Michael Siemsen - Exigency

Aether pivoted to Eeahso. “Is there anything I can get for you before we talk? Water?”

Aether’s cold manner was lost on the uneasy outlaw.

Eeahso’s eyes tracked Tom and bounced around the scene of EVs, skimmers, work and sleep tents, and other gear. “Water… water, yes. And shade. Where are we?”

“This is where we’re staying.”

Herself unfamiliar with the lay of the land, Aether surveyed the area, a relatively dry plateau with steep, grassy slopes on two sides, and few sources of natural shade. Back toward the tents, Qin and Tom carried Angela’s body on a stretcher as a blubbering Zisa looked on, shooting glances Aether’s way. Aether knew what Zisa yearned for—she wanted to come running, bury her face in Aether’s front, be embraced, soothed. But Aether couldn’t be that for Zisa right now. Her stress level at max, Aether could hardly withstand a creeping resentment toward her most fragile girl.

“Is there water here?” Eeahso said. “River or sea, it matters not.”

Aether set her eyes on the Threck. She changed her mind about hospitality. “Water later. First we talk.” She walked to the base of the steep rise on the camp’s west side, shaded from the rising sun. A flat-topped hunk of bedrock made for a good seat. Eeahso opted to stand, skittering nervously, as if on hot sand. “First, explain why you were exiled from the city.”

After a series of eye hides and false starts, Eeahso explained. “There was time when Threck believed that kee came from our maker, who painted red this small place in the jungle, her tiny eggs laid out to then spread and enter every dumb animal.”

“ Kee … the worms.”

“No, the kee . Worms are dumbest animal of all.” Eeahso alternated swiping at her arms. “This is a dreadful, dry place—”

“Are the kee not the worms we saw enter the youths—the Sootskee—at the tree circle? The worms Skinny killed and displayed to your people?”

“No, no, no.” Eeahso signed frustration. “These are threckee … Worms imbued with kee .”

Aether, too, grew impatient. “Very well, how are worms imbued with kee ?” She opened the Threck language DB in edit mode, preparing to add entries.

Must every damned word include “kee”?

“They eat it from the fshkee , behind the keepock place, where it grows. Orange People do not know most basic creation of Threck? Surely it is same for Orange People. How do you acquire your kee ?”

She added keepock :Tree Circle to the DB.

“We’re born with it, I guess. Forget about Orange People. You’re saying that worms eat this stuff, this kee , which they then pass on to the young Threck?”

Eeahso signaled continuing frustration and disbelief while her eyes roamed beyond Aether. “I must have water at once. I cannot go on without.”

Aether sent an M to Zisa.

AETHER: Can you please bring an open container of water to me?

“Water is coming. Now, forgiving my extreme ignorance, explain as if to some person from another world—some world without Threck or kee or worms.”

“Worms live all over. Infect animals. Make them die. Kee grows on plants. Lives in one place only: the fshkee . Worms living near fshkee eat kee . Change to smart worm: threckee . Threckee cooperate, live in worm city, send baby worms to eat kee , make more threckee , worm city grows—”

The kee is a fungus, Aether grasped. Parasitic worms are taken over by parasitic fungus. Hyperparasitism.

kee : Parasitic Fungus [USE kee fungus]

fshkee : Parasitic Fungus Site [USE kee fungus site]

threckee : Infected Worm

“And this worm city is what Skinny burned?”

“Yes… No… I don’t know. Unimportant. We say city, but this is really house on ground. Walls, tunnels, egg cave. We say smart worm, but this is still dumb animal. It is only when the three dumb animals become one, inside the body of the young Sootskee, that truly smart animals are made. Threck. I disbelieve Skinny destroyed entire worm city or got to eggs, but this is unimportant.

“Worms are everywhere, but they are not Infected Worm without kee fungus . Skinny burned the kee fungus site , which means no more worms can be made Infected Worm, and with no new Infected Worm, there can be no new Threck. Threck City will die when the last of the Setkee have grown old and died.”

Aether sat back in awe. The miracles of nature. The series of events that had to fall into place… Three-stage parasitism.

Aether recalled Earth’s “zombie ants,” spiny ants in Thailand that wake up one day to find themselves compelled to travel to a specific destination. The culprit turned out to be a fungus—one of thousands of varieties all over the world that infect certain indigenous insects, from ants to bees. After the fungus took over, the spiny ant would make its way to a location with precise conditions—the underside of a particular leaf, 25cm from the jungle floor, pointed north-northwest, and at a fixed time: solar noon. There, the infected ant would bite down on the leaf’s main vein and wait to die a horrible death—the fungus building up massive pressure within the head, and then exploding out its spore stalk, like some ghastly jester’s hat.

According to Eeahso, the kee , which the Threck considered their souls, infected its neighboring parasitic wectworms, but unlike its malicious Earth equivalent, the kee fungus improved its hosts. The worms had been upgraded from fend-for-yourself individuals to a nest-building colony.

Cooperate, Aether thought. Threck always talk about cooperating .

What if one of Earth’s “zombie fungi” had happened to infect a parasitic insect, like tapeworms or blood flukes—organisms known to reach the human brain?

Zisa arrived at Aether’s side, sniffing, with a large bowl of water.

Aether took the bowl. “Thank you. I’ll come see you later, okay?”

Zisa nodded and left as Eeahso rushed forward, carefully grabbed the bowl, and dumped the entirety against her siphons. It looked to Aether that perhaps a quarter of the water had gone in, the rest splashing and dripping away.

“More,” Eeahso demanded. “I need more.”

“Later. Now, you were going to tell me about your exile.”

AETHER: Zisa, what’s our water status?

ZISA: 3 drums/600 L. The lake is close when we need more.

“Yes, my people formerly believed that the kee fungus was purposeful and for all. Many Threck thought it imperative to give to other animals. They collected animals from all over Threck Country and the sea, failing every time to see results. Perhaps it was the Infected Worms not working inside these other animals. Surely the worms had been infecting Seekapock for as long as there were Seekapock, and also other animals, but only certain of these were made smarter, and not much smarter. Afvrik given Infected Worms: nothing. But afvrik given only the kee fungus alone, these afvrik could be trained.

“The Special group did this work. They received permission to open dead Threck and see how Infected Worms lived inside. They opened other animals and compared. They collected kee fungus, by itself, from the kee fungus site , and gave to the young Sootskee, wishing to know if worms were necessary to make Threck. These kee fungus -infected people are the farmers now— most of them, that is, as offspring do not inherit the kee fungus from parent. The farmers, you may notice, are not so wild as my Seekapock you met, but not so smart as Threck. Threck train the farmers like they train afvrik, to do work in places no Threck wish to live.”