“No. And yet those who have ever looked at the plants all say the same thing. They felt as if their soul had become lost amongst the intangible substance of the plants. I’ve known people who have been saved from the plants— pulled back from the brink. They walk and eat and…and that’s about it, and…”
Judy gazed at her hands, remembering her fear on the ship. She was trying to feel something, anything, more than just the effects of the mechanism that made up her brain. “…and all the time the seed is growing and growing. Making a plant out of nothing. And that plant is even more fascinating, and it is pulling at the fabric of the universe, inflating loops of cosmic string larger and larger to make BVBs…”
“They’ve used the Sierpienski Gasket as decoration on the walls over there,” said Maurice quietly. Maurice saw Edward turn to look where he was pointing, at the white shape like a square split into nine little squares by a Tic- Tac-Toe grid.
“See how it’s made, Edward?” he said. “Take away the middle square and then split each of the remaining squares into nine, and take away the middle squares again, and repeat that process forever.”
Judy was looking at the shape, too. “More connections,” she whispered. She turned back to find Saskia looking at her.
The other woman blinked. “Did you kill the others on that ship as well?” she asked blandly. Judy blinked in turn.
“Only four. Then the rescue arrived.”
Judy felt the life ebb from the fourth passenger. It rattled out from her empty body, skittering away with the sound of a metal ball in a plastic cup, and Judy felt nothing at its passing. She had told herself not to.
Jesse felt the change first; he had to shout to make himself heard above the rising buzz of the plants growing from the Dark Seeds.
—Judy, something is in here with us.
Judy, her eyes tightly closed, could still see by grey light. The outlines of fabulous plants danced behind her eyelids, her optic nerves somehow registering their presence.
“I can’t see anything,” she muttered. “Jesse, I’m not going to have time to kill them all…”
—We’re leaking air. Open your eyes so I can see, Judy. There is something down the corridor, and it’s coming towards us.
“I can’t open them, Jesse. I can’t look at the plants.”
Something touched her foot and she jerked it away. Something seized her by the wrist. She felt herself being dragged down the corridor, and she opened her eyes before she could stop herself. And then she couldn’t close them, because she just didn’t understand what had gripped her and she was trying to make out its shape. There was a silver rope wrapped around her waist, something like a silver crab claw held her wrist. That was about it. Something like legs scrabbled at the floor and she tried to see what they were attached to, but then a Dark Plant caught her attention. Dark vines spilled down a wall and a lacelike bloom turned to face her, the edges of its petals endlessly frilled.
—Look away, said Jesse, and she did, and there was another plant just over there, hazily indistinct. She examined the delicate perforations built of perforations that made up its leaves, and she was now being dragged towards a hole in the wall. It was Jesse who noticed the thin meniscus stretched across it like a soap bubble; it was Jesse who saw the stars beyond. Judy was too busy looking at the mad plants behind her to notice the other passengers being pulled to
safety. She didn’t notice the meniscus stretch around her and snap out into a bubble, carrying just enough air and pressure to support her life as she crossed the void. Dark Seeds rattled into the envelope she occupied, and were sucked up and ejected. The space around the Deborah was filled with little bubbles of life crossing from the stricken craft to the Free Enterprise.
“A stellated dodecahedron!”
The woman floating by Judy was speaking for the sake of it. She was very nervous, filling the space between herself and her approaching fear with words.
“That’s what you call the shape of this thing. They must have grown it just to house us. Whoever they are. Who do you think they are?”
