VALLORY REMEMBERED THE suffocating feeling of the air, only to be offset by being held in Damien's arms. Did Vallory dream what he whispered back at her? Did he really say he loved her?
And where was that stink coming from?
A stink that wouldn't go away. Instead, it built in strength, filling her nose with its putridness. Someone change a filter or open a window somewhere!
If she didn't still feel so weak, with the air pressing down on her chest as it became unbreathable, she would be doing everything she could to get away from it.
Heavy? Wait…
Vallory coughed, forcing open her eyes.
Penny looked straight back, cocking her head and yipping from her sitting position on top of Vallory's chest.
"Where have you been?" Vallory demanded. And then coughed violently. She clapped a hand over her mouth and nose as more of the vile smell hit her senses, sitting up fast.
Penny hopped down to her lap, yipping before settling again. Vallory would pick her up and hug her if she dared move her hand. Not that it helped any. The smell easily moved around her hand to fill her nose and lungs.
Light? The gray wall in front of her reflected a soft light. A wall with only a few conduits running along it.
A pair of dark-clad legs bent into the air. She put a hand on Damien's knee as she partially turned towards the room. He groaned at her touch. She managed to turn with Penny still on her lap, refusing to let a hand rise from Damien's leg. As Penny's weight reassured her, so did the feel of him.
His eyes cracked open. "What happened."
"We're not in the corridor anymore," she said, unable to take her eyes off the vista in front of her.
She'd known the hidden part of the station must have been large, considering how long they walked alongside it in an effort to get to Penny, but this? The room faded into the distance, and even further from side to side, the far ends of it disappearing as the room curved away from them.
Seeing any distance was difficult because of the twisted and winding shapes rising like trees from the floor, only to meet up at the top in another tangle of roots as if from a tree growing out from the ceiling. The trees ranged from mottled browns to dark grays, with a few sporting sections of neon blue and frosted ivory. Light glowed from the few places spotted with the neon blue.
Branches and twigs arced away from the trees, drooping and lifeless, without a leaf on them. A few of the trees had detached from the ceiling and had curled over themselves as the top slumped to the floor. A bizarre forest unlike any she'd ever seen before.
"What is this place?" Damien whispered as he struggled to sit up.
"If you don't know, then we're in trouble."
"Next question, how did we get in here?"
From the ceiling a dark liquid containing heavy blobs poured over a tree. The tree quivered even as the smell in the air grew worse.
Penny shook herself, chittering her annoyance. Damien's eyes narrowed at the sight of the daubpup, demanding, "Do they by any chance glow in the dark?"
Penny jumped out of Vallory's lap, bounced off Damien's legs, and took off into the stinky strange forest.
"Penny, get back here!" Vallory took off after her, with Damien close behind.
Hard to run with any speed with the trees so close together, not to mention because she didn't want to breath. Fortunately, Penny wasn't traveling at full speed. She moved slow, sometimes stopping to look back at them, as she wanted them to follow.
Damien grabbed her arm and pulled her to the side just before blobs and thick liquid showered a tree. Vallory stumbled and nearly fell into the thin layer of goop on the floor.
"I think we were lucky we came out where we did," Damien said, lifting a shoe. The gunk clung to the sole, releasing with an audible slurping noise. The goo also meant no more running. It may be sticky, but with her luck, she would skid and go face-first into the stuff.
Somehow, they'd entered the room at one of the few clean areas of floor. It made her miss her little room at the Bed and Breakfast even more.
Penny chittered at them from the top of a tree root, completely unbothered by anything around her.
"She's clean," Damien said as he guided her forward at a slower pace. More goo. Some of the neon blue and frosted trees looked clean, but some of the darker ones even had piles of stuff at their base.
"Do you mean Penny? I'm not surprised. I've seen them go through a mud bog and come out the other side clean." Something she wished she could do. How could she enjoy holding Damien's hand with this smell in the air and waiting for something to drop on them from above?
Less light in the area, as almost none of the trees around them sported the neon blue that provided the only light source in the forest. Her nose went from affronted to growing accustomed to the sewer and sulfur smell, to back again at regular intervals.
"The wall behind us was solid." Damien stopped to look down at her. "I saw a glowing just before I lost consciousness, and it was the shape of a daubpup."
"Yes, they can glow, when they want to. They aren't like Mr. Milby's cats that way. It something they control consciously." Penny chittered at them, clearly informing them to keep following. Vallory bit at her lower lip as they continued after her. "I've seen them take objects bigger than themselves through a tree before, but we're a lot larger than that."
Damien fingered the back of his shirt. "I think she did. It's the only thing I can think of."
Penny's chittering grew more imperious, making Vallory laugh. "She probably left the baby behind to come after us. We shouldn't keep her waiting."
Damien wrinkled his nose. "Not that I want to wait around here. I think the bad smell is coming from the darker trees."
"And not the goop stuff?" They circled around a tree that had a pile of the blobs and shapes piled up at its base so high they couldn't see the gnarled roots."That, too, but mostly the trees. Or, whatever they are."
She didn't like the fact that he didn't know. Shouldn't he know about things like this with that instinct he mentioned before? Did that mean he didn't know something else?
"Do you know how to get out of here?" she finally asked, not sure she wanted the answer.
She hated seeing him shake his head. Great, now what would they do? Being trapped in here in the long-run wouldn't be any better of being trapped in the small bit of corridor.
"Maybe Penny can drag us through another wall?" Vallory offered. "Maybe?"
He squeezed her hand. "Maybe we can talk her into it."
They'd shown amazing intelligence in the past. Penny found them and somehow wrestled them through a solid wall and then waited for them to wake up. She was now leading them somewhere. Maybe to somewhere they could get out?
A glow of light increased from behind a stand of stinky dark gray and brown trees. The glimpse of a gray wall to the right reminded her of their entrapment in a way she didn't like. From ahead, Penny yipped and chittered, accompanied by a younger and higher-pitched voice, one that she instantly recognized.
"Yep, she's bringing us to where she left her baby," Vallory said as they circled around a clump of the trees.
The floor at their feet ran smooth despite a texture of curving lines and tendrils marking the floor. The sticky remnants of the smelly goo disappeared from the bottom of her shoe.
Before them rose another tree, but this one of pure blues and ivory frost all the way from the roots to the thickly-textured bark of the trunk. It extended strong and solid from floor to ceiling. Branches grew from the main body, thick and robust, angling out strongly, unlike the branches of the dark trees around them. On top of one them, Penny nuzzled her baby.
Even better, the air cleared. For the first time since waking up, Vallory took a deep breath.
***
Damien kept her hand in his as he moved closer to the strange tree. Anything to get further away from the stink of the dark trees, before he lost whatever contents still remained in his stomach.
He wanted to reach out to the tree, to see what the texture in the frosted lighter color felt like. Would it feel anything like a normal tree? Would it feel warm, or cold like the surface of a computer like the neon blue color indicated?
So many questions, including what it was in the first place. What did it do?
The baby chirped, looking up towards the ceiling. Penny put her head over it protectively just before the dark lumpy goo poured over the bright colors of the tree.
Both he and Vallory took a hasty step backwards, even as it flowed through the daubpups without touching them.
The tree flexed, some of the deeper lines and textures dimming under the fluid. But, hardly any of it reached the ground. It disappeared into the surface of the tree.
Absorbed?
"What is this place?" He looked up at the ceiling. Not a figment of his imagination. Some of the blobs in the fluid were ragged electronic parts and bits of metal. "Garbage processing?"
"Shouldn't there be stuff from the houses here, then?"
"I think there was. Ground up." The more he thought about it, the more he thought he was right. What the fluid was, he didn't want to think.
The tree glowed brighter, the last of the fluid and parts disappeared from the surface.
"It's doing something with the stuff." Vallory hugged close to his arm, pressing herself to his side. "So, we found a place where we can breath. Good step. Now what?"
"You sweet-talk your daubpups into finding a way out," Damien said with a wry smile.
She pointed to the communicator on his wrist. "Or hope your crew gets to us?"
Not the right communicator. He checked the battery reading on the communication pack. Still juice, but the level now read below half. It wouldn't last much longer. "Still broadcasting, but if they didn't get to us in the other room, they won't be able to get to us in here." He shook his head, giving a rueful laugh. "I'm sorry. I don't intend to sound so depressing. I'm not giving up."
She hugged his arm. "You're being honest. It's something I appreciate."
She didn't sound scared. No hysteria, either. If anything, only worry infused her voice. His esteem of her rose to a whole new level.
"We're together, and we're both reasonably smart people," he said, smiling down at her, kissing her on the forehead. "We'll figure it out."
Vallory leaned into the kiss. "I would kiss you right now, but it's hard to properly kiss when one wants to throw up." And then her face grew stormy and stern, but with still a bright twinkle in her eyes. "And you aren't allowed to take it back. I won't let you!"
"Take back the kiss? I wouldn't want to." In fact, he wanted to do a much more proper kiss, but like Vallory, his stomach still roiled from the stench before.
"No, I mean about the "I love you" thing. I heard you. Can't take it back."
He should shy away from such plain words. Blame their situation or the lack of oxygen for what he said. Saying the words out loud meant dealing with them. Dealing with Vallory. Dealing with their uncertain future.
For once all the voices inside him said the same thing.
He slowly smiled, releasing her hand to pull her into a full embrace. No kiss, but he could still give her a proper hug. Against her forehead, he whispered, "I'm not taking it back. I meant every word."
A chorus of daubpups voiced their support. Or cries for attention? Hard to tell, really.
Damien released Vallory with a sudden movement, realizing something important. "I hear more than two daubpups."
"What?" Vallory looked up at Damien, her eyes glazed. They cleared, widening as more of the sounds surrounded them.
She whirled towards the tree where Penny and the baby still perched, just in time to see other daubpups appearing from out of the floor or through the trunks of the dead and stinking trees.
All of them squealing, yipping, chittering, moving fast on short little legs with their hair flying. All heading straight for the one remaining working tree in the place.
Damien rushed forward, putting himself between three of them and the tree. "Wait!"
The daubpups ran right through his legs. He didn't feel a thing, but he could see it. Penny and the baby watched from their vantage point, egging them all on.
"Damien, what are you doing?" Vallory demanded, putting her fists on her hips.
"Do you see any other trees in here working? This may be the last one!" Not that he could do anything about it. With their ability to walk through solid objects, it was a lost cause even trying.
The daubpups swarmed around the tree, climbing it with ease. Vallory grabbed his arm, tucking her hand under to hook his. "They aren't hurting it. They're only climbing."
"We don't know what would hurt it. I don't know what it is other than it's vitally important to the station." Her confused expression echoed so many other people's in the past that he quickly added, "It's the station connection. The instincts. Don't ask me to explain them, they are just there."
"I understand. You protect the station like I protect the daubpups. Trust me. I understand."
"Now look. They are running in and out of it, too. Who knows what that will do to it." The daubpups were almost frantic in their movements. Happy, but frantic, moving through it at the base, up higher, running up and down the trunk through the bigger branches. He shook his head, knowing there was no point in trying to pull one of them off, but still wanting to do something. "The stink has been coming from this room, and maybe other rooms like it. It's the same smell."
"Something for you to fix. But, really, I don't think my little ones are doing damage. Look, more garbage, and the tree absorbed it even faster than before."
The goo barely reached the middle branches, in fact. Maybe the station didn't dump as much on it as before? There must be some explanation for it.
The goo didn't slow the daubpups down a bit. Their frantic movements calmed to a playful game of tag. Penny joined in, leaving the baby to drape itself in the forked corner of a limb to drowse.
Damien rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand, forcing himself to relax. "Okay, maybe they aren't destroying it."
He blinked. Wait, wasn't the baby still sleeping on the tree limb?
Vallory jerked away, pointing at the base of the tree. "Did you see that?"
When the small shape reemerged from the trunk of the tree, it was hard not to.
A new baby, only this one of blues and whites, trying to follow another daubpup up the tree, and not quite doing it. It cried out. One of the daubpups paused, and then moved back down the tree to nuzzle the baby. With encouraging noises and a helpful push from its nose, the older daubpup started helping the new baby up the tree.
"Did another one just have a baby?" Damien demanded.
"I saw it. I don't know how it's possible, but I saw it." She turned wide eyes to him. "One moment Clementine was wrestling with Neon, and the next she glowed blue. Then the baby just appeared next to her."
"Just appeared?" he repeated.
"Yes, just appeared. That baby wasn't just born. It split off from Clementine as she passed through a root. What if this is how Penny had hers? With the help of the tree?"
***
Vallory's head spun with the implications. Not normal births. It must be some type of parthenogenesis. One parent splitting a part of themselves off to create the next generation. Or, maybe a process science didn't know about. Whatever it was, it involved the trees. The babies appeared only after the parent passed through a tree.
She knew she was babbling it all to Damien, and she didn't know if she was making any sense at all. When another baby appeared, with Damien saying he just saw it do the same thing, her thoughts crystalized.
"Amazing. I came to this place to save them, to find a new habitat on a new planet. And, instead, it's this place that is giving them new hope. They are breeding." She gave a little jump, flinging her arms around his neck. "Damien, the daubpups are breeding!"
And she kissed him.
She meant it to be only a spontaneous kiss. A kiss of joy and happiness. But, Damien didn't let her go. After his initial surprise, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, not allowing her to pull away.
She didn't mind. As the kiss deepened, she didn't want it to stop. This was where she belonged. In his arms, in his life, with him in hers.
She smiled up at him as they finally broke, pouring all her love into her gaze. "It's happening. It's all coming together."
"Slowly," Damien said, a warm smile lighting up his face. "After we get this all figured out and us out of here, we'll talk and figure out what we need to do. I have vacation time coming up. I can use it to come out with you to help set up a habitat for them."
If it were possible, her smile increased. "Damien, don't you realize what happened here? Look!"
Regretfully, she pushed away from him and pointed to the tree. In front of their very eyes, another baby appeared. The tree shivered and moved, another branch coming out near the top. Other branches grew new twigs with strange dangling bunches growing off of them. The tree's version of leaves?
Two of the daubpups rolled in their wrestling through a nearby tree. The tree shook. As their game of chase continued, a spot of neon blue started to glow among the dingy brown and gray. Then a spot of frosted ivory grew over the surface.
She grabbed him around the middle and squeezed as tight as she could. "This is their home. This is their habitat. And where they go, I am. I'm home!"