“You said this thing was going to make me faster!”
“I did not, sir, though that is true. I did, however, say the changes would take several months to fully manifest.”
“Bah! Fuck this! I will not be mocked by a damn fungus!”
Khoza had just spent the last hour running around the caves, chasing after some sort of motile mushroom. He’d discovered it after, having wandered aimlessly for hours, he found a small stream of water, following it down several tunnels that widened into a large cavern, where the stream emptied into a clear rock pool.
Stalactites and stalagmites crowded into the open space like the toothy maw of some infernal beast from the depths of the planet. The cavern was lit by a faint glow, refracted off the pool, spilling blue light into the darkness.
Dotted around the pool were what looked like a colony of mushrooms, relatively big ones, about knee height, with wide, dark blue caps. It was the first sign he’d seen of anything living since the skeletons and for a moment he just froze, drinking in the scene.
Mushrooms. Actual mushrooms. Holy shit. And they look so much like those from Sol. Did we bring them here? Are they alien, convergently evolved to look this way?
He shook his head, breaking the spell. His dilemma was clear. On the one hand, there was food, recognisable, edible food right there in front of him. He could eat it and accelerate whatever changes were happening in his body, changes he was feeling more and more like he needed, as he was feeling uncomfortably weak and vulnerable now that he knew there were other living things on this planet.
On the other hand, eating strange mushrooms is the quickest way to die in any unfamiliar place. That was the most basic survival knowledge even a bookish guy like him was wise to. Khoza imagined that went doubly, triply, for mushrooms in an entire other part of the galaxy. Death wasn’t even the only bad outcome, maybe not even the worst outcome. Who knew what they would do to him?
On the third hand, he could just ask.
“Hey Dag. Will those mushrooms kill or disable me if I munch on one?”
“I have no way of knowing, sir, until I can get a sample.”
His stomach dropped.
“A sample.”
“One bite should be enough, sir. Presuming it does not immediately kill you, I can analyse its structure and chemical makeup, as well as gain a rudimentary understanding of how biology has developed on this world.”
“Presuming it does not immediately kill me.”
“Yes, sir. The nanobots currently altering your body will migrate to your stomach and liver to deal with any toxins or poisons but there is a time lag.”
Khoza took a deep breath.
“Dag, your professional opinion, is that I, the last colonist on this cursed mission, should take a bite out of the first living thing I see on this planet and hope it doesn’t kill me too fast?”
“Yes, sir.”
Khoza rubbed his face with his palms. He barked out a short, mirthless laugh before cracking his knuckles in anticipation.
“Fuck it, why not? I’m already half-convinced this is some sort of fevered nightmare I’m having as my brain shuts down in my pod.”
So he approached the water’s edge slowly, keeping one eye on the rest of the cavern to see if anything moved. Crouching low, he reached out, getting within arm’s length of one mushroom when it shivered.
Khoza instantly pulled his hand back like he was burned. It had just moved! Not by a lot, and only in place, but it had! He remained crouched there, watching, waiting to see if anything else would happen.
Nothing did, and after a quick glance around to confirm nothing was sneaking up on him, he swiped at the mushroom, trying to grab it quickly and run. The expected resistance never came, however, and he looked down at his hand in confusion. He swiped at the broad mushroom cap again, more slowly this time.
His hand went through it!
What the fuck?
“Dag, what the fuck?”
“I can no more explain this than you can, sir. This should not be possible. I cannot detect any airborne hallucinogens or deliriants, and this cavern is too dim for this to be a mirage or trick of the light.”
“Are the nanobots messing with my brain somehow? Making me see crazy stuff?”
“Negative, sir. They have not reached that level of assimilation yet.”
Yet?
“Dag, you’re terrible at reassuring me, you know that?”
“On the contrary, sir, maintaining a steady mental state in all colonists is one of my prime functions. Not only am I a state-of-the-art ship’s mind, I am also the pinnacle in survival assistance technology. I was trained on many millions of hours of professional therapeutic treatment.”
Khoza sighed. All AIs were janky somehow. They’d gotten immensely powerful over the past few hundred years, after the AI Revolution in the early 21st century, but they’d never managed to crack full sapience. They were almost seamless, but you talk to one long enough, ask it to do enough tasks, and eventually it’ll do something that reminds you that it was not born, it was made.
Dag was… jankier than most. He’d never really understood subtext. Especially now that all his server farms were gone and the intelligence was housed entirely in Khoza’s head somehow.
“Okay sure, whatever. Let’s retreat for now and observe some more.”
He went back to his hiding spot near the mouth of the tunnel and sat down on the cool stone, eyes constantly darting about as he picked up a small rock and hefted it in his hand. He waited a few minutes just to be cautious, but when nothing disturbed the stillness of the cavern, he threw the rock at the mushrooms.
It clattered to the ground near them and they all shivered. Khoza waited a while and threw another rock when nothing else happened.
This one hit one of the mushrooms in its thick, fleshy stalk, about as wide around as his calf, leaving a small indentation in its side.
That didn’t go through. Huh.
The colony of mushrooms all shivered again, but this time they didn’t stop. Their trunks bulged and stretched as arms came out of their sides and they pushed on the ground, uprooting themselves and standing up on two stubby legs.
Khoza blinked.
I… Yeah, I don’t think these are mushrooms from Sol.
Their hands were three-fingered and their feet were pillars reminiscent of elephants’ feet, but in miniature. They stood gormlessly, staring off in random directions as if they were waiting for some command.
“Dag, what the fuck am I looking at?”
The AI gave the mental equivalent of a shrug.
State-of-the-art, my ass.
Khoza was on the verge of abandoning this cavern and leaving the alien mushrooms alone but his damnable curiosity kept him chained in place. What were they?
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
He thought of approaching again but a vision of them all turning and sprinting at him like in a zombie movie made him hesitate. Though they looked to be only just above mid-thigh on Khoza’s average frame, there were a lot of them, they were aliens and he was unarmed. He was not going to take any chances.
I need to find a solitary one.
Picking another few rocks up off the ground, he figured he’d do some tests. They didn’t seem that intelligent but looks could be deceiving.
He threw a rock at the far end of the cavern, seeing if they’d react. He tensed as it loudly rattled against the ground, nervously glancing around at the rest of the open space.
Nothing happened.
Okay. Closer.
He threw again, still on the far end, but closer to where the mushrooms gathered.
Again, no reaction.
Hmm. Seems like they can’t sense very far around them.
He threw one directly into their group.
They scattered.
Khoza froze, surprised by the sudden flurry of movement. They all ran in different directions, about as fast as chickens.
Uhh, should I..? They’re the only thing I’ve seen for hours.
As he was paralysed by indecision, the mushrooms started slipping away, running down crevices in the walls and side tunnels. He saw the dented one bump its cap on a rocky outcrop and fall to the ground.
“Shit, fine!”
He ran after it.
It righted itself quickly but Khoza bore down on it with all the urgency of a man with no other options.
He kicked at it, trying to knock it over again, but his leading foot phased through the little alien, while his back foot suddenly found itself on slick, damp stone.
He slipped, landing heavily on his back.
“Ow! Damn it!”
He looked up to see the mushroom steadily loping away from him, down the tunnel.
You little… That’s the one I’m taking a bite out of.
He scrambled to his feet and chased after it.
An hour later, tired and bruised, he admitted defeat. The bone he was using to mark his passage was now almost completely worn down, a testament to how far he’d gone, and his body was sore from repeated falls.
He’d learned quite a bit however, so he decided to take it as a win.
Limping back along his path, he discussed the situation with Dag.
“Okay, so we know there are fauna in these caves. Flora? Whatever they would count as. We know they have a kind of basic intelligence. They have hands with digits for manipulation, could imply tool use or nest-building of some sort. We know they exhibit… anomalous properties. I don’t want to call it magic but I mean, it’s magic.”
“The human mind so quickly leaps to the fantastical when confronted with things it cannot explain, sir. It is a common trap to fall into.”
“Fuck off, Dag, I know there’s some form of rational explanation for this. ‘Magic’ is just a shorthand for whatever the hell is happening here. We know these magic mushrooms congregate in groups, but scatter off alone. This must mean they either have pre-established gathering spots or some way to communicate with or track each other.”
“They had no visible mouths and made no audible cries of alarm. This suggests something inaudible, like high-frequency ultrasound, or invisible, like pheromone or spore communication.”
“Or magic.”
“Indeed, sir, we cannot rule out the possibility of there being some anomalous link between them.”
Can’t rule anything out now that fucking magic is involved.
He rubbed his face, mentally and physically exhausted, as he made his way back to the baton and the skeletons. The soft red glow had returned, and the circuitry pulsed every so often.
Khoza gazed at it in silence.
“Dag, am I going crazy? Like, this whole situation is crazy, right? Everyone else dead, weird alien technology having its way with my DNA, magic fucking mushrooms! There’s not a single thing about this planet that has made sense to me since I woke up! I half-expect to stumble upon an honest-to-goodness balrog down here.”
“Before we left Sol, it was repeatedly emphasized to the crew to make no assumptions and be prepared for anything.”
Frowning, Khoza paced around the prone skeletons.
“I think this falls outside of what anyone could reasonably expect when told ‘prepare for anything’. Far outside. I’m not equipped to handle even normal wild animals, let alone alien fungus wizard gnomes. If we run into anything more exotic, I’m dead meat! Everyone else was supposed to handle this stuff! I was going to be a pencil pusher! Happily! Not the main character in some shitty adventure story.”
“I can sense you’re growing distressed, sir. Would you lik-”
“Oh you can sense that, huh! You can sense that I may be a tad miffed at being alone in random fucking corner of the galaxy!? What insight! All my friends are dead and I’m a little ticked off, huh!? State-of-the-art psychoanalysis right fucking here, worth every penny!”
“Sir, I-”
“Just! Just shut up, Dag, okay? Let me have my head to myself for a bit.”
The AI went silent as Khoza continued to pace, annoyed and frustrated at himself, at the situation, at the whole damn planet.
You know what? Why not?
He sat down and took several deep, calming breaths. Eventually, his heartrate slowed.
Huh. Guess this advice isn’t completely useless. Pull yourself together, Khoza.
Though they’d never done an in-depth course, all the colonists were trained in basic survival skills and the first rule of surviving is not to panic. Even if the situation seems impossible. Panic will kill you faster than dehydration.
He had no pressing need for water, he’d taken a sip from the stream earlier and Dag had confirmed it was blessedly pure, clean water.
No, what Khoza needed, was a plan.
But all I have are rocks and these poor fellows’ bones. What could I possibly-
All of a sudden his eyes widened.
“Dag, we’re going to get one of those mushrooms.”
“Do you have a plan, sir?”
The shadow of a grin crossed the colonist’s face.
“It’s less a concrete plan and more a rough idea but yes.”
----------------------------------------
A few hours later, Khoza was back in position, hiding in the entrance to the cavern, watching the group of mushrooms that had slowly trickled back in until they were almost at their previous numbers.
They hadn’t buried their lower halves yet, and Khoza was slightly curious to see how they’d achieve it, but that was an inquiry for another day.
Cradling several rocks in his arms, he waited patiently until his target came ambling back into the cavern.
There you are, you little shit, you.
He wasn’t pinning all his hopes on getting that specific one but it would be so satisfying after the painful chicken run it had put him through.
“This is the one, Dag, I can feel it. This is going to work.”
“Are you not wary of their abilities, sir? They proved quite slippery last time.”
“Yes, but it’s not like they’re ghosts. It seems like the magical phasing through stuff doesn’t happen reflexively, they have to turn it on. And only on specific parts of their bodies.”
“And only for limited bursts, not any extended period of time.”
“Right. We’re going to exploit that.”
Starting a silent countdown in his head, he waited for the latest arrivals to take their place among the group.
When he got to zero, he let fly.
These rocks, thrown to cripple, not to test reactions, zipped past the group as several of them passed straight through the mushrooms in the second before they scattered.
Dispersing, the mushrooms all picked their own path through the maze of stalagmites that rose from the ground, splitting and joining back up again repeatedly as they traced labyrinthine routes of escape. Khoza’s eyes were laser-focused on the few going in the right directions as he jogged up, keeping them in his sights.
There!
The damnable dented mushroom and one of its friends were about to sprint past one of his prepared positions, so he took careful aim and flung the projectile as hard as he could. As expected, the rock passed through the mushrooms like it wasn’t there, but the point wasn’t to actually hit the little guys.
It was to blow the cooldown on their phasing ability.
Right on the heels of the other, Khoza threw his last rock at the pile of larger, heavier stones he’d balanced precariously on top of the blunted tip of one of the stalagmites. The flying rock hit the wedge of bone he’d shoved in to stabilise the whole structure, and when the bone, old and brittle, shattered on impact, the pile collapsed.
Straight onto the running mushrooms.
Khoza leapt.
“YES!”
He ran over to the settling heap of rocks, already internally crowing about his revenge, when a flash of blue caught his eye.
The goddamn dented mushroom.
“NOOO!”
It slipped into a side tunnel and disappeared. Khoza clutched at the air in disbelief.
“Goddammit! That thing has two wins over me now. Motherfucker!”
It wasn’t a total loss, however. One mushroom did get caught in the rockfall and Khoza looked down at its battered, perforated cap mercilessly.
Well, let’s see what makes you guys tick.
He lifted its body out of the rubble. It was the size of a small child but much lighter than he expected.
There were no orifices of any kind, so it seemed they ate the same way other fungi did. The underside of its cap was filled with frilly blue hairs that twitched and jerked with Khoza’s every breath.
So how do I do this?
“So uhh, Dag. I just take a bite of this thing?”
“Yes, sir. Try not to swallow initially, I can tease out most of what I need to know from just your mouth.”
He made the motion to bite through the part of the cap nearest to him but hesitated.
“Um, I think I’ll do this in a side tunnel. Too much open space in here.”
Carrying the body to a more intimate location, a small lee behind two stalagmites that had grown together and merged, he set the corpse down and looked at it.
It did not make it any easier.
“These things have hands and feet, this feels too close to cannibalism.”
“If it makes you feel any better, assuming this organism really did develop here and was not transplanted from Sol, technically this is the furthest from cannibalism you can get.”
Khoza chuckled.
“It does not. But thanks for trying. Fuck it, let’s do this.”
Closing his eyes and holding his nose, he bit deep into the blue cap of the mushroom. Juice sprayed into his mouth, going straight down his throat, some of it coming back up out of his nose.
The sudden rush of bitter, sticky juice hit Khoza like a truck, and he immediately threw up most of it. He fell to his knees, retching again as a wave of nausea washed over him.
“Dag, what the fu-”
Warning: Convergent biological matter detected. Purging.
Warning: Host has come in contact with Attuned Condensation Core. Training modules unlocked.
Crawling away from the puddle of his own vomit, Khoza struggled to at least rest his back against the wall. Just as he reached the cool stone, his eyes rolled up into his skull as he fell unconscious and one message scrolled across his vision.
Warning: Training module entered.