direction of the entrance to the garden. Wilson watched him go, confused.
Schmidt reemerged a couple of minutes later with an Icheloe, dusty and garbed in items that were caked with dirt.
“This is the garden groundskeeper,” Schmidt said. “Talk to him.”
“You’re going to have to translate for me,” Wilson said. “My BrainPal can translate what he says for me, but I can’t speak in his language.”
“Hold on,” Schmidt said. He pulled out his PDA and accessed the translation program, then handed it to Wilson. “Just talk. It’ll take care of the rest.”
“Hi,” Wilson said, to the groundskeeper. The PDA chittered out something in the Icheloe language.
“Hello,” said the groundskeeper, and then looked over to the planter that had swallowed the dog. “What have you done to my planter?”
“Well, see, that’s the thing,” Wilson said. “I didn’t do anything to the planter. The planter, on the other hand, ate my dog.”
“You’re talking about that small noisy creature the human ambassador brought with it?” the groundskeeper asked.
“Yes, that’s it,” Wilson said. “It went into the planter to relieve itself and the next thing I know it’s been swallowed whole.”
“Well, of course it was,” the groundskeeper said. “What did you expect?”
“I didn’t expect anything,” Wilson said. “No one told me there was a dog-eating plant here in the garden.”
The groundskeeper looked at Wilson and then Schmidt. “No one told you about the kingsflower?”
“The only thing I know about it is that it’s a colony plant,” Wilson said. “That most if it exists under the dirt and that the flowers are the visible part. The thing about it being carnivorous is new to me.”
“The flowers are a lure,” the groundskeeper said. “In the wild, a woodland creature will be drawn in by the flowers and while it’s grazing it will get pulled under.”
“Right,” Wilson said. “That’s what happened to the dog.”
“There’s a digestion chamber underneath the flowers,” the groundskeeper said. “It’s big enough that a large-size animal can’t climb out. Eventually one of two things happens. Either the creature starves and dies or asphyxiates and dies. Then the plant digests it and the nutrients go to feed the entire colony.”
“How long does that take?” Schmidt asked.
“Three or four of our days,” the groundskeeper said, and then pointed at the planter. “This particular kingsflower has been in this garden since before the disappeared king. We usually feed it a kharhn once every ten days or so. Tomorrow is a feeding day, so it was getting a little hungry. That’s why it ate your creature.”
“I wish someone had told me about this earlier,” Wilson said.
The groundskeeper gave the Icheloe equivalent of a shrug. “We thought you knew. I was wondering why you were letting your, what do you call it, a dog?” Wilson nodded. “Why you let your dog wander through the kingsflowers, but we were informed ahead of time to allow the creature free rein of the garden. So I decided that it was not my problem.”
“Even though you knew the dog could get eaten,” Wilson said.
“Maybe you wanted the dog to get eaten,” the groundskeeper said. “It’s entirely possible you brought the dog as a treat for the kingsflower as a diplomatic gesture. I don’t know. All I do is tend to the plants.”
“Well, assuming we didn’t want the dog to get eaten, how do we get it back?” Wilson asked.
“I have no idea,” the groundskeeper said. “No one has ever asked that question before.”
Wilson glanced over to Schmidt, who offered up a helpless gesture with his hands.
“Let me put it this way,” Wilson said. “Do you have any objection to me trying to retrieve the dog?”
“How are you going to do that?” the groundskeeper wanted to know.
“Go in the same way the dog did,” Wilson said. “And hopefully come back out the same way.”
“Interesting,” the groundskeeper said. “I’ll go get some rope.”
* * *
“You should probably rub against the flowers a bit,” the groundskeeper said, motioning to the fleur du roi. “Your dog was not especially large. The kingsflower is probably still hungry.”
Wilson looked doubtfully at the groundskeeper but nudged the flowers with his feet. “It doesn’t seem to be doing anything,” he said, kicking at the plant.
“Wait for it,” said the groundskeeper.
“How long should I—,” Wilson began, and then dirt flew and fibrous tentacles wrapped around his legs, constricting.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Schmidt said.
“Not helping,” Wilson said, to Schmidt.
“Sorry,” Schmidt said.
“Don’t be alarmed when the plant starts cutting off the circulation to your extremities,” the groundskeeper said. “It’s a perfectly normal part of the process.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Wilson said. “You’re not losing feeling in your legs.”
“Remember that the plant wants to eat you,” the groundskeeper said. “It’s not going to let you get away. Don’t fight it. Let yourself be eaten.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m finding your advice to be less than one hundred percent helpful,” Wilson said to the groundskeeper. The plant was now beginning to drag him under.
“I’m sorry,” the groundskeeper said. “Usually the kharhn we feed to the kingsflower are already dead. I never get to see anything live fed to it. This is exciting for me.”
Wilson fought hard not to roll his eyes. “Glad you’re enjoying the show,” he said. “Will you hand me that rope now, please?”
“What?” the groundskeeper said, then remembered what he had in his hands. “Right. Sorry.” He handed one end of the rope to Wilson, who quickly tied it to himself in a mountain climber hold. Schmidt took the other end from the groundskeeper.
“Don’t lose your grip,” Wilson said. He was now up to his groin in plant. “I don’t want to be fully digested.”
“You’ll be fine,” Schmidt said, encouragingly.
“Next time it’s your turn,” Wilson said.
“I’ll pass,” Schmidt said.
More tentacles shot up, roping around Wilson’s shoulder and head. “Okay, I am officially not liking this anymore,” he said.
“Is it painful?” the groundskeeper asked. “I am asking for science.”
“Do you mind if we hold the questions until afterward?” Wilson asked. “I’m kind of busy at the moment.”
“Yes, sorry,” the groundskeeper said. “I’m just excited. Damn it!” The Icheloe started patting his garments. “I should be recording this.”
Wilson glanced over to Schmidt, looking as exasperated as he could under the circumstances. Schmidt shrugged. It had been a strange day.
“This is it,” Wilson said. Only his head was above the surface now. Between the tentacles constricting and dragging him down and the pulsing, peristaltic motion of the fleur du roi plant sucking him down into the ground, he was reasonably sure he was going to have post-traumatic flashbacks for months.
“Hold your breath!” the groundskeeper said.
“Why?” Wilson wanted to know.
“It couldn’t hurt!” the groundskeeper said. Wilson was going to make a sarcastic reply to this but then realized that, in fact, it couldn’t hurt. He took a deep breath.
The plant sucked him fully under.
“This is the best day ever,” said the groundskeeper to Schmidt.
* * *
Wilson had a minute or two of suffocating closeness from the plant as the
thing pushed him into its digestive sac. Then there was a drop as he fell from the thing’s throat into its belly. The fall was broken by a spongy, wet mass at the bottom: the plant’s digestive floor.
“Are you in?” Schmidt said, to Wilson, via his BrainPal.
“Where else do you think I would be?” Wilson said, out loud. His BrainPal would forward the voice to Schmidt.
“Can you see Tuffy?” Schmidt asked.
“Give me a second,” Wilson said. “It’s dark down here. I need to give my eyes a moment to adjust.”
“Take your time,” Schmidt said.
“Thanks,” Wilson said, sarcastically.
Thirty seconds later, Wilson’s genetically-engineered eyes had adjusted to the very dim light from above to see his environment, a dank, teardop-shaped organic capsule barely large enough to stand in and stretch his arms.
Wilson looked around and then said, “Uh.”
“‘Uh’?” Schmidt said. “‘Uh’ is not usually good.”
“Ask the groundskeeper how long it takes this thing to digest something,” Wilson said.
“The groundskeeper says it usually takes several days,” Schmidt said. “Why?”
“We have a problem,” Wilson said.
“Is Tuffy dead already?” Schmidt asked, alarm in his voice.
“I don’t know,” Wilson said. “The damn thing isn’t here.”
“Where did he go?” Schmidt asked.
“If I knew that, Hart, I wouldn’t be saying ‘uh,’ now, would I?” Wilson said, irritated. “Give me a minute.” He peered hard into the dim. After a minute, he got down on his hands and knees and moved toward a small shadow near the base of the capsule. “There’s a tear here,” Wilson said, after examining the shadow. “Behind the tear it looks like there’s a small tunnel or something.”
“The groundskeeper says the rock bed below the palace is riddled with fissures and tunnels,” Schmidt said, after a brief pause. “It’s part of the cave system that’s underneath the palace.”
“Do the tunnels and fissures go anywhere?” Wilson asked.
“He says ‘maybe,’” Schmidt said. “They’ve never mapped the entire system.”