ET- Plant-Powered

The circular saw blade turned like an enchanted dish, beside which knife and fork danced, advancing the teeth of the blade. What caused the enchanted turning? An armature, with spring attached, had been roped into a slender tree. As the wind bent the tree, the rope went taut, lifting the knife-and-fork ratchet; the teeth advanced, spinning the saw blade across which the bobby pins tracked, activating the Speak and Spell program. What powered Speak and Spell? Hundreds of wires, which the ancient botanist had taken into the trees; these wires were now in the veins of leaves, in branches, in roots, tapping the electricity of life; how it was done, only the old botanist knew. But Elliott could feel the life of the forest traveling through the wires, converging, powering the communicator.

  The overturned umbrella, lined with tin foil, shone in the moonlight. But more than moonlight was reflected there. The Fuzz Busting microwave signal, driven by the UHF tuner, was beaming out of the parabolic shape, into space.

  . . . gleeple doople zwak-zwak snafn olg mnnnnin . . .

  . . . approximately. The true sound coming from the device was far more elegant, but our alphabet cannot convey the subtlety of those sounds E.T. had wrested from the Speak and Spell.

- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in His Adventure on Earth, chapter 9