“But their cold metallic nerve is what is needed now,” said the Flopglopple.
However, added E.T. to himself, I must be cautious, for many a jam pickle could result.
Sinistro smiled, and the surface of his mirror eyes glistened. “Can it be? That those of the upper world have need of their banished brothers?” His mirror eyes flashed, and E.T. saw himself trapped in their gaze.
“B. good.” He raised his finger gently toward the old asteroid miner.
“Good? Why, of course, of course.” Sinistro raised his own finger—a sleek black digit shot through with silver streaks, which streamed profusely for a moment, and E.T. knew it as the power of the subterraneans, those at the core, who listened to the planet’s innermost rumblings; their love of its grandeur and violent beauty had shaped their reign—a time of terrible upheavals and drastic fissures in the social fabric. How did he dare bring them to the surface?
He turned away, confused and uncertain, deep in the forbidden cavern. Why was he always the one to whom these notions occurred—to peek in windows, to make beer and borrow a starcruiser? Why?
Sinistro draped an arm around his shoulder. “A visitor, the first one to come and see us in centuries. I’m deeply touched. I’m overjoyed.” His mirror eyes shone with cold indifference. “I’d thought we’d been forgotten by all.”
Sinistro’s bare, rock-like chest suddenly glowed with spiraling whorls of silver.
His heart-light, thought E.T., and his own heart answered, glowing ruby red. Sinistro stared at it, as at a gem he desired for his collection.
Occulta and Sinistro led the way to a fourth chamber, where the last of the subterraneans dwelled. He too was seated on a stone couch, his figure perfectly still. But his eyes, like quartz crystals, pulsated, and E.T. saw that the gaze was awake, and felt it examining him minutely.
I am Electrum, said a telepathic voice.
The crystal eyes sparkled and Electrum rose. He stepped toward his visitors, and the Flopglopple rushed to examine him. “A toadstool without a stem,” said the Flopglopple, studying Electrum’s squat shape. “Yes, with an umbos on top.” The Flopglopple was pointing, rudely perhaps, at Electrum’s bullet-shaped head, growing out of his mushroom-like body. But this was not a delicate forest fungus creature. His flesh was armor, his head a battering ram capable of crushing and shattering anything in his way. His mouth slowly opened, as if with great effort, as if ages spent in the solitary darkness of these caverns had cost him the use of speech. But then a voice, cavernous as the vault which surrounded him, slowly sounded.
“Welcome—to the depths.”
Only in the eyes did he show any kinship to E.T. and the rest of the planet, but it was a remote kinship at best. This being had carved a different road for itself in the bygone times, had gone under the world, had made his home in planetary interiors.
He looked at Sinistro and Occulta, and all three of the beings expanded together, their metallic folds lifting like flowers, flowers of the caverns, alien to light and thus generating their own; their bodies glowed now, as their tentacular arms gestured in the lost signing of long ago, by them alone remembered. Occulta, Sinistro, and Electrum conversed in silence, and then, once more, their metallic sheaths were lowered and their wild forces were concealed.
Electrum turned to E.T. “So—you have your crew.”
C H A P T E R
1 0
Two moons lit the landscape, and the twin orbs caused the forest to be crisscrossed with many shadows—among which some very special ones were moving stealthily.
“There it is,” said a soft voice.
The starcruiser sat on its launch pad in the moonlit valley, in the hills beyond Lucidulum. Artificial light blended with the glow of the double moons. The pad and its surrounding base were lit by flood towers, and by runway markers, the entire bowl of the valley divided into bright patterns of many colors, each color defining a specific area. Micro Techs swarmed over the cruiser, attending to its needs.
“Ants,” snarled Sinistro, “crawling over a shiny apple.”
“That’s the Matter Converter they’re working on,” said Micron.
“Photon rocket.” Sinistro lay beside him in their hiding post in the hills. “Design hasn’t changed much since the old days.” His black finger pointed, a swirl of silver fluid illuminating the tip. He turned to Occulta, whose own body had begun to glow with internal energy, purplish-blue.
“Yes,” said Occulta, “we know it well. Or well enough.” He turned to Micron. “We must observe it for a while as it comes and goes. In the meantime, Doctor—” He turned the other way, toward E.T. “—you can work your own plan. Eh?”
“O.K.,” said E.T. in Earth jargon, the words coming naturally to him now, for he’d had time to contemplate the language and knew all its delicate shades. “Sex and rock and roll,” he added, to further clarify his position.
Electrum moved his toadstool-like body along the edge of their hiding place, so he could see the aft portion of the ship. “Our old designs have never been bettered. That ship can travel forever, refueling itself from the matter of the stars.”
The vast arena, with the ship at its center, seemed to gaze back at them with its myriad eyes. The crew members came and went, preparing for a night liftoff. Their shape was like E.T.’s, but almost transparent and much more fluid, for theirs was the most evolved form—pure mind in a thin membrane, which altered its shape according to need—two arms, then three, or four, then none, the shape becoming a simple, elegant sack of intellect in repose. Now, approaching the ship, they were bipedal, legs moving easily, their arms gesturing with great delicacy, fingers long and expressive, through which the moonlight passed.
“Mind Holders,” said Occulta. “An airy bunch.”
“How can they stand it,” said Electrum, “to have no metal in their veins, no force fields, no charge? Why—” He looked at E.T. “—even this vegetable doctor has a live current in his spongy frame.”
E.T. gazed at the Mind Holders, whose learned ways he admired above all things. They were far beyond him. They knew the innermost layers of the supreme sciences, were creatures of enormous patience and power, and he was going to borrow their starcruiser. Much, much rock and rolling would be needed to outsmart them.
The Mind Holders entered the ship, their forms altering into sheer technological states as they disappeared into the corridors. The Micro Techs closed the hatch, their million fluttering fingers sensing every micrometer of the seal. Other of their colleagues were already on board, at their posts, micro-tuning the liftoff navigation systems, and bringing the mighty craft to its first stage of power.
“Yes,” said Sinistro, “worth creeping out of the ground for.”
The launch pad was clearing now, the last of the Micro Techs leaving the hull of the ship, and withdrawing to their command pods—gleaming balls spaced around the ship, from which they would activate and monitor its final stages.
One by one the command pods lit up, until a pulsing ring of light surrounded the starcruiser. Within it, in control of the manual system, the Mind Holders were concentrating, and a familiar glow suddenly filled the windows of the flight deck, a light like the one E.T. held in his fingertip and heart, but brighter by far, a blaze of the purest subtle energy.
And then, at another window, in a section of the ship most familiar to E.T.—the Botanical Wing—a face like his own appeared.
“Owch,” said E.T. softly, as he saw his fellow botanist in the position he himself once held, off to gather flowers of space, for the universal garden. How he missed it, the calyx of love, the mercy of the world, plants giving life its bubble of air on planets near and far.
“Ah, she’s beautiful,” said Electrum, staring at the cruiser as its first stage fired and it lifted upward.
The invisible gases suddenly thickened in a rainbow of color, the high temperature exhaust wearing all the splendor of the cosmos, and then the ship was lost in it, accelerating into the upper darkness.
/> E.T.’s thoughts went with it, in a telepathic signal soaring through the heavens. It navigated the labyrinths of stars, and came down, nearly on target. Elliott was at the park pool, getting set to show off with a fancy dive. Julie was seated at the edge of the pool, legs splashing back and forth in the water. Her bathing cap was shaped like layers of flower petals, and E.T.’s little replicant landed in them, thinking she was a large white rose. A funny feeling went through her, as the replicant touched her, a feeling of something faraway and strange. And it had to do with—Elliott.
She turned toward him. He’d walked to the edge of the diving board and was extending his arms. He raised them, sprang off the board, and sailed into the air with a tremendous bound, peaked and turned over, arms flailing; he came down flat on his back with a loud splat, and sank like a stone.
Julie pushed off the edge of the pool and swam over to him as he surfaced, glassy-eyed.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
Water was running out of his nose, ears, and mouth. “Sure, sure,” he gasped. “I was just—experimenting. Testing the board.”
“Testing it?”
He looked at her, at the little wisps of wet brown curls coming from under her petaled cap. The little replicant leapt from the petals toward Elliott, but its diving form was worse than Elliott’s and it landed near the filter drain, which started sucking it in. Help, cried the replicant, and the lifeguard turned his head.
Did I hear somebody yell for help?
He scanned the pool but there were just two kids in the water, Elliott and Julie; the others were playing around the edge. The lifeguard returned to contemplating his suntanned navel, and Elliott swam toward the ladder, doing his famous Australian dog paddle. Julie glided beside him, with lithe graceful strokes. “Are you going to test the board again?” she asked, teasingly, as he held on to the ladder, still gasping for breath.
“Yeah,” he said, for he did have one more fancy dive in his repertoire, where he grabbed his knees and went in like a bowling ball. He wished he were a swimmer, a great swimmer. Oh, if only I had a teacher.
El-li-ott, cried the little replicant, fighting against the pull of the drain, and thrashing in the water.
Elliott turned his head, but there was no one there, only a few rainbow reflections glittering on the water’s tossing surface.
“Let’s swim together,” said Julie. “We’ll do the sidestroke.”
“Sure, fine,” said Elliott. That was the stroke in which he sank sideways and got chlorine up just one nostril, an old favorite. But he swam beside her, looking into her eyes, and for a moment he thought maybe her toe had just touched his. A thousand thrills ran through him, and he heard other voices at the pool as if through a dream. He gazed at her and wished he had the guts to play a big love scene, but it was better to remain hard-to-get, so he rolled over and switched to his Olympic backstroke, the one where he sank gradually, like a submarine.
She followed him, sleek and coordinated, a natural athlete, in the pool, the gym, the field, was drawing closer to him again, and that meant he must draw farther away, to keep her guessing.
Nearby, the little replicant fought with its own best stroke against the suction of the drain, but it was caught in the whirling water and filtered out of the pool. It angled through the pipes, the pump, the hoses, and began to expire before circulation was complete. Only a fragment of its energy remained, a faint fading shape incapable of affecting anything, and when the filter spat it back out, it was just a bubble which popped and disappeared.
“Guess I’ll go now,” said Elliott, climbing up the ladder of the pool.
“I’ll come with you,” said Julie.
“Suit yourself,” he said, and wondered why he couldn’t say what he really felt. But it was impossible. No way. Greg and Tyler would have too much fun at his expense if he ever got hung up on a girl.
But whose life was it anyway?
“I’ll just be a minute,” said Julie, as she went toward the girls’ dressing room.
He watched her go, and then knew what his next move had to be. He grabbed his bike, and still in his bathing suit, he pedaled away, clothes jammed in the basket, water flying off him. He smiled inside at the thought of what she’d say when she found him gone.
Smooth, Elliott, very smooth.
C H A P T E R
1 1
E.T. entered the transparent dome.
Row after row of exceedingly odd plantlife was displayed, and the air was heavy with scent. “This,” said E.T. to the Flopglopple, “is where Botanicus raises his rarest blossoms.”
“They reach upward,” said the Flopglopple, “supplicating the sun.”
E.T. looked at him and wondered, as ever, about the true nature of his supposedly silly companion.
The Flopglopple looked back. “Coated with cutin,” he said, knowledgeably and seriously, as he pointed to a leaf. “Water and gas proof,” he added. But then he took some beard moss and hung it from his chin, and made a stupid mustache with the rest of it.
E.T. entered the rows of the Yaa Iram, the Fire Plants, who sat in flame proof pots, solar flowers hanging from their stems, incandescent gases licking at the air. Of blossoms, these were the most desirable, and for their protection, they were simply too hot to handle.
“Yaa!” cried the Flopglopple, hopping around, beard moss burning, fingers singed by the Yaa Iram.
“This way,” said E.T., entering the next row, of Rak-heshma, the Veil Plants. Their gauzy petals undulated in the air, permitting only a fleeting glimpse of the inner face of the plant, whose buds, like eyes, winked open and closed. “Let me see,” said the Flopglopple, but the plant hid its face most cleverly.
“Here is the Cloud Bearer,” said E.T., admiring a plant with its own prominent pedestal at the end of the row. “Unlike the chuckling Moot-Moots, it can never die of thirst.”
The Cloud Bearer’s stems and leaves were surrounded by tiny puffs of cloud, from which tiny insects came and went like birds in the firmament; a tiny rumble of thunder came from the cloud and it began to rain on the soil below.
“It waters itself!” cried the Flopglopple. “I must do that! I must have my own cloud, and rain on myself whenever I want a drink, as I’m frequently thirsty from rushing around so much.”
“These are the hybrids,” said E.T., “created by Botanicus for his own amusement, and for gifts to the courts of Crystellum and Lucidulum.”
As he spoke, E.T. suddenly filled with longing, to see the courts again, where the most exotic creations of all were exhibited.
“In the court of Crystellum,” he said to the Flopglopple, “there is a plant called Nahf Natika, the Crystal Night Sky Plant, in whose spherical, transparent bud tiny constellations burn, and wandering planets pass, hour after hour, until the sphere opens in a single burst, sending the gleaming little seeds in eccentric orbits, to fall, and grow more Crystal Night Sky Plants.”
The Flopglopple was trying to scoop handfuls of cloud around his head. “Stay there . . . b. good . . .” But the clouds kept floating back to the Cloud Bearer.
E.T. went deeper into the dome, and the Azra Uttus, the Winged Blossom Plants, began to flutter at his approach; petals flapping, their many flowers floated into the air, and they landed on E.T.’s head like a crown of butterflies. Not wanting to hurt their feelings, he let them stay on his head as he wandered through the crowded aisles, which were a confusing riot of color.
The Wing Blossoms fluttered, and tickled his ears. He hardly noticed, for he was searching for something—
—which used to be here. Where has it gone to?
He scratched his head and the Wing Blossoms fluttered onto his fingertips, and then flew away, all of them, in a long line that shot in and out of the aisles and trays and came to rest like a pointer over the plant he was looking for.
Of all the plants in the hothouse, it was one of the oddest. Every part of it, instead of lifting its leaves and flowers to the light, drooped limply downward as if wil
ted—an impossibility in any garden of Botanicus, where all the plants were perfect specimens.
E.T. smiled. This was it.
The droopy-looking plant had two especially long branches that hung into the dirt like arms, and the rest of its shape gave the impression of someone very tired, asleep against a post; the uppermost blossom, in fact, emitted a tiny snoring sound, petals moistly fluttering. From this blossom, E.T. took a tiny pinch of pollen, a disturbance which caused the plant to shift, like a person turning over in bed, but the snoring continued.
“And what brings you here, Doctor?” The voice of Botanicus came softly behind E.T., who popped into the air with a little jolt of surprise. He turned and slipped the bit of pollen to his Flopglopple, who took it, and slid back under a bench, out of the reach of Botanicus.
“I’m visiting the plants,” said E.T., backing away from Botanicus.
“They seem happy to see you,” said Botanicus, nodding at the Wing Blossoms who had once more fluttered back onto E.T.’s head, where they fanned their wings slowly up and down.
“I’ve got to—buzz off,” said E.T.
“Are you a bee? Strange words flower on your tongue,” observed Botanicus, as E.T. continued to back away.
“No stranger than the blossoms which surround me,” said E.T., feeling his way toward the door.
“Your mind, like my plants, is now a hybrid? Of the Blue and Green planets?”
“My mind is—all zonked.”
Botanicus stepped closer, but E.T. was already out of the door, and proceeding down the path with his Flopglopple, who still held the handful of pollen in his palm.
E.T. The Book of the Green Planet Page 8