“What?” Mildly irritated by her persistence, he turned to meet her gaze. “I suppose it’s because everything is so wet.”
“Partly so, but lightning can make anything burn.”
“Then why doesn’t it?” he asked, only half curious.
He felt her lips touch his ear so that he could hear but no one else. “Because the forest has ways of protecting itself.”
For a moment he was uncertain. Then he remembered. “Stormtreader tree,” he murmured.
“Stormtreader—and others.” She joined him in observing the shuttle’s final approach.
It was larger than his own landing craft, but that was to be expected. Stolid and utilitarian of design, it was descending on four vaned lifting jets. Next it would position itself alongside and align itself with the branch on which they were standing. The trooper Caavax had spoken with earlier was holding his cylinder close to his mouth, speaking steadily and evenly into the pickup.
Halting its descent level with their branch, the sturdy landing craft began to hover sideways toward them. It was too loud to talk now. As it adjusted its position, the shuttle’s exhaust blasted into the vegetation below, burning and crisping dozens, hundreds, of growing things, scorching a black path eastward through the verdure.
A port opened in its side. Flinx could see armed troops milling about within. An extensible ramp extended toward the branch like a long gray tongue. A moment later the muzzle of a sidearm was prodding him in the ribs. It was a gesture whose meaning was universal.
Shouting to make himself heard, the AAnn noble leaned close. “As soon as the ramp is near enough, you will start across!” Behind him, his troopers were collapsing their perimeter, gathering in a tight, protective mass behind their superior. They continued to watch the surrounding greenery.
Flinx nodded to indicate he understood. Turning to Teal, he tried to think of something final to say. She wasn’t looking at him. Instead her gaze, as well as those of the children, was focused on something off to their left.
The trunks of three fairly large trees had swollen to several times normal size. So intent had he been on the descending shuttle that he hadn’t noticed the measured but steady expansion. Neither had the soldiers, preoccupied with both the shuttle’s arrival and watching the forest behind them.
Amidst the muffled roar of the jets, the ramp continued to lengthen. Flames began to leap from the inner forest canopy as the intense heat from the shuttle’s engines inflamed and blistered the exposed vegetation. The spreading conflagration had no effect on the ship’s systems and her pilot ignored it, knowing that they would be sealed up and on their way before the blaze could blossom into anything threatening.
As he took his first resigned step toward the beckoning ramp, Flinx could feel the heat from the fire burning below. While he was confident that Teal and the children were in little danger from the blaze because it would quickly die out due to the greenness and dampness of the surrounding vegetation, he still felt sorry for the plants and slow-moving animals below that were threatened by the shuttle’s indifferent jets. They would be at the mercy of the flames until the blaze burnt itself out.
That was when Teal screamed, “Get down!” and flung herself flat onto the branch. Dwell and Kiss followed by nanoseconds while a comparatively laggard Flinx didn’t begin to drop until the mother and children were already pressing themselves against the wood. Noting that instead of trying to protect their heads, as one would expect, they instead concentrated on shutting their eyes tight and covering their noses and mouths, he endeavored to do the same.
“What is all this?” Lord Caavax bellowed. Keeping his sidearm aimed in Flinx’s direction, he turned to roar at his troops, several of whom had already fallen uncertainly to their knees. “There’s no danger here. Get up!” Jumpy, but regaining confidence when nothing continued to happen, they straightened.
Flinx felt a heavy foot prod his left leg. “Enough foolishness. I am hot and damp and it is time to board. Don’t force me to have you carried. My soldiers are in an ill mood and can be ungentle.”
Flinx was pondering a reply when something blew up with enough force to momentarily drown out even the thunder of the shuttle’s hoverjets. The eruption had been preceded by a fleeting but intense surge of emotion the likes of which he had never experienced before. As he tried to isolate the source, he felt pressure on his forehead and exposed arms. Keeping his face pressed firmly to the wood, he cupped his right hand over his nostrils and his left over his tightly shut mouth.
The immense bladders incorporated inside the three tumescent trees had reached their limit of containment and ruptured spectacularly. The heavily aerated latexlike sap they had contained spewed forth in truly prodigious quantities, smothering everything within a circle some forty meters in diameter. It was a natural response to the threat of fire that Teal had alluded to, very different from the reaction to lightning of the stormtreader tree but no less effective.
On contact with air, the puffy, sticky white substance began to expand farther, transforming from a fluffy sap into a foaming aerogel. Ethereal but persistent, it clung to Flinx’s hair, his ears, his back.
He could feel the bubbles expanding as the original volume of the sap ballooned to encompass ten, twenty times its original volume. Within that space the movement of air was restricted or cut off entirely. No wonder Teal and the children had been so careful to cover their mouths and nostrils. Growing anxious for air, he wondered when or even if it would be safe to part his lips just a little and try to breathe. He envisioned inhaling a mouthful of the sticky foam and having it settle in his lungs.
A small but strong hand was tugging at his shoulder, trying to lift him. Turning, he saw Teal peering anxiously down at him. With her other hand she was tearing at the congealed foam that clung to her face. He rose and copied her movements.
Then they were both thrown to the ground as the branch beneath their feet heaved violently. Crackling, ripping sounds mixed with the rumbling whine of the shuttle’s engines. Madly he tore the clinging translucent whiteness away from his face in a frantic effort to see what was happening.
With both portside hydrajet intakes completely clogged and one of those on the starboard side at least partly obstructed by the organic aerogel, the AAnn vessel was skewing wildly to port. Neither its computational navigation system nor its pilot was able to compensate for the abrupt and drastic loss of lift.
With full power to only one jet, the shuttle had swung around to slam into the tree on whose branch the prospective passengers had been waiting. Encased in sticky white foam that was hardening rapidly as it dried, Flinx stared as the shuttle lurched away from them. The deeper-throated roar of the craft’s rockets, normally not utilized until a shuttle had left atmosphere behind, coughed to life, intermittent and uncertain, as the pilot tried to bypass the smothered hydrajets and gain altitude.
The rockets appeared to do the trick, as the bulbous craft began to climb. But while it gained altitude, it was at the expense of a continuing loss of maneuverability. Once it cleared the crest of the canopy, that wouldn’t matter. All the pilot had to do was break atmosphere and wait to be picked up by the parent vessel.
Simultaneously climbing and sliding to port, it had nearly surmounted the top of the sunken valley when it slammed into the big trees on the far side. A muffled explosion echoed from within the shuttle’s underside. Falling backward out of control, it plunged into the vegetation below, landing upside down amidst a great crackling and tearing of greenery. A dull whoom obliterated the craft from sight, and Flinx spun away as a gust of superheated air rushed over him.
The fires resulting from the crash stimulated half a dozen of the foam-producing trees in the immediate vicinity to balloon and release their flame-retardant sap. In seconds the wreckage was completely engulfed in an expanding white cloud. Taking into account the crash, the explosions, the resultant fire and consequent suffocating reaction of the foam trees, Flinx doubted anyone aboard could have survived.
Pulling and scraping foam from his face and upper body, he assured Teal he was all right before he began hunting through the pale white, rapidly solidifying dreamscape. Bubbles clung like overripe fruit from every branch and vine, burst with soft popping sounds as he forced his way through them. The all-pervasive whiteness made walking tricky. He was wary of pushing through a mass of congealed foam only to find that he’d stepped clean off the branch.
Eventually he found the sack, knelt to feel Pip moving energetically within. A rush of familiar warmth swept through his mind as he made contact with the flying snake. There was nothing to suggest that she’d suffered an injury, and in fact the mesh sack had probably protected her from the choking effects of the foam.
As he reached down to release her, cool ceramic contacted the back of his neck. The attendant emotions were not filled with warmth.
“Leave the sack and its contents be, Lynx-sir.” Lord Caavax LYD took a step back and gestured with the sidearm. “They are fine as they are.”
Rising reluctantly, Flinx saw that the noble was covered in congealing foam. His face was unobstructed. Coughing, hacking sounds came from nearby as the soldiers struggled to clear their lungs.
Two of them hadn’t reacted appropriately or in time. During the initial blast, each had inhaled a fatal dose of the sticky sap. Expanding within their lungs instead of outside their bodies, the foam had ballooned relentlessly. Now both lay dead on the surface of the branch, the foam oozing from their mouths showing how they had suffocated.
That left nine, including the AAnn noble, to watch over them. Still too many. Flinx waited as Dwell and Kiss, with Teal supervising, plucked congealed foam from their bodies. Angry, frightened soldiers kept a wary eye on the humans while performing similar hygienics.
Brushing at the hardened bubbles coating his own clothing, Flinx was startled when a handful powdered under his fingers. The next mass collapsed of its own accord, releasing as it did so a faint aroma of lilac along with a delicate, tinkling sound.
All around him the aerogel was breaking up as it lost the moisture necessary to support its internal structure. The verdure was filled with an overpowering scent of lilac counterpointed by a symphony executed by a carillon of miniature bells. The final residue was a fine white dust that sparkled like powdered diamonds. The nightly rain would wash it all into the depths, allowing affected growths to resume unobstructed photosynthesis the following morning.
Peering out across the green valley, he saw a thin line of smoke rising from the place where the shuttle had gone down. It was not the only sign of movement. Already the inhabitants of the forest had reemerged to cautiously resume their daily routines. Among the majority, the wreckage in their midst engendered no unusual curiosity. The surface against which the shuttle had impacted and exploded was not solid. Many of the fragments had spilled between trunks and branches, tumbling down to emerald depths unknown. More of the fine white residue overlay the crash site, glistening in the yellow-green sunlight like iridescent snow as the last of the fire-retardant aerogel decomposed.
The AAnn picked at the remaining foam and brushed at the resultant powder as if they were infested with leeches. Their disgust was underlined by their emotional state. Comforted by their more reactive companions, several were still coughing up white spittle.
Flinx struggled with his nascent AAnn as the group subofficer reported. “Two dead, sir. Trooper Keinkavii partially incapacitated, but I think he will be all right.” He indicated a choking, wet-eyed soldier who was being supported by two companions.
Caavax responded with a curt gesture indicative of first-degree comprehension and turned to confront Teal. “Female, is this foam toxic to humans if ingested?”
Green eyes flashed. “Only if you swallow a lot of it. Then it clogs up your insides.”
The noble indicated understanding, glanced back at the subofficer. “You heard the female. See that all afflicted troops are medicated appropriately. Where indicated, a strong purgative may be in order.”
“Sistik, honored one.” The subofficer looked unhappy. Such treatment would not improve the soldiers’ already battered morale, though it was certainly preferable to the alternative.
When Caavax offered no objection, Flinx wandered over to rejoin Teal and the children. “What about me?” he asked her. “I’m sure I swallowed plenty of that powder.”
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “In its final form it will pass harmlessly through your bowels.”
His brows drew together. “But you told the AAnn—” He caught himself. She was smiling at him, and he could do no less than return the grin.
Caavax was gazing solemnly out at the crash site. “More dead. Better this world had remained forgotten. Give me the clean, dry sands of Blasusarr or Sysirkuus.” With a hissing sigh he turned back to his prisoners.
“Where were you going when we captured you?”
“To the Home-tree, of course,” she replied before Flinx could warn her.
“ ‘Home-tree.’ How appropriate.” As he murmured to the subofficer the aristocrat’s sarcasm asserted itself once more. “Humans love trees. No wonder they can survive here.”
“And they breed like flies,” agreed the subofficer.
“Well, I don’t like it here,” Flinx countered. “Much too humid for my taste. And there are other considerations.”
“Sers,” acknowledged Caavax. “Everything is eager to poison, dismember, or eviscerate. So we share a common dislike. Perhaps from that a certain modicum of trust may grow.”
Flinx said nothing. The noble’s words were a flimsy veil through which his emotions could be read clearly.
“The Keralkee carried two shuttles,” Caavax declared. “Normally that is more than sufficient for any perceived needs. But as has been learned with pain and difficulty, this is not a normal world. The fate of one shuttle you all have witnessed. The other remains sealed and waiting for us at the touchdown site.
“We are now on our own. With no way to reach the surface, we can expect no help from those who anxiously await our return aboard the Keralkee. I choose to regard this as a delay and inconvenience, nothing more. With the native human to guide us, we shall return safely to the landing site.” He gestured at the catching sack, covered in white crystals.
“One of you take charge of that.”
The field officer hissed at a soldier. The unhappy individual thus signaled out warily approached the sack. Satisfied that it was still secure, he knelt and proceeded to strap it to his own backpack. Though putting up a brave front, he was clearly unnerved at the prospect of having to march through the alien forest with only a double layer of mesh separating his neck from the toxic jaws of a lethal predator.
This accomplished, the field officer then turned back to Caavax. “Our deceased companions; what shall we do with them?”
“Leave them,” proposed the aristocrat.
“We might find a hollow in a tree.” The field officer was careful to add a gesture of second-degree deference layered with respect.
“Do you want to linger here?”
“No, Lord, but—”
“I don’t want to waste the time.” Caavax masked his frustration with impatience. “Scavengers would find the bodies anyway, as soon as we had departed. Or perhaps the tree itself would consume them. Nothing on this world is to be trusted.”
Again the slight bow, the honorific lowering of the eyes. “How fortunate we were,” the field officer declared when next he spoke, “that we did not try to set our own shuttle down close to our quarry.”
“Sherss,” Caavax agreed. “We must inform the Keralkee of what has happened. Commander Beiraviq will be distraught. Assure him that we are all right and that the prisoner remains safe within our custody. Inform him of our intentions.”
The field officer acknowledged and spent some time conversing with the warship via communications cylinder. When he was finished, he reported back to the noble.
“The honored Commander extends
his condolences for the discomfort you have suffered, Lord Caavax. His engineers propose utilizing remote control to guide the remaining shuttle from the landing site to our present or any other designated location.”
“Commander Beiraviq’s concern for my welfare is gratifying, but we cannot risk a repeat of the recent disaster, which would leave us permanently stranded in this diseased wood until another ship could reach this system from the borders of the Empire. Nor can we ascend to the top of the forest, there to await pickup. Commander Beiraviq has no experience of the aerial carnivores that inhabit this world or he would know that we would not last long enough in the treetops for the shuttle to reach us.
“We will simply return to the landing site via our original route. We have already performed a successful landing on this world, and we will shortly execute a successful lift-off. Assure him of our confidence, and that we will continue to remain in contact while we make our way back.” Without further ado he checked the positioner attached to his belt and pointed.
“That way. Let us be moving.”
Flinx translated as best he could for Teal and the children. “It will be dark soon,” she pointed out. “We should find a place to spend the night. It takes time to find a suitable place.”
“We’ll camp where we stop, when the light has grown too feeble for safe travel.” Lord Caavax had no time to waste on human concerns. “That is what we did while we tracked you, and that is what we shall do on the way back. I will brook no delays.” He waved the sidearm. “Move, Lynx-sir. Female, I will provide the direction and you will lead the way. Your offspring will remain close to me. For their own safety.”
“It’s okay.” Flinx ruffled Dwell’s hair and this time the boy smiled up at him. The three of them fell into position in front of the aristocrat while Teal assumed the point. The troops spread out as best they were able on the broad branch, the field officer sticking close to his superior, the soldier hauling the sack containing Pip shifting to the rear. It had been made clear to the troops that the sack was to be kept under watch at all times and under no circumstances was the adult human prisoner to be allowed near it.