Deep in the uncharted sector of the galaxy known only as the Damp Bits - nobody really knew why - space explorer Lionel “Fingers” Dempsey found himself stranded on a planet which at some point had been marked on the charts as ‘Grut’.

Grut was not the sort of the planet you’d expect to find on the cover of an overly optimistic science fiction novel: verdant jungles, very large mushrooms, and shockingly advanced aliens. Grut had largely missed any sort of explorer appeal whatsoever.

Lionel’s spacecraft, the _SS Failure of Optimism_, was worryingly, lodged unceremoniously into a swamp. The ship’s AI, PAM, had been running diagnostics for seven hours now and was suspiciously silent, which probably meant she was trying to calculate how to break some bad news. PAM was used to breaking bad news, but still hadn’t really got the hang of it.

Lionel sighed. A practical man, he thought, doesn’t dwell on the fact that the swamp smells like wet socks. A practical man dons his suit, grabs a sensor array, and goes for an exploratory walk.

The lifeforms of Grut, at first glance, appeared to be unremarkable. The landscape was low-slung. Which is a trendy way of saying bog/mire/swamp/marsh/quagmire or fen. There was vegetation that seemed to sway gently even though there seemed to be no wind. There thrummed a constant background hum that suggested either a frighteningly vast number of insects or a lot of washing machines.The local fauna, such as it was, appeared to consist mainly of creatures resembling dandelions, which Lionel decided to name, he really had no idea why, but it seemed appropriate somehow, “Flooffers”. And anyway, he was the first human here and it was his prerogative to name things.

The Flooffers were round, fluffy, and altogether unthreatening in any way. One bounced up to him and emitted a soft _phlbbt_ noise that sounded like an apologetic sneeze.

“Not exactly the sort of apex predator one writes home about,” Lionel muttered, taking a reading with his sensor thingy.

Still, something about Grut felt… odd. It wasn’t just the fact that the mushrooms occasionally appeared to move when he wasn’t looking. There was a strange pattern in the way the Flooffers bounced, a rhythm to their little _phlbbts_. Lionel adjusted his scanner whatnot, which didn’t seem to work properly and then expired loudly in a small shower of sparks.

“Typical,” he grumbled. “Well, I suppose I’m solving this mystery the old-fashioned way. With guesswork and making stuff up.”

Lionel’s suspicions began to solidify into something resembling a theory when he noticed the Flooffers were always in groups of three. Not four, not two. Three. They hopped about in intricate patterns that reminded him of something he couldn’t quite place.

As night fell, although “night” on Grut was relative, as the place never seemed to go fully dark, Lionel, ever the brave explorer, instead of retreating to his ship, set up camp and continued his observations. That was when it happened.

One of the mushrooms spoke.

Well, “spoke” is perhaps too strong a word. It emitted a series of sounds that Lionel’s brain, assisted by the universal translator embedded in his helmet, interpreted as language.

“WHY DOES THE LARGE FLESHY MONKEY THING STARE SO MUCH?” the mushroom intoned, in a voice that could only be described as deeply bored.

Lionel did what any self-respecting explorer would do in such a situation: he tripped over his own feet, and landed face-first in a puddle.

“STOP THAT, SMELLY MONKEY,” the mushroom said. “IT IS UNBECOMING.”

Lionel wiped mud from his visor. “You talk?”

The mushroom sighed. “ONLY WHEN IT IS NECESSARY TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE INTELECTUALLY CHALLENGED.”

This was not how Lionel had envisioned first contact. “But you’re… a fungus.”

“FUNGUS IS SUCH A LIMITED TERM,” the mushroom replied. “WE ARE THE GRUTANI. THE FLOOFFERS, AS YOU HAVE SO RUDELY NAMED THEM, ARE OUR HERALDS.”

“Heralds?” Lionel glanced at the bouncing dandelion creatures, who were now forming what looked a lot like a conga line.

“YES. THEY TRANSMIT OUR THOUGHTS ACROSS THE PLANET. OUR NETWORK SPANS THE ENTIRE SURFACE. WE ARE ONE. WE ARE MANY. WE ARE… ALL.”

Lionel blinked. He’d not encountered hive minds before, but usually, he remembered, they were big, flashy things with ominous red lights and an unhealthy fascination with assimilating people. Not… this.

“So, you’re saying the Flooffers are like, what, your comms system?”

“YOU COULD SAY THAT, IF YOU WISH TO BE WRONG.”

Lionel decided not to press the issue. “Right. So, uh, what do you want from me?”

The mushroom paused, as if considering. “WE HAVE BEEN OBSERVING YOU. WE ARE CURIOUS ABOUT YOUR KIND.”

Lionel straightened. This was more like it. “Well, humans are a fascinating species. We’ve built civilisations, explored the stars, invented art and music…”

“YES, YES,” the mushroom interrupted. “BUT WHY DO YOU DO… THIS?” It emitted a soft hum, and Lionel realised with growing horror that the Flooffers were now reenacting his earlier faceplant into the mud, complete with tiny splashes and a surprisingly accurate rendition of his swearing.

Over the next few days, Lionel came to realise the Grutani were far more intelligent than he had initially thought, but their intelligence worked on an entirely different axis from human cognition. They communicated through patterns: the movements of the Flooffers, the arrangement of spores in the air, the subtle shifts in the glow of the environment.

To the Grutani, language was art, and art was language. Every interaction was a dance, every thought a mural painted across the planet’s surface. They didn’t build cities or machines because they didn’t need to. They were the planet, and the planet was them.

Lionel tried to explain human concepts like art, culture, capitalism, tea and a general inability to do anything constructive, but the mushrooms seemed to find these ideas baffling.

“YOUR SPECIES SEEMS… POINTLESS,” the Grutani observed one evening, as Lionel attempted to repair his ship.

“Well, we’re not a hive mind,” Lionel replied, wiping sweat from his brow. “We’re individuals. We have different goals, different dreams.”

“AND CLEARLY THIS IS WHY YOU ARE ALL MAD?”

“Well, up to a point, but it’s also what makes us… us. The arguments, the contradictions—that’s how we grow. How we learn.”

The mushroom was silent for a long moment. Then it said, “FASCINATING. BUT YOUR SPECIES HAS NO POINT. YOU ARE PARASITES. DESTROYERS OF PLANETS. ONE AFTER ANOTHER YOU MOVE LIKE A SLOW SCOURGE THROUGH THE GALAXY.”

Eventually, PAM got Lionel’s ship operational again. As he prepared to leave, the Grutani said. “WE HAVE DECIDED THAT YOU MUST TELL YOUR KIND ABOUT US. BUT DO NOT BRING THEM HERE. WE DO NOT WISH TO BECOME PEST CONTROLLERS.”

Lionel nodded.

The _SS Failure of Optimism_ lifted off, Lionel suddenly realised that he was lucky to have escaped with his life.

“PAM,” he said, “please erase Grut from the maps and let’s not go there again.”

“Well, it would be alright for me, but you bald monkeys should definitely give it a miss,” said the AI somewhat brusquely.

Lionel sighed, holding his head in his hands as he wished, not for the first time, for a nice cup of tea and a bourbon biscuit.