the party slipped and skidded, when they weren't tripping overexposed roots or various kinds of creeping vine or ivy.
It was a constant struggle to push their pace to more than a slow walk, and the unrelenting rain beat down on them like a feeble but persistent bully. After a while Owen took off his jacket and draped it over his head in an improvised hood. It meant he was now cold as well as wet, but it was worth it for the simple relief it offered. The others soon did the same, except for Moon, who didn't seem at all bothered by the rain, and couldn't understand why everyone got so surly when he said so.
The jungle stretched off in every direction for as far as they could see into the driving rain. Dark-boled trees soared hundreds of feet up into the sky, their branches weighed down with curling leaves the color of blood. Owen reached up to touch one of the leaves, and then swore mildly as the serrated edge opened his fingertip like a razor. He gripped the leaf more firmly, and was surprised to find it thick and pulpy, and unpleasantly warm to the touch. He let go, and sucked thoughtfully at his lacerated finger, ignoring Hazel's acerbic remarks with the ease of long practice.
Owen was becoming increasingly convinced that on some level the jungle was aware, if not actually sentient, and knew intruders were passing through it. Leaves rustled as the party approached, and fell silent after they were gone. Vines circled slowly on tree trunks like dreaming snakes, and tall stalks would turn to face the party as they passed, quivering agitatedly till they had been safely left behind. Owen also couldn't help noticing that at least half the vegetation seemed to be slowly but determinedly stalking the other half.
The first attack caught them all by surprise. Long, flailing tendrils with inch-long thorns lashed out at them from every side at once, striking with unexpected strength and speed. The barbs drew blood, and the tendrils sought to wrap themselves around their prey with springy tenacity. But they parted easily under the keen edge of a steel blade, and the oozing remnants sprang away again. More tendrils struck down from above, but the party stood their ground, hacking and cutting about them till the tattered remnants were forced to retreat. Owen drew his disrupter and blasted one of the areas where the bloodred tendrils had seemed to spring from. The others followed suit, and soon there were a half dozen small fires burning around them. There was a certain amount of quivering and rustling in the surrounding foliage, but what was left of the tendrils showed no signs of further aggression.
Owen put his gun away and looked at the others. 'Anyone badly hurt?'
'Just scratches,' said Hazel. 'Damn, those things were fast.'
'Should we do something about the fires?' said Moon. 'They could spread—'
'Let them,' said Midnight, wiping away blood from a cut on her face that had come dangerously close to an eye. 'Treacherous bloody things. Let them all burn.'
'The rain should take care of the fires,' said Owen. 'And the surrounding foliage looks too drenched to catch sparks. But let's try to remember, there could be colonists' settlements not that far away, so if you have to use your guns, aim carefully.'
'Yes, leader,' said Bonnie. 'I'm sure that would never have occurred to us. How ever did we manage till you came along?'
Owen ignored that and gestured for Moon to lead off again.
The slow march continued, slogging through deepening mud until their legs ached from the strain. Moon continued to treat it all as a casual ramble, stopping every now and again to pull up some unfamiliar piece of plant life, compare it against his data banks, and announce happily that since it wasn't officially identified, he had the right to name it. Unfortunately, this tended to involve very labored puns in Latin, which no one but Moon understood or appreciated, so after a few pointed death threats from certain members of the party, he kept his enthusiasm to himself, silently studying everything that didn't shrink away fast enough.
Given the general denseness of the jungle, and the way all the plant life fought for every square inch of light and rain, Owen had expected to spend most of his journey hacking a path with his sword, but after the incident with the barbed tendrils, the jungle seemed to be going out of its way to slowly open up a path before them. Owen thought some more about how aware the jungle might be. He raised the subject with Oz, who responded with a running commentary on what was known of Lachrymae Christi's plant life. Most of this was monumentally boring, and Owen tuned it out until something odd caught his attention.
'Hold it, Oz, back up. No insects at all here? Are you sure?'
'Quite sure. Like animal life, they just never caught on here. The plant life is so aggressive on all levels that all other kinds of life never found an ecological niche to prosper in.'
'But if there's no insects, and as far as I can see no flowers… how do the plants propagate? How does fertilization occur?'
'Well, it certainly doesn't involve the birds and bees. Take a look over to your right, about four o'clock.'
Owen looked, and saw two large masses of foliage moving together, rocking back and forth. 'Wait a minute. Are they doing what I think they're doing?'
'I'm afraid so. You should think yourselves lucky you didn't arrive in the rutting season. Do you want to know how the trees do it?'
'No!'
'Suit yourself. You've led a really sheltered life in some ways, Owen.'
The AI went back to talking about how the rain drained away through the ground, and ended up in vast subterranean lakes that fed the jungle's great root system, and Owen went back to not listening.
They trudged on for another hour or so, getting even wetter and more miserable, before the jungle moved against them again. They'd fallen into a plodding routine, following the path that opened up before them, until Oz suddenly pointed out that the path was slowly but surely turning them off course. Owen yelled for everyone to stop, and they all snapped out of their half daze, guns at the ready. Owen calmed them down and explained the situation, and took the point so he could follow Oz's directions more exactly. But when he tried to turn aside from the path, the red foliage clumped stubbornly together before him, forming a thick, ragged wall. Owen drew his sword and cut the wall with all his strength, but just as before, his blade clung stickily to the foliage, limiting the amount of damage he could do. He pulled his sword free, stepped back, and opened fire with his disrupter. The energy beam blasted a narrow tunnel through the plant wall, lined with blackened and burning edges. But as soon as Owen moved forward, the scorched sides just closed together again, like a slow-moving man trap.
'Stubborn, isn't it?' said Hazel. 'The jungle really doesn't want us deviating from the path it's chosen.'
'Maybe it's hiding something,' said Midnight. 'Some vulnerable part of itself.'
'Little baby jungle things?' said Bonnie. 'Could we be trespassing on a nursery?'
'How long would it take us to go around whatever it is?' said Moon, looking at Owen.
Owen consulted with Oz and then shook his head. 'Depends on how large an area the jungle is protecting. Let's try curling around it. If it looks like it's taking us too long, we'll see what high explosives will do. You do have some, don't you. Hazel?'
'Never without them,' said Hazel cheerfully.
Owen led the way cautiously around the blocked-off area, gun in his hand, and looked carefully about him for possible traps or ambush points. For the first time he was forced to consider the possibility that parts of the jungle might not just be aware, but actually sentient. He tried to visualize what kind of drowsy, sluggish thoughts a plant might think, and wasn't surprised when he couldn't.
He led the way for a good half hour before realizing something was wrong. Apart from the foliage drawing slowly back in front of him to form the path, nothing in the jungle was moving. Not a vine or a branch or a leaf. He stared about him into the endless twilight, straining his eyes against the denseness of the jungle and the never ending rain, but all was still and silent. The only sound was the heavy squelching of his party's boots diving in and out of the mud, and the steady patter of the rain. Owen hefted his disrupter. His instincts were screaming that he was walking into a trap, but he couldn't see anything dangerous or even threatening. If anything, the path ahead seemed wider than usual. But he was haunted by a sense of imminence, of something about to happen. Hazel moved up beside him.
'You feel it too, don't you?' she said quietly.
He nodded. 'The jungle's watching us. It's planning something.'
'Intelligent plants,' said Hazel. 'Spooky. Would it help if I apologized for all the salads I've eaten?'
Owen smiled briefly. 'I doubt it. You see anything?'
'Not a damned thing. What do we do?'
