Republic

  The stalwart marines glanced back at Mahliki several times, perhaps wondering how close they would have to get. She kept striding forward, her faceplate pointed toward the wall of green.

  One of the marines waved and pointed downward. A warning. Several of the vines or stolons—or whatever this thing had—snaked away from the forest core. They were branching out, the runners heading into the lake depths and also to the north and south, parallel to the shoreline. Here and there, vines rose from those runners, waving in the current as the group approached.

  The marines were doing their best to avoid the green appendages. Mahliki strode straight up to the first one. She crouched, using pliers to try and lift the vine, but fine roots had grown from the bottom of it. She glanced at Sespian and pointed.

  He took that to mean she wanted a sample. He stepped up to her side, his axe in hand. The way a nearby tendril—more like a tentacle—was leaning toward her made him nervous. He wasn’t displeased to see Maldynado and Basilard close in behind them, their weapons out as well. A few meters ahead, the marines were gesturing and pointing. Arguing? Sespian doubted they could hear each other’s words down here, but he followed their gazes... then swallowed.

  Just inside the forest line, a swollen, waterlogged body dangled a few feet from the lake bottom. The remains of a body anyway. Green tendrils were wrapped about it, and the skin had been flayed away in places. From fish? Sespian hadn’t seen any fish since they had dropped into the water. Dear ancestors, the plant wasn’t eating that person, was it?

  Mahliki jerked back, almost falling onto her backside. Sespian reacted before his mind caught up to his instincts—he lashed out with the axe and knocked away a tendril that had been darting toward her head. Less than a heartbeat later, Maldynado and Basilard had leaped over Mahliki and pinned the offending vine. Their daggers hacked through it in three places. The vine went limp and collapsed in the mud. The severed pieces drifted away. Sespian kept an eye on them, remembering the one he had cut on the dock and how it had continued to wiggle and writhe.

  “I wasn’t expecting any of the vines to move that fast,” Sespian said, then, realizing nobody would be able to understand him, did his best to sign the same message with Basilard’s hand gestures.

  Is this plant... sentient? Basilard signed.

  Maldynado tapped him on the shoulder. He had noticed what the marines were staring at. Whatever it is... I’m thinking you should find a recipe and cook it. All of it.

  Mahliki had recovered from her surprise at having the vine dart toward her face, and she stood, a sample vial in hand. She tucked it into her bag.

  I hope it doesn’t start growing in your vial, Sespian signed before realizing she wouldn’t be able to understand.

  I hope not too, she signed. I have some... uh... chemicals? She looked at Basilard, eyes questioning. I don’t know the sign. Maybe there isn’t one. It should preserve the plants—and halt growth—but obviously I can’t pour it into the vials until we get back out of the water.

  Sespian, Basilard, and Maldynado all stared at her for a moment before someone responded.

  When did you learn my language? Basilard looked pleased.

  We spent that day on the ship together, remember?

  Sespian realized her earlier question about Basilard’s signs must have been a result of her not seeing all of them rather than not understanding them.

  One day? Maldynado moved to scratch his head, but his knuckles clunked against the hard helmet. He settled for massaging a rivet. It took me months to see through Basilard’s silent mystique.

  Mahliki shrugged. He was at the funeral too. I need a sample of the core root system. I believe that was akin to an ancillary taproot, more for securing the vine than providing sustenance. She pointed toward the dense forest ahead—the marines were still up there and seemed to be debating whether they could cut the corpse down. The idea of leaving someone’s body down here without a proper funeral pyre bothered Sespian, but he wasn’t sure how close they should risk getting. He didn’t want to be left down here without a proper funeral pyre, either.

  I think it’s getting its sustenance right there. Maldynado pointed at the body, a disgusted sneer visible through his faceplate.

  Perhaps, Mahliki signed as she walked closer, but like the Seruvian Insect Trap, it should still draw nourishment from the soil and... she groped for a sign again before shrugging and choosing, the sun.

  Photosynthesis was the word she wanted, Sespian guessed.

  Looks like the shaman who made it gave it some terrifying traits, Maldynado signed.

  Shaman? Basilard asked. Is that who we believe is responsible?

  Shaman, wizard, somebody. Maldynado shrugged.

  Sespian didn’t catch Basilard’s response. He had spotted another dark form farther into the tangle of stalks and vines. Another body? There were smaller figures too. Animals? He shuddered. All of those tales of missing people... they had not been unfounded. Odd that nobody had actually seen someone get abducted, at least not the last he had heard. Could the plant have the self-preservation instinct—the intelligence—to choose its targets carefully, when there were no witnesses around?

  “But it’s going after us with witnesses around,” he murmured. “Unless it’s sure it can keep all of us from escaping... Or maybe it’s protecting itself since we’re encroaching.”

  Neither were comforting thoughts.

  Mahliki was drawing closer to the dense wall of stalks, so Sespian hurried to remain at her side. Seeing the forest of green stretch up thirty feet and more was intimidating, not to mention that some of those vines near the top spread out, like branches on a tree, forming a canopy of sorts. It wasn’t his imagination; it was growing darker as they walked closer.

  A commotion arose to Sespian’s left. A vine had snaked out, wrapping around one of the marine’s legs. His comrade was attacking it. Sespian clenched his axe tighter, tempted to jog over and help, but he was loath to leave Mahliki.

  I’m fine, she signed and pointed toward Basilard and Maldynado behind her. Go help.

  Sespian thought to send one of them instead, but the vine had pulled the marine off his feet. Did it intend to yank him into the forest and string him up like the bodies? Sespian ran toward the pair as fast as the cumbersome suit would allow.

  The vine had a grip on the man’s leg and... yes, the slagging thing was pulling him. Sespian could hardly believe it. Both marines were hacking at it with their diving knives. Somebody should have warned them to bring heavier weaponry.

  Sespian arrived as the standing marine was finally able to cut through the vine. Released, his comrade scrambled away, though the tendril had not released his leg. He hopped, poking at it with his knife. Given the pained expression on his face, it must be tightening around the limb like a boa constrictor. Sespian lunged in, intending to help, but a startled squawk pierced their watery surroundings. The vine the other marine had cut, its dark green stump open to the water, a viscous ichor on the tip, rammed into the man, knocking him down. A second vine shot out of the forest, aiming for his leg.

  Sespian hacked at it with the axe. He smashed it against the lake floor. The blade cut in, but not as far as he would have wished—the soft mud cushioned the blow. He slammed the axe down again, then whipped the machete out so he could attack with his left hand too.

  “Get back,” he shouted to the marines, not knowing if they would hear him.

  Sespian severed the vine on the ground, then hacked more tendrils drifting toward him from different angles. He felt inept as the things swirled all about him. The water’s denseness slowed his own blades, but did not perturb the plant at all. He stumbled backward as he continued to dodge and parry the whip-like attacks, hoping the marines had already escaped. He dared not take time to glance around.

  Something grabbed him from behind.

  Sespian hollered and launched an axe under his arm, hoping to catch the cursed vine. At the last second, he glimpsed the canvas of a diving suit instead of
the green of the plant. He halted his attack, the blade inches from slamming into Basilard’s faceplate.

  Basilard and Maldynado were both there. They gripped him under the armpits and pulled him back, five, ten meters before stopping. The vines continued to wave in the air around the space he had left. Cursed ancestors, there were at least eight of them, anyone of which could have wrapped around his neck...

  Sespian told himself to calm down. The diving suit would have protected him somewhat. Maybe.

  “The marines?” he asked, keeping an eye on the vines. They weren’t encroaching farther, not with Maldynado and Basilard standing there. He spotted the marines recovering a few feet away, but... Sespian’s stomach sank into his boots. If Maldynado and Basilard were with him, then where...?

  “Mahliki?” he asked, his voice cracking. He looked up and down the plant line. Mahliki’s smaller diving suit was nowhere to be seen. No, wait. There was her air tube... He felt sick. It disappeared into the snarl of green where he had last seen her.

  Maldynado shook his head grimly. Basilard held up a glass jar with a gnarly root bulb in it, its side slit open.

  “What the blast does that mean?” Sespian demanded, then repeated the words as signs, his hands jerking so angrily he didn’t know if the others would understand him.

  She was cutting at some roots, and all these vines shot out to distract us, Maldynado signed. Only I didn’t know they were the distraction then. We had to fight like you were doing to keep from being overwhelmed. I pushed through to her, intending to pull her back, so we could all get out of there, but just as she put this in the jar, a vine wrapped around her waist and yanked her into the forest. She had time to throw the jar at us and shout... He hitched a shoulder. I think it was something like, “Get this to my mother.”

  Basilard nodded. We tried to charge in after her, but the stalks pressed together. It turned into a wall, and we couldn’t get past it.

  And then the vines started coming for us again. Maldynado made a rude gesture at the forest of green. We barely made it out of there.

  Sespian snarled in frustration and stamped his boot.

  I would have kept trying if there was a way, Maldynado added. But we figured this sample must be something important and that we had to get it back for someone to look at.

  “Great,” Sespian said, tired of the signs and not caring if they understood or not. “I’ll let you hand that to Starcrest and explain where his daughter went.”

  Maldynado’s face grew pale.

  Sespian stalked back to the ship.

  Chapter 8

  The submarine lay on its side on the tug’s aft deck, a black oblong shape, elegant even in this unnatural state. No obvious holes breached the hull, but once the hatch had been opened, countless gallons of water had poured out.

  Sicarius climbed inside, wondering if the power source remained intact and also if there might be any clues inside as to the assailant. He doubted he would find more than the burned shell of a blasting stick—if that—but it wouldn’t hurt to look. He had already glared—menacingly, Amaranthe had assured him—at the captain to urge him to depart as quickly as possible to join Sespian’s ship in the harbor. The captain had promised this would happen as soon as they had the submarine tied down. Even now, privates were tossing cables across its body under the direction of the engineering lieutenant. This seemed wasteful for a short trip across a placid lake, but perhaps the captain anticipated trouble entering into the area where the plant dominated the waters.

  The inside of the Explorer smelled much like the lake: wet, musty, and overpowered with the primordial jungle lushness that the plant emitted. The smell of black powder had been washed away during the submarine’s overnight bath.

  A couple of the vines Sicarius had severed had extended through the hatch, and he checked around before entering far, not positive cutting them had killed them. Like an earthworm, this plant had an amazing capacity for regeneration.

  He spotted the two severed vines, both lying on the side—which was currently the bottom—of the sub. Both wriggling. One seemed to be inching for the hatch. Sicarius flicked it out onto the deck with his knife and the other one as well. He didn’t know how to utterly destroy the pieces, but he didn’t want them infesting the president’s submarine when he delivered it.

  Sicarius swung through the upturned boat, taking in the black scorch marks on the interior on his way to the compact engine room. Had that inside hatch been open when Amaranthe had left? She would have grabbed their luggage from the sleeping cabin, but might have left the rear compartment sealed. If so...

  He halted and stared. The hatch leading to the engine room had been blown off its hinges. Shrapnel had gouged the walls on either side, and soot stained the floor. Odd that the damage should be more extreme back here, farther away from the entry hatch. He imagined their attacker up on the promontory and the trajectory the blasting stick would have taken. It must have flown inside, bounced off the wall, and through sheer luck rolled back here before exploding.

  Luck? Dangerous to assume that. He reasoned that he might have made such a throw, calculating the precise angle to cause the stick to skid to the back. It would be wisest not to assume this stranger lacked skills he possessed. After all, the person had eluded him in the woods.

  No hint of the power source’s customary glow seeped from the engine room. And he soon saw why. The round orb still sat on its steel pedestal, but the side had been smashed in. Sicarius would have sensed it if any power remained; this was nothing but a useless husk now. Unless Starcrest could come up with a viable mundane fuel source, the Explorer would not run again, not until someone could hire another Kyattese Maker to craft a new energy source. He should be that someone, since he had been borrowing the submarine when this had happened. He would consider how such an artifact might be acquired after he dealt with the assassin.

  He was about to back out of the sub when a scrap wedged under the corner of the pedestal caught his eye. He plucked up the wrapper—the shredded remains of the blasting stick. Though he doubted it would tell him much, he took it outside to examine in the daylight.

  Sicarius found Amaranthe crouching beside the hatch, peering inside. Behind her, the rocky cliff of the promontory was drifting past. Good. They were en route to the harbor.

  “It’s going to take a lot of scrubbing to make those bulkheads seem new again,” Amaranthe observed.

  “The energy source has been destroyed,” Sicarius said.

  “I was afraid of that. I don’t suppose scrubbing will make that seem new again.”

  “No.” He opened his palm to study the thick scrap of paper. “Huh.”

  “Huh?” Amaranthe echoed.

  “This wasn’t a standard military-issue blasting stick.” Little of the original color remained, but he could tell it wasn’t the black and red model that the army and marines employed.

  “I imagine an assassin would have a hard time walking in and buying military ordnance.”

  Sicarius thought about pointing out that assassins could get into most places without buying anything, but she spoke again.

  “Something out of a mining camp? No, wait.” Amaranthe plucked it out of his hand and looked at the end. It was in better shape than the other couple inches of tubular scrap, and she poked at a black mark, a tiny compass. “I recognize this craftsman’s mark. I think.” She squinted at the shape, less than a centimeter in diameter.

  Sicarius tilted his head, waiting.

  “Yes, I’ve ordered blasting sticks from this person before. Remember Ms. Sarevic’s Custom Works on Molten Street?”

  “You went there with Books last fall to purchase blasting sticks for Sespian’s kidnapping.”

  A flash of pain crossed her eyes at the mention of Books’s name, but she nodded. “Yes. Her explosives are known to be of a good quality, often better and more... creative than what the military and the mines use.”

  “She should be questioned then.”

  “Yes. If—?
??

  A shout from the other end of the tug made Amaranthe turn her head. Sicarius had already been aware of the approach of the harbor and of the plant coming into view, but he jogged to the railing to see what had drawn some marine’s attention. It was the vessel that had been assigned to take Sespian and the others into the harbor. A warship called the Interceptor.

  “Why are they so close to the plant?” Amaranthe asked. “Given how effectively it’s destroyed the docks and pilings with its vines...”

  Sicarius could make out the people on the deck, the racing about and the agitation in the gestures. “They’ve already found trouble.”

  • • • • •

  Mahliki hung halfway up one of the plant’s tree-like stalks and judged that ten feet of water lay between her and the surface. And freedom.

  “Technically not,” she muttered, as the plant extended farther into the air and who knew how far in each direction. But if she popped up, the ship might be able to throw her a life preserver. Or a steam-powered jackhammer with which to trample all this wayward foliage. Not that she could operate either at the moment.

  Three thick vines were wrapped around her torso and legs, pinning her to the stalk. One of her arms remained free, and she still had her bag, but she hadn’t figured out how to put either to useful effect.

  “You can collect all the samples you want now...” The plant flesh loomed close, with only the faceplate of the helmet separating Mahliki from it. She hoped the diving suit would armor her against... whatever these vines were using to break down people’s bodies. There was something wrong with her, she decided, because she found herself more curious about how that was being done than terrified that it would be done to her.