Jabbering Planet

  NR-8721 was a world of rock sand and water-based lifeforms. The place circled three suns making it hot and uninhabitable for most of the year. The only safe time to visit was in the winter, at night; though it was never really night, not in the conventional sense. But a job was a job and Trick O' Radler was in no hurry for hyper, especially if the jobs in the Plantae system were proving so profitable… even if his partner George was ready to skip town.

  “This place is beautiful,” said Trick, as he looked out at the towering red rock cliffs. They curved around them, obstructing most of the sky. Like silt heavy waves caught in a chronostasis. “You know I hear there’s deserts like this on earth… or there were. Though I think they’ve reconstructed them or something.”

  “Restoration,” George said, his robotic monotone voice just barely rising above the echo of his motorized wheels. Their tread left a rippling wake in the stream they had been following for the last hour. “Why are humans always so proud of restoring something? You do know that if you just took care of it you wouldn’t have to expend so much energy to fix it. You might as well call it newly old, that at least would make more sense.”

  It was just the beginning of winter, so the stream was still low. The old water line of last year’s flooding was invisible to the two explorers: Long faded high above their heads.

  “Yeah… ah--” Trick let out a sigh knowing it was pointless, George was just being nitpicky. “Are you still mad about the station?”

  There had been an incident at the last station they had docked up to. Well, it hadn’t been an incident but a potential one. A proposition really, a proposition that at first hadn’t seemed to bother George, but once word got out, and spread through the station. Well, now George seemed to be finding it hard to just let it go.

  “Why the hell did you have to sniff the flower?”

  They stopped, George’s leaves rustling just a bit as Trick turned to look at him. George flashed an annoyed emoji across his pot.

  “Awh, I’m just messing with you.” The emoji flashed and changed to a crying laughing face. “You should have seen your face. Ha ha ha ha.” His robotic voice crackled as he laughed. “Awh man I was holding that in for so long. Anyway, did you know this place was originally found by a human? Yeah, plants don’t find this place hospitable.”

  Trick looked over his friend and partner, his brow furrowed, and his mouth pressed into a thin line. He had dealt with a sulky plant for a whole week, a whole week, and it had been a joke the whole time. He would never understand plants. He reached out and flicked one of George’s leaves.

  “Aaa what the—”

  “Nope, I didn’t know a human found the place though I suppose that would explain the name,” said Trick ignoring the shocked emoji face of his friend. “Do you think we’re getting—”

  “FLOWER SNIFFER!”

  The words were shouted, yet still sounded muffled. Trick grimaced and George fluttered his leaves as they looked around them for the source of the sound. They didn’t have to look far. Sitting in the water smack dab between them was a medium-sized Sedimentary rock with dark blue splotches dotting its surface.

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  “FLOWER SNIFFER!” It shouted once again.

  “Oh, come on! That’s not even what was said. I thought they were supposed to repeat what was said to them verbatim.”

  The world around them went silent for a moment, all except the gurgling water sound of the creek. The blue splotches on the rock shimmered in the water like fish scales as its receptors fired. It was these splotches of plant matter that had spoken and would continue to speak for the rest of the season. If left alone it would forget the word once the creek bed dried up. But if harvested and kept wet it would sing this word for eternity. It’s lichen spreading to more rocks.

  “From the looks of it, it’s not fully formed,” said George as he moved around the rock displacing the other tiny rock around the blue splotchy one. “Maybe they mess up their words… I don’t know, let’s just grab it. The rest of the lithostratigraphic herd should be nearby. I’m surprised that this one isn’t with the rest.”

  With a shrug of his shoulder, Trick dropped the bag he had been carrying, and let it splash into the creek, not caring that it got wet. He bent down and rummaged through it retrieving what looked to be an uninflated water balloon with a tiny red ring affixed around its opening.

  “Maybe it’s a black sheep.” Trick bent down and placed the balloon into the water, twisting the red ring around the balloon once it was submerged. Instantly it widened, taking in the water around it. Once it was the appropriate size, Trick twisted the ring back to its original position and scooped the rock into it, ignoring the tiny tentacles that suddenly jutted out of it as it tried to escape. Then with another twist of the ring the balloon sealed, the ring turning from red to yellow.

  The water balloon began to float above the water rising slowly into the air. Trick let go of it and quickly turned a ring on the finger of his left hand. It showed yellow, the same color as the balloon’s ring. The balloon in turn bobbed in the air going no further than a few feet from him.

  “What the hell is a black sheep?” said George, his wheels zooming in close to Trick and just a bit passed him. “You know what? I don’t want to know. It’s probably some antiquated human thing. Let’s just say the poem from now on. Well, you just say it, that is what they wanted; words from the human that seduced the flower from… well whatever.”

  They trudged quietly down the creek keeping their eyes on the stones in the water as they went. The rest of the herd couldn’t be far from the young one they had just found. And more than likely had just tumbled just a few yards away.

  “Hey, diddle, diddle,

  The cat and the fiddle,

  The cow jumped over the moon;

  The little dog laughed,

  To see such sport,

  And the dish ran away with the spoon.”

  George stopped in his motorized tracks and turned toward his friend. He said nothing, but the shaking of his thin mandrake branches seemed to say, ‘Really… that’s the one you’re going with.” Though Trick just ignored him and continued past him, turning with the stream around a smooth rocky bend.

  His poem faltered for just a second and he quickly waved his friend to him. A wide smile spread across his face.

  A few hours later as the midnight sun dipped below the horizon the pair emerged from the creek bed. They quickly made their way to their ship not wanting to get caught out in the daylight of the two suns. Their quarry bobbed above them like buoys in the water, faint murmurings of the poem just barely audible.

  “You know it will always amaze me just how much an Acer Palmatum will pay for a poetic rock garden,” said George, as he made his way past Trick to the cockpit of the ship. “Anyway, I’m sick of this planet stow those rocks and let’s get out of here.”

  Trick took off the yellow ring and tied it to one of the many straps that lined the cargo hold of the ship. The water balloons bounced and mingled with the others that hung heavy in the air, all different shapes and sizes ranging from Igneous to Sedimentary. All were spotted or covered with their brightly colored lichen, each lithostratigraphic heard jabbering their own poem to themselves.