Liana's Ship (#ONC 2021)

15. Liana: Not Like The Movies

Forget what you read about waking from a coma. It's nothing like the gentle awakening you see in Hollywood movies. You wake in a stark, but safe sterile white room, with some white coat wearing doctor telling that everything is going to be alright. At no point do they tell you you're screwed.

My bones felt like they'd been replaced by rubber and my mouth felt like the inside of a shoe. One which contained a foot with a serious case of athlete's foot. My head was pounding, if I didn't know better I'd just woken up with concussion after a night cage fighting. There was no hospital waiting for me and I was in some contraption made of glass and wires.

I'm still on this space carrot, I realized.

"Space carrot," a voice in my head echoed, making me wince and my temples throb, "I resent that."

Who said that? I thought, hoping that it was just a hallucination. I'm going mad.

"No you're hearing me speak in your head. Finally you're listening."

"I don't care, get out of my head." I said,

"I tried to get you to notice. You're the most infuriating pilot I've ever worked with!"

None of this made any sense, "I'm not a pilot, I can't fly a plane, I can't even drive a car!" I spoke back, "hey! you read my thoughts, don't you know that it's rude to pry?" I wasn't having a telepathic spaceship anywhere with those sorts of thoughts.

A laugh rang through my head. "I'm a plant, I'm not interested in the reproductive systems of animals. Not in the way you think. It's hard to explain. You don't need to know now anyway."

"Umm I kind of do. Ever since I've been here things have been strange."

"There's no time. Pilots take years to learn. You have one day. I've grown a ship to take you home. You're leaving."

"I'm not leaving." I said, it wasn't until I looked at two horrified faces wide eyed staring at me that I realized I had said that aloud.

********

I was lifted out of the glass tube and sat upright. A warm drink was placed in my hands. I sniffed it. If it was another cup of pseudo tea, I wouldn't drink.

Oh joy of joys! It was actual blinking coffee. Instant but I wasn't fussy. At this point, I'd have drunk that mild coffee that looked like brown dust and tasted probably like it.

"I found it in the cupboard where we put the things our guests left behind." Betalaina said, "I've seen humans put hot water on it and drink it, I can't see the appeal really."

"That is because you have roots and no need to imbibe solid and liquids."

I took a sip and looked. I thought Betalaina was a xeran. She looked like one, right down to the blue skin and tail. Why hadn't I noticed? Her hair, it wasn't a hairstyle. It was leaves that grew from her head.

"Did you grow from a seed?" I asked her, clasping my hands around my mouth, "I'm sorry, that was rude of me, I was wondering if it was possible?"

Betalaina just laughed, "I'm not offended and I will answer your question. No, I did not grow from a seed, I budded from Thera a couple of cycles ago."

"She means years, Liana," Zan interrupted, he was tapping buttons on the insulation tube. Since he turned down the coffee I figured wasn't a fan of the brew.

"It's almost unheard of to develop a sentience separate from the Motherplant." Betalaina continued, "our role is to serve a certain purpose. We are reabsorbed by the ship when we complete it."

"They act as her eyes and ears," Zan said, he had moved from the tube and was flexing my arm, checking my pulse, "they speak with those who cannot communicate with her. She is the last ship to have this ability. To form scions."

A realisation came to me. I had met few people since being here. The ones I had had been polite, but there had been something about them I couldn't figure out.

Now I know. "Everyone on this ship is a Scion, except you, Zan." I blurted out.

"Yes," he answered, "it wasn't always so. When there were not enough to crew the ship Thera would make a clone replacement. She began creating humanoid-like ones too. No one could tell the difference. The video broadcasts were enough to fool those back on the mothership."

"Fool who?" I drank my coffee, savouring the taste. After all these revelations I wished there was something stronger in it.

"My father, Lord Dascan," he said, to keep the programme going for as long as I could. The last Xeran left a month ago. The last human not much later."

"She got back with her fiancé, " Betalaina added, "but I suspect she found something strange about her suitors. She wasn't satisfied with the courtship, the scions couldn't get the ritual right. Thera tried, but she finds mating habits strange at the best of times."

"I guess you would if you pollinated," I said, "or maybe a bioship is more like a fern? Spores? I don't know."

"Your description of the former is correct." Thera echoed in my mind, "Although I'm more like a conifer if you wish to compare me with an Earth plant."

Cones. It made sense. Wind pollination or space pollination? Lots of ships releasing pollen in the void of space.

"That's more or less on the right path," Thera said, "or it was. Zan, tell her what happened. I think she needs to know."

"Know what?" I said, "About when a lady ship and a man ship really love each other, they get close and release pollen?"

"Yes, something like that," Zan said, "are you able to walk now? I need to show you something."

"I think I can," I stood up, I felt a little shaky but hadn't fallen over, "as long as there's not too much walking and you're not planning to show me a Xeran courtship ritual."

"Don't worry about that!" Zan laughed, I nearly jumped. The man hadn't laughed once since I'd met him. The look on his face he gave afterwards, I realized that he may have not had much to laugh about.

"I am going to show you the last seedpods of Thera." He said, a solemn tone in his voice, "then I will tell you how my family guaranteed the extinction of Thera's people."