Honestly, as far as Devan plants go, blood-boilers are relatively harmless. The pods are toxic, sure, but the kind of toxic that’ll give you a good high. A few licks of one, and you’ll end up with a hot tongue, a mild fever, and a pleasant buzz that lasts a few hours. Especially popular on Titan, I’ve heard… which is exactly where I once witnessed an unfortunate soul who had somehow ended up swallowing a pod. I’ll never know whether it was the result of ignorance or desperation or a fit of madness, but within the hour, he had ripped off his uniform and was on the ground, writhing and sweating, his skin steaming in the cold air.

Momma made us leave before the end of it, but she explained what would happen in all its gory detail. When the toxic pod sits in your stomach, the fever it induces swiftly becomes a lot more than mild. It drives your body temperature up, and up, and up some more. Once it reaches a temperature of 110, the resin covering the pod melts, and it explodes. Violently. On hot days in Deva, just being near one of the plants is dangerous enough to cause a few deaths every year. When it’s inside you, well… it makes a mess. And it’s a mess that scatters the plant’s sharp, tiny, resilient seeds all around the area.

Which means, if the Gaians want any hope of stopping blood-boiler plants from spreading through the local ecosystem, they’ll have to drag me to a much more secure place than this cell. So I wait, patient, forcing out a few more groans of agony in case anyone’s listening.

After a few minutes, the door clanks open. I fake an especially violent coughing fit.

The guard who enters the cell is armed and decked out in a full quarantine suit, including protective headgear. Still, he stays several feet back, his face pale and sweaty through the glass over his face. Poor Gaian has probably never seen or dealt with a Devan plant in his life, but everyone knows the stories about blood-boilers and brain-rot fungus and other floral horrors. As far as he’s concerned, I might as well be a nuclear bomb right now.

“D-don’t move,” he stutters, voice muffled through the glass. He gestures with his blaster. I’m guessing he’ll hesitate to use it, though. Getting potentially toxin-infected blood everywhere would only increase the chances of some kind of outbreak.

I nod, stay where I am, and make sure my handcuffs look like they’re still secure until he’s within striking range. Then I grab a tight hold of one of the cuffs, scramble to my feet, and swing the other into the side of the man’s helmet. He stumbles to the side as the glass audibly cracks.