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Fat Bear Week: Night of the Living Starches

By Psion

Set in the Orion Commonwealth Universe

All Rights Reserved

I'm at the helm of the Insatiable Curiosity as my ship drops out of hyperspace at the edge of an interesting system. A friend I had known for many years had given me the coordinates to this system and said that he found a taste sensation that I needed to experience for myself. The fact that he had gotten considerably wider since I saw him shortly before this expedition had me curious but much of his story didn't make much sense to me. A seemingly living goop that tasted like some sort of carbohydrate? And it liked to stick itself into people's mouths and stuff itself into them?

Following up on this sounded like both an absolutely wonderful and terrible idea at the same time. My generous ursine stomach grumbled greedily at the thought but at the same time my mind was racing with questions. How did such a creature fit into the galactic ecosystem? Was it an engineered organism and if so, to what purpose? As a bear of science, I couldn't help but think about these sorts of questions.

Putting these questions to the side, I entered the system coordinates as the Curiosity's impulse engines warmed up. Within minutes I was flying towards my destination and the moment it appeared on my ship's long-range sensors, I had more questions then answers. An abandoned Sol Federation orbitalcolony? What were the humans doing here? As far as I knew, neither the Federation or the Orion Commonwealth claimed this system. That didn't rule the humans out entirely but still, an orbital colony with an artificial biosphere wasn't a small investment for a handful of frontier homesteaders.

As I flew closer to the torus-shaped station, the Curiosity's sensors continued to provide me with more information. The station was fully functional with my sensors picking up multiple energy signatures of automated activity. But it also seemed to be devoid of any sapient life as attempts to signal the station were met with silence.

As I got close enough that I needed to consider where to land, the ship spotted an open hanger bay within the outer shell. There was enough space for the Insatiable Curiosity in between shuttles that looked like they had never been used.

Landing manually since traffic control and automatic landing appeared to be completely unresponsive, I rose from my chair on the bridge the moment I felt the thud of the landing struts connecting with the station deck. I plod along my ship with weighty boot steps as I prepare to board the station. I collect my micro-fabrication kit, my personal medical kit, and my handheld pocket computer. I put the kits in my pockets in my jumpsuit and modify the sensor package attached to my pocket computer. While I make my modifications, I bring up the station's environmental report on my smart goggles. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary; atmosphere was breathable and didn't contain any dangerous agents, temperature was comfortably cool, and power seemed to be humming perfectly in all major sections. And not a single sapient life signature on the entire station except for myself.

I finished configuring my pocket computer sensor module for motion sensing, environmental readings, and bio-chemical analysis. I was as ready to go outside and onto the station proper as I ever would be but before I left my ship, a thought occurred to me and I decided to follow up on it.

Returning to the bridge, I activated the ship's communications and reviewed which of my friends and contacts are in the region. I sent them all a message about what I had found and that I was requesting help to explore the abandoned station. Even if there was nothing dangerous aboard, an abandoned orbital colony was still a massive space to explore and it would take me ages to search it all from top to bottom. And there was enough of a mystery here to interest a few of them....

The message sent, I left the Insatiable Curiosity and boarded the station. The change in surroundings was apparent immediately. The warm, bright interior colors of my Commonwealth science vessel were exchanged with the dull metallic grays of a Federation frontier colony that was as much a military fort as it was a civilian settlement. The lack of maintenance was also immediately apparent. Most of the lights in the corridor I had found myself in still worked but occasionally one would flicker ominously. There was a thin layer of dust and grime along the floor that made it clear that no one inhabited the majority of this station for years. Only a set of footprints disturbed the otherwise uninterrupted signs of abandonment.

Looking down at the footprints, I quickly confirm that they were from my contact. Or at least someone with a similarly large boot size. Which wasn't a very long list of individuals. While it didn't address my skepticism about his findings, it confirmed that he was here. Time to see if the rest of his story was nonsense or not.

Lumbering along the corridor and boarding an elevator to the main levels of the station, I left the narrow corridors of the hanger and maintenance sections of the station behind for a long elevator ride up to the main level of the ring-shaped habit. The elevator lead to a small lobby building surrounded by a cluster of equally small dome-shaped homes that were popular on some Federation frontier colonies. Surrounding the community was verdant farmlandalmost as far as the unaided eye could see. Only the faint outline of the far metal walls in front of me and behind me as well as thesynthetic diamond roof above betrayed the artificial nature of my location.

Outside the small farming village, acres of acres of some strange plant grew wild and started to grow out into the roads connecting the settlement with others along the ring. Further down the roadway, a strange white substance started to appear in large piles.

Curious, I started to walk out of the community and along the roadway. There continued to be no one else, traffic was nonexistent except for my weighty ursine footfalls as I ambled along. As I continued to walk along, I took the occasional plant sample and constant sensor readings on my pocket computer as I came closer and closer to the mysterious white mounds of mush.

As I slowly walked closer, one mystery became clear, the strange plants that were growing wild developed into large mounds of white mush upon reaching maturity. Most of these mounds were the size of a small ground vehicle as I approached one on the outermost edge of the mature field. It was warm and soft to the touch, demonstrating a spongy texture in my gloved hand that allowed me to gently break off a piece for analysis. The plant did not appear to respond either positively or negatively to this external stimuli so I quickly ran a bio-chemical scan on it.

The preliminary reading was that the substance was a starch, a very calorie dense starch similar to many tubular root vegetables found throughout known space but also showing multiple genetic markers for engineered lifeforms and a very limited nervous system. Almost like it would not react unless exposed to certain stimuli.

As my pocket computer continued processing the sample, I slowly started walking backwards towards the road. At least I was until my boot brushed against something soft and squishy. I looked over my shoulder and found that one of the other starch mounds had somehow moved. It had to have moved, the road was clear of these strange plants when I waddled up yet there was one right there on the pavement right behind me. Looking back in front of me, the others had started to move as well.

I forget which one lunged at me first but the next thing I knew, I was knocked on my plush rump and hit with a torrent of white goop as one of the strange plants forced its way into my mouth. Reflex forced me to swallow as I consumed the starchy substance. It tasted like a bland, warm mush. Gritty but not unpleasantly so. My big stomach started to send shoots of pain through the rest of my body as it bulged to contain the plant. Brown-furred belly stretching my jumpsuit as more and more of the strange starch pushed into my mouth. My cheeks bulged as I struggled to chew and swallow one mouthful after another.

Slowly I tried to crawl back to town before staggering to my feet. The plant that was in the process of feeding itself to me was still partially attached to me and was dragged along until I picked it up and started to carry it in my hands, still chewing all the way. Fortunately my pursuers were still slower then I was, moving at a literal crawl while I staggered until I could slowly build up speed.

Returning back to the elevator, my one starch plant devoured and my pocket computer covered in goo, I quickly descended back down to the tunnels leading to my ship. My stomach continued to groan as it protruded several feet in front of me, gurgling all the plant matter I had devoured. Groaning myself as I made my way down the hall and back onto the Insatiable Curiosity, I sealed the ship and made my way into sick bay to run a diagnostic on myself.

Seating myself in sick bay and activating the ship's auto-doctor, I exhaled and tried to wait calmly for the test results. A massive belch erupted from my lips as my stomach slowly started to settle. I gently rubbed the distended ball my stomach had turned into as I wiped off my pocket computer screen with my free hand. The biological analysis had finished just as the auto-doc chimed with my diagnosis. The good news, my stomach pains were just that, stomach pains. Indigestion due to unexpected overeating without any gastrological stimulants.

The bad news was that the grittiness I tasted was the plant's seeds... That was why the plant was so eager to be eaten. My belly was full of hundreds of plant seeds that will eventually pass through my system and be spread across potentially dozens of worlds. I needed to warn my friends, both the ones I had invited to help me explore this station and the one that told me its location. There were still questions that had to be answered but what I learned already had disturbing implications.

My stomach groaned violently again... I'll warn them after my stomach settles. In the meantime, I'll figure out a way to make the taste of these plants a little more bearable. Perhaps a little butter or salt will help them go down easier....