Mogamigawa lifted his head. “And what’s in the jungle ahead of that?” He was gripping the edge of the table with both hands. “Some unspeakable abominations, I suppose?”
“Actually, I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “The first time I went, it was a research trip and we weren’t in such a hurry. The jungle was dark and eerily foreboding, even during the day. It was like a pandora’s box – we had no way of knowing what ghastly horrors it might hold. We certainly weren’t brave enough to go in, so we made a detour.”
“‘Dark and eerily foreboding’. ‘Pandora’s box’. ‘Ghastly horrors’. Must you use such provocative expressions?” the Team Leader said in grouchy irritation. “You’re an ecologist, aren’t you? Where’s your spirit of enquiry?! Not only will these be the very places to find clues for elucidating habitats, but they’re also treasure troves of new species for alien biology, are they not?”
“And this time I suppose we’ll have to go straight through it,” Mogamigawa said dolefully.
The Team Leader turned to face him, nodding vigorously. “Yes! Yes! But even then, you’re sure to make some new discoveries!”
I had to agree. Too many, if anything.
By the time we’d discussed other details, such as our itinerary and what to take with us, dawn had broken. First, a pink sun appeared over the distant horizon beyond our window, then, about fifteen minutes later, the orange sun we’d seen setting earlier also started to rise from the same point. These two formed a ‘spectroscopic binary’, two stars that look like one from a distance, with a very small interval between them. The pink sun was the principal star, the orange one the companion. Though slightly different in colour, when seen side by side they looked just like a pair of woman’s breasts. This earnt them a variety of names, among them ‘golden globes’, ‘heavenly orbs’, and ‘cupid’s kettledrums’.
Mogamigawa and I decided to spend the two hours of daylight making preparations, then to catch some sleep for the ensuing two hours of night. We knew we would need to store up energy in advance, as sleeping would not always be an option on our journey. The Team Leader had already called Yohachi and handed him his weighty mission. Needless to say, Yohachi was delighted.
It was still dark when I stepped out of my research laboratory after less than two hours of sleep. Outside the Centre, Yohachi was already loading baggage onto the hovercar while Mogamigawa shouted instructions.
“Look here! Load those more carefully, would you? Look, that case is full of culture-medium slides! Don’t put the microscope at the bottom, man! Put food at the bottom!”
My own baggage consisted of a single collecting case containing insect jars, dissection equipment and the like. I had wanted to take a trapping cage for small animals too, but it would have been impossible to carry such things on foot. For detailed study, I could borrow Dr Mogamigawa’s sophisticated electron microscope.
The three of us boarded the hovercar in front of the Team Leader, who had come out to see us off. I would drive, with Mogamigawa in the passenger seat next to me and Yohachi in the back with the baggage. I switched on the repulsion force engine, whereupon the vehicle rose about three feet off the ground.
“Take care now,” the Team Leader said perfunctorily. “I look forward to a splendid catch.”
Mogamigawa snorted. “And you, sir, look after things while we’re away. If Shimazaki gives birth before we return, watch that quack of a doctor, will you? If you leave him to his own devices, there’s no knowing what he’ll get up to.”
I turned the vehicle due west and started off. It was an easy drive, as there was little rainfall in this area and the terrain consisted mainly of savannah-type grassland. Our frequent visits to the lake to fetch water had created a natural pathway, along which the hovercar sped at 100mph. Soon the golden globes rose over the horizon, and the suns started to shine down on us in the open-topped vehicle. There was no wind, the air was warm. Tall frizzly acacias grew here and there, while screeching cicadas – little insects like caddis flies – shrieked and whooped gaily around the treetops. Small crimson birds called penisparrows populated the air. The penisparrow was a terribly obscene bird whose head bore a striking resemblance to a penis. Meanwhile, the unclassifiable species known as the relic pod hung from the lower branches of the frizzly acacias.
“The weather’s fair, the air is fresh,” said Dr Mogamigawa. “If only we could ignore all these loathsome plants and creatures, it would actually feel quite pleasant out here.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “The temperature’s comfortable, humidity’s low, we’re perfectly content and healthy, the scenery is good, the time is morning, about ten in the morning, frizzly acacias flutter in the breeze, penisparrows dance in the air, screeching cicadas shriek and whoop, relic pods hang from the branches, the golden globes reign in the heavens. All in all, a truly obscene world.”
As I finished speaking, I laughed aloud. Mogamigawa looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
“Sorry. It started going funny in the middle.”
“A word of caution. We are scientists. Please take care to retain your sanity at all times.”
Personally, I was more concerned about
As we approached Lake Turpitude, the ground became increasingly covered with ferns and gymnosperms. The smaller ones included bric-a-bracken, cloven hare’s foot, black-and-whitebeam, animephedra and sagging palm. Larger ones included the foolhardy tree-fern and the burly sequoia. Besides these, there were numerous clusters of ferns and tree ferns that had yet to be named, either by previous expeditions or by Dr Shimazaki.
Mogamigawa alighted from the hovercar, which I’d brought to a halt just ahead of the lake, and surveyed the scene around him. “What a plethora of fern species,” he said.
“Dr Shimazaki says it’s adaptive radiation of flora. Ferns have specialized into many different forms, and there are now several thousand species, apparently.”
“That must make them difficult to name. Of course, Dr Shimazaki would never give them obscene names, would she.” Mogamigawa looked out over the deep green surface of the lake, which remained ominously quiet for now. “I wonder why they had to specialize to that degree. In such a narrow geographical area.”
“Well,” I said, tilting my head. “If they were animals, I could think of a plausible explanation, judging from the environment. Since most of the higher vertebrates around here are herbivores, it may have something to do with their eating habits.”
“Are we going to build this raft then?” asked Yohachi.
“Oh yes. Could you fetch the electronic saw?”
“It’ll take a while, mate,” he said resentfully. “The other gentleman put all his own things on top. The saw is right at the bottom.”
“Look here! Stop moaning and get a bloody move on!” Mogamigawa bellowed. “
Yohachi and I started cutting wood. There were various species of pine and cedar, which the members of the expedition had half-jokingly named supine, overcedar, and so on. But those would have taken too long to fell, so we concentrated on cutting tree ferns, which we bound together with rope to form a rectangular raft about twelve foot square. By the time we’d transferred the baggage onto the raft, camouflaged the hovercar under fronds of fern and launched the raft onto the lake, the suns had already started to set.
“Only thirty minutes to nightfall!” said Mogamigawa in dismay as he eyed his wristwatch, having done nothing himself but constantly hustle and bellow at us. “Can we cross to the other side in thirty minutes?”
“Yes, if we all use our poles together,” I replied with an ironic grin.
He pulled a sullen face. “Are you expecting me to use my pole?”
“Yeah, just like you do with your wife every night,” Yohachi whispered in my ear.
We had brought three collapsible plastic poles with which to propel the raft. We extended them to a length of about fifteen feet, took one each and climbed aboard. As we pushed our poles into the edges and bottom of the lake, pockets of air came bubbling up to the water’s surface around the raft, accompanied by a reddish-brown mud. We pulled away from the lake’s edge.
Every now and again, blood-red algae would come up entangled on our poles.
“That’s bleedweed,” I said. “Makes my skin crawl every time I see it.”
“If there’s so much bleedweed here, there must also be a good number of matchbox jellyfish,” Mogamigawa said as he cackhandedly manoeuvred his pole. “They’ll be surfacing any moment now.”
Before I could say “
