Birth of the Sporemorph Hunter

Oscar did not remember how he ended up there. The chamber was porous, letting a sliver of light in. He learned that if he pressed his palms against the walls, they would not yield, and if he scratched them, kicked them, elbowed them, it did not leave a dent. It was a musty, foul, humid coffin of a space that forced him to sleep upright, except it was without a lid - or any entrance for that matter.

The light never dimmed, unless something passed by and blocked it. At first he would grow still when shade was cast on the chamber. Then he shouted, pleaded and swore; still, the indifferent shapes drifted by, and paid him no heed. Attempts to radio for help produced empty static.

He remembered himself, that he was a mechanic on Serendipity, and that he still had some of his - now useless - tools and an energy bar in the satchel. He carefully rationed it until the last specks of sugar were licked off the wrapper.

Somehow, fungi found their way inside the chamber: clusters of pale fruiting bodies and a web of mycelium threaded into the caked debris. He thought about consuming them, then thought against it. At the colony, they had not yet established agricultural facilities, and food came tightly packaged from the storage. He had no inkling what those mushrooms were, or how much agony a fatal mistake would leave him in.

***

Four gunshots thundered through the grove.

The beast was briefly in plain view. One bullet lodged itself in its fungi-infested frame. Another popped a cluster of buboes that spat out a spore cloud.

It was over very quickly for Devon, his wailing silenced in a single decapitating strike. The other two, paralyzed by indecision, stared at the gore. Back at Serendipity, the radio crackled with a scream of warning and a plead for reinforcements. Edward was down, the creature gobbled up a few chunks of his flesh, skewered the rest with its spinal spikes for later.

The pathfinder unit, now a single man, limped back to the colony. He thought the predator was distracted, and when he made a run for it, the whip-tail struck him like a viper. It did not give chase. He knew why. The best bet was to reach the range of automatic turrets before the spreading numbness gripped his brain.

***

He thought about it again, then thought against it. It was all he could think of now. Hunger twisted his stomach. There were no outside sounds to latch onto beyond muffled steps, and nothing to look at except for mushrooms. The mycelium reminded him of an enormous tree graph that led nowhere - or embroidery. Hours trickled by, untracked. He traced the hyphae from root to tip. Sometimes he could swear that he saw new ones pop up, or that ripples coursed through them as if they were naked, throbbing veins.

Help was not coming - quickly enough, or at all. He ran a nervous finger against the underside of the mushroom. The spore-powder exploded with flavor on his sandpapery tongue, and he resisted an impulse to devour everything that grew around him. He waited for chills, or nausea, or a pang of pain.

Nothing.

Then came a speck of fungal flesh the size of a fingernail. Oscar held it his mouth, ready to spit it out at the first hint of bitterness, but it was earthy, juicy, tender. He swallowed. Nothing.

He almost cried, dislodged the mushroom from the wall and took another bite.

A few shaky steps. White dome of the colony in the middle of a clearing. Light dimmed in Aaron's eyes.

The blood trickling out of a sting-wound made it easy for the beast to find the unconscious quarry again. It remembered how to hunt, and knew that some of the catch had to be brought back for the young to nest in.

Aaron was dragged to the luminous caverns - a few drones greeted the hunter, recognising its chemical signature. The barren queen inspected the offering presented to her. No eggs were produced in months, yet the drones kept playing their well-rehearsed parts.

They had no choice but to try again. They took Aaron to the nursery. One of the drones opened a cocoon with its rending claws and dragged out another fungus-covered body that was supposed to feed the larvae. It sprang into motion, but the creatures' first impulse to attack and maul was suppressed. Docile, they resumed their duties, replacing the body with another and sealing the opening with a mix of secretions and detritus.

Aaron did not remember how he ended up there.