E.T. The Book of the Green Planet

by William Kotzwinkle

  The replicant entered the shadowy form, and dissolved it at the center, scattering its cloudy nucleus. The shadow lightened, then dissolved, and within it was a beautiful sphere of blue, a tiny replica of the Earth carried in each Earth soul. It shone with wondrous beauty, and E.T’s replicant circled around it, again and again, scattering the mists of sadness that had enveloped it. And when the beautiful blue ball was shining, the little replicant dove inside it, and curled up there, and radiated the rest of his charge into this core of Elliott’s form, this gem at the center of the human condition.

  Outwardly, Elliott blinked, and tossed his paddle down. He walked across the rec hall to the steps and went up them. He moved onto the dance floor, and crossed over to Snork Johnson and Julie. Snork saw him and turned. “Get lost, shortstop,” said Snork with a sneer, as he spun away.

  Elliott stepped between him and Julie. “I’m cutting in,” he said.

  Snork curled his lip up, a superior remark beginning, dripping with elite sarcasm. And then his eyes met Elliott’s, and what he saw there dissolved the words in his mouth and turned them into a stammer, decorated with spit bubbles.

  Because Elliott’s eyes were filled with an uncanny presence, quite beyond anything Snork Johnson had ever seen. He’d just been out-classed in confidence, and he knew it. He turned and paddled away, wondering what had happened.

  And Elliott turned to Julie.

  “Hi,” he said, as the next record came on over the speakers, a soft slow tune, which led them into each other’s arms.

  “Gee,” she said, “you’re a smooth dancer, Elliott.”

  His body was loose, his movements easy and graceful. He felt he’d blended with the night of rainbow lights—and he knew something, very small and elusive, something he couldn’t speak of. But it was intrinsically his, and he realized he could never lose it.

  Within him, hidden beyond Elliott’s powers of comprehension, the replicant glowed, slowly emanating the charge of E.T.’s last gift, after which there could be no others. For E.T. was doomed, his ship shattering apart in the void. But here, within Elliott’s heart at least, were all the memories, the stored wisdoms, the power of E.T.’s love. And slowly the replicant faded, and slowly it died.

  “They’re out of control, Commander,” said the lead Lucidulum pilot. “We’ll be able to overtake them again.”

  “Yes,” said the Commander, “yes, I see. Deploy the nets once more.” And to himself he thought, I will not be disgraced after all. I will not have to bear forever on my record that I was outrun by a flying turnip.

  And he smiled to himself.

  And then, inside the turnip, an odd thing happened:

  At first E.T. thought it was a puncture in the shell of his ship. A curling wisp of something floated in the air before him, like a little cone of fog. He tried to grasp it, but the turnip pitched madly, and he went sliding once more, across the floor.

  When he looked up, the wispy cloud had grown larger and rounder. He pitched back across the floor, sliding with his Flopglopple, and when he looked again, the cloud had grown yet more substantial and was, moreover, now resembling nothing so much as a large bulb of garlic. The bulb moved, semitransparent, ethereal, a walking cloud, toward the command console where Micron and the robot were struggling to maintain control of the turnip. The ghostly garlic bulb stood in beside Micron, and as it did so, it gained final shape, and its cloves unfolded with a metallic gleam, and long sinewy arms extended.

  Don’t get nervous, you sawed off transistor.

  “Sinistro!” cried Micron.

  The wraith smiled, and gestured, to a second wisp of ethereal substance forming in the room. We’ve projected a bit of our mind power your way.

  The second wisp of mental stuff took shape on Micron’s other side; as the wisp gained density, it began hopping up and down like an excited toadstool.

  “Electrum!”

  At your service, said the old wraith, bending over the control board, his once-bruised umbos now nicely shaped again and shining. Then beside him, a third wisp formed, like a mummy appearing from some buried chamber of the galactical tombs. It was Occulta’s wraith, eyes burning with flames of yellow diamonds. And now, said his spectral voice, let’s trim this turnip.

  In the viewing screen, the Lucidulum fleet appeared, drew closer, nets deployed. But Sinistro took over the controls, and Occulta and Electrum floated out onto the exterior surface of the turnip, where the Fusion rockets were blasting.

  They separated, one to each side of the turnip, riding on its edge. Then they extended their arms, and a current leapt from their fingertips, sparkling and brilliant, and circled the turnip. Two of these magnetic rings they laid, like the frame of a gyroscope, the currents weaving, spinning, setting up a magnetic balance for the ship, and calming its fearful quaking.

  From sun to sun, said Occulta, raising his arms to the stars, let our rings be charged.

  Then he turned to the pursuing fleet of Lucidulum and gave them a smiling wave, as their ships again fell behind in the chase, lost in the stabilized turnip’s exhaust.

  “On course,” said the robot, inside. “Approaching constellation Nahaz Erdu, Gate of Dimension.”

  E.T. crawled to his feet, as the constellation appeared on the viewing screen, rushing toward them.

  The soft song was slowly ending, as Elliott spun Julie to the center of the dance floor, beneath a big glass ball made of hundreds of tiny mirrors. The glass world turned slowly above them, reflecting the rainbow light of the hall, and Elliott drew Julie closer to him, and placed his lips on hers. They kissed, and the colors flashed, and in every facet of the turning world of glass Elliott and Julie were reflected in their first slow, perfect and unforgettable kiss.

  And here we must leave you, said Sinistro, at the control board, and even as he spoke his ethereal substance began to fade, unable to enter the Gateway of Dimension. Sinistro became just a wisp of fog again, as did Occulta and Electrum.

  “Mind projection fading,” said the Flopglopple, as the wisps became no more than thin quivering plumes of disappearing crystals. But E.T. could hear, across the void, Electrum calling:

  Don’t forget my bicycle!

  E.T.’s turnip ship entered the constellation of Nahaz Erdu, flying straight to the wormhole in its center, the Gateway of Dimension.

  The turnip slipped from one time-space to another, and emerged at the second lap of its journey, in the Outer Sea of Light. Ahead were other wormholes, by which they would bridge the immensity of the universes, emerging ultimately in the Milky Way.

  E.T. looked at his shipmates—Micron, the robot, and the Flopglopple—and held up two fingers, in the V-for-Victory sign he’d learned on Earth, his index finger glowing. And then, suddenly, the other finger lit up, signifying a great deed accomplished.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  William Kotzwinkle, author of The Fan Man, Swimmer in the Secret Sea, Jack in the Box, E.T. the Extra-terrestrial Storybook and other noted works, is a two-time winner of the National Award for Fiction and of the World Fantasy Award.