That doesn’t keep the rest of you or your people safe, I pointed out. Not if Spehidon keeps on sending spores to you. Even with a hundred thousand rabbits, she’s sending more than they can eat.
Oh, she has to, though. If the rabbits are to stay.
Why is that?
Cradus chuckled. Because what they excrete kills the plant.
Let that sit on the mental air for a moment. Um, are you saying that the rabbit’s, ah, evacuation is killing the very thing they’re eating? And is therefore able to keep the Orange Scourge from taking over at least your surface if not the rest of you?
Yes.
Wow. This has to have been the easiest save we’ve ever had. Poop for the win, I guess.
CHAPTER 69
SUPERBUN WAS HAPPY TO help and keep his people pooping all they could. Could tell he was shocked but also found this as hilarious as I did.
So if they are to stay, then Spehidon’s gift is a good one. Cradus sounded like he wanted my agreement, not in a demanding way, but in a hopeful one. Got the distinct impression he didn’t want to hurt Spehidon’s feelings, not out of fear but out of love and kindness.
I suppose it is. Tell me, has she been sentient as long as you have?
Yes. We have been sentient for as long as we have been created.
Did she tell you how she got these spores to send to you?
She did. Something sailed through space and entered her. She found some of it distasteful and discarded it. But some was good and she kept that.
Huh. So it didn’t harm her?
No. It gave her the spores to send to me, which now have given me new people to love and entertain. It is a good gift.
Yes, it is, White said.
But it still risks your other people. My idea was to ask you to create an island that has the Orange Scourge and, now, the rabbits on it, because the Orange Scourge doesn’t grow in the mercury or rubidium for some reason and it also doesn’t affect them negatively. Would that work? I don’t want the rabbits to be cut off from the others, but until a way can be found to protect the Cradi from the Orange Scourge, I don’t see how they can live right next door, so to speak.
Your suggestion is a good one. I will make an island for the Orange Scourge, as you call it, and the rabbits that are staying with me. I will make it large enough for the rabbits to live well and prosper and deep enough that the roots will have room to grow. Spehidon will send her spores to the island only from now on. Should the rabbits want to visit the rest of the world, I will ensure that they can. They will not be cut off.
Will they need water? It’s something we from Earth and many other planets need to survive.
SuperBun felt the Orange Scourge was giving them all the water they needed somehow.
It should be impossible for a planet without water to have a plant growing on it that requires and provides water. I’m just mentioning that.
Spehidon has ice within her, and she says that it is in the spores.
Realized what was happening. Spehidon was terraforming Cradus. Wasn’t sure if that was in the moon’s best interests. Wasn’t sure that it wasn’t, either. Felt a migraine wanting to show up. Then felt it whisked away and as if someone was petting my brain in a very soothing manner. Cradus was truly a loving entity. Pity we hadn’t known him when Chuckie was having twelve migraines a day.
Why does the Orange Scourge hurt your people? Does Spehidon know? I know she’s not sending the spores to hurt them. At least, I hoped.
No, she is not. She does not know why, either. But she would not harm me or my people any more than we would harm her.
Gower jerked. You said that there is ice in the spores, because they’re part of Spehidon?
Yes.
Maybe that’s why the Cradi can’t touch it without pain or damage—the water, or the radiation, maybe both, Gower suggested. Are you sure that the Orange Scourge can’t hurt you, yourself?
I am, but what you say is most interesting. Spehidon and I have not considered that. She is our planet, we have assumed that nothing she could do could harm any who live upon me.
Maybe before she was hit with that neutron wave that was true. But I agree with Paul—it doesn’t seem true now.
That means we will have to determine how to ensure that my people can adapt to the Orange Scourge and whatever else Spehidon wants to send to us.
Take it slowly, White suggested. Rapid change can be very hard on people and the Cradi are afraid of the Orange Scourge, rightly from what they’ve shown us.
So much so that they are wondering if they would need to evacuate, I added.
That would make me and Spehidon terribly sad.
It would make them sad, too, and then it would kill them. They need to be near you in order to survive. It’s been tested.
Then we will work to ensure that my people are able to adapt to this new gift from Spehidon. They are more than capable of it, as long as, as you suggest, we move slowly.
SuperBun mentioned that those rabbits remaining on Cradus would like to be able to take off the Moon Suits.
As long as they won’t be hurt by Spehidon’s radiation or the gravity you and she create, I added quickly.
There is no worry. The Moon Suits are a part of you now.
All of us? Didn’t really want to have to wear these when we left Cradus.
No, just the rabbits. The Orange Scourge is helping them to bond with me and Spehidon.
SuperBun was worried and wanted to know if they could ever leave now, because some of the bunnies wanted to stay with me.
Yes. I can show you how to make the suits hide.
Hide? You mean take them off or internalize them?
Both. They will be able to do what my people do—live upon me freely and with no fear.
Rabbits were often afraid, SuperBun said. They would enjoy not having to fear.
But the Cradi don’t use the Moon Suits and, in fact, can’t survive too far away from you. And I think only those of us with opposable thumbs can get the suits on and off of the rabbits.
This is true, but my people are of me. The rabbits are not and they were special before they got here. They can adapt to anything.
The black water. Wondered if I’d regret not making all of us drink some of that or end up hella relieved that we hadn’t. Ah. The rabbits were taken from Earth to a planet far away and that planet gave them some special abilities.
They can become invincible.
Can they protect you from strangers?
Maybe. But Spehidon does that already.
Pondered this. I mean, we were here, so she wasn’t doing that great a job. Oh. Did she create the illusions that entered our ship when we arrived?
She did. She is very protective of us. We are alone and have no others like ourselves to talk to.
Yes, sentient planets and moons are rare.
It’s a large galaxy, White said. We may find others like you.
Or you may not. Spehidon and I are happy together. She would just like people, as I have people. It is her only wish.