Samantha Smart (21 page)

“Roger that,” Samantha replied. It seemed that, whether because of her slightly more extensive time-travel experience or her close personal involvement with the mission’s outcome, she had become the team’s de facto leader. Surprisingly, she decided that this role suited her fine.

“One more thing,” the crackly voice intoned.

“Go ahead, Professor.”

“Unless you need them to talk to each other, keep all of your wrist-communicators switched off, excepting one. Rotate which one is left on, if you can. This will save battery power.”

“Got it,” Samantha acknowledged, signaling to the others, who had all heard, to switch off their units.

“Very well, Samantha. Marvin, Brianna, Suki–good luck. Smythe out.”

“Alpha Team out,” Samantha cringed as she absent-mindedly spoke the cheesy code name.

“Why do we have to be ‘Alpha Team’?” Marvin voiced the question everyone had wanted to ask while they snickered quietly.

“Well,” Samantha guessed, smiling for the first time in what seemed like a week, “I suppose The Professor thinks it’s safer if we don’t use any of our names, though,” she giggled, “I don’t particularly like his group designation, either. Got a better name, Dr. Marvy?”

“You know it,” Marvin rose to the challenge as they hoofed along through the ancient desert. “How about ‘The Tasty T.T. Posse’? Or ‘The Fly Travelin’ Crew’?” Everyone laughed good-naturedly.

“That is the stupidest name I’ve ever heard,” Brianna chuckled.

“Well, what then?” Marvin began a gestural dance of mock agitation. “What you got for us, Buttermilk?”

“
Buttermilk?
” Brianna raised an eyebrow. “
Please.
Talk to the hand.” She stretched out her arm to block her view of the clownish friend’s act.

“What about ‘Kitty Troop?’” Suki asked quietly but hopefully.

“Aw, man!” Marvin slapped his hand to his forehead. “Somebody call the
Dork Police
!” Suki pouted and frowned at him.

“Look, it’s certainly not by any means the most important thing for us to worry about right now,” Samantha refereed. “Let’s just try to focus on getting to that jungle over there.”

*

After half a day of walking, the group found themselves coming up against the wall of vegetation that formed the edge of the jungle. They had begun to feel humbled by its vast, dark mass as they approached it; some of the trees that stuck through the top of the rainforest’s canopy were at least two hundred feet tall, and everyone’s eyes strained to see anything that might serve as some sort of traversable path through the dense undergrowth of the forest’s floor. They also wondered if they should just camp where they were for the night; the sun was rapidly sinking and they began to think they might prefer the relatively obvious dangers of desert snakes and scorpions to the unknown and surely more numerous threats of the thick, noise-filled jungle.

Despite their fears, they decided to push onward. They still had at least two or three hours of light left in the day, dim as it was once they entered the forest.

“We forgot to bring a machete,” Marvin noted with frustration as they struggled through ferns that came almost up to their necks. The going was a lot slower than they had expected, and bushwhacking was taking its toll on the less than tough members of the party.

“This is absolutely
awful,
” Brianna moaned, pouting and making a fearful expression as she pulled a palm-sized beetle off of her shirt. “I’m sorry, there are just
way
too many bugs in here, it’s totally
gross.
And the humidity,
Gawd
! Look–just look
at my hair, Samantha! I look like, like
The Bride of Frankenstein
or something!”

Samantha couldn’t help but giggle. Everyone’s hair was pretty frizzed-out by the humid weather, except for Suki’s. Brianna looked as if she felt pretty miserable, but so was everyone else, and they weren’t complaining. It wasn’t long before the pampered princess learned that her complaints, also, were already assumed, and therefore vocalizing them was both unnecessary and unwelcome as the party schlepped along. Still, she pouted a lot and made sounds of being grossed-out by bugs, spiders, snakes, mud and the other hundred or so things in the jungle that could make someone squeamish.

Thankfully, about a half-mile into the bush, they came upon a little creek that they could follow and so wouldn’t have to bushwhack as much. As much as they had wanted to follow it upstream, probably to rock formations and more solid footing, they were advised via wrist-communicator to head in the opposite direction.
Phylathimus Phylathum
would most likely be found in standing water, Professor Smythe reminded them, and standing water would most likely be found downstream.
It was with little enthusiasm that they followed The Professor’s instructions, for the path became wetter on their feet and the clouds of gnats, mosquitos and some tropical equivalent of giant blackflies became thicker and more frequent as they went.

Luckily, they were prepared to some degree for these conditions. Having anticipated the type of terrain their target plant would be found in, The Professor had equipped them with heavy rubber boots and some industrial-strength bug repellent that he’d whipped up himself in the lab. The stuff smelled absolutely disgusting, and Brianna refused to put it on–until it was discovered how well it worked. Then she sensibly submitted to the stench in preference to the hundreds of welts the bugs surely would have given her.

To distract herself from various discomforts, Brianna periodically checked her palm computer against the backdrop of flora around her, trying in vain to identify the correct plant. In fact, the picture she had of it on the miniature screen was actually only a very good computer simulation, not a photograph at all. Of course, this was understandable as the plant in question had become extinct some eight hundred years before the invention of the camera. Still, it made the matching game more difficult, and Brianna was frustrated. To make matters worse, it was getting quite dark.

Samantha found a clearing of relatively dry ground, and the group made ready to pitch their tent. They piled handfuls of long grass over the root-infested earth, trying to create a softer bed, and then put their tent up on top of it. They smeared a good bit of The Professor’s bug repellent all over the outside, and Marvin began attempting to build something like a fire. It certainly wasn’t cold, and the food they’d brought didn’t need to be cooked, but the fire was comforting in the strange, wild jungle and the team agreed that it would probably help to keep away any predatory beasts that might be sniffing about for a meal of Samantha steak or filet of Suki.

“You know,” Brianna said, chewing on a piece of dried apricot, “this is the most pleasurable thing I’ve done all day.” She looked satisfyingly at the remaining piece of fruit in her hand as she sat on a large, round stone. “Thanks, Suki.”

Suki had been in charge of stocking the mission’s food supplies, and had tried her hardest to balance out nutrition, taste, non-perishable qualities and space-savers. The resulting selection of rations was mostly dried fruit and nuts, cereals, meat jerky and a wee bit of smoked salmon. Everyone echoed Brianna’s thanks as they each nibbled on some snack or another.

The night became thick and felt like it was closing in all around them. It seemed somehow almost hotter than it had during the day, and the multitude of noises that came from outside their tent made their imaginations run wild. The three girls had zipped their sleeping bags together and huddled in one corner of the tent, which for no logical reason they had decided was the safest one. Marvin stayed outside and stoked his fire, which was indeed
his
fire–he was very proud of it, and rightly so. To have gotten anything to burn in this half-jungle, half-swamp was an accomplishment indeed. He tried to build it up enough so that it would burn slowly through the night, though he soon decided that he was hardly even tired, and would probably stay awake for a while anyway. When he informed the girls of his insomnia, they breathed a sigh of relief and fell promptly asleep, reassured that a strong male would be awake and guarding them, as it were. Still, Samantha asked to be woken up when he did get to feeling tired and agreed to take the next watch. Marvin nodded and zipped them into the tent.

For at least half an hour he sat, staring into the deep darkness of the noisy jungle and imagining he saw jet black panthers leaping at him or shiny black cobras slithering into his little ring of firelight. In truth, the only real wildlife that invaded his sphere was an occasional bat, sometimes large ones which made him wonder if they could be vampire bats–they were, after all, carnivorous and would probably be attracted by the heat of the fire. Everything else, however, seemed to have a healthy respect for the flame and stayed well enough away. This made Marvin happy.

He decided after a while to buzz The Professor on his wrist-communicator.

“Dr. Marvy pagin’ Professor Smooth-move,” Marvin giggled into his wrist.

“I say, what was that, Marvin?” a voice came back.

“Nothin’. What up?”

“Well, no more police yet. How goes the hunt for
Phylathimus Phylathum
?”

“Nothin’ new. We’re camped for the night. I’m on watch and the girls are all sleeping.”

“I see. You haven’t had any serious trouble with animals or anything, have you?”

“Not really,” Marvin shrugged. “Lots of sounds out there, though. You know, Professor, I think you did the right thing putting Brianna in charge of looking for the plant.” He chuckled to himself. “I don’t think anyone wants to get out of this swampy fly-trap faster than she does.”

“I suspected as much,” Smythe replied, probably smiling though Marvin had no way of knowing. “Well, if there’s nothing else, I’m going to get back to my work. I need to at least keep up the appearance of being the bumbling old academic, you know. And you, young ‘Dr. Marvy,’ should turn off your communicator and save batteries.”

“Okay, Prof,” Marvin sighed. “Alf-alpha team out.”

“That’s
Alpha
Team, Marvin. Smythe out.”

“Whatever,” Marvin mumbled, switching off his unit.

*

Morning in the jungle was the noisiest time of day. Everything that could chirp, creep, croak or screech felt the imperative need to do so. Suki was on watch, Marvin having woke her after his attempts to rouse Samantha failed utterly. It was understandable. The poor girl’s mother had been in a coma for a week and she had hardly slept a wink in all that time. Suki actually felt oddly at home in the jungle. It was weird because she, like the others, had spent pretty much her entire life in huge, bustling cities. There was something peaceful about it despite its noisiness–it wasn’t noisy like the city. She got up and threw some more thick grass on the fire; it made huge billows of thick, white smoke, which was a little annoying though it certainly did a good job of keeping the bugs away.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” A scream that sounded like Brianna woke up every snail that might have still been sleeping. In a flash, everyone was up and out of the tent. Brianna was jumping up and down and pointing at their giant, three-part sleeping bag.

“There’s a–a,” she stuttered. “There’s a s-s-s-,”

“A
what
!?” Samantha yelled.

“A snake!”

“Oh, dear,” said Suki.

Marvin shook his head, wishing he could’ve slept a bit more and went to pick up a somewhat long stick. This he used to poke around in the sleeping bag while Brianna and Suki made sounds of fear. Samantha didn’t seem so terrified. Sure enough, a long, shiny black snake appeared.

“Oooohhhh, there he is,” Marvin said. “He looks poisonous.” This was obviously the wrong thing to say, as it caused the two shrieking girls to dart away from the tent and make even more noise. He poked at the snake, trying to coax it out of the tent. It was very
fast. Suddenly, it found the door and slithered out with astonishing quickness, heading straight for the girls. With lightning speed, Marvin brought the stick down on top of it with a mighty
whack,
and it spasmed up into the air and then came down again onto the ground. It appeared to be dead.

“Wow,” Samantha stared. “Good work, Marvin.” Marvin grinned.

Suki and Brianna breathed a massive sigh of relief. They stood, paralyzed, for a moment, then burst into chatter.

“Oh, my
Gawd!
” Brianna squeaked. “Let’s get this stupid plant and get out of here!”

“Yeah,” Suki agreed. “I’m with Bree.”

“Did you
see
that, Samantha!?”

Samantha nodded. The snake no longer showed any signs of moving.

They cautiously pulled out all their things from the tent, checking for any other critters that might have somehow snuck in during the night but finding none. They detached their sleeping bags and rolled them up, packed up backpacks and pulled on their rubber boots. In fifteen minutes or so, they were ready to go.

“I think we should keep following the creek downstream,” Samantha directed, starting to walk that way. “Brianna, stay on that palm computer and let us know if you see anything that looks like a good match. Brianna nodded and pulled out the little hand-held device, fumbling a bit with it. She was still visibly shaken.

The group moved along at a brisk pace, everyone feeling decidedly awake after their harrowing morning experience with the unwelcome reptile. The terrain became more and more swampy as they went, and they all began to appreciate their rubber boots more and more as the creek they had been following dissolved into a puddle-strewn marsh. Brianna became excited when they began to see trees with hanging, “Spanish” moss, which was supposed to be a sign of the preferred environment of
Phylathimus Phylathum,
according to Professor Smythe. After an hour or two of further penetration into the thickest part of the marsh, she spied something next to a tree root that greatly resembled their object of desire.

“Look,” Brianna indicated the stubby, bulbous plant. “What do you guys think?” The team gathered around and shifted their gazes back and forth between the plant and the palm computer’s digital simulation of what they were looking for. The two seemed promisingly similar in appearance. With the others’ approval, Brianna unpacked the little chemical test kit The Professor had entrusted her with. It was a fairly simple apparatus; one only needed to clip a small piece of the plant in question, place it in a jar and add two chemicals to it. Brianna performed the operations dutifully, and after a tense ten minutes they had their answer. The mixture turned a deep purple. If The Professor’s notions of chemistry were sound, this was indeed
Phylathimus Phylathum.