Trying to Connect

Figure 1. What could possibly
go wrong during an alien-
human synapex experiment?

Below on this page are some plans for Part 6 of my science fiction story called "The Fesarians". When the power distribution system for the Port Cooway colony on Elemacha-z comes under attack, the only possible saboteur seems to be the amphibious Merovae (Figure 1). Aethe is an exobiologist and soon after arrival on Elemacha-z she discovered that the Merovae come onto the beach near Port Cooway so that they can lay their eggs in the sand.

Talia, Gyulya and Lyssa are human-tryp'At hybrids. Talia and Gyulya live together and they have a small "clone daughter". After Talia learns of the existence of the Merovae, she tries to monitor them with drone surveillance and tries to telepathically link to them. At first, Talia mistakenly assumes that the Merovae ovipositor is a penis. Eventually, Talia recruits Aethe to participate in forming synapex links to a female Merovae. At the same time, the Noema are actively trying to use the Merovae as a way to learn about human beings.

Figure 2. Talia and a cat.

Having synapex linked to a Merovae and now with some insight into Merovae thoughts, Aethe suggests that the Merovae have not been disrupting the underground power distribution lines. Talia sees no evidence that the adult female Merovae ever leave the beaches to venture further inland where breaks in the electrical power distribution cables have occured. Talia develops a sexual relationship with a Merovae male2. Gyulya (Figure 3) discovers some Merovae larvae in her bed, but does not know what they are.

Figure 3. Gyulya.

 Merovae life cycle. There are 3 Merovae genders: 1) male1 produces sperm, 2) male2 are impregnated by sperm from male1 and they gestate larvae, 3) females receive the larvae from male2, encase the larvae in eggs, and eventually use an ovipositor to bury eggs in beach sand. For protection against land animals like the Kwono, the females are usually accompanied by their associated male1 and male2 when they venture onto the beach, 4) the hatchling juvenile Merovae feed on land for a time then go into the ocean.

The other three colonists on Elemacha-z are a type of genetically-engineered human variant known as the Huxy. Xylo, Aethe and Erni O'phyr are three clones. The Huxy are simultaneous hermaphrodites.

Figure 4. Xylo

Aethe impregnates Lyssa soon after they arrive on Elemacha-z. Aethe and Lyssa begin trying to learn each-others mind patterns and develop a telepathic connection.

Storm Zone. There are two distinct plant-life zones. The low elevation land close to the shore is specialized for erosion control and also provides good grazing for the newly hatched Merovae. None of the Noema reside in the storm zone. Port Cooway was built in the storm zone, but each building has an anti-gravity flotation system that can be activated when there is storm surge.

Fogs. Port Cooway was built near a cold current from the polar region of Elemacha-z. Dense fog forms most nights then burns off in the day time. The solar/wind collectors use anti-gravity to rise above the fog. Talia moves her home out of the storm zone and so the Noema provide Talia with a compulsion to continuously float her home off the ground.

Figure 5. Xylo, Aethe and Erni.

Cats. Talia likes cats and brings some cats to Elemacha-z. After going through the microbial decontamination protocol, the cats start hunting the juvenile Merovae and so Talia is given (by the telepathic Neoma) a compulsion to move her home inland so the cats are not close to the juvenile Merovae. Talia and one of her cats can be seen in Figure 2.

 Dani. In a previous Reality, the Neoma were part of the Phari network. The Phari were masters of the Hierion Domain and used hierions for technology-assisted telepathy. Dani's style of telepathy is the hierion-based information transmission system that is used by positronic robots. Dani is able to establish a telepathic link to the Noema upon arriving on Elemacha-z. With an intrinsic interest in nanities, the Noema remove Balok's nanites from Dani's positronic brain and they begin studying those zeptites. 

Figure 6. Talia's vision of Xylo.

Dani, having contacted R. Nurtia using the Port Cooway communications equipment, now waits to see if R. Nyrtia will invite Dani to return to the Hierion Domain.

Sedron Time Stream. Talia has visions of the future because she has access to information about the future via the Sedron Time Stream.

Noema. The Noema, technologically advanced aliens of Elemacha-z, begin to understand the zeptites and the basis of human telepathy. The Neoma use hierion-based technologies (such as technology-assisted telepathy) and femtobots.

 Discovery of the Noema. With help from Ienaghwy and Ylyndra, Talia realizes that the Noema have been disrupting the function of her brain by targeting her femtobot endosymbiont. Talia creates synapex links to a Noema, allowing her to understand the aliens.

Figure 7. Talia's vision of Dani.

 Sentient Plants. The alien Noema appear to be plant-like creatures, so upon arriving on Elemacha-z, initially Talia ignores the Neoma and suspects that the Merovae must be disrupting the power distribution system of Port Cooway. Looking for inspiration about Sci Fi plants, recently I read  "Plants Must Grow" (1941) by Frank Belknap Long. "Plants Must Grow" was the first in a series of stories all published in the 1940s, featuring John Carstairs, pet plant detective.

 Killer Plants.  Two years ago I read and blogged about Long's 1942 story "Plants Must Slay", a story in which an invisible killer plant from Ganymede tries to kill Carstairs. Maybe all sentient plants have an instinct that makes them want to kill botanists. Sadly, in "The Fesarians", the alien plants lack any kind of killer instinct. The Neoma are simply curious about the new human colonists who arrive on Elemacha-z... and protective of baby Merovae.

 Figure 8. A cute little snapdragon plant from
the asteroid belt (image generated by Gemini).

  Plants Must Be Sciency. Feeling obligated to search the entire John Carstairs series for interesting alien plants, I next looked at "Snapdragon" (1941).  

In passing, Carstairs states that carbon disulfide can cause "epidemic hysteria". 

 Trippy. Readers are also told that "fume slugs" from Pluto defend themselves against the predatory tripper plant by releasing a chemical similar to carbon disulfide and which can be used to make people tell the truth. The so-called "fume slugs" look like Earthly slugs, but they are actually plants. Long also casually mentions a "positron rod". It began to hope that this plodding story might be rescued by insertion of a positronic robot, but... no such luck (however, see Figure 11, below).

 Figure 9. Colorized interior art
  for "Snapdragon", generated by Mr. Wombo.

 Slug Plants.  Carstairs uses the mysterious (Earthly chemists can't replicate the active chemical ingredients) alien fumes from a slug plant to screen suspects in a murder investigation, identifying 15 possible culprits out of a crowd (at a badminton stadium) of 300. 

 There are no dragons in science fiction. Next, Carstairs makes use of a "snapdragon" plant from Callisto that looks like a miniature dragon. I had Gemini generate a depiction of the alien snapdragon plant (Figure 8).  The snapdragon can detect the chemical explosive that was used in a murder, and it is attracted to the clothing of the murderer. Our hero John has solved the murder case by using his extensive knowledge of alien plants! Golly gee, ain't that grand?

Vera and Moldy Ralph.

 There was black and white interior art for "Snapdragon" (uncredited) that Mr. Wombo converted into the colorized image that is shown in Figure 9. That's Vera in the upper right corner, behind John who is using alien snapdragons to identify the murder (in red).

In "Satellite of Peril", Vera and John are on Io where they battle monster plants. After blasting the plants which were wrapping their tendrils around Vera in a death grip, Vera and John embrace and share a frosty kiss (at -225 Fahrenheit), adding new meaning to the "cold open".

 Its a small Solar System Afterall. And who do Vera and John run into on Io? The Solar System's most evil criminal, Ralph. The "dude" with the green face in the image that is shown to the left is mold-cell replica of Ralph. These replicas are produced when John releases a special mold spore that can reveal the "auras" of people after they depart from a crime scene. Vera ripped away part of the replica and holds it in her hand.

Figure 10. Mission to Io.
See the original June 1943
cover art by Earle Bergey.

 Auras. Readers are told that human cells contain mysterious components that leave ghostly "afterimages" hanging in the air. John uses a mold that feeds on these "afterimages", allowing visualization of Ralph after he has stolen the food supply from John and Vera's spaceship.

 Cold Moon. I had Mr. Wombo convert an old cover art painting by Earle Bergey into a scene with Vera escaping from plant creatures on an icy moon (see Figure 10).

 Always lock your spaceship doors. You know Ralph is evil because he steals the food supply from John and Vera's spaceship. But how did Ralph get to Io? Ralph also stole the USA's newest and bestest spaceship, which "explains" how he got to Io. But why is Ralph on Io? Readers are told that Ralph collects plants... and Vera. After Vera is taken by the evil Ralph, John deduces where Ralph's spaceship is and he sneaks up on Ralph by using another plant of Io that creates an invisibility screen. Once again John vanquishes evil by using alien plants as his crime-fighting tools.

Figure 11. Colorized interior art for
"The Ether Robots", generated by Mr. Wombo.

 Ether Robots. The Solar System-roving John Carstairs finally has to deal with robots in "The Ether Robots" (1942). From his base on Uranus, the evil scientist, Frome, can use newly-developed technology to "project" his "ether robots" across millions of miles of outer space to other worlds. 

Figure 12. Manually colorized.

The first of several interior art illustration for "The Ether Robots" shows John destroying one of the robots. To make Figure 11, I used the manually-colorized image that is shown in Figure 12. 

Figure 13. Interior artwork by Leo Morey.

Since our hero, John Carstairs, is roving around the Solar System collecting alien plants, I inserted an alien plant woman into the scene (Figure 11). Figure 13 shows the original interior artwork by Leo Morey.

In the timeline of "The Ether Robots", Earth has until 2027, then a mad scientist will try to take over the Solar System with a robot army. Also, Frome can take control of people's minds. What can stop this madman? Obviously, radiant flame fungi from Europa. But also a plant: an infra-radiant from Iapetus. Whew! That sure was close. 

Figure 14. Internal art for "The Heavy Man".

 Suck. The next story in the series with Vera and John was "The Heavy Man" (1943) in which a magical microscopic algae from Mimas was used to "suck the juiciness out of heavy atoms". These algae are used to clean up a mess created by a deranged scientist called "The Voice" who is periodically broadcasting his propaganda directly to the people of New York from a hidden location. While trying to project a "heavy force field" into the sky over New York City, this evil and incompetent scientist converts the atoms in his body to heavy atoms. John and Vera quickly jump in their aircar and fly to the place where police found the heavy man in his parked aircar. As they approach, their own aircar falls apart and they must parachute to safety. According to the text of the story, when Vera lands on the ground, she is wearing a skirt.

Figure 15. Colorize by Mr. Wombo.

 Dizzy. "The Heavy Man" also features a scene with a "vertigo lily" which sends super high frequency sound waves directly into the middle ear, disrupting its function and causing a person to lose consciousness.

Figure 15 has a colorized version of Figure 14 that was generated by WOMBO Dream. It is also mentioned in the story that Vera breaks the heal of her shoe while parachuting. However, both the uncredited artist for Thrilling Wonder Stories and Mr. Wombo insisted on generating images of the parachuting Vera without high heels or a skirt. 😠

Figure 16. Add a balloon.

I liked the AI-generated image in Figure 16 because Mr. Wombo put in a hot air balloon and helicopters. 

The image shown in Figure 14 is actually a depiction of the second time that John and Vera must bail-out of a damaged aircar. This time, John is holding Vera while they parachute to the ground.

The other key tool used by John to solve the case of the heavy man is a spectroscopic lichen from Neptune. This living detector allows John to identify the parked aircar holding the "heavy man" as the source of a "heavy force field" pointed up into the sky. John deduces that the "heavy man" is the evil scientist known to New Yorkers as "The Voice". 

Figure 17. Verachuting in heels.

Once John has this all figured out, he releases the heavy-atom sucking algae from Mimas and the algae inactivate "heavy force field", but not before it destroys a police aircar, forcing John and Vera to parachute to the ground for the second time (Figure 14). The most amusing part of "The Heavy Man" is when John proclaims that "The Voice" must be a scientist and not a biologist. By this I assume that Long meant "physical scientist".

I asked Mr. Wombo to generate an image depicting: "Cintia Dicker parachuting, Cintia Dicker has long red hair, Cintia Dicker is dressed Victoria's Secret style in a miniskirt and high-heel shoes, a parachute is above Cintia Dicker, blue sky in the background, Cintia Dicker’s hair and skirt flutter in the wind" (see Figure 17). Mr. Wombo even showed a broken heel. Other AI-generated images of the parachuting Vera are at the bottom of this blog post.

Figure 18. Moon Wobblies.

The next John Carstairs story was "Wobblies in the Moon" (1943). Figure 10 (above) was generated by Mr. Wombo using the cover art from the June 1943 Thrilling Wonder Stories by Earle Bergey. I also had Mr. Wombo generate a colorized version of the original black and white interior art for "Wobblies in the Moon" by Marco Marchioni (Figure 18). John and Vera are on the Moon when Vera charges into his bedroom to announce that a Wobbly just opened the window of her bedroom and escaped. Maybe the house of Mr. Gleason is inside an enclosing dome?

We eventually learn that the Wobblies are walking plants that eat hydrogen sulfide. They are handy to have in the house when you want to kill someone like Mr. Gleason by poisoning him with hydrogen sulfide. The Wobblies will suck up all of the hydrogen sulfide, removing its tell-tale traces from the site of the murder.

  The interior art by
Marco Marchioni for
"Wobblies in the Moon".

Here on Earth, there are bacteria that can metabolize hydrogen sulfide, but hydrogen sulfide is toxic to plants and animals. I asked Gemini: "Would it be theoretically possible to engineer a plant species that would have endosymbiotic hydrogen sulfide-metabolizing bacteria in root nodules that could allow the plant to survive in soil that had high levels of hydrogen sulfide in the ground water?"

Gemini: "It is theoretically possible to engineer a plant species that could survive in soil with high levels of hydrogen sulfide. Such a plant could potentially have endosymbiotic hydrogen sulfide-metabolizing bacteria in its root nodules, similar to how legumes have nitrogen-fixing bacteria. 1) Isolate hydrogen sulfide-metabolizing bacteria. 2) Engineer a plant-bacteria symbiosis: develop genetic engineering techniques to introduce the hydrogen sulfide-metabolizing bacteria into the root cells of a plant species.

Figure 19. Vera on the Moon.

 3) Optimize the symbiosis: fine-tune the genetic engineering process to ensure that the bacteria can effectively metabolize hydrogen sulfide and provide benefits to the plant. This might involve optimizing the expression of bacterial genes, ensuring the compatibility of the bacteria with the plant's cellular environment, and preventing the bacteria from causing harm to the plant. Advances in genetic engineering and our understanding of plant-microbe interactions make it a theoretically feasible goal."

Sadly, on Earth, plants never evolved a motility system like animal muscle tissue, so we don't have walking plants. There is a scene in "Wobblies in the Moon" in which John measures the "sap pressure" of one of the Wobblies, noting that it is dangerously high. Maybe the Wobblies of the Moon use liquid nitrogen for the fluid of their bodies instead of water and feed on hydrogen sulfide deposits.

Figure 20. Plant breeding.

 Beyond Pluto. None of the sentient plants found in the Solar System by John Carstair were quite as smart as a human being. But might it be possible to selectively breed a more intelligent plant? This question arises in the last of the John Carstair stories, "The Hollow World" which was published in the Summer 1945 issue of Startling Stories.

In the August 1926 issue of Weird Tales was "The Woman of the Wood". This story is definitely not science fiction, but I had Mr. Wombo create a variant of the 1926 cover art that shows a plant creature holding a woman (see Figure 20). Sadly, "The Hollow World" is very long and rambling and Frank Long did not provide much information about the plant breeding experiments that make it possible to create very intelligent plant people who can then terrorize the human population of the Solar System.

Vera on a half-shell: alien breeding project.

 Plant Genetics. The poor blond in Figure 20 seems to be at the mercy of the alien plant creature. It may be that someone like Vera Dorn with her Ph.D. in Botany would be a more willing participant in experiments aimed at creating highly intelligent plants. The image shown to the right was generated by Mr. Wombo using this 1935 cover illustration as a reference image and a text prompt that included, "a green plant person, seen in profile view, the face and neck of the plant person is made of stems and leaves".

John and Vera experiment
with an alien plant.

While looking at the image to the right, I began to wonder what Vera an the alien were looking at. In my imagination, John Carstairs is likely to be there with Vera during this type of plant breeding experiment.

I had Mr. Wombo generate an alternate version of this scene in which John is there at Vera's side while she is getting friendly with an alien. For "The Fesarians", it is possible for humans from Earth to interbreed with aliens from other planets because those "aliens" were transplanted from Earth and are actually genetically modified humans. Maybe in the fictional universe of Frank Long in which every planet in the Solar System has walking plant people, they are all modified version of humans from Earth, genetically engineered by aliens and adapted to the environments of other planets.

Figure 21.

  In his 1934 story "Lost Planet", Frank Long described people from Venus who were descendants of Earthlings, but he did not follow up on that idea for his John Carstairs stories of the 1940s.

The black and white interior art for "The Hollow World" was uncredited. Figure 21 is a colorized version of a scene from "The Hollow World" that was generated by Mr. Wombo by starting with one of the original illustrations from the story as a reference image. My text prompt said, "Cintia Dicker has long red hair and is seen from behind", but Mr. Wombo had her turn towards the camera and depicted her as topless and barefoot. Sometimes it simply does not pay to argue with an AI.

Figure 22. John and Helen.

 The other woman. Through the John Carstair stories, John and Vera are often depicted as bickering, but they occasionally have time between battling human evil doers and monster plants to share a kiss. Finally, in "The Hollow World", Frank Long brought in another female character, 18-year-old Helen Hilary (see Figure 22), daughter of John's old friend, Thomas, who had long worked collecting plants from Pluto and who was interested in mutations. With money from a shadowy source (Maile, see below), Thomas succeeded in breeding plants that were intelligent enough to use human language... then he was killed.

To track down the suspect in the death of Thomas, John makes use of a Compass Lichen from Uranus which points its tendrils at any nearby walking plant. Then it is off into outer space: destination the 12th planet, which is 5,200,000,000 miles from the Sun. 

Figure 23. An army of plant
people inside the 12th planet.

Readers of "The Hollow World" are informed that the 12th planet was discovered in 1997. The floating plants in Figure 21 are a magnified and "projected" version of the Callistian chain vampire plant. During the long boring voyage from Earth to the 12th planet, the spaceship's captain's son pranks John and Vera with the magnified "projected" image of this tiny alien plant. This trick apparently involves the same Hi Tek "projector" technology that was used to "project" ether robots for missions around the Solar System in "The Ether Robots" (see above in Figure 12).

 Figure 23 is one of the interior art illustrations for "The Hollow World" showing what is discovered when our hero John Carstairs reached the 12th planet: an army of intelligent plant people that has been created by evil master mind, Maile, a mutant human with a 310 I.Q. 

Figure 24. Evil plant people.

The 12th planet is titular "The Hollow World" where the army of plant people is discovered inside an underground chamber. The plant people are quickly destroyed by the explosive balls seen in Figure 23. The intelligent plant people were made possible by the plant breeding experiments of Helen's father, Thomas. Ironically, Thomas is killed by rampaging plant people (Figure 24). Figure 24 is another colorized version of an interior art illustration for "The Hollow World" that was generated by Mr. Wombo.

In other news, during the long voyage to the 12th planet, John and Helen share a kiss, something that John has long wanted to do. Helen seems quite pleased with John's romantic advance. Is John dumping Vera in exchange for a younger woman? Apparently not.  Frank Long ended "The Hollow World" with the suggestion that after returning the Earth from the 12th planet, John and Vera would finally be getting hitched.💕

Figure 25. See this cover art
by Steve Fastner.

At the end of the John Carstairs series of stories, it has been demonstrated that breeding intelligent plant people is possible. For me, this is the most interesting part of the whole series. I wish that Frank Belknap Long had started with intelligent plant people and then explored the implications of having a population of highly intelligent plants sharing the Solar System with humans.

In my story, "The Fesarians", the intelligent plant-like creatures of Elemacha-z are ancient artificial life-forms with advanced nanotechnology. Frank Belknap Long liked horror stories, and in "The Hollow World" the intelligent plants were all destroyed in order to prevent the evil henchman (Maile) from using the plant people to conquer the Solar System. In "The Fesarians", the Neoma just want to get the annoying human colonists to depart from Elemacha-z.

Figure 26. Interior art for
"The Thought Materializer"
by Frank R. Paul.

 Precursor to Teleportation. The "thrilling conclusion" of "The Hollow World" involves another use of the "projector" (see Figure 21, above). A monstrous plant creature of the 12th planet almost kills our hero, John, but the monster is defeated in video-game style by the spaceship's captain's young son who has learned how to use the magnifying projector in John's laboratory. I say "video-game style" because the "projector" technology is never explained: it creates a quasi-physical copy of an actual object (in this case, a plant in the lab) that can be projected to the outside of the spaceship. The technology almost seems like a precursor to teleportation, able to transmit over long distances a partial semblance of a physical object.

Figure 27. Future botany.
See this cover illustration.

 Projector Technology.  In the Spring 1930 edition of Science Wonder Quarterly, Frank Long published a story called "The Thought Materializer". In that story, Randall has invented a device that converts your thoughts into reality. Randall explains to his friend Perkins the secret of his device: cosmic rays. Randall wants Perkins to experiment with the device and he starts the experiment with the words, "There isn't the slightest danger". Of course, Perkins soon imagines a tiger and he is attacked and physically injured by his imaginary tiger (see Figure 26).

Not being a fan of horror stories, I've long been dismayed by the influx of horror story writers who swarmed the early science fiction magazines. Another such writer who moved from Weird Tales to pulp Sci Fi magazines was Donald Wandrei. "Raiders of the Universes" was published by Donald Wandrei in the September 1932  issue of Astounding Stories where it was provided with a color cover illustration by Hans Wessolowski. 

Figure 28. Projector technology.
So simple even a child can use it.

Using that 1932 color painting by Hans Wessolowski as a reference image, I had Mr. Wombo make the image shown in Figure 27, depicting John and Vera studying an alien plant.

Starting in 1934, Wandrei wrote a series of stories about the scientific detective Professor I.V. Frost, Sc.D. It is easy to imagine that Frank Long was inspired by the 1932 cover art for "Raiders of the Universes" and ended up writing a large number of stories about walking plant creatures from other planets and botanical detective John Carstairs. Long published a short story called "The Lichen from Eros" in the November 1935 issue of Astounding Stories. "The Lichen from Eros" is more fantasy that science fiction, depicting microscopic people living on the surface of the titular lichen from Eros. Already in this 1935 story, Long seemed devoted to the idea that every moon, planet and asteroid of the Solar System should have its own living creatures. 

Figure 29. John the Plant Detective
and his amber-haired partner Vera.

Starting with a May 1949 magazine cover illustration, I had Mr. Wombo generate an image depicting Vera and John with a group of plant people (see Figure 29). Frank Long never tired of referring to Vera as the amber-haired "secretary" of John Carstairs. I suppose in the 1940s there actually were women with a Ph.D. who worked as secretaries. However, I prefer to imagine Vera as working with John as a partner. 

I'm not entirely sure what John and Vera are trying to accomplish in the scene that is shown in Figure 29. In "The Hollow World", readers were told that John had spent 7 years trying to breed more intelligent plants, finally reaching the conclusion that it was an impossible goal. However, Thomas Hilary persisted in those efforts and was successful. Not only could highly intelligent plant people be produced in quantity, but they grew rapidly and matured in just a few weeks, making it possible for Maile to quickly build an army of plant people who unquestioningly viewed as Maile their leader.

Figure 30. Vera's first
projection experiment.

 Vera Dorn, Ph.D. One of the themes that Frank Long included in his John Carstairs stories was the idea that John sometimes kept secrets from Vera. However, it is hard to imagine that John Carstairs could have magnifying projection equipment in his laboratory without Vera knowing about it and making use of it for her experiments. Using this 1945 cover art as a reference image, I had Mr. Wombo generate a depiction of Vera performing an experiment with projection experiment. 

 Plant People From a Miniature Lichen Civilization. In this experiment, Vera is enlarging the projected copy a small plant person who lives on a lichen from Eros. Maybe on a small asteroid like Eros there are tiny artificial life forms made of femtobot components. Vera is trying to expand this plant person to human size, but she may end up being frustrated by the limited magnification that can be achieved by the device (see Figure 30).

Figure 31. Vera's projection
experiment with Helen.

If John Carstairs could spend seven years trying to breed intelligent plants, fail in that effort and then learn that Thomas Hilary had been successful in his work towards that goal, then surely Vera would want to perform her own plant breeding experiments. And why not involve Helen Hilary in that research project? Figure 31 shows Vera using the projection equipment in John's lab to shrink a "copy" of Helen down to the same size as some plant people.

Maybe by shrinking projected copies of people such as Helen it became possible to conduct breeding experiments between Earthlings and Eros lichen people. It might have been possible to greatly enlarge the tiny people of Eros, but not all the way to human size. By also shrinking test subjects like Helen, it became possible for the plant people of Eros to "meet humans in the middle" and successfully exchange genetic material. Maybe working at smaller size scale than the human body was the secret to the accelerated rate of growth of Maile's army of intelligent plant people.

Figure 32. The thoughtful husband.

 Exploring the Wonders of Projection Technology. For "The Fesarians", I've been planning to depict R. Nyrtia as appearing on Elemacha-z in the bodily form of Talia's sister, Gyulya. At the very end of the story, I plan to have Ylyndra and Ienaghwy land their spaceship in Port Cooway so that they can pick up passengers. I've been wondering if Balok should also be there on Elemacha-z at the end of "The Fesarians", but maybe Balok would use advanced bumpha "projector technology" to send his "image" to Elemacha-z. I had Mr. Wombo make Figure 28 as a depiction of the young son of the spaceship captain in "The Hollow World" when he is using projection technology to enlarge a small plant from the lab. 

 One Last Plant. Using a 1950 color illustration as a reference image, I had Mr. Wombo make a depiction of Vera receiving an alien plant as a gift from John (see Figure 32).

Next: Upgraded Imagen.

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