The Girl and the Unicorn is a series of short stories set in the same World.

The Girl chases space pirates all around the Galaxy. It is her profession, her life, here Faith.

Most have heard about the Flying Spaghetti Monster and its followers, the Pirates wearing colanders. 

Fewer know about the Invisible Pink Unicorn, the Hoofed Goddess that blesses people by turning their laundry pink...

These are some of the pseudo religions that exist solely for the purpose of raising attention, permitting discussion and reflection about faith and religion.

The use of these pseudo-religions in my stories has no objectives of being disrespectful to any believer of any existing religions. It is just for the purpose of entertainment, and the somehow smiling factor that always bring the thought of them to mind, that I used them in my plot.

Come along and folow the Girl in her merry chase...

They was... Space Pirates

The lowest scum of the yellow sun

They was... Space Pirates

Sack a galaxy just for fun

-- Alice Cooper, "Space Pirates"

She finally found them. She was sure of it. The pirates had to be there. The girl had looked for evidences of their presence in the Solar system for years now. And it was in old archives dating from the beginning of the third millennium that she found them.

She was holding a series of pictures taken during the twenty-first century by an organization specialized in discoveries and investigations in Space. The NASA had launched a probe and obtained images of the Solar System. Among these images were some of Europa, one of Jupiter's Moon. The information gathered at that time remained the chore of the knowledge of this part of the Galaxy. In 2680, not much more about the satellite was known.

Europa's scars marring her surface were new hints in her investigation. The girl had already examined all clues archived by the IPU Intelligence Services, any bit of information related to the Pirates since the beginning of the World was here, in the Church basement.

The Church of the IPU had become the planetary religion when the War of the Religions almost destroyed Earth in the twenty-second century. The governments were not able to stop the conflict at the time. They countered by forbidding any form of religion. The result was disastrous, increasing the warmongers determination. A group of scientists then exhumed an old Religion, studied its texts and decided that it had more cohesion and consistency than the ones men were fighting for. The evangelization effort conducted to a slow but complete conversion on Earth. Nowadays, everyone was praying to the sacred Invisible Pink Unicorn.

The girl was an agent of the Intelligence Services, an Investigator. Some complained Investigators were chasing the golden goose, but the girl's life was dedicated to the greatest task, fighting the Pirates, as her predecessors. Some would say that global warming was the reason for the Pirates disappearance, it was true, in a sense, but the global warming was the weapon used by the Unicorn followers succeeding in erasing the Pirates from the oceans. Now, the girl and her acolytes were Pirates in the Solar system. The false God, this Flying Spaghetti Monster, would disappear and Pastafarianism would be eradicated. May the Unicorn, Peace Be Unto Her, enlighten their lives with her invisible pinkness.

The girl knew she needed approval from her boss if she wanted to go to Europa. Taking the documents with her, she started up the stairs. The Church's main floor was bustling with activity with priests and agents of the Goddess, and the occasional tourists visiting the most important building of the unique religion. The girl had heard about a similar place, long forgotten, called The Vatican. She had been stunned to find a false religion gathering so many followers and becoming a major player in politics and the conflict that almost destroyed Earth, the beautiful Unicorn's daughter, her greater creation.

Passing through the Pink Door, the girl took the direction of the Cloister, where the Intelligence Service was located. A short distance from the Church, it was an interesting square walled garden, with a succession of rooms, mainly offices, on the outskirt. The visitors were usually impressed by those rounded arches and sculpted pillar surrounding a lush of green and pink, something that was quite rare in these days and times.

The agent made a quick way to Reverend Hollyster's office. She knocked on the door and entered without waiting for an answer. The man was average in many aspects. Average size, average facial features, average presence. He was the perfect spy in fact. No one remembered seeing him when he walked on the streets. He had all the qualities required to be the greatest agent to serve her Great Pinkness. He had been, in fact, the best of them, but due to his advancing age and a bad injury, he couldn't anymore become invisible in the mass.

"So, did you find anything yet?" Hollyster asked her.

The girl blinked in surprise. She never mentioned her research to him. "As a matter of fact, I did," she answered. "I am pretty sure they have a base in Europa, the Moon of Jupiter," she continued. "I am confident I will find them there."

The Reverend looked at her, thoughtful. "You know we have agents on this area. I don't want you to disrupt their activities."

"Just let me meet with them and operate with them, then," the girl retorted.

"You know you can't. It would compromise them..." her boss added. "I can let you gather evidences. No infiltration. Just go and look around, and no arrest," he proposed. "The agent there will keep an eye on you. No official meeting. You won't see him anyway," he added.

The girl knew she had to agree now to any conditions, unless she wanted to remain stranded on Earth with her theories... "Roger! I go there, look around and come back with my report," she confirmed.

"Okay. You leave in two days with a set of IDs and new background. Book a passage to The Port. Accommodation at the White Bull. It's a miner's world, Girl, they are rude men. They don't see much girls except at the Pink Unicorn, and it is not a church. They worship another type of beast over there..." Reverend Hollyster concluded. "What? Still there? Lunch on you when you return. Go now." The girl knew when she was dismissed, no need to argue further, she had her marching orders.

*-*-*

Despite all she knew about Europa, the girl wasn't sure what would await her over there. The satellite wasn't a tourism destination. The interest in the Jovian system lied more in its mining possibilities. Europa, for instance, was the main water source for the inhabited planets of the Solar system.

The girl had embarked on a mining-cum-passenger second generation antimatter space ship. With the second-gen, the trip to Europa was reduced to twelve days. Just imagining the first manned mission centuries ago, the agent was grateful. The trip, at that time, used to take at least ten years. Now, after only ten days of travel in relatively pleasant conditions, she was about to reach her destination.

As she paced the observation deck, gazing at Jupiter, the agent scrutinized the other passengers. Since her first day on board, she often crossed the path of a strange man, with matcha green hair and mysterious red eyes. Each time they met, he seemed hesitant. He had now apparently found his courage, approaching her.

"Do you mind if I share the sight with you?" The man asked, adding "I am Mike. Nice meeting you."

The girl almost smiled at the awkward introduction. "Likewise. The sight is beautiful, and there is enough of Jupiter for everyone. I am Magda." She gave her the name written on her fake ID.

After a bit of uninspired chatter, the man left, promising to see her again before they would disembark. The brief exchange had been strange, she thought as she mentally noted to check her database for information on him later.

The next morning, Magda was seating in the cantina. The passengers had the choice to take their meals there or in their cabin. In fact, there were not many passengers. The travelers, outside of the miners, were essentially scientists working on water crystals or trying to discover significant life forms. The spaceship main purpose was to bring equipment and food to the mining camps. Then they collected and brought the crystals to Earth or Mars. They would come back after on another rotation.

"Magda!" It was the green-hair-red-eyes man from the day before, approaching, his breakfast in hands. "Do you mind if I seat by you?"

The agent had no choice, "please, Mike. Take a seat." She already mourned her quiet breakfast. However, it would be the occasion to drill the man a bit. She didn't find much about him when she looked in her database. He was one of those scientists, acquainted to the Moon and having published few articles.

Magda could almost feel the tension growing. Mike was struggling to find his words. The situation was getting ridiculous. "So... We'll soon arrive at The Port... Are you impatient? By the way, what are you going to do? Are you a miner?" She asked.

Mike looked relieved. "I am no miner," he answered, "I research about the water on Europa. More specifically the underground waters. Did you know that the crust is around five kilometres deep? It protects the liquid and the soft ice from the radiations. This way life develops quite easily, but only small organisms. The miners have found traces of passages of bigger creatures from the surface to the underground, somewhere on Europa. This time I know I will... find..." Mike, talking with great enthusiasm, stopped abruptly. "I am boring you with my subject... I always bore people with petty details..." Mike apologized.

The girl just smiled at him, not agreeing, not answering either. "So... How did you find the crossing of the Asteroids Belt? Pretty bumpy don't you think?" Magda asked, changing the subject.

Mike seemed grateful for the diversion. "Sure it was. Same as every time I crossed... I heard some of the crew called it the Passage of the Belt Horne. I think it is an internal joke," the man continued, "I can't imagine how the crossing would be if we were travelling light speed. Can you?"

The agent found his enthusiasm once more charming, though a little naïve. She took the opportunity to ask about his previous trips. "Is there much to see on the moon? I thought scientific missions were conducted by old boring men..."

"This will be my third trip," Mike answered. "Last time I found a cave. I think a diapir ended in an eruption, the warm ice gone, the cavity remained. The crust above reformed, still thin but deep enough to block the radi..." he suddenly stopped. He looked at Magda, embarrassed. "Again, sorry. I am no old man, but I get boring." His face was getting red. "I am so embarrassed!"

The girl assured him it was nothing. She found entertaining his enthusiasm and asked him other questions about the surface of Europa, interesting spots, if he would take her in his cave. Mike gave her a lot of useful information about the equipment she would require and the risks of a walk on Europa. All in all, it was a pleasant and informative breakfast for the agent.

*-*-*

The arrival at The Port was a new experience for Magda, even if she was used to different places on Earth and Mars, from high end quarters to the most abject slums. The heavy dome didn't let in any of the outside light or sight. The cover up was made of intricate plaques of sturdy metal to protect from the radiations. The light was artificial, and emulated the sunup and sundown rotation of Earth. The girl set foot under the dome as the artificial sun was setting for the night, the place bustling with activity. As she looked the signboards for her accommodation, she fended the rowdy crowd.

"Hey! Pretty Lady! Any chance I will see you tonight at the Pink Unicorn?" a man asked, stopping beside her, ogling her as a kid would a piece of sweet meat.

"Look here," Magda answered, "if you want to remain healthy, go your way. Your little pink unique horn will become invisible if you don't. You get me?" The man didn't try to spark the conversation further. The guys here were rough around the edge, hard men for a hard place. The Port, and Europa in general, was a men's World.

The next day, the girl started her preparations for her expedition. She found a purveyor of moon-trekking goods not too far from the landing pad. She made a quick negotiation for the equipment she needed: a beat-up Rover with extra battery cells, in case she took a detour; a decent protective suit, the accreditation label showed it hadn't been reviewed and maintained in the last two months, standard Earth time; then a working CB radio, though she wasn't convinced it would work fine with all the radiations outside. She also took an extra demolecularizator to produce oxygen if required from the icy crust of the moon.

Once equipped, Magda left the dome by the northern airlock. Hollyster had provided her with a miner's map promising to be the most accurate. She took the direction of a series of crevasses and spots, where a geyser or two could pose a risk. As she approached carefully a ridge, keeping an eye on a geyser closed by, she heard a familiar voice.

"Magda! What are you doing here?" It was Mike.

"Hey! Mike! I am sightseeing. Some miners talked about this geyser, the Young Steadfast. I wanted to see the water spray," she explained.

The man was scowling. "It is risky, you know. What if..." he started saying, when the water came out abruptly. Surprised by the force of the explosion, the girl stumbled backward, clamping on Mike's protective suit.

To add to the situation, the icy crust under them gave up and they started to slide under the surface, the soft ice absorbing their fall, landing on solid surface few meters below. Looking up, Magda could see a ceiling of solid ice. They were in a cave. The instruments on her protective suit told her no radiation came in and the temperature was warmer.

Mike seemed okay, no visible injuries. He sat slowly then started to swear. "I told you it was dangerous," he added, "Blessed Be Her Holy Hooves, we are still alive. We could be orbiting around Jupiter, now." The man was still fuming at her.

Checking their surroundings, they realized there was no way up. They started on a path leading to another chamber of the cavern. As they slowly marched, they heard voices and music. Something was amiss here, she thought. Reaching under an arch, they came to an impressive sight. Just there was a small city, buildings in the walls of the cavern, paths linking them. Some men were talking and singing. The most interesting was they were not wearing any protective suit. Aloof attitude and drunk, they were no miners. They were Pirates.

The agent looked at her companion, checking his reactions. He didn't seem surprised at all. She wondered if he was really who he was supposed to be. Then she remembered his allusion to Holy Hooves. Surely, no pirate would say this kind of things.

As she assessed the situation, the men had noted them and were coming their way. They were rapidly seized and brought to one of the holes-in-a-wall. Mike turned to Magda and told her, "I am sure it will be okay, don't worry." The girl thought the man was decidedly naïve, he was smiling.

When they arrived to the wall, a man came out from the small house and looked at them, pensive. He then started to smile at Mike, offering his hand and calling to him, "Captain!"

The girl was dumbfounded. She looked closely at the man at her side. His smile grew bigger. "See! I told you it would be okay. Welcome to Pirate Bay. I am Mike, Captain Mike Hollyster."

“To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.”

-- Leonardo da Vinci

She was anxious for the meeting. Her boss had obviously some information for her, perhaps even a mission. But after her blunder six months ago, she was not sure she was still fit for the job.

When she went to Europa, she had no hesitation about whatsoever. She knew she was the righteous one, her mission was sacred, Blessed Be Her Holly Hooves, the Great Invisible wouldn’t let her down. She was so sure she would find the pirates over there. And she found them. But, somehow, she completely lost any chance to make her point.

After the incident and the fall under the ice crust of the Jovian Satellite, all went blurry in her recollection of the events. Did she really saw the pirates, their underground city? Was the man she met one of them? When the hazy memory came clearer, she found herself in a ward bed, stuck in the ship infirmary, on her way back to Earth. Mike Hollyster, the one she thought was a pirate, explained they had a mishap on her exploration to Europa’s surface and ended up being rescued by one of the mining operation. It took her longer to recover her senses, and she had been asleep for few days.

The girl had some issues to cope with it, but she accepted the explanation while she addressed her pleas and questions to Her Holly Pinkness.

She approached the Reverend’s office in the IPU Intelligence Services headquarters with hesitancy. She was still blessed by the Great Invisible Pink Unicorn, proof was one of her best sock was missing this morning. Nonetheless, her apprehension was building.

She entered the office unsure of the whole situation, though she had no say in it. She had been summoned, here she was.

Reverend Hollyster welcomed her with a gruff greeting. It wasn’t unheard of him as he was a man of few words and deep insight, however he tended usually to be more open and cheerful when she came to meet him. The situation had to be, if not critical, quite serious for him to act this way.

“Sir?” She inquired directly, feeling there were no need for lengthy salutations. “Reporting as you requested…” The girl was now impatient to know about the mission, or whatever it was the Reverend had called her in for.

“Girl, meet Mike,” the boss was pointing to a man standing on the side. It was this same man she wanted to forget about, the one linked to her failure on Europa.

“Oh, you know him already perhaps?” Reverend Hollyster was on a full mood this day, his irony was showing much.

“Sir?” She wanted to ask what all this was about, and overall, what this man was doing here.

“You got yourself a new mission, Girl. And this time, I will not ask you to be careful so you won’t interfere with any agent we already have on site. You will just go with said agent. Perhaps you won’t make any more mistake that way…” Her boss was decidedly cheery this morning.

The man, Mike, tried to hide his smile, hearing the older one’s blunt line. He decided to ease the tension a bit. “Don’t mind him. He had a visitation last night and can’t cope with the blessing he received.” There was laughter in his voice.

As she looked to her superior questioningly, she caught a glimpse of pink under his vest. It seemed his best shirt had turned pink. He, as she, were really blessed by the Great Invisible. There was some humour there…

“Can we go back to the mission, please?” Reverend Hollyster tried to take back the conversation. “I read through your last mission reports, Mike’s and yours, Girl. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You found what you were looking for, but there were other interests in play over there. So, just take it as a good learning experience and focus on your next adventure.” Her superior started to explain the objectives of their assignments. She and Mike would be sent to Venus where a pre-settlement team was missing.

Venus had been terraformed few decades ago, and a biosphere had been installed for the acclimation of humans. All seemed to have gone smoothly until a month ago. The current team had missed on a number of routine communication, and any attempt to contact them drew blank.

*-*-*

“We must consider the distinctive characters and the general nature of plants from the point of view of their morphology, their behavior under external conditions, their mode of generation, and the whole course of their life.”

-- Theophrastus

It took them three days to travel to Venus. On a regular first generation antimatter starship, the trip would have lasted thrice the time, however, they had used one of the Flying Socks, the advanced vessels the IPU Intelligence Services used in their fight against the Space Pirates. Those pastafarians possessed some advanced light speed technology.

In the days before their trip, they researched more information about Venus and its terraformation process. Birch’s method had been used, which explained the presence of a considerable number of solar shades in orbit of the planet. Mars had benefited greatly of this initiative as it received the dry ice produced when the atmosphere had cooled enough. The trickiest part of the preparation of Venus for life had been to receive water. The disruption of one of Saturn’s icy moons had been a gamble that gave wondrous results.

Not wanting for life to develop by itself, the bio-engineers had pre-formatted some plants to be introduced in this new environment. Not only the plants helped regulate and fix carbon dioxide, but they also consumed the potential alien protozoans that would have been found in the water. Regular and carnivorous plants were now covering a good part of the planet.

“We are almost there,” Mike was preparing the flying sock to enter Venus’ atmosphere. “Do you get a lock on the location, Magda?”

The girl had taken the same identity as during her last mission. Magda turned her gaze from the solar shades outside to verify the course set on the instruments, “we’re okay there.” She looked one last time at the immense panels before focusing on the planet below them.

*-*-*

“Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow.”

-- Zora Neale Hurston

The biosphere was empty, no sound, no trace of anyone. On the dinner table, a meal for three was set, though the food was rotten. In the quarters, it seemed life had been suspended. Vehicles were missing in the garage.

Magda was examining log entries in one of the labs console when Mike contacted her from the control room. “The control is receiving communication from the forest. A sort of a ping and coordinates…”

The girl and her companion headed toward signal’s origin. On their way they saw a variety of plants that could have come from a botanist’s dream, a weird dream, or a nightmare. All was gigantic and twisted, as in pain. Colorful and psychedelic, a definition for this strange forest. Magda and Mike were careful threading through the Venusian jungle. Ponds and wetlands blocked their routes at some points, though they finally found the source of the signal.

In the water, buried under some giant plant roots, a communicator was barely visible. The man bent to retrieve it then hesitate. The communicator was still within his former owner’s hand, the fingers tightly gripped around it. Having found one of the missing team members, the two agents pursued their investigation of the grounds. The rest of the team was buried in the same fashion, under the roots of giant exotic plants.

Mike decided to leave the corpse in place and to report immediately to headquarters. Magda was assimilating all the information. “It doesn’t seem the pirates are responsible,” she commented on the situation.

“It looks more like the plants got busy,” her companion retorted.

Back to the camp, the girl headed straight to the log entry she found earlier. There had been information there that could explain some of what had happened. It seemed that the plants grew erratically after their introduction on the terraformed soil of the planet. The carnivorous ones that shall have removed any life form from Saturn’s icy Moon water had been the first to behave strangely.

From the moment they got taller and bigger, the team had seemed to receive strange signals from the plants. Some were sure they heard voices, others saw things. A group hallucination had been at play in the biodome.

The two agents took some samples and checked the food and water supply to ensure nothing was poisoning or incapacitating, physically or neurologically. All seemed ok. The problem lied with the plants.

They found that the team was set to destroy some of them, the patch of carnivorous ones. They had prepared explosives and fire devices, but something got to them before they could execute their plan.

Mike wanted to complete the extermination, but Magda had mixed feeling. As the man was about to head outside, the control unit alarm went off. The two of them ran to the room and observed the main console.

“Are… Are these moving?” Magda was following tens of points moving on the radar screen.

“Seems like it…” Mike’s laconic voice didn’t hide his surprise much. “So, these are the plants… Hum…”

Looking at the control cameras feed, the forest was getting closer to the camp. Magda was strangely calm. “Is it hallucination?”

The girl and the man slowly reached the door and exited the room. Outside, the plants stopped, immobile. The air surrounding them was quiet, yet a buzzing reached their ears.

“Please! Don’t kill us! We don’t want to do you any harm!”

Mike looked at Magda. She wasn’t the one who talked, her mouth was closed, her eyes on the biggest, the tallest of the surrounding plants. “Looks like we found life here.”

The Plants of Venus were alive. They were communicating telepathically. The Venusian forest was sentient.