"Relax. I don't like the Megair Cannibals any better than anybody else likes them, but I don't think the galaxy needs them driven by something like Marshi."
"But we need time for the captain . . ."
"Agreed. I thought about it before we had that last sleep. I reckon those spores are pretty fragile. Well, I hope so."
The Leewit was beginning to smile. "What have you done, Goth?"
" 'Ported them out into space onto a comet. I'm pretty sure that comet is headed out-system, too, for a leisurely billion-year stroll through this system's Oort Cloud. I'd give it a push to make sure, but it's too massive for me. Yet, anyway."
Now Goth was smiling. "I gave Miss Nasty some comet-ice in that box instead. She can make the Megair Cannibals wet once it starts melting. Stop laughing, you little pest! It's hard to keep your light-shift image right when you're shaking about like that."
* * *
The people of the planet of Karres weren't laughing right now. Stealthed, and using the Sheewash drive, they should have easily penetrated the Megair cluster. But they were having limited success. It appeared that the Phantom ships could not be fooled or outrun. And although the planet had a klatha envelope around it, keeping the atmosphere in and defending it against energy weapons such as those the Nuri globes had used, the witches did not want their planet saturated in heavy radiation. It appeared that the Phantoms had been well-designed for launching attacks on planets. Very destructive attacks.
It also appeared that they had a clear perimeter past which they would not be drawn.
"The
Venture
got through easily enough," said Threbus.
The council chief Palaceles frowned. "I think we have to conclude that there was no attempt to stop the
Venture
this time. And that in her earlier flight she seems to have barely encountered these ships. We could cope with fifty, or even five hundred. But there were some ten thousand ships in that last exercise. And in the early contacts with the
Venture,
they apparently seemed to back off from damage—now . . . well, they seem to have decided that 'stop at all costs' is the order."
He turned grimly to Threbus. "Your children are on their own, I'm afraid. This is rather what was predicted."
The Daal of Uldune, naturally, had equipped the
Thunderbird
with some exceptional weapons and detection systems. Those systems gave him ample warning of the coming attack—an attack which, using jet-packs on suits, might possibly not have been detected by some other ship with lesser equipment.
For Sedmon, the situation seemed faintly ridiculous. He began triggering his fire systems. It was rather like swatting slow-moving bugs. But, if that was what they wanted . . .
While he was at it, he destroyed their ship. And then, in case he'd missed any attackers, engaged his spacedrive and moved off a few light-seconds.
It was a lesson for this vegetable life-form that the Daal understood well. Do not be deceived by appearances, and there is always someone more powerful than you. All you can seek to do is to balance that. He just wished that he could have given the plant a message along with the lesson: don't mess with Uldune.
Still, perhaps the more generic lesson—
there are dangerous things out here you know nothing about
—would do just as well.
The Megair Cannibals surrounded them. Marshi would have had no trouble spreading her spores—if she'd had any spores left in her box. The Cannibals were poking and prodding the prisoners, in between, from what Goth could gather by tone, respectfully congratulating her sister. They were also keeping a suitable respectful distance from the Leewit. That was good too.
Marshi and her acolytes were busy pushing back, doubtless seeding "spores" as they did so.
"I 'ported Marshi's remote into the swamp where we touched down the first time," said Goth. "So we're safe until the four hour limit runs out. I think it's just about time to get out of here."
"Okay. Where to?"
"Break left and then back the way we came. Vezzarn should have the loading bay airlock unlocked. Give them your best whistle, Sis. Let's have a bit of a distraction, before you vanish into thin air."
"Okay. Just get behind me. This one causes stomach cramps. Really nasty ones."
"Doesn't make them throw up, does it? We want the stuff to stay in them."
The Leewit shook her head. "Nope. That's my number seven. Block your ears!"
Goth did. It didn't help that much, but she was really glad to be behind the whistle, not on the receiving end. She slipped the Leewit into no-shape and they ran. It was a beautiful day for Megair 4, barely drizzling. She risked a glance back to see that the progression of Marshi's plant-goons among the Megair Cannibals had turned into a merry mixture. Somewhere between mud-wrestling and an all-out mêlée.
The mother-plant had begun to be perturbed. She was aware that some plants had died trying to take control of the freighter from which the Karres witches had come. That was not particularly surprising nor distressing. It probably had a crew of the same caliber. And the death of small parts of the mother-plant happened all the time.
The gray aliens were taking an unusually long time to begin to be affected, though, to become part of the plant. The damp bare skins should have been an ideal germination ground.
Then had come the treachery.
The mother-plant itself had not felt the pain. But the host animals were quite inferior about reacting autonomously to pain. The Illtraming had had that sort of reaction largely bred out them. One could not remove it totally, of course, or fires or other sudden dangers would kill them before the mother-plant had a chance to pull them back.
This host reacted by writhing wildly, and clutching its lower abdomen. That didn't stop the mother-plant from forcing her host to reach into her pocket and press the button on the remote . . .
Except that it was no longer there. Instead there was just an electronic screwdriver—an object of roughly the same size and shape. Then it occurred to her. The witches of Karres possibly could teleport objects . . .
The gray-skinned red-eyed ones seemed to have taken what had happened as a personal attack, and one to be severely dealt with. They were busy dealing out more pain with a device that was intended to affect the host's nervous system.
It didn't affect the mother-plant. But they were outnumbered. And more gray-skins were running out of the mound.
None of them were responding to having been enspored. The plant did not, by the standards of its host, make intuitive leaps. But this conclusion was all too easy to reach. The Illtraming, vile rebellious slaves, evil beyond the comprehension of the plant, had made the skin of their foot soldiers somehow proof against the mother-plant.
Anathema! To be destroyed!
By sheer weight of numbers and physical superiority, the Megair Cannibals were overpowering the mother-plant. The mother-plant realized that it could have come so far, gotten so close, simply to have the hosts dismembered and eaten.
So be it. The plant could grow from broken fragments of tissue. And mere stomach acid would not kill it.
There was a reserve of the mother-plant back in the
Venture
. But would the gray ones not destroy that? A glance back in the midst of the fight—the mother-plant still had many eyes—said that they had already. The
Venture
was gone. But the parts of the plant inside the vessel said it was still there! The mother-plant decided she'd call some of those resources to help. The bodyguard was a powerful fighter.
Only the mother-plant couldn't find that element.
Had it died without her being aware?
The mother-plant was not accustomed to fear. Caution, sometimes. A slow burning determination for dominance, always.
Fear? No.
Even when the motherworld had been destroyed, reduced from endless forest to a slag-covered cinder, the mother-plant's spores survived. But these were new and doughty foes. And the hosts' juices were remarkably sour right now. The ones back in the Empire were still sweet. It must be the beating it was taking.
From inside the
Venture,
Ta'zara had watched as the fight raged. He'd wanted to be out there, defending the Leewit and her sister. But, he had to admit, their abilities probably made him a liability. He wasn't even sure where they were. Still, he was a Na'kalauf warrior, and the little one had given him back that pride and heritage. He would die before anyone could take it away again.
So, here on the ship, he'd taken his responsibilities seriously. He'd quietly made sure, with Vezzarn's help, that Captain Pausert wasn't going anywhere. They'd locked him into a stateroom. They had audio via the intercom and had rigged a visual input from the room, too. The two waited in the darkened hold, knowing that if the Megair Cannibals fired on the
Venture
, the ship was a sitting duck.
"Can we walk a little slower?" said Goth.
"Sure," said the Leewit. "What's up? Not like you to want to walk slower."
"Doing too many things. No-shape for us. False appearance for the
Venture
." She waved a hand at the mound. "And porting little rocks into the spaceguns' energy chambers. If they fire, they're going to blow," said Goth. "I'm chewing energy."
She didn't want to admit that at least some of that was displacement activity. She was afraid that the local food would not have had any effect on Captain Pausert. Her range was not much above a light-second. She'd started 'porting leaves up from the world below a good two and half hours ago. Maybe it was bacteria in the local air—but he'd breathed that. Or the water . . .
The
Venture
was close now.
"Cargo bay airlock is open just a crack," said the Leewit. "Vezzarn must have got that right, at least."
"Good," said Goth tiredly. "All I want is to get out of here, right now."
" 'Nother couple of yards, Sis," said the Leewit, sounding atypically considerate.
And then they were there, calling quietly to the watchers, having the lock opened slightly, and being hauled up by strong hands into the belly of the
Venture.
With a sigh of relief, Goth let go of the light-shift, as the lock closed behind them.
"Any change from the . . . plant people?" She couldn't bring herself to specifically name Pausert.
"Not yet," said Vezzarn. "But we have got the captain locked away. There are three others in that room, and two more in the entry hall. And the pilot and another one in the control room, three in the passenger lounge."
"Goth," said the Leewit. "I think it's time we took over the ship and clumping well got out of here."
"What's that on your neck, missy?" asked Vezzarn suddenly.
"It's an explosive collar that Marshi made us put on," said Goth. "She said if we cooperated she'd unlock it."
"But we knew we've got the best lock-picker in the galaxy here. So we didn't worry," said the Leewit cheerfully. "Take them off for us, will you, Vezzarn."
He suddenly looked very, very afraid. "I can't do that, Missy. That collar . . . it's got a circuit in it—if that circuit breaks, the amalite goes off. There is no way of taking it off. Amalite is so fast and explosive . . ."
Goth took a deep breath. "I guess I could 'port them off," she said. "Never done it with something this tight around a neck before."
But even making the attempt was delayed by the appearance of one of Marshi's goons. Ta'zara grabbed the man and threw him as he reached for a weapon. He bounced against the wall, and the Leewit whistled at him, stunning him.
"Patham! What brought him back here?" asked Goth crossly. "Well, they'll all know now. Let's move. No-shape. We need the control room."
They rushed up the passage, encountering two more en route. They were no match for the combination of the Leewit and Ta'zara.
But they'd locked the door to the control room.
* * *
The mother-plant prime haploid was still aware. The host-animal it occupied was barely so, as it was dragged along. However, it could see the tunnels of the plant nursery, so typically and carefully built and ornamented by the Illtraming. The old host animals were fond of their precious "art"—something the mother-plant had never understood, but had allowed them to create. It kept the little animals content, and it was instinctive for them to wish to decorate things.
But these tunnels had had their ceilings coarsely ripped higher so that the lanky Megair Cannibals did not dash their brains on them.
The mother-plant reached the inevitable conclusion. The Illtraming's own slaves must have rebelled. They were no more. At least not here. The ships that had so defended this place . . . It should have planned to seize one of those . . . if they had Illtraming on them? The mother-plant was having trouble accessing memory, but most of them had been drones.
The host-body the Megair Cannibals were dragging started to shake as the microscopic hyphae that had been in the host's nervous system began to withdraw. The mother-plant did not know that the Megair Cannibal had dropped the battered Marshi. It knew nothing except extreme distress. The role of prime haploid passed from it as it tried to escape.
On the Empire world of Freeman, the haploid in a human host started to grow aggressively in its human. It was the new haploid-prime. There were few of them left now, and the spores had all been lost. If the mother-plant was to survive, it would have to make some form of plan. It relied heavily on the ingenuity of the host for such plans—but this was an ingenious species.
Did any of the Illtraming still survive?
Not on Megair 4, it was sure.
It had been touch-and-go, there, Goth had to admit. The pilot had saved them, in the end. The plant-person in the room had been intent on wrecking the controls. The pilot had tried to stop him. He'd saved the
Venture
and bought them the time they needed for Vezzarn to open the lock. But he had not saved himself. And not even the Leewit could put together his burned-out chest.