“One of her petals is lifting,” said the Flopglopple softly.
E.T. nodded, pirouetted, shot his neck up and down, and sang:
“Tell me, tell me, tell me,
O, who wrote the Book of Love . . . ?”
And the Flopglopple spun like a top, raising dust all around him in a dancing whirl, his tripodial feet appearing in rapid succession out of the cloud, and he joined E.T. as they sang:
“I’ve got to know the answer
Was it someone from above . . .”
Along the row other petals began to lift and E.T. and the Flopglopple redoubled their efforts, singing:
“I wonder, wonder who
Who wrote the Book of Love?”
Magdol’s golden fringe appeared, followed by iridescent bands of violet, then luminous greens and dots of red, all on thin swaying stems, like the feathers of a peacock. Row upon row began to unfold in majestic undulation. E.T. and the Flopglopple panted and puffed up and down the rows, tapping, turning, side-shuffling.
“A-bop-bop-a-loom-op
A-lop bop boom!
Tutti Frutti au rutti . . .”
Magdol’s garden opened, and the birds and insects gathered, to taste her pollen. Her flowers were immature, and needed sunlight, and E.T. and the Flopglopple kept dancing to keep her open and lure her along.
“I’ve been to the east
I’ve been to the west
but she’s the gal I love the best
Tutti Frutti au rutti . . .”
The Flopglopple was in ecstasy, for dancing and jumping around were his most cherished pastimes, and to be doing it with his friend, for a good cause, made it a most unusual occurrence, for usually when he was jumping and dancing he got yelled at for breaking something. But this! This was official!
“Deep down in Lou’siana, close to New
Orleans,
Way back up in the woods among the
evergreens,
There stood an old cabin made of earth and
wood,
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B.
GOODE.”
Another official activity was taking place at that same moment, in the sky about twenty meters above, where the Contentment Monitor was passing. Its tiny cyclone of color paused, and its eye-like orb gazed down at the garden of Magdol, which was quite unexpectedly blooming. And strange music was being sung. The Monitor swept lower and saw that the music was coming from E.T.
“Thus,” reflected the Monitor, “these guttural offerings must be from Earth, which he so recently visited. But can such a barbarous, war-torn place as Earth be capable of causing joy in one of our fields? In the fields of lovely Magdol, the Sulking Beauty? Why, then, war-mad Earth has something to offer the cosmos. Most unusual . . .”
And the Contentment Monitor sped on, taking its observations with it, while E.T. and the Flopglopple continued to dance and sing.
“Go! Johnny Go! Go!
Go! Johnny Go! Go!
Johnny B. GOODE!”
They dragged themselves out of the fields, after a long day with all of the problem plants—difficult, temperamental hybrids, including the Brooding Tubers. “I’ve been bitten, pinched, pricked, swatted, and stung,” said the Flopglopple. “Just about average for me about this time of day.”
E.T. turned toward the Flopglopple; his mind was tormented by something the Court of Lucidulum had said he’d done to this Flopglopple. “They say I corrupted you.”
“I’m incorruptible,” said the Flopglopple, “owing to my resilient body chemistry.” He stretched one of his arms out, and snaked the entire length into a knot at the elbow. Then he pointed back to the gardens they were leaving and said, “Reflect on the words of Botanicus, that’s my uncorrupted advice.”
“That his fields hold many secrets? But how can plants, however mysterious, help me in traveling to Elliott’s planet?”
“We’ll grow a stalk,” said the Flopglopple, unknotting his arm and throwing it upward; the elastic skin of the creature stretched like a thick, creeping tendril into the sky. “And then—” The other part of him turned under, and somehow clambered up the extended arm. “—we’ll climb it.”
The Flopglopple floated in the air momentarily, as all old Flopglopples could, having mastered their own gravity by acting out silly nonsense whenever possible.
“Oh, my Flopglopple,” said E.T., looking at his friend floating in the air. “You have a pure soul, as once mine was pure. And on Earth, I too learned to float in the air.” E.T. attempted an Earth lift-off, but he only crash-landed in the bushes, feet sticking out like the rays of two rising moons.
The Flopglopple descended in a blur, down his own arm, and looked into E.T.’s sad, questioning eyes.
“Don’t worry,” said the Flopglopple, “I’ll think of something. For even a Flopglopple can have his wise moments, as the proverb says, to which I add—not all thoughts are true, but most of them are useful.”
E.T. looked at the bizarre being before him, who, though he’d known him for centuries, never failed to surprise him. “Your enigmatic nature has never been fully understood by anyone, has it,” said E.T.
“Not in all the passing ages of the planet,” said the Flopglopple with a smile. And a radiant little Igigi Gyrum spun out of the Flopglopple’s head and gyrated toward E.T. A mental window opened in E.T.’s brow, and the Gyrum gyrated through, into E.T.’s head. A powerful idea spun through E.T.’s brain cells, speeding across the synapses with the speed of a Flopglopple.
“Flopglopple,” said E.T. “You are an excellent friend. And tomorrow we must talk more seriously to Antum Tadana.”
“In spite of his bad manners and present position in breakfast food?”
“He is a powerful old plant,” said E.T. “His gnarled mind has peered into my problem.”
And I too, thought the Flopglopple. I too have peered into your problem. It looks like this:
He tied two of his long limp fingers in a square knot and held them up for E.T. to appreciate.
C H A P T E R
1 5
Long shadows were falling. E.T. and the Flopglopple were sitting on craggly old meteorite pieces buried in the ground a billion years ago. The rays of the sun, called Monshoo, Gigantic Blossom, were shining their last splendid colors of the day. E.T.’s heart-light answered, shining its own ruby rays back at Monshoo as it descended, closing itself within the leaves of evening.
“The others show their hearts too,” said the Flopglopple. In the distance, on the surrounding hilltops, more heart-lights were going on, as all the botanists paused to answer the great blossom of the dying sun.
Then it was gone below the horizon, and E.T. gazed at the illusions left in the clouds—of a mountain range. Its peaks and slopes were calling him. But why?
He called to the cloud, as if to hear an echo or an answer. “El-li-ott!”
“LL-EE-UT,” said a voice from the shadows.
A soft rocket sound, as of some low-level suspension system, came through the brush of the hillside. Then a shiny round head appeared within the leaves.
“Pulsing optic centers,” said the Flopglopple.
A robot glided forward, his belly rockets firing gently, so that he hovered a few feet above the ground. E.T.’s long neck extended to the full length, and the Flopglopple’s neck shot forward to within a hair of the iron head. “An old model.”
“Yes,” said the robot in a clicking voice. “I’m old. But I’m spry.”
Four mechanical legs creaked down out of his frame and touched ground, supporting him. He shook one of them off to the side in a little dance step, to show his nimbleness, then shut his hover rockets off. His arms were tentaculiferous. His head, besides containing two pulsing optical centers, was also equipped with other functions. The back of it was a video screen, on which information grids might appear if called for, depending on his programming. Retractable beacon and data-link antennae, now withdrawn, were at his ear points. The entire head was a spherical
communications terminal of the older kind, and his age was also apparent in the numerous dents that decorated his chest and backside. His metal tentacles were covered with rust and his joints were squeaking.
“Officially scrapped,” he said. “But I have hundreds of years of experience. I analyze and synthesize. And I’m searching—” He paused, his electric eyes blinking slowly. “—for the truth.”
He gestured toward them with one of his metal tentacles. “Can you help me?”
“We can oil your joints,” said E.T.
“Most kind of you. Haven’t had oiling in ages.” The robot looked at his chest. “Could do with some rust-proof paint, as well.”
His cylindrical torso was covered in sensors, among them a high-resolution radio meter, an infra-red sounder, and high energy electron detectors. From his back, like the wings of some great bat, a pair of solar panels flapped. Between them, like shoulder blades, were telescopic mirrors, and below that a laser retro-reflector—all of it miniaturized and powerful, but covered with the fine patina of mechanical old age.
“May I look at your main battery?” asked E.T.
“Please do.” The robot turned and a panel popped open in his back. “It’s an excellent model. They don’t make them like this anymore. I was built to last.”
E.T. peered inside. “Very little corrosion.” He closed the panel. “We can fix that.”
“Wonderful. For my search for the meaning of things will take me at least—let me see—” A whirring sound came from his head, interrupted by little ripples of static, and then his speaker vibrated once more. “—at least six-hundred more years.”
And he sat down, with a soft clunk.
E.T. looked back up at the fading illusions of paths in the sky, and reflected on how fitting it was that it be himself who would be chosen by an outmoded, unbalanced robot. For his circuits are scrambled, thought E.T. Robots were never programmed to search for truth.
“Yes,” said the robot, “in six-hundred more years I’ll know the answer.” He gazed into the sky; random crackling sounds echoed from inside his head, and E.T. knew that his wiring was loose.
“Come along with us,” said E.T., and the robot stood with them, and joined their march.
The Micro Tech Club was crowded, and the high strident voices of the Micro crowd filled the room. Technological arguments were in progress, as usual, overheated Micros bouncing up and down; their transparent little bodies turned incandescent, and one of them jumped on the table and had to be restrained by an agi Jabi plant, which was kept for such moments, the green creature leaping from its corner and lifting the Micro Tech in its leafy arms and setting him back on his stool.
The Flopglopple entered the Club, and gyrated across the dance floor, to the foot of the stage. Micron was on it, playing his a’lud, his eyes closed, his little form swaying back and forth to the music.
The Flopglopple didn’t want to disturb him with words, which after all, are not music. So he pulled his own nose until it was as long as a flute, and then played a tune on it.
Micron opened his eyes, and the Flopglopple pointed to the door, where E.T. was standing. Micron set his a’lud down, and followed the Flopglopple over to the door. They stepped outside, and there stood the robot.
“Well, well,” said Micron, “a vintage model.”
“I’m old, but I’m nimble,” said the robot, and leapt in the air, attempting to click his heels.
“Bizarre behavior,” said Micron. “Needs his board checked.” He turned the robot around. “Snap open, please.”
“Certainly,” said the robot, and his back panel opened.
Micron went inside, his skilled fingers racing over the robot’s mind banks. “Hmmmmm, yes, one of the old navigator attendants, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” said the robot, “I have logged six trillion, one billion, five million, six-hundred thousand, four-hundred and twenty-three and two-tenths miles.”
E.T. stepped closer. “You know how to fly?”
“I contain all the star maps for the greater galactic grid.” The robot’s spherical head rotated like an owl’s, and a miniature constellation pattern appeared on the video screen at the back of his dome. “You are looking at the double star region Nahaz Erdu, called the Pass to Immensity, Gateway of Dimension.”
Micron brought his own head out of the robot’s interior. “His star charts are all functional.” He looked back inside. “He has resistor problems though. Probably warps his reality synthesis. I’ll just—”
“No!” The robot jumped away, his back panel closing with a loud bang. “That circuit, with its flaw, has been my path to truth.”
“More likely it causes you to lose equilibrium, let me just—”
“Leave him be,” said E.T., and thought to himself that flaws in one’s nature can nonetheless lead somewhere. Somewhere quite unexpected.
They took the robot home, changed his nuclear battery, oiled and painted him, and on the following morning he returned with them to the fields, his joints working smoothly as he walked. “I feel like a new machine,” he said, flexing his arms. “I will solve the impossible equation √ -1.”
His inner workings clicked and a stream of tape was ejected from a slot above his chin. The Flopglopple tore it off and looked at it. “Wrong.”
“Even so,” said the robot, and continued to flex his arms happily, and emit joyful beeps.
E.T. walked on ahead through the fields, from plot to plot, and when they came in sight of that plot in which Antum Tadana grew, E.T. felt his thoughts dive deep. And the Flopglopple was beside him saying, “Yes, some part of our answer lies with old Antum, though he is difficult and temperamental.”
E.T. led the way over the irrigation canal, across the little bridge, and into Antum’s garden.
“Antum Tadana,” said E.T., bowing before the long green row, “you are the wisest and most powerful plant in all the world.”
A long branch extended from the central plant of the first row.
I cannot deny it.
E.T. motioned to his Flopglopple, that he and the robot should open the nutrient valves. “While I—” He sat down beside the central plant, great-grandparent to all the others.
He stroked the hoary old stalk, and petted the gnarled branches. “I wish to travel, to another world. My answer, I am told, lies here with you.”
The ancient plant straightened imperiously. My true potential has never been tapped.
“Instruct me,” said E.T.
C H A P T E R
1 6
In an innermost chamber of the capital of Lucidulum, whose location and description cannot yet be revealed, a report was made by the Contentment Monitor to one who must be nameless.
“The Doctor of Botany, formerly First Class, now demoted, has gone about his new assignment with enthusiasm.”
“No more talk of starships?”
“None. He is, in fact, engaged in independent hybrid experiments, wholly contained to the fields of Botanicus.”
“What are these experiments?”
“Simple cross-pollenizations. He seems happy.” The Contentment eye blinked. “He has befriended an old robot, who has become devoted to him. The robot is a model we scrapped long ago, and ordinarily we would simply dismantle it, but since the Doctor of Botany has suffered from intense loneliness, my section recommends he be allowed to keep the robot.”
“What is the robot’s program?”
“I inquired directly of the robot. It said it was searching for truth.” The CM’s eye crinkled with a smile. “An obvious malfunction, but completely harmless.”
“Very well. Your recommendation may stand.”
The Parent gazed at E.T. It was night and only two Lumens shone, above the Parent’s head. “You have regained your love for growing things. Is this so?”
“Yes,” said E.T. His long toes fidgeted nervously.
“And you have your own greenhouse again? Where do you practice your art?”
“I’m dev
eloping a new strain of the turnip family. It is a great favorite on Earth.”
“I think you’d be wiser to avoid all reference to Earth, my child.”
“A momentary lapse,” said E.T. “I never think of Earth.”
“El-li-ott . . .” He lay on his little moss bed, and sent his thought-wave out. It entered Nahaz Erdu, the Pass to Immensity, and jumped dimensions, into the spacetime of Earth. The little replicant, a tiny E.T. with heart-light on, came sailing down into a playground, in the middle of a Ping-Pong match, where it was paddled back and forth a number of times.
Ow—ch Ow—ch
It was paddled away, with spin on it, into the playground fence where it hung dejectedly. Elliott was at a crafts table nearby. He’d just finished making a beaded Indian bracelet, which had cost him tremendous concentration and patience. It looked really sharp, with an eagle in the middle of it, wings spread. He slipped it on his wrist and admired it; it definitely gave a heavy look to his forearm, which tended to be on the lean side, more precisely like a plucked chicken leg. He’d been pumping iron for months now and the only measurable gains had been when he’d dropped a five pound weight on his toe and it had swelled out through his beach sandals. But this bracelet put him on a whole new level of fitness.
E.T.’s replicant had untangled itself from the fence and was making a desperate leap toward the crafts table. It landed among the loose beads, and with its remaining energy, scrambled the beads into a message, the beads spelling:
E.T. PHONE ELLIOTT
“Hi, Elliott,” said Julie, walking in through the playground gate. She was wearing denim shorts with hearts patched on them, and a T-shirt that said Cupcake on it. Elliott stood up, hit the crafts table with his knee and sent everything flying, including E.T.’s beaded message.
“What a pretty bracelet,” said Julie. “Did you make it?”
“Yeah,” said Elliott, as he straightened the crafts table. “It’s just something I knocked off. You want it?” he said, as if it were no more than a bubble gum prize, instead of the creation he’d nearly gone blind making.
E.T. The Book of the Green Planet Page 13
