Wormholes made Gale nervous, but she suppressed that and entered this one. After all, it wasn't random; the plant's lifeline passed trough it. This was a mapped route. But who had done the mapping?
You think too much, Idyll said in her mind. The paths are safe.
There was the problem: the path was not safe as far as Gale could fathom. It was unfinished, and that made her wary. Taking it was like jumping off a ledge without seeing the landing: it might be right underfoot, or an awesome distance down. But that simply meant that the path extended beyond five minutes into the future. Idyll could follow it much farther, and thus could fathom its safe conclusion. "Appreciation."
The terminal of the wormhole was by a stellar cluster Gale didn't recognize. That meant they were probably more than ten light years distant from home. There seemed to be no close stellar system. Had they been led astray?
It's a link, Idyll said reassuringly. There will be another wormhole.
"Why have links, when a single wormhole can do it more efficiently?"
That is beyond my fathoming, but I sense there is valid reason.
Gale conjured them along the line to the next wormhole. They went through it. This time there was an adjacent system. She conjured them to the end of the line.
In a moment they were on another world, standing knee-deep in dry grass and twigs. There were a number of scorched trunks, and mounds of ashes. There had been a devastating fire here not very long before, and the accumulation of tinder promised another fire soon. This was the source of the line? Yet it was obviously a habitable world, with comfortable gravity and air she could readily breathe. That was not surprising, since the plant that had summoned her was thriving in Charm's air.
Vila wriggled, and Gale set her down. "Caution," she murmured.
"It's safe," the child assured her. "Idyll told me." She ran forward to where a small green plant sprouted from the ash. She put forth one hand to touch it.
"Caution!" Gale repeated sharply.
"Safe!" Vila repeated. "Mommy, come talk!" She ran on to the edge of the burned region, where plants grew thickly.
Alarmed, Gale followed, for the moment heedless of Idyll's reassurance. In moments she found herself within a green mass of foliage. Now her own path perception showed her that they were, indeed, safe. These were friendly plants.
"Greeting," Gale said uncertainly. She had a strong affinity for plants, but she knew immediately that these were completely alien to her experience.
A nearby shrub extended a tendril. Gale put her hand slowly to meet it. They touched. Gale knew immediately it was another Glamor.
"Greeting," the plant thought in a voice that Gale's brain translated to the word.
"I am Gale, of Planet Charm," Gale said. "I received your ikon emissary, and followed its line here. This is my child, Vila."
Vila put out her hand, and a second tendril extended to touch it. "Sure," she said. "I just met your sprout."
Then, to Gale: "I'm going to their nursery. You have business here you don't want to scare me with."
She did? Gale wasn't certain about letting the two of them separate.
It is all right, Idyll thought, once again reassuring her. The future paths are safe.
And the ifrit could see farther ahead than Gale could. "Don't get lost," she cautioned, setting Vila down. "I'd be annoyed for a whole minute if I lost you."
"Two minutes," Vila said, laughing. She ran off, weaving between tall plants.
Gale resumed contact with the tendril. "What is this scary business we have?"
"You know the machine culture means to destroy your human culture," the plant said. "And ours following yours. We need to coordinate to save ourselves from destruction."
"Agreement. But as yet we hardly know each other. There may be problems."
"Question?" Again it was Gale's mind interpreting the thought as familiar dialogue.
"We eat many plants, and use parts of others to build our houses. You may regard us an an enemy species."
"We have animals here too. Some of them eat us—and we eat some of them. This is the natural interaction."
"Then by all means let's talk."
"You have qualities that will benefit us, such as the ability to move across terrain and between planets. We have qualities that will benefit you. But to work efficiently together, we must achieve a working temporary symbiosis."
Suddenly Gale felt more competent. Not only was her specialty of lichen a symbiosis between algae and fungus, her relationship with Idyll was another type of symbiosis. "This may be feasible," she said.
"It can best be facilitated by interpersonal passion," the plant said. "Are you amenable?"
"Sexual passion?" Gale asked cautiously.
"Explanation: originally our sexuality was purely for reproduction, but as we became sapient, we used it also for the communication of larger intellectual concepts. Now we transmit more information than genetic templates. The pleasure of sexual expression encourages us to continue expanding our thought framework. We owe much of our sapience to it."
Just as human sex had become a tool for social interaction, leading to larger societies, Gale realized. There was a parallel. But also a problem: "We are not of like species.
"We use it also to attract useful animals. We can emulate your form."
"Needless," Gale said, distrusting this. "I will accommodate to your form, or we can both compromise to make it feasible."
"Agreement. Here is my flower." A curtain of leaves shifted to reveal an enormous flower resting on the ground.
The petals formed a boat-like framework, in the center of which projected its stamen, or pollen bearing organ. It was about the size of a large erect human penis, glistening with sap-like moisture.
Guided by the paths, Gale removed her clothing, stepped into the flower, squatted, then fitted the anther on the stamen to her cleft and eased herself down. The anther was larger than the head of a human penis, but rounded and smooth, and the moisture was indeed a lubricant, making the slow penetration feasible. Once it was in, she straightened out her legs, sitting with the stamen fully embedded. It was cool but sufficient, distending her channel somewhat but hardly uncomfortably. As sex went, this was minimal, apart from the size of it; she had toyed with Havoc and other men similarly on many occasions, letting them take their time to work up to their climax. Once she had even playfully read a book while waiting, as if bored, causing Havoc to spurt with such force it made her drop the book. "Your turn," she said.
The stamen warmed, swelled, and erupted. This was its climax, not hers, but she attuned telepathically to its urgent pleasure, sharing it. As sex, it was no longer minimal; this was a vast and comprehensive pleasure. Suddenly she had a figurative and halfway literal bellyful. A huge transmission of information entered her vagina and spread into her body. Idyll quickly focused on it and organized it to be intelligible. Even so, it took Gale a while to assimilate it, but as she did, she was increasingly amazed.
First were the routine details. This was Planet Plant, named eons before thought of alien contact. The burned out region was a trap set for hostile visitors, as the plants could not know ahead what manner of creature would answer the call. If a dangerous, treacherous, or hostile entity appeared, it would be destroyed in a flash fire. That, plus the deliberately indirect line connecting the ikon, was their main protection. Why were such precautions necessary?