Out of the corner of one eye he saw ripples and twitches in the trunk of the nearest tree. Cautiously raising his head, he saw a branch as thick as his body starting to curve downward, lowering a seed pod at least eight feet long. As the pod descended, the leaves in its path moved out of the way. Some folded themselves double, others tilted up on edge or bent back.
The seed pod was ten feet above the ground and twenty feet from Blade when it started to open like a pair of jaws.
The stench of acid and rotten meat hit Blade like a blow. His eyes watered and he blinked. Then he saw that the edges of the pod's jaws were lined with folding six-inch spikes, barbed and dripping with foul-smelling juices. As more and more of the spikes unfolded, the pod began to remind Blade of a shark's mouth.
He would rather have been facing the shark. Now he knew what the plants' technique was: immobilize prey with the creepers, then bring the pods down to kill, swallow, and digest. He wasn't sure he was going to survive to use this knowledge.
Cautiously Blade flexed one leg. Four creepers jerked spasmodically. One lashed out and struck him in the chest, inches below his crossed arms. Obviously the pod's being on the way wasn't affecting the creepers' reflexes. Even more obviously, the last thing he could afford to risk was having even one hand immobilized. If he could hold the jaws of the pod open long enough….
The branch writhed, then thrust the pod slowly toward Blade. He wondered how many of the plants' victims had sealed their fate at this point by panicking and arousing the creepers again. He forced himself to stand completely motionless, not blinking, barely breathing.
As the pod drew closer, Blade wouldn't have wanted to take a deep breath anyway. The stench from the open jaws was like that of a sewer crossed with a chemical plant. Blade was afraid he'd vomit and trigger more of the creepers into action.
Still closer. The inside of the pod was lined with slimy gray-green tissue, speckled with whitish patches and gobbets of half-digested flesh. Blade couldn't see anything like a throat. Apparently the nutrients were absorbed from the prey directly through the walls of the pod.
If the pod continued its slow approach, Blade was now sure he could grip the jaws. If it dropped on him suddenly, he would need precise timing and also quick movement, which might send the creepers into action again at the worst possible time. Either way he needed to be ready. A joint at a time, Blade uncurled his fingers. A finger at a time, he raised his hands. A muscle at a time, he stretched his arms out to either side. Some of the creepers twitched faintly, but none of them went into action. Slowly he raised his arms above his head. He hoped the pod didn't have any way of learning that its prey was abnormally large and quite ready to defend itself to the last.
Apparently the pod depended completely on the net of creepers. It came on steadily, until it was no more than a yard out of Blade's reach and a foot above him. A drop of its digestive juice fell on the back of Blade's hand, stinging like a bee. The ghastly stench was all around him. Now the lower jaw was within reach, but Blade still waited. Grabbing the lower jaw alone might simply snap the upper jaw shut on his hands.
Then the pod began a slow-motion lunge toward its prey and Blade went into action. With one hand he gripped the upper jaw and with the other he felt for a hold on the lower one. He found one of the spikes and snapped it off. The empty space gave him a firm handhold on the lower jaw, and just in time. The branch holding the pod jerked, but the slimy lining of the pod rippled and the jaws tried to snap shut.
It took all of Blade's strength to hold them open. Fortunately his two hundred and ten pounds was all muscle and bone, trained and conditioned, and his endurance was something of a legend even among the hardened field agents of MI6A. The jaws of the pod closed about four inches, then stopped. The sweat popped out on Blade's forehead and chest. His muscles rose in ridges, but he held the jaws. His lungs cried for air until he had to inhale even the foul air from the pod, but he held it open.
The jaws quivered and jerked, still trying to close, with more strength than Blade could have imagined in any plant. They still didn't close, and finally the pod gave up the fight. The plant must have discovered that something wasn't going right. Blade had won his first victory. He also realized that it was a temporary one. He had to get free of the plant before it found some new way of attacking him. It might pull the pod back, then bring it in again where he couldn't turn to face it without triggering the creepers. It might order the creepers to drag him down, or bring in a second pod.
He wondered if he was overestimating the intelligence of the plant. He also decided that even if he was, he was doing himself no harm. The combination of trunk, creeper, and pod was unlike any plant he'd ever seen or heard of, and so was its behavior. It was better to assume nothing.
Blade now realized that although he'd been moving a good deal while holding the pod open, the creepers hadn't responded. Did the pod's apparently having a firm grip on the prey make them relax? Cautiously Blade wiggled one toe, then two. Next he shifted one foot, and finally he flexed one knee. He felt like a paralyzed man trying to move, but he didn't dare risk anything more drastic. That would risk breaking his grip on the jaws of the pod.
Still no sign of movement from the creepers. Blade repeated his whole series of movements, this time ending by flexing both knees. Both the creepers and the pod remained inactive. So far so good. The next step had to be disabling the pod, and the best way seemed to be sheer brute force. Blade took several deep breaths, then partly relaxed his arms without loosening his grip on the jaws. The pod closed another six inches. Then Blade put all his strength into one tremendous push.
For a moment the pod resisted. It was like trying to tear open a safe's door with his bare hands. Blade's heart pounded against his ribs. Then something banged like an enormous shotgun. The two halves of the pod flew apart. The sudden release of all tension threw Blade forward into the creepers.
He thought he'd jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. But the creepers around him were writhing and striking out wildly, not trying to reach and hold him. Even the two around his legs were loosening. Overhead the branch was writhing and thrashing, tossing the two dangling jaws.
Blade dug both hands into the soft jungle earth, then jerked both legs. The right leg came free at once, and the left leg came free after a second jerk. Then he flung himself into a somersault that would have won him a medal in any gymnastics contest. Here it saved his life by landing him beyond the reach of the creepers.
He landed hard, knocking the wind out of himself and once again slamming his head into a root. The roots in this jungle seemed to be jumping out at him. Then he heard a high-pitched whine in his ears. He shook his head gently, but the sound only grew louder. He'd just realized the whine wasn't inside his head when it turned into a shrill scream, like a great animal crying out in pain.
The scream faded briefly, then rose again until Blade wanted to clap his hands over his ears. All the creepers were writhing like a nest of maddened snakes, and one jaw of the pod dangled by only a few shreds of fiber. Yellowish fluid was dripping from the torn edges. Where it struck the leaves of the creepers below they turned black and brittle.
The plant was screaming.
The thought struck Blade with such force that he took two steps backward. This time he watched where he put his feet. He backed against the gnarled trunk of a normal, sensible tree, and leaned against it until the screaming finally died away. Then relief at his escape and memories of the stench from the pod finally hit Blade's stomach. By the time his stomach was empty, even the creepers were still.