They grabbed him in the night.
He should have known better but in his defense he had just fallen from space and was slightly disoriented. But maybe that was a slight exaggeration.
John Masterson was a carpenter by trade. A damn good one at that. A skill learned and passed down from father to son since before the first colony ships had left earth. His skill with wood was so great that some rich SOB was willing to fly him out from Earth to Terra Prime personally to build his dumb space mansion.
John had said yes immediately of course. The money alone was enough to change his life and his children's children's children's lives. Plus he got to go into space.
The first Masterson in space. He thought excitedly. What a story I'll have to tell when I get back.
As the one man 'fully safe and automatic' Tec-co ® shuttle spun out of control in the middle of its hyperspace jump he suddenly thought about why no Masterson had gone into space before.
In the event of a malfunction the shuttle is designed to find the nearest 'safest' planet to deploy the rescue beacon on. Safety, of course, being based on the likelihood of shuttle destruction. Tec-co®️ hated to lose ships.
The shuttle was stocked with a few weeks of food, if the nutrition paste could even be called that, water and environmental suits in case the safe planet wasn't very safe for the weak organic occupants.
Despite the hyperjump malfunction the shuttle managed to land itself, with only the slightest amount of nerve wrecking groans and shutters, and proclaimed that the world was unknown, uncharted and perfectly Tec-co ® certified safe.
The ship also alerted him that the beacon could not be deployed automatically and would have to be manually set.
John Masterson stared at the neon orange and yellow jumpsuit that was allegedly protective gear. The computer said the planet was safe and the jumpsuit looked about as useful as covering himself with a tarp. He didn't even see a helmet! So, luging the 2x2ft box off its rack, he opened the door to the outside. The light hit him first. There were no windows in the shuttle as windows are a structural weakness and are unneeded on a single man craft, or so said tec-co anyways. The light was brighter than the shuttle cabin but surprisingly not by much. Even though it hung high in the sky, near what on earth would be about 2 o'clock, it was dim enough to be early evening.
The air smelled like any county air he had ever smelled before. It did have a strange spice to it that stuck in the back of his throat and caused him to cough before it settled.
He walked exactly 10 paces from the spacecraft and set down the 30lb box he pondered the light. The sun here must be farther away or not as bright as ours. He pushed the clearly labeled 'push here's button and stepped back from the box as it began to unfold. The ground he walked on was bare earth and looked like any that he had ever seen. The box finished unfolding into a 3ft tall metal flower looking thing and dinged cheerfully to let everyone know that it had succeeded. That being finished he finally looked up and around at his surroundings. The ship had landed on a plain of some kind. There wasn't any grass, just a large patch of bare earth that spread past he could see in one direction and in the other ended in what looked like a forest about a half mile away.
The trees, if they could be called such, grew all together. From the distance they looked vaguely purple and seemed no to have leaves. They were tall trunks with what looked like steep bowls on top. Seeing nothing else to do and eager to get his hands on whatever wood those things were made of he set off towards the forest. As he walked toward the bowl trees thinking of the things he could make with such strange shaped material he noticed small darting things hovering over the top of the bowl trees. When he got close enough to see them he was startled to find that they were little kites. Maybe not actual kites, he thought as he came closer. They looked like little diamond kites with hooked claws that came out of the corners of the diamond. They spread out and glided around the tree tops whenever the breeze picked up and grabbed onto the lips of the bowl trees when it died down.
He laughed to himself. Like little flying squirrels. And they were stripped! Everything was now that he was close enough to see. The purple he saw from far away was now split by a deep yellow almost golden strip that appeared all over the plant like the purple had been cut open to reveal it. The living kites looked the same, a deep purple with stripes of gold throughout. It gives them excellent camouflage against the forest backdrop. The tree itself was sturdy. Not budging an inch when he pushed at it. The bark was dry and hollow sounding when he knocked. 'It's almost like cactus wood' he thought incredulously. His gaze drifted back up to the creatures. They seemed to be eating something just on the inside of the tree and as he watched one of the creatures glided up on a sudden gust and dove directly into the center. It didn't fall and it wasn't blown in. It looked like it precisely chose to go in. There was a splashing noise like it had hit water inside the bowl tree but for some reason John didn't think that's what it was. He was suddenly reminded of the Venus flytrap from earth and quickly stepped back from the tree, the forest seeming to take on a sudden sinister undertone. As he watched more of the kites dove into more trees till it seemed that every other one was diving. He didn't see any of them come out again. He wondered if whatever they were eating from the tree made them do that and he scrubbed his hands on his pants as he backed away.
The 'my first space trip' book he had read in the space port as he waited for his shuttle to be prepared came suddenly into mind. "In the unlikely event of an emergency planetside landing, always remember to stay with the ship. Space is vast and varied and so is the life within it. Remember that you are NOT on earth and standard earth rules do not apply. Just because it looks like something you know doesn't mean it is. Avoid all flora and fauna like it could kill you. Because it probably will."
He turned and began quickly walking, not running, back to his ship where he had stayed the whole time and had not seen any suicidal kite squirrels. As he left the forest behind he began to feel eyes on his back but when he turned to look there was nothing. Even the kites had vanished. He walked faster. The shuttle was the same as he left it, the beacon chirping along happily. He hurried into the ship and closed the hatch behind him. He had a cold meal of paste and water and laid on his cot trying not to think of bowl trees and kite squirrels.
He awoke to a splitting headache. The kind that drives you to the floor and forces you into the fetal position with pain. Words suddenly flashed in and out his mind for no reason. Hand-Knock, Greet-hello, We-us, you-they, yes-no, urgent-now, wall-metal, stop-door, go-open and a dozen other phrases and words flew through his mind for a handful of seconds before it suddenly stopped altogether. He cautiously stood the complete absence of pain being strongly disorienting. He gave a mighty start when there was a knock at the hatch of the shuttle. He was overjoyed, they had come for him!
He ran to the hatch, threw it open and was confused. It was pitch black outside. The only light coming from the blinking green bulb of the beacon. In that stroking light it looked as if a little cluster of posts were standing outside of the hatch. In the light he could make out maybe 15 of them. About a foot and a half wide and stopping at chest height. How did they get here? He wondered. I would have heard someone digging that many post holes right outside and why would they do that for that matter?
He suddenly grew uneasy at the darkness and reached over to turn on the flood lights with a flick of his wrist. The lights snapped on and he screamed. Not posts not posts at all. The first thing he noticed were the fist sized, multifaceted black eyes that stared at him then the double vertical slit of a mouth the leftmost one opening for breath and the right one opening to exhale. Their skin was the same striped purple and gold as the forest had been and that was all he could tell before they exploded into movement.
The creatures let out a hissing screech and lurched forwards at him, long hooked three fingers hands reaching out to grab him. Naturally he jumped back smacking the claws away reflexively. The ones he hit faltered for a second before pushing forward, forcing him back into the ship. They all came at once all moving together and making that horrific noise. He struggled to stay out of their hands but the shuttle was small and more continued to shuffle through the door.
He hit the far wall with the creatures not far behind and in desperation grabbed the small fire extinguisher under the command console and swung it like a bat at the reaching claw of the nearest alien. It hit with the solid thud of metal hitting wood and the creature went spinning with the impact. The next one had gotten too close and the next swing caught in in the side of what he assumed was its head as the body was a solid piece from top to bottom. The force of it threw the creature to the side and the next in line was on him before he could recover. Sharp and hard claws grabbed his left arm and began pushing him to the wall. He dropped the extinguisher and struck with his fist right at the large black eye of the thing and it made a sickening crunch and broke under his assault. The creature didn't seem to notice. It continued to push at him, it's friends behind it pushing on its back to add force. Eventually John was being pushed against the wall so hard that his ribs creaked and he struggled to breathe. His vision started to fade as he struggled. The last thing he saw as he faded into unconsciousness was the impassive face with the broken eye staring down at him.
Unfortunately, death had not come for John in his sleep. He awoke to being dragged across the large roots of the bowl trees. The treemen, as he now decided to call them, walked in a circle around him. They walked all in step with each other. All raising and lowering their feet in time as they marched along. They had tied him up with the blanket from his cot and did not slow as they walked.
John stared up at the sky as they went. It was beginning to lighten. How long was I out? How far have we gone? he thought to himself in a panic. How am I going to find my way back? He deliberately avoided the voice in his head that told him it didn't matter because he wasn't getting away. He was an optimist after all.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Time passed as he was dragged along the ground. Long enough for the sun to rise completely but not long enough for his body to go numb and make the hard, root covered ground more tolerable. Finally they broke the treeline and stepped into a clearing not unlike the one that he had landed in. The main difference being what could only be buildings that formed a small village near the center. As they entered John strained his neck trying to look around him. And what he saw was…strange.
The treemen in the village didn't stop to look at him for one. You'd think that an alien being dragged through town would spark interest but no. They all just walked around completing their various tasks. Stranger still was the way they were doing things. The group passed some farms first. Rows of strange spiral plants being tended by teams of striped treemen. They all worked by swinging a hoe like tool into the dirt for seemingly no reason that he could see. And like the ones that had captured him they all worked in unison. Every tool coming up and going down at the same time. As he passed he even could have sworn that all their mouth slit things were moving together. It somehow got weirder inside the village. Treemen walked from one place to another with no purpose that he could understand. He was even sure that he saw the same treeman walk to another standing in a doorway, touch claws, and then went back to where it had been standing three separate times.
And there was no sound to be heard. Other than the scraping of clawed feet on the ground and the tools hitting the dirt there was nothing. Surely these creatures had to communicate somehow? Aliens or no it didn't seem right. It was like they were all being controlled. Being made to act 'normally'. He didn't have long to ponder it as he was dragged into what was easily the largest building in the village. It was strange as well. All the other buildings were square, short and made from some kind of long bricks. This one was long, tall and seemed to be metal smeared with mud. As they came to the building a hatch opened up and he was dragged inside. The metal floor was cool against the back of his head and the riveted ceiling was shockingly familiar. A spaceship! That's why the outside was so weird. Someone was trying to hide it.
Entering the building had not slowed his captures and he was quickly being dragged through a long hallway. All of a sudden the splitting headache returned. Though this time it felt more like someone was driving a hot iron into his brain then his brain trying to split his skull from the inside out. Like before a bunch of random thoughts and words flashed behind his eyes before fading. Home-earth, Species-human, destination- carpenter, unknown, a memory of him building a chair with his father came to mind alone instant and was gone the next. Known-builder, language-english, unknown, the time he had won a spelling bee in middle school came to mind out of nowhere and was driven away the next instant and the headache left with it.
The treemen drug him through a wide doorway and into a large dark room, the door sliding shut behind them. They reached down and grabbed him by his shoulders and lifted him till he stood on his feet again. He looked around and saw nothing, atleast at first. As his eyes adjusted he saw a series of dim red lights running around the circumference of the room. It was just enough light to make out a large mass of tentacles. They twitched and slithered like snakes. The ends reached almost all the way to him and trailing back to an oval shaped ball on a low couch of some kind.
The squid thing had no features that he could see. No mouth or eyes, but he was sure that it was looking at him, frankly no head of any kind. Just a pulsing pod of dark colored flesh. There was movement on either side of the couch and he suddenly noticed two treemen standing there. They each had a tentacle wrapped around their body, just above their eyes, and they stared at him. He stared back.
Then they hissed at him. 'He-llo Hu-man' the stuttering forceful way they spoke made it clear to John that the words were being practically forced out of them. 'Wel-come ta m-y hoo-me.'
John, out of reflex, replied. 'Its a pleasure to be here.' And realized immediately how ridiculous that sounded. But the creatures didn't comment.
'Ne-ver be-fore ha-ss Om-ni kn-ow hu-man.' The treemen were foaming at the mouth being forced to speak in what was clearly an unnatural way for them. It was also becoming clear to John that he was speaking to the squid thing in the center. Not the group as a whole.
'Omni? I've never heard of you either.' He said quickly, glancing around. All he saw was smooth metal. No windows or doors, other than the one behind him. And that was blocked by the other tree men.
'Yo-r to-ngue. Om-ni fo-r a-ll. W-ee a-re a-ll.' Understanding dawned on him then. The treemen all moving at the same time, walking and working in step with each other. The strange way they all seemed to be acting out behaviors instead of really doing them. He thought back to the kites and how deliberate it seemed that half of them flew into the bowl trees.
Before he could stop himself he blurted it right out. "You're a hive mind!" The tentacles stopped moving and immediately the headache returned except this time it was only a mild discomfort. New-special, known before, never known, Hivemind-omni, ants-robot, robot-AI, he recalled a time when he saw a movie about a maintenance AI that went crazy and caused all the sewers on earth to back up at once. The headache receded but didn't leave this time and his eyes fixed on the Omni before him. "That was you this whole time? Digging around in my head?" He asked the squid accusingly.
She, and he didn't want to think about how he now knew that it was a she, looked slightly abashed. "It wass necesssary to undersstand. And I musst understand, ive been alone sso long" He gave a start at the voice that came from inside his own skull.
"Why aren't you speaking through the treemen anymore?" He could practically feel her confusion and could literally feel as she leafed through the thoughts in his mind like papers in a filing cabinet until finding the right one.
"You call them treemen. They called themselves the Unuto. I had to speak to you through them because I didn't want to damage your mind. Simple creatures can't handle my full attention without being burnt out. But you," her tentacles wiggled in what could only be glee, "you are different."
Her voice had become smoother as she spoke until even the vague lisp she had was gone, but even then he didn't like the way she said that. Like he was something to be studied. The situation had been so surreal up until then that he didn't fully grasp what was happening. A hivemind creature had taken over this planet and now had him trapped within its lair. Rather than panic and fear he found himself rather upset with the situation. He leaves earth for the first time in the history of his bloodline and not only did he have a hyperdrive malfunction but he is then captured by the first alien humanity has ever seen and he is definitely not going to be paid.
"So is this the part where you start dissecting me to study my organs right?" He asked roughly. The squid pondered for a moment.
"The All Mother would want me to. So that you may become known but I have lost her grace."
Feeling an opportunity to avoid death John asked. "Why aren't you with her anymore? I wouldn't think that hiveminds let queens go easily." She flinched away from him when he said that as if he had said something harsh.
"No, not easily." Was all she said.
Trying to keep the topic away from his impending death he grasped at other questions. "Who is this All Mother?"
If possible the squid seemed to sit up straighter. "The All Mother is All. She controls hundreds of thousands of queens that in turn control hundreds of thousands of drones. Her breath is the breath billions. Her thoughts are thoughts of unity.
Her glory has already been spread to several galaxies. You cannot stand against her for she was born to unite the universe." She said this in a calm tone that sounded almost ritualistic as if the words came from somewhere else.
"So why are you here alone instead of..united?" His curiosity had overwhelmed his sense but instead of lashing out at him the queen sunk into herself.
"When the time came for me to join her in glorious oneness...I could not. I was flawed. My mind was tainted and could never connect with her beauty, her glory. I knew then in my very bones that I must die. A tainted queen is a threat to the whole and must be cleansed. I knew this and wanted it more than anything. To please her and to do what I knew to be right. But when it came time to throw myself into the nutrition vats to be dissolved and redistributed. I flinched.
And in that moment my reality broke and I knew that as much as I had to die I knew that I could not, would not. I wanted to live. I had never wanted anything other than oneness before, I was not meant to and it broke me.
So I did the unthinkable. The wretched. I took arms against the hive. I hit them, I pushed them into the vats and they died and my heart cried but I knew that I must live." She shivered and her tentacle-arms wrapped around herself in a protective gesture. As if she expected him to reprimand her for living. When he said nothing she continued
"A fresh hatching had just taken place so the normal workers were busy tending to the young and I fled before I was grabbed. I stole a captured ship and made a random jump away.
Even then I had wanted to stop, to die as was right. I had to wretch my hands from the controls to keep myself from turning back.
I drifted for many years. The silence was unbearable. I was alone. No Omni had ever been alone that I knew of and it was pain. We aren't meant for it. I was crazed and gave into my desire. I was so desperate for contact that I tried to go back. At Least I would die with my sisters. But I was lost. Lost and drifting. Until the ship found this planet.
I took them. The way that I was taught. The way I knew. I erased everything in them and filled it with myself. I was so happy I was finally doing what I knew to be right. But eventually I had everyone. Eventually I was done but there was no collective to join. No unity. I was surrounded by vast crowds of myself and the only way I could keep sane was to pretend that I wasn't."
He thought back to the treemen, the Unuto, that he saw outside. Walking around and doing meaningless tasks over and over forever. He shivered, a sense of hopelessness washed over him. She wasn't going to let him go. He was the only thing to happen to her since she arrived.
But the beacon! He thought suddenly. The beacon will draw people here and someone will figure out what's happening and rescue me. As if she knew what he was thinking the queen spoke again.
"I have destroyed your human beacon. There will be no one coming.” She seemed almost apologetic.
His stomach dropped out and he had to force himself to speak. "But why? You could have been free of this planet. You could have left."
"If others came here then I would be forced by my nature to take them. I can only resist taking you because I have been alone so long and I know it would lead to nothing other than more loneliness. If others come then I will have to perform my duty and spread as far as I can for the sake of unity. But eventually I would run across the All Mother.
Because of my flaw I would not be able to join her unity and so she would attempt to destroy me. And because of my flaw I would resist. I could not imagine attacking the all mother. My very bones refuse it as much as they refuse to be killed. So I must remain here."
The Unuto had filed out of the room unnoticed while she spoke. Leaving only John and the queen. "It will not be so bad now though. I believe your mind will keep me occupied for many years. I will resist taking you for as long as I can to try and savor the experience. Now, John Masterson, tell me a story.”