Thren Valis's Arc

Chapter 11 of 18

The ship reached orbit, but the sun slid behind the planet's edge. Thren watched her screen from the shipyard floor below. The sunflower steered by chasing light. Now there was no light to chase. The bloom went slack. The ship drifted sideways, off the line she had aimed for home. Each acid burn cost fuel she barely had, and now the flower could not even see where to burn. She ran through the darkened rows of her living shipyard. The walls breathed around her, green and wet. She needed a light the flower could follow when the sun was gone. She had none bright enough to reach orbit. Then a soft glow moved along a low vine. A giant firefly clung there, its belly warm and yellow. It drifted from leaf to leaf, and every time it landed, the plant's tendrils bent toward it. The vine leaned into the glow the same way the sunflower leaned into the sun. Thren stopped. The plant could not tell the bug's light from a star's. She did not need to find the sun. She needed to carry a small one. Thren caught three of the glowing bugs from the vines. She built a sealed pod at the ship's nose, threaded through the fungal web. She fed the bugs into it and let the web link them to the sunflower's roots. The bloom would track their glow when the true sun hid. A tiny light, but close, and always there. One problem remained. The bugs sat still, and the sunflower needed a target that moved toward home. So she mounted the pod on a winged plant, its broad bat-shaped leaves stretched wide. She trained the leaves to angle by the tuber charge, swinging the glow across the flower's face. Turn the leaves, move the light, and the flower would chase it. She could aim the light herself. She sent the command up the web. Live now, she thought. The ship hung dark against the stars. Thren tilted the winged leaves. The bug-light swung. On her screen the sunflower stirred, then turned to follow. The magnetic pods fired one short burn. The ship swung back toward the line home. It held. She checked the acid gauge and breathed. The flower had made one turn, not ten. The bug never left, so the flower never lost it. Her fuel had barely dropped. But the bugs were alive. On the gauge she saw their glow already dimming, thin and yellow instead of bright. The pod held no food. Their light would last a day, maybe two, and then go out. The web could feed her plants. It could not feed a hungry insect. Thren watched the small light steady the ship on course. She had bought her heading home. She had bought it with three glows that were already fading, and she had no way yet to keep them lit.