her, lifted slowly. The plaza was so hard-packed from much usage that only little swirls of dust marked her ascent.
She tried nine settlements, medium, small and another large one, but each time the head woman of the group, while respectful in all other ways, replied that there was no need this time for The Ship Who Sings to worry about Ravellians. But it was good of her to appear to warn them that a time of trial was coming. Helva tried to show the hologram and, after the first horrified glances, everyone turned their backs, squeezing their eyes closed against the proof she tried to exhibit.
“I don’t think it’s a case of your losing your touch,” Niall said kindly, drumming silent fingers on the armrest. “They honestly believe they’re safe. Not that the mere odor of sanctity ever saved a saint and certainly won’t save these sisters from the Kolnari. But, in case you’ve been fretting too much to notice, every single one of the walls around these cloisters is on full power.”
“Where’re the sources? That’s something the Kolnari will spot if they make even the most routine scan or aerial reconnaissance.” And Helva was more afraid than ever. On the previous occasion, the expanding sun itself had provided proof positive of danger to the doubting religious. What would it take to prove it this time? And why was she stuck with this gullible lot again?
She kept trying and kept getting the same responses from all ninety-seven cloisters she visited. On the way to the ninety-eighth, they saw the spark of bright light in the sky that indicated the Kolnari had just demolished the satellite.
“Nice of them to give us fair warning. Now’s the time to cloak, Helva,” Niall remarked, his fingers in their restless dance on the armrests.
“I have been while I was flying between these damnable stubborn towns,” she replied curtly, and headed towards the pathetic landing field. Since it was there, and nothing else on this vegetating world offered any other large cleared space as a come-on to the Kolnari, she figured that would be where the invaders would land.
At dawn, she and Niall arrived close enough to the landing site, hovering just behind the nearest of the hills that surrounded the facility.
“Ah-ha,” Niall said in a thoughtful drawl, as he leaned across the control board to peer at the forward view screen. He flipped on each of the exterior viewers, reducing them to a patchwork that made Helva almost dizzy until she spotted what had alerted him.
The landing field, once unpatterned, level soil, had sprouted the most obscene-looking ground cover, greasy, slimy, a sort of pus yellow and mold green. No more than a few centimeters high. Undoubtedly it gave a smooth, even appearance to anyone above.
“Those are not my favorite colors for a solid footing, Helva,” Niall said in a low ominous tone. “Let’s just hover and shelter in our cloak.”
“Excellent notion,” she said, noticing on the port sensor near the prow of her ship that tendrils thrust up towards her, lashing in their attempt to snare the ship. She put more distance between herself and the ground. “Very interesting indeed. Malevolent vegetation.”
Niall began rubbing his hands, an unholy expression on his face. “Serves the bastards right. Though let’s hope their disintegrating metabolism doesn’t affect the stuff. They’re mean enough to poison anything that doesn’t poison them first.”
“They may have met their match,” she replied, willing to be convinced.
The first two Kolnari ships to land were two of the heavier, armed cruisers. They landed smack-dab in the middle of the greasy sward and instantly deployed their armored infantry units while gunners started setting up their portable projectile units. They didn’t, as Helva half expected them to, take out the rickety old buildings, which were now covered with viler chartreusey green vines. Not that the Kolnari were apt to be color-conscious. Much less suspicious. Their home world was noted for its offputting appearance.
The troops marched off the landing field, kicking their metallic booted feet at now calf-high shrubs and bushes that impeded their progress, ignorant of the fact that the growths were brand-new additions on the field. They had split into four sections and each started off up one of the main tracks. Three more of the larger ships landed at one edge of the field, crowded with additional troops, who set off after the vanguard, smaller units turning off at each arterial lane. In quick succession, the yacht-sized spacecraft zoomed in, one or two making such rough landings that they plowed their noses into the ground. They were instantly covered with tendrils and twigs that shortly turned into thick branches, wrapping about the ships, tethering them to the field. Had these not been Kolnari whose prime intent was capture and enslavement of the Ravellians, Helva might have been tempted to warn those unarmed, unsuited people who swarmed out of the ships, coughing, falling to the ground, raising arms upward as if they had just been saved. From dying of asphyxia they had. But Ravel’s indigenous vegetation vigorously began to engulf them . . . consuming their still-living forms . . . to judge by the frantic green-covered contortions and the screams, shrieks and tortured calls. The seeking vines penetrated the open hatches, cutting off the escape of any who saw what was happening and thought of seeking safety inside.
There was undoubtedly not even time for one of the more intelligent captains to warn off the rest of the armada, which continued to touch down wherever they could. Remaining aloft did not seem to have been an option. Every passenger was in too much of a hurry to disembark to notice what had been happening to the earlier arrivals.
“Truly a just retribution has been meted out to them,” Niall muttered. “A planet fighting back!” The verdure kept moving, probing, twining, inserting itself everywhere, bursting the seams of some of the oldest and most fragile vessels. “After all the violence they have dealt out to unsuspecting and innocent populations . . . ” His voice trailed off and he snapped off the screen displays of the chartreuse catastrophe.
Without a word, Helva lifted and started up the nearest track, actually the one that headed towards the main settlement, to see what the flora of Ravel was doing to the armored infantry units. The demise of the ground troops—none of which reached even the nearest and smallest of the cloisters—only took a little longer, though they didn’t penetrate even within howling distance of any of the cloisters.
“The weeds must exude some really corrosive kind of acid. Look at the pockmarks—holes even—in some of that armor where the vine tips have lashed it,” Niall said, shaking his head in amazement. “How do the girls manage that stuff if it can do that to spaceworthy body armor?”
“I do not care so long as it is as effective as it seems to be.”
Belatedly realizing the danger they were in, the bold Kolnari were, of course, turning their weapons on the demon flora that was smothering them. Perhaps someone on the space field had lasted long enough to send out a message. But on this field of battle the Kolnari weapons increased, rather than decreased, the foe. Blasting or flaming the vegetable matter only caused it to fragment, each part then expanding and multiplying into more attackers. Kolnari warriors in their heavy boots were being tripped up and, once down, became greeny yellow mounds of writhing shrubbery. Their power packs would have been infiltrated by vine tips, their equipment shorted out. Safe now from Kolnari weapons, Helva uncloaked and recorded the Kolnari defeat, focusing occasionally on what happened when flora was fragmented. She stayed high enough above the carnage . . . or did she mean “vernage” . . . to avoid any contact. She thought—only briefly—of trying to acquire a leaf or twig to preserve—at maximum botanical security—for later analysis in the High Risk laboratories at Central Worlds.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Niall said, shaking his head. “We do know that there are inimical planetary surfaces, but one which can be contained, tamed, and used in emergencies? One more for the files!” Then he leaned back in the chair, locking his fingers and rubbing his palms together with the great satisfaction he enjoyed at this totally unexpected Kolnari defeat. “Those lassies learned a thing or two, didn’t they, about passive resistance.”
“Passive wasn’t what we just witnessed,” Helva said drolly. “They simply let the nature of the planet take its course. Mind you, somewhere in the ethics of their Marian religiosity there must be a shibboleth about taking human lives . . . ”
“Ha! I never considered the Kolnari as humans,” was Niall’s response. “Besides which, the religious have as much right to protect themselves as any other life-form.”
“
“Ah, yes.” And Niall’s tone turned sanctimonious. “Suffer the meek for they shall inherit the earth . . . of Ravel, in this case. Well-done, ladies, well-done.” He brought his hands together in a silent applause. “We should extend
