ET- Turnip Ship Growth and Heat Resistance

  “It is called a turnip,” said E.T., “and this is what we are going to do with it—” He showed the Flopglopple and the robot how a hybrid was to be made, between the turnip and vigorous Antum Tadana.

  “And what will be the result?” asked the robot.

  “A very big and very hard-skinned turnip,” said E.T., enigmatically, and began the crossbreeding of the two plants.

  The little turnip sat, mutely brooding on the new activity bred into it; strange un-turnip-like surges were suffusing it, and its outer shell was growing harder than any turnip’s ever had before.

  Beside the center trough another trough had been placed, now attended by the robot. He hummed mechanically as he weeded and watered, and was most affectionate with the row of little plants in this new trough. They were a rare species, a relative of Yaa Iram the Fire Plant. Each of the plants had a single fruit upon it, whose shell, inside and out, was heat resistant. A spiny ring grew around its center. “Don’t touch,” said the robot, when the Flopglopple came near. “Those spines are charged. They fire into the heart of the fruit.”

  “It’s breathing,” said the Flopglopple, pointing to the undulating, mouth-like cavities at each end of the plant.

  “It draws igneous gases into itself and digests them with a bang.”

  The spines crackled with their growing charge, which was suddenly released into the heart of the plant. A muffled roar was heard, and the tenacious roots of the plant had to grip hard to keep it in place, as plasma exhaust came out the back end of the little fruit, along with a single floating seed. “It has dined,” said the robot, and moved to the next one, where the process was repeated.

  “A most energetic little plant,” said the Flopglopple, as the muffled roar was repeated all down the row.

  “A remnant of earlier ages,” said E.T., “when the planet was nearly molten and the air on fire. It is called Eruca Vara, the Fusion Bloom. It is thought to have once been tremendously powerful, able to withstand four-hundred million degrees of heat. But whatever it breathed at that time has passed out of memory.”

  “Out of memory,” said the Flopglopple. “And yet—”

  “Yes?” asked E.T.

  “Somewhere—” But the Flopglopple’s mind, stretch as it might, could not quite reach the era in which the mysterious power had flourished.

  “We shall increase its size, in any case,” said E.T. And he opened the nutrient flow to the trough of Fusion Blooms.

  Overhead, E.T. and the robot had hung a network of incandescent wire, the wire shaped into glowing quadrangles and octahedrons. “What are these forms?” asked the Flopglopple.

  “They are the blueprint of the plant world’s desire and design,” answered E.T. “Sound waves pulse along these wires and affect the plants below, intensifying their growth harmonics.”
...

  Beside the row of geraniums, the row of little Fusion Blooms continued their muffled, explosive breathing, and the turnip wondered inside itself at the odd sensations permeating its cells. If it could have spoken it would have said that it was some turnip indeed.

  And then its leaves suddenly turned up at the ends, and its roots began to tingle.
...

  “For a bigger—turnip.”

  Botanicus stepped over to the pot where the little vegetable was growing. He stroked its surface gently. “With a skin like carbon steel, I see.”
...

  The robot’s fingers extended, telescoping out with a series of clicks, into a pair of measuring calipers, which it then applied to the turnip. “It has doubled in size once more.”

  “Time for transplanting,” said E.T.
...

  “Increasing in size at an alarming rate,” said the robot, his calipers telescoped to their full length around the giant turnip.

  “It’s as big as the greenhouse that once held it,” said the Flopglopple proudly, for the plant was thriving marvelously in the outdoor spot he’d chosen for it.
...

  “Truly,” said the robot, “this is one of the great vegetables.” He stroked the sides of the enormous turnip. “But one would need a laser beam to cut through its skin.” He turned to E.T. “Is this practical? A demolition team will be required to liberate the edible interior.”

  “Inject Lota-120,” said E.T., and the robot obeyed, needling the growth hormone directly into the pore they’d drilled in the skin of the vegetable. The turnip, enormous now, and realizing it was like no other turnip ever created, drank deeply of the growth accelerator; it knew itself to be indestructible, with skin and roots akin to stone and steel, but it could not surmise its destiny. I’m one tough turnip, it reflected to itself, and let it go at that.

  Spread out in the field around it were the Fusion Blooms, not nearly so great in size as the turnip, but having increased their heat resistance, through extracts of Fire Plant, their close cousin, which E.T. had fed them. “Good to two-hundred million degrees,” said the robot, calculating the strength of their skin and the density of their expirated breath.

  “In prehistoric time they floated free,” said E.T., “propelled by their own breath. When the planet cooled, they returned to the ground, and rooted. But—” He nodded to their small, straining forms, which seemed, like the Jumpums, to strive for release from the soil with each one of their nuclear breaths.

- E.T. The Book of the Green Planet, chapter 16