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said, Coming, Sergeant, or are you going to cower in here for the rest of the
night?
Reluctantly Slocock suited up as well. He picked up one of the rifles from the
rack but Wilson shook his head. You won t need it.
I ll be the judge of that, he said as he checked to see that the magazine
was full.
Wilson went out through the airlock first, carrying just a powerful
flashlight.
When Slocock warily emerged from the rear hatch he saw Wilson some distance
away aiming the flashlight beam at something on the ground.
Almost immediately Slocock felt a sharp impact on his stomach. He grunted and
doubled over, winded.
Move away from the truck! came Wilson s voice over the suit radio. I think
it s the heat that attracts them. And protect your face-plate. One of these
things could easily crack it open!
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Still bent over, and covering his face-plate with his free hand, Slocock
staggered over to where Wilson was standing.
Look! he cried, pointing at the ground.
Slocock looked and saw that the ground between the trees was covered with a
thick yellow carpet.
Suddenly he saw a movement in the thick growth and got a blurred glimpse of
one of the round missiles shooting upwards out of the stuff. Then he saw
another. . . and another.
What is it? he demanded.
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Sphaerobolus, said Wilson with a crazy kind of glee in his voice. Slocock
wondered if he was starting to crack.
It s a fungus where the fruit body acts as a catapult, explained Wilson
happily. Inside the fruit body there s a tiny sphere called a gleba, except
in this case it s not so tiny. On average these specimens must measure five
inches across. He ducked as one of the round missiles shot by him. The gleba
floats in a sort of rotting fluid. The pressure builds up in the fruit body as
it matures and then eventually an inner wall suddenly turns inside-out and
flicks the gleba away. An ordinary gleba can be ejected over a distance of
several yards, but these are traveling over
10
times that. It s incredible!
Fuck incredible. Slocock aimed the rifle and fired a series of shots into
the yellow fungus. Then he waded into the stuff, which came up to his knees,
and started using the weapon as a club. Liquid popping sounds could be heard
as Slocock s frenzied assault sent up shreds and particles of the yellow
growth into the air.
You re wasting your time, Slocock! There s too much of it! There s nothing we
can do! called Wilson.
Slocock quickly exhausted himself and allowed Wilson to lead him back to the
truck. Wilson insisted he spend twice as long in the disinfectant to make sure
his suit was completely scoured.
Back inside Wilson explained the situation to Kimberley. His words were
accompanied by the steady drumbeat of the gleba hitting the truck.
I thought the mutated fungi weren t supposed to be sporing, said Kimberley.
Perhaps this species is an exception, or maybe they ve all started sporing.
If that s the case we ve had it.
Let s hope that the gleba catapult mechanism was automatically activated even
though the spores hadn t reached maturity.
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But why are those damn things being aimed at the truck? asked Slocock.
My guess is that it s the heat from the vehicle that has activated the
mechanisms. Heat to the fungus at night probably means rotting organic matter
food so it lobs its spores in the direction of the beat source.
You make it sound intelligent, said Slocock with a grimace.
The conventional sphaerobolus species doesn t have an aiming system, does
it? asked Kimberley.
No, admitted Wilson. It ejects the gleba in a scatter-shot pattern. What
we ve got out there is a definite mutant.
Kimberley winced as another missile slammed into the truck. And it grew
incredibly quickly too. There was no sign of it at dusk.
So what are we going to do? asked Slocock.
Wilson realized with a start that Slocock was actually asking him for advice.
Hiding his satisfaction at this reversal of roles he said, I suppose we could
clear that mess off the windshield and try and drive clear of the fungus, but
I doubt we d get very far before the glass is covered again. So I think we
should wait until daylight. My guess is that this heat-activated dispersal
mechanism is a purely nocturnal thing.
He was proved right. After spending another two nerve-racking hours listening
to the barrage, they were relieved to hear it lessen and then die away.
When it had stopped altogether Wilson and Slocock suited up and went out to
clear the windshield and reload the guns. The Stalwart looked as if it had
been splattered with red molasses, but no serious damage appeared to have been
done.
After a brief meal they got moving again. They crossed the remainder of
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Fernhill Heath and then turned south onto the M5. The motorway was eerily
deserted.
It took them less than half an hour to reach the turn-off, the A4019, that led
to Cheltenham and the A40.
As they approached Cheltenham they saw for the first time the effects of the
fungus on civilization.
Although they were not very far into the infected area, it seemed to Wilson
there was a great deal of the fungus about. Many of the houses were covered
with the stuff. Grotesque yellow and mauve cascades of froth-like fungus
tumbled from windows and hung from roofs like icing on a cake.
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There were no people on the streets but occasionally Wilson glimpsed faces at
the windows staring at the truck as it roared by. He didn t get a good enough
look at them to tell if they were victims of the fungus or not.
Nearer the center of Cheltenham the fungus had a greater hold. It had clearly
spread with ease between the closely packed buildings, feeding on all the
organic materials available. On some buildings one particular species might be
dominant. Brightly colored toadstools would make one office block look like an
illustration out of child s book of fairy tales, another would be covered in
tiers of horizontal white slabs, but other buildings would have a mixture of
growths, like patchwork quilts, as different species fought for control.
They also started seeing people in the streets. Some of them ducked out of
sight as the truck approached but others just stood and stared as they drove
by. They were all much more drastically affected by the fungus than the
victims they d encountered earlier. Several of them resembled Dr. Carter on
the video they were heavily encrusted with slabs of growth.
Slocock almost lost control of the truck when a man with what appeared to be
two heads stepped out in front of them. Wilson saw that the second head was
a giant puff ball growing from his shoulder. He screamed something at them as
they went by, but his words were unintelligible.
There was otherwise little reaction to their passing, though a couple of
people it was impossible to tell if they were male or female threw bottles at
them. Wilson wondered why. Was it due to anti-army feeling or simply because
they resented the existence of anyone not infected by the fungus? Probably the
latter, he suspected.
Occasionally the road itself was covered with a carpet of fungus. In places it
was quite thick and seemed to suck at the tires as the truck passed over it.
Wilson guessed that it was feeding on the asphalt.
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