After Lactropodectopoi have finished their visit, they deploy their visitors telekinetically to a destination of their choice, although it is limited to a two-dimensional jump. They do this to bolster the 'heinous carnivorous beast' legend, which people believe explains why no one has ever been seen leaving an infested cave. They say it is working splendidly.
Lactropodectopoi always limit the size of their cave so the number of visitors capable of entering it is correspondingly limited, and there are always enough tentacles to go around. Of course, visitors never really know how big the cave is because the Lactropodectopoi tell them how big it is telepathically. That’s so the place is not overrun with lonely people looking for a good chat. Lactropodectopoi like their quiet, peace, and occasional “prey.”
Occasionally, a really good conversationalist is invited back. One of their favorites was Mr. Hemingway. Everyone else is told at the end of their chat “the cave doesn’t exist” and they believe it. In the interest of truth in writing, it should be mentioned that Lactropodectopoi cultivate and eat the light emitting algae that grow on their cave walls, nothing more. Please don’t tell.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BACK IN HARM’S WAY
Mark and Nita parked the transport at the end of the road near the base of a small grassy knoll and walked the rest of the way to the clearing. “It seems they’ve scarpered,” said Nita, while looking around for signs of where they’d gone.
“Yeah, but why,” said Mark, “I told them I’d be right back.” They both looked around for signs of what may have happened, a note or something.
“What about this?” said Nita pointing to indentations in the soft ground.”
“We slept here last night, that’s my imprint.”
“Right then,” said Nita, “what about these?” pointing to foot prints leaving the clearing.
“Bangaray,” yelled Mark, “nice work, let’s see where these are off to.”
They followed the footprints up to a low rock ledge where they vanished. Mark sat for a minute on the ledge wondering what to do. “Have any idea what they would have done from here?” asked Nita softly.
“That depends on who was in front,” said Mark.
“Who do you think was leading, and why would it matter?”
“I don’t know for sure who was leading, but if it was Blackie, they went right.” Nita gave Mark a puzzled look to which he replied, “let’s see if it was Blackie.” They climbed on top of the ledge and worked to the right. The climbing wasn’t steep, but moisture on the rocks made the footing tricky. Each time Mark came to a point where he had to choose, he chose to go right; it was unnerving for him since he naturally gravitated to left hand turns. Finally, they found themselves standing outside of a small cave.
“You don’t suppose they wandered off in there do you,” asked Nita anxiously. She peered at the cave. Just thinking about going in that cave made her shutter slightly.
“Let’s find out one step at a time,” said Mark who was not gung-ho about entering the cave either. “Hey anybody in there?” he shouted. “Blackie, Amelia, Wayne? If you are hiding in there this isn’t funny. Hey, are you in there?” he said with an obvious sound of concern in his voice.
“Come in Mark.”
“OK, I’m coming in.”
Nita looked stricken, “Mark, are you sure you want to go in there?”
“Yeah, they said come in didn’t you hear them?”
Nita looked odd, but Mark proceeded into the cave. Nita took a deep breath and followed.
“You’ll be alright,” she heard. “Thanks,” she said.
“Thanks for what?” said Mark slowly entering the mouth of the cave.
“For assuring me.”
“Did I?”
“Well yes, you said I would be alright,” whispered Nita as if she didn’t want to wake anything.
“Did I?”
“Well someone did,” she whispered, “and it’s only you and me.” Once inside the cave, Mark saw Blackie, Wayne and Amelia near the back wall. At first, he didn’t register that they weren’t moving.
“Hey,” he said as he and Nita moved forward, “enough of the statue business already.”
Nita moved forward and stood next to Amelia. “Mark, they are not fooling around; their frozen.”
Mark felt a tingling sensation on his skin, accompanied by a strong premonition that something was wrong. “What were they looking at?” he asked as he turned toward the entrance to the cave. “Oh dang.”
“Mark,” Nita yelled and then went silent and very still.
“Is this everyone?” asked the Lactropodectopoi? “Yes, this is everyone,” Blackie communicated without moving his lips, batting an eye lash, or making any other movement, “although we seem to have a new face - hello I’m Blackie.”
“Nice to meet you Blackie, I’m Nita.”
“Nita, I’m Amelia, and this is Wayne” she communicated without gesturing.
“This frozen thing is hard to get used to,” remarked Wayne, “I keep wanting to shift or sit or something.”
“You are the bass player?” communicated the Lactropodectopoi.
“Yes,” said Wayne, “how did you know?”
“It’s obvious,” said another of the Lactropodectopoi.
Wayne didn’t ask why it was obvious. He was afraid he might not like the answer. Blackie stifled a laugh. The conversation turned to travel and politics, and nature, and everyone was thoroughly enjoying the exchange of ideas.
“Well, we’ve had a really good chat, but we must get back to tending our cave.”
“Oh, we completely understand” said Blackie, “we barged in unannounced and have taken most of your afternoon. We’ll just be going. So, how does that work?”
“We can send you to wherever you wish,” said one of the Lactropodectopoi, “but the whole group must go together.”
“Right you are, home it is,” said Mark.
“Where is home?” said Nita.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute what about the Nomad and all the equipment?” said Wayne.
“I’m sorry,” said the Lactropodectopoi, “but we are not allowed to move your Nomad from here.”
“Not allowed?” said Wayne questioningly.
“It’s a long story,” said one of the Lactropodectopoi.
After a short discussion, they all agreed to be teleported back to town where they had left the Nomad.
“Right then, it’s been wonderful practicing our English,” said the Lactropodectopoi. “We hope you get to meet that Prime Minister, Amelia, and if any of you see Prenetian remind him he hasn’t visited in quite some time. Right then, Blackie and Amelia…” and it was quiet like the rest of the sentence had been snatched out of the air.
The next thing they knew they were sitting in the Nomad. Wayne was in the driver’s seat as you might have expected. It is his car. Amelia was in the middle between Mark and Wayne and fairly happy to be there. Nita was sitting in the back seat behind Mark, and Blackie was in the seat behind Wayne sitting in total disbelief. Nita was starting to feel like her offer to drive Mark out to the foothills was just the beginning of an out-of-the-ordinary experience.
The band’s equipment had been stored perfectly in the very back of the Nomad, and on top of Mark’s amplifier was a packing diagram they had never seen before. After thinking that was pretty odd, Mark realized the band would never have stored the equipment so “exactly.”
It was exact to the point of being a physics exercise and very far from artistic expression; the band would never replicate such austere precision. At this point they noticed a somewhat disturbing scene outside the Nomad; eight men clothed in high tech body armor pointing very large guns at the car.
Blackie looked at Wayne’s image in the rear-view mirror and commented, “I like it up here.”
CHAPTER NINE
THE PLANET TREE
A mechanism for the proliferation of planets was postulated, dissected, argued, studied (with vast amounts of paper
from Quidlid Trees on Gamma DX15.2 used for “fibrous documentation”). Theories were generally bantered about until Zitwyler Goodyen took a quick peek behind a black hole. The peek, and ensuing studies of the solar galactipod, ended the scientific argument, more or less, but mostly less, as it typically goes with science.
It turns out that the fruit from Planet Trees doesn’t produce Planet Trees. It produces planets. Hence the name is conveniently descriptive, an occurrence that seldom occurs in scientific nomenclature. Really, what good does saying Arbor Playnata Magnificens do; who understands that? Planet Tree is simply direct and better – sorry taxonomists.
The Planet Tree absorbs matter from a black hole and concentrates the particles; as if they were not concentrated enough. The absorbed and concentrated matter is then transported through a nifty canal system similar to that in Venice on Terra Bulga (Blackie recommends reading a book in the Piazza San Marco on a cool, sunny day, especially if it involves a good red wine and slice of bread, with butter, lots of butter). Matter is swept up into developing solar galactipods where it is deposited in massively dense chunks. When the chunks reach maturity, each pod contains about 100 billion to 600 billion planitids. Released from the Planet Tree, solar galactipods float on solar wind and are disseminated extensively. Fully mature solar galactipods unzip with a violent burst, and the planitids are thrown from the pod. Zitwyler postulated that solar systems are born this way.
If two pods unzip too close together, the pod with the most solar system mass wins, not unlike sumo wrestling, and the smaller solar system gets chucked from the immediate area. There is still much scientists do not know about the universes. In fact, we don’t really know that much about a lot. Just pick a topic.
What scientists don’t know about Lactropodectopoi would fill a black hole to the point of belching. For instance, scientists didn’t know that Lactropodectopoi could communicate over very, very long distances with anyone who had visited one of their caves.
****************************************
“Does anyone know why there are soldiers pointing weapons at us?” asked Nita.
Mark cleared his throat, found his voice, and said, “It might have something to do with us breaking out of jail.”
“Well, not exactly breaking, we didn’t break out we just left,” said Blackie.
“Why were you….?” Nita’s voice trailed off.
“Oh, something about an MOB, or MOV, yeah that’s it MOV violation.”
“An MOV violation, that’s serious,” said Nita, “what did you have?”
“You’re sitting in it,” replied Mark.
“This is metal?” said Nita looking around the Nomad frantically.
“Yeah, loads of it, isn’t it beautiful,” remarked Wayne, who fought the urge to put his hands in the air.
While the others starred at the soldiers, Amelia heard a voice say “Push the button.” At that moment her eyes were riveted on the eight men outside the Nomad, and their guns, and not really paying much attention to the small quiet voice.
“Is it always like this?” asked Nita looking at Mark.
“Yes,” said Wayne before Mark could respond, “if we are anything these days, we are consistently in the proverbial dog house.”
“Push the button,” heard Amelia.
“Get out of the transport,” yelled one of the soldiers, “get out of the transport.” Wayne put his hands in the air above the steering wheel hoping that would suffice.
“Get out,” the soldier yelled.
“This guy only has one line and he’s making the best of it,” laughed Mark. No one else thought it was funny, probably because of all the artillery being pointed at them.
“Push the button,” Amelia heard.
“Quiet,” she yelled. She yelled at everyone in the Nomad. She yelled quiet at the eight special ops soldiers. For the briefest of moments, it was suddenly, miraculously, quiet. “PUSH THE BUTTON” she heard.
“Oh, oh yes,” she whispered.
“Everyone put your hands in the air,” barked a soldier. Amelia slipped her hand into her bag while everyone sat perfectly still.
“Not that,” she said to herself, “no, not that,” she said.
Mark momentarily put an uncharacteristic look of condemnation on his face and put his hands in the air attempting to mimic Wayne. But he couldn’t hold the pained look, and his mouth broke into a wide smile.
Wayne noticed Mark’s transformation, “When there aren’t eight angry soldiers pointing weapons at me, I’m going to punch you.” With delight, Mark assumed the sour facial expression again.
Amelia rumbled in her bag, “There you are,” Amelia whispered, and then she hesitated.
“Just push it.” She pushed the recessed red button on the outside of the Jump Starter. Woosh.
The Nomad was surrounded by a bright white haze. Mark’s face suddenly looked less like he was pretending to be sour, and more like he really was sour. At the front of the car a glittering golden ring formed, encircled the bumper and then it moved slowly toward the rear of the car. They heard a wooshing sound as it passed.
The soldiers stepped away from the car looking a little disturbed by what they saw. Then another ring formed around the front of the vehicle and glided toward its rear end. Woosh. Then another formed, woosh, and another woosh. Each time there was a woosh sound as a ring glided along the car from front to back. Faster they formed, woosh, woosh. Faster and faster they formed until the rings were just a blur as they flew around the car. The soldiers took another step backward.
Mark lost his sour look, “Move back, move back,” yelled Mark with a mischievous grin on his face, “it’s going to blow.”
He turned and winked at Nita. “That should agitate them a bit,” smiled Mark, with his hands still in the air mimicking Wayne.
The soldiers took another step back. The rings were racing across the car. Faster they went until it looked like a constant blur going by, woosh, woosh, woosh.
Nita watched as a steady stream of rings rifled by the passenger side rear window. “It’s quite beautiful.”
“It’s like golden hoola hoops whizzing by,” said Blackie, “but without all the hip gyrations.”
Mark was having a great time watching the petrified look on the soldiers’ faces. His hands were in the air like he was surrendering to someone who decided maybe they didn’t want him.
Blackie was looking out the left side passenger’s window at the adjacent building. His gaze led him up the white trimmed red stone work to a point near the top of the building. It was tall, but he could easily see the details. His eyes stopped and focused on a man leaning slightly out a window on the top floor. He quietly watched the scene playing out below him. Nita slid over to the middle of the seat in an attempt to see what Blackie was staring at so intently. Woosh, woosh the rings kept flying by.
“It’s going to blow,” Mark howled at the soldiers with a grin on his face like he had never had so much fun in his life.
Amelia was looking at Wayne who sat behind the steering wheel with his hands still in the air and a vacant look on his face. The rings were now appearing so fast that the wooshing sounds had given way to the sound of a hurricane force gale.
“This is awesome,” Mark said,” if we could build these and sell them to entertainment parks we’d get rich.”
Wayne focused, “Great idea Mark, we’ll do that as soon as we figure out what in tarnation they are, exactly where in the blazes we are, and how do we get back to said entertainment parks.”
“Glad to see you’re feeling better,” Mark said to Wayne, still grinning and now slightly pumping his hands up and down like he was dancing to music only he could hear. “Personally, I’m having a great time.”
The white haze began to pulse with silver flashes and became slightly transparent. With each pulsation the silver flashes increased in intensity and the haze became more and more transparent, as did the car and everyone in it. Very quickly you could have said they looked more gone
than present.
Sensing what was imminent, Wayne looked at the Unit Captain and mouthed the words “Hasta luego” while performing a small wave with just the fingers on his left hand. The Captain understood exactly what was going to happen. He hoisted his weapon into the ready position, aimed at the car, and began to squeeze the trigger.
“Stop, stop,” yelled the second-in-command, “don’t shoot,” and in that instant, the car, its passengers and a substantial amount of music equipment vanished.
The unit commander tore from the scene, ran up the alley and yelled “Open please” to the back door. He sliced through the sections as they opened and raced down the hallway. Coming to the elevator he punched the button hard, several times and entered just as he could clear the doors. Really, one push would have been sufficient, thought the elevator.
On the inside he punched the top floor button quickly and slumped against the side wall, completely oblivious to its beautiful interior. When the doors opened, he gathered himself and walked as quickly as possible. The receptionist greeted him and pointed toward a large chamber room behind her. He entered immediately.
“Excuse me sir,” said the commander to a man looking out the window.
“Yes,” said the man who continued to survey the area below.
“The transport we were guarding has vanished, sir,” said the commander, “and I believe several persons of interest were inside when it went.”
“Yes,” replied the man, “I gathered as much. That will sometimes happen you know.”
“I’ll form a unit to follow them,” said the commander.
“To where would you follow them?” replied the man.
A frown started to form on the commander’s face when he realized standard protocol simply wouldn’t work this time. He had no idea where they went or how to follow them.
“Commander, I think you should write an incident report of this occasion and submit it for review,” said the man.
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