Starcosmo

Chapter 2: Star Eater

Plus fifteen minutes

Johnson Space Center

Austin, Texas

"Check the tape, I swear it's there, check the tape."

Jason Lordes reached for the controls to rewind the video footage of the moon.

Dr. Banner thought she'd seen something, and frankly, with all the space junk or . . . whatever it was, falling today, she might not be mistaken this time.

"Yeah, it's probably one of those things crossing the penumbra," he said while rewinding, "Caused an optical glitch or a stabilization error, or something."

"No, I'm quite sure I saw it, just check," Emily was scanning with him, leaning lightly over the console, fingers poised on the monitor. The image rolled back, the digital numbers counting off segments in hours, minutes, seconds. . .

The moon dimmed.

"Stop! Back- . . . "

They could see flashes of the falling-star-things, all right, but it wasn't a stabilization problem. The moon had literally dimmed, a blood-red dim, for a tenth of a second. It looked exactly like an eclipse, but sped up a thousand times.

Lordes rocked the footage back and forth a few times. "You're right," he said, "It's definitely something."

Emily was tapping the image with a pen: "Gotta be a corruption, something wrong with the image filters, color scrubbers. . . " Like a good scientist, Emily was already trying to disprove her own hypothesis. "I'll check the raw feed."

She swept away, towards the other side of the small office, and it was then that the whole damn thing came crashing down around them: for it was by sheer chance or luck that the video stream from the big telescope at the Mount Graham International Observatory was displayed on the opposite wall, and that was where The Object made its first appearance.

"Jesus Christ!"

* * *

Plus sixteen minutes

North Powder, Iowa

Ingestion event #1

Jaden had picked the big one. She never shrank from a challenge.

They sat, poking up from fresh earth overturned by the impact of the star seed, having made a little haven for themselves in the  field of corn stubble. They were so pretty -- Jaden had maybe never seen any mushrooms so beautiful in all her life -- not the delicate chantarelles, not the beautiful but deadly redcaps, not the hot-pink Blewitt, not anything.

They were glowing. It was a delicate glow, barely an aura in the quickening dusk.

They had velvety, delicate, shiny skin: the big one was a light-purplish hue, while the two smaller ones had the same hue, but were ridged with sharp, delicate, wavy white lines.

The big one was about as big as her two fists stacked together, which was a little mind-blowing, considering she'd just seen the silver rain fall not ten minutes ago. This was something out-of-the-ordinary. This was something special, and it was calling out to be experienced.

Jaden first knelt on one knee, and then put her hand close to cluster of mushrooms. Her father had taken her mushroom hunting in the woods; she knew that some mushrooms were poisonous, even deadly. But she couldn't help herself. These were too beautiful.

As she reached toward the mushroom, her hand caught the glow, the luminescence paling her young skin. The moment of contact was soft, almost dreamy, as her fingers slid along the clammy flesh of the stalk. She felt the wet earth give up as she tugged, and the heavenly mycelium came loose from the soil.

It smelled earthy, and yet with a biter tang that made her want to  taste it, even just a tiny bit. The luminescence was what did it . . .it was so soft and beautiful, like velvet cupcake frosting. Jaden had intrusive mental images of licking the soft, velvety frosting off a cupcake top, the buttercream dissolving in her mouth in an explosion of otherworldly delight. . .

She dug her fingers under the lip of the cap and tugged gently. A tiny bit of the mushroom came free with a soft ripping sound.

Behind her, she heard Dad and Lux tearing up towards her. It was literally now or never. She popped the bite of mushroom into her mouth.

It didn't taste at all like frosting. It was more like collard greens, acidic and tangy. Still, it fairly dissolved in her mouth, and she felt a warm tingle spread from the top of her head to her toes.

She turned and saw her father running up to her, a look of pure fear on his face, and then she saw the most amazing Object, framing her father, framing the house, framing the whole sky, towering over even the towering thunderheads.  

She looked at the mushroom in her hand and the Thing in the sky and somehow knew these two Things were connected.

"It's okay, Dad," she replied, but already she was losing her grip on the mushroom, and on her legs, and she started to fall but Dad was already there to grab her, and she watched his gun hit the stubbly ground as she sagged down in his arms.

* * *