Irma and I had already been riding on the armor of our all-terrain vehicle for over two hours, far beyond the camp limits. I'd never been this far. I even forgot about the "glove" on my fingers. Raids were always what I loved most here. They made me live in the present day. Sitting on armor in the taiga is strictly forbidden, but biologists violated this rule point on all planets, believing they themselves knew where it was dangerous and where it wasn't.
The all-terrain vehicle drove onto some swampy plain and moved, hugging the very edge of the forest.
"So will you tell me or not?"
"You'll see," she answered. "Careful!"
Ahead, some whitish stems hung all the way to the ground, and we, though in suits, hurried to jump into the hatch. The predatory plants of this planet impressed with their variety and size.
Inside was only the driver — that same corporal. Irma insisted we shouldn't take many people.
"You're not acquainted, by the way," she said. "This is the best corporal in our bio-company. He also came with the first wave."
The corporal, without tearing himself from the observation optics, extended his hand.
"Okamura."
Such familiarity with an officer, to put it mildly, didn't quite correspond to the charter, but Okamura did this on the rights of an old-timer. The first wave had arrived almost a year before us. So I sincerely shook his strong palm. And my lieutenant's rank, by the way, is perhaps the worst in the army. Soldiers call you behind your back exclusively "loo-ey" (especially if you're a biologist, not an assault trooper, and arrived a month ago), and those senior in rank often still treat you like a coffee-making specialist. So a handshake from a veteran corporal could even be considered an advance of trust.
"Gil," I introduced myself.
"Our guy," Irma added.
"Is he in the loop?" Okamura immediately asked.
"He's with us," she answered confidently. "And we'll bring him into the loop now. Right?"
The last "right?" was addressed to me and reinforced by the appearance on Irma's cheeks of those same magic dimples. All I needed was to get into some mess. I involuntarily touched my right fingertips. My task — impeccable service, insurance, payouts, and all that.
"In the loop about what?" I asked Irma.
"Oh, brother!" Okamura answered instead of her. "Now we'll open a new life for you. We're here!"
At these words he stopped the all-terrain vehicle. Then put on his helmet and in some imperceptibly feline manner climbed out of the hatch. It seemed he did it in one quick movement, and this in a suit! I thought the Japanese had unusual strength hidden in him.
"Don't fall behind," Irma winked at me and also easily jumped outside.
4
I tried to get out of the all-terrain vehicle as quickly as they did, but felt clumsy to myself. Yes, they're just beauties.
We stood in sparse undergrowth. The corporal was on alert — it was clear from everything that the guy took his service seriously. Irma, on the contrary, confidently headed for the nearest thickets, not even bothering to get the rifle from her back. Honestly, I was more drawn to the corporal's tense alertness. I hurried after Irma, activating the stadishot "arm" on the go — the manipulator neatly fed me the rifle. The corporal brought up the rear of our small group, ready to incinerate anything that showed aggression. And there was plenty to show aggression — ahead, literally ten steps away, a pack of bipedal reptiles scattered in all directions, quite docile at first glance. But the beast they'd killed eloquently refuted their "docility." On Ix-Chel there was some strange density of fauna: animals only gave way to humans at the last moment, managing to impress with their fearsome appearance.
Irma walked forward quickly. Here she parted the branches of a tall bush... And I froze. It was an amazing sight.
In the center of the clearing, in the middle of black volcanic sand, grew a flower. A giant five-meter flower. Four huge, bright purple petals, gracefully curved, lay on the sand. Between the petals proudly towered several semi-transparent six-meter stamens — also bright purple. The flower fluoresced with an even neon glow. And so intensely that even during the day, albeit as gloomy as now, it was noticeable. Under the light gusts of wind, the stamens swayed, as if dancing to an inaudible slow melody.
From all this beauty wafted a dizzying delicate aroma... of strawberries. That's right — the aroma didn't just resemble the smell of strawberries, it practically was it! A real, such recognizable smell of ripe wild strawberries!
"Whoa..." escaped from me.
Irma smiled with satisfaction and headed for the flower.
"Watch out!" the corporal suddenly shouted.
We immediately lowered the transparent visors of our suits and crouched, ready to shoot. The corporal was pointing at a small bush ten meters from the flower.
"I see!" Irma answered and finally got her rifle from behind her back.
I didn't see anything yet. In any case, no movement was noticeable. Irma pulled out a multivisor and looked through it, clicking the spectrum switch.
"Death beetle," she said and poked the device at me. "Look there!"
Indeed, near the petals of the purple flower sat motionlessly a gigantic insect.
"Prepare the net!" Irma commanded.
I helped the corporal get special equipment from his backpack that shoots a net and automatically tightens it on the object. We began slowly approaching the death beetle.
In open space it was hard not to notice us, but the beetle, as before, sat motionless. We were already about twenty paces away. This was strange... If it had deliberately hidden, having let us get so close, it would have started to rattle its chitin threateningly. But its behavior was atypical. Unless it was itself preparing to attack us while we thought we were hunting it...
An unpleasant chill arose in my chest. I took a few more steps... And exhaled, lowering my rifle. Now you could clearly distinguish sand and bird droppings on the death beetle's carapace. Dead.
Irma also straightened up, walked over, and kicked the dead beetle with her toe.
"Wow... Come look," she called.
I approached. The strawberry aroma intensified dizzyingly. More than anything in the world I wanted right now to eat a small fragrant berry. I even caught myself mechanically looking under my feet, as if strawberries could really grow here. But around, of course, there was only sand, shimmering in the purple light with an anthracite gleam.
I forced myself to focus on the dead creature. From the ground to the death beetle's carapace stretched numerous very thin white outgrowths resembling either some kind of roots or worms...
"Something grew into it?"
Irma didn't answer. I looked again at the flower, whose petals spread on both sides of us about two meters away. Their surface was by no means smooth, as it seemed from a distance — it was densely covered with long transparent bristles. More precisely, even — fuzz. I tried to imagine what it felt like to touch, and for some reason it became unpleasant — I remembered a caterpillar from the tent caterpillar family, which we in childhood called "hairy." Its body is also covered with very thin long hairs, and the skin itched for a long time after contact with it...
"And here's another," Irma hooked the edge of another death beetle's carapace with her toe, almost completely buried under a layer of sand.
I couldn't tear my eyes from the flower. Something was wrong with it... If you didn't count my associations with caterpillars, it was beautiful. The stamens danced just as charmingly in the wind, and the aroma was intoxicating. And strangely, when we got closer, the smell didn't become either unpleasant or stupefying, but instead became somehow voluminous and so strikingly delicious that saliva flowed. New notes opened in it, and I wanted to climb inside the flower to feel how it smelled there...
Irma bent over the second death beetle. From below it also turned out to be "stitched" to the soil with white threads, but the carapace was already almost empty.
"It rotted from the inside!" Irma said. "We know there are no putrefactive bacteria on this planet, but this death beetle did rot! Look!"
Where the outgrowths penetrated the body, it was indeed as if rotten. Only I didn't smell any characteristic odor. I didn't smell anything at all except strawberry fragrances.
"Interesting..." I said, though truthfully, the "dancing" flower worried me more now. "Listen, is it just me, or is something wrong with this flower?!"
"Everything's fine, lieutenant," the corporal said. "We've been here before."
"And it's not a flower," Irma purred, still looking at the death beetle. "Come on. I'll introduce you closer."
And she resolutely walked straight to the purple plant. The flower seemed to come alive. The petals noticeably trembled, and the stamens swayed toward Irma.
"Irma..."
But she cut me off with a hand gesture. The stamens bent. Their tips were now at the level of Irma's head, they swayed unpleasantly. Like cobras.
I stopped, not knowing what to do. Looked back at the corporal. He showed me an "okay" sign. Like, don't freak out, kid...
Meanwhile Irma slowly raised her right hand, as if she was going to grab these stamens. And froze. About three seconds passed, when suddenly one stamen darted to the visor of her helmet with the swiftness of a viper attacking. Irma dodged with a lightning movement, grabbing the stamen with her hand. And in the other she already held a plastic bag, into which she stuck the tip of the stamen and shook it well. The bag immediately became covered inside with some black filth. As if something from the stamen (or whatever it was) squirted in there... Irma immediately released it and stepped to the next one.
It swayed toward her, but was also caught. Irma stuffed it into the same bag. She managed to "milk" two more stamens, when suddenly the next purple outgrowth turned out too clever. Slipping from Irma's hand, it darted to her face and spat a thick black cloud right at the visor.
"Overdose!" the corporal said cheerfully behind my back.
The cloud hung around the helmet, settling on the glass. Irma laughed at this joke understandable only to them, wiping the visor with her glove.
"Is this dangerous?" I asked.
He shrugged.
"She's in the helmet."
Meanwhile Irma caught a new stamen and also "milked" it into the bag.
"That's enough for today," she finally said and held out the bag to me. "Here!"
I stepped toward her.
"Careful!!!" Irma barked, pointing at one of the purple petals under my feet. "Step on it — you'll be very surprised."
I carefully walked around the petals and took the bag from her hands. There was about a liter of some very light, very fine pollen.
"Let's get out!" Irma commanded, and we returned to the all-terrain vehicle.