Given time, he might be able to gain control over the station’s drive unit. At least he’d better be able to do it, he told himself fiercely. Otherwise he’d be stuck here for good.
He turned back to look at the jungle again. Only now did the silence of the place strike him. There was no singing of birds, such as had been ever-present on Erspia. There was no buzzing of insects. In fact, no sign of animal life at all.
That air, though… breathing in deeply, he felt his senses tingle. It was like wine, it was like… where had he breathed air such as that before? He could only think of one of the pleasure houses back in civilisation, its air loaded with molecules to stimulate the appetite for food, sex or whatever.
Evidently Histrina was enjoying it, too. She gave a happy sigh. Then she sauntered towards the nearby orchids.
But suddenly she stopped, and stared like a stalking cat. “Look!” she hissed.
Laedo followed her gaze and caught up with her. Two figures had entered the jungle from the direction of the park-like grassland. They were tall, fair-haired and fair-skinned, though tanned by the sun. Silently, with graceful, light steps, they walked between the monstrous growths like fairies in a paradisical garden.
One was a man, one a woman. Both were completely naked, a circumstance which caused Histrina to giggle lickerishly. “Look at him,” she whispered aside to Laedo. “He’s stiff!”
And so he was. Laedo stared at his feet, aware that the was probably about to witness an act the couple would regard as private. But what happened next removed his sense of reserve.
The two had reached the mouth of a fleshy orchid, a glowing pale lavender in colour. Reminding Laedo once more of fairies, they proceeded to climb through its thick petals and into the roomy bell, vanishing from view.
The huge flower trembled. From within came cries which Laedo would have interpreted as cries of agony and despair, had he not known better.
Histrina turned to him, her faced flushed, her eyes glistening. “Come on!” she urged, as she grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him at a half run towards the jungle.
She selected the first orchid they came to, an almost globular flower of a translucent, luminous yellow.
She had to reach up to its entrance, which was a narrow gap or porticoed slot, and it yielded reluctantly to her arms like the jaws of a snapdragon, as she hauled herself up and in, her legs kicking as she wriggled her way inside.
Moments later her head and shoulders reappeared, thrusting through the portico lips. Apparently she had discarded her gown. Her hair, face, and shoulders were dusted with a fine yellow powder. It was, Laedo realized, pollen.
“Come on in, quick!” she shouted, in a note of almost hysterical urgency.
Unsure of what was happening, Laedo hesitated. But Histrina would brook no delay. She bared her teeth in a grimace. At the same time, her arm poked through the entrance. She was holding the gun, and it pointed right at him.
“Come on in here, I say!” she screeched.
It was with something of a shock that Laedo recognised the expression on Histrina’s face. She was transfigured with lust. Naked, raging lust, as compelling as an animal’s fear, sweeping away all logic.
Now, he reasoned, might not be the time to cross Histrina. Besides, something was working on him, too.
As they approached the orchid he had become aware of its aroma, a delightful sharp-sweet smell which wafted to his nostrils even more strongly now as Histrina wallowed about in the flower’s throat. A warm desirous feeling was rising in him, further stimulated by the sounds coming from within the lavender orchid some tens of yards away. Any resistance he might have had quickly evaporated.
He clambered up, gripping the lips of the slit and hauling himself inside as he had seen Histrina do.
They were in a fair-sized cavity, amply lit by the light sifting through the translucent walls of petal flesh.
The floor was carpeted with a kind of thick fleecy pile, from which clouds of pollen rose with every tread. Near the walls the carpet sprouted big penis-like stamens which also ended in pollen dispensers.
The effect was to drench them both in pollen every time they moved.
The sensation of actually being inside a flower was delightful, but there was scarcely time to savour a feeling so delicate, for the smell of the orchid was now overwhelming. Laedo had already guessed what the plant did. It released human pheromones, airborne chemicals which brought on an irresistible sexual urge. Histrina grabbed him as soon as he was inside, impatiently tugging at his clothing, of which he was just as anxious to divest himself. They went down together, rolling on the pollen mat, blood pounding, gasping with eagerness.
It seemed to Laedo that the whole globular chamber was banging like a drum to the beating of his heart.
He had never known anything like it, not even in a pleasure house. Somewhere he could hear an uncontrolled roaring and wailing, both a man’s voice and a woman’s, and he completely failed to realize, at first, that it was his and Histrina’s voices he was hearing.
How long did it go on for? He couldn’t tell. He was submerged in his urges; there was no time. But eventually, after slaking his desires more deeply than he would have thought possible, he recovered his senses somewhat. He was lying on the floor of the orchid, arms still clasped around Histrina.
The gun lay a few feet away.
Only that forced him to clear his head. Otherwise he would probably have gone on, reaching plateau after plateau. He disentangled himself, casually picked up the gun, then wrapped it in his strewn clothing.
“Come on,” he said huskily, “let’s get back outside… for a while.”
They stood up, and each laughed to see the other. Skin and hair were golden, dusted and shining. Still chuckling, Histrina bent to scoop up her gown.
Then she looked around for the gun, a frown crossing her features. Laedo forced himself quickly through the opening and lowered himself to the ground, then walked away at a steady pace.
Some distance away a man and a woman were standing looking up at the projector station. They were the same two, as far as Laedo could tell, who had entered the lavender orchid. Histrina caught up with him. He turned so as to keep his face to her. She seemed upset, furious, in fact—dangerously so. But, as long as he had the gun…
Placatingly he smiled. “That was great, wasn’t it?”
“Give it back to me,” she said in a hard voice.
He ignored her. “There are no insects here,” he mused, looking up at the jungle, then at the sky. “No animals, no birds. Only people. The flowers use us to fertilise themselves with. That’s why they’re so big.”
It was a marvellous piece of adaptation. Elsewhere it would have betokened an interesting line in selective evolution. On this planetoid, of course, the case was a little different. The orchids hadn’t evolved quite by themselves. A guiding intelligence had given them a hand, or so he imagined—the intelligence of Klystar.
“Give me my gun,” Histrina said in a low, controlled screech.
“It isn’t your gun,” Laedo said calmly. “It’s mine, and I’m keeping it.”
“Give it to me, you—” Histrina flew at him, snatching at the bundle of clothing under his arm, kicking and scratching.
“Stop it!” he bellowed. Putting out a hand to fend her off, he placed it squarely on a voluminous breast, and pushed her away.
Panting, she stopped, to stare over his right shoulder. Cautiously he turned. The other couple had strolled up. They were smiling a greeting.
“Haven’t you finished?” the man said pleasantly. “You should have stayed in the bell.”
“We have finished, actually,” Laedo murmured. He inspected the two, interested to think they were the same whose ecstatic cries he had heard earlier. They were perfect physical specimens. The man was also undeniably handsome, and the woman beautiful. Quite obviously they were accustomed to their nakedness and had no use for clothing of any sort. They moved with a natural gracefulness, and radiated an air of unabashed friendliness.