Late Bloomer
by M. J. Guillotte
Pod-Jumbo-Walla-Brother-Gnum got dry mouthed at the sight of them.
Tall, lean, honey sucking flowerheads huddling around the executive
level sweetwater jugs. Hard bodies with none of the awkwardness of hips
or pre-burst breasts, just straight forms rising to their glorious,
tentacled heads. The long red tongue of their cerebral cortex licking
at the sweetwater drip. Gnum caught their scent with their high humm
and the multiple entanglements of their spray. He couldn’t catch all
the complexities of the scent, really, not beyond that it had nothing
to do with him. He might as well not spray at all. Who was he? He
hadn’t even burst yet, just a nobody inside his own skull.
Gnum hated working this high up the stem, nothing but flowerheads and
everyone’s spray was dominant to his. They were all so piss and puss
evolved!
“Humm, humm.” Sprayed a lean flowerhead next to him. “Pod-Brother-Gnum?” she asked, marking the air with her own identifiers.
“Humm, humm.” Gnum sprayed. “Pod-Sister-Ectu?”
She had burst. The tentacles of her flower like head waved in front of
Gnum, the colors still muted except for the red of the brainstem, but
lovely anyhow. Gnum remembered when the pod was still close, when they
all just had one dull black hive in a cheek. Back then Ectu had
embarrassingly large breasts. She always insisted it was a glandular
problem, but her big bust and curvaceous figure got her teased and
overlooked by others. Now here she was with barely a nipple and stem
straight from burst head to toe.
Gnum didn’t know what to spray, he was suddenly too aware of himself.
He still had just one dull black hive in his cheek. He tattooed stem
juice with the beginnings of another hive on his right cheek to appear
more advanced for those who still had eyes. Now here was another old
podmate who had burst and working the executive levels. Gnum was stuck
working the lower stem, delivering chemical notes to those above, like
Ectu. He was sure he was spraying his shame.
“Humm, humm.” Two flowerheads jumped into their awkward moment,
spraying at Ectu. They had no eyes to see Gnum, and his scent didn’t
mean much to them. “Did you hear the Come Fly With Me Stem sent half
their unevolved workers to the Bloom?”
“Humm, humm.” Ectu sprayed. “Didn’t they have the blight on that stem?”
She was trying to change the subject. It was obvious the two others
hadn’t smelled Gnum standing there.
“Humm, humm,” sprayed the other. “They were able to raise their scent language level and doubled their efficiency.”
“Humm, humm,” added the first. “The Bloom is a better deal for any dumbhumm hardhead anyhow.”
“Humm, humm,” the other sprayed. “The Bloom is really happening. That’s
the real future. Seeds flying to the next sowing, no roots. That’s
where a dumbhumm hardhead can at least be of use. Till the new soil and
all.”
Their perfumed words soured as they finally smelled Gnum. It took a while. His spray barely smelled next to the scent of them.
“Humm, humm,” Ectu started to spray, but Gnum caught wind of her
embarrassment and quickly walked away. He was just trying to leave, not
even to smell, but the heavy odor of the flowerhead’s opinion blanketed
the room. He only caught the obvious notes of laughter, that he was the
butt of some joke, and the more sophisticated elements to what was
wafted about was beyond him.
Gnum almost ran to the stem flow to go down to his floors where the air was cool, and the scents were dull to null.
*****
“Humm, humm,” sprayed Thal. He was a chemical note carrier like Gnum, a
hardhead, but he had a hive in each cheek and they had turned blue now.
“Did you hear about the Bloom offer?”
Gnum didn’t spray back, just let him stink up the air for the both of them.
“They are saying any pod member born for the coming season who hasn’t
burst yet can get a thirty-cycle bonus for signing up. Humm, that’s a
hell of a deal. Fly in a seed to a new sowing. Be right at the root of
it. New Soil.”
His odor poured over them, musky dominance in its spray. “Humm, humm”
Tralus was a real whipbrain of a boss, a late burster whose thick
cerebral cortex only knew heavy odors. “Gnum!” he sprayed. “New
assignment. From executive level.”
“Humm, humm.” Gnum sprayed thinking for a wild and crazy moment that
Ectu found some way to get him a better assignment for an old pod mate.
Gnum took the chemical note and sniffed it. No, he was being sent down,
not up, to clean an odorless patch of blight on the stem. It was likely
those other two flowerheads getting another laugh at his expense.
Tralus was still spraying his order. “Get moving you dumnhumms!”
Gnum wanted to burst right then and there, to whip his boss silly with
his new moist brain stem. But who was he kidding? Gnum wasn’t sure if
all of his hive hummed and it hadn’t even changed color. As he headed
towards the stem flow, he thought that his best bet might be the Bloom
Deal, still, he took the flow down, the bitter smell of his shame in
the air behind him.
*****
Gnum had never gone this far down before.
On this floor they broke down the dead husks of the bigger flowerheads
molting, broke them down and passed them down further, and here he had
to walk to where the low humming workers ran the acid ovens. Black
hives in cheeks like him, and many older than him. One hardhead
actually had gray hair. It was the first time Gnum thought that some
people never burst.
Gnum walked one more level down, darker. The floor and walled lost all
tackiness, even feeling dry in some places. Gnum couldn’t see the green
light anymore and there was little to no smell here. He had no scent to
find his way around. There was a workstation with a chem light. There
was a pack with a 3-gallon sprayer and extra tanks. He was to give this
place a really good stink.
The sprayer tank was filled with drone musk. A scent that stabs the
senses, like the pincher head drones would if you sprayed to much in
their presence. Still, any smell was better than none, and it would
also act as a deterrent, warning people to stay away from the patch of
blight.
Gnum began to spray the yellow black walls with the drone scent,
layering the first coat. He was on the second tank when the walls went
from yellow black to black yellow. It was lighter now, but not green
light like above or even the chem light. He saw a glossy sheen on one
wall with a transparency Gnum had never even heard about. It was
unshielded light coming right into the stem.
Gnum put the sprayer down and looked at what the transparent patch
illuminated. There were signs people were living down here. There were
holes in interior walls, cut not grown like they should be for a pod or
for an adult cell. In the shadows of the corridor Gnum thought he saw
someone, maybe a young pod, but it quickly disappeared in the dark.
Probably the drone scent drove him away.
That is when Gnum realized he didn’t smell the drone scent. He had
noticed the blight didn’t hold scents for long, but he should be
covered in it. He didn’t smell it at all. A strange sour smell hit him
instead. He realized that was him. He smelled that way. Not his spray
but him. He reeked a sharp musky tang he couldn’t even identify. It had
no language. Panicked, Gnum picked up the sprayer and tried to cover
the smell, but the heavy drone smell wouldn’t do it.
Gnum noticed a small black speck on the floor in front of him. He bent
down and his hand shook holding it. Except in books, Gnum had never
seen anything but the back of the hummer for his hive. Their abdomens
and a small portion of their thorax, the two rear legs and the tips of
their wings was all he had ever seen. They shook and hummed and
sprayed. Maybe if he could remember his earliest pod memories, he might
have seen the heads emerging from his left cheek before they turned
around and began to communicate with others, humming, spraying to the
burst and non-burst alike. He knew of course from school their
development and his. He knew the work they did collectively under his
skin, the tendrils along the nerves, the nerves. Others got to see them
pop out of their less dominant side as they developed their second
hive. Others saw them change colors and the changes within were
reaching towards the culmination of bursting. But not his, and now he
had this very still hummer in his hands and he could not smell spray,
only through childish organs could he smell his own physical smell.
With shaking fingers he touched his hive, almost knocking out another
still hummer. He found the hole and he nervously stuck the still hummer
back in. His face was wet. He touched up higher on his cheek and found
some kind of leak coming from his eyes.
Gnum dropped the sprayer and stumbled and then ran to the stairs that
got him down here, thinking what other freakish thing could happen to
him next.
He had his hand on his hive as he ran, dreading any hummers falling out
in the jostling. When he got to the flow he went up but was thinking
how high did he want to go. To where the nursemaids worked? Shame
stopped him. Instead, he got off at his work assignment station. He was
going to take the rest of the cycle off due to illness, blaming the
spray.
Tralus, his whipbrain boss was there. Gnum knew that he must have been
spraying to him, but he was actually smelling it, all of it and he
couldn’t make flow to roots of it. Gnum saw Thal next to Tralus, who
still had eyes and he pantomimed that act of spraying all over himself,
like it was some kind of accident him not being able to humm. Thal got
his message and relayed it.
Thalus pointed to the stem flow. Gnum deciphered the stink he smelled in his head, “Go to cell.”
All the way back to his cell, Gnum suffered the stares of other
hardheads. They were set on edge from the drone smell covering his body
and repelled by his primitive smell. Gnum was relieved when he got to
the privacy of his own cell.
He had a reflector in his aromarama, just outside of his body sprayer.
Gnum looked at his hive. They were all still and one fell right out in
his hand. The hole where it came from was crusting. Again, his eyes
were leaking fluid. He must be dying; his hive might already be gone.
His own smell was wretched. He got under the sprayer and drenched
himself. In horror he saw one after another of his hummers in the moist
pool of spray at his feet. Dead. They were all dead. He wasn’t even
going to bother to pick them up this time. There was a muffled sound
from his own throat. He had no idea what was happening to him.
When he turned the sprayer off, he heard humm outside his cell. He
attempted to get a grip on himself, shaking the spray off and peeking
outside his cell.
Pincherheads! Piss and Puss! The drones were spraying back and forth
with Gnum’s neighbors. They likely complained about the sour smell. He
couldn’t easily understand the spray, breathing it in, but he caught
the fear.
The drones approached Gnum’s cell forcedly. Their long curved pinchers
of exposed white bones crowned them and their pointed brainstem licked
the air. Besides the unusual pinchers the drones had antennae they
could feel around with.
Drones spray was a heavy scent, it usually made Gnum immobile, but now
he was reacting out of habit. Like he thought he should feel afraid,
but smelling the spray only through his nose, he was not really
affected. His own smell, or lack of smell, however, was having an
effect. He caught wind of one idea. Blight. The Drones backed away and
left.
Still the neighbors were spraying, and some of them had eyes. Best get somewhere else, Gnum thought.
He was past shame now, truly frightened for what happened to him and
decided to go over his boss to the flowerhead executives and get
permission to see the nursemaids. He went to the stem flow.
*****
Gnum stood in the common work area he had delivered chemical notes to
earlier. There, as before, were the tall, lean, honey-sucking hummers
around the sweetwater jugs. His simple nose couldn’t read much but
without his hummers, without the tendrils working along his nerves he
saw them all differently with his unburst eyes. He wasn’t in a daze
from their spray. Gnum looked at male flowerheads he had envied and
even feared a little before. Their tall straight bodies looked oddly
frail next to his stout frame. Gnum looked at the tentacled head he so
badly wanted, the flower heads. Gnum felt his own skull. It seemed
right. It seemed in proportion. Gnum touched the scabs where his hive
had been, and he felt his other unmarked cheek. This is how it was
going to be, Gnum thought.
There was a scream. Gnum turned to see Thal looking at him, at the
empty hive in his cheek. Thal’s own hive was humming wildly. He was
spraying his terror. Others reacted and sprayed terror and Thal’s spray
was spread throughout the floor.
Leaving fast, Gnum ran into Ectu. She was spraying her fright, and it
increased feeling his touch but not smelling him. He wanted to
communicate to her, that it was just him, but she had burst. She
couldn’t ever know him now.
Before he got on the flow a small army of drones came to the executive
floor. Their bone white pinchers were clicking in their agitation.
Their clicks and the red pointed brainstem licked the air, the antennae
feeling about.
The pincherhead drones rushed forward but they bubbled around him like
he was a rock in the stream. They rushed Thal as he was the only
nonexecutive they could smell.
Gnum moved away from the chaos and got on the stem flow going down.
*****
The yellow black grew black yellow and then there was that translucent
patch casting shadows in the corridor and lighting the cut hallway he
had seen the small pod mate in. The blight he was in had no spray
scent. He had no spray scent. There were no instructions in the air
here, no mingling of purpose. Gnum just stood there for a while.
“It’s dead.”
The words hit his ears as meaningless noise. It wasn’t the scream of
Thal or his own sobbing. It wasn’t the ambient sounds few paid
attention to. He didn’t understand because it wasn’t a scent. But there
was purpose to it.
He turned to the sound of it and they were there. Not a pod as they
were different ages. There were five of them, two males, a female, the
small male and a very old hardhead. The elder handed Gnum a scent note
sprayed thick and it took a while after sniffing it several times for
Gnum to get it.
Home. Safe. Free. Those where the thought of it. The old man touched
Gnum on the shoulders, and then the others did. His eyes were leaking
again. Home. Safe. Free.
*****
It took a while. They had chemical notes to work out the vocabulary for
Gnum, a rudimentary vocabulary. It was the same language he knew but he
never had used it spoken.
The cells here, homes, they were called homes, varied in sizes but no
one was alone. Not pods, not arranged in type and purpose but a man a
woman or in some two woman or two men, some with children and older
people. Families. Gnum loved that word. None of them had or would
burst.
“Humm-an.” Gnum said to the very old man who first spoke to him. The leader of the colony in this stem.
“Human,” the man said. “No Humm. No Humm here.”
“Almost every stem has a bit of the blight,” he said to Gnum, while
both of them looking out the translucent patch to the field of stems.
“Some colonies have gone overboard and killed too much of the stem and
then there was no home for anyone.”
Gnum saw the hundreds of stems as far as he could see, they rose almost
to the clouds. In between the stems was a forest with other vegetation
and where there wasn’t were colorful creatures churning in the soil.
Flowerheads with wings floated between stems high above.
“Its not safe out there, Gnum. There are places without stems, places
they can’t grow. There are still wild humans too, people descended from
people who were immune to the original infection. But they still have
outbreaks and its hard for them to scratch out survival.”
“Original infection?”
“It was in the water. Sea water. Meteors it was thought, but they were
seeds and they did the prep work for the bloom with their spores.
That’s what they wait for. Maturity and a Bloom, all the stems in the
right season. They lift high and out into the stars. Not all make it. I
suppose many don’t, but they spread. They live, they thrive. Here the
spores did the early work. Viral little things, making changes in the
sea and soil before we even really knew what was going on. The spores
move up from one host to another. Plants, animals all changing until
they came to us, with the hives and the changes and the bursting.” The
old man explained. “Later seeds carried the workers, hardheads, drones,
flowerheads to teach them.”
“Not everyone though.” Gnum said.
“No, Gnum, Not everyone.” And they were both smiling. “Thus, the blight. We are the parasite now.”
“So, we are conquering the stem?” Gnum asked.
“A good parasite doesn’t kill its host.” The elder explained. “No. The
stems have given us things we never could have gotten on our own. We
are free of want, or the destruction of one another. We thrive. They
send some to cure the blight, but they fail, or they join. We grow but
we don’t kill the stem. And now, now Gnum with the Bloom, we can reach
the stars.”
*****
Gnum had to learn his own body again, his own mind and voice. He
mastered language. Gnum found the perversion of young podmates touching
one another’s genitals was not entirely a perversion. Sometimes he
missed the nuances of spray, the connectedness of scent, but he
wouldn’t trade being human for it. He found a woman whose curves and
breasts were nothing to laugh at and he fell under her spell. They both
were joining the bloom. The blight would just ride along as an
unwelcome but unavoidable bad smell on the seeds set for the next
sowing. They all hoped for new soil in the end.
THE END
© 2020 M. J. Guillotte
Bio: I am a sommelier and whisky expert by profession (yeah, not
a bad life) enjoying travel for both work and pleasure. When at home in
Rhode Island, I'm writing and being occasionally and delightfully
interrupted by my wife and two daughters.
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