The Human Division #7: The Dog King Read Free Page B

sucked him fully under.
    “This is the best day ever,” said the groundskeeper to Schmidt.

    Wilson had a minute or two of suffocating closeness from the plant as the thing pushed him into its digestive sac. Then there was a drop as he fell from the thing’s throat into its belly. The fall was broken by a spongy, wet mass at the bottom: the plant’s digestive floor.
    “Are you in?” Schmidt said, to Wilson, via his BrainPal.
    “Where else do you think I would be?” Wilson said, out loud. His BrainPal would forward the voice to Schmidt.
    “Can you see Tuffy?” Schmidt asked.
    “Give me a second,” Wilson said. “It’s dark down here. I need to give my eyes a moment to adjust.”
    “Take your time,” Schmidt said.
    “Thanks,” Wilson said, sarcastically.
    Thirty seconds later, Wilson’s genetically-engineered eyes had adjusted to the very dim light from above to see his environment, a dank, teardop-shaped organic capsule barely large enough to stand in and stretch his arms.
    Wilson looked around and then said, “Uh.”
    “‘Uh’?” Schmidt said. “‘Uh’ is not usually good.”
    “Ask the groundskeeper how long it takes this thing to digest something,” Wilson said.
    “The groundskeeper says it usually takes several days,” Schmidt said. “Why?”
    “We have a problem,” Wilson said.
    “Is Tuffy dead already?” Schmidt asked, alarm in his voice.
    “I don’t know,” Wilson said. “The damn thing isn’t here.”
    “Where did he go?” Schmidt asked.
    “If I knew that, Hart, I wouldn’t be saying ‘uh,’ now, would I?” Wilson said, irritated. “Give me a minute.” He peered hard into the dim. After a minute, he got down on his hands and knees and moved toward a small shadow near the base of the capsule. “There’s a tear here,” Wilson said, after examining the shadow. “Behind the tear it looks like there’s a small tunnel or something.”
    “The groundskeeper says the rock bed below the palace is riddled with fissures and tunnels,” Schmidt said, after a brief pause. “It’s part of the cave system that’s underneath the palace.”
    “Do the tunnels and fissures go anywhere?” Wilson asked.
    “He says ‘maybe,’” Schmidt said. “They’ve never mapped the entire system.”
    From deep inside the black tunnel, Wilson heard a very small, echoing bark.
    “Okay, good news,” Wilson said. “The dog’s still alive. Bad news: The dog is still alive somewhere down a very small, dark tunnel.”
    “Can you go down the tunnel?” Schmidt asked.
    Wilson looked and then felt around the wall of the capsule. “How does our groundskeeper friend feel about me tearing into the plant wall a little bit?” he asked.
    “He says that in the wild these plants have to deal with wild animals kicking and tearing at their insides all the time, so you’re not going to hurt it too much,” Schmidt said. “Just don’t tear it any more than you have to.”
    “Got it,” Wilson said. “Also, Hart, do me a favor and throw me down a light, please.”
    “The only light I have is on my PDA,” Schmidt said.
    “Ask the groundskeeper,” Wilson said.
    Down the tunnel, there was a sudden, surprised yelp.
    “Ask him to hurry, please,” Wilson said.
    A couple minutes later, the mouth of the plant opened and a small object tumbled down into the capsule. Wilson retrieved the light, switched it on, lifted the tear and shone the light down the tunnel, sweeping it around to get an idea of its dimensions. He figured if he crawled, he might barely be able to make his way down the tunnel. The tunnel itself was long enough that the light shone down into darkness.
    “I’m going to have to undo the rope,” Wilson said. “It’s not long enough to go all the way down this tunnel.”
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Schmidt said.
    “Being swallowed by a carnivorous plant isn’t a good idea,” Wilson said, undoing the rope. “Compared to that, letting go of the rope is