Sundews

A standalone sci-fi short story, with a dash of humour

Photo by Dean Erasmus on Unsplash

It’s high summer in the Hebrides, and the moors are speckled with these carnivorous little plants. They, and some other features of the landscape, inspired this solarpunk-ish story. I’m calling it the first in the genre of “peatpunk.”

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Sunlight scattered from a thousand water beadlets, sprinkled like seed pearls on star-spangled green. It was the most alive-looking colour I’d ever encountered, green on the verge of fluorescence. I scanned slowly. It wasn’t my first time going over this terrain, but I had to hone my ability to spot my target. Time would be of the essence. I’d done a lot of jobs for Mr. Smith — not that I’d ever thought that was his real name — but this was going to be a tough one. And the last one. I’d promised myself that. I deserved that, at this stage in life. A chance at the straight and narrow.

I caught a glimpse of something nestled in the sphagnum moss, a corner-of-the-eye coral-redness in the green. I looked closer, marvelled at the slender tongues with their tiny tentacles, each carrying a crystal-ball payload of sweet snare. A tiny fly landed on one and the tentacles began to curl. That’s the end of you, mate, I thought. I checked the shape of the leaf. Mr. Smith, like all collectors, was very fussy about the subspecies he was looking for. Drosera something hebridensis. Just look for the notch at the end of the leaf.

My optics fuzzed, flickered, then blacked out completely. I tried restarting the sim, only to get a warning: Insufficient Signal. I swore and tried again. Nothing. I’d expected some signal loss as we entered Sjoland, but not nothing. When I got back to civilisation, I would have to find that guy who sold me that booster and get my money back, or his incisors for my collection. Figuratively speaking, of course; I’m not a violent man. There was nothing for it but to make the best of it, so I combed my hair, put on my second-favourite cravat, and went out on deck.

These fancy cruisers are supposed to compensate for the roll of the waves, but one look at the way the deck pitched this way and that made me very glad the anti-nausea aug was working. I headed forward to the bit with the sun-loungers, trying to spot how far we were from land, but the horizon was grey with mist and the wind was scourging the deck like a whip. My fellow-passengers were all very sensibly inside, other than Annoying Erica.

Annoying Erica had latched onto me right at the start of the cruise. If I were a vain man I’d have said she was keen on me, but I suspect it was more to do with us both being twenty years younger than everyone else. She must have been wealthy, of course — Mr. Smith paid something like a million crowns for my ticket — but she’d not used her cash for any kind of augs that I could see, and she dressed like a deckhand on a trawler. She was leaning on the rail now, staring into the grey horizon. I turned to try and get back to my cabin, but too late.

“Pete!” she shouted. “Isn’t this fun?”

I had no choice but to push forward and join her at the rail. Halfway across the deck the ship lurched down another ghastly trough and I nearly overbalanced, banging my shin into the corner of a deckchair. I swore hard, rubbing my leg and checking for damage to my suit. Good job that Harris tweed is tough stuff. Bought specially for this trip, even though Mr. Smith stopped reimbursing wardrobe items after the ermine coat incident.

“Ooh, Pete! Language!” She held out a hand to help me to the rail, which I would have refused if another roll of the boat hadn’t shoved me right into her. “Come on, Pete,” she went on, droppping the faux-shocked teasing. “Isn’t this magnificent?”

“No,” I said grumpily. “I thought we were almost at Stjornvik.”

“We are.” She pointed at what I’d thought was a bank of fog or cloud. “That’s the island over there. And you must have noticed we lost signal back there. Sjoland doesn’t allow AI infrastructure, you know.”

“I know,” I snapped. “Damned nuisance.”

“Come, come.” She waved expansively at the horizon. “Isn’t it worth it for all this?”

I would have got much more enjoyment out of the gout of spray that smacked her in the face then, if it hadn’t got me too.

---

I managed to avoid Erica at supper. We were anchored in Stjornvik Harbour by then, and the lights of the town winked down on us from on high. They’d brought some local nosh on board for us, all of which seemed to taste like fish or peat, or sometimes both. I suppose that goes with the territory. At least the whisky was decent.

During the pudding (some kind of whisky-flavoured creamy thing with odd little berries, not bad) they trotted out our local guide for an after-dinner lecture. I perked up for that, not just because this girl, Ursula something, was a stunning young thing. It was time for the job to get serious.

Now, her blathering on about the history of the island and how its fortunes were transformed by Accelerated Peat Formation, how important it was as a carbon sink, blah blah percent of Europe’s CO₂, I couldn’t care less about. The rare wildlife — shags, bumblebees, cows, whatever — I let that all float past. Though of course I kept my eyes in her direction and gave intelligent nods where appropriate. The old Major next to me jabbed me in the ribs and chortled whenever she said peat, and I wished I’d chosen a different name for this job. Finally, Stunning Ursula got onto the island’s flora and I sharpened my focus. At the end I asked a couple of questions. One about heath-spotted orchids, to muddy the waters. Then the sundews.

“I heard the hebridensis subspecies is unique to the island,” I asked brightly. “Any chance we’ll see some?”

The girl beamed at me. Across the room, Annoying Erica was looking at me thoughtfully.

“Oh, certainly,” said Stunning Ursula. “Our route tomorrow will take us right past plenty of them. But let me take this opportunity to remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that all our plants are protected and it is strictly forbidden to pick or take any off the island.” She flashed her smile at me again and went on, rather too chirpily. “Also, let me quash any rumours you might have heard about this special variety of sundew. Yes, it evolved after the War of Liberation. But no, it does not confer any, ahem, special health benefits.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively, and the Major guffawed loudly. I nodded sagely, and asked a question about butterwort.

---

Landing at Stjornvik was quite something. They have a whacking big elevator up the old sea defence wall, all glass so you can see all the way down thirty metres to the water. Terrifying. You can make out the old sea level mark, too, about a third of the way up, from before re-glaciation. Then you offload into a customs hall where you have to scan in and all that. Stunning Ursula was there to meet us. She took us into an exhibition place, one of those max-D sensory things where you see the island through the ages, all that jazz. When that was done, we filed obediently into the next hall. There was a statue there of an ugly-looking bloke — bulging eyes, pointed ears, giant horns, all that. Ursula told us some shizzle-wizzle about it being a local mumbo-jumbo, name of Macantronich or some such.

“His spirit is said to roam the moors to this day,” she said dramatically. “If you wish, you can make a small offering here to give you good luck on our tour. All proceeds go to the maintenance of the peatland.”

I don’t generally go in for that stuff, but something about the statue gave me the creeps. I scanned the cashpoint and made a generous donation, just to be on the safe side.

“I didn’t have you down as superstitious, Pete,” came a voice behind me. Annoying Erica, of course.

“I’m not,” I said shortly. “I’m, ah, contributing to the local economy.”

“I see.” She stuck to me like a limpet as we made our way into the tour bus. “I didn’t realise you were into botany, either.”

“Just a hobby,” I said. To avoid more questions, I pretended to admire the view. “Look at this. Quite remarkable, this floating architecture, don’t you think?”

---

The first part of the tour was mostly on the bus, tootling around the museum and distillery and what have you. After lunch, we finally got to the peatland walk. There had been a brisk wind in the morning, but that had died down and there was glorious sunshine. You could see for miles. Damned flat, too. I began to scan the clumps of heather and moss, looking for ways I could get at the flowers without been seen. Ursula chivvied us onto the boardwalk thing they had going on.

“Now remember what I told you,” she said. “Stick to the path. There are deep and dangerous bogs where you could sink right down to the island’s foundations. I don’t want to lose anyone, or I’ll lose my tips too!” There was a polite smattering of laughs, and we set off.

I kept me eyes peeled as we walked. Trying to fend off Erica’s conversation at the same time was distracting, but Ursula helpfully pointed out some of the hebridensis sundew in a cushion of moss near the boardwalk. I could hardly swipe it with everyone clustered round though. I let myself fall to the back of the pack, wondering if I could sneak off when everyone else was distracted by the next point of interest. Ursula was talking about eagles or whatever, and pointing at the decaying tip of an ancient wind turbine poking out of the moor.

“Another relic of the bad old days,” said Annoying Erica. “I mean, the short-sightedness…”

“Quite,” I murmured. “Oh, my shoelace! Why don’t you go ahead with the others and I’ll catch up?”

Erica was undeterred by the old shoelace trick. I had no choice but to rejoin the rest of the group with her. We went on another hour or so, and the Major was grumbling about the heat, when we dipped down a bit of a valley. There was a rest place with a few benches and a nice view of the sea, and a chap from the tour company with cold drinks. It was now or never. I sidled up to Stunning Ursula and told her I unfortunately had to answer a call of nature. When she asked if I could wait half an hour, I shook my head urgently and clutched my stomach for added effect. Ursula rummaged in her backpack and pulled out a trowel.

“Stay close to the path, and don’t damage anything,” she ordered.

There wasn’t a lot of cover, but I tramped a few metres away — damned soggy ground too — to a likely-looking clump of sphagnum that I’d noticed, in a slight hollow, shielded by a fringe of heather. I unbuckled my trousers and squatted down. There they were. Tiny glistening fingers of sundew nestled in the moss. I looked closer. Notch on the leaves. Bingo! It only took a minute then to dig out a chunk and shove it into the special pocket in my coat.

I wiped my hands on the wet moss and was about to stand up when I saw a shadow slide over the edge of the little hollow. A shadow with a squat head and long curved horns. The back of my neck prickled with cold sweat. I was being watched. Very slowly, I turned my head.

I only caught a glimpse of the thing, but that was enough. The likeness to the statue was remarkable. The demon Macantronich. I jumped to my feet and ran.

I ran. My feet kept tangling in the heather and sinking in moss, and my trousers were falling down. I could hear footsteps behind me, and the demon’s roar. I nearly went over on my ankle. My whole damn life flashed before me. It occurred to me that whatever Mr. Smith was paying, it wasn’t worth it.

Then I saw a flat stretch of ground in front of me, smooth like a lawn, glowing luminous green. I ran straight for it.

Next thing I knew I had a mouthful of muddy water and was sinking like a stone. I thought Macantronich had me and I was going all the way down to whatever hell lay at the bottom of the bog. I kicked like a madman, and got my head above the surface. I grabbed a tuft of hard reedy grass at the edge of the bog, but when I tried to pull myself out, I felt the muddy water suck me back down.

“Grab this!”

Annoying Erica was somehow on the edge of the bog holding out a scarf or something. I lunged for it, but lost my grip and plunged back into the depths.

---

I awoke with a burning in my lungs and the tingling sensation of my nanos in repair mode. It was dark. I was in a bed that was either rocking gently, or something was messing with my ear canals.

“Lights,” I groaned. A gentle yellow glow filled the room. I was in my cabin on the Aurora. I was clean and wearing my best silk pyjamas.

“Pete! You’re awake! Oh, I’m so glad!”

I swore, and turned to see where her voice had come from. Annoying Erica was lodged in my armchair like an ungainly cat.

“Erica,” I croaked. “What happened?”

She passed me a glass of water. “Oh, it was quite terrifying, really. Touch and go for a while, you know? I imagine the only reason you’re alive is because you have some gosh-darn high-end nanobots.”

I sat up. “What day is it? Where are we?”

“The day after. We put out from Stjornvik this morning, after the authorities there decided not to charge you.”

“Charge me?”

“Now, don’t you play innocent with me, you naughty thing!” She still had that playful tone, but a steely glint in her eye that made me think I had underestimated her. “They went through your clothes, of course. Found your contraband.” She raised an eyebrow. “But luckily for you, they decided you’d already been sufficiently punished.”

I swore again, and lay back on my pillow. My mind raced through options. Mr. Smith was not going to be happy. I should probably jump ship in the Faroes. I could start again there. Straight and narrow. Maybe Erica could join me.

To my surprise, I heard her giggling.

“What?” I asked grumpily.

“I was just thinking how funny you looked running away from that cow.”

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