Synopsis: College life in the era of interplanetary colonization is kind of similar but different - you still have to study and take finals and such, but the classes cover topics like Orbital Mechanics and Xeno-Biology. And depending on which planet you're on, Xeno-Bio can get particularly engrossing.
[Author's note: There's all sorts of familiar themes and imagery in this, all of which generally was done best by those who did it first. (Much like the Beatles.) Here that means Tabico, Trilby Else, Thrall, Iago and at least a couple others. I hope they all consider stories like this to be the deepest and most sincere expression of gratitude.]
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Amy, Kelly, and I were usually full of friendly chatter and conversation as we went about our days at New Gaia PolyTechnic, but about a month ago this one xeno-biology lecture definitely made an impression. We met at the door in wide-eyed silence as we exited the classroom lab, and even after exchanging nauseated expressions it still took a couple moments until anyone spoke up.
"Damn, Kelly," said Amy at last, "you were right. That shit is soooo fucked up."
"I know," replied Kelly, "and it's just a fucking plant, you know what I mean? How creepy is that?"
"And that *shape*," added Amy. "What possible reasons could a plant have for growing a piece that looks exactly like a human dick, anyway?"
"Fungus," I said softly as I followed my friends down the hall.
"What?" Kelly asked.
I just kept walking, staring at my feet and not quite realizing Kelly had asked me a question.
"Wendy. Yo," she said, finally catching my attention. "What do you mean, 'fungus'?"
"Nothing, sorry," I replied. "It's just ... it's not really a plant - biologically, it's more like a fungus." I had a work-study job as a Teaching Assistant in the xeno-bio department, but I usually tried not to bore my friends with details about pistils and stamens and the like.
"Plant, fungus, whatever. It's fucking disgusting. And could you believe that shit about 'psycho-sexual reactions'?" Kelly asked, rolling her eyes for effect. "What a crock. She *wishes*, the old perv..." Blonde and stunning, Kelly saw most things through a prism of sexuality because that's how most people saw her.
"She did say it was a myth," added Amy.
"Yeah right, a myth she gets off on every time she's up in that lab all alone doing 'research.' Sicko..." Kelly didn't really mind the leers she got from her professors, including Walters. Actually she rather enjoyed all the attention, even when it came from women. Kelly certainly wasn't opposed to the occasional girlfuck and Walters kept herself in nice enough shape and everything - she had a gorgeous pair of breasts, in fact - but, still, Kelly had a serious boyfriend at the moment, and besides, Walters had to be at least, like, 40 in terran years. Eww.
"It is kind of amazing, though," continued Amy. "You get so accustomed to thinking only animals can exhibit that kind of predation, but competition is competition, right? So by definition, any native species that survived the pre-colonial terraforming would have had to be the ones that adapted and found ways to continue to propagate. And think about it, lots of parasites alter the behavior of their hosts, this one evidently just altered things a little more ... profoundly."
As bouncy and bubbly as her short brunet curls, Amy was the friendly one among us - and her heavy, delectable breasts and full, ripe hips made her a very nice friend to have. None of us found it particularly hard to attract lovers, and together we were basically the apex predators of the social food chain at PolyTech.
"Yeah, whatever. Save it for finals, brainiac." Kelly got almost all A's, too, but never missed a chance to tease Amy for being the smartest. "Look, I'm going to have to skip the coffee shop today, girls - I've done next to nothing for that Orbital Mechanics test on Friday, so I'm going to hit the books instead. Kisses!"
After a quick wave in reply, Amy and I headed off as a pair, but after only a couple steps I pulled up short. "Shit," I said, patting my pockets. "I, ummm ... Shit, I think I left my, uh, commlink back at the lab - Ames, you go ahead and get us a table, I'll catch up. Order me a latte, okay?"
"Oh. Well, ... okay," said Amy forlornly as I hustled off back the way we came. "Bye."
* * *
I've always had a knack for little white lies, but even to this day I still cannot believe I pulled that one off. The way my heart was racing, I barely made it out of the lab without having a heart attack - or more likely, given the circumstances, collapsing under a tidal wave of orgasms.
Even as aroused as I had gotten during class, though, I truly didn't intend to act on it until Kelly begged off our traditional post-class coffee break. With her gone, I knew I could misdirect Amy, so as soon as the opportunity presented itself, I guess I just found myself going for it without really having made up my mind about it.
Like a lot of Asian girls, I'm pretty small and firm up top, so I often just skipped the bra. Today was one of those days so now with each step I took back toward the lab my swollen, sensitive nipples sizzled back and forth delightfully against the inside of my shirt. "I'm only going back to look at them," I promised myself. "Only to look. Look but don't touch." My naughty little pussy was fairly squishing with anticipation.
I still wasn't convinced my friends hadn't caught onto anything, but they sure hadn't seemed to; and truth be told, in the state I was in, I didn't really care very much either way. In fact, I had been in a frenzy ever since old lady Walters unveiled the specimens for the day's xeno-bio lecture: Lovelock spores. Real ones. Right there in front of me. Hundreds of years old, and long since dead and dessicated, Walters had insisted, but even during the lecture - as soon as I saw the close-ups on the hologram projector - I knew Walters was wrong.
In fact, I bet no one on Gaia knew as much about Lovelock spores as I did - obviously not Walters, who must have learned everything she knew about the spores from other scientists. To be fair, Walters' lecture had focused not so much on the mechanics and biology of the spores as on their history and mythology, and and she'd largely gotten the historical context exactly right.
The story among some of the colonists was that the whole planet was a cohesive system; one which affirmatively managed the balance between its resources and inhabitants through seemingly unplanned variations in things like the location and amounts of rainfall and the spread of vegetation. The Lovelock spores fit into this story in a fascinating way: the spores were said to be parasitic, and used humans to reproduce not only the spores themselves, but ultimately also other humans, in a sense.
Once grotesquely and painfully impregnated, the history books said, women would reportedly spawn several new spore pods first, before eventually giving birth to nightmarishly mutated human/fungus hybrids with poisonous blood that spit fire and ate children, or something like that. There were no reports of the spores being implanted in men.
The professional scientists among the colonists debunked these reports, considering the spores to be just an unusually well-adapted form of incompatible local flora, and listed the spores among the other native species that were to be eradicated as the colonists themselves completed the final terraforming by hand.
I, however, had spent countless hours reading through the settlement's archives. I focused on the first-hand reports in the original wikis, not just the digests prepared by the Gaian authorities for the history books.
Dozens of those reading sessions had ended with my panties bunched up around an ankle and my fingers strumming myself through one soul-shaking come after another as I read about women from the original settlements losing themselves - or, more accurately, eagerly and ecstatically volunteering themselves - to the enchantments of the soul-sucking "demon fungus."
Some of the descriptions were incredibly, almost reverently detailed, and I had a long mental favorites list of the archive addresses for the really good ones. Over time, I'd learned about how the spore pods could go dormant in order to survive droughts, floods, radiation storms - just about anything, really; and I read about how the original settlers eventually figured out how to tell the dead ones from the dormant ones and eradicated them.
Or so they thought. Within 10 seconds of looking at the pods Walters had brought into class, I was positive they weren't dead - and I couldn't help getting steadily hotter and creamier thinking of creative new ways to bring them out of dormancy.
By the time I arrived back at the door to the lab, I was fit to be tied. Taking out my TA key and pausing for a second, I took a deep breath and let myself in.
* * *