Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,98

yelled Mogamigawa. “Even among humanoids, there are some telepaths, like all of the Newdopians on this planet, but only a fraction of humans on earth. Now that intelligent humanoid beings of a higher order than earth humans, in a sense, are being discovered on different planets, evolutionists who maintain such an antiquated approach—”

“Er, sorry to interrupt, gentlemen,” Yohachi said sardonically from the rear. “We’re in the jungle, in case you hadn’t noticed. Hadn’t we better be careful? Just now there was a huge spider dangling above your heads, wondering which of you to go for!”

Darkness had suddenly fallen around us, and I’d assumed that the suns had retreated behind clouds. In fact, we were already inside the jungle, a tertiary mixed forest.

“Ah. That was probably a nursery spider,” I said as I continued along an animal trail. “Please be careful, Dr Mogamigawa. This area is full of itchy scratchy trees. We may have to edge past them sideways.” Already starting to itch under their influence, I was beginning to feel irritated myself. That sensation of shuddering just before having sex started to creep up my spine, and I sneezed twice in quick succession.

“Aaaaaaaargh!”

Mogamigawa had become horribly entangled in mistress bine, which had bound him fast to the trunk of an itchy scratchy tree and instantly covered his body with bluish-green lichen. “Quick, man! Get the knife out, quick!” he screamed at Yohachi with a half-crazed expression, panting with increasing ferocity. “Aaargh! Aaargh!” A look of sheer rapture started to spread over his features.

Yohachi grinned as he slowly pulled a knife from his pocket; then, waiting for the perfect moment when Mogamigawa’s frenzied screams reached their gasping climax and his body slumped down limply, brandished the knife and cut the mistress bine into pieces.

“Why didn’t you cut it sooner, man?!” Crumpled in a heap on the ground, Mogamigawa glared up at Yohachi reproachfully. “You did that deliberately, didn’t you!”

“Come, did you?” Yohachi let out his vulgar laugh.

“Shut up!” Mogamigawa clambered to his feet with renewed vigour, as if to show that he hadn’t just ejaculated, and shouted loudly again. “Come on then! Let’s be off, quam celerrime! Otherwise we’ll still be in this obscene jungle when it gets dark!”

It was obvious to see that he was merely putting on a show. Even I was cringing at the thought of the abominable creatures that lay in wait for us ahead.

“Yes. Let’s make haste!” I called in falsely high spirits, quite at odds with the quaking in my heart. But no sooner had I started off than I screamed loudly and fell flat on my back. A gigantic nursery spider had slid down from the trees in front of my eyes, brought its weird lemur-like face close to mine, then gripped my face tenderly with its folded, hairy front legs and seemed about to kiss me.

“Chase it away, for Christ’s sake!” I shrieked, virtually foaming at the mouth as I lay prostrate on the ground.

“It’s gone,” said Yohachi. “You scared it off when you screamed.”

“Was that really a spider?” asked Mogamigawa behind me when we’d started off in trepidation once more. “It had four legs, did it not. More like a cross between a lemur and a spider monkey, I’d say.”

“It is almost certainly not a spider. After all, one characteristic of this planet is that there are hardly any insects at all, except for those screeching cicadas,” I answered as I waded through the undergrowth. “I can’t say anything for sure until we catch one, but I think they’re either mammals or something close to that. Its hands were warm.”

“So what’s behind the name, then?”

“Nursery spider? It was named by a chap called Hatsumi, a member of the First Expedition. He loved making puns, and it was he who named most of the species on this planet. But he came across so many bizarre life forms that, when quizzed about the names back on earth, he often couldn’t remember why he’d named them.”

“How thoroughly irresponsible.”

“Indeed. But there must be some meaning behind the name.”

We heard a flapping, rustling noise of something violently beating the leaves of the trees above us. A flying creature skimmed over our heads, its large warm body smacking against my instinctively raised hand.

“Graarrghh!” the thing squawked, then fell to the ground and scuttled off into the undergrowth.

“A penisparrow!” Yohachi shouted in amazement. “A whopping great penisparrow! The size of a cat! The king of all penisparrows!”

“No. That wasn’t a penisparrow,” I said, still somewhat stunned. “It had fur,