The Farmer’s Daughter

Chapter 3 – Down Under

Pop checked in by radio later that afternoon. He was en route to Laynard General and would call us again more formally the following morning from the city. I was a little worried that he was pushing himself too hard, but happy as well to be able to spend more time with Timothy. I had never had the pleasure of waking up next to a man, and was really looking forward to it.

We finally put some clothes on at around two in the afternoon. Being naked around your lover is a wondrous privilege which we took full advantage of. It also makes it easy to make love for the most trivial of reasons. At one point I was standing at the sink in the kitchen doing some dishes when Tim came up and dropped another plate into the sink. I reached over and placed a soapy hand on his arm. A minute later I was gasping into wonderland as he had me from behind, leaning right over those same dishes.

So after checking on the harvester bots, and taking care of a few other day to day chores, I declared the rest of the day to be “ours.” I proved to Tim that I could indeed cook, and after a delightfully intimate meal, we settled on the sofas again to relax and digest our food.

“You look like the cat who ate an entire aviary of canaries,” said Timothy next to me.

I just purred happily.

“No more anxiety over the caves,” he asked tenuously.

I smiled. “Nope.”

“Not even a little?”

I shook my head. “Now that I understand where that anxiety was coming from, and having dealt with it rather thoroughly…”

“Quite thoroughly indeed,” he agreed, lustily.

“I no longer fear anything that might be lurking below us at all.”

“Congratulations.”

I nodded. “Thank you. In fact, I wanted to know how you felt about it.”

Tim’s brows rose slightly. “Me? I really don’t have a clue, save for what you and your father have told me about this planet. I try not to listen to the viddies.”

“So the life below us doesn’t scare you either?”

He shrugged. “Beyond the fact that your farm is producing more efficient power crystals, has anything else changed substantially in the last five or so years?”

“We had a shortage of chocolate last season…”

He flicked his hand. “Hardly a global disaster.”

“Speak for yourself!”

He laughed softly. “This planet seems about as stable as they come, even politically. The life below has been doing its thing for a very very long time, and even with human encroachment, doesn’t seem to notice we’re here. What’s to fear?”

I rubbed my hands together and then stood up. “Good, because I want to go on an adventure!” I then sat across Tim’s lap.

He wrapped his arms around my waist. “Uh oh… I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

My own arms snaked around his neck and I leaned forward so he had an excellent view down my cleavage. Just because we were dressed, didn’t mean I couldn’t flaunt it. Besides, I wasn’t expecting to keep my clothes on all that much longer anyway.

“Think about it,” I said. “We know the crystals and the plants are somehow linked. That overlay data was well beyond coincidence.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, tentatively.

“Don’t you want to know why?!”

He frowned. “Well sure, but I don’t see how…”

“Someone has to go down there and take a look!”

Timothy was silent for a few seconds, just staring at me as though trying to decide if I were serious or not.

“Down… into the caves?”

I nodded, smiling.

“Um, Rachael, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there’s an 85 degree Celsius atmosphere out there that you can’t even breathe, even if it wouldn’t burn your lungs out.”

“That’s why I want to go in my EV suit, silly.”

“Your EV… And what am I going to wear? I don’t think an extra pair of socks is going to cut it.”

I smiled down at him and started running my fingers through his hair in a way that I knew he found arousing. “Oh, you’re not going. Someone needs to stay here and monitor things. I can hook you up a full remote. It’ll be almost as good as seeing through my eyes!”

“You’re serious!”

I nodded quickly. “Look, my pop would never let me do this…”

“For a damn good reason!” he interrupted.

“…But I really think we can learn a lot. We’re getting nowhere with what we can see from the surface, and my father did say it was important.”

He raised a brow in agreement. “Yeah, but I’m sure letting his pride and joy go spelunking alone in a toxic and potentially deadly unmapped cave system wasn’t what he had in mind.”

“I’ll be fine.” I replied, putting on my best pouty face. “The air down there is a bit hot and humid, but probably better than in here.”

“He’s going to kill me when he finds out you know.”

I reached down into his lap, my hand searching. “I’ll be down and back before he even leaves Laynard if I go first thing in the morning.” He gasped sharply when my fingers arrived at what they were looking for. “We can prep for the trip just after sunset.”

“What happens at sunset that we have to wait,” he asked, his face looking a little distracted.

“Nothing. We’re just going to be busy until then.”

His eyes widened. “We are?” His own hands were sliding under my shirt and up my torso.

“Oh yes… Very.” I confirmed, my mouth settling over his to keep him from arguing with me. He didn’t.

We “busied” ourselves silly until we both agreed that any more would leave us too exhausted to do more than watch viddies that night, and despite Timothy trying to talk me out of it, I really did want to go down into the caves. It wasn’t everyday that I had complete run of the house, and I was ready to break as many rules as possible. If I’d known more local friends I would almost certainly have tried to swing a party as well. As it was, there was a fair amount of planning to do, and so I familiarized Tim with the controls in the Nest.

I wasn’t about to kid myself regarding the dangers of cave-hopping alone. It was generally considered somewhat unsafe to even run a farm with just two. We used to be three, but my mom passed away when I was only six, and pop and I made a deal that we wouldn’t give up the place unless we had to. When it turned out that I was a crack programmer, things got a bit easier since I automated half the processes that we had been doing by hand. Things have always worked out okay with just the two of us, with rare exceptions. We’re careful. But constantly restricting yourself from doing anything and everything with any risk makes for a dull life and I was more than ready for a change of scenery.

I decided that the best place to enter the caves was also the closest – the air shaft. Every farm had what was basically a well drilled into the ground that pierced a nearby cave. But instead of only water, the shaft also brought up oxygen from the plant world below. That air was processed and filtered, and then distributed through smaller pipes to the various domes on the farm. Getting down to the caves was as easy as taking a maintenance elevator cage to the bottom. I had even been down there once before to clean a clogged filter. I never left the shaft, but I knew it could be done.

Tim was still uneasy about letting me go alone.

“Lover, do you have any idea how much time I spend out by myself in my EV suit? I bet I’ve logged more hours in that thing than many of the construction workers up on Spindle.” Spindle was the orbiting space station that would still be “under construction” when I was old and gray. “I can handle myself, really.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

“You’ll be totally jacked in from here, and I’m bringing a Crawler that you can work via the waldoes if you have to. That’s almost better than being there since the bot can do stuff that I never could in an EV suit.”

“Tell me again why we’re not just sending the Crawler by itself?”

I sighed. “One, the crawler can’t open the doors and the maintenance hatch on the air shaft, and two… because I really want to see the plants with my own eyes.” I dropped with a whoosh into one of the cushioned chairs.

“Tim, I’ve lived on this farm my whole life. I’ve been to the city a couple dozen times maybe, and was frankly disappointed. This is all I know. But there’s a whole different world right under my feet and I think it’s high time I made a visit, if only so that I can know what I’ve been missing.”

“Just be careful, okay? I’ve grown rather fond of your flesh over the last twenty-four hours.” He came over and knelt down in front of me, a hand on either knee. I bit my lip as I felt him gently push my thighs open. Even fully clothed, the implication was incredibly erotic.

I was getting dizzy with arousal and finally had to say something when his hands began to crawl up the insides of my legs. “Ughmm… Stop that, you! I have work to do. I want to reprogram that Crawler and I need to concentrate.”

He sighed. “So there’s no distracting you, eh?”

“I expect you to distract me plenty later, but let me work now, okay?”

He grinned. “It is a difficult thing you ask, but I shall obey. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I turned to the terminal and called up the main bot software. “Not here, but…”

“Ask and you shall receive!”

“All our, er… activity, has made me hungry again. Could you fix us a snack?” I asked sheepishly.

“I shall return forthwith, bearing trays of goodies to entice your palette and refuel that luscious flesh of yours. You’re going to need your strength for later…”

“Oh god,” I said swallowing down my lust. Programming is so much harder when you know that sex is the reward for stopping.

We worked well into the evening, me on the computer, and Tim gathering things that I might need near the airlock. I had my lover take the controls and pilot the Crawler up in front of the exit doors so he could get the hang of it. I had automated most of the finer motions so that moving it around was as easy as grasping a joystick. I also showed him the waldoes, which would allow him to manipulate the bot’s two front arms, which were tipped with more humanoid looking manipulators for hands.

Crawlers had been originally designed for the military to be used both in space, and on the ground in a wide variety of terrains. They looked a bit like a flat spider about the size of a large dog, and could be piled with gear much like a pack mule. The somewhat stubby limbs were a lot more flexible than tires or treads because they could lift them up and step through rocky areas, or in the case of a crystal farm, walk right through a field without disturbing the crop. In a pinch, I could even ride the thing like a horse if I had too. Military grade AI allowed it to be driven by almost anyone with only basic instruction, and with more advanced programming, you could task them to specific needs or handle far more delicate operations. They were smart enough not to step on your foot or walk off a cliff, yet dumb enough not to try and revolt against having to do all the dirty work.

Finally, when everything was ready, we retired to my bed. Our lovemaking was slow, if not just as satisfying as our other times. But I think we were both thinking about what I planned to do in the morning, and so, were just slightly distracted. I fell asleep on his chest, and awoke spooned and happy.

After a brief breakfast, I made sure the day’s harvesting routines were taken care of, then joined Tim at the airlock.

He sighed. “Please be careful out there,” he entreated while he helped me into my EV suit. I opted for a tank and panties again since it was the most comfortable for any length of time, and grinned when my lover did a wolf whistle upon seeing me.

“I feel like you should have a gun or something,” he said half seriously.

“We have several electromagnetic flachette rifles,” I replied casually. “In the cupboard in the living room.”

“Seriously?” He sounded genuinely surprised.

“Sure, but don’t bother getting them. They’re made to be held and fired by human hands, not the puffy-fingered glove of an EV suit.”

“Oh.”

I sealed up the top and bottom halves of the suit and then gave him a very warm kiss before donning the helmet and signaling a thumbs up. He put on a headset.

“Are you getting this,” I asked.

“Yup, loud and clear,” he replied. “Test the cams for me, will you?”

“You need to activate the visual overlays.”

He looked surprised. “Oh yeah…” He reached up and tapped the side of the headset. I saw a holographic display encircle his head, much like my own helmet. Several video displays zoomed into his visual field, one of which was a mirror of the camera mounted on top of my helmet, as well as a rear-facing one. Turing around to look behind you was a bit of a task in an EV suit, so having eyes in the back of your head was pretty critical. “What, no porno channels?” He quipped with a smile.

“Just wait until I get back. I’ll show you a porno…” I replied in a sultry voice.

He chuckled. “All systems check. You ready?”

“I’m green. Cycle me through and then go to the Nest so you can control the Crawler. It shouldn’t take me more than a minute or two to get to the air shaft. It’s only a hundred and ten meters, but these EV suits aren’t exactly built for jogging.”

“Gotcha, good hunting.” With that, he pressed his hand to the cycle panel on the lock and I was closed off from view.

When the outer door opened, I loaded up the Crawler waiting quietly just outside and then did a run through of the various sensor systems on both my suit and the bot. When everything checked out, I ranged the small building that was the top of the air shaft and started walking. I saw that the Crawler came alive and began to follow me.

“How long does the lift take?” I heard Tim ask in my ears.

I paced myself, not wanting to start sweating quite yet, and tried to remember how long it had taken before. “A good minute I believe. Maybe just a bit more. Once I’m in the shaft, there should be plenty of breathable atmosphere, but it’ll still be hot… Not that I’m planning on leaving my EV. But at least the suit won’t have to work as hard to maintain conditions.”

The rest of the trip out to the shaft was uneventful, and the outer access door opened without a problem. “The house might report a drop in oxygen pressure when I cycle through,” I mentioned. “It’ll reset once it’s sealed again.” I passed into the larger maintenance lock and had to stand against the far wall to let the Crawler in with me. It was a tight fit, but I got the outer door closed. The inner airlock opened automatically, and I saw what was going to be our first problem.

“Okay, well that’s a bummer,” I said offhandedly. “It looks like both the Crawler and me in my EV are going to have some trouble getting in the lift together.”

“Do we need to make two trips,” he asked.

I thought for a second. “Maybe not… Look in the Crawler’s control menus for an option called ‘pirouette mode.’ Do you see it?

“Uh, yes.”

“Go ahead and select it,” I replied. Next to me, the Crawler suddenly came awake and after a moment, started lifting. Actually, what was happening was that the legs were folding up under the bot so that they no longer stuck out from its sides, but were pushed under it. It was a little like standing on its tippy-toes.

“Wow, that’s a neat trick,” exclaimed Tim. “How is it staying upright?”

“Internal gyros,” I answered moving into the main lift. “It can’t move very fast in that configuration, but it doesn’t have to. Go ahead and bring it into the cage. We should both fit now.”

I was still pushed flat against the back side of the lift cage by the time the inner door finally closed, but it worked. A moment later I tapped the ‘down’ button and lift slowly started descending.

My suit chronograph said the trip took one minute and thirty-eight seconds, but it felt a lot longer. It also felt like I was going down miles instead of just a few dozen meters. With a jolt and a loud metallic bang, the lift settled at the bottom.

“I’m at the hatch and have activated the release sequence,” I explained. “I sure hope the Crawler fits through the lower door.”

There was a hiss, and then some very squeaky rattling as the old, mineral encrusted door slowly moved to the side. I activated my suit lights and told Tim to hit the ones on the bot as well. Soon, I could see out into the space just outside of the shaft. It was wet, and dark, and covered with what looked like algae or moss.

“Welcome to the jungle,” said Tim.

I scanned around the space, looking for anything moving. All was still.

“Alright,” I said moving out through the doorway. “Let’s get this party… whoop! Shit!”

Suddenly, my feet had shot out from under me as they lost all traction on the greenish fuzz that covered everything. The EV suits are padded and armored in all the right places, but falling down in one still hurts. I was a lot more worried about damaging the expensive gear than my own rump though.

“Rachael, are you alright!?” Tim was frantic.

“It’s okay… I’m fine. I just slipped,” I answered, trying to reassure him. “It’s the moss. I wasn’t sure what kind of conditions I might find down here so I packed some crampons for my boots. Give me a second to put them on.”

“Damn… I think I very nearly crapped my pants.”

I chuckled. “Sorry about that. I’m running a diagnostic on my EV just to be sure I didn’t dent a seal or something. The pressure light came on there for a second…” I started the check even as I stepped back into the lift for the boot spikes. Setting them on the ground, I snapped them into place and then stepped a bit more cautiously back out into the cave. My footing held firm this time and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Much better. Go ahead and bring out the Crawler.”

A few seconds later the heavy bot moved slowly from the lift, automatically shifting itself twice to avoid catching on the doorway. When it was completely clear, I had Tim put it back into normal traveling configuration. Luckily, the mech had built-in spikes, or it might have slipped as well.

“Forty degrees Celsius with almost ninety-five percent humidity. Nice and balmy,” I commented. “I’m going to use the laser ranging on my suit to record three dimensional topography. It’ll create a working map of the place as I move.”

“Roger that,” answered Timothy, sounding official.

I giggled. “How’s the picture by the way? Any interference yet?”

“Nope,” he replied. “The picture is great. I have the image from your helmet, as well as the stereo view from the Crawler. That was a little hard to get used to at first.”

“Yeah it is. You can adjust the opacity of the visuals if you need to. I’m heading due west, toward where the crystal fields should be. Have the bot follow about five meters back, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

I made my way slowly for a minute or so, checking my footing often. The cave was obviously not built with humans in mind, the ceiling dipping to below five feet in some places. In others it soared out of view, the roof not even visible within sight of the lights. The moss continued to cover everything, and was growing thicker the further in I went.

“Hey, are you seeing the scale of this place,” I asked a few minutes later as I moved through a rounded hole five meters high and into a larger area. The space was a honey-comb of pillars that held up a ceiling roughly ten meters above my head.

“Uh, yeah, but is your laser topography messed up, or does that room literally extend out of its range?”

I frowned. “Can YOU see the other side?”

“That’s a big cave… So why does the computer show the nearer walls as being all blurred?”

“Well, the lasers must not be getting a good fix. That can happen for a lot of reasons.” I was shining my hand light in random directions. All along the ground I was starting to see long lines that branched and criss-crossed each other. “It could be bouncing off water, or vegetation. The moss might even do it.”

“Are those roots,” asked Tim, seeing the same lines.

“Yeah. I guess they are. They get thicker in the direction of the crystal fields.”

We were both quiet for a while as I moved on. I decided to try and avoid stepping on the roots as much as possible, but that was becoming more and more difficult. I checked my position, and saw that I should have been nearing the edge of our fields. Then my light fell over an object just ahead of me and I froze.

Roughly my own height, I could only describe it as either a very large, bulbous flower, or a very short limbless tree. I couldn’t decide. At the top, where flower petals would have been, was a tight configuration of bulb-like sacks.

“Oh wow… Tim, are you seeing this?”

“I’m not sure. What the hell is that?”

I took a step closer. “I think it is a flower… maybe. Whatever it is, it’s definitely not a normal part of the cave, and not a root. There are more of them ahead,” I added as I shined the light deeper into the cave. “And see there… some smaller ones. This could be why my topo readings are all fizzled.”

“If you say so. So, if these are flowers, do they still need the sun?”

I considered this, and just on a feeling, I pointed the light up above my head. My mouth dropped open at the sight of thousands of hanging sacks. Each one was about a meter in length and attached at the top to the ceiling, which was absolutely covered in a mesh of inch thick roots… which were moving.

“Holy shit,” I exclaimed.

Tim was stunned to silence.

The sacks looked to be made from the same semi-translucent material as the bulbs of the ‘flowers’. I also noticed when I moved my light off the sacks, that the glow seemed to linger.

“Hey, I want to try an experiment. Kill the lights on the Crawler for a moment.”

“Are you sure?” His voice sounded a little panicked.

“No, but I need to check something.”

There was a pause, then the light behind me went dark. With no small amount of trepidation, I reached over and touched my sleeve. Suddenly, there was nothing but utterly thick darkness around me. Still not satisfied, I took it a step further and told my displays to sleep. Save for a single dim ‘wake’ icon, I was floating in a sea of blackness. But after a few seconds, my eyes started to adjust and I detected light coming from above me. Turning my head up, I gasped.

Every one of those sacks was faintly glowing, some more than others, as far as my eyes could see.

“Damn…” said Tim in my ear. I was happy to have a friendly voice to ground me a bit at that point. “Bioluminescence,” he asked.

“Maybe,” I replied, just trying to take it all in. I carefully moved forward, as mindful as possible of the roots on the ground, which luckily did not seem to be the moving kind. I didn’t think the spikes on my boots would penetrate the hard vegetation, but after only a few meters I really didn’t have a choice.

“Um, you seem to be moving away from the Crawler,” said my lover. “You want me to follow?”

“No, stay there for the time being. I just want to get more in the center. There’s something about these lights that looks familiar.”

“What do you suppose those sacks are for, anyway?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea, but they seem to have a pattern to them…” I had moved about twenty meters and could now see the sacks in all directions, and it hit me.

“Oh my god…”

“Rachael?”

“Tim, I do know what the sacks are!”

“Really?”

“I also know why my farm is doing so much better than the others… This is amazing!”

I slowly turned so that I could confirm what I was seeing.

“Well, don’t… keep me in the dark,” he said with a slight lilt to his voice.

“Ha ha. Do you see how the sacks are aligned into rows?”

“Yeah, so?”

“And that some of the rows are brighter than others?”

There was a pause. “Huh, I guess they are. Your point?”

“That pattern… it’s striping!”

“You mean, sort of like your harvester program?”

I was excited. “Not ‘sort of’… it’s exactly the same pattern! Tim, there’s a one to one correspondence of the sacks to the state of the crystals on the surface. No doubt about it, they’re connected. And I’ll bet that’s where that glow is coming from as well. I think the plants use the crystals the same way we do, to gather energy. There’s no water and too much heat on the surface for the plants to survive, so they have built up some kind of symbiotic relationship that allows the plants to gather energy, and the crystals to be more efficient collectors. That’s why harvesting an entire field at once produces less efficiency… Without at least some crystals within a certain distance of the sacks, they would wither and die. Sure, the crystals would reform naturally in a few days, but the plants underneath would almost certainly take longer to reestablish themselves. With most of the farmers cycling entire fields, the plants never have a chance to get a foothold before the crystals are reharvested again. But in my setup, there’s always some energy available. So long as the sacks are interconnected, which they certainly appear to be, they won’t ever die off.”

“And you think”, said Tim contemplatively, “that the plants are somehow altering the crystals to make them more efficient?”

“They have to be. It’s the only difference between my fields and those of other farmers.”

The man was silent for a while. “Rachael, what percentage of the crystals on Camadon do farmers currently harvest?

His question surprised me a little. “Well, I’m not exactly sure, but only a small portion I’d say. Maybe a fifth. Why?”

“Well, I was just thinking… The plants are an entire independent ecosystem, right? They’d be protected by Federation xenobiology regulations. I mean, everyone always thought that they existed below ground, completely cut off from the surface world. But now that we know that’s not the case, that they use the crystals to survive, I wonder if anyone is going to have a problem with you harvesting them?”

I frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, I think you’d better, and soon. There are literally thousands of crystal farming operations on Camadon. That’s a lot of people that would have their entire livelihood taken away should the Federation decide that the practice is in violation of galactic law. And I won’t even get into what it would mean to Marhead.”

Still in the dark, I noticed a brighter light out of the corner of my eye and looked up. About another twenty meters further in, there was a single, slightly larger sack that was quite a bit brighter than the others. I could also tell that the sacks nearest to the brighter one were quite dim, almost as though they had passed their glow on to the single one.

“What’s that,” asked Timothy, seeing what I was seeing from my helmet camera.

“Not sure, but I’m going to check it out.”

“Um, not to alarm you or anything, but I can’t see you from the Crawler any more, even on infrared. There are too many pillars in the way.”

That caused me pause. “It’s alright,” I answered after a moment. “Just stay there then. I think the AI might have a problem with navigating this area anyway. I’m having to step over some pretty big root systems here. Is the laser topo still running?”

“Yes,” he replied. “And you better be careful. According to the three-dimensional view I’m looking at, it appears that the cave is sloping down in front of you. You could be on the edge of a precipice.”

“Well, that’s good to know, considering that I’m walking in the dark.”

“Think maybe it’s time to turn the lights back on?”

I bit my lip. “Not quite yet. It’s taken my eyes a while to adjust, but I can kinda make out the ground now, especially near that brighter sack. I can see the sloping you mentioned. It’s a bit more to my left, but I think you’re right about it being a drop-off. I’ll stay clear.”

I moved slowly to get closer to the brighter light above me. It wasn’t easy. The root system was getting much more complex and thicker around that hole. I was nearly straddling some of the larger bundles as I stepped over them. Finally, I decided that I was close enough when I had come to about three meters. Now that I could see it up close, I could tell there were a number of vine-like tendrils hanging from the base of the bright sack that extended almost to the ground. I shivered slightly when I saw that they were slithering and twisting slowly like snakes.

“Whoa,” exclaimed Tim. “That thing is creepy.”

“Gotta agree with you on that one,” I answered staying well clear. Then, even as I watched, the sack suddenly jerked, and looked as though something at the bottom ripped. I saw a thick liquid spill down over the tendrils and then splatter to the floor.

“Rachael, what’s going on?”

I stared, both fascinated and slightly fearful. “I… I’m not sure.”

“I think you should get out of there,” he urged.

“No, wait. I think I see something… Yes! At the bottom of the sack, do you see it?!”

“Tilt your helmet up a little… Wait, there. What is… Is that some kind of slug?”

From the bottom of the sack I could see a fairly brightly glowing bulge undulating its way down the hanging tendrils. A few moments later, another one appeared.

“I think it’s giving birth,” I exclaimed, excitedly. “This is incredible!”

We watched, enraptured as the palm sized glowing blob slowly made its way to the ground. Once there, it traveled down hill in the direction of the hole. Over the course of ten minutes or so, the sack released another nine of the slug-like creatures. When it was done, the original sack was dark and deflated.

“Okay, that was totally worth the price of admission,” I said smiling.

“And you think those were… babies or something?”

“Seedlings maybe. It makes sense that they form near the sacks where the energy is the most plentiful, and then make their way downward…”

“To where,” asked Tim a little more cautious to speculate.

“How should I know. Maybe the holes lead down to a colony or something. Either way, that was totally cool!”

He groaned. “I’m not sure I would have described it quite like that, but maybe females have a different perspective.”

I giggled. “Don’t you want kids some day?”

“Sure,” he replied. “It’s just that those sacks, and the slugs… they’re all so…”

“Alien?”

“Well, yeah.”

I had been crouching down, and I stood up again. “We’re the aliens here,” I commented. I was just going to turn around when I saw something glow bright somewhere on the other side of the giant hole. Another sack appeared to be giving birth further away. Then, off to my right, about ten meters away there was another bright glow.

“Uh,” I started. Suddenly I could see my own shadow in the glow of a light coming from almost directly above me. I was staring at my own odd outline on the ground when Tim cursed.

“Shit! Rachael, behind you!”

The normal human reaction would have been to twist around, but anyone who spends a lot of time in an EV suit knows how futile that is and instead learns to flip their display to the rear facing camera. That action is performed like any other in-suit control, via hand gestures within the holo-menu controls that are constantly floating in the air around the wearer. Only I had told my display, and subsequently my other suit systems, to go to sleep, leaving the single dim ‘wake’ icon at the top of my field of view. It took me a moment to realize this, and then a few seconds more to get my systems back online. By the time I had the view switched, I didn’t need the rear camera to know how close I was to the sack. Several of the moving tendrils had reached up and were curling around my helmet, their slick tips leaving oily smears across the front of my visor.

“Ahh!” I squealed in surprise and brought my hands up to pull the things off my suit. The last thing I wanted was to have them tear loose one of the antennas. But that action didn’t go well either, and I suddenly found my left glove to be tangled in something. When the end of one of the tendrils came into view winding around the arm of my suit, I knew I was in deep shit.

“I’ve got a problem here…” I said, trying to calm myself. My other arm was trapped as well, so aside from very limited hand gestures, I now had almost no control of my suit systems.

“Talk to me,” said Tim, sounding seriously worried. “What’s going on?!”

“It’s those tendrils,” I answered as I pulled with as much force as I dared. If I simply yanked my arms, I was sure to damage the outer lining of my suit, or even possibly crack one of the seals on my gloves. “They’ve wound around my arms and won’t let go, dammit! They’re not hurting me, but I can’t break free either.”

“Shit, what can I do?!”

I considered possibilities. “Don’t do anything for the moment. They may just get tired and release me. Sit tight.” I tried to be positive about my situation, but I didn’t like the fact that I could feel more of the tendrils at my back. A few were sliding around my waist as well. But I didn’t really start panicking until I suddenly felt light on my feet.

“Oh, holy hell…” I exclaimed, my heart rate going through the roof. “They’re lifting me.”

“Do something!”

“Like what? I’m helpless here. My feet just left the ground…”

Timothy sounded desperate. “Rachael, please, should I bring up the Crawler? Maybe they would go for that instead.”

“Yeah… I have nothing to lose now. If you can get it under me I might be able to stand on top and loosen the grip on my arms long enough to break away. I’m going to keep talking. I need to describe what’s going on… it helps me think.”

“The bot is on its way!”

“Good, be sure to stay clear of that hole. The AI might try to… uh oh…” And alarm went off and my screen shifted to red, indicating a pressure drop.

“Now what?!”

I read the display with a growing sense of loss. “My hip seal is leaking. I think I may have damaged the closure lock when I fell stepping out of the lift.”

Tim sounded angry. “And it waits until NOW to tell you??”

“The suits aren’t perfect, lover. They’re pretty smart considering, but they have to work with what they can sense. When I fell, the suit seal held even though the latch was probably damaged. It wasn’t until the weight of the lower half of the EV pulled on the seal that it started losing pressure. Crap. The tendrils are all around my body, right down to my boots. The ones at my ankles have started lifting as well.”

Unable to keep my legs straight, I let them fold and fall to the sides. It left me in a fairly awkward position that I doubted the suit manufacturers ever considered a possibility. At my waist, I abruptly felt a wash of warm, wet air.

“Oh fuck…” There was a pop, and suddenly the whole lower half of my suit shifted. The rapid change in pressure, as well as the sensation that my lower half had just been dunked in a wet bath, indicated to me that my EV suit was now a two-piece.

“Tim, please tell me that the Crawler is close…”

There was a string of curses and then a sound that I recognized as someone banging their hands on the control deck in frustration. “It’s that damn AI… It won’t go any closer! It thinks that the ground is too unstable or something!”

I groaned. “This is not good. My suit is breached.”

“Breached? What does that mean?”

“Uh, well,” I replied, a little weakly. “I think if it weren’t for the fact that the tendrils are wrapped all around me, the leg half of my suit would simply fall off. The seal released completely.”

“This is insane!” His voice was sounded even more panicked than mine. “We have got to call for help, Rachael.”

I sighed. “Tim, there is no help. The Reeses were the closest farm. No other farmer is going to risk coming out here while we’re already engaged in a rescue. We help each other, but not that much.”

“I can’t just sit here!”

I felt something very warm and wet touch the base of my back and jumped. “Ahh! Son of a bitch! I think the tendrils are inside… Tim, listen to me. I’m stuck, yes, but someone has to stay there and wait for my father to return. When he does, he can get to me in another EV suit. Ewww…” Something had indeed found its way into my suit. At least two separate tendrils were slowly feeling their way over the bare space on my back, just above the top of my panties. The touch was soft and light, as though the plants were gently kissing or tasting me. The amber colored slime must have been dripping down from the sack, because I felt runnels of something sliding over my sides and down the back of my legs like warm oil. “Until then, I’m just going to have to stick it out.”

“It could be days!”

“No matter how long it takes, he’ll still need your help to find me.”

“I don’t like it…”

I shivered. The alien fingers at the base of my back seemed to be getting a little bolder. “Think how I feel!”

“Okay… okay…” replied Tim, sounding a little more relaxed, but only a little. “Speaking of which, how are you doing?”

“Not so good. The tendrils are definitely inside my suit and are getting a little friendly.”

“WHAT?!”

I tried to calm him. “Look, this was my idea. It’s not your fault. Remember that, okay?”

“Rachael, oh my god!”

I could tell by the sounds of static that the man was frantically moving around, probably trying to decide what to do. I would have continued to calm him, but I suddenly found myself a little panicked as well. One of the tendrils had turned and slipped under my panties where they crossed the depression at the base of my back. It was slowly making its way down between my buttocks. Another tendril was reaching around my torso and curving up over my belly, and a third was easing over my hip. They all moved with cautious but deliberate motion, and I continued to get the impression that I was being probed in some way. I could tell that the tips of the tendrils were not simply points as I had first thought, but split into two or three tiny round-tipped ‘fingers’, which they used to feel ahead of the rest of the slippery appendage. I was trying really hard to ignore the way that they felt on my skin when the one down the back of my panties touched my anus.

“AHH! Hey!” I squealed, even as I felt my cheeks warm. The tendril pulled away for a second, but was back a moment later, again, touching me lightly all around the sphincter. As much as I wanted to deny it, the organism’s caress had a certain erotic quality to it. My fear was growing by the second, but was followed closely by an odd and confusing sense of arousal.

The tendrils felt so warm on my skin, almost hot, and they were literally dripping whatever it was that flowed from the sack. As they moved, they left slick trails that continued to feel warm and somewhat tingly even after they had passed on. I considered that the oily, honey-colored goo might actually be some kind of digestive juice, but the sensations did not turn painful. If anything, my skin felt sharply alive and sensitive.

The tendril at my rear was pressing at my sphincter again, and this time I found I didn’t have the strength to prevent its entry. One by one I felt all of the tendril’s ‘fingers’ pop inside.

“Ughnn!! No! You fuckers!” I thrashed against the bonds holding me but only succeeded in widening the gap between the top and bottom of my EV suit. Suddenly, an extremely unusual warmth filled my pelvic region and I realized that the tips of the tendril must have released some kind of liquid, or perhaps more of the oil-like substance right into my rectum. I gasped in fear, but also in response to a wash of undeniably wet pleasure that was slowly making its way through my bowels. Before I even had a chance to catch my breath, the tendril slipped out abruptly, causing me to twitch and then shudder against what was a blatantly sexual response by my body.

“T-Tim,” I called out as a slightly dizzy sense of euphoria began to fill my senses. “It put something… in me… a chemical or maybe a toxin or something. I feel… I… I shouldn’t be feeling this way…” My cheeks were burning with heat as I blushed all over, and my nipples grew so painfully stiff over the next minute or so that even the light cotton tank top felt course and abrasive against them whenever I moved.

A new fear gripped me as I felt the snake-like motion between my buttocks reach further under me. If the plant’s slippery emission had that much of an effect on me in my rectum, I couldn’t even imagine what it would do to me if it were within my vaginal canal.

“Nooo,” I moaned, feeling the light tapping of the fingers at the base of my sex. At the same time, the tendril that had been moving up over my belly reached the undersides of my breasts. The third tendril was creeping down through the soft fur of my Mons.

“Tim, where are you… speak to me! Don’t leave me alone like this!” I was having trouble concentrating. The warmth in my gut was gradually making its way into my bloodstream and spreading out through my whole body. “This thing… oh god… It’s too deliberate… Too intelligent to be… an accident. Ummm… Do you hear me? It has to know what it’s doing to me… nooo.. oh god, no… It’s touching my sex… UGHN! Hurry, p-please!”

I expected the tendril to probe its fingers into me as it had with my anus, but I was surprised when instead it ran the soft buds up and down the length of my slit, as though testing for just the right place. I could also feel that it was covering me with more of the slippery secretions. I couldn’t pull away from the wickedly sensuous touch, and the substance it was spreading on my labia left my heart racing with sexual arousal. On and on its slow torture continued until I was twisting and moaning as I panted to resist. And then the tendril which had been reaching down into my lap from the front, found the top of my cleft, specifically the now pronounced bud of my clitoris. As if this were the signal it was waiting for, the first tendril curled into me just as the second covered my most sensitive point. My whole body stiffened and then shook in white hot pleasure as sudden orgasm ripped all other thoughts from my mind. I lost my sense of time, but when I returned, it was only for a few moments. All at once, I could feel a liquid heat pulsing from the tips of the oddly phallic tendril as it released what seemed like liters of the same intoxicating fluid directly into my depths, coating and filling me until I was literally overflowing. Everywhere it touched within me, was suddenly vibrating with fiery rapture as the vile narcotics crossed quickly into my bloodstream, and a second orgasm, even stronger than the first, took me and threw me into an abyss of unstoppable pleasure.

I was drenched in sweat and hardly able to hold a breath when I was once again aware of my surroundings. The tendrils playing with my womanhood were obviously not done with me as I could still feel them swirling through my petals and gradually working deeper and deeper inside my body. The third tendril had finally curled around my left breast and was teasing the nipple there to new heights. Trails of liquid arousal dripped down my body. My eyes rolling in my head, I was too spent to do more than gasp for breath and just try to stay conscious. I wondered what had become of my lover, and images of our own lovemaking became mixed in my head with what the plant tendrils were doing to me. The one penetrating me seemed impossibly deep, and yet more and more of it continued to wriggle in. I felt myself welling into yet another moment of bliss, and when I came down this time, there was an almost uncomfortable feeling coming from deep in my pelvis, as though someone were tickling my insides.

And then, to my surprise, the tendrils slowed. Not completely ceasing their caresses, but enough that my vision cleared. The hot runnels of the plant’s aphrodisiac continued to ooze from my sex and down my thighs as a seemingly continuous deluge was released to fill every deep corner of my inner sanctum, but by now, my brain was nearly saturated with the powerful drugs.

“Tim,” I called out weakly, but there was no response, only static. I looked at the various status displays still hovering diligently in front of me, and saw that less than a half hour had passed since I had been trapped. I was incredulous. It felt like whole days had gone by the way my body ached. The tendril buried deep in my sex twitched and I sucked in my breath.

“Why?” I asked aloud. “Why are you doing this to me?… ughnnn… Do I taste good or something… ughmmm…” It was then that some motion caught my eye. The corner of my display still showed a running view from my rear-facing camera, which, given my current position, was pointed almost exactly up into the base of the large sack. What I noticed was that I could now see that a small, glowing, slug-like seedling was emerging from the pore opening. It slithered to one of the hanging tendrils and began its descent downward just as another one appeared and repeated the process. And then I realized that the tendrils didn’t go to the ground as I had seen before. The tendrils of this sack were either wrapped around my suit, holding it, and me, immobile, or literally wrapped around and in my body, driving me insane sexually.

I watched the three inch slug creep out of my camera’s view with a growing sense of dread.

“Oh no… oh god no…” I whispered, realizing the truth of my situation. The seedlings wouldn’t end up on the ground, they were going to follow the tendrils right into my suit, and then right into my body. The sack was impregnating me.

I struggled as best I could, but I was already exhausted, and the powerful euphoria from the chemicals the tendrils had secreted into me were still making it hard to even focus my eyes. My weakened body could do little more than hang there, powerless, and wait.

“Help! Tim, oh god, where the hell are you?!” I called out in desperation. On my screen I saw another two seedlings start their descent. They didn’t move very fast, but I knew that the first ones would reach me at any moment. I found myself terrified of the very idea of one of those creatures growing inside me, and what would happen as it matured. Would I give birth to some stubby tree like the ones we had seen in the caves, or would the seeds just grow and grow, feeding on me until they finally burst me open? Either way, I knew I had to stop them before they entered my body and slipped out of reach.

Every second that passed only caused my heart to beat faster in terror and anticipation, and just when I was beginning to think that perhaps the slug might be headed for the ground after all, something new touched my back. Almost hot to the touch, there was now a bulge moving along the length of the tendril leading directly under me.

“Shit… shit!” I cursed, frantic to do something, anything, in order to stop the advancing seedling. There was no doubt now where it was headed, and if the vibrating trail of pleasure it left on my skin was any indication of how it would feel going into my sex, I had only a few short minutes of conscious time left to come up with a plan. In fact, I was shocked at how good the tiny pulsing lump felt as it traveled down between my buttocks. I shivered in arousal as it crossed over my anus, but actually breathed a slight sigh of relief that it hadn’t chosen that orifice to enter into my trembling body.

“Nooo…. ughmmm… no, p-please… help m-me!… mmm…. AHHH!”

Quite suddenly, the tendril buried in my sex began to withdraw. It felt as though several feet of the appendage were sliding from within me, and a deep, nearly burning pleasure threatened to push me over the edge right there. I shook and gasped, and was brought right to the brink or ecstasy, but then it was out, leaving me panting, and with an odd sense of emptiness.

But apparently, the tendril had only withdrawn in order to allow the seedling access, for the hot slug-like organism had reached my gates and was gently wriggling in order to slip within.

“S-stop…. ughnnn!” I pleaded one last time between frantic staccato gasps for breath. But it was not to be. The withdrawn tendril’s fingers touched my labia, opening me just enough that the seedling could ease forward and start into my body.

“N-nooo.. ughmmmAHHHHH! UGHNNN! AHH! AHH!”

Between the heat, and whatever new toxin coated the little pulsating bundle, its slick body launched me immediately into a violent orgasm that seemed to go on for hours. And yet I was painfully aware of every second as the alien life-form wriggled and undulated itself further and further within my depths. I shook uncontrollably, my hips pumping against a lover that wasn’t there, and still it went deeper. I arched back and nearly pulled my own arms from their sockets in an unconscious effort to escape the terrible pleasure, but in the end, there was one final white hot flash of overwhelming ecstasy as it squeezed through what must have been my cervix, and then settled in my womb.

Still trembling, I fought just to get my eyes to focus. My strength gone, my will shattered, I was limp and almost unaware of my surroundings. Seconds passed and I slowly recovered enough to lift my head and see nothing but the slime covered moss below me. It was too late for rescue now. It was done. I could feel the heat of the seedling in my belly, its chemical excretions keeping me in a nearly constant state of blissful euphoria.

But at least it was over. The fear, for now at least, began to ebb and I felt myself finally take a deep breath and exhale. I wondered how long I would have to wait to know my fate. Would I hang there for days? Weeks? How long could I survive, and what was the gestation period for a plant? I quietly contemplated all these questions until suddenly I felt another hot touch at my back. My fear returned in an instant as I comprehended the full horror of my position. It was another seedling.

Sobbing in depression, I remembered that the other hanging sack had released nine of the tiny seeds. The thought of having to endure impregnation eight more times finally brought me to tears. I couldn’t. My body would perish in over-stimulation.

“N-no… oh god!” I whispered hoarsely as the undulating presence slowly eased under me. “I c-can’t! Ughnn! No… UGHNNN!!”

Just as before, the tendril opened me and the seedling slipped through my folds and began the devastating journey toward my uterus. My eyes wide, I was stunned to disbelief at the renewed ecstasy that rose and grew from my sex. The last thing I remember was the sound of my own screams echoing in my helmet as I was driven into erotic insanity.