The Gabble

Oh great.

As they walked down the flattened artery of a causeway, beyond whose translucent walls bubble houses clustered like giant eyeballs, Simoz watched the folk around him. Many of them had obviously been having problems with their augmentations — the cyber implants and links that joined living human to his technology. None of the humans showed any reaction to him, but the few chouds he saw turned and fought their leashes, foam dripping from mouth parts like slime-coated cutlery sets.

How long will she hold out?

Her immune system is boosted but not as efficient as myself. She has been reinfected already, but the fungus will not be well established for an hour or so.

Efficient as yourself?

Mere fact.

Okay, what about the pheromonal signature?

She is giving it off.

So she can go buy us a choud and bring it to a suitable location.

Very practical of you.

Improvisation my friend. Improvisation.

The centre was the point from which branched all the main causeways of the Wrack.

Those causeways ran down the sepals of the giant pseudo-flower of the plant, which was also the city. Here the bubble buildings were stacked in profusion like berries heaped over a spread hand. Myriad tubeways connected these separate bubbles, some of which were houses and some of them offices, shops, restaurants — all the usual paraphernalia of that entity called a city.

By way of these tubes and through some of the bubbles, Haline led Simoz to her home. Then she went alone to make the required purchase. Simoz made himself comfortable in a chair fashioned from the scales of a giant fish and scanned his surroundings. He noted the veins in the ceiling at which a couple of biolights were feeding, and on the floor the slow traverse of a tile-cleaning slime mould. He saw that she had a food plant of old biofacture and one he recognized as producing a fruit that in its ancestry had both apples and pigs. He only gradually became aware of how dim it was in the place and how few biolights Haline seemed to have. The sudden simultaneous agony at his shoulder and calf told him abruptly where the other biolights had gone.

‘Shit!’

Simoz jerked from the chair and felt the chitinous legs of the biolights dig into his calf and his back. He pulled his thin-gun from its holster and pointed at the biolight on his leg. The pain was incredible and it took him a moment to realize that with such a shot he would likely blow his foot off. Gritting his teeth he reholstered the gun and took the shock stick out of his pocket. He touched the end of the stick to the biolight on his back and pressed the button. The shock convulsed the light and he felt it rip from his back and heard it thud on the floor. A spill-over of energy paralysed his shoulder and sent him stumbling.

‘Fucking hell!’

You are not thinking straight.

‘Oh fucking brilliant!’

I am blocking this light’s breathing holes. It is detaching.

The second biolight fell from his leg and scuttled across the room. Simoz drew his thin-gun and aimed at the one that had fallen behind him. The light emitted by its baggy body had taken on a reddish tinge from his blood. It was on its back, its six legs curled in tight, its tick mouth bubbling. The thin-gun coughed and the biolight exploded, spraying glowing ichor and translucent organs in every direction. Simoz noted half its body stuck to the side of the chair, its legs quivering, before he turned to search out the other light. It scuttled from under a synthewood coffee table and he shot at it twice, leaving smoking holes in the floor. It ran up the wall then came across the ceiling at him. He hit it as it dropped towards him. Warm flesh and glowing ichor plastered his face and shoulders. He wiped the substance from his eyes and stepped out from under the other two lights on the ceiling. They showed no sign of moving.

What the hell was that?

There was a delay before Mike replied. Simoz felt the wounds in his shoulder and calf being sealed by the mycelium, the pain fading.

Choud DNA has been used in all biofacture here. These lights are fifty-three per cent choud.

Enough for a mature fungal form?

Yes.

Did you read it?

I did.

You have the location of the mother fungus?

I do.

Just then the door to the room opened and Haline entered with a small choud straining at the leash she held. Simoz studied her and she blankly returned his gaze before absently releasing the leash. The choud surged forward, its many legs rustling against the floor. Simoz shot it through the head and it stopped dead, then slowly curled into a perfect ball. Haline showed little reaction.

‘Why have you done this to my home?’ she asked, her words dull.

Simoz walked towards her, but as he drew close she suddenly stepped forward with her hands held out like blades. Simoz touched the shock stick to her forearm and she slammed back against the door then slid down it to the floor. He dragged her aside and stepped out of her home.

I take it you stopped producing the pheromone?