“It glows,” said Blackie. “No need for torches in here.” Behind them there was a soft sound like cheese cloth being pulled gently through a smooth hole. Blackie turned and froze. Amelia whipped around and stopped in mid-motion. Wayne stepped sideways to see several large shapes descending from the ceiling on smooth silvery strands. He glanced sideways and noticed Blackie and Amelia each had a strange pleased look on their face, and a tentacle stuck to the side of their head.
Wayne thought, “I really don’t like caves,” and he went rigid.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LACTROPODECTOPOI
No one has ever been seen leaving a cave infested by Lactrodectopoi. Therefore, they are said to be fiercely protective of their nests and heinously carnivorous creatures. According to Jorge Carlin, eminent zoologist from Capscumsi 4, and Department Head of the Biology Department at Capscumsi University, the Lactrodectopoi are terrestrial creatures with an appearance simultaneously similar to a spider and octopus, as he thinks he remembers. They have multiple legs, more or less, and a large bulbous body, more or less, with several tentacles protruding outward and down, more or less. Their heads are round and have too many eyes to count in the short period of time that expires before you go rigid, this last point being the most interesting.
Rigidity of prey in the typical spider world is not a good thing if you are the prey. Professor Carlin is quoted from his Study of Lactrodectopoi in 3484.12, “Although there is much variation in Lactrodectopoi among the universes their effect is not known to be similar to most protease spiders, whereby rigidity is inflicted by a toxin injected through incisors in the upper mandible, which may be followed by a certain sponginess of flesh and bones, and afterward a total redeployment of the prey’s tissues to offspring and friends.” So far so good if you are the prey of a Lactrodectopoi, but not so good if you’ve wondered into the nest of a Fangeri Almosc where the average time to rigidity is thought to be measured in microseconds. Professor Carlin explains that after entering a Lactrodectopoi nest one has only seconds to observe them before going rigid. Needless to say it took 518 trips into a Lactrodectopoi nest to obtain enough information to flesh out his study – all eight thousand paragraphs.
It turns out Lactrodectopoi are highly intelligent creatures with the sense to do nothing that would dissuade the persistent spread of an erroneous legend claiming them to be fierce, protective, and best of all carnivorous. They like their quiet and peace, and frankly the legend hasn’t hurt in that regard; you don’t see teachers queuing up students to go see Lactrodectopoi in their natural habitat do you. If they did, they would have a very good time after all, and the bus driver would enjoy a quiet return trip to school, alone. You see, Lactrodectopoi are both telepathic and telekinetic. Upon entering their nest, which is always in a cave formed using the brushes on their back legs, the “prey” is tentacled, and they have a nice telepathic chat. Lactrodectopoi, it seems by use of these intermittent chats, have become proficient in nearly every language in the universes. Each time one learns a new term he passes it onto his nest mates and others telepathically. It’s a group study if you will, and is being considered as the next step in the evolution of educational methods for school-aged children on fourteen planets.
After Lactrodectopoi have finished their visit they deploy their visitors telekinetically to a destination of their choice, although it is limited to a two-dimensional jump. This they do to bolster the heinous carnivorous beast legend – no one has ever been seen leaving a cave infested with Lactrodectopoi. They say it is working beautifully. Lactrodectopoi always limit the size of their cave so that 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 Lactrodectopoi tell them how big it is telepathically so the place is not overrun with lonely people looking for a good chat. They 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. It should be mentioned that Lactrodectopoi cultivate and eat the light emitting algae that grows 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 had 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 indentation.”
“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 and 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.” They found themselves inside the cave and Mark saw them. At first he didn’t register that they were not moving.
“Hey,” he said as he and Amelia moved forward, “enough of the statue business already.”
“Mark, they are not playing,” Nita said as she stood next to Amelia.
Mark felt a tingling sensation on his skin, he knew 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 Lactrodectopoi? “Yes this is everyone,” Blackie communicated without moving his lips, batting an eye lash or having 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.
“T
his 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 Lactrodectopoi.
“Yes,” said Wayne, “how did you know?”
“It’s obvious,” said another of the Lactrodectopoi. Wayne didn’t ask why it was obvious. Blackie stifled a laugh. The conversation turned to travel and politics, and nature, and was thoroughly enjoyable.
“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 Lactrodectopoi, “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?” interjected Wayne.
“I’m sorry,” said the Lactrodectopoi, “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 Lactrodectopoi.
After a short discussion they all agreed to be teleported to the Nomad. “Right then, it’s been wonderful practicing our English,” said the Lactrodectopoi. “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 expect, 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. It was at this point they noticed a somewhat more than normal disturbing scene outside the Nomad; eight men clothed in 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”) and 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. You didn’t see that one coming did you? 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 the 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 (the author 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 they become planitids, and at the time of maturation each pod will contain about 100 billion to 600 billion. When released from the Planet Tree, solar galactipods float on solar wind and are disseminated extensively. In due time, whatever that means, mature solar galactipods unzip with a violent burst and the planitids are thrown from the pod. Zitwyler postulates 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 Lactrodectopoi would fill a black hole to the point of belching. For instance, scientists didn’t know that Lactrodectopoi could communicate over very, very long distances with anyone who had visited one of their caves and with whom they had had a chat.
“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.
Amelia heard a voice say “Push the button.” At that moment her eyes were riveted on the eight men pointing guns at them and not really paying much attention to the quiet small 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. Everyone else was being very quiet. Amelia slipped her hand into her bag.
“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 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 heard and she pushed the recessed red button on the outside of the Jump Starter. Woosh.
The Nomad was enveloped in a bright white haze. Mark’s face suddenly looked less like he was pretending to be sour and more like he was really 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. The
n 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 away from the car. Mark lost his sour look, “Move back, move back,” yelled Mark with a mischievous grin on his face, “it’s going to blow,” he yelled as he turned and winked at Nita. “That should agitate them a bit,” smiled Mark with his hand 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” she said.
“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 with his hands 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 a tall building but he could easily see the details. His eyes stopped and there, a man leaned slightly out of a window on the top floor and watched the scene below. 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 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.
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