Crysalis: Merrill's Tale

Turnips

“If you’d listened to our advice…” said Darwin.

“…which you never do,” Newton interrupted.

Newton always interrupts. So does Darwin. You might as well get used to it now; it’ll save you trouble in the long run. I don’t know if they do it to irritate me or because, as they claim, they share a single mind. Both are definite possibilities, since they’re twins.

“…you’d have let us take care of the tricks while you escaped,” Darwin finished.

They looked at each other and grinned. In the dim greeny light of the corridor, their freckles seemed to glow.

I looked down at our collection of blood samples and other related information from our delightful visit to World. The boys had spent a little time in the World temple, too, where they’d snagged a few souvenirs: a couple oddly shaped rocks, some slate pendants like the one the priest had worn, and three bits of blue glass that I was pretty sure had come from the Rim settlements, maybe even up in Alpha Sector. Also one piece of electronics, a fragment of circuit board with a jagged break which I inspected closely but which didn’t seem to set off any alarms. I was a little surprised the folks in World had collected such obviously techie stuff. Usually, the Off-Grids were either frightened of tech or thought it was evil. Or both.

Darwin bent his scrawny leg up and scratched the side of his neck with his right big toe. Sometimes I wonder if the boys even have bones, they’re so flexible. Makes me jealous.

“You know how good we are at legerdemain…” Newton began.

“…you just like to do the fun stuff while we do all the hard work,” Darwin said.

I ignored them with as much dignity as I could, considering they were probably right. I did like to practice my sleight-of-hand, but the boys sure had me beat when it came to dexterity. They would no doubt be way better than I am at magic.

I picked up one of the rocks they’d snagged, turned it over, waited for a tingle or a glow but got nothing. None of my tattoos even yawned.

I mentioned how the yokels had been impressed by my glowing tattoos, right? Well, they’re more than just a trick to impress the easily impressed. My entire body is covered by them, from the neck down, though most of them are not visible to the n***d eye, except for when I want them to be. I can make them all, not just the ones on my arms, glow at will, but they have other purposes. All of us who grow up in the Brainery have tattoos, and they can serve a variety of purposes. Right now, though, mine were telling me nothing. None of these bits and bobs was infected with anything, nasty or otherwise.

Seemed like our visit to World, stinks and stealing and turnips and flames and booms and running for my life and all, was a complete and total bust. A larger than usual pile of s**t, in other words.

Oh, we’d managed to inoculate the villagers against everything we could, but we didn’t have any hints, yet, as to exactly how all those disparate diseases were spreading throughout our little world-with-a-small-w, or where they might be coming from either. Sure, we’d managed to vaccinate most of them, so their offspring would be healthier, and we’d added a bit of variety to their diet, so yay us.

The boys could tell—they could always tell—I was disappointed.

“Cheer up, Mendel…”

“…now we can go home for a while…”

“…cause we’re out of boom-boom powder and…”

“…Granther will have a cauldron of soup bubbling…”

“…and you know how much you like his soup.”

“…not to mention, you don’t need to ask for a new mission yet, right?”

“Right,” I admitted. “And soup does sound good, after all the fungus.”

“And turnips…”

“…don’t forget.”

“How could I?”