Free RisingGreen by Sabrina York Page A

of why it was so important
to keep her distance, to keep the armor up.
    Sage picked up her step as she made her way through the
cramped dining hall and into the yard, ignoring the hoots and whistles from
Kale and Davidson. The fuckers. Those two were the worst. They were
mercenaries, but not the decent kind who went to fight illegal wars in
third-world countries. These scumbag mercs had been hired by the company to
guard a small coterie of scientists. On a rock. In the middle of the ocean.
    Seriously. What kinds of threats could there possibly be
here?
    Hell, the biggest threat was that Kale and Davidson would
devour every scrap of food in the storeroom before the job was done.
    She passed them with less than a snort, striding along the
crushed rock path to the gate and out onto the rocky escarpment surrounding
their prefabricated camp.
    It was a relief to get away from the billet. A relief to
breathe fresh air.
    Air that didn’t smell like man farts.
    She made her way across the stone-strewn landscape, toward
the field that had caught her attention, following the glowing orange blip on
the infrared scanner. The meteor they’d come to study had landed a couple of
klicks to the west, so the rest of the science team was focusing its efforts
there. This anomaly would be of little interest to the geologists.
    Not so for Sage. Hell, this was practically party time for
her.
    She saw the splash of green woven into the gray rocks long
before she got there, and she picked up her step. A tingle, a wave of excitement,
shot through her as she drew closer. She stopped at the edge of the strange,
verdant carpet.
    Damn, it was odd. Not just because it was here, out of place
on a volcanic billow with little other life. But it was just…odd.
    Unlike anything she’d ever seen.
    Long, leafy tendrils twined and vined around boulders, a
splash of incongruent color among incessant gray. She knelt at the edge of the
leafy nest to take a closer look and noticed each vine was finely furred and
had tiny backward-facing thorns. She thumbed one and found it soft, pliable.
She plucked a leaf, unrolled and examined it, noting the turgid ridge down the
center and the fat veins skating outward. The leaf was lightly furred as well.
    From the middle of the thicket, a thick stalk topped with a
bulbous bud rose. It was reminiscent of Pinguicula grandiflora , but
instead of purple it was a blood-red hue with bright-yellow streaks.
    Sage set down her rucksack and pulled out her sample kit.
Carefully, she sliced several cuttings into vials and dropped them into the
sack. Then she pulled out her camera. She started with several long shots and
then moved closer, stepping carefully on the leaves and vines for a tight shot
of the flower. Its petals were tightly folded with a waxy velvet sheen. They
shimmered in the weak sunlight. Smelled like poppies.
    She stepped closer. Stroked.
    It was silky-soft.
    As though reacting to her touch, the petals began to curl
back, unfurl. Sage stared in fascination as the stamen was revealed, long and
thick, bright yellow and heavy with pollen. A swollen pustule throbbed at its
base. She leaned closer, pulling her camera up for another shot.
    And the bud exploded.
    In a great puff, it ejaculated a cloud of tiny seeds. A
thick haze surrounded her. Seeds crawled up her nostrils and clung to her lips.
Her hair was dusted with them.
    “Shit,” she said under her breath as she backed away.
Coughing and sputtering, she brushed the spores from her shoulders, her chest.
    A strange flutter danced through her belly, followed by a
wave of dizziness. Her vision blurred and weakness washed through her. Her
thighs trembled and she stumbled, unable to negotiate her own feet. Fighting
unconsciousness, she dropped to her knees.
    And then she fell into the embrace of a soft bed of leaves.
     
    She awoke to a dream. A misty, murmured haze.
    Struggling to rouse herself out of the muddled cloud, she
shook her head. The infinitesimal motion made her