Hasa shrugged, staring moodily out at the downpour. “Natural phenomena never scared me. I’ve always found my own kind much more frightening. Especially when you’re a kid.”
Though he found this line of inquiry insightful and interesting, something in the human’s voice told Jemunu-jah it would be best not to pursue it, even under more climactically favorable circumstances. They sat in silence beneath their fungoid shelter, watching the rain.
By the morning of the next day the deluge had finally slackened, giving way to the more customary steady drizzle. As they were packing up their gear, wordless with fatigue, Hasa noticed a small fist-sized herbivore attacking a clump of mushroomlike basidiocarps growing on a fallen log just outside their resting place. The fruiting bodies were very distinctive, with handsome three-sided purple caps that shaded to dark red basidia underneath. Using two sets of blunt projecting teeth, the herbivore rose up on stumpy hind legs and began to chew into the thick body of the cap.
Protruding from the decaying wood close to the stem of the fruiting body were several jet-black tendrils. As the small herbivore gnawed deeper into the basidiocarp, one of these tendrils, shivering slightly, rose upward. Its tip quivering, it sprayed something in the direction of the plant eater. The intruder promptly shuddered, gave several violent spasms, leapt into the air, and landed on its side. In a moment, all ten legs had ceased kicking.
Interesting defense mechanism, Hasa mused as he fastened his service belt around his waist and prepared to don his rain cape. Interesting, but not surprising. The plant life of the Viisiiviisii had evolved hundreds of ways of defending itself, from protective mimicry, to concentrating toxins in leaves and fruiting bodies, to throwing caustic spines and other more active means of repulsing would-be browsers. There was nothing remarkable about the little drama he had just witnessed. The black tendrils would likely be defensive rhizomorphs, specialized bodies that in this instance were designed to defend the spore-holding basidiocarps. Both were part of the same largely hidden underground life-form.