E.T. The Book of the Green Planet

by William Kotzwinkle

  Try again! they said, for they loved leaps and bounces of any kind.

  “No, no, that’s all the bouncing for now.” He fended them off and continued along the shaded morning path, toward the fields. The Flopglopple was ahead, teasing the ancient lizards of the forest, who looked at him with slitted eyes, and then looked at E.T., tongues flickering in a whisper.

  Get this Igigi Gyrum out of here.

  E.T. attempted to restrain the Flopglopple. “Never tease lizards.”

  “They’re so stiff and scaly,” said the Flopglopple. “I can’t help myself.” He tweaked the distinguished reptiles by the tails.

  Vestigial idiot, grumbled the lizards.

  The Flopglopple turned to E.T. “Don’t listen to them. I will prove useful. Through the mask of my clowning, some see my virtues.”

  Atrophied imbecile, muttered the lizards, and slithered off into the leaves.

  “I’m older than they are,” said the Flopglopple, winding himself around a tree trunk like a python. “I’ve gone back to the sea and emerged again. And someday I’ll grow wings.”

  Someday, said a scaly voice from within the leaves, you’ll grow a rudimentary brain.

  “I’ll run ahead,” said the Flopglopple, “and see what’s there!” Saying which, he vanished in a whirl of leaves and dust. E.T. followed, to the forest’s edge. Before him were the fields, stretching to the horizon. From them, morning vapors arose, and through the mist that hugged the rows he saw the agriculturalists moving—creatures like himself, but all young, much younger, their knowledge just beginning to form.

  “While mine is complete. A complete fool.”

  But thoughts of his folly on Earth made him long for his friend there, and a tele-beam went out from his forehead and headed for Earth. Through star systems and dimension gates it traveled, and the little tele-replicant of E.T. came down, almost on target, in Elliott’s classroom.

  It was a computer class, and the little replicant landed in Elliott’s machine. Seeing a good opportunity at hand, the tele-replicant began creating a message from within the computer. A single word, telling all, flashed on Elliott’s screen:

  Owch

  But Elliott was looking across the aisle at a certain young lady he’d grown strangely attracted to lately—for Elliott had grown in years since the time E.T. had left. Time-travel distorts and while E.T. had aged little, Elliott had grown and entered junior high school—and found new interests there.

  Such as this girl, whose long ponytail fascinated him in ways he could not quite explain.

  Owch Owch Owch

  said the screen. But Elliott’s head was still turned.

  “All right, class,” said the teacher. “Clear your machines.”

  Elliott, still looking at the young lady, pressed a single button, and E.T. was wiped out of memory.

  E.T. stood at the edge of the agricultural fields. The young workers there drew back deferentially as he approached, for they could feel his higher mind, and they could see for themselves how the plants were responding to E.T.’s presence—buds opening as if to greet him.

  “Kish mitobit eront hoyat nurabong . . .” He walked through the plants, murmuring softly to them in their own tongue, and touching them with his healing, glowing index finger—the mark of a Botanist First Class, even a demoted one. The plants responded, the long row unfolding its tiny leaves as he passed, and the agricultural students looked on, dreaming of the day when they too could make a plant respond in such arcane ways.

  Then E.T. himself felt a higher wave, far higher than his own, an emanation partaking directly of the solar and lunar forces, the wave length of his teacher—Botanicus.

  It spread through the field, touching all the growing things, a power like E.T.’s, but amplified many times, the radiance of an Adept in Agriculture. There were only a few such on the planet, and of them Botanicus was the greatest. His glittering thought-wave, like a stream of diamonds, broke along the row, dazzling all who stood there, and dazzling still more those rooted there.

  Following in the wake of this powerful thought-wave, Botanicus appeared. His form was like the Parent—tall and slender, of the advanced growth cycle. He was wrapped in a robe made of a large leaf, whose tips were tucked around his shoulders and under his arms. It clung to him, undying, sustained by his emanation. His walk was slow and stately, and a large jade-skinned lizard accompanied him, forked tongue flickering as he waddled along beside his master.

  Botanicus gestured to the plants, all ten of his fingertips glowing with the marks of the Adept.

  “Each shining fingertip,” said E.T. softly to the students, “represents an achievement of wisdom so great that it glows, and is with him always, as a power at his command.”

  As Botanicus gestured, as the light streamed from his fingers, new shoots appeared all along the row, buds multiplied, and leaves that had been scarred by insects were healed.

  A sigh went through the young students, and E.T. himself was filled with awe, as always. These fields, as far as the eye could see and farther, belonged to Botanicus. The food supply of half the planet was under his care; these were his gardens, and here he had dwelled and worked through the eons.

  “Here,” said E.T. to the students, “Botanicus solved the riddle of life; here he learned the innermost secrets of all that grows, above and below.”

  Around Botanicus was a corona of shimmering light, and plants swooned as he passed, some falling, some rising, some reaching out to touch him and draw more of his concentrate. Where his footsteps fell, seedlings suddenly sprouted, quickened by his impress, and where his gaze landed, there a plant would tremble with rapture. Most learned, Supreme Scientist, Lord of the Fields—Botanicus.

  He seemed not to see his pupils yet, his gaze only for the plants, and E.T. and the young workers simply followed him through the row, E.T. remembering again that the secret of life was an equation of love, inexpressibly tender and haunting. Botanicus, great Botanicus, had solved that equation to its depth, down the spiraling helix. Thousands of new plant forms were his creation, and through them he fed the planet—no one hungry, all sustained and nourished by his vision.

  Finally he turned, his gaze now falling on his students, and then on E.T. His large limpid eyes blinked slowly. “Prize pupil.” He extended his hand to E.T. “Come here, pride and joy.”

  E.T. moved in front of him. Botanicus put his leathery palm on E.T.’s head and closed his eyes. “Rhizome blocked. Sap down in the toes. What’s wrong?”

  “Weeded out,” said E.T. “Kicked off the ship.”

  “Unfortunate,” said Botanicus. His gaze remained gentle. “But you have been returned to me, and I cannot say I’m sorry about that. Yes, Doctor, I foresee that we shall make some new breakthrough together.”

  The eyes of Botanicus shone with clairvoyant brightness. His lizard whipped its tail once, back and forth, and its eyes became narrowed slits, as perhaps it too contemplated the faint shadows of E.T.’s future. And on both sides, the other students of Botanicus, still bearing the fuzz of immaturity on their heads, looked on spellbound. But their hair moss glowed amber and silver, as if filling with some premonition of a strange and powerful event on the horizon.

  “Come,” said Botanicus, and gestured for them to follow him, deeper into the fields. The gardens of Botanicus were vast, and many thousands worked for him, near and far. E.T. felt the teacher’s ray stream out to the plants, and down into the nuclei of their cells.

  “We can affect them,” said Botanicus, stroking a green leaf. “We can touch their nucleotide sequence, the acids, the enzymes, the proteins, and cause them to alter, as we desire.”

  And so the gardens of Botanicus contained many bizarre creations, the most unusual of which, perhaps, was the agi Jabi. One of them stood at the end of the row, a tall plant, something like corn, but which had been crossed with a Jumpum and Shrieking Ja—to produce a plant who guarded the field from marauding birds. If birds came by, the agi Jabi leapt out, waved its stalks an
d produced a deafening cry, after which it would go back to its silent vigil. Like most hybrids, it was temperamental and shrieked at everyone who came along—except for Botanicus, whom it recognized and loved.

  “My good agi Jabi,” said Botanicus, petting it. “The fields are under your care.”

  A budlike protuberance at the top of the stalk turned, and a fibrous lid lifted, revealing a collection of yellow crystals, which were agi Jabi’s sly and crafty eye. E.T. stepped carefully around the plant, as did the other students, for the cry of agi Jabi was nerve-shattering at best. Botanicus whispered to it, and it allowed the class to pass by.

  Ahead were rows of beaker plants—each blossom a large transparent globe in which methane, ammonia, and hydrogen sulphide floated.

  “Each a potential world,” said Botanicus. He gestured over the plants, and the gases stirred. “The beginning of things,” he said, and looked at the agriculturalists, and at E.T., the strange clairvoyant gleam in his eyes once again. “Create what you desire. The elements are here—” He pointed again at the beaker plants. “The power is there—” He pointed at a row of little plants, whose solid round buds were expanding and contracting, making carbohydrates and burning them with a rumbling noise.

  So the morning passed, as they tended the rows, and then, when it was time for a rest, they followed Botanicus into a grove of Fluteroots, where the music of the wind played softly, and everyone gathered around the teacher.

  “One must be careful in one’s experiments,” he said. “Once, accidentally, I used too much elixir of Antum Tadana, whose power to strengthen fiber you all know. As a result, I created a plant with roots like the hardest alloy of metals. These vigorous, indestructible roots began to sink themselves ever more deeply into the ground.” He paused and looked at the group, and his eyes sparkled. “It pierced the planet’s crust, penetrating the sila and the sima, and began digging its way through the mantle. It pierced the asthenosphere and found what it was seeking—the fiery magma at the planetary core, for it was a plant of volcanic inclinations. It sucked the magma up its shoot and its blossoms were turned into flame and lava, which it spewed forth for miles. Dangerous, indeed, was that plant.”

  Botanicus looked at E.T. and smiled. “I have the feeling that the powers of Antum Tadana will draw you, as they once drew me.”

  E.T. nodded, and decided it was his cue to tell a story of his own, of Earth, to give the students further information that might one day prove useful to them.

  “Earth has many strange creatures,” he began. “Most strange are some I lived with. They sit on shelves and never move, though they have arms and legs, and they never eat though they have mouths, they are called toys and have definite spiritual qualities and indeed frequently spoke to me in the silence of the closet. I believe them to be very advanced, as are our great meditative sages, the Mind Holders.” He paused, to gather more profundities for his young listeners, whose head-moss was again beginning to glow amber and silver, as they leaned toward him.

  “I shared my quarters with another remarkable creature called the Baa Sket Ba, who is a little round being filled with air, much like our beaker blossoms. He is helpless to go anywhere unless you bounce him. Earth people love him and try to take him from each other every Saturn Day. I saw this on their communication screen, before which I sat drinking beer as all Earth people do and I felt wonderful but later had a mysterious pain in my head.”

  The young workers’ mouths had fallen open. E.T. nodded wisely, happy to be educating them to the way of worlds far from home, which they themselves might one day visit, and for which they should have the correct preparation.

  “There,” said Botanicus to his pupils. “Now you know something of Earth.” He looked again at E.T., and one eye opened slightly wider, brow lifting quizzically.

  E.T. raised his healing finger, in which many powers were contained. He must give something to Botanicus, whom he’d not seen in so long and to whom he owed so much. And though his teacher was far wiser than he, and counted all the treasures of botany as his own, there was one thing E.T. could give, the gift which an Adept can give to an Elder, even though the Elder knows much more than the Adept. Botanicus saw E.T.’s gesture beginning and shook his head. “Do not shorten your own cycle.”

  But the gift of the life-force was already leaping, from the core of E.T.’s being, from the store of his life-potential. He was giving a cycle of his own life, consisting of an entire century, to Botanicus. His healing finger glowed, and the light leapt into Botanicus, at the point called Energic Door, in the top of the skull.

  The gathered students drew their breath in awe, for they had never seen this gift before. And a moment later they saw its manifestation; an age ring had vanished from the dome of Botanicus’s head, where the cycles were counted as in the trunk of a tree. He had regained the form he’d held a hundred years ago, and a new vigor was in his gaze as he once more raised his head.

  “A fine gift, Doctor,” he said softly, and cast his eyes to E.T.’s own brow, where the vanished ring had formed, E.T. having gathered Botanicus’s weariness to himself. E.T. turned away then, as if nothing had passed, and gazed into the fields which he and Botanicus served. He felt the heaviness of a full cycle upon him but he would carry it for Botanicus; it was only right that he do so.

  E.T. worked all day beside the others, at jobs he hadn’t done for ages. His Flopglopple, after running amok in the rows for several hours, settled down beside him to help with the soil test. The Flopglopple was an excellent gardener, spoke the language of plants and was most gentle in transplanting. “We’re back on the job,” he said to E.T. affectionately.

  “Yes,” said E.T., “it is pleasant work.” But his head kept turning skyward, sunward and beyond, and a mental wave went out, entered the wormholes of space, jumped universes, and found Earth.

  It orbited, and began final descent, coming down in a row of phone booths near the school bus stop, where Elliott and his friends had gathered. E.T.’s tele-replicant got twisted up in the telephone currents, its message spiraling out and into the ear of a salesman using the phone. “Forty-two pairs of bikini briefs, size medium, yessir, I’ll be delivering them this afternoon.” He hung up, and for no reason he could think of, phoned home.

  “Hello, Mother, this is Sheldon . . . no I’m not in jail. Mother, please, I don’t need a loan, I’m selling underwear. Mother, would you spare me your sarcasm? Does Dad need any boxer shorts? No, that’s not why I’m calling, I don’t know why I’m calling, I suddenly had this urge to phone home.”

  Elliott climbed into the school bus and it moved off down the block.

  He walked down the aisle of the bus, behind his friends. He’d sit with them and pretend he hadn’t noticed Julie get on. When dealing with girls you had to pretend right back—that you didn’t care about them, that you’d rather be punching a friend, or shouting hysterically. That was the way it was done; that was the only way to get someplace with girls—to go no place at all.

  He couldn’t help wondering if there wasn’t something basically incorrect about the procedure.

  “Hey, Elliott, did you see the latest Heavy Metal?”

  The magazine made the rounds, and he pretended to peruse it, but the words and pictures weren’t making any sense, for he’d just heard Julie whispering his name to the girl beside her, two seats away in the bus. Were they talking about how cool and detached he was?

  Could they see that he was trying to grow some very sharp sideburns, which at the moment looked something like a weasel’s tail?

  He turned toward them, as if looking out the other side of the bus at something very interesting there, even though the bus was going through an underpass and nothing was visible but pigeon-spattered bricks. He gazed at the pigeon-spatter thoughtfully, in a scientific manner. Maybe Julie would think he was making an important study. “Very interesting,” he muttered softly. His friend Greg spoiled the tableau by hitting him on the head with a rolled up Rolling Stone.

&nb
sp; “Hey, Elliott, wake up! Who are you lookin’ at—Julie? Hey, Julie—” Greg turned to her. “Elliott’s got it bad for you!”

  “Creep!” retorted Elliott, giving Greg a sharp jab on the arm. But everybody in the bus was laughing, a crazed kind of laughter that swept through them like a wind, blowing their emotions about. But Elliott felt the wind’s secret meaning, beyond the laughs and cackles of his idiot friends. His eyes met Julie’s and he felt a terribly familiar feeling, and yet where had he ever had such a feeling before? Her eyes were soft and inviting, and he’d never seen that before. And yet it was so familiar, as if he’d known it always. Oh no, he moaned inside himself, this is what life is all about.

  A tortured joy ran through him, and he had to look away, from those long lashes softly blinking.

  A universe away, E.T. turned to the Flopglopple. “My aim is off.”

  The Flopglopple twisted his noodley fingers into something resembling a scope-sight and held it in the air. “Aim your mental wave through here.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Very well,” said the Flopglopple, and unfolded his fingers, with some difficulty.

  They were alone in their row, but there was a sudden shivering in the air. The Flopglopple looked up and craned his limber neck. “Ios Naba coming.”

  The Ios Naba, or Contentment Monitor, was streaking along over the fields, from row to row. It zipped into E.T.’s row—a whirlpool of multicolored light whose center resembled an eye.

  The Monitor, whose job was to see that everyone was happy, whirled up to the Flopglopple. A lenslike flutter appeared in the center of its whirling pool of light, out of which a thin voice emerged. “You’re doing fine, much happier today,” it said to the Flopglopple, who smiled and pointed at E.T.

  “The doctor is back.”

  “I see, I see,” said the Contentment Monitor, and it expanded its whirling pool of color until it had enveloped E.T., feeling every nuance of his mood. “Something’s wrong. Can’t have that. Tell your Contentment Monitor all about it. You’ll feel much better.”