Aurona, page 24
Adam and Elena finally noticed the mists had started to thin, dissipating into bright, cool sunlight. The strange hissing had grown louder, too, and now seemed to be coming from all directions. They stopped, hovering over a massive eighty-foot leaf. His knees shaking, Adam stood up carefully on his sled to scan the horizon. The panorama took his breath away.
Suddenly he stopped, squinting and trying to focus. What was that? A faint, watercolored silhouette caught his eye. Could it another…? Excited, he slipped his e-helmet back on and enhanced the view.
Yes, it was! Another gargantuan tree loomed in the distance, perhaps fifty miles away! He tapped out scope vision. Beyond it, there was another tree, then still another! As he filtered the view with various lenses, scores of faint silhouettes revealed themselves, all evenly distributed and receding into the distance as far as he could see! A regular pattern soon emerged: Why, they looked like they’d been planted there in a colossal gridwork of some kind! Amazing! Who could have….
Suddenly, there was an insistent tapping on his shoulder.
“Um, Adam?”
It was Elena. “Yes?” he answered distractedly, his eyes darting excitedly along the horizon. “What is it?”
She sounded nervous. “Adam. I-I hear something.”
He slipped off his e-helmet and turned around. “Holy mackerel!”
Towering behind her, an odd creature sat perched on the back of their sled licking its long, supple fingers with an impossibly longer tongue. It blinked momentarily at his outburst and then returned to its grooming ritual.
She stiffened, not daring to look. “Do I hear slurping?” she asked, in a steady tone. “Tell me. What is it, Adam?”
He groped behind his back for the cool barrel of his Stifler. “Um, a nectar-eater?” he ventured, lamely. “It’s got a good-sized tongue….”
“Adam!” she interjected, her voice cracking thinly and her teeth clenched. “Get it off, Adam!”
“Why? He’s not even looking at you!”
Her brows lowered, her eyes glaring. “I don’t care! I’ll scream! You’ve never heard me scream before. It’s not pleasant!”
As her voice teetered on the edge of hysteria, Adam clenched his fists with uncertainty. The creature rose up on all six legs, arching its back and yawning, lazily coiling and uncoiling its long tongue. Absently, it leaned toward them and peered down over Elena’s shoulder. As his shadow crossed her lap, she jerked her head up.
Their eyes locked.
Far, far away, great clouds of Aeronautas took flight, squealing in panic. As the jungle canopy echoed and reverberated in the distance, terrified life forms scattered. The big nectar-eater dove under the sled, flailing and thumping, his gangly legs akimbo. Adam gritted his teeth. It was endless. Trembling, he cupped his hand over her mouth. There, it was gone. The noise was gone. He squeezed out a thin smile.
Her eyes smoldered.
“Ah, sweetie?” Taking a calculated risk, he lifted a finger.
Muffled under his hand, she uttered something unprintable.
He clamped again, waiting a long, uncertain moment. There, her breathing seemed to be more even. Slowly lifting his hand away, he studied her out of the corner of his eye.
“Gross! Yuck! Poo!” She began to spit vehemently, her hands trembling. “Slimy, ugly! It-it-it drooled on me!”
His mind was racing. Maybe a fatherly, protective image might work? Gently slipping an arm around her shoulders, he whispered in her ear. “Most of these animals appear to be harmless,” he lulled. “Look! They live up here in the clouds, eating nectar all day! They’re our friends! Hey, they’re all coming back! We scared them away!”
She slowly pulled away, studying him with a wary eye.
“Wait a sec….” He stifled a smile. “I’ve got a collar and leash under my seat.”
There was a sudden elbow to his ribs. “That’s it! You’re history!”
They wrestled in the seats, giggling and jostling, Adam getting the worst of the punishment. With a final round of pummeling, they settled back.
Elena freshened her lipstick. “Feel better?”
“Yeah.”
“No more pet jokes?”
“No more pet jokes.”
“Protect me?” she batted her eyes, coyly.
Silence. She looked at Adam’s face. His pupils seemed to be involuntarily constricting and dilating, focusing somewhere behind her. She spun around and let out a muffled exclamation.
Advancing toward the sled were eyes. Eyes of all descriptions, attached to creatures of all descriptions hovered in the air, twined in the branches, slithered, rolled and hopped toward them.
Slowly, stiffly, she twisted her body back to face him, clenching her fists whitely in her lap. “Okay-y-y, Adam,” she muttered. “It’s decision ti-m-m-me!”
In a swift motion, he threw up the shields. There was a sudden sizzling sound, followed by a loud, anguished honk. He rolled his eyes. “Now what?” The nectar-eater shot out from under the sled and scurried back into the mob, his fur singed and smoking. “Wow, so that’s where that bad boy disappeared to!”
“Adam!” she squeaked, latching onto his wrists. “You don’t have to remind me! That slimy creature was huge!” Her voice grew tighter as her fingernails dug in. “And to think he was nearly on-on-on top of me!”
“He was just curious! I’m sure he’s never seen a person!”
“Are you sure that ugly thing is harmless?”
“Well, yes!”
“Positive?”
“Yes. In fact, I’m sure all those guys are harmless,” he offered lamely. “Lemme see….” Awkwardly pushing a button with his elbow, he dropped the shields.
“Adam!” she hissed, frightened.
“Hey! Don’t worry!” He unlatched her nails from his wrists and slowly, resolutely stepped off the sled. Scooching down, he reached out into the thickest part of the menagerie. A long-legged ball sniffed his hand and let loose with a primal, satisfied grunt, followed by series of clicking noises. The ice was broken. They converged on him, tongues tasting, noses twitching, sensitive finger pads probing with gusto. Catlike, one walked up to him, briefly rubbed against his legs, and then turned away, disinterested.
He shrugged. “See?”
She glanced into the air. “A-and now what’s that thing coming at you, Adam?” She shielded her eyes, pointing nervously. “Is that one of your Aero, Aero….”
“Aeronautas!” He stood up too quickly, sending a balloonlike form bouncing off his head. Squealing in alarm, it pulsed a short distance away, its peacock-blue eyes rolling. “Oh, c’mon off the sled, Elena,” he urged. “It’s okay! Really!”
After an agonizing moment of deliberation, she stepped off and gingerly picked her way through the upraised snouts, tongues, and tentacles. Reaching his side, she latched back onto his arm, her fingernails digging in deeply.
“Aaargh,” he coughed, “you got quite a grip there, hon!” His eyes pleaded. “Could you, ah, lighten up a bit?”
Silence. Her brows were knit, her eyes darting around uncomfortably.
“They’re our friends….”
“Don’t start!” she snapped, cutting him off.
He popped out his eyes in mock fright. “Oooo! They might lick me to death!”
A smile teased at the corners of her mouth.
Encouraged, he hammed it up. Pulling away, he mimicked the nectar-eater’s loping, awkward gait, finally squeezing out a chuckle.
“That’s better. You okay now?”
“Yeah, sorry.” She smiled. “Just a little stage fright, I guess.”
“Hey, we’re just a passing fancy to them,” he said, laughing. Holding his arms out for balance and placing his steps carefully, he traced a path along the leaf’s saw-toothed edge. “Look! They’re gone and we’ve been totally forgotten! Let’s go over there and explore a bit!” He turned and started off.
“Wait, wait!”
He stopped dead in his tracks and turned around expectantly.
She was pointing over his head. “Look, Adam! Fruit!”
Something stirred deeply in his ancestral memory. Fruit? He looked up. Yes, there it was, hanging tightly against a branch, a shriveled, raisinlike fig about five inches long. He glanced over his shoulder, his eyes questioning.
She shrugged, her hands making hurrying motions. “Well, get it!”
He pulled. The stem was tough. Rummaging, she pulled a knife out of her bag and handed it to him. He sawed slowly, twisting the sticky fruit off the branch. Unceremoniously, he plopped it into a quarantine jar, screwed the lid down tightly, and stowed it under his seat. That strange ancestral memory, that persistent feeling of déjà vu refused to go away. He knit his brows, perplexed.
She held out her hand expectantly, wiggling her fingers. “Ah … my knife?”
“Oh!” He fumbled in his pocket, reddening. “Wait a sec. Crud! Now everything’s stuck together!”
“Be careful,” she cautioned, “that scalpel’s surgical steel….”
“Ouch!!” Even as she spoke, the sharp point pricked him. In a quick reflex, he jerked his hand away and stuck his finger into his mouth.
“Adam, no!” She grabbed for his arm, but not quickly enough.
Suddenly his air passages constricted. “E-Elena?” he rasped. A nasty, bitter coating enveloped his throat and an odd pressure grabbed the base of his skull. He shook his head, fighting it off. In a few moments he looked up, a bit dizzy. “Wow,” he croaked. Bad stuff! Sorry. I-I wasn’t thinking. Hey, I’m um, almost okay now, really.”
She shook her head. “That might have been old fruit? See, there’s more over there, and they’re a lot bigger!”
He looked. She was right. Clusters of fruit in varying stages of maturity were hanging all around them. “I don’t know,” he rasped. “Do you think this stuff goes bad when it gets ripe? At least it seems to get denser, like… a raisin….”
Without warning, molten fire spread down his backbone. As his heart started to thud strangely inside his chest, he gasped for air, sucking in several deep breaths. His body became tingly, jumpy and alive, his nerves dancing on razor’s edge. The sounds around them became amplified to an incredible degree! He glanced at Elena as if through a shimmering curtain. Totally unaware, she slipped her slender arm through his and looked up, smiling. In a moment, everything ebbed away. He blinked in confusion. The strange symptoms had left as quickly as they’d come.
“Look over there, Adam,” she pointed. “It looks like a floor!”
Several enormous leaves seemed to be overlapping, their great sawtoothed edges entwining like a zipper to form an enormous flat area. As they peered around a large stem, they stopped short. In the center of the big clearing was an odd circle of animals. The jostling menagerie faced inward shoulder to shoulder, looking like animals gathering around an African waterhole.
Elena squeezed his arm with uncertainty. “Adam,” she whispered, “what in the world are they, ah … doing?” Startled by the sound of her voice, a few of the animals backed away. A broad wash of brilliant red opened up between them.
He squinted. “Huh? What’s that big red thing?”
Suddenly, there was a loud snap over their heads, followed by a prolonged hissing. The heady odor of perfume quickly became overwhelming. They jerked their heads up, their eyes traveling along a stemlike projection to a cluster of pollen-laden pistils. Towering far above them, a surreal fountain of glittering, golden spray was audibly jetting into the atmosphere from the stamen of a huge, sticky red flower!
Adam’s eyes popped. “Yes!” His fist jabbed the air. “This is where it all comes from! It’s just, flat incredible!”
“All what comes from? And that huge red thing couldn’t really be a-a flower….”
“Yes! It’s one blossom, thirty feet in diameter! A-and there’s probably a zillion of ‘em all over the planet! Get it? This is where all the atmospheric gold comes from! The shields, Elena, the shields!”
She definitely got it. Her eyes were now huge, reflecting the glittering spray. The bizarre animals were hesitantly returning to the great, velvet-textured petals to resume feeding in the great bowl of nectar. She tore their eyes away and knelt down, poking at what seemed to be a viscous, amber resin settling in scattered pools.
“Wow, just look at this stuff!” Long snouts and tongues appeared from under the petals, lapping it up as fast as it congealed. As Adam pushed them away to scoop some up, she grabbed his wrist.
“Maybe we shouldn’t touch it,” she warned. “How about a syringe?”
“Sure, got one?”
“Of course,” she chided, handing it to him. “I am a doctor, right?”
He chuckled, sucking up copious amounts of the fluid and squirting it into a quarantine jar. His eyes suddenly brightened. “Hey, I just thought of something!”
“Hmm?” She was shielding her eyes in the glare, studying the horizon.
“This syringe just gave me an idea! The tree’s capillary system might be liquefying this stuff and drawing it up out of the soil!”
“Hmm? Sol?” she murmured distractedly. “It’s not a lyophobic sol, Adam. Most likely it’s a suspensoid,” she corrected.
“Huh? No, no, I said soil, Elena. Soil.”
She turned around. “Do you think all those other trees out there are doing the same thing? I mean, pumping out gold droplets into the air?”
“Definitely! Look at the pattern! It’s obvious they’ve been planted in a grid for that purpose! This planet’s one big garden and someone takes care of all these trees!” They stood arm in arm, gazing into the distance.
“Ambrosia!” A loud voice suddenly boomed behind them. “That’s what I call it! Somewhere between passion fruit and honey, with overtones of coconut! Try it!”
They spun on their heels. Tola! Nectar was smeared on his lips and several creatures were trailing him, licking his fingers. A ball of fuzz suddenly floated up in the breeze and perched on his shoulder, eyeing the shiny buttons on his chest. Sahir watched from the safety of their SpeedSled, looking around apprehensively.
Adam hefted a plastic container, sloshing it triumphantly. “Look! We got some liquid gold! Think about it! This tree actually draws gold up out of the ground!”
Tola put his hand on his chin. “Gold? Out of the ground? So why don’t you just call this thing a Motherlode Tree?”
“Hey, perfect!” Adam’s fist punched the air. “You’ve chalked up another great name! You’re batting one for one!” He gave Tola a sticky high five. “I hereby designate you our mission’s creator of names, our official lexicographer!
“Why thank you, thank you, lady and gentleman. I’m honored.”
“I’ve got a request, too,” Elena prompted. “What about all this perfume?” She took a deep breath. “It’s like gardenias, or maybe jasmine. Whaddaya think?”
“Yeah,” Adam chimed in, “take a good whiff, man!” He grinned. “There’s millions of these, ah, Motherlodes pumping this stuff out! Got a name yet? Come on, the clock’s ticking….”
“Of course!” Tola winked. “That’s simple! Eau de Motherlode!” He held up a hand. “No extra charge, sir, just doing my job.”
As they laughed uproariously, a cloud suddenly seemed to pass over Tola’s face. He looked around, his mellow voice taking on a more serious tone. “I-I’m sorry, guys. Before we got distracted, I really wanted to tell you something else. I-it’s not quite as idyllic up here as you might think.”
“Huh?”
“Your gut feeling was right about parking the ship up this tree, sir. About fifteen minutes ago, Sahir and I were down near the base of the tree checking things out, and we-we saw….”
Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, a disturbing vision flashed through Adam’s mind. He squeezed one eye shut, the pounding in his head almost unbearable. He took a quick breath and interrupted, the words escaping involuntarily from his lips.
“Y-you saw flashing teeth and buzzing wings, right?”
Tola jumped like he was spooked. “How did y….” He blinked.
“I don’t know,” he interjected, shrugging, “but I’ll tell you the rest, too. You saw long, sharp spikes pointing downward, looking like they were growing right out of the trunk, and below that, lots of bones piled up around the base of the tree. There were a lot of strange species impaled on the spikes and it looked as if they’d been poisoned!” As Elena drew in a sharp breath, he continued, relentlessly. “The flashing teeth were on a big, striped, catlike creature with a funny, bulbous head and the buzzing wings belonged to a persistent, black hornet-creature with a brilliant phosphorescent glow on its head and tail.” He caught Tola’s eye. “Do I have it right?”
The round man nodded slowly, staring at him in mute, shocked silence.
Adam closed his eyes and pressed on, seeming to be describing the scene from his own memory. “They were fighting! The cat-creature was impaled on the spikes and couldn’t get away and the hornet kept attacking it with his sharp, six-inch, barbed stinger. Oh! One more thing,” he added, holding up a finger. “There was a lot of noise down there. The hornet’s wings were about eight feet across and it was buzzing really loud in this deep base note. The cat was roaring and Sahir was under her seat, screaming at the….”
“But y-you weren’t there, sir,” Tola interrupted, ashen-faced. “You were up here at the top! You couldn’t possibly know! And yes, she was screaming at the top of her lungs, so I threw up the shields for protection. We backed away and threw the shields up to watch the battle. The tiger-creature died real fast….” His voice trailed off in midsentence as he pondered, waiting in uncertain silence.
Adam swallowed hard. The bitterness was still there, way back on his tongue. He suddenly jerked his head up, disturbed. “No, I’m not possessed!”
Tola answered, softly. “I-I didn’t say that, sir.” He held up a finger. “But I confess the word did cross … my mind…” As his voice trailed off again, he paused, thinking. “Hey! L-let me try an experiment, here: a pop quiz, if you will. Quick, close your eyes and tell me what you see.”
