“Maybe we’d better camp here for the night,” Dor said. “This island seems safe; we don’t know what’s on the next one.”
“Also, I’m tired,” Irene said.
They settled in for the night, protected by a palisade formed of asparagus spears grown for the occasion. The jump-at-a-bones kept charging the stockade and fleeing it harmlessly.
Chet and Smash, being the most massive individuals, lay at the outside edges of the small enclosure. Grundy needed so little room he didn’t matter. Dor and Irene were squeezed into the center. But now she had room enough and time to settle herself without quite touching him. Ah, well.
“You know, that rock was right,” Dor said. “You do have nice legs. And that’s not all.”
“Go to sleep,” she said, not displeased.
In the morning a large roundish object floated in the channel. Dor didn’t like the look of it. They would have to swim past it to reach the next island. “Is it animal or plant?” he asked.
“No plant,” Irene said. She had a feel for this sort of thing, since it related to her magic.
“I’ll talk to it,” Grundy said. His talent applied to anything living.
He made a complex series of whistles and almost inaudible grunts.
Much of his communication was opaque to others, since some animals and most plants used inhuman mechanisms. In a moment he announced: “It’s a sea nettle. A plantlike animal. This channel is its territory, and it will sting to death anyone who intrudes.”
“How fast can it swim?” Irene asked.
“Fast enough,”’ Grundy said. “It doesn’t look like much, but it can certainly perform. We could separate, crossing in two parties; that way it could only get half of us, maybe.”
“Perhaps you had better leave the thinking to those better equipped for it,” Chet said.
“We have to get it out of there or nullify it,” Dor said. “I’ll try to lead it away, using my talent.”
“Meanwhile, I’ll start my stunflower,” Irene said.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” But Dor couldn’t blame her; he had had success before in tricking monsters with his talent, but it depended on the nature and intelligence of the monster. He hadn’t tried it on the water dragon, knowing that effort would be wasted.
This sea nettle was a largely unknown quantity. It certainly didn’t look smart.
He concentrated on the water near the nettle. “Can you do imitations?” he asked it. The inanimate often thought it had talent of this nature, and the less talent it had, the more vain it was about it. Once, years ago, he had caused water to imitate his own voice, leading a triton a merry chase.
“No,” the water said.
Oh. “Well, repeat after me: ‘Sea nettle, you are a big blob of blubber.”’
“Huh?” the water asked.
He would have to encounter a stupid quantity of water! Some water was volatile in its wit, with cleverness flowing freely; some just lay there in puddles. “Blob of blubber!” he repeated.
“You’re another!” the water retorted.
“Now say it to the sea nettle.”
“You’re another!” the water said to the sea nettle.
The others of Dor’s party smiled. Irene’s plant was growing nicely.
“No!” Dor snapped, his temper shortening. “Blob of blubber.”
“No blob of blubber!” the water snapped.
The sea nettle’s spines wiggled. “It says thank you,” Grundy reported.
This was hopeless. In bad temper, Dor desisted.
“The flower is almost ready,” Irene said. “It’s a bit like the Gorgon; it can’t stun you if you don’t look at it. So we’d better all line up with our backs to it-and don’t look back. There’ll be no returning this way; once a plant like this matures, I can’t stop it.”
They lined up. Dor heard the rustle of rapidly expanding leaves behind him. This was nervous business!
“It’s blossoming,” Grundy said. “It’s beginning to feel its power. Oh, it’s a bad one!”
“Sure it’s a bad one,” Irene agreed. “I picked the best seed. Start wading into the channel. The flower will strike before we reach the sea nettle, and we want the nettle’s attention directed this way.”
They waded out. Dor suddenly realized how constrictive his clothing would be in the water. He didn’t want anything hampering him as he swam by the nettle. He started removing his apparel. Irene, apparently struck by the same thought, quickly pulled off her skirt and blouse.
“Dor’s right,” Grundy remarked. He was riding Chet’s back. “You do have nice legs. And that’s not all.”
“If your gaze should stray too far from forward,” Irene said evenly, “it could encounter the ambience of the stunflower.”
Grundy’s gaze snapped forward. So did Chet’s, Smash’s, and Dor’s. But Dor was sure there was a grim smirk on Irene’s face. At times she was very like her mother.
“Hey, the flower’s bursting loose!” Grundy cried. “I can tell by what it says; it has a bold self-image. What a head on that thing!”
Indeed, Dor could feel a kind of heat on his bare back. The power of the flower was now being exerted.
But the sea nettle seemed unaffected. It quivered, moving toward them. Its headpart was gilled like a toadstool all around. Driblets of drool formed on its surface.
“The nettle says it will sting us all so hard-oooh, that’s obscene!” Grundy said. “Let me see if I can render a properly effective translation-“
“Keep moving,” Irene said. “The flower’s incipient.”
“Now the flower’s singing its song of conquest,” Grundy reported, and broke into the song: “I’m the one flower, I’m the STUNflower!”
At the word “stun” there was a burst of radiation that blistered their backs. Dor and the others fell forward into the channel, letting the water cool their burning flesh.
The sea nettle, facing the flower, stiffened. Its surface glazed. The drool crystallized. The antennae faded and turned brittle. It had been stunned.
They swam by the nettle. There was no reaction from the monster.
Dor saw its mass extending down into the depths of the channel with huge stinging tentacles. That thing certainly could have destroyed them all, had it remained animate.
They completed their swim in good order, Chet and Grundy in the lead, then Dor, Smash, and finally Irene. He knew she could swim well enough; she was staying back so the others would not view her nakedness. She wasn’t actually all that shy about it; it was mainly her sense of propriety, developing apace with her body, and her instinct for preserving the value of what she had by keeping it reasonably scarce. It was working nicely; Dor was now several times as curious about her body as he would have been had he seen it freely. But he dared not look; the stunning radiation of the stunflower still beat upon the back of his head.
They found the shallows and trampled out of the water. “Keep going until shaded from the flower,” Irene called. “Don’t look back, whatever you do!”
Dor needed no warning. He felt the heat of stun travel down his back, buttocks, and legs as he emerged from the water. What a monster Irene had unleashed! But it had done its job, when his own talent had failed; it had gotten them safely across the channel and past the sea nettle.
They found a tangle of purple-green bushes and maneuvered to put them between their bodies and the stunflower. Now Dor could put his clothing back on; he had kept it mostly dry by carrying it clenched in his teeth, the magic sword strapped to his body.
“You have nice legs, too,” Irene said behind him, making him jump. “And that’s not all.”
Dor found himself blushing. Well, he had it coming to him. Irene was already dressed; girls could change clothing very quickly when they wanted to.