Planet Eve: The Tale of a Sprout

long, but couldn't find him. At the end of the day, the Captain was furious with Oslo for raising an alarm without reason, and for drawing him out of his long afternoon nap.

  Night

  It was night time and the Night Star shone brightly again. Evol was quite miserable now. No one would join him. He had to let go of the Ship Sprouts he'd hypnotized earlier because they were constantly strolling off sleepily back to their cabins. He spent most of the following day hiding in the ventilation systems above the pool.

  When night came, Evol crawled out again. He was tired from sitting all day in the shafts and was greasy and very mad. He climbed to the top of the Ship and found his Flying Machine tucked safely into a big vent. He climbed into it and took off.

  Nearby the Nausilus floated the D'Auria, a large and stately vessel, shaped similarly to its sister ship: it was an immense, oblong sphere with little fins and arms hanging off its sides to propel and maneuver it when necessary. A good part of its lower deck was outfitted with long and short range cannons. Far above, strung across its many tall masts, small, colorful flags flapped about cheerfully in the wind.

  Evol flapped his mechanical wings in the hopes that this ship would house a few blue tailed rebels. The D'Auria floated peacefully in the glimmering night ocean, rocking gently from side to side in the rising breeze.

  Down below, phosphorescent sea creatures were diving playfully in and out of the water. They giggled when they emerged, then disappeared again below the surface of the ocean. Their massive smooth backs were spotted with lights just like airplane runways. Evol looked down at them with some disdain. They noticed him and giggled even louder than before.

  "Be quiet, you stupid things!" cried Evol, who was being tossed about by a strong wind up above.

  Just then, one of the sea creatures shot out a big jet of water at him through its blowhole, and it nearly capsized the Flying Machine. Soon the rest of the creatures followed suit. Evol ducked the water jets as best he could, cursing the sea creatures, until he was finally safe above the deck of the Ship. There he landed without any grace and dripping wet from the attack launched by those beastly sea things.

  To his chagrin, Evol found the situation aboard the D'Auria much the same as on the previous vessel: there were simply no true blue-tailed Maritanians left. Evol jumped to the next ship, and the next, and it was all the same. He didn't even bother talking to anyone anymore, for it was useless. Only when he came onboard the very last ship, Staffiloccus, did he find one remaining real Maritanian, but he was a very old Sprout, barely able to move his tendrils about. His name was Father William, and he shook constantly with cold and kept asking Evol for a fresh can of sunlight.

  Nevertheless, it felt good to talk with him. The Old Sprout remembered the good old days with surprising clarity of detail, and even wished Evol good luck as he climbed into his Flying Machine.

  Dismayed and feeling kind of down, Evol got ready to fly back home. He stood still for a while, loosely flapping his wings in frustration, as the Old Sprout grinned a silly grin and waved to him out of an open vent on the upper deck. Evol was deliberating whether to fly over to the Nausilus and bring Oslo back with him to the Continent. Evol was already very tired, but decided that Oslo deserved a life of Continental misery for his treachery.

  With that thought, Evol took off and headed for the Nausilus, which was floating pretty far away.

  As he was flying above the sea and trying to avoid those giggling sea creatures, who now seemed to follow him wherever he went, Evol spotted a ship in the distance he hadn't seen before. It was smaller than any of the ships in the Flotilla of Ubrik and was rather square and ugly in its shape. In fact, it seemed to have been built very hastily. It floated separately and at some distance from the rest of the Flotilla's ships, and did not display any of the Flotilla's colorful flags. Evol brightened up a bit, and flapped his wings with more enthusiasm, but the mysterious vessel was still a long way off.

  Around midnight, Evol landed on the deck of the Nausilus to catch his breath - and Oslo.

  He found Oslo sound asleep in his room and shook him up. "Come on," Evol said. "It's time to go home." He said it in a nice enough tone, but one of his tendrils was already wrapped around Oslo's neck. Oslo was undoubtedly smart, and immediately agreed. He quickly nodded and said, "Alright, but I'd like to say goodbye to my friend Zelda first. Please."

  "No!" snapped Evol. "We must hurry. There's a mysterious vessel just ahead, and we don't have time for any goodbyes. And now," he said, getting up, "let's go!"

  Evol pulled Oslo out of the room, but Oslo caught a moment a wiggled out of his grasp. As soon as he was free, Oslo took off down the hallway at an astounding speed.

  "You sap!" hissed Evol, and took off after him.

  Evol caught up with Oslo only in the kitchen. The shelves were lined with rows of bright bottles of sunlight and dark bottles of seawater. The Sprouts could eat raw sunlight as well, but preferred to cook it and store it in the kitchen. Evol snatched a can of seawater and tossed it at Oslo. It missed him and broke apart on the floor. Both Oslo and Evol slipped on the wet floor, and their tendrils got tangled in the legs of the chairs and kitchen tables.

  "I'll get you!" Evol hissed angrily, trying to untangle himself from a table leg. It was now dark and difficult to see anything at all. Oslo got to his feet first, and Evol threw another bottle at him - mistakenly, he had picked up a bottle of sunlight, and it crashed to the floor in a brilliant flash of light. For a moment, Evol and Oslo were both brightly illuminated, as was the kitchen and its multitude of transparent pipes and flasks that filtered the sea water and cooked the sunlight. It was a blinding, bright explosion, and when Evol could see again, there was not a trace of Oslo.

  The Rebel

  The wind blew about wildly on the upper deck of the Nausilus. It was a dark, stormy night, and even the giggling sea creatures were nowhere to be seen, although they usually now made it a point to follow Evol everywhere. It was a night poorly suited for flying, and Evol, even the mean Evol, felt a little afraid, but he quickly slapped himself and said aloud, "This last ship may be our last hope!" With these words, he took off. Or tried to, in any case. He was blown back several times by strong gusts of wind, the Flying Machine crumpling pitifully all around him.

  It was only a few hours later, when the storm had quieted down a bit, that Evol managed to take off.

  The strange and solitary vessel floated upon the now silent seas. It had been carried away even further from the Ubrik Flotilla by the storm. It was shaped crudely, like a wooden crate for oranges. It did not have any cannons, or fins, or arms on any of its decks, and some deck levels lacked even windows. It just floated forlornly in the middle of the vast ocean, apparently unable to move anywhere from its spot. On its side, in bright red letters, was scribbled its name: The Rebel.

  As he neared the vessel, Evol heard several voices talking. One of them said, "It's just not fair!" and another voice added, "We can't even sprout here! They didn't give us any earth in which to plant our young."

  For a moment, Evol thought that he knew this voice, that it sounded familiar. "Oh, nonsense!" he said to himself. "I'm simply missing my friends, and I am starting to hear things!" He flapped his mechanical wings even faster out of curiosity, and soon began to near the deck of the ship.

  Several figures were standing on the square open deck. Even from a distance, Evol could see that they all had solid blue tails. Evol's tired face brightened up somewhat with hope.

  The figures saw him and began waving to him and shouting his name. "Evol!" the figures cried. "Come down here!" They waved and waved to him.

  "How can they know me?" Evol thought, but then he also thought: "What if..?" This last thought sent a chill up and down his spine; it was so cold that frost formed on the tip of Evol's nose. The figures continued to wave.

  Evol shrugged, which caused his Flying Machine to shrug with him, and began to drop down gradually to the open deck. A strong gust of wind picked up then and tossed him
about. The wings of the Flying Machine were somewhat bent by all the stormy weather they had been through and now gave it a crooked, unpredictable motion. Evol had to make several awkward jolts through the sky before he could land. One of the wings of the Flying Machine got torn off in the violent breeze, and Evol had to finish the remainder of his flight on only one wing, which now served more as a parachute.

  When he finally landed, Evol was quickly surrounded by this ship's Sprouts, among whom, to his surprise, he saw Alphonso, but he was no longer the fat and happy Alphonso he knew, but a raggedy, sad and tangled Sprout.

  "What happened?!" asked Evol, looking about wildly, and with horror recognizing more and more Sprouts. They looked back sadly at him.

  "We got kicked out," Alphonso said, and wiped away a single big tear from his eye. "We can't even sail anywhere, only float wherever the ocean takes us," he added.

  "They even trampled our flag, too!" said another Sprout, and pointed upwards: the tattered remains of something blue were waving high above on the tall single mast. The mast had no sails or wings on it - it was just a stick.

  "That's terrible!" cried Evol, and stomped his foot on the deck, but the deck was flimsy and rotting and broke through, so that Evol nearly tumbled to the ground before he recovered his