Collected Tales (Jerry eBooks)

by Leslie F Stone

  After studying the creature some more and feeling that they had learned all there was to learn of this specimen, they turned the full power of the torch Upon it, so that it faded entirely from their view, its chemicals allying themselves with the air about. Now the party was faced with the problem of protecting themselves from like thieves. Others may have tasted the blood of the mitu and would come seeking more, but in the days that followed, though they saw quite a number of the great insects winging overhead from time to time, they went about unmolested.

  The fourth day after the killing of the big drone another descended into the clearing, but shied away when it saw the human beings, instead of coming to attack. Two others were shot down, one by Urto, who saw it descending close to the picketed mitu, and the other by Ubca, when he saw it descending just above Elsie’s head one morning as she lay stretched beside the river bank entertaining her son with stories of earth. They only learned later that they really had nothing to fear from the monstrous bees.

  CHAPTER VIII

  The Yadians

  WITH the bringing down of the first bee Moura had straightway questioned Elsie concerning all she knew about the strange insects. Elsie told him of all she had observed with her own bees, but she was only familiar with their appearance and with their honey-gathering instinct, but she recalled that among her books was a volume of Maeterlinck’s “Life History of the Bee,” and she brought it out for his perusal.

  Moura spent some time with the book, digesting all the essayist, playwright and naturalist had to say about the genus hymenoptera. He was struck by their seeming intelligence, their highly developed social structure, their engineering and mathematical capabilities. It was the first time he had been awakened to the fact that insects were so analogous to man in their efforts to establish for the community a positive factor in the scheme of things, and he was struck by the wonder of creatures who so little considered the individual as to make it merely a unit in the chain for the future, learning from them again the futility of putting self above the welfare of the community.

  Seeking Elsie again, he asked if she had other books dealing with the history of other insects of her world, and in turn she brought forth W. J. Holland’s “Butterfly World” and Darwin’s “Voyage of the Beagle,” but nothing else dealing with what he wanted, and Moura had to be content with what these offered. However, he gave orders that the next giant bee to descend in the clearing was not to be molested unless it was belligerent, but that he should be called instead.

  It was two days before one of the creatures again appeared in the clearing, descending to draw the honey from the beautiful flower whose petals were a brilliant green, its heart scarlet. Once only it turned its great many-faceted eyes upon the three who were in the clearing at the moment—Ubca, Elsie and Ezra—but with seeming unconcern it plunged its long tongue into the heart of the flower. So as not to startle it, no one moved or spoke, and Ubca called Moura forth through the medium of the mind only. Moura came to the door of the Yodverl immediately, and on seeing the insect nodded gravely but said no word as he turned toward it. Finished now with the first blossom, the bee turned, ready to seek another, and they watched as it sucked the flower dry of its honeyed water. Then it seemed ready to take wing, to return to its nest and disgorge the supply of honey with which it had filled its storage stomach, but instead of lifting its wings they saw it cock its ugly inhuman head to one side, then slowly and deliberately wheel about on its feet until its eyes swung to Moura’s face. A quiver ran through its gauzy wings, transparent, but heavy enough to sustain its weight in flight, but it did not retreat immediately and took two or three faltering steps toward Moura. Again it hesitated, and now they could hear the deep drone that came from its thorax as the creature began to sway slightly from side to side. For perhaps two minutes this continued, and then it raised its wings and zoomed over their heads, gaining altitude so that it cleared the bulk of the Yodverl and sailed away beyond the trees.

  Moura turned to his companions. “I find that the creature has a very small amount of intelligence, such as we know it, and that on the other hand its brain has two highly developed centers that control all its movements and act upon the creature as a control of its faculties. I should say that this is nothing more than an inherited trait, its instinct, as one would call it. However, there is also that part of the brain that is open to new impressions, that gives it a slight degree of animal intelligence, allowing it to communicate with its fellows for its simple wants, and to accept orders from a controlling force. And from it I was enabled to learn that in the nest there is some type of controlling force.

  “I note in the reference you gave me, Elsie, the observers of the apiary have never been able to discover in what this control of the hive lies, knowing the Queen to be a mere reproductive machine with a brain, sacrificed to her regenerative organs, and have instead perforce been driven to giving the leadership of the bees either to Divine Interference or simply to Nature or instinct itself. However, if these hymenoptera are akin to those of Earth, I believe we shall discover some new secrets for your apiarists.

  “As the bee is capable of receiving commands, I have dispatched her to her hive, there to communicate with her fellows what she has observed. If the hive contains this leader, and I am more than certain that it will, we will soon have a second visitor. From what I already gathered from the complicated brain cells of our messenger, I am certain that the creatures already visited here, or even those who saw the destruction of their fellow, were not so much as cognizant of what really occurred, taking it, as they take the presence of our ship, as a circumstance outside of their own province. Thus their leader, who more than likely rarely if ever leaves the hives, is totally unaware of what has transpired out here.

  “Maybe my suppositions are wrong and my conclusions are unlikely . . . we can only wait and see.”

  But three hours later Moura’s uncanny conjectures were to prove themselves correct, in the appearance of the four visitors who came to the clearing. Elsie was just finished arranging Ezra for his afternoon nap. Everyone but Moura was in the ship, and Elsie, on coming to the doorway, was surprised and at first frightened when she saw the four creatures facing her husband. Then she saw there was nothing to fear; that Moura was again proving the power of his mind. Two of the bees she recognized as the ordinary worker bee, who stood a little distance from the man and the two smaller bees with which he appeared to be in conference. Studying these two creatures, she saw where they differed from the ordinary bee, being almost half the size of the others, with smaller eyes, but heads twice as large as their companions. Nor were their wings as well developed as those of the workers. Rather they appeared almost rudimentary, scarcely able to sustain their flight. Later, when she saw them climb to the backs of the larger bees when they were ready for flight, she understood a little more of them and realized what they were.

  Now to her ears came a sound scarcely audible to her earthly ears, a sound so high in the scale as to seem half an illusion to her and which made her wonder if she truly heard. Moura, she saw, was all interest, his eyes intense as he gathered the tale the strange little bees were telling him. Ubca came to the door and stood with her as she watched the silent communion. Once or twice Ubca exclaimed at something, for he, too, heard the emanations that came to him from the bees’ brain, but it was often difficult for him to translate it all to his own understanding.

  FIFTEEN minutes later, when the bees took their departure, with the two small deformed bees on the backs of the two ordinary bees, Moura sought to explain to the others what he had just learned. He was silent for a while as he collected his thoughts and arranged them for the others to understand, but his eyes shone as they always did when he had made some astounding discovery, and he spoke as one who is thinking aloud.

  “It is as I surmised. Strangely enough no earthly apiarist has been able to discover it for himself as yet. The hive has a brain, as demonstrated by these two queer little creatures that are but a s
ection of the brain that controls the welfare of the hive . . .” He looked up and faced his audience. “That is what it is—these two malformed bees are no more than two of the brain’s segments, of which I gathered there are from twenty to thirty altogether. It is hazy to me as yet, and I must ponder it more, but I think I can understand it.

  “Controlled by them, receiving the unspoken command front the brain, the creatures of the hive perform their duties as they are directed. And front what I can judge so far, nothing is left to chance . . . to instinct; everything that is accomplished in the hive is the premeditated course as laid out by these smaller creatures, who are born to determine the destiny of the hive. To each act of the worker bees one of these brain segments is the controlling force. Those working in the honey are controlled by their monitor, the wax-workers instructed by the proper foremen, the day’s foragers are dispatched upon their duties by command, to bring certain honey front certain flowers, pollen for the bees’ bread, and the chemist who measures the portion of formic acid for the preservation of the honey store does not act without orders from the brain.

  “Nothing can go on in the hive without the directing force of this segmented brain, the number of drones that the Queen is to produce, the number of young princesses, the need for new combs, new cells, the hour for the swarm when the present hive is filled to overflowing and there is no more room for the thousands of adult bees with the cells filled with young bees ready to emerge. Of course, this brain is not infallible, any more than any animal’s brain is infallible. It makes its mistakes that have to be corrected, else the hive suffers. But since the brain segments are born to perform their duties, they know no other life and follow out the trend of their destiny as best they can.

  “Elsie, in your study of your beehives at home, did you never have occasion to note that in the Queen’s retinue, as she went about her work of depositing her eggs, that she was always followed and surrounded by the distorted smaller bees, such as the two you saw here today?”

  Elsie shook her head. “No, I was never particularly observant, Moura, and you know that unless one is a trained observer with a glass hive it is difficult ever to see the Queen unless she is about to swarm, at which time she is so thoroughly surrounded by her guard that it is difficult to make out any details of her, let alone of those that accompany her.”

  Moura nodded his head.

  “Of course, it is difficult for us to ascertain whether the facts true of the bees of Earth are the same for these monster ones of Kal, but we can conjecture that the genus hymenoptera is the same the universe over, just as man is the same as far as we of Earth and Abrui have discovered, and there is only the difference in color and brain-lobes to differentiate them. No doubt the entomologists of Earth have never discovered the brain segments of the hive because they haven’t looked for them, and if they saw one stray they merely recognized it as a deformity.”

  “But, Moura, how can the brain segments, as you call them, develop in the hive? We know that as an egg the queen bee does not differ from the worker until it is given particular food to develop it, and that the drone hatches from her unfertilized egg. How, then, do the brain segments come into being?”

  “I did not have the time to go into that thoroughly,” said Moura, “but from the two creatures’ brains I believe that they themselves control the birth of their young in some secret way, innoculating the newly-laid ordinary worker egg of the queen with some virus from their bodies when they know the necessity for the birth of fresh brain matter.

  “These two creatures, who visited us, appear to be that section of the brain that controls memory and the future welfare of the hive. When the worker we dispatched arrived in the hive they immediately received its impressions of the strangers in their midst. They became fearful of our intentions and did an unprecedented thing in leaving the hive to investigate for themselves!

  “I suggested to them the thought that they invite us to the hive so that we may inspect it for ourselves, so don’t be surprised if we receive another visit from the Yadians, as they designate themselves, with an invitation to call upon them shortly.”

  Elsie and Ubca were filled with questions now, and Moura found himself called upon to tell more that he learned of the creatures.

  “Do you believe,” demanded Ubca, “that the creature we came to seek here on this planet is of this race of beings, Sa Dak?” His voice was filled with concern and bewilderment.

  CHAPTER IX

  What Moura Had Learned from the Yadians

  SLOWLY Moura shook his head. “To tell you the truth, Tor, I do not know. I have already asked myself the same question. As yet I have made no attempt to communicate with the one we came to seek, so I can tell you nothing of him, but I have the suspicion that he is not. The vague impression that I obtained of him upon Venus leads me to believe him different from these bee creatures. In the first place, I am more than certain that he is a male, not the sexless thing that the bee-life presents to us. And because of his intelligence, the power of the mind I met across space, he cannot be a drone bee, but one with fully developed faculties of thought and perception. No, I am almost certain he is not of them but rather of one of the other species of beasts that inhabit this world.

  “Then there are others?”

  “Yes there are, for while communicating with our two visitors I felt the impression of another type of creatures that they are aware of and have had dealings with. But look, our friends are returning!”

  Glancing upward, the others followed Moura’s eyes and saw that perhaps a dozen bees were winging toward them. On the backs of three of them they could see three smaller bees crouching, their own rudimentary wings incapable of bearing them aloft. One by one the three carrier bees alighted before the Yodverl to allow their riders to climb off, while the remaining bees alighted here and there about the clearing, causing discomfiture to the mitu, who were grazing near by. Moura called out to them in their own language, and they calmed down under his assurance that all was well. Then he turned to the three intelligent bees.

  For a short space of time they regarded the strange silver man before them, with their large composite eyes that for all their size were smaller than that of the ordinary bee about them, and near-sighted. In fact, the bright light of Kal’s brilliant sun appeared to bother them as they shook their heads occasionally. And Moura sensed their discomfort. Looking toward the Yodverl’s doorway, he meditated as to whether the creatures would be willing to go within. Turning to them, he made the suggestion mentally, picturing for them the dimmer inner chambers of the ship. He was rewarded by the immediate action of the three bees toward the doorway and hurried to lead them in.

  He did not take them beyond the anteroom, but seated himself at his desk and faced the three insects, who ranged themselves before him, paying no attention to his companions, who had come behind and unobtrusively took chairs against the wall.

  Moura now gave his full attention to the brains, knowing no better name to designate them by, and recognized that the creature between the two was their leader. It was true, for now he “heard” the impulses from that creature’s brain, which his own brain in turn translated into words he could grasp. For the next hour he communicated with it in that manner, though he found that it was necessary for him to “project” his own thoughts upon the bee’s mind, for it did not have the power to translate the thoughts for itself, but had to depend, instead, on the pictures he gave it. It was a strange dialogue, and at times Moura was hard put to it, to understand fully the other’s consciousness, for, being creatures of two vastly different species with a different standard of values and intelligence, comprehension of the other’s mind was sometimes vague.

  It was difficult for Moura to explain to the beast from whence they had come, and afterward he was not certain that it understood; but since it did not question him he did not bother to explain further. There was only one thing that the brain appeared to have assurance for, and that was to know that the Solarites meant her
people no harm. Moura pictured for her (the bee had given him to understand that the brain segments like the worker bees were sexless but with female potentialities) the act of the renegade drone who had stolen the mitu and which they perforce had had to kill.

  The brain had no comment to make upon the killing, but instead communicated to Moura that there had been a murdering of the worthless drones in the hive that had outlived their usefulness, but that several of them had escaped from their irate sisters. This drone, then, was one of them and his going was negligible—in fact, rather welcome.

  Moura therefore went on to interrogate the bee about the planet, attempting to learn all that it was conscious of. In this he found a number of difficulties, for it was to be seen that the creature’s perception was not clear, and it knew only of things that pertained to the hive. He was almost ready to give up the experiment when suddenly he caught something of interest from the creature’s brain.

  FOLLOWING up this lead, he discovered something of what he had wanted to know. It was a word he was incapable of translating that had caught his interest, a word that sounded to him like “Dada.” Immediately he put the question to the bee, demanding to know what a “Dada” might be. At the question the other two companion brains began to nod, moving nervously on their feet, and to the three Solarites came the sound of shrill, high-pitched voices, so high that it was only occasionally that they caught the vibration of sound.

  After a few minutes their excitement had subsided, and now the middle bee turned again to his interlocutor, and Moura learned some of the history of the Dadans and Yadians.

  It appeared that a long time ago, many thousands of generations ago, the planet had been literally overrun with creatures of all descriptions, beasts such as Moura could not name. Then it was not a happy world, for the myriad creatures warred upon each other, battling each for its life, one feeding on the other, and of them all the bee colonies suffered most greatly, since they were not bloodthirsty, subsisting instead on the bounty of nature, the sweet water of the flowers. Still, they defended themselves valiantly and courageously, but the most victorious of all the battlers were the Dadans, who had organized themselves into great bands that warred on all other species alike until the time came when only those they wished to live could do so. And they were still the conquerors, demanding yearly tribute from the Yadians, quantities of the royal jelly that they sent for each year, and because the Yadians were peaceable, and because the Dadans held to their own territory beyond the boundary of the high mountains and kept the world free of the more vicious maurauders, the Yadians were glad of the arrangement and handed over a store of their precious royal jelly without question.