Chapter Seventy-Three - A Walkabout


    Chapter Seventy-Three - A Walkabout


    It was actually something of a blessing. Botany as a science was taken seriously, but it was always treated as... dare I say, inferior. The less intelligent cousin of biology. Who cares about people concerned over stuff like plants?


    And then aliens invaded. Plant aliens.


    I never saw so much grant money being flung around in my life. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know more about how plants worked, and we realized that for all that we knew, it was only really enough to know how little we had dug into it.


    Let me tell you, having the president ask you where a tree has its brain is a trip.


    --Excerpt from Leafy Me - A Memoir, 2028


    ***


    I hesitated for a while as I considered what to do. There was a lot of hive, and there were a lot of aliens moving around. Though, I guess pointing out a difference between the two was kind of useless.


    The big egg sacs... seeds? The big things, in which the aliens I was familiar with spawned, grew fast. I could tell that some of them had grown in the ten or so minutes since I arrived. How long did it take the hive to grow a Model Three?


    It didnt matter, I guess. In the end, theyd all need to be burned down one way or another. I eyed some models that were jumping around from branch to branch, often stopping by a sac that looked ready to be harvested and helping it down.


    A couple of them gathered around each fresh alien murder machine and lowered it down, then they tore off the wrapping, as it were, and quickly brushed down the fur or whatever of the Antithesis they uncovered.


    What are those? I asked. My helmet kept my voice from escaping any.


    Model Tens. Though they should by all rights be called Model Ones. They are one of the original Antithesis models, with very little by means of changes even across centuries of evolution. They are mostly harmless, and will only attack if something threatens the hive directly, and even then, it will usually be an attempt to distract and win time for other combat-models to be born. The back of their palms has a small bill that is sharp; it is their only natural weapon other than their grip.


    They looked like weird monkeys. Headless, six-limbed monkeys. Their face was where anything elses neck and clavicle would be, and their limbs all ended in strange hands. Three fingers, and two thumbs on either end. They moved by springing and bouncing forward and swinging along on the many vines and branches sticking out of the hive.


    Neat, I said. It was, in a sort of academic way, I guess. Wheres the hives brain?


    An Antithesis hive has no brain.


    How does it think? I asked.


    The same way any other plant does. It grows, expands, and evolves to suit its environment. It is not intelligent in any traditional sense, but it is infinitely persistent. You will never see an Antithesis surrendering, or tiring in the face of adversity.


    That somehow made it worse.


    Thats a vine from a Model Thirteen. It would alert it.


    It didnt take much to notice the huge, flower-like body nearby, still clinging onto the side of a tree-like pillar.


    Thanks, I whispered.


    This place wasnt safe. For some reason, it was hard to keep that in mind. Maybe it was because I wasnt actively fighting anything.


    If the hive goes on alert, you will have a much harder time moving across it.


    I nodded and kept low, only pausing to kneel down over a spot where two roots met and order another bomb to tuck away. I noticed some leafy plant wavering in the air at my passing. Was the hive sensing something?


    I chose not to find out.


    The first passage wasnt very profound. It ended some hundred metres in, a huge machine wedged into the tunnel, with some lights on around it and plenty of signs that the hive had been poking at the device.


    They cant use tech, right? I asked.


    No. Though they can, on rare occasions, observe and replicate the effects of technology, especially the more mechanical parts.


    Great, thats all we need. Aliens pedaling bikes around.


    They dont do wheels very well.


    I left a bomb next to the mining machine. It was huge, and probably cost more money than someone like me-- someone like I used to be would see in ten lifetimes.


    Sucked for the company that Id be burning it down.


    The next passage was a lot more interesting. More of those fin leaves, hundreds of them, all lined up against the walls. The tunnel here seemed to be moving upwards a little bit too. It was hot, hot and humid.


    Think there might be an exit down this way, I said. It was just a gut feeling, but when Gomorrah and I came back down to investigate, this was the path wed take.


    I knelt down and placed a canister next to some of the leaves, then another some thirty or so metres deeper into the mine.


    I got up, patted my pants down, then turned right into the waiting tentacles of a monster.


    ***