Read The Pollinators of Eden for Free Online Page A

with the maples was spiritual communion. That’s all! The sailor’s naked behind was desecrating my shrine, for, in rites beyond ritualism, I had achieved rapport with the spirit of the grove. Freda, you observe before you the last surviving druid priest.”
    She was observing that and more. “Logic beyond logic” was another airy phrase Paul had borrowed from this boy. Harold Polino was the moral equivalent of the Napoli’s lasagne, she thought, but, as Paul had said, he did produce usable insights.
    “Do you think Paul would be as impressionable?”
    “No, Paul’s a morphologist. He studies the structure of plants. He’s not primarily interested in their spiritual qualities or their personalities. He might favor a certain orchid in a grove. So would you. So would I. On the scale of plant evolution, the orchids are demigods compared to the trees. I’m not saying he’s completely indifferent to plants. But it would have to be a very dark night before old Paul would try to make love to a mandrake root.”
    “Eat your lasagne before it gets cold!”
    Rebuffed by her tone, he withdrew into his lasagne, and she let him eat, slowly sipping her Chianti. She was drinking more, by far, than she usually drank, but it was not impairing her judgment. The wine only relaxed her, made her feel more open. When he was almost finished, she said, “If you think my mind is stretched sufficiently, I feel ready for Hypothesis X.”
    “Let me refill your glass,” he said. “You’ll need it.”
    “You’re the doctor,” she said curtly.
    “Got your seat belt buckled, Freda?”
    “Belt’s buckled.”
    “All right, here comes Hypothesis X.” He almost smirked as he pronounced his sentences slowly and carefully. “Your boy, Paul, believes the orchids are ambulatory. He’s convinced that the male orchids do a little nocturnal woo-pitching. He thinks they walk by night.”

Chapter Three
    Hal’s grin could not cushion words that knocked the euphoria out of her.
    All evening she had toyed with ideas, formed theories, framed explanations, not a one of which would have earned her a merit badge from the Girl Scouts; but what Polino suggested, she had not even considered; her fiancé was a stark, raving lunatic!
    “Did you give Paul that idea?”
    “I can’t claim full credit.” He was actually modest. “But on my last visit, Paul kept harping about pollination, and when he showed me a bifurcated root system, I told him that if the sun lived long enough, the orchids would grow feet. Paul launched from that pad, I guess; but, believe me, Freda, I never thought he’d take me seriously.”
    She knew Hal spoke the truth, not through observed evidence but from a deeper knowledge contained as much within the nerve ends of her body as the neurons of her brain—a knowledge beyond knowledge. Hal’s motives were clear to her now. This marvelous boy had brought her here, beguiled her with tall stories, teased, shocked, and delighted her, to fungo her emotions rather than her mind, to prepare her for this final shock.
    Paul needed her on Flora!
    Paul’s offhand invitation for her to visit Tropica was a plea for help.
    Paul needs me, she thought. Wrong! Paul thinks he needs me. What Paul really needs is institutional care… He had tried to hint to her in his letter that unless she came for him, for him it was either Flora or Houston.
    Any man with a shred of sanity left would prefer Flora to Houston, so what was Paul worried about, if it weren’t that shred of sanity? Personally she preferred the sulfurous stench of the sunlit side of Venus to any spot you could name in Texas, but right now she wanted her euphoria back.
    She shoved her empty glass toward Hal, pointed to the bottle, and said, “Kill it!”
    “We’ll split this one and order another.”
    “Then split it!”
    He split it, and there was still enough left for two full glasses. In the manner of Italy, Hal said, they locked arms across the table and took a sip, bolstered