Sporin Capwell's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Sporin Capwell held nine spore-pods in their cap and had to pick one, knowing eight of their kin would die on a moon that had never grown a single mushroom. The pods rattled in a wooden tray on the launch table. Sporin's big green eyes moved down the row. Each pod held a different fungal strain: red desert-clingers, blue frost-eaters, pale things that drank stone. Their colony had chosen Sporin for this. One strain might root in the barren moon. The wrong one would rot in the lifeless soil, and the whole colony with it. The moon's dirt sat in a jar beside the tray. A scout had carried it back last season. Gray, dry, and dead. No worm had ever turned it. Sporin pressed a cool palm against the glass and felt nothing living answer. Guessing meant gambling with kin. Sporin refused to guess. They pulled the portable analyzer from their satchel and screwed the pointed probe into the jar. The screen woke with a clean blue glow. Numbers climbed and settled. pH 8.9. Moisture 4 percent. Sporin read it twice. The soil was harsh and bone-dry. Most of their strains needed damp, gentle ground. Those pods would die within a day. Only the stone-drinkers, the pale ones, could hold in dirt this dry and bitter. Sporin's chest tightened. One pod out of nine. That narrowed the choice, but it did not make the dead soil ready to feed anything. A soft glow drifted over the tray. Sporin's pet cave moth landed on the jar's rim, wings pulsing faint blue. It had followed Sporin since the deep tunnels, drawn to warmth. Now it crawled toward a small clay dish at the table's edge, where a single green beetle sat waiting. Sporin watched the beetle. Their kin bred these creatures to wake dead ground. The beetle pulled nitrogen from the air and pressed it into the earth. One beetle could not fix a whole moon. But a beetle turned poison dirt into soil a hungry strain could bite. The plan clicked into place. Not one choice. Two, working together. Sporin chose the pale stone-drinker pod and set it apart from the rest. Then they lifted the clay dish with the green beetle and placed it beside the pod. The moth lifted off and circled, glowing. "You go first," Sporin told the beetle. "Then them." Sporin sealed the eight losing pods in a drawer. It hurt to shut them away. But the analyzer had spoken, and guessing would have killed everyone. The launch was set for dawn. Sporin now knew what to plant and how to prepare the ground. One strain. One beetle to break the soil first. But a single beetle worked slow, and the moon held whole plains of dead dirt. Sporin stared at the lone green shell in the dish and understood the next problem. One would never be enough.