Marshmallows

"You really don't know why those plants are so expensive, do you?" When he shook his head, I turned the big screen on and tapped around until an image of Yeanope came up. It was actually a real-time image, from geosync satellites around the planet to monitor the entity that lived there. "While Yeanope, and marshmallow plants, sound whimsical and funny, this is a level four biorestricted planet. It is inhabited by a single sentient entity, along with various flora and fauna."

I tapped around to zoom in on the surface of the planet. We were looking at the day side of the planet and it looked dark. Like some weird piece of art with a lot of negative space and a scattering of bright green, blue, and fuchsia spots randomly showing through the clouds. "Yeanope is mostly covered in shallow seas, with a few deeper areas and a lot of tiny landmasses. Last time I was here, there were three or four larger landmasses that were sufficiently large enough for landing, and those are the best places to get the flowers during the growing season."

"So is there someone down there to help grow the plants or anything?"

"No," I tapped again and zoomed in on a particularly trippy looking part of the planet that looked like the most likely spot for the entity to have settled. The magnetic readouts were consistent with the thing. "Nobody lives on Yeanope. Ever. The original discovery of the planet got some of the plant samples with a probe, but didn't set foot on the surface for a long while. The flowers specifically got a lot of attention as being really good for culinary uses, and we all know the universe likes to eat."

I tapped to trigger a magnetic field from the satellite, and he yelped as the black-looking water spiked up and appeared to reach for the camera. "The only sentient being known to live on Yeanope is a predatory ferrofluid, for lack of a better term. It's not known if it has a gender, or how it eats, or anything. Anybody who has tried to get a sample of tissue has been eaten. There's a running theory that the thing actually cultivates these flowers now to attract prey. It's the being that makes these things so expensive, and why I charge so much up front just to fly out here. I want to make sure my account is padded enough to pay off my shit if I bite it on the surface, including the fact that my ship will either go back to the last station it can reach or the next one on the flight plan if I don't give proof of life at the four day point. It pays the docking fees for that."

"Fuck," he looked at the spikes rising above the surface.

"Huh," I zoomed the view in closer. "It's grown since I was here last time."

I tapped to turn the magnetic field off at the satellite and toggled through the other cameras around the planet, checking for sufficient landmass. The Gingerbread Man was still there next to the second largest landmass on the planet, and it was all surrounded by the inky dark entity. I shut the screens off and left the bridge to go to the cargo holds.

I ignored the aft hold with the prisoner, and went straight to the bulkhead beside the forward hold. Pulling out the screen, I tapped on the magnetic drive. It clunked, but didn't turn on. I was fucked if I couldn't get the drive up before going down to the surface. In true human fashion, I kicked it and then gave it a soft pat when I heard it turn on. I ran diagnostics and it didn't have anything wrong beyond the fact it was old and secondhand. Nobody used magnetic drives anymore. Not unless they needed to go to Yeanope.

I walked back up to the bridge, where he had stayed and waited. "What was that noise?"

"I had to make sure the magnetic drive was still working."

"Why's that?"

"I'll put the ship in geosync and turn the magnetic drive on and hope it gets the thing away from the Gingerbread Man there," I turned the screen back on and pulled up the image of the island. "Right now, this thing seems to be surrounding both of these islands, and I need to get it away because that's where the flowers are."

"When will we get there?"

"About an hour from now," I kicked back in the chair and watched the readings, making sure all of the artificial magnetic fields were turned off and the non-flight was also inaccessible. Yep, people liked playing with the magnets around Yeanope from the comfort of their own home. Ship. Homeship. Whatever. But a person who was about to land could turn that access off completely, and anybody wanting to watch the monster eat the tourist would have to wait until the trip was over and access opened again.

"So, no cheesy 'I could die later' pick up lines."

"No."

He chuckled, "I'm just trying to lighten the mood. Will I be able to watch or reach you from the ship?"

"No," I sighed. "Nothing personal, but you won't be able to do anything to really help if shit happens down there. If it does go to hell, any of the screens in the ship will tell you what you need to know when you dock back at the station."

I stood and stretched. We had ten minutes before the ship adjusted for geosync, and I needed to get things ready. I hit a button to prep the prisoner for surface debarkation, knowing that if he didn't comply with my voice cheerfully telling him to get into the transfer pod the bots would knock him out and shove him in it anyway.

"What can I do while you're down there?" He asked from behind me.

"Read, make sure your rental is ready, I don't know," I made sure I had all the small harvesting equipment stowed in the surface skiff. "Crap, I do need to show you where the magnetic drive is." I led him down and winced when he glanced into the aft hold as he passed. "I'm going to turn it on remotely, and you'll be able to hear it like earlier. If it turns off, you need to come down here and kick it."

"Seriously? You're risking your life with a piece of equipment that runs on hopes and occasional kicks?"

"Yep," I patted him on the shoulder and walked back to the skiff. "And if I come back I'll be able to afford some repairs. Ah, if the drive won't turn back on after you kick it, you can access all of the satellites around the planet. Turn the drives on for the sats that are on the opposite side of the planet from me. I actually left those controls open on the screen where I was sitting."

He didn't look happy about any of this, but I was the one going down to the planet. I briefly wondered if he would ever try to buy more of the flowers after this, or not. He went back up to the bridge and I got in the skiff. Undocking the skiff was smooth, but yanking the transfer tube out of the aft hold was a little jarring. It secured onto the skiff and I started the descent.

The trip through the atmosphere was boring, but went without anything of note. The surface skiff was a little clunky, but I couldn't afford a flitter and didn't really need one. I disengaged the transfer pod and made sure it landed on a land mass, then toggled on the magnetic drive of the ship and sped the fuck away from the area. The planet was small, and I made it to the Gingerbread Man and didn't see any evidence of the entity in the water.

I pulled the harvesting gear out and started picking the flowers. The place was silent. With no surface animals, the only noise was the occasional whisper of the flowers moving in the wind and the noise of the gear I was using. I took roughly half the flowers from the small island and got back in the skiff to move to the larger island, marking the Gingerbread Man as harvested. I felt safer landing near the center of the island and began harvesting.

"Food..." the whisper sent a chill down my spine and I looked around as I continued to harvest. I had heard the entity could speak, but had never heard it do so.

"Food..." I looked around again and used every last bit of my willpower not to piss my uniform when I saw an oily, dark figure standing near the edge of the island.

"I'm not food," I told it, hoping it would go away.

I don't know how I could tell, but I knew the thing turned its attention on me. It had no eyes, no face, no real shape, but I could feel it looking at me. "Food. More food."

"I fed you already," I started backing slowly toward the skiff. I had no idea if this thing could reach the center of the island or not, but I wanted to be in the air now.

"Small food. Need more."

Fuck, fuck, fuck when had it learned to speak that much? The steps of the ship appeared at the edge of my vision and I stepped up carefully, still facing the edge of the island.

"Take flowers. Bring more food."

I paused. "I can take the flowers if I bring more food?"

"Yes. Food."

"I swear I'll bring more food. Three days from now."

"Always bring food."

Oh, fuck, I did not want to come back to this fuckhole of a planet with its cutesy names and psycho hungry amoeba. I watched as the thing melted back into the water, but I could still feel it watching.

"Flowers. Safe. Bring food."

I finished taking roughly half the flowers from the island as fast as I could. Who was I to ignore a fucking monster when it told me to take the flowers and bring it more food. As a Peacekeeper I had a unique opportunity to bring the food, since I didn't think it would appreciate having boxes of rations dropped from the sky. I had a feeling it wanted food that would run away.

Back in the skiff I got out to orbital distance before I turned off the magnetic drive on the ship. What I saw oozing around the surface terrified me. The shadows under the ship were significantly smaller than the one that had been surrounding the Gingerbread Man.