Philip drafted his report to Gannon Corporation, and sent it to ‘Arcadia’ for transmission. Outside, he could hear the gentle thumping of a basketball as Drex and Mark worked off steam against each other. Mark was winning, which wasn’t surprising, being stronger and fitter. It was good for Drex to lose, Philip thought.

Betty knocked and entered.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said.

"I do believe we have most of our answers," He said. "A life-form with the uncanny ability to absorb other life-forms and regurgitate them at will. Not without considerable pain and suffering on the way, but it does the job efficiently. If someone wants to live forever, they can offer themselves up for a couple of days of agonizing death and disappear corporeally into a warm fuzzy green fog of ecological boringness."

"I’d hardly call Yanada boring. He’s the most exciting scientific discovery in the universe."

"He?"

"Julie and I decided that Yanada’s definitely male. He has the male capacity for cruelty, and yet is the nurturing and caring one - given the opportunity."

"I’m keeping an open mind on his character at the moment. Is Yanada a good guy, or a bad one? He’s indifferent to women, but has a great dislike for mature men - in fact, as soon as his boys start to convert, he kills and eats them. I’m not sure that’s benign, especially as he takes a few days to do it."

"There could be a reason for that."

"Oh, I’m sure there is."

"Yanada might be a collective consciousness, you know. The boys were being tortured by the men during the Stalag period, and - that other thing - that abuse. They have no reason to like men. What’s the easiest way of getting rid of them? Abolish the state of manhood. Nobody in the system ever becomes a man because Yanada finishes men off."

"Which means any mature man on Yanada is in danger from this plant."

"You called it Yanada. The planet - It’s Sahara - New Sahara."

"Hmm. I’m beginning to think like the boys. Correction noted. You’re still in danger. I don’t think Drex is, because he’s got about a year to go before he enters puberty. I’d say we had some breathing space when we got here, but that was when the plant was slowly becoming aware of our presence. Now it knows we’re here, it’s primed and dangerous."

"I’ll pass on your concerns."

"This is not just another carnivorous plant, Philip. It’s cunning, and dangerous. It may only be doing what it’s got to do, but it’s dangerous nevertheless."

---0---

Drex and Mark showered and dried off with towels. Their overalls were missing when they looked for them.

"Where are our overalls, Mum?" Drex called out.

"Did you take them off to play ball?"

"Yes, we played in shorts. Mark borrowed a pair of mine."

"I think one of the robots picked them up. They’ll be in the wash for sure."

"Damn," Drex said. "Sorry, Mark. You’ll have to borrow some of my stuff for a while."

"I don’t mind. It would be good to wear something different for a change. What is the current fashion in space?"

Drex explained that most time in space was spent in hibernation, but when they were active, it depended on available heating. If it was hot, such as during a long burn, the crew might choose to wear nothing at all, or light underwear, but when it was cold, everyone rugged up in thermo-clothing.

"I remember. Nothing has changed."

"The culture of space is always the same," Drex admitted. "Mum and Dad had me Space-Hardened before conception. That came as a pre-natal package."

"Tell me about that," Mark asked.

"Space hardened - that means I can take very high doses of radiation without being damaged. I can survive without oxygen for thirty minutes in high vacuum. My expected life-span is Two Hundred years, I’m immune to most illnesses, including Duro Plague and Cancer. Mum adds that she asked for me to be cute and cuddly too, but I never talk about that part. I reckon I grew out of the cuddly bit when I lost my milk teeth, but she still thinks I’m cute."

Mark laughed. "That’s quite a packet. They didn’t have those when I was a kid. Some things, but not the radiation resistance or vacuum tolerance."

"Everything changes. I don’t think there’s any such thing as a pure race any-more. It’s just life spreading everywhere regardless of the conditions. Gets to where you can’t keep a Bowlfish in case it’s a distant Uncle."

"I enjoyed the game today, Drex. Thank you for showing it to me. I remember it, but I did not enter Yanada through the Gate of Pain. My early recollections are imperfect."

"The ‘Gate of Pain’. Is that what you call it? I don’t really want to think about it. I knew James and Kedron. Not well, but well enough not to want them to go through that."

"They did. And if I’m to get back to Yanada, I must go through it. That is how Yanada learns. That is how he knows."

The door opened, and the domestic robot entered. It placed a parcel on the shelf next to the door. Drex looked at it in amazement. There were two pairs of overalls, but shrunk to half size.

"Robot, wait." Drex commanded. "What happened to these?"

"They have been washed," the robot intoned electronically.

"You’re supposed to wear them as they dry out," Mark said. That way, they shrink to fit you. They don’t need a lot of washing, anyway. They discharge most dirt electrostatically. Turn them inside out and hit once or twice with a stick. Believe me, it flies off in a cloud."

"Well, what are we going to do about your overalls, Mark?"

"Excuse me, Sir, but two pairs are about to be dried now. They belonged to Mister Gio, and Mister Akkers."

"Yeah, well they don’t really want them, anyway. Get them for us, Robot, and we’ll wear them as they dry. That way, they won’t shrink. Command Robot Remember: from now on, wash this type of overall by turning inside out and beating. If they get wet the owner must wear them until they are dry again, or they will shrink too small."

"Input accepted," The robot said, scuttling away to retrieve Akron’s and Peter’s overalls.

"Another soggy night. Luckily it’s a warm climate," Drex said. "I knew there had to be a downside to those things - they’re too comfortable."

"When you wear them, you are protected. Yanada will not attack any boy who wears them - unless they are too old, after puberty, or if they are returning to him. Your father should tell everyone on the Base to wear them if they go into the forest."

"Lately, we’ve tried to keep out of it. We don’t want to antagonize Yanada. Besides, we have enough specimens for research now."

---0---

George yawned and floated to his seat in front of the controls. "Another day, another Thallon," he said. "Anything new?"

"Message for you, chief. Encrypted by the great Gannon himself. Your eyes only, destroy after reading. It will erase any file folders on which it is stored after today."

"Ha! One of those. I bet it’s from some ex flame who wants to bug me."

"Ah, Too sexy for your spacesuit, eh?" Aster bantered. "Don’t worry - it’s from Gannon."

"How do you know?"

"It uses their encryption," Aster said, suddenly defensive. "It must be from them."

George went to his private quarters to decode the message. He was away for a long time. When he came back, he was silent."

"So what did it say?" Aster asked, jokingly.

"What did what say?" George countered. "That’s a funny way to say greet me. I walk in here after a good night’s sleep and get met with ‘What did it say?’ from my Number Two."

"O.K. Be like that," Aster muttered.

For the next hour, they monitored their observation screens. Then they had a video-conference with Philip. George accepted reports to be sent to Gannon, and prepared them for the Hypergate. Aster monitored the planetary weather data, the latest views of the Boys’ Camp, and comparative views of the Forest - Yanada, as everyone was now calling it.

Most of the time, they went about their tasks without speaking to each other.

---0---

Philip decided to have a private talk to Drex while Betty was running some tests on Mark. They relaxed in the Base Library, which wasn’t being used for anything else at the time.

"Because you’re both about the same age - in physical terms - I’m letting you stay together. Drex, the hardest lesson I’ve ever had to learn is not to trust people. We all want to trust people, but we continually get let down."

"Do you believe what he said about Yanada?" Drex asked.

"Do you?"

"I guess. It all seems to fit in."

"Here’s an image from a cloaked camera. It was taken this morning at the camp," Philip said, handing the glossy sheet over. It showed Mark in full combat gear training the camp boys in combat routines. They had full packs on."

"So our visitor isn’t really Mark?"

Philip took the image back and put it into his desk drawer. "Oh, it’s Mark all right. It’s just that Yanada’s made two of them. We believe that Mark was created very near here - probably near the Overall tree somewhere - that’s the nearest clump of forest.

"Without pushing too hard, see if you can sus him out. Find out where he birthed. Betty wants to get some samples, especially if the boys are grown in a pod of some kind."

"What if we sneak out - say early in the morning. He doesn’t have to know we rigged it. Get the ATROS to ignore us or something. I could tell him we need to get more overalls. That’s true, anyway. The Robots shrunk ours in the wash."

Philip laughed. "I heard about that. How are the seedlings growing, by the way?"

"Good. By next year we should be able to get overalls, custard, and porridge any time we want. I’m thinking of trying some other things, though."

"Just remember that too many Candy Bars will rot your teeth."

"I’m immune from tooth rot - you should know that. You designed me."

"Right. Get out of here, and be careful. Don’t go much further than the Overall trees, and keep in touch. I’d give you a blaster, but …"

"Sure. Kids and guns don’t mix, right?"

"You’ve got it kid. By the way, you owe me."

"What?"

"About a thousand hugs you didn’t give me during our cold war."

"All right. Tell you what, I’ll give you one now, and you’ll have to take a rain check on the others until I get back. That a deal?"

"Sure is. Come here, Son."

---0---

In the dim light before dawn, Drex felt his way down the gully leading to the overalls tree. He wore Akron’s overalls, which were slightly too big for him. Mark was wearing Peter’s and he had the same problem - mainly that the shoes didn’t fit him all that well, despite a lot of kneading the night before.

They stopped at the Custard Tree for a light snack, then at the porridge tree for breakfast. At last, they reached the Overalls Tree. There were some navy-blue pods that had matured nicely and Drex climbed up to cut four of them. Mark caught them as they fell.

"What’s that over there?" Drex pointed from his vantage point in the tree. Those things on the ground like giant toadstools?"

"Are they white?" Mark asked.

"Yes."

"Then we’d better go and look. It might be something for us. Remember Yanada provides." Mark said with a laugh.

They walked over to the conical objects that looked as if they were about a meter high. There were about twenty of them. One of them was lying open on the ground, empty. Mark gently kicked a whole one with his boot. There was a tapping noise from within it.

"Watch this," Mark said. He hit the top of the cone with his hand. It made a noise like a tight drum.

Immediately, the cones opened upwards, revealing twenty boys - all of them were wearing camouflaged overalls.

"So this is where you dried out?" Drex said, turning as if to run. He was immediately blocked by the boys who formed a ring around him. There was no escape."

"I’m sorry, Drex, but Yanada wants to talk to both of us," Mark said. He held his left hand up in the air pointing back with his hand towards the top of the trees. "Look at Yanada. He’s up there."

Drex turned his head upwards to look, and Mark rocketed his right fist upwards in a classic uppercut that knocked the boy out with Marine efficiency. "Drex, I am truly sorry about what I am about to do," Mark said, slinging the unconscious boy over his shoulder. He removed Drex’s Predator and dropped it on the ground. The squad of twenty boys turned and ran off with their captive, deeper and deeper into the forest, so that nobody in the base would have a hope of finding them.

When Philip and Peter scouted the area two hours later, Philip realized that he had miscalculated very badly.

Drex was in the hands of the enemy.

Drex woke slowly, feeling hot and cramped. He tried to look around, but his vision was clouded - smoky, and he tended to see two of everything. He swallowed, shook his head, and was immediately sorry. His jaw felt is if it was broken. He managed to collect a mouthful of saliva, swished it around his mouth, and closed his eyes, forcing his head to clear.

He was standing up, but could not move his hands or feet which were being pulled hard backwards. He managed to look down. Something - heavy vines - held his wrists, and had grown over his hands, completely enclosing them and pulling them behind a medium sized tree trunk. Vines had wrapped themselves around his ankles, and seemed to be enclosing his feet in much the same way as his hands.

He paused for a moment, and tried to break their grip by flexing out with his legs. Then he tried his wrists. Soon he tired. It was useless. He heard a cough and focussed his attention on the sound. Mark was standing against a similar tree, bound to the trunk as he was.

"So you’re awake." Mark said.

"No thanks to you," Drex said. "What’s happening?"

"I was supposed to take you to camp, but we were wearing the wrong overalls, it seems."

"We’re here because we wore the wrong overalls? That’s stupid."

"You are wearing Akron’s, and I’m wearing Peter’s. Washing didn’t remove their pheromones. Yanada’s got us marked as adolescents, or mature males. My little soldier friends, under his orders, didn’t give me a chance to explain. I couldn’t fight twenty of them."

"I thought you were looking forward to this," Drex said, "Your chance to get back to Yanada and talk to him."

"Nobody looks forward to this. There’s usually someone in the camp who’s getting close to the right age. We just put them on a thorn tree and I tell them what to say."

"We? I thought you were just born."

"Yes. So it’s not me personally. It’s just a memory. I’m too young for this to be happening. It’s a mistake!" Mark said.

He looked angry, confused and miserable. Suddenly, he straightened up and gave a little scream. "My hands - they’re getting crushed! It’s starting! We are going to Yanada! This is what I wanted to tell you, Drex. We can talk to Yanada."

"Yanada’s a carnivorous plant?"

"Yanada will explain everything. Aaargh! My hands!"

Drex felt it, too. The vine began to tighten, crushing his hands so tightly, that Drex could not help but cry out as shooting pains ran up his arms. The pressure around his wrists increased, and he struggled to get away. He felt a crushing sensation, first in one hand, and then the other as the bones began to grind into each other. "IT’S BREAKING MY HANDS!" He shouted at Mark, who was straining against the tree and pulling as hard as he could.

"Yes. It is the ‘Gate of Pain’. We must go through it to get to Yanada!"

"I don’t want to go. Not this way!" Drex shouted.

"It is too late, Drex. I’m sorry. Urrgh! I’m so sorry." Mark said. "It’s starting on my feet. Aaah!"

Then Drex realized the same thing was happening to his feet. As his bones began to break, the jagged pains shot up his legs, and he screamed - losing control of himself. He felt his bladder let go, as the pain radiated up into his hips and crotch. There was a stabbing sensation in his calf muscles. He managed to look down in time to see a large thorn pushing its way through the soft calf muscle of his left leg and forcing its way through the fabric of his overalls. Blood flowed in a darkening stain as the Right leg came under the same sort of attack.

"It’s the thorn tree - The thorns, they grow right through you," Mark groaned between screams. They go for the legs and arms first."

"Isn’t there any way to get out of this?" Drex asked desperately. He had never felt such severe pain. He wanted to throw up.

For a while, nothing happened. Then the crushing started again. Both boys started screaming in pain, but managed to settle down to low groaning. Pain can increase in intensity, but one thing is certain - there is no upper limit to it, and just as they thought it couldn’t get greater, the pain enlarged by a factor once more. Small, thin spines began to grow through their legs and arms, pinning them more securely to the tree. Each spine seemed to be covered in fine hairs that burned on contact, not only with the skin, but with every muscle, tendon, and nerve that it came in contact with. Drex’s groans started to rattle.

The relentless sun rose in the sky, and the day became warmer, then hotter, until the mid-day sun roasted with all its fury, baking exposed areas of skin such as the scalp and face and exposed neck and throat.

Mark’s mouth was full of thick choking white saliva that he tried to get rid of before it choked him. His whole body felt so totally ill, that his stomach rebelled, ejecting its contents all over himself. He felt his bowels voiding, but he was beyond feeling any embarrassment.

Through his agony, Drex saw thick thorns emerge slowly from his arms, surrounded by smaller spines. There was hardly any room for more spines on their limbs. It happened so slowly that from one minute to the next, there was no sign that the thorns were growing, but within an hour they would be so much longer and thicker.

Surprisingly, there was not as much bleeding as might be supposed, but the spines cut through the skin, tearing their way into him, then worming their agonizing way through to the other side. Overalls were no protection, as the thorns slowly tore their way through the tough thick fabric.

The figure of Mark flapped about like a rag in the wind. Dimly, Drex realized the boy was convulsing and the sound he could hear was that of bones breaking as thick thorns ground through his own Tibia and Femur, splitting the bones on their way.

A crescendo of pain hit him as night began to fall. In the dark, the only thing Drex could sense was his pain. At night, the plant seemed to stop its activity. He expected to die in the freezing cold, but realized that the night air was warm, and his shivering was from fear and shock.

For a long while, it seemed as if the thorns had stopped. After sunrise, their active torture ceased and the thorn trees hung languidly in the heat holding their victims firmly in a death grasp while waiting for other forces to start their deadly work.

His mouth was so dry, that Drex could hardly make any sound. His tongue was like sand-paper, and his breath wheezed in and out of drying lungs. He tried to shut the pain out, to render himself unconscious. The trees began to look at him.

Then he felt stabs at his back, as thorns started to penetrate his torso. They cut through the skin at his back like needles and scraped slowly at his spine, but avoided breaking it as they worked their way past vital blood vessels and organs, pushing their way out through the intestines and below the ribs like two gruesome fingers in an obscene salute. Traces of gore and a foul smell accompanied their appearance, and once again, Drex threw up, but it was blood and bile that he was ejecting now. He even welcomed some of the foul mess staying in his mouth for at least he was not asphyxiating on the dryness of his swollen tongue. "Mum, Dad, where are you?" he groaned.

Mark was shivering on the tree opposite, his muscle spasms were fast and furious. "Mark, can you hear me," Drex cried weakly through his ocean of pain. Mark lifted his head weakly and squawked something unintelligible.

With his consciousness dimming, and all hope gone, Drex commenced an inner struggle to survive somehow. The air around him grew thick, and his pain turned to a foul odor that suffocated him. His father looked down at him. "Look how upset you’ve made your Mother," he said.

"Dad, Help me!" he shouted.

He could not see - his eyes had ceased to function. Only the pain and the illusions of madness told him he was still alive. Vaguely, he felt something sharp pricking the back of his neck - that pain was so intimate, so personal as it bored its way into his head pushing up at the base of his skull. Spines poked through his mouth, his throat. He could hear incessant screaming, but did not know if it came from Mark or himself.

The rattle dropped on the floor and he reached for it, but his mother picked him up and held him close. He suckled contentedly on the thorn that skewered his tongue. In school he passed Math regularly with honors that he felt sliming down his legs as the Aliens reached for him with double jaws dripping acid that burned his face with needle sharp spines up his nose, screaming, screaming, screaming.

In sudden clarity, he hated Mark with a burning intensity for getting him into this. He could get so angry. His heart went into overdrive where angels played and lost the plot as he slid to base and made home run and his team cheered and cheered, "Drex! Drex! Drex!". The lightning flashed as the sudden storm hit the field and with the lightning and thunder the very air turned black with demons that gestured obscenely at him and he stopped breathing.

The silence surrounded him and he cowered into a corner between two large drums, holding his breath, as the men with bright torches and guns searched for him, but he was good at hiding, and he was usually lucky.

"There’s one!" someone shouted. Had he been spotted? He froze until he felt the hard barrel of a rifle pushing at his cheek. His luck had run out.

It must be a thorn, he thought, brushing at it with his hand, but his fingers closed on hard cold steel and he withdrew it immediately, placing both hands in the air. The soldier hauled him to his feet.

"What’s your name," he was asked.

"Drex. My name is Drex."

"Drex - the Termite King. We’ve been looking for you. Get over there with the others." He was herded onto a vacant lot surrounded by a security fence. Several of his friends were there. They huddled in small groups, talking.

"It’s a city-wide roundup," Zak said. "They’re scouring all the hideouts and squats."

"My brother said it’s happening in other cities, too. All the Street kids are being shipped off - planet as penal labor." A kid said.

"You look familiar, What’s your name?" Drex asked.

"I’m Mark. I don’t know you from shit."

After a while, a tracked truck arrived and the ragged street boys were loaded aboard to be driven to a processing station. The ride was rough, over uneven road, so it was probable that they were being taken outside of the city. They were driven into a large compound. The trucks parked next to a long shed.

"Everybody out," One of the guards said, and the boys were herded into the shed with kicks, curses, and batons. "Line up, Come on, don’t waste our time!"

They were ordered to strip, and marched into showers of water, insecticide, and follicide which stripped all the hair from their bodies. Dried by huge fans blowing a gale through the pens, they were dressed in orange jump-suits, manacled, fettered and packed into small cage-like cells to wait until they were identified and processed.

Drex fronted up to the old soldier sitting behind the interrogation desk.

"Name?"

"Drex …"

"Daniel Rex Masson - Alias Drex. Any other identifying name?"

"Termite."

"Ah. We’ve been waiting for you. You are the boy with the packet," he said, handling a small packet wrapped in brown paper, sealed with packing tape, and marked with an important looking red seal.

"I didn’t bring any packet …"

"Oh, yes you did. The pre-natal packet. Mark told us all about it. It will be very useful. Thank you,"

"Please, Sir, I’m not making any sense of this."

"How do you feel?"

"All right, I guess. I don’t know where I am. My memory …"

"Your memories are being processed. When we’ve finished with them, we might give them back. Some of them we won’t give back, because they are far too unpleasant. Your entry here, for instance. Most people want to forget that bit. It is very long and nasty, but necessary.

"But as you brought us the package, I suppose we should be grateful. You should understand what has happened to you, so we will tell you a story that will teach you that understanding. It’s a very vivid story, Drex, and it’s all yours. As of now, you’re a part of it. A long time ago, the Empire needed boys to work as penal slaves, terraforming a planet called ‘New Sahara.’

"You might wonder why they took boys instead of grown men - well, it was economics, really. You see, boys are light, don’t eat much, don’t breathe much, and tend to do what they’re told when shouted at by large, angry, rough looking men.

"Now get your Arse through that door, Prisoner VK49-6156 and look lively. You’re Sahara bound!"

---(*)---