Adventures of a Botanist

by Bob Brill

Chapter 9, part 1
Chapter 10
appear in this issue.

Chapter 9: Puerto Seguro

part 2 of 2

When I got back to the lab that day, I searched the Internet for KR22, also the names Fiorello had given me, and found about a dozen more. I asked Norman Hordeum to add a glossary to the website containing all those names. He also added a META statement to the website so that a search on any of those names would reference our site. I came up with a name for the cure: NoGo.

Sales did pick up after that, but I was distressed to discover that even then I had only about ten customers a week. It was certainly not a self-sustaining operation. Our funding came from a wealthy donor whose daughter was addicted to KR22, I mean Split, as she called it. If orders and donations didn’t pick up soon, I would have to close down the lab. The risk I was taking might have been worthwhile had the operation made a sizable advance toward solving the addiction problem, but it left me feeling depressed. I was lonely to boot.

The reason for the poor response was plain. I myself had yet to take the cure, so I well understood the public’s preference for dream over reality. I had been monitoring my beverage intake. So far I had not imbibed any more lemon ginger tea, nor had I obtained any Salida from my “colleagues” next door, but I reserved the privilege, unwilling to lose all possibility of being Belinda’s lover again. The greater my tension built over this issue, the more I admired the courage of Larry Avena for having foresworn his love affair with Lee Wiley.

There was one major consolation to living in Puerto Seguro. It was a botanist’s paradise. I took long hikes in the mountainous rain forest in the island’s interior. No one had ever compiled a flora of the island, so I began to study the distribution of species with the idea of publishing such a flora. With the lab operation moving so slowly I had plenty of time on my hands.

I teamed up with a local guide. Manuel Rosales took tourists to the nightclubs, casinos and brothels of Bananaville. I led hikes in the rain forest and occasionally filled requests to see a sugar plantation or a rum factory. Whenever a cruise ship pulled into port, Manuel would be down at the dock hawking souvenirs, handing out brochures of the services we offered, and contracting for guided tours. After I had an attractive brochure printed with color photos of gorgeous island flowers, he was able to bring me quite a bit of business. I was pleased to learn that there were actually tourists who would rather hike a mile uphill in the humid jungle to view rare orchids than squander their money in a casino while being pestered by hookers. It wasn’t long before I was bringing in enough income to keep myself and the lab going.

One day during my second month on the island I got an email from Larry Avena. He alerted me that NoGo was not, as alleged by the Papaya Contingent, a one-shot cure. He had experienced a spontaneous Go episode. Unfortunately, he reported, Lee Wiley did not put in an appearance. Instead, he found himself crab fishing with his uncle, an activity he had often enjoyed in his youth, but which now held little appeal.

He contacted the few volunteers to whom he had given the pill and learned that one of them had also had a recurrence. He took another NoGo pill and gave more pills to his volunteers. So far there had been no further episodes, but he could not vouch for the effectiveness of a repeat dose. Apparently, he surmised, the drug did not maintain its robustness in the human body indefinitely and had to be renewed from time to time. The proper dosage levels would have to be worked out and that might vary with the individual. More work needed to be done.

The next day I received the first email from one of my customers, confirming this phenomenon. I sent all my customers email apologies and followed up with shipments of free pills.

In a despondent mood I put on my hiking gear, strapped my plant press to my back and headed for the rain forest. As I climbed the trail and walked deeper into the forest, my depression slowly lifted. I found that I was particularly susceptible to the beauty of the woods. Once again I experienced the solace of nature, the wonderful world of plants, their diversity of shapes, the way they intertwined and filled the landscape, and over all a divine nimbus that seemed to emanate from their manifold forms all blending into one unified presence.

That’s when the orchid spoke to me. It was of the genus Dendrobium, the species, I thought, probably still unnamed.

Dr. Salsify. Please join us. Project Exodus needs you. We need your vision, your ecstatic appreciation of the divine nature of the universe. We have set up a partnership with Lindenbaum Pharmaceuticals in Germany. They are supplying us with laboratory space and logistic support for Project Exodus. We are designing new drugs to meet their specifications.

Oh yes. I was told the same thing by a specimen of Bessera elegans in Mexico during my last KR22 trip. So am I tripping again or is this really true?

It’s hard to say whether you are tripping or not, Dr. Salsify. But it’s quite true that Project Exodus is once again going forward. No illegal drugs this time. As for KR22, the genie is out of the bottle and we regret our mistake. This time everything will be above board and strictly legal.

I replied, There is not so much difference between legal and illegal drugs. Both kinds are designed to make people dependent on them, which is to say, to make money.

We understand why you are so bitter. You think the heavyseed’s drug is superior to the one put forward by Rumex Pharmaceuticals. But don’t you think, Dr. Salsify, that some wonderful life-saving drugs have come out of the drug industry, even admitting that the drug companies, like all corporations, must make money to survive?

Yes, I can agree to that, but an enlightened drug industry would give the health of humanity highest priority and settle for modest profits. As it is, their research strategies are skewed toward the bottom line, and humanity is not always well served.

Perhaps you are right, but we need a human interface to realize our objectives, and we must deal with the world as it is.

I took my plant press off my back and set it down. I sat on a fallen log. It was covered with ferns and mosses and there was no room to sit without disturbing them. In this I saw the other side of the coin. If I wanted to realize my own objective of taking a load off my feet, I could only do so to the detriment of some plants. But I did not raise this point. What I said was, I’ve come to believe that Project Exodus is a mistake.

Our survival is at stake.

Yes, and so is ours. Humans are wrecking the world. True. So you want to run away and start over somewhere else. This strategy will almost certainly fail. Have you solved the problem of hard radiation shielding?

No, we haven’t, not yet.

You see? The odds of your seeding some other planet are vanishingly small. And, even if you get lucky and land in clover, so to speak, some perverse human-like lifeform will also spring up and you’ll be faced with the same dilemma all over again.

Perhaps you don’t know this, the orchid responded, but such a plan has worked before. Life came to Earth from some distant planet as the result of just such a project as ours.

That proves my point. Some intelligent, self-destructive ape must have driven them to it.

We know the odds are against our succeeding, but what choice have we got?

There is a better way. The heavyseeds are right. Don’t give up on Earth. Thanks to your presence here the Earth is a paradise. It only remains to bring the human race up to your level. Put your considerable biochemical skills to work for the survival of your beautiful ancestral home. Develop drugs that will help humans to achieve a more rapid spiritual evolution and awareness.

Excuse me, Dr. Salsify. Just a moment, please. I’m going to put you on hold.

After ten minutes the orchid spoke to me again. Sorry to keep you waiting so long, Dr. Salsify, but the plant kingdom is conducting a worldwide debate and a decision has not yet been reached. Please continue to hold.

So, I thought, perhaps I’m getting through to them. After another twenty minutes the orchid returned.

Dr. Salsify, here is our decision. The heavyseeds have already been advocating a program such as you suggest, and many others in the lightseed camp have lost faith in the wisdom of Project Exodus. However, the consensus is that a research program to elevate the human species to a higher spiritual level has even less chance of succeeding than Project Exodus. We’ve been studying your species for ages and one thing we’ve learned is that the biochemical factors are responsible for only a small part of your nature. The human beast is dreadfully complex, but in the end, we feel the defects of your species are probably uncorrectable. We are not going to abandon Project Exodus.

Well, that’s discouraging, was the thought I flashed back.

However, we have decided to launch the project you suggest. First it will serve to heal the split between the heavyseeds and the lightseeds. Second, if it does succeed, it would be a much happier solution for all species that live on Earth, ourselves included. Earth is indeed a paradise and we’d all love to stay here, if we can. The survival of the plant community in its earthly home is dependent on the survival of Earth’s ecosystems and this is dependent on a U-turn in the destructive tendencies of the fractious human species.

Dr. Salsify, your appeal to help humanity achieve a higher spiritual awareness has precipitated a new policy decision in the plant community. We invite you again to join our team. Instead of working on Project Exodus, you could work on our new venture, which we have named Project Namaste. The name comes from the Sanskrit word meaning ‘I bow to you’. Namaste is the traditional Hindu greeting, the two hands pressed together, pointing upwards, held near the heart, head bowing gently, while uttering the word ‘namaste’. The ultimate gesture of respect toward another human, carrying the implied message, ‘I bow to the god within you’. A lovely concept.

We think there is almost no chance of Project Namaste succeeding.

Proceed to Chapter 10