E.T. The Book of the Green Planet

by William Kotzwinkle

  “I miss my friend.”

  “Fine, I’ll get him.” The Contentment Monitor pointed itself. “Where is he?”

  E.T. pointed upward. “Beyond the beyond.”

  “Odd place for a friend.”

  E.T. stared sadly into the whirling eye. How could he explain that friends are arranged by fate, and distance nothing? “He is very special.”

  “How?”

  E.T. thought a moment, then said, “He introduced me to Gum.”

  “Who is Gum?”

  “Gum is a wizard. Great Gum permitted me to blow bubbles in which dreams are seen.” E.T. elongated his neck, head rising up. “Gum’s world is beautiful, I saw much inside his bubble before it exploded all over my face.”

  The Contentment Monitor’s whirl intensified. Must do something here, it said to itself. Have to cheer this fellow up, get him smiling again. A bubble, eh?

  A large multicolored bubble rose from the Monitor’s whirling form. “How do you like that?” asked the Monitor proudly.

  “Truly wonderful,” said E.T., not wanting to hurt the Monitor’s feelings.

  “So you feel better now?”

  “Much better.”

  “Excellent,” said the Monitor, and whirled away. Not a very tough case at all. I wonder what the Contentment Council could have meant when they said the Doctor of Botany was deeply troubled?

  C H A P T E R

  5

  At sunset, E.T. and his Flopglopple walked home, through the reddish light. Agricultural machines floated overhead like great black beetles, buzzing back toward their maintenance depots, where Micro Techs would attend them.

  The Flopglopple looked toward the forest cautiously. “The Urumolki—the Fearful Potencies of Night—will soon emerge,” he said, as they approached the vast wood.

  “They are no worse than what I faced on Earth,” said E.T. “There I was chased by giant shadows bearing rings of shining teeth.”

  Nonetheless, both E.T. and the Flopglopple changed stride as they entered the forest. Upon a great planet, where enormous power is focused, dark spirits will gather from deep space, and they are the Fearful Potencies. No technology can subdue them, nor is wisdom sufficient when crossing their path.

  E.T. listened as the last agricultural machine glided above the treetops, its sound slowly fading. The forest path was dark; and on both sides he could feel the Fearful Potencies, like a faint pressure. The Flopglopple jumped around E.T.’s neck, and hung there like a bunch of woolly gray socks.

  “Come now,” said E.T., “you’re an evolved being.”

  “I keep forgetting,” said the Flopglopple.

  “No one will harm us tonight.”

  A gigantic shadow leapt in front of them, and E.T. screamed, his neck going up.

  Watch this one, said the shadow, and took another immense leap, along the path.

  “Silly Jumpum!” shouted E.T., lowering his neck in embarrassment. He should have known better, but his own planet was not yet his familiar. He calmed himself, and listened with his inner ear. The Fearful Potencies had withdrawn. Through a crack in the tree-tops, he saw the Near Moon shining on a craggy mountain range, where the malevolent spirits held their dark rites, conjuring their own vision of the universe, subtle and strange, and real.

  “On a planet such as this,” said the Flopglopple, “where love truly rules, darkness nonetheless has its way, if only in remote regions, but there most powerfully. There—” He pointed at the mountain-top. “—we will have an encounter.”

  “No, we won’t,” said E.T., “for I don’t like long climbs.”

  But the Flopglopple nodded thoughtfully to himself, as if seeing it all quite clearly in his otherwise disorganized mind. Then, all fear forgotten, he hurried on ahead.

  E.T. followed through the forest, until the lights of their village appeared, the ring of agricultural gourds glowing. He and the Flopglopple looked down for a long while into the peaceful ring. The Jumpum came up behind them in a silent glide and watched with them. And from the horizon came the lights of the great capital of Lucidulum. “There,” said E.T., “the Most High Beings dwell.”

  You should be there then, said the Jumpum politely.

  “By invitation only,” said E.T., and knew he certainly wouldn’t get one now.

  “A brilliant aura,” said the Flopglopple, “shining into the atmosphere. That is the power of their intellect.”

  The waving lights, richly radiant, crisscrossed the sky, the primal powers of the capital expressing themselves. “I might have gone there,” said E.T. “I might have tended the splendid gardens of light. But not now. I have up-screwed too badly.”

  Jumping time! said the Jumpum, and jumped back away into the forest. E.T. and the Flopglopple walked on into the village. The crystals surrounding the village glowed softly, filled with power—a ring-pass-not for the Fearful Potencies.

  The Flopglopple raced at top speed past the sign saying Flopglopples Slow Down, and disappeared around the back of E.T.’s gourd.

  E.T. entered, the door swinging inward on thick fibrous hinges. Three of the chambers were dark, but the fourth, the chamber of contemplation, was softly lit.

  There the Parent sat, deep in mental work, engaged in synthesis of sublime thought, by which it would ultimately become a member of Lucidulum’s Council. In the center of the chamber, upon a table-tree, sat a round transparent plant; it was called Solis Talla, Shrine of the Cosmos. Within it danced a tongue of flame. How the flame had gotten there, what fuel it burned, E.T. did not know. Botanicus had given it to the Parent as a concentration aid, and the Parent had used it for as long as E.T. could remember, and the flame would dance for no one else, not even for E.T.

  But staring at the Solis Talla, E.T. suddenly realized the transparent ball was very much like Earth’s great magic Gum. Gum the Wizard! Obviously then, Earthlings knew of such things as the Shrine of the Cosmos, though saying little. Have some Gum, was all Elliott had said at the moment of expanding mystery; then the Wizard Gum of the Bubble had appeared, briefly, and departed with a small explosion of His power.

  E.T. sat down beside the Parent and gazed into the glowing fire ball. “Gum.”

  “What?”

  E.T. pointed at the glowing ball. “The Wizard of Gum. I met him on Earth.”

  “The Shrine of the Cosmos is called Gum on Earth?”

  “Bubble Gum,” said E.T., remembering all.

  A faint glow came from the Parent’s body as it turned toward E.T. “I have been on the mental wave of the Council of Lucidulum. They say your suspension will be brief, if you can forget Earth. I do not think you have done so.”

  E.T. looked into the glowing ball, and saw a boy’s face. “El-li-ott.”

  “El Li Ott is of the past. Unreachable. Obscure. A vision in the Bubble of Gum. Lay him aside.”

  E.T. folded his long fingers in his lap. Easier to forget the whole world than the friend who saved your life. “Owch,” he said softly, and swung his feet back and forth under his chair.

  Down the long neck of the gourd he walked, carrying a string of Lumens, the little glowing grubs dangling in the air before him and lighting the way. His room was in the neck of the gourd, at the very end, and was quite small. It held a single bed—actually a shelf engineered from the wall of the gourd and covered with a moss whose fragrance induced slumber and deep dreams. He put his Lumens in a box and closed the lid, and the room was dark, except for faint streaks of red and green glowing in the velvety moss beneath him.

  He closed his eyes and immediately a beam shot from his forehead and out through the roof. The little replicant beam streaked through space, into the spiraling arms of the galaxies, through the ominous shadows of the nebula, past the million mighty suns, and down to Earth, into an all-night pizza parlor. The replicant fumbled around, wondering what it was doing in the anchovies, then corrected its trajectory and streaked off down the block toward Elliott’s house.

  Elliott, asleep, felt his own dream suddenly expan
ding, into an ever-widening sphere, inside of which he stood, gazing at curving walls. He peered through the thin sticky membrane and saw that he was floating above the bright lights of a city. Then suddenly the bubble rose higher, the city grew smaller, and a gravelly voice croaked, “Have some Gum.”

  “E.T.!”

  The dream bubble popped, and Elliott sat up in bed in the lonely darkness.

  “E.T.,” he said softly, but there was no one there.

  He climbed out of bed and walked to the window. He gazed out into the night sky for a long while, hoping for the dream to return, but it had vanished back into its own land, which was dark and impenetrable.

  He lowered his eyes, to the lights of the neighborhood. The streetlamps glittered in a long winding chain down the hillside and into the valley. He pulled his jeans on over his pajamas and climbed out the window.

  He dropped lightly into the backyard and wheeled his bicycle quietly out of the drive; and then he was pedaling down the street, in the stillness of the late hour. The chain of lights led him on, across those invisible boundaries that divide neighborhoods, and he found himself in other territory, marked for him by a very special feeling—for it was where Julie lived.

  He rode along, until he came to her house, and he rode on past it, hoping she’d be at her window as he had been, and looking out. She’d see him and realize what a mysterious person and lone rider he was, pedaling along in the middle of the night on a secret mission. It was so secret he himself didn’t know what it was.

  “Julie,” he whispered as he rode past.

  He rode to the end of the block and rode back. The gentle night air held something so achingly beautiful he could hardly stand it. Entranced, he gazed off toward her house again and his bike rammed into a tree. He spilled off, into a nearby pile of garbage cans, tipping them over with a tremendous clatter. Lights went on in Julie’s house and he scurried away, taking a long dive into the bushes.

  The front door opened and he saw Julie’s father, in his bathrobe. Then he heard Julie behind him, asking, “What is it, Daddy?”

  “It must have been a raccoon,” said her father.

  Yes, thought the lone rider crouching in the bushes, it’s just me, the raccoon.

  Please don’t let them find my bike, please . . .

  The front door closed, and he waited until all the lights were out again, and then he snuck his bike away.

  “What am I doing out here anyway?” he asked himself, as he pedaled back through the neighborhood.

  The gentle spring night, with its warm perfumes, suggested several very good reasons, but he just couldn’t deal with it.

  “I was out for a ride, that’s all. I like riding at night, when the traffic is light. And I’m making an energy survey of how many people leave their porch lights burning.”

  He continued pedaling along, through the soft warm shadows.

  C H A P T E R

  6

  At dawn, E.T. stepped from the cottage and saw a spaceship rising on the horizon, launched from Lucidulum. Its special signal, like no other, reached his heart.

  “Yours?” asked the Flopglopple.

  “I feel the thoughts of my shipmates,” said E.T., looking at the craft as it rose like a miniature sun.

  “Bound for a far world,” said the Flopglopple. “While we—”

  “The manure pile.” E.T. gazed at the rainbow of his ship, his spirit soaring with it into the unknown. He forced himself to move, toward the fields.

  “Morning exercises!” said the Flopglopple, stretching. “Isometrics, hard as I can.” He stretched his arms out and they simply elongated, no tension possible in them, so flexible were his skin and all his joints. “Ah, that feels much better.” He snapped them back to normal length.

  “You are an odd creature.”

  “My brain is loosely hinged,” answered the Flopglopple. “Sometimes it slips into my toes.”

  They hitched a ride on a low-flying Planter, the machine slowly floating by, its belly a mass of furrowing and drilling tools. The machine skirted the forest, just above the leaves.

  “The Conjugal Trees are just waking,” said the Flopglopple and pointed to the intertwined branches below. “Emanations of deep love fill the morning air.”

  The floating Planter came in over the misty morning fields.

  “Here’s our assignment,” said E.T., and he and the Flopglopple dropped off among the rows of Alata Nimos, the Wool Spinners. “Like the Conjugal Trees,” said E.T., “they seek embrace with each other, through thin pollen-bearing threads. Crossed with Rotum Luxo, an energetic plant whose nature is to twist ever round and round in search of bees, the Wool Spinners now weave their threads in coils that grow ever bigger.”

  “The birds want the wool for their nests,” said the Flopglopple, nodding upward. “And the mice make little carpets,” he added, nodding downward at little scurrying shadows.

  “We must help the threads the wind has broken,” said E.T., walking down the row. As he bent over a little pair of plants at the end of the row, a tall rustling specter sprang at him, filling the air with a hideous shriek. E.T. fell backward, as agi Jabi, guarding the field, waved its crackling arms. Its yellow crystal eye-bud was open, sparkling brightly.

  And it thought to itself: A magnificent screech, that one. They probably heard me all the way to Lucidulum.

  “Must you?” asked E.T., lifting himself slowly out of the dirt.

  I must, said agi Jabi.

  It folded itself back into silence, and E.T. crept cautiously past. The head of Botanicus appeared over the rows, and he greeted E.T., then studied him carefully for a moment, his eyes penetrating deeply. “Your mantle of wisdom is dark.”

  “Re-entry is never easy,” said E.T.

  “Come here,” said Botanicus, and drew him into a rock garden between the rows, where a cluster of small plants grew, their buds closed by sheaths that seemed to curl into tiny fists, clutching tight the enclosure of the fruit.

  “The Cryptoania,” said Botanicus, “whose blossom waits a thousand years. Then a secret unfolds, concerning the destiny of our planet. The Cryptoania alone, of all living things within our world, can feel such designs. Its secret is patience.”

  Botanicus walked on. E.T. remained before the tightly curled bud. Many years before, at the completion of his doctorate, he’d drunk the tea of the Cryptoania and his innermost brain chamber had opened, itself a cryptic bud of Cryptoania. He’d thought then that he would always be content, for he’d seen his place in the universal scheme and known that he alone was himself, that no other could ever speak to the stars as he spoke, and that this was true for all.

  The universe lived and died, in all its immensity, within each single heart, even the heart of a Flopglopple.

  The creature looked at him now, lovingly stupid, without whose love and stupidity the universe would cave in on itself.

  E.T. gazed on at the Cryptoania, and one tiny finger of the tightly balled fist seemed to move.

  A sudden flash ran through him, wild, difficult to decipher, indeed almost unthinkable. To contemplate it made him tremble all over. His destiny, so the Cryptoania had whispered, was to defy the Most High Lords of Lucidulum, and the will of the planet itself.

  C H A P T E R

  7

  The Trompayd’s golden horn flower was still covered with morning dew, and its petals had not yet unfolded. “Faster,” said E.T. to his Flopglopple. “We must finish before the Trompayd plants awake.”

  The Flopglopple increased its efforts, scooping up soil, patting it in place. E.T. looked down. The Flopglopple had hilled one of its long rootlike toes and was smiling at it, very pleased. E.T. explained to him that planting one’s toes was not the purpose of their work—and during this explanation, the sun pierced the mist, and what E.T. had been trying to escape took place. The shiny Trompayd petals opened to the sun and the entire row of Trompayds let out a deafening blast, brassy and bright, to greet the sunrise.

  “Owch!” cried
E.T., holding his ears, as the Trompayd blossoms quivered, cheek-like petals blown out toward the sun as they trompayded.

  In the distance, a faint drumming sounded, from the hill of the Timpanum plants. This signal, of Trompayd and Timpanum, quickened all the gardens of the morning, powers waking, soil humming, and E.T. felt his secret fate quickening too.

  “Why must I be the planetary rebel?” he asked the Flopglopple.

  “Perhaps you are like me,” said the Flopglopple. “You enjoy stirring things up.”

  “But I don’t. I like smoothing things over. I like my feet up on a sofa, eating peanuts.”

  “Nonetheless, you are not like the other botanists,” said the Flopglopple. “I have always known this about you.”

  E.T. worked along, most upset. If this fate, the edge of which he’d spied, were ever to unfold, he would not just be farmed out, he’d be cast out, forever, from the planet itself.

  “A strange thought attends you,” said Botanicus, appearing beside him in the row.

  E.T. quickly wrapped a mental sheath around himself, black and thick, folds impenetrable to all—except Botanicus, for whom it was transparent, like leaves held to the sun, through which he saw the mad configuration in E.T.’s brain. “There have been voyagers like you in the past, dear Doctor, who fell victim to the narcosis of the stars.”

  “Yes, Botanicus.”

  “There is one, closer to you than you think, who himself was so intoxicated, in a vanished eon.”

  E.T. looked in the limpid eyes of his teacher, in which all experience seemed to reside. “You?”

  Botanicus blinked, his eyes reflecting an ancient pain, so old now as to be but a shadow, yet there, still there, through eternity. “I loved, as do you, a creature from another world.”

  “And now you are free?”

  They walked together out of the row, and Botanicus pointed to a bed of aged moss. “Dry for hundreds of years. But a drop of water will revive it, and it will become green again, and bear fruit.”