He opened the door to the vat room, motioned her inside. Hace wrinkled her nose in automatic distaste at the odor of the preservative, said, “It’s very strange. How could any creature affect a human mind in that manner?”
“I don’t know,” Colgrave said. “But it isn’t important now.” He followed her in, closing the door behind him, went on, “Now this will be rather unpleasant, so let’s get it over with.”
She glanced back at him. “Get what over with, Colgrave?”
“You’re getting the ride to Earth you said you wanted,” Colgrave told her, “but you’re riding along with the crew down there.”
Hace whirled to face him, her eyes wild with fear.
“Ah—no! Colgrave . . . I . . . you couldn’t . . .”
“I don’t want you awake on the ship,” he told her. “Though I might have thought of some other way of making sure you wouldn’t be a problem if my pilot hadn’t died as he did.”
“What does that have to do with me?” Her voice was shrill. “Didn’t I try to help you in the control room?”
“You played it smart in the control room,” Colgrave said. “But you would have gone into the vat with the first group if I hadn’t thought you might be useful in some way.”
“But why? Am I to blame for what Ajoran did?”
Colgrave shrugged. “I’m not sorry for what happened to Ajoran. But I’m not stupid enough to think that a Ralan intelligence agent would go out in a spacesuit to help look for me, leaving the ship in charge of a couple of junior officers. Ajoran went out because he was ordered to do it. And there were a few other things. What they add up to, lady, is that you were the senior agent in this operation. And it would suit you just fine to get back to Rala with the Sigma File, and no one left alive to tell how you almost let it get away from you.”
Hace wet her lips, her eyes darting wildly about his face.
“Colgrave, I . . .” she started to plead.
“No,” Colgrave said. He placed his hand flat against her chest, shoved hard. Hace went stumbling backward toward the open drop hole of the vat. There was a scream and a splash. He walked over and looked down. The oily surface was smooth again. He slammed the cover down over the drop hole, sealed it and left the room.
A bout two hours had passed.
The Talada hung in space near the fringes of the solar system which contained the fleegle world. Colgrave had completed his studies of the ship’s navigational system. It was a standard setup for long-range vessels, self-locating, self-focussing. Once he got the raider under way, there would be less for him to do than there would have been on the lifeboat.
But there was one more matter to take care of before he left. On the planet he hadn’t dared let himself think about it.
The Talada’s computers knew where the ship was but weren’t registering the fact. For most navigational purposes, it was meaningless. You only had to know where you wanted to go. Carrying out a location check was a separate operation which would take him at least another hour.
The time wouldn’t be wasted, Colgrave thought. Recording the ship’s exact coordinates here might turn out to be as important as getting the Sigma File to Earth—more so . . .
It had been at the other end of the swamp, shortly before he returned to the ship, while the tracker was picking up a man who had got farther than most, that he suddenly had become aware of a glow of greenish luminescence on his left and turned in the saddle to look at it.
There was a wide opening in the forested hillside above the level of the swamp. Colgrave had stared at it with a feeling almost of superstitious fear. A group of fleegles was streaming slowly into it; a few others were emerging. There was a sense of something ordered and arranged stretching far back into the dim green light under the hill. The equivalant of human buildings, he had thought. And beyond them, taller than the structures, he could make out vague, green figures moving hugely about His skin was crawling when the tracker deposited its last captive in the tank, turned and went gliding back toward the center of the swamp. He had a strong conviction he should do nothing whatever to draw attention to himself here. But as the machine came up to a dense thicket which would have shut off his view, Colgrave looked back. The opening in the hill had vanished.
An underground civilization of some kind, and intelligence . . . In all the time man had been in space, there had been no previous recorded contact with another intelligent race.
Perhaps we’ve never taken the time to really look for them, Colgrave thought. Our main business somehow always seems to be fighting among ourselves.
As the coming war with Rala would prevent any immediate action being taken on the report he would make. But some day a scientific expedition would start out from Earth to settle down on the fleegle world and make contact—
Colgrave leaned forward in his chair, pulled the Talada’s locator toward him, snapped it into the computing system, and placed his hand on the activating switch.
Then he went still, head raised, tilted sideways a little in an attitude of listening.
From somewhere, very far away, a huge, quiet voice was addressing him.
“FORGET IT,” it said.
Colgrave gave the locator a puzzled look, pulled it out of the system, stood up and restored it to its casing.
He returned, studied the focal chart which contained Earth briefly once more, then reached out and cut in the main drive. The Talada began to move.
Colgrave settled back in his chair, watching a not very remarkable yellow sun slide slowly away from him in the screen. There was a momentary uneasy feeling that something else was also sliding away . . . something very important that now would be forever lost. Then he forgot it.
THE PORK CHOP TREE
There’s the old saying that “hard work never hurt anyone.” Now the inverse corollary of that . . .
In Research Laboratory 3230 of the Planetary Quarantine Station two thousand miles out from the world of Maccadon, Professor Mantelish of the University League stood admiringly before the quarantine object which had been unloaded from his specimen boat some hours ago. It had been aroused from the state of suspended animation in which he had transported it back to the Hub from its distant native world.
It was a plant-form and a beautiful one, somewhere between a tree and a massive vine in appearance, its thick, gray-sheened trunk curving and twisting up to a point about twenty-five feet above the conditioning container in which it was rooted. Great, heart-shaped leaves of a deep, warm green sprang from it here and there, and near the top was a single huge, white flower cup. A fresh and pleasant fragrance filled the research laboratory.
Mantelish, an immense old man, scratched his scalp reflectively through his thick white hair, his gaze shifting from this point to that about the plant. Then his attention centered on a branch immediately above him where something had begun to move. A heavy, tightly coiled tendril swung slowly out from the branch, unwinding with a snaky motion until it lay flat in the air. Simultaneously, three new leaves, of a lighter green and smaller than the mature ones about them, unfolded along the tendril’s length and spread away from it.
“So it started right in growing again as soon as you woke it up,” a voice said behind Mantelish.
He looked around. A slim, red-headed, good-looking girl in shorts had entered the laboratory and was coming over to him.
“Yes, it did, Trigger,” he said. “As I suspected, it will speed up or slow down its growth and reproduction processes in accordance with the area it finds available to it.”
“Until it’s covered most of a planet,” Trigger said. “Pretty ambitious for a tree!”
“It certainly is a highly prolific and adaptable life form,” Mantelish agreed. He added, “Do you happen to know where Commissioner Tate is at the moment?”
“Dissecting one of the specimens from the other boat,” Trigger said, studying the tree. “I stopped by there just now, and he told me not to come in . . . what he was doing was pretty gooey and I wouldn’t wan
t to see it. He said he’d be along in a few minutes. There was something he wanted to find out about the thing.” She nodded at the tree. “Have you fed pretty baby those slow-down hormones you were talking about?”
The professor consulted his watch, said, “An hour and a half ago. They’re having the expected effect. The new branch you saw it put out is the only indication of growth it’s given during the past twelve minutes.”
He put the watch away, added, “Of course, we have to be absolutely certain that its growth can be controlled at will before the species is released for the general use of the public. And, more importantly, that the steps I have in mind to deprive it of its methods of random proliferation—in particular its propagation through the release of air-borne seeds—are completely dependable. Otherwise, our beautiful tree might become a definite nuisance on any Hub world to which it is introduced.”
Trigger smiled. “I can see it wouldn’t be at all convenient to have it around full size in most places! But it’s impossible for me to imagine anyone considering it a nuisance.”
Mantelish scratched his chin. “Nooo-oo,” he said slowly. “Nonetheless, it would be unwise to allow it to spread to the point where it began to crowd out native species. And, in many instances, it would undoubtedly be capable of doing just that.
“Everybody who has a garden is going to want to have one of them,” Trigger said. “You hear that, pet?” She stepped out on the conditioning container, and ran her palms lightly up along the tree’s trunk. “You’re not only about the most completely edible thing around,” she told it, “and you’re not only beautiful—you also have a wonderful personality! You’re going to be a great big fad everywhere in the Federation.”
The professor laughed. “You’re crooning to it, Trigger!”
“I feel like crooning to it,” Trigger said. “I feel very affectionate toward it! Did I tell you that on the trip back, when it was in stasis and I couldn’t go near it, I’d dream about the trees every few nights?”
“No.”
“Well, I did. There I’d be climbing around in that wonderful forest again, or stretching out for a nap on one of the really big leaves—and they curl up around you so nicely when you lie down on them!” She smiled at Mantelish. “Matter of fact, I think I’ll climb up on baby right now!”
He chuckled. “Go ahead. I, uh, was aware of similar inclinations several times this morning. However, with my weight—”
“If you ate just what you got from the tree for a while,” Trigger told him, “you’d trim down fast!” She bent at the knees, looking upward, leaped, caught one of the branches above her and swung over to a level section of the main trunk. She stood up, grinned back at Mantelish. “See, professor . . . it’s easy!”
“For you, Trigger!” Mantelish said enviously. “I’m afraid I lack the agility.”
Trigger walked along the trunk till it curved up again, then put a hand on either side of it and went up all-fours style like a cat to the next level point. She straightened, reached for the big white flower cup overhead, drew it gently down toward her.
“When did the bud open?” she asked.
“Almost immediately after I brought it out of stasis,” Mantelish said, watching her. “Is it in seed?”
Trigger peered into the cup.
“Full of seeds,” she reported. “But they’re still soft and unfeathered . . . Poor baby! They’re not going to let you puff those away on the wind. You have to become civilized now! Aha!” She reached suddenly back of the flower, plucked something away from it.
“What is it?” Mantelish asked.
Trigger held up a shiny black globe between forefinger and thumb.
“A bunch of the black cherry things! My favorites!” She released the flower, sat down sideways on the trunk, legs dangling, a dozen of the cherry things in her left hand. She popped one into her mouth, munched, eyes blissfully half closed.
“Very good!” she observed. “Oh, by the way . . .”
“The reports on the samples I sent back?” Mantelish asked. “Yes, they’re here. They confirm officially what we already knew . . . almost every part of the tree has a high nutritional value for the human organism. Even the trunk is given a rating equivalent to that of the noble fungi; but, of course, it is greatly surpassed in that respect by various types of the blossoms and fruits.”
“And if you’re thirsty,” Trigger said, “you can drink sap from the creepers. Then, every few days, there’s something new coming out, so you could get your meals from one tree all your life and never get tired of the diet! The food industry is going to hate this, I think . . .”
Mantelish grinned, said, “There are also other attractions.”
“Yes. It’s very decorative. It makes temporary hammocks out of its leaves for you, and the big trees even have cubbyholes in the trunk where you can sit when it’s raining too hard outside. The special thing though is that you have the feeling you’re welcome to everything—that the trees like people and want them to be around.”
“Well . . .” Mantelish cleared his throat. “I have had that feeling on occasion. Or thought I had. And others have reported it. However . . .”
Trigger said, “I had the feeling very strongly all the time we were there.” She patted the trunk beside her. “And I’m getting it—very strongly—from baby right now. It’s glad I’m sitting up here with it again.”
“That seems a little fanciful, Trigger,” Mantelish said. “Feelings of that nature can be produced by the imagination, you know.”
“Yes, I do know that,” Trigger said. “But I don’t think it’s imagination in this case. And it wouldn’t be too surprising, would it? There the trees are, the most highly evolved form of life on their world—in fact, probably the only form of life there you could call highly evolved. Everything else we saw was about as dull as a creature can get.”
“Compared to their counterparts on more competitive worlds, those other organisms might seem uninteresting,” Mantelish conceded. “However, they are simply overspecialized. They show the apparent simplicity of true parasites. With the tree’s forests almost covering the planet, there would be no need, of course, for other species to develop beyond the point where they could obtain their nourishment from it.”
Trigger said, “And the trees don’t seem to mind feeding all the rest of the planet, or they wouldn’t be so edible. But I think they would like more interesting guests around for a change, and that’s why they try to let us know we’re welcome. The Federation should make that whole world a vacation land, professor! They could put big, fast ships on the run and bring people in by the thousands for a month or so. Families with children, honeymooners, and especially people who feel run-down or tensed up—it would be wonderful for everybody! The meals would be free, and the trees would love it . . .”
She looked over at the entrance door, smiled, said, “Hi, Holati! We were discussing . . . anyway I was . . . what could be done with the tree world.”
“That’s a good question,” said Commissioner Tate.
Trigger stood up and half walked, half slid down along the tree’s thick serpent trunk to the ground while Holati Tate came across the laboratory toward them. The commissioner was a small, lean, elderly man, deeply tanned and nattily dressed, who had organized and headed the Federation expedition investigating the planet of the trees. He’d accompanied Professor Mantelish and Trigger back to the Hub in the expedition’s second specimen boat, crammed with assorted organisms for the biologists. “Got several bits of news for you,” he said.
“What about?” Mantelish asked expectantly.
The commissioner glanced up at the tree. “In a way,” he said, “about our little friend here. A transmitter call reached my boat from Expedition HQ while we were coming in on Maccadon, around six hours ago. One thing they reported was that three members of the paleontological team we left digging around down there have walked off the job.”
“Walked off the job?” Trigger said.
“Yes,�
� said Holati Tate. “That was a few days ago. They left a note which said, in effect, not to bother them. They’d decided they’d found the world of their dreams, and they weren’t coming back.”
“You can hardly blame them,” Trigger said.
“No. However, I’ve notified the Space Scout Patrol Command. They have a squadron cruising about they can get over to the planet in under a week with instructions to pick up our three strays and bring them back to the Hub. They won’t have gone far, of course.” He smiled briefly. “All they want to do is prowl around the trees and be happy. They’ll be found somewhere within a mile of the camp.”
“I suppose so,” Trigger said hesitantly. She paused, frowning, went on. “But do we really have any right, legal or otherwise, to interfere with them if that’s their decision? It’s not an off-limits world. Why shouldn’t they just be considered the first settlers there? After all, human beings would get everything they needed from the trees to live as well as they could anywhere else.”
The commissioner said thoughtfully, “So they could. Well, there’s the second part of the report I had. Tho paleontologists haven’t been looking for anything of the kind, of course, but they came across a couple of ruins and have begun to uncover them.”
“Ruins?” Mantelish repeated, surprised.
“Yes,” said the commissioner. “Those three wouldn’t be the first human settlers on that world, Trigger. The ruins are about eight hundred years old, and there’s enough to show quite definitely that they were once occupied by human beings.
“I started thinking about that. It would be one of the groups which pushed out from the Old Territory during the period the Hub was being settled. Interstellar drives and transmitters weren’t too efficient at the time, so I got in contact with the Space Charting Bureau and had them run me a check on an area around the trees’ world representing a week’s cruising range for us. An early colonial group that wanted to settle a number of worlds but still stay in contact among themselves shouldn’t have scattered any farther than that.
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