The two men stepped out onto planetary surface and Smith cried hoa.r.s.ely, "Chouns, look at that!"
Chouns shook off the other"s grasping hand. He said, "The same plants! I"ll be d.a.m.ned."
There was no mistaking the pale pink blossoms, the stalk with its veined buds, and the coronet of spikes below. Again there was the geometric s.p.a.cing, the careful planting and fertilization, the irrigation ca.n.a.ls.
Smith said, "We haven"t made a mistake and circled-"
"Oh, look at the sun; it"s twice the diameter it was be- fore. And look there."
Out of the nearest burrows in the river bank smoothly tan and sinuous objects, as limbless as snakes, emerged. They were a foot in diameter, ten feet in length. The two ends were equally featureless, equally blunt. Midway along their upper portions were bulges. All the bulges, as though on signal, grew before their eyes to fat ovals, split in two to form lipless, gaping mouths that opened and closed with a sound like a forest of dry sticks clapping together.
Then, just as on the outer planet, once their curiosities were satisfied and their fears calmed, most of the creatures drifted away toward the carefully cultivated field of plants.
Smith sneezed. The force of expelled breath against the sleeve of his jacket raised a powdering of dust.
He stared at that with amazement, then slapped himself and said, "d.a.m.n it, I"m dusty." The dust rose like a pale pink fog. "You, too," he added, slapping Chouns.
Both men sneezed with abandon.
"Picked it up on the other planet, I suppose," said Chouns.
"We can work up an allergy."
"Impossible." Chouns held up one of the sighters and shouted at the snake-things, "Do you have any of these?"
For a while there was nothing in answer but the splashing of water, as some of the snake things slid into the river and emerged with silvery cl.u.s.ters of water life, which they tucked beneath their bodies toward some hidden mouth.
But then one snake-thing, longer than the others, came thrusting along the ground, one blunt end raised questingly some two inches, weaving blindly side to side. The bulb in its center swelled gently at first, then alarmingly, splitting in two with an audible pop. There, nestling within the two halves, were two more sighters, the duplicates of the first two.
Chouns said ecstatically, "Lord in heaven, isn"t that beautiful?"
He stepped hastily forward. reaching out for the objects. The swelling that held them thinned and lengthened, forming what were almost tentacles. They reached out toward him.
Chouns was laughing. They were Gamow sighters all right; duplicates, absolute duplicates, of the first two. Chouns fondled them.
Smith was shouting, "Don"t you hear me? Chouns, d.a.m.n it, listen to me."
Chouns said, "What?" He was dimly aware that Smith had been yelling at him for over a minute.
"Look at the flowers, Chouns."
They were closing, as had those on the other planet, and among the rows the snake-things reared upward, balancing on one end and swaying with a queer, broken rhythm. Only the blunt ends of them were visible above the pale pink.
Smith said, "You can"t say they"re closing up because of nightfall. It"s broad day."
Chouns shrugged. "Different planet, different plant. Come on! We"ve only got two sighters here; there must be more."
"Chouns, let"s go home." Smith firmed his legs into two stubborn pillars and the grip he held on Chouns"s collar tightened.
Chouns"s reddened face turned back toward him indignantly. "What are you doing?"
"I"m getting ready to knock you out if you don"t come back with me at once, into the ship."
For a moment Chouns stood irresolute; then a certain wildness about him faded, a certain slackening took place, and he said, "All right. "
They were halfway out of the starcl.u.s.ter. Smith said, "How are you?"
Chouns sat up in his bunk and rumpled his hair. "Normal, I guess; sane again. How long have I been sleeping?"
"Twelve hours."
"What about you?"
"I"ve catnapped." Smith turned ostentatiously to the instruments and made some minor adjustments. He said self-consciously, "Do you know what happened back there on those planets?"
Chouns said slowly, "Do you?"
"I think so."
"Oh? May I hear?"
Smith said, "It was the same plant on both planets. You"ll grant that?"
"I most certainly do."
"It was transplanted from one planet to the other, somehow. It grows on both planets perfectly well; but occasionally-to maintain vigor, I imagine-there must be crossfertilization, the two strains mingling. That sort of thing happens on Earth often enough."
"Crossfertilization for vigor? Yes."
"But we we were the agents that arranged for the mingling. We landed on one planet and were coated with pollen. Remember the blooms closing? That must have been just after they released their pollen; and that"s what was making us sneeze, too. Then we landed on the other planet and knocked the pollen off our clothes. A new hybrid strain win start up. We were just a pair of two-legged bees, Chouns, doing our duty by the flowers." were the agents that arranged for the mingling. We landed on one planet and were coated with pollen. Remember the blooms closing? That must have been just after they released their pollen; and that"s what was making us sneeze, too. Then we landed on the other planet and knocked the pollen off our clothes. A new hybrid strain win start up. We were just a pair of two-legged bees, Chouns, doing our duty by the flowers."
Chouns smiled tentatively. " An inglorious role, in a way."
"Hen, that"s not it. Don"t you see the danger? Don"t you see why we have to get back home fast?" fast?"
"Why?"
"Because organisms don"t adapt themselves to nothing. Those plants seem to be adapted to interplanetary fertilization. We even got paid off, the way bees are; not with nectar, but with Gamow sighters."
"Well?"
"Well, you can"t have interplanetary fertilization unless something or someone is there to do the job. We We did it this time, but we were the first humans ever to enter the cl.u.s.ter. So, before this, it must be nonhumans who did it; maybe the same nonhumans who transplanted the blooms in the first place. That means that somewhere in this cl.u.s.ter there is an intelligent race of beings; intelligent enough for s.p.a.ce travel. And Earth must know about that." did it this time, but we were the first humans ever to enter the cl.u.s.ter. So, before this, it must be nonhumans who did it; maybe the same nonhumans who transplanted the blooms in the first place. That means that somewhere in this cl.u.s.ter there is an intelligent race of beings; intelligent enough for s.p.a.ce travel. And Earth must know about that."
Slowly Chouns shook his head. Smith frowned. "You find flaws somewhere in the reasoning?"
Chouns put hi!; head between his own palms and looked miserable. "Let"s say you"ve missed almost everything."
"What have I missed?" demanded Smith angrily.
"Your crossfertilization theory is good, as far as it goes, but you haven"t considered a few points. When we approached that stellar system our hyperatomic motor went out of order in a way the automatic controls could neither diagnose nor correct. After we landed we made no effort to adjust them. We forgot about them, in fact; and when you handled them later you found they were in perfect order, and were so unimpressed by that that you didn"t even mention it to me for another few hours.
"Take something else: How conveniently we chose landing spots near a grouping of animal life on both planets. Just luck? And our incredible confidence in the good will of the creatures. We never even bothered checking atmospheres for trace poisons before exposing ourselves.
"And what bothers me most of all is that I went completely crazy over the Gamow sighters. Why? They"re valuable, yes, but not that that valuable-and I don"t generally go overboard for a quick buck." valuable-and I don"t generally go overboard for a quick buck."
Smith had kept an uneasy silence during all that. Now he said, "I don"t see that any of that adds up to anything."
"Get off it, Smith; you know better than that. Isn"t it obvious to you that we were under mental control from the outside?"
Smith"s mouth twisted and caught halfway between derision and doubt. " Are you on the psionic kick again?"
"Yes; facts are facts. I told you that my hunches might be a form of rudimentary telepathy."
"Is that a fact, too? You didn"t think so a couple of days ago."
"I think so now. Look, I"m a better receiver than you, and I was more strongly affected. Now that it"s over, I understand more about what happened because I received more. Understand?"
"No," said Smith harshly.
"Then listen further. You said yourself the (Gamow sighters were the nectar that bribed us into pollination. You You said that." said that."
"All right."
"Well, then, where did they come from? They were Earth products; we even read the manufacturer"s name and model on them, letter by letter. Yet, if no human beings have ever been in the cl.u.s.ter, where did the sighters come from? Neither one of us worried about that, then; and you don"t seem to worry about it even now."
"Well-"
"What did you do with the sighters after we got on board ship, Smith? You took them from me; I remember that."
"I put them in the safe," said Smith defensively. "Have you touched them since?"
"No."
"Have I?"
"Not as far as I know."
"You have my word I didn"t. Then why not open the safe now?"
Smith stepped slowly to the safe. It was keyed to his fingerprints, and it opened. Without looking he reached in. His expression altered and with a sharp cry he first stared at the contents, then scrabbled them out.
He held four rocks of a.s.sorted color, each of them roughly rectangular.
"They used our own emotions to drive us," said Chouns softly, as though insinuating the words into the other"s stubborn skull one at a time. "They made us think the hyperatomics were wrong so we could land on one of the planets; it didn"t matter which, I suppose. They made us think we had precision instruments in our hand after we landed on one so we would race to the other."
"Who are "they"?" groaned Smith. "The tails or the snakes? Or both?"
"Neither," said Chouns. "It was the plants."
"The plants? The flowers?" flowers?"
"Certainly. We saw two different sets of animals tending the same species of plant. Being animals ourselves, we a.s.sumed the animals were the masters. But why should we a.s.sume that? It was the plants that were being taken care of."
"We cultivate plants on Earth, too, Chouns."
"But we eat those plants," said Chouns.
"And maybe those creatures eat their plants, too."
"Let"s say I know they don"t," said Chouns. "They maneuvered us well enough. Remember how careful I was to find a bare spot on which to land."
"I felt no such urge." felt no such urge."
"You weren"t at the controls; they weren"t worried about you. Then, too, remember that we never noticed the pollen, though we were covered with it-not till we were safely on the second planet. Then we dusted the pollen off, on order."
"I never heard anything so impossible."
"Why is it impossible? We don"t a.s.sociate intelligence with plants, because plants have no nervous systems; but these might have. Remember the fleshy buds on the stems? Also, plants aren"t free-moving; but they don"t have to be if they develop psionic powers and can make use of free-moving animals. They get cared for, fertilized, irrigated, pollinated, and so on. The animals tend them with single-minded devotion and are happy over it because the plants make them feel happy."
"I"m sorry for you," said Smith in a monotone. "If you try to tell this story back on Earth, I"m sorry for you."
"I have no illusions," muttered Chouns, "yet-what can I do but try to warn Earth. You see what they do to animals."
"They make slaves of them, according to you."
"Worse than that. Either the tailed creatures or the snake-things, or both, must have been civilized enough to have developed s.p.a.ce travel once; otherwise the plants couldn"t be on both planets. But once the plants developed psionic powers (a mutant strain, perhaps), that came to an end. Animals at the atomic stage are dangerous. So they were made to forget; they were reduced to what they are. -d.a.m.n it, Smith, those plants are the most dangerous things in the universe. Earth must be informed about them, because some other Earthmen may be entering that cl.u.s.ter."
Smith laughed. "You know, you"re completely off base. If those plants really had us under control, why would they let us get away to warn the others?"
Chouns paused. "I don"t know." Smith"s good humor was restored. He said, "For a minute you had me going, I don"t mind telling you."
Chouns rubbed his skull violently. Why were were they let go? And for that matter, why did he feel this horrible urgency to warn Earth about a matter with which Earthmen would not come into contact for millennia perhaps? they let go? And for that matter, why did he feel this horrible urgency to warn Earth about a matter with which Earthmen would not come into contact for millennia perhaps?
He thought desperately and something came glimmering. He fumbled for it, but it drifted away. For a moment he thought desperately that it was as though the thought had been pushed pushed away: but then that feeling, too, left. away: but then that feeling, too, left.
He knew only that the ship had to remain at full thrust, that they had to hurry.
So. after uncounted years, the proper conditions had come about again. The protospores from two planetary strains of the mother plant met and mingled, sifting together into the clothes and hair and ship of the new animals. Almost at once the hybrid spores formed; the hybrid spores that alone had all the capacity and potentiality of adapting themselves to a new planet.
The spores waited quietly, now, on the ship which, with the last impulse of the mother plant upon the minds of the creatures aboard, was hurtling them at top thrust toward a new and ripe world where free-moving creatures would tend their needs.
The spores waited with the patience of the plant (the all-conquering patience no animal can ever know) for their arrival on a new world-each, in its own tiny way, an explorer- The stories in this book have not been much anthologized. That is the very reason I have chosen them, and it was one of the points Doubleday urged on me. EACH AN EXPLORER has, however, been anthologized twice, once by Judith Merril in 1957 and once by Vic Ghidalia in 1973.
That still isn"t much, though. Some of my stories tend to appear many times. A little story I wrote called THE FUN THEY HAD has appeared, to date, at least forty-two times since it was first published, in 1951, and is currently in press for eight more appearances. It may have appeared in other places, too, but I only have forty-two in my library.
You can find the story, if you wish, in my book EARTH IS ROOM ENOUGH (Doubleday, 1957). That"s one of the forty-two places.
Editors are always trying to think up gimmicks. Sometimes I am the victim.