Chapter 1: Siren Song

I flipped the switch to turn off the UV lights in the bio-sphere bay. My fingers lingered on the light switch for the regular ship fluorescents. Instead of flipping the switch I stood alone in the dark staring at the grow beds. For a minute the unmistakable dread that had been building all day held me captive. I stood there peering into the dark ship bay expecting some unspeakable horror to materialize. Nothing happened and eventually I regained my grip on reality. I turned the light on, and walked the rows of plants. My eyes traced the ceiling following the tubing that comprised the sprinkler system. After tracing a couple rows I found the hole that rendered the following part of the system useless. Using a heat beam and a plastic patch I got to work mending the hole and by extension the sprinkler system.

The patch seemed to be in place.

“Bio-sphere bay one enable the sprinkler system,” I instructed the ship’s ai assistant.

Water spurted from the patch, most of it gushing into my face. The fuzzy green of the grow beds melted in my vision until I closed my eyes.

I felt around the patch blindly until I found where the gap was. I croaked out a command to shut off the water and dried my face with my shirt. I found the remaining gap with my finger tips and began melting the plastic patch on the tubing.

The next time I turned on the water all of the sprinklers lightly misted the plants below.

“Turn off sprinklers, please,” as I spoke the ship’s ai assistant chirped out a ping of acknowledgment and the mist cleared from the air.

The bay doors automatically opened in front of me as I slicked back the still wet front of my hair. I flipped the UV light back on before making my way down the corridor. Once back at my work station I scrolled a couple of “to-do” tasks before a message popped up.

“Manual navigation over-ride: A new stop on route to preprogrammed destination has been added by user: gl.mkcay ….”

Clicked the “okay” option.

“Gloria” I muttered under my breath.

I found her in the central hub of the ship.

“Oh hey Tabitha,” she leisurely swiveled around in a navigation chair.

“We’re supposed to be a team and you didn’t even ask before adding a stop to the route,” I groaned.

Gloria looked innocently shocked. Yet I was unconvinced it wasn’t an act.

“OH, yeah I put in a stop at celestial edge’s independent colony. We stopped there last time we took a shipment through here..” Gloria maintained her puppy-like look of guiltlessness.

I felt my arms crossing under my chest defensively.
“You could have consulted with me first. I don’t want this shipment to be late,” my eyes involuntarily narrowed.

“We can just have dinner at their little restaurant again, it will be fun..”, she had widened her eyes and they were practically shimmering.

“It’s not an independent colony, it’s a cult and you know that just as well as I do,” I said closing my eyes so I didn’t have to look at her’s.

She went quiet for a couple moments just long enough I opened an eye wondering why she had stopped arguing. As soon as I had she continued her campaign with renewed hope knowing she’d regained my attention.

“It’s so nice to smell the food cooking, you can taste how the ingredients were grown in soil, and the live stock have seen the sun …” the enthusiasm in her voice dulled my resolve.

She was cut off by the ship’s ai assistant.

“It is highly discouraged for humans to prepare their own food. Ai technology generates individually customized meal supplements that help each person combat their own health pitfalls. When humans prepare their own food it results in potentially harmful distribution of vitamins, nutrients, lipids, carbs and sugars. Overtime this destroys the uniformity of fitness and physical shape of the human race. It causes a host of health problems. Humans should only eat ai formulated, replicator meal supplements…”

Gloria pressed the button to shut off the ship’s ai assistant by sitting on the navigation console.

She looked up at me with her big doe eyes, and swung her legs back and forth from where she was perched.

“Please I already programmed the stop on the route,” she whined.

“Fine.”
*-*-*-*

Standing on the teleportation pad I tried to quiet a nagging voice inside my brain. The little voice loudly wondered how such an “independent” colony with little to no skilled engineers happened upon such advanced technology. I didn’t have too long to worry about it, in the blink of an eye we were there.

I immediately remembered the weird smell the host planet had. Maybe I had gotten too used to starships. Something about the plant life and dirt had an aroma that reminded me of a short stint I had worked for a chlorophyll farm. Then there was the sound. A sound I had almost forgotten, and that I mainly only heard in dreams. It was rain falling on the roof that covered the transportation pad where we stood. As Gloria stepped out from under the awning she squealed and ran towards the restaurant. The wind picked up the rain slinging it with a hiss into my face. I shivered, and listened for a moment to the sound of droplets collecting on leaves and the wind rustling branches. Then I stepped out from under the cover of the awning into the downpour and hurried to the building where the cult’s restaurant was housed.

The inside of the restaurant was bustling with sound, light and warmth. Most of the walls were painted decoratively. It was all pretty much the way I remembered. They had a collection of murals with little people harvesting massive produce the size of boulders. I saw where a new one had been started since we had last been here but it was unfinished. Gloria already had a table and I saw Misty, someone we had met on the last trip, bent over chatting away. I almost had to do a double take looking at the table. Some how Gloria already had a basket of appetizers she was munching on.

I slid into the booth across from her. The two of them continued to chatter. Misty was showing Gloria a new tattoo she had gotten since we’d last been here. I leafed through the menu listening to the hum of the two in front of me and the steadily growing crowd in the restaurant.

“Oh look it’s our favorite star-ship crew of two,” Tamara’s voice drowned out Misty and Gloria.
Almost like a chemical reaction I felt acutely aware of every heartbeat thump and pin-prick hair stood on end when she was near me. The surge of blood to my face made my cheeks burn like a day spent in the sun. Meanwhile my body flashed between hot and cold. I had really been hoping to avoid running into her.

Tamara plopped onto the bench seating beside me.

“You guys just couldn’t stay away huh?” As she spoke she pushed a strand of hair out of my face behind my ear. Leaning in she pressed closer and I could feel the plush of her love handles resist my sides as the two collided. The point where her bust barely poked out further than her belly brushed me as she shuffled her ass more permanently into her seat. Despite one side of her head being shaved the rest of her hair was so long it fell on my shoulders. I felt partially swarmed by straight cascading strands of intense powdery light blonde. The color brought to mind fresh cream with hints of caramel. Poking out from her hair were ears which she had cosmetically pointed. Black metal piercings ran up and down them from lobe to tip.

I watched as Gloria’s mouth cinched up like a chord strung gym bag that had been tugged shut. Misty looked mildly perturbed and I noticed the chatter stopped.

“Buy me dinner,” Tamara’s face glinted with humor behind a straight expression, almost like the moon trying to cover the sun. I probably looked similar, glowing red and trying to hide behind my unflinching and tense appearance. I pulled on the collar of my mock neck uniform without thinking about it.

“Sure,” my mouth awkwardly strung out the syllables for longer than necessary. Internally my brain screamed at me for my inability to say no.

Gloria let out a disapproving sigh which I felt at my core. Then Misty resumed whatever conversation my awkwardness had interrupted.

Before I knew it our table was loaded with food. Tamara’s appetite made the basket of fried appetizers and medium entree that Gloria ate look minuscule. Of course, Tamara probably hadn’t called an ai crafted protein block a meal in at least a decade. I couldn’t tell if it was my imagination but the more she stuffed into her mouth the closer she seemed to squish against me. I had to cross my legs. By the time she had cleared most of the savory foods ordered for “the table” her bust no longer poked out further than her belly. She flagged down a waiter talking about dessert but suddenly what Gloria and Misty were discussing grabbed my focus.

“I haven’t seen Luke around,” Gloria rested her head in one hand, tapping her cheek with her index finger.

“Oh yeah we’re under new management,” Misty laughed.

“What happened,” Gloria leaned forward curiously.

“Oh, Luke made some bad financial decisions. He blew through his money and he wasn’t using his ship to transport precious metals anymore. He was just lazing around the restaurant most days. When there was nothing left of the money except what little it costs to pitch another grand hall tent, he took off. Some of his ride or die girls went with him and settled out on the other side of the planet,” Misty continued.

Tamara put down her fork abruptly.
“Yeah, my cousin is one of the ***es that went out there with him. The terrain out there is totally different. She keeps in touch with me using a satellite communicator,” Tamara’s voice went surprisingly serious for a moment. Then she returned to her dessert.

I watched as she licked fudge icing from the fork she was eating with. I was fighting the urge to stare. When her fat tongue navigated the spires of the fork I began to loose the battle. When she placed a flat palm on the top of my thigh it caused an involuntary shutter. However, that was I was able to remain calm mainly because neither m Gloria or Misty could see what she was doing under the table.

“You know my cousin told me the other group is having some kind of ritual out there tonight. Luke has found some interesting alien stuff while they’ve been out there. Maybe our brave star-ship crew could help us make the journey? You have that handy transportation beam. I bet you’d like partying with me and Luke’s girls,” as Tamara spoke her hand moved up my thigh and her fingers began to tease dangerously close to somewhere worthwhile. I felt my thighs twitching in desperation. I was burning to ark my hips and force her fingers into the right spot.

“UuHh-um yeah why not,” I squeaked out.

Gloria looked at me with angrily widening eyes. That earned her a shrug, it was her own fault for not consulting me before programming this stop.

“I’ll go too,” Misty chimed in.
—-
Misty and Tamara went back to the ship with Gloria and I. All four of us got set up with the transportation chips. Tamara chose teleportation coordinates on the planet based off what her cousin had described. Her nonchalant attitude about the whole thing was taking years off my life. Gloria shot me a look as we were set to go. I knew then I was living on borrowed time from the ferocity burning behind the glare. I swallowed down the nerves and gritted my teeth into a smile long enough to hit the transport button. All the while wondering if this was the last time I would see my ship.

Tamara had said the terrain was different out there. If Deciduous was reminiscent of the area where the restaurant was, this something indescribable. Was the sand under my feet growing moss? Speckling the horizon were what I could only describe as hills raised up from the ground. Each hill topped with one singular tree growing out.

We got lucky. We’d been maybe trodding around for all of five minutes when we found Luke’s cult tent.

Misty and Tamara caught up with the girls who weren’t preparing food for the ritual. I suppose there were a good deal of things to learn since Luke had taken them away. Luke seemed to be cantankerous. He was moodily slouched against a table watching Gloria and I in an especially threatening way. However as the food preparation drew to a close one of the more senior members in his group came over. Her gentle handling of him seemed to temporarily assuage his foul mood.

I saw Tamara try to grab a bit of the roast from the ritual feast and another member slapped her hand. I had to bite my cheek not to laugh. Though admittedly I was mystified she could still want to eat.

Luke called everyone to where the feast had been laid out. He began to ramble almost incoherently on about how we were taking this sacrifice to the expansive beast, spirit of the trees.

At this point I was standing near Tamara. I gave her a soft nudge to get her attention. Luke droned on about the ritual and the linkage to the spirit of the trees.

“This spirit of the trees stuff is just a metaphor right,” I whispered.

Tamara didn’t speak, but the look on her face made me rethink what we were doing out here.

Several of the girls lifted the sacrificial feast and carried the table like pallbearers. In the hands of Luke’s disciples the feast floated in the opposite direction of camp and into the desert. Just like that entourage headed for one of the hill-like bumps in the ground. This particular hill had a looming opening. As we approached the mouth of the cave I noticed unlit torches on either side. Luke lit one as he prepared to lead us into the lair of the beast. Gloria filed into the cave behind me. I wasn’t sure if she meant for me to hear her utter,
“I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

I didn’t have long to worry about it. I was too distracted by Luke’s expansive beast. The cave funneled us into a main room. Long tree roots grew from ceiling to floor. I assumed the roots were growing from the tree atop the hill. There was massive fruit from the tree littered around the cave. Most impressively was the alien trapped in a cage of roots. The alien creature was somewhat humanoid. She had a human face if not for the two extra sets of eyes. Her skin appeared to be bark. The most noticeable quality was how fat she was. So fat the roots growing from above had imprisoned her.

Of course even someone Tamara’s size could have squeezed out of the jail cell.

The feast sacrifice was presented to the spirit of the trees. Dishes of food were pushed anxiously by several of Luke disciples each one careful not to enter into her root prison. She seemed disinterested in her sacrifice standing far away. Luke started what I could only describe as a sermon, all the women gathered around him.
Everyone was distracted and I went to get a better look at the spirit of the trees. I wondered how something that looked so comparable to a human could get so massive. I reached a point where each step was taking me closer than I ever dreamed she’d let me get. When I noticed the vine like things she had growing from her arms it was already too late.

One just barely brushed my skin and my vision went black.

Suddenly I could see the past unfolding in front of me. The last time the creature had been small enough to leave the cave of her own free will. She turned to her slide trying to squeeze between the bars. However, both her belly and butt together were too wide. Determined to get the piles of fruit inside the cluster of roots she sucked in. It was just barely enough for her belly to wobble into the threshold first and then her ass squeezed between the roots next with a ‘pop’. The fruit must have been more like tubers growing at the plants roots and raining down into the cave. She gorged herself, each fruit like a pomegranate seed blossomed to the size of beach balls. I watched her draining one after another dry. I could see the damage as she lay on her back looking more like a mound of fat. Despite it being a memory I could simultaneously feel her soft body swelling under my fingertips. At some point the memory showed me her trying to get back out when all the fruit had been devoured. Her squishing her belly and sides against the confines of the roots but none of the gaps could accommodate her. I was dripping as I watched her struggle.

“Well that’s amusing, I think I’d like to keep you here with me,” the voice in my head wasn’t mine.

“You’d like that wouldn’t you,” and the answer echoing my head was a unanimous yes.

-*-*-

Everything was shaking.

“Oh my god she’s blinking,” Misty said from somewhere.

“Tabitha,” Gloria’s tone was unlike any I had heard before.

My vision came back. I was on the offering table being carried. The shaking was the women struggling to hold the table flat as they carried it down a sand slope. I could see Luke’s tent approaching. I looked back at the cave.

“I want to go back,” I told Gloria

No one spoke. I jumped off the table. Sand slung back with each foot fall as I ran back to the cave. I didn’t get very far before Gloria and Tamara tackled me to the ground.

“I wanna go back,” sand squeezed out of my fists and cascaded through my finger tips proving any attempt at resisting them futile. They got me back to the tent, back to the ship, and back into the medical bay.

Things eventually regained some normalcy. I would still see her every night in my dreams. I would feel her body and sometimes her memories. Still life almost went back to what it before. This was until the month anniversary of the incident rolled around.

In the wee hours of the morning Gloria found me in the hub of the ship steering it back to my siren. Every month I have to be encased in my nightly restraints like some kind of werewolf. Still the separation doesn’t do anything to stop the dreams. I know the geography of her body under my hands better than my own. I know when Luke’s disciples bring her the offerings to keep her fat and trapped in the tree. I can feel when she’s devoured them.

Just like she’s shown me the past, she shows me the future. A future where I somehow find myself back in her cave. Roots growing from my body anchoring me to her for eternity. Somehow it’s not so horrific to know how you die.