Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,88
there.”
“Not forget-me-grass! It’s obscene!” Mogamigawa repeatedly banged both fists on the tabletop and contorted his body. “Only recently I was collecting species of grass for culture tests on perforating bacterial pathogens, and that plant was mixed in amongst them. I forgot what culture tests I was supposed to be doing! That was just with one specimen. If we have to cross a whole field of forget-me-grass, who knows what we’ll forget. We might even forget what we’ve gone there for!”
“Perhaps you should make a note of it in advance,” said the Team Leader.
“What if we forget how to read?”
The Team Leader laughed dismissively. “It causes temporary amnesia, not senile dementia! Honestly, it can’t be that bad.”
“Wasn’t there a jungle too?” Mogamigawa looked at me with fear in his eyes. “What’s in the jungle?”
“There are communities of sheath and mantle, characteristic of woodland borders, lying between the jungle and liberated vegetation zones such as fields of forget-me-grass. Mistress bine grows there. It’s a type of lichen that hangs from the branches of the itchy scratchy tree. As for animals in those parts, the main ones are the panting hart, the false-eared rabbit, the grindhog, the gaping hooter and the collapsible cow. For birds we have the penisparrow, for insects the screeching cicada. Unclassified species include the relic pod, and finally, one that’s heard but never seen, the wife waker.”
“Not the wife waker! It’s obscene!” Mogamigawa banged his fists madly on the tabletop and scratched his hair. “If one hears its ghastly cry while in bed at night, one is sure to have an erotic dream! It wakes my wife, then she wakes me. I should never have brought her to such an obscene planet!” He put his head in his hands.
Serves you right for not trusting her on earth, I thought.
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?”
Go yourself then, I thought, casting him a reproachful glance.
“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!”