Planet Eve: The Tale of a Sprout Read online

It was raining and dark, and nobody saw him land. To get inside the Ship (which was named Nausilus), Evol had to crawl through a ventilation shaft, which led directly to the main kitchen.

  It was the night and most of the Sprouts were already asleep, except for a few kitchen hands, including Oslo. Oslo was standing at the sink washing out empty green bottles, each one marked, "Nausilus." Within a few minutes, he was done with the task and was about to leave for the night, when suddenly out of the ventilation shaft emerged a very greasy and sooted-up Evol. Oslo dropped the bottle he was holding to the floor. It broke apart with a sad, sad sound.

  "What are you doing here?!" Evol said to Oslo in an angry whisper, but Oslo did not comprehend him. He just stood there, eyeing Evol with a blank and glassy stare.

  Evol shook him up and down and slapped him a few times. After that, Oslo began to recollect things bit by bit.

  "Let me go!" he said.

  His ability to speak returned suddenly, too.

  "I asked you, what are you doing here washing dishes when there's work to be done on this Ship? Did you tell the others of our plan?"

  "No," replied Oslo. "I couldn't speak all this time. I couldn't remember anything!"

  Evol put him down then. He eyed the kitchen thoughtfully. "How many Maritanians are on board this Ship, do you think?"

  "I dunno," replied Oslo, scratching his long neck. "Maybe a few dozen, and they all have rainbow tails."

  "Hmm, that's not good enough, rainbow tails aside," Evol said. "We'll need to jump from ship to ship to get as many as we can on our side," he added. "If they're still Maritanians at heart, they'll join us!"

  "I'm going to sleep," Oslo said, and turned to leave, but Evol caught him by his tail and pulled him right back.

  "You're coming with me," Evol said.

  "Where are we going?" asked Oslo sleepily, and opened his mouth again into a gigantic yawn.

  "You know this Ship, and you're going to help me find the others."

  After that, Evol said not another word and pulled Oslo along with him down the dark corridors of the Nausilus.

  In their search they wandered all over the Nausilus, passing vast kitchens, where sunlight was cooked and prepared daily; empty, echoing dining rooms, lounges, recreational areas, classrooms, sickrooms, a garden with a giant banana tree growing at its center, and many other places the Ship Sprouts had built to live, work and entertain themselves in.

  Oslo lagged behind sleepily most of the way. They passed the Incubatorium, a giant dome made of pieces of green, yellow, red and blue bottle glass: the big Night Star shone brightly through the multicolored framework, casting wonderful, colorful lights upon the Incubatorium's grounds below, which were lined with rows and rows of earth-filled vats, where many baby Sprouts were incubating. Most had the same variety in their tail rings as Evol had spotted on the adult Ship Sprouts, and he wrinkled his ancient nose at this sight and then couldn't stop frowning for two hours, even in spite of himself.

  After a while, Evol left Oslo to sleep in the middle of a hallway and proceeded alone, sneaking into the cabins and looking at all the different Sprouts' tails. Oslo was glad to be finally left alone and didn't mind it at all. He yawned blissfully and drifted away. He dreamed of a great many things that night, but could not remember anything in the morning. Therefore, he decided that he did not have any dreams.

  Under cover of darkness, Evol went from cabin to cabin, looking for Maritanians, who could usually be easily distinguished by their blue tails, but the years the Sprouts had spent on the open sea took their toll: after a few generations, their tails lost some of their solid blue color and took on the rings and spots of the other Sprout varieties, so that, all in all, it became nearly impossible to identify a true Maritanian Sprout from a usual Sprout by his or her tail alone. It was a problem, and a nearly insurmountable one. Evol could find only one decent, blue-in-the-tail Sprout, and even he turned out to be an Asbestan in the end.

  Evol pulled the first one of the Ship Sprouts he could find right out of bed and shook him until he woke up. Then he said, in a low mean whisper: "How can you stay here while your own people are suffering? Floating in a hotel, you! It's been years since we've invaded anything! Do you know what that's like?"

  The recently awakened Ship Sprout shook his head, eyeing the angry Evol with some confusion.

  "It's horrible!" cried Evol. "If you're still a Maritanian, come with me," Evol insisted.

  "I don't really want to," replied the Ship Sprout, closing one eye at a time. "I'm happy here. Besides, I'm not even sure if I'm a Maritanian anymore - just look at my tail!" And with that, the Ship Sprout presented Evol with the end of his tail, which was mostly blue, but the blue color was frequently interspersed with orange and green rings.

  "Oh, nonsense! You've still got enough blue in you! Come on!" Evol whispered, and tried to pull the Ship Sprout out of bed, but he abruptly closed all of his eyes and fell back to sleep. Evol tried to shove him off, but he was very heavy.

  "Curses, and more curses!" Evol hissed quietly to himself. Then he peeled open the Ship Sprout's eyes and looked directly into them for a long time: he was trying to hypnotize him, as a last resort.

  It was already nearly daybreak, but Evol was unable to persuade any of the Sprouts to come with him except by hypnosis, and that was highly ineffective at best. The Ship Sprouts had lost some of their original Maritanian zeal and weren't too eager now to take over anything. Even Oslo, who was a true Maritanian, at least judging by the blue part of his tail, had spent only a month on board the Ship and had already lost some of his Continental zest.

  Morning

  In the first light of morning, Oslo rubbed his eyes, just as a Sprout stepped over him on his way to the dining rooms of the Ship. He got up and looked around. There was not a trace of Evol in sight. He wondered if that was just a bad dream, but then he remembered last night and shuddered. It suddenly occurred to him that it might be a good idea to warn Zelda and the Captain about Evol, and so he took off running down the hallway.

  Halfway down the hallway, he crashed into the Head Chef and Bottle Washer, who gave him an angry look and demanded to know where he was going. Oslo didn't have time to answer, however. He darted past the Head Chef, who waved an empty plate after him.

  When he got to Zelda's cabin, Zelda wasn't there. Oslo ran out again frantically, just as Zelda was returning to her room. They collided and for a moment became entangled in each other. Zelda giggled, untangling her arms from Oslo's.

  "Zelda!" cried Oslo. "We are in great danger!"

  "You can talk?!" said Zelda, surprised, and let go of untangling her own arm, which was still wrapped several times about Oslo.

  "We must hurry - Evol is here!" repeated Oslo, and ran off, with Zelda still tangled onto his arm.

  "Who's Evol?" asked Zelda, running after him and still trying to untangle her arm.

  "He's a Continental Maritanian, and he's here to start trouble again," answered Oslo, running. Zelda's big green eyes drifted silently after him, bouncing up and down in the darkness of the hallway.

  "Once he finds enough Sprouts, he'll jump with them to the next Ship, and then the next, and after he's got all the Ships, he'll launch an invasion of Halfpancakegea!"

  "That's terrible!" exclaimed Zelda. "We must warn the Captain! But when did you get back your ability to speak?"

  "Last night, when I saw Evol - I suddenly remembered everything!" said Oslo, turning a corner. Zelda had become mostly untangled from him by then, and flew off as they veered into the sharp turn. "We must catch him before he does any harm!" Oslo said, and only then noticed that Zelda was nowhere in sight.

  When they finally reached the Captain's room, the Captain was still asleep, with a big, prohibitive looking "Do Not Disturb" sign suspended just above the doorknob. Zelda and Oslo looked at it for a moment, then opened the door.

  "Captain!" cried Zelda. "Wake up!"

  The Captain was sound asleep, however, and they had to shout into both of his ea
rs for a while, until at last he opened one eye; his other eye was still asleep.

  "Agh! Who's here? What do you want?" asked the Captain feebly. "I had much too much to drink last night. Go away, you two crazy vermillion things," he said, at which Oslo and Zelda looked at each other, but neither of them was vermillion.

  "Ahem," said Oslo. "Captain, there's an evil Sprout on board our Ship right now - he's a Maritanian, and he plans to take over this Ship and the whole Flotilla, and then what's left of Pancakegea!"

  "Oh, nonsense! Go away, I said," said the Captain. "Wait a minute…" The Captain suddenly sat up, his long arms and legs dangling loosely off the edge of the bed or lying in random coils all over the floor. He put one long fingered hand up to his temple and winced. "You mean to say there's a Maritanian rebel on board with us?" he asked.

  "Yes!!" shouted both Oslo and Zelda at the same time.

  "Well, that's certainly no good," said the Captain, and picked up the shell-shaped receiver of his phone. "Hello? No, not right now. I'm calling about a Maritanian rebel. Have you seen him? What? No, two martinis." The Captain scratched his head a while, then slid off the edge of the bed to the floor. He looked at them from the floor for a minute, squinting. "Please excuse me," he said, addressing Zelda and Oslo. "Give me some time to pull myself together, and I'll be on my way."

  Oslo and Zelda politely left the room.

  They searched for the Maritanian rebel all day