Young Star Travelers

by Isaac Asimov

  The working parties dispersed. Those whose work took them to the laboratory sheds tried to concentrate on it. Ricky, who had decided that this was not a morning for wrestling with lessons, slipped off to see if Barney wanted any odd jobs done, and was sent to pick fresh beans in the hydroponics shed.

  The mechanical job helped to keep his mind steady. Having once got out of a nightmare, it was creeping round him again. This time with a difference.

  There had got to be an explanation somewhere.

  When he had left the house in Antarctica he had seemed to leave all his troubles behind. No more need to keep a continual watch on himself, in case he let something out. No more temptation, when in spite of himself he had put his foot in it again, to come out with something really startling and see what they could do about it. He was free. He had been free for months.

  Then it started happening all over again. He had heard all sorts of scientific gossip—people here talked shop all the time. How was he to know what he’d heard and what he didn’t? How could he stop this happening again, now that whatever it was had followed him out here?

  There was just one ray of hope. He couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with what happened to Barney. If he could only find out what did that, some real solid explanation he could show everybody, then he might somehow be able to tell someone of the way he seemed to pick up knowledge without noticing it, knowledge he had no right to have—

  Anyway, doing something was better than just sitting and waiting for things to go wrong again.

  He delivered the beans to the kitchen and wandered out. The raw, red earth of the clearing shone like paint in the sun. In places he could still see the traces of Barney’s big feet, going and coming, leading into the forest. There, among the black leaves and blacker shadows, lurked some real, genuine, tangible menace you could go for with a stick. There was a good supply of sticks stacked by his father’s cabin for the benefit of the working parties. Ricky provided himself with one.

  Big Sword had finished drinking—or bathing, whichever way you looked at it—and had climbed out of the diminished pool in the leaf-cup to spread his membranes in the sun. He looked like a big bat, lying spread out on the leaf. The black webs that stretched between his arms and legs and his sides would snap back into narrow rolls when he wanted to move, but when he extended them to catch the sunlight they covered a couple of square feet. They absorbed all the light in the visible range and well into the ultra-violet and infra-red. Like most organisms on Lambda, Big Sword supported himself by a very efficient photosynthesis.

  He had only just begun to make up for the wear and tear of the night—continuous activity in the dark was exhausting—when he felt the call out of the forest.

  “Longfoot is going, Big Sword. Longfoot is going on the Journey. You wished to see. Come quickly!”

  Big Sword’s membranes snapped into thin ridges along his arms and legs and he bounded off among the trees. The Long Journey was mysterious to him, as it was to all of the People before the urge actually came to them—but the rest were content to leave it as a mystery. Big Sword wanted to know more.

  He came in flying leaps to the edge of the forest where the trees stopped short on the edge of the Great Rift. Some twenty or so of the People were gathered on the edge of the sheer cliff. Longfoot sat among them, his legs twitching occasionally with the urge to be off. As Big Sword arrived Longfoot shot to his feet, eager to depart.

  “Where are you going?” demanded Big Sword. “What will you find over there, Longfoot? Why do you want to cross the waste, with no water and no shade? You will be dried to a stick before you get halfway across.”

  But Longfoot’s mind was shut off; he had no longer any interest in Big Sword, or the People, or the danger to the Tree. He did not know why he had to go down on to the waste of boulders and small stones, but the urge could no longer be resisted. He dropped over the edge of the cliff, bouncing from ledge to ledge until he reached the bottom, and set off across the wide, rock-strewn plain, along the lines of shadow cast by the newly risen sun.

  Big Sword watched him sadly. He himself was nearly a year away from feeling that call which had come to Longfoot, and the thought of his own journeying did not trouble him yet. He had been warned early of the dangers of going out on to the waste and, with the habit of logical thought strongly cultivated in him, he was troubled about what would happen. The waste stretched almost as far as he could see—at least twelve miles. At the end of it was the dark line which might have been a far-off continuation of the forest. But why Longfoot should have wished to go there, or the many thousands of the People who had made that journey before him, Big Sword could not see.

  He went back into the forest and found another perch on the edge of the clearing. Few of the Big People were in sight. He was conscious of vague alarms emanating from those who were within reach—it was an emotion foreign to his experience, but he disliked it. He wondered how to set about detaching a specimen from the group, since the direct method had proved unsuitable.

  He became suddenly and sharply aware that one had detached itself already and was coming slowly toward him.

  Ricky had seen the little black figure sail out of the shadows and land on an equally black leaf. It took all his concentration to make it out when it had stopped moving, but he at last managed to fix its position. Slowly, casually, he wandered toward it, observing it out of the corner of his eye.

  Its body was a blob perhaps four inches long and its head about half of that, joined on by a short neck. It rested on its bent forelimbs and the hind legs stuck up like those of a grasshopper; they looked to be at least twice as long as trunk and head together. As he sidled closer, Ricky could make out the big convex eyes, gray with black slitlike pupils, filling more than half the face. Ricky knew the fauna list of Lambda by heart; this creature was not on it. It must be one of Barney’s “little devils” all right.

  The creature sat quietly on its big leaf as he approached, with no sign of having noticed him. Now it was just within his reach if he stretched up. One more step and he would be right under it—ahhhh!

  He had only begun to grab when Big Sword bounced over his head, landed lightly on the ground behind him and leaped sideways into another tree.

  Ricky turned, slowly, and began his careful stalk again. He was murmuring softly to himself, coaxing words derived from rabbit and guinea-pig owners of his acquaintance: “Come on, come on! Come to uncle. He won’t hurt you. Nothing to be afraid of. Come on, you little brute. Come—”

  Big Sword sailed away from his grasping hand to land on a branch ten feet farther into the forest.

  Ricky had entirely forgotten the prohibition on leaving the clearing; he had forgotten everything except the desire to get hold of this creature, to have it close enough to examine, to hold it gently in his hand and get it tame. His stick lay forgotten on the earth outside the forest.

  Big Sword was getting irritated and slightly flustered. It was easy enough to avoid getting caught, but he didn’t wish to play tag with this creature, he wanted to tame it, to make it understand him. And its mind seemed to be shut. What was more, every so often it would begin that infuriating blowing process which seemed to drain away its thoughts out of his reach. To know when it was going to grab he had to watch it the whole time. Finally he took refuge on a branch ten feet above its head and sat down to consider.

  Ricky, at the bottom of the tree, was experiencing all the emotions of a dog which has treed a squirrel and now has to persuade it to come within reach. Apparently he was licked. If only the little beast would drop on to that branch there—where that applelike .object was—and begin to eat it, perhaps, so that it could forget he was there . . .

  Suddenly, the little brute did. At least it dropped to the lower branch and put its long-fingered hands on the round knob. Ricky’s mouth opened in amazement.

  His hands itched, but he kept them firmly at his sides. Perhaps he had been standing there so long it had forgotten about him and th
ought he was part of the landscape. Perhaps if he spread his arms out very, very slowly it would take them for branches and—

  Something like a small explosion happened inside his head. He blinked and gasped, forgetting all about immobility. He froze again hastily, expecting the creature to be out of sight. But it was still there.

  Big Sword observed this reaction to his vehement negative with stirrings of hope. The idea of doing what this creature wanted, as a means of starting communication by demonstration, had seemed a singularly forlorn one. But the Big Creature had clearly noticed something.

  Big Sword decided that it was time to try a suggestion of his own. He thought—hard—on the proposition that the Big Creature should turn around and look the other way.

  The Big Creature ducked its head and blinked its eyes again. Big Sword got the impression that these reactions were caused by the strength of his thought. He tried again, gently.

  Something was getting through. Weakly, faintly he felt a negative reply. The Big Creature refused to turn its back.

  Big Sword put out another suggestion. Let the Big Creature take one step sideways, away from him.

  Hesitantly, the Big Person did. Big Sword copied its direction in a joyful leap and ended on a level with the creature’s head.

  The next thought reached him, fuzzy but comprehensible. “If you understand me, put your hands on top of your head.”

  Watching suspiciously for any sudden move, Big Sword obeyed. The posture was not one he could keep up for long without losing his balance, but he felt the sudden surge of excitement in the Big Creature and was encouraged.

  “Now watch! I shall sit down on the ground. Do you understand what that means? I’m going to sit down.”

  The Big Creature folded up in an awkward way; its knees were on the wrong side of its body, but Big Sword recognized the operation. He followed it with a thought of his own.

  “I will spread my membranes out.”

  The Big Creature’s astonishment was a dazzling shock and he put out a protest. In reply came something which could be an apology. He sharpened his thoughts and put out the next one with all the clearness at his command.

  “We have proved that we can make contact. Now we have to practice thinking to and fro until we understand clearly.”

  He had just felt the other’s incoherent agreement when the interruption began. Another of the Big Creatures came lumbering between the trees.

  “Ricky! Scatter my stuffing, what are you doing here? You’ll be in the doghouse for sure. Do you want Barney’s little black devils to carry you away?”

  Ricky scrambled to his feet in alarm.

  “Sorry, Dr. Woodman, I forgot. I was . . . looking at things and I came in here without thinking. I’m awfully sorry.”

  “No harm done. Come out before we have any more alarms and excursions.”

  Big Sword felt an impulse of despair from the Big Creature which he had at last succeeded in taming; it seemed to regret this interruption even more than he did. It was anxious that the second Big Creature should not see him, so he remained still, one dark shape among many and effectively invisible; but he sent a thought after the tame one: “Come again! I will be on the edge of the clearing. Come again!” and was nearly knocked over by the energy of its reply.

  Woodman marched Ricky firmly out of the forest.

  “Now you’re here you may as well be useful. I want to go up to my pet pool and I can’t find a chaperone. If I’ve timed it rightly, we should find something interesting up there.”

  Ricky summoned up a show of polite interest. Normally he would have been delighted.

  “Is it the pseudohydras again?”

  “That’s right. Remember when we saw them catching those things like two-tailed torpedoes?”

  “Yes, but you said all the ones in the pool had been eaten now.”

  “They have. Here we are. Don’t lean over like that— they won’t like your shadow. Lie down. So!”

  Ricky lay on his belly and stared down into the transparent water. Except where it was shadowed it reflected the brilliant blue of the sky; the only thing on Lambda that had a familiar color. He felt, suddenly, stirrings of homesickness, but they vanished quickly. Homesick, when the most wonderful thing possible had just happened? Nonsense!

  He concentrated on the pseudohydras. They lived just where the pool overflowed into a small brown stream. Each consisted mainly of a network of branching white threads, up to six inches long, issuing from a small blobby body anchored on the stones. There were perhaps fifty of them, and together their tentacles made a net across the mouth of the stream which nothing larger than a wheat-grain could escape. The sluggish waters of the stream must all pass through this living mesh, carrying anything unlucky enough to swim out of the pool; the tentacles were immensely sticky and could hold struggling creatures several times the size of the pseudohydra’s own body, until the flesh of the tentacles had flowed slowly around them and enclosed them in a capsule whose walls slowly digested them away.

  “See there?” whispered Woodman.

  Here and there one of the tentacles ended in a transparent, hard-edged blob. Small dark cigar-shaped objects jerked uneasily within it, perhaps a dozen in each little case.

  “It’s caught some more torpedoes!” whispered Ricky.

  “Little tiny ones this time.”

  “Not caught,” answered Woodman. “I thought they’d be ripe today! Watch that one—it’s nearly ready to split.”

  A few minutes later the capsule indicated did split. The tiny torpedo shapes, three or four millimeters long, spilled out into the water. They hovered uncertainly, veering here and there under the uneven propulsion of the water-jets emerging from the two-pronged hind end. Ricky gasped.

  “It’s let them go! And look—there’s one rubbing against a tentacle and not getting caught. What’s happened?”

  Two of the little torpedo shapes came together. They jerked uncertainly round each other, then swiveled to lie parallel. They moved off together.

  Others were paired already. One pair separated as Ricky watched them. The two little torpedoes shot off crazily. One came right under his eyes and he saw that it was emitting a faint milky stream.

  Woodman’s hand came down, holding a pipette. The torpedo veered off. Woodman sucked up a drop of water and held out the pipette.

  “There,” he said softly. Tiny specks, barely visible, floated in the drop.

  “Eggs,” said Woodman.

  “Eggs! But—these are babies. The other ones were much bigger.”

  “So they were, Ricky. Do you know what these are going to hatch into? More torpedoes? Not on your life! Unless there’s something else crazy about the life cycle, these will hatch into little pseudohydras.”

  Ricky rolled over to stare at him. “But what are the big torpedoes, then?”

  “This is how I see it. You know about the reproductive cycles in Coelenterates, back on Earth? Especially hydroids like Obelia and so on? The sessile ones reproduce by budding for a while. Then they start to produce buds, which don’t turn out like the parents. Those break off and go swimming away on their own.

  They feed and get big and in the end they produce eggs or sperm, and the fertilized eggs produce a new sessile generation. Well, here the free-living forms— the torpedoes—are ready to lay eggs as soon as they’re released. They mate a few minutes after hatching and lay eggs as soon as they’re fertilized. But after that they aren’t finished. They go swimming around the pool and feed and get fat. And when they’re full grown, they come swimming back to the old pseudohydras, and the pseudohydras eat them and use the food to produce a whole new crop of little torpedoes. Get it?”

  Ricky scowled. “What a disgusting animal.”

  “Nonsense! It’s a beautiful piece of natural economy. Don’t be a snob, Ricky. Just because no terrestrial organism evolved this way you think it’s unethical. Some Earth creatures beat pseudohydra hollow for nastiness—think of some of the parasites. Think of the barn
acles, degenerate male parasitic on the female. There just aren’t any ethics in evolution except that the species shall survive, if you call that an ethic.”

  Ricky looked at him doubtfully. “We’ve evolved. And we bother about other species, too.”

  Woodman nodded. “We try to—some of us. But our survival has meant that a good many other species didn’t.”

  Something else occurred to Ricky. “This sort of whatsit—alternate generations—has evolved lots of times on Earth, hasn’t it?”

  “Sure. Dozens of different lines evolved it independently, not to mention all the Lambdan forms that have it, and a few on Arcturus III, and some on Roche’s—it’s one of the basic dodges, apparently. One stage makes the most of the status quo and the other acts as an insurance against possible changes. Once a well-balanced set of hereditary characters has appeared it can repeat itself fast by asexual reproduction, without the disorganization of chromosome reassortment and so on. On the other hand, should conditions change, sexually produced population has a much better chance of showing up a few adaptable forms. Some lines of life have dropped the sexual stage, just as some have dropped the asexual, but it probably doesn’t pay in the long run.”

  “How does a stage get dropped?”

  Woodman considered. “I suppose the first stage might go like this: one single asexual stage—one of these pseudohydras, for instance—happens to get isolated. Say all the rest in the pool die off. It can produce its little torpedoes, but there are no mates for them. The pseudohydra goes on reproducing asexually—you’ve seen how they split down the middle—and in the end a mutant form occurs which doesn’t waste its substance producing useless torpedoes and that breeds faster than the others and in the end replaces them. That’s just one way it could happen. In one of the African lakes there used to be annual swarms of jellyfish, all male. One single asexual stage must have got trapped in that lake, God knows how long ago, and it went on producing those useless male jellyfish century after century, while asexual reproduction kept the species going.”