Eric Flint - The Sorceress of Karres

"Take us in to the mound," the mother-plant said.

Goth hoped she was right about the collar. Could it be 'ported off their necks? Could Vezzarn pick the lock? At least they'd gotten Marshi to leave the captain aboard the Venture. Goth had been hard at work 'porting chunks of the leafy stuff from the swamp into the stomachs and even the mouths of all those she could see. Ta'zara had assured her that it was just about the most common tree there. She had checked its lobular fleshy leaves with him, before seeding bits of it.

It was amazing how the animal instinct to chew little tasty fragments in your mouth worked without much thought. The Leewit meanwhile kept the Mother-plant distracted, talking them in to land.

They had a few hours at least to survive, to find out if it worked.

"We need close contact to enspore some of these host-creatures," said Marshi, who was walking along towards the mound as the apparent prisoner of the Leewit-who appeared to be a triumphant Megair Cannibal.

"I'll tell the Leewit," said Goth calmly, and fell back to speak to her, vanishing into no-shape at the end of the column.

"Our dear Marshi wants you to get us nice and close to the Megair Cannibals in order to infect them."

"I don't think I can do that, Goth," said the Leewit quietly. "They're clumping Cannibals… Or do you think they also eat the plants here?"

"Bound to. There is nothing else for them to eat. And they'd run out of people to eat and even other Cannibals, otherwise. Anyway, it doesn't matter."

"They'd be pretty horrible, if we're wrong," said the Leewit, doubtfully. "There's a whole bunch of them coming towards us now."

"Relax. I don't like the Megair Cannibals any better than anybody else likes them, but I don't think the galaxy needs them driven by something like Marshi."

"But we need time for the captain… "

"Agreed. I thought about it before we had that last sleep. I reckon those spores are pretty fragile. Well, I hope so."

The Leewit was beginning to smile. "What have you done, Goth?"

"'Ported them out into space onto a comet. I'm pretty sure that comet is headed out-system, too, for a leisurely billion-year stroll through this system's Oort Cloud. I'd give it a push to make sure, but it's too massive for me. Yet, anyway."

Now Goth was smiling. "I gave Miss Nasty some comet-ice in that box instead. She can make the Megair Cannibals wet, once it starts melting. Stop laughing, you little pest! It's hard to keep your light-shift image right when you're shaking about like that."

The people of the planet of Karres weren't laughing right now. Stealthed, and using the Sheewash drive, they should have easily penetrated the Megair cluster. But they were having limited success. It appeared that the Phantom ships could not be fooled or outrun. And although the planet had a klatha envelope around it, keeping the atmosphere in and defending it against energy weapons such as those the Nuri globes had used, the witches did not want their planet saturated in heavy radiation. It appeared that the Phantoms had been well-designed for launching attacks on planets. Very destructive attacks.

It also appeared that they had a clear perimeter past which they would not be drawn.

"The Venture got through easily enough," said Threbus.

The council chief Palaceles frowned. "I think we have to conclude that there was no attempt to stop the Venture this time. And that in her earlier flight she seems to have barely encountered these ships. We could cope with fifty, or even five hundred. But there were some ten thousand ships in that last exercise. And in the early contacts with the Venture they apparently seemed to back off from damage-now. .. well they seem to have decided that 'stop at all costs' is the order."

He turned grimly to Threbus. "Your children are on their own, I'm afraid. This is rather what was predicted."

The Daal of Uldune, naturally, had equipped the Thunderbird with some exceptional weapons and detection systems. Those systems gave him ample warning of the coming attack-an attack which, using jet-packs on suits, might possibly not have been detected by some other ship with lesser equipment.

For Sedmon, the situation seemed faintly ridiculous. He began triggering his fire systems. It was rather like swatting slow moving bugs. But, if that was what they wanted…

While he was at it, he destroyed their ship. And then, in case he'd missed any attackers, engaged his spacedrive and moved off a few light-seconds.

It was a lesson for this vegetable lifeform that the Daal understood well. Do not be deceived by appearances, and there is always someone more powerful than you. All you can seek to do is to balance that. He just wished that he could have given the plant a message along with the lesson: don't mess with Uldune.

Still, perhaps the more generic lesson- there are dangerous things out here you know nothing about -would do just as well.

The Megair Cannibals surrounded them. Marshi would have had no trouble spreading her spores-if she'd had any spores left in her box. The Cannibals were poking and prodding the prisoners, in between, from what Goth could gather by tone, respectfully congratulating her sister. They were also keeping a suitable respectful distance from the Leewit. That was good too.

Marshi and her acolytes were busy pushing back, doubtless seeding "spores" as they did so.

"I 'ported Marshi's remote into the swamp where we first touched down the first time," said Goth. "So we're safe until the four hour limit runs out. I think it's just about time to get out of here. "

"Okay. Where to?"

"Break left and then back the way we came. Vezzarn should have the loading bay airlock unlocked. Give them your best whistle, sis. Let's have a bit of a distraction, before you vanish into thin air."

"Okay. Just get behind me. This one causes stomach cramps. Really nasty ones."

"Doesn't make them throw up, does it? We want the stuff to stay in them."

The Leewit shook her head. "Nope. That's my number seven. Block your ears!"

Goth did. It didn't help that much, but she was really glad to be behind the whistle, not on the receiving end. She slipped the Leewit into no-shape and they ran. It was a beautiful day for Megair 4, barely drizzling. She risked a glance back to see that the progression of Marshi's plant-goons among the Megair Cannibals had turned into a merry mixture. Somewhere between mud-wrestling and an all-out melee.

The mother-plant had begun to be perturbed. She was aware that some plants had died trying to take control of the freighter from which the Karres witches had come. That was not particularly surprising nor distressing. It probably had a crew of the same caliber. And the death of small parts of the mother-plant happened all the time.

The gray aliens were taking an unusually long time to begin to be affected, though, to become part of the plant. The damp bare skins should have been an ideal germination ground.

Then had come the treachery.

The mother-plant itself had not felt the pain. But the host animals were quite inferior about reacting autonomously to pain. The Illtraming had had that sort of reaction largely bred out them. One could not remove it totally, of course, or fires or other sudden dangers would kill them before the mother-plant had a chance to pull them back.

This host reacted by writhing wildly, and clutching its lower abdomen. That didn't stop the mother-plant from forcing her host to reach into her pocket and pressing the button on the remote…

Except that it was no longer there. Instead there was just an electronic screwdriver-an object of roughly the same size and shape. Then it occurred to her. The witches of Karres could teleport objects