Children of the Spore T-shirt

Children of the Spore

The first mushroom appeared in the shower.

It was no larger than a cocktail olive, red-capped and white-spotted, growing from the chrome seam beneath Captain Rex Fallon’s soap tray.

He stared at it while hot water ran down his shoulders.

“Lola,” he called.

The shower door slid open, and Dr. Lola Vane leaned inside wearing silver boots, a crimson minidress, and the expression of a woman who had been interrupted during something more interesting than botany.

“What is it?”

Rex pointed.

Lola looked at the mushroom.

Then she looked at Rex.

“You called me into your shower for that?”

“It wasn’t here yesterday.”

“Neither was I.”

“You’re avoiding the scientific question.”

“I’m considering the recreational one.”

Rex grinned. Lola smiled back, slowly and dangerously, until the mushroom released a puff of golden dust directly into his face.

He sneezed.

The ship’s alarm began to howl.

That was how the trouble started aboard the exploration cruiser *Sunbird*, six hours after it landed on the unmapped planet designated Aphrodite Nine.

By midnight, mushrooms were growing from the ventilation ducts, the navigation console, the coffee machine, and one of Rex’s boots. They sprouted in brilliant scarlet, violet, turquoise, and gold, transforming the ship’s sterile corridors into a humid underground garden.

The crew consisted of three people.

Captain Rex Fallon was broad-shouldered, blond, and dangerously pleased with himself.

Dr. Lola Vane was a xenobiologist whose official uniform had somehow lost most of its fabric during the voyage.

And Lieutenant Buddy Crane was a communications officer with a gift for pessimism and a face that suggested he had been born inside his spacesuit.

Buddy found them in the control room.

Rex stood at the forward window in his red flight jacket. Lola leaned against the navigation table, one leg crossed over the other, studying a mushroom through a magnifying lens.

“We have a situation,” Buddy said.

Rex glanced at the fungal growth spreading across Buddy’s suit.

“You certainly do.”

Buddy looked down.

Three small orange mushrooms had sprouted from his left shoulder.

“Oh, come on.”

Lola plucked one.

Buddy jumped. “Careful.”

“It’s harmless.”

“It’s growing out of my suit.”

“That doesn’t make it harmful.”

“It makes it personal.”

Lola rolled the mushroom between her fingers. Golden powder shimmered along its gills.

“The spores are carrying electrical charges,” she said. “Tiny ones, but patterned.”

“Language?” Rex asked.

“Maybe.”

Buddy stared at her. “The mushrooms are talking?”

A mushroom on the console made a delicate chiming sound.

All three turned.

Another answered from the ceiling.

Then another from the corridor.

Within seconds, the ship rang with soft, melodic notes. The sound rose and fell like music heard underwater.

Lola’s eyes widened.

“They’re communicating through the hull.”

“With whom?” Rex asked.

The planet answered.

Beyond the window, immense mushroom caps began to glow across the valley. One after another, they lit beneath the lavender sky, forming rivers of blue and green radiance. Their pulses matched the chiming inside the ship.

Buddy backed away from the glass.

“I vote we leave.”

“You always vote to leave,” Rex said.

“That is why I am still alive.”

Rex moved to the pilot’s chair and pressed the ignition control.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again.

The console produced a cheerful chime.

“Engines are locked,” Buddy said.

“I noticed.”

“By mushrooms.”

“I noticed that too.”

Lola placed both palms on the navigation table. Fine threads of light moved beneath its surface, tracing the outlines of her fingers.

“They’re inside the circuitry.”

Rex came up behind her.

“How deep?”

She looked over her shoulder. “Buy me a drink first.”

Buddy groaned.

Lola smiled, but her amusement faded as the glowing threads climbed around her wrists.

A voice emerged from the ship’s speakers.

It was warm, breathy, and female.

“Welcome, children.”

Rex looked at Lola.

“That wasn’t you?”

“My voice is lower.”

“True.”

The speakers whispered again.

“Welcome home.”

The control-room door opened by itself.

Beyond it, the corridor had vanished beneath a tunnel of luminous fungus. Red caps bloomed from the walls. Pale vines curled through the air. Warm mist rolled across the floor, carrying a perfume of cinnamon, rain, and something sweetly animal.

Buddy lifted his laser pistol.

“No.”

Rex glanced at him. “No what?”

“No walking into the glowing mushroom tunnel.”

“It may be our only way to restore the ship.”

“It may digest us.”

Lola stepped into the corridor.

Buddy stared after her. “Doctor.”

She looked back. “It called us children.”

“Yes.”

“I want to know whose.”

Rex followed.

Buddy sighed and brought up the rear.

The tunnel led out of the *Sunbird* and down into the valley. The planet was warm beneath its pale double moons. Towering mushrooms rose from silver grass, their caps broad enough to shelter cities. Their gills shimmered overhead like chandeliers.

Tiny lights floated through the air.

Lola reached for one.

It landed on her fingertip and unfolded into a miniature mushroom with delicate wings.

“How darling,” she whispered.

It kissed her finger.

Rex raised an eyebrow. “I’m beginning to dislike this planet.”

“Jealous?”

“Of vegetation? Never.”

The winged mushroom drifted toward Lola’s lips.

Rex caught it between two fingers.

It squeaked.

Lola laughed.

“You brute.”

“I’m captain. Seduction of my science officer requires clearance.”

“You never asked for clearance.”

“I’m captain.”

Buddy walked past them. “Could we postpone the mating display until after we escape?”

The glowing path ended at a circular clearing.

In its center stood a mushroom larger than the *Sunbird*. Its stalk was ivory white, and its cap spread across the sky in bands of crimson and gold. Beneath it waited a woman.

At least, she appeared to be a woman.

She was tall and luminous, with long green hair and skin the color of polished bronze. Flowers opened along her shoulders as she moved. Her dress seemed woven from white filaments that shifted like living lace.

Rex stared.

Lola nudged him.

“Scientific interest?” she asked.

“Entirely.”

“Your science is breathing heavily.”

The green-haired woman smiled.

“You came at last.”

Rex stepped forward. “Captain Rex Fallon of the Earth cruiser *Sunbird*.”

“I know.”

“Then introductions will be brief.”

“I am Mother Mycelia.”

Buddy muttered, “Of course you are.”

She extended a hand toward Rex. A red mushroom blossomed from her palm.

“Eat.”

Rex looked at Lola.

“She’s the biologist.”

Lola examined it. “It may be poisonous.”

Mother Mycelia turned to her. “Nothing here wishes to harm you.”

Buddy raised his hand. “The mushrooms seized our engines.”

“They wished you to remain.”

“That is kidnapping.”

“It is hospitality.”

Lola took the mushroom.

Rex caught her wrist.

“We don’t know what it does.”

“That has never stopped you.”

“Usually I know what I’m kissing.”

Mother Mycelia laughed, and the entire valley laughed with her. Thousands of mushrooms trembled, releasing silver spores into the moonlight.

Lola bit into the cap.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then she gasped.

Rex pulled her close. “Lola?”

She looked at him with enormous blue eyes.

“I can hear them.”

“Who?”

“Everyone.”

The spores thickened around them.

Rex felt warmth spread through his chest. The valley blurred. Then thoughts began to bloom inside his mind.

He felt Lola’s curiosity, bright and restless.

He felt Buddy’s fear, wrapped tightly around a surprising core of courage.

He felt the planet beneath his boots, not as stone and soil but as an immense web of living threads. The fungal network circled the globe, linking every mushroom, insect, tree, and root.

He heard Mother Mycelia without sound.

Long ago, a human ship had crashed on Aphrodite Nine.

Its passengers were dying. The planet’s fungal network entered their bodies to repair them. It preserved their memories, altered their cells, and joined them to the living world.

They survived.

They changed.

They became the first Children of the Spore.

The ancient colonists had not disappeared. They were everywhere.

In the grass.

In the glowing caps.

In the warm intelligence beneath the soil.

“You’ve been waiting for humans,” Lola said.

Mother Mycelia nodded.

“For centuries.”

“To join you?” Rex asked.

“To renew us.”

Buddy lowered his pistol. “What does that mean?”

Mother Mycelia’s smile deepened.

“Our human inheritance grows thin. We remember desire, laughter, jealousy, music, bad decisions and midnight kisses. But memory is not experience.”

She moved closer to Rex.

“We require fresh humanity.”

Lola folded her arms. “You want our genes.”

“And your company.”

Rex looked around at the luminous valley.

“How much company?”

The mushrooms chimed suggestively.

Buddy’s face went pale. “Captain, I strongly recommend departure.”

Mother Mycelia reached up and touched Rex’s cheek.

“Your ship is repaired.”

Behind them, the *Sunbird’s* engines roared to life.

“You are free to go,” she said.

Lola studied her. “But you believe we’ll stay.”

“For one night.”

Rex looked at Lola.

Lola looked at Rex.

Buddy looked at both of them.

“No,” he said.

Rex removed his flight jacket.

Buddy pointed at him. “Absolutely not.”

“It’s warm.”

“It is not that warm.”

Lola slipped off one silver boot.

Buddy shut his eyes. “I work with animals.”

Mother Mycelia clapped her hands.

Music rolled across the valley.

The giant mushroom caps opened, revealing platforms lit by golden spores. Human figures emerged from the forest, descendants of the lost colonists. They wore bright fabrics, flowers, jewels, and very little else.

Someone handed Buddy a sparkling blue drink.

He sniffed it.

“What is this?”

“Fermented moon nectar,” said a beautiful woman with violet eyes.

Buddy took a cautious sip.

His expression changed.

“That’s excellent.”

She took his hand.

“I thought you wanted to leave,” Rex called.

Buddy straightened his shoulders. “I have reconsidered the tactical situation.”

The night became a festival.

There was dancing beneath the giant caps, feasting beside pools of glowing water, and music that seemed to enter through the skin. Lola danced barefoot in her crimson dress while silver spores glittered in her hair.

Rex watched her from beneath a luminous tree.

Mother Mycelia stood beside him.

“You desire her,” she said.

“I’m trying to maintain professional discipline.”

“You are failing.”

“I know.”

Lola crossed the clearing toward him.

“You’ve been staring.”

“I’m captain. Observation is part of command.”

She placed her hands on his chest.

“Then observe this.”

She kissed him.

The fungal network flashed with delighted color.

Every mushroom in the valley released a chorus of approving chimes.

Rex pulled back.

“Do they always watch?”

Lola glanced around. “Apparently.”

“That’s unsettling.”

“I find it encouraging.”

She kissed him again, and the mushrooms erupted in golden light.

Much later, Rex awakened beneath the vast red cap.

Lola slept beside him, wrapped in his flight jacket. Buddy was sprawled nearby wearing a wreath of blue mushrooms and snoring happily.

Mother Mycelia stood at the edge of the clearing, watching the dawn.

Rex joined her.

The first sun rose in a wash of turquoise light.

“You are leaving,” she said.

“We have a report to make.”

“Will Earth send others?”

“That depends on what we report.”

Mother Mycelia considered this.

“What will you tell them?”

Rex glanced back at Lola.

“That the planet is hospitable.”

“And the spores?”

“Mostly harmless.”

A faint red mushroom had appeared behind his right ear.

Mother Mycelia smiled.

“You carry us now.”

Rex touched it.

“Is it permanent?”

“Nothing is permanent.”

The mushroom vanished beneath his fingers, leaving a warm tingle in his skin.

The *Sunbird* lifted from Aphrodite Nine before noon.

Lola sat beside Rex at the controls, one boot missing. Buddy occupied the rear station, still wearing his fungal crown.

The planet dwindled beneath them.

Rex engaged the star drive.

“Course for Earth.”

The navigation console chimed.

A tiny red mushroom pushed through the metal beside his hand.

Then another appeared near Lola.

A third sprouted on Buddy’s shoulder.

Buddy stared at it.

“No.”

The speakers whispered in Mother Mycelia’s warm voice.

“Have a pleasant journey, children.”

Lola smiled at Rex.

Rex smiled back.

Behind them, Buddy began looking for the disinfectant.

---
This t-shirt is everything you've dreamed of and more. It feels soft and lightweight, with the right amount of stretch. It's comfortable and flattering for all.

• 100% combed and ring-spun cotton (Heather colors contain polyester)
• Fabric weight: 4.2 oz./yd.² (142 g/m²)
• Pre-shrunk fabric
• Side-seamed construction
• Shoulder-to-shoulder taping
• Blank product sourced from Nicaragua, Mexico, Honduras, or the US

Disclaimer: The fabric is slightly sheer and may appear see-through, especially in lighter colors or under certain lighting conditions.

This product is made especially for you as soon as you place an order, which is why it takes us a bit longer to deliver it to you. Making products on demand instead of in bulk helps reduce overproduction, so thank you for making thoughtful purchasing decisions!

Size guide