by Ruthven Todd
The Colonel was intent upon taking a photograph of a large blue flower which looked as though it had been made from strips of rag. The flower was behaving in the strangest manner. It bobbed this way and that. Then it would pause and, just as Fred Stone had his camera focussed, it would bob its head again. Coy plants, thought Flyball, and decided against catching up with the Colonel.
He thought it would be pleasant to stretch himself after his long flight. He drove his long sharp claws into the ground. It felt a little like firm putty, which Flyball had seen the men using in fitting windows on the houses on the Moon. But, unlike putty, when he lifted his claws, he found that it had not stuck to his pads or fur. Also, the holes he made in the ground filled up as soon as he took his claws out of them.
He padded around a little clearing. There was no dust here either, he noted. It would be easy in this world for a cat to keep clean.
He sat down and gazed after the Colonel, who was still having difficulty with the shy flower. There was complete silence. Suddenly, Flyball seemed to hear a voice in his head. It was not at all the way he was accustomed to hear voices, for it had not spoken out loud as Fred Stone would have done, so Flyball knew it had nothing to do with him.
“Hello, stranger,” the voice seemed to say, “are you the boss of this expedition?”
“Certainly, voice, most certainly!” Flyball thought back without the least hesitation.
Everyone knows that cats are always the bosses, no matter where they may find themselves. Then Flyball scratched behind his left ear as he considered that he was not being altogether fair.
“Well,” he allowed thoughtfully, “there’s also Fred Stone. That’s him ahead of me, trying to take photographs. I brought him along with me to fly the machine and he thinks he is the boss. That’s all the fault of these people back in Luna Port. They gave him command of the Halley!”
“Good,” the thought came with perhaps the faintest hint of a chuckle. “Bring him back here.”
Flyball scratched behind his right ear. There was something going on which he could not quite understand. He looked at the Colonel who, a few paces ahead, was busy taking shots of the bobbing flower with the shortest possible exposure. It was all very well for the “thought” to tell Flyball to bring back the Colonel, but that guy had a will of his own and might well refuse to come. However, there was no reason why he should not try.
“Miaow!” he said as loudly as he could. All the plants shuddered back violently, drawing away from him as if the sound disturbed or hurt them.
Flyball, who had always believed he had a most melodious miaow, felt rather put out by this behavior of the plants. He would have liked to ask who the plants thought they were? Music critics, perhaps? If so they were poor creatures, with no taste, who could not appreciate the delightful voice of a cat, and a spacecat at that!
“If that really is the only way you can get him,” the thought seemed shaken, “you’d better try again.”
“Mia-er-ow!” Flyball went, even more piercingly, while the plants shook and trembled even more violently than before.
Fred Stone looked back toward him. “What’s up?” he called, and Flyball was comforted when he noticed that the Colonel’s voice had just as disturbing an effect upon the plants as his own delightful one had had. Pods started bursting open all around him, with the softest of tinkles, throwing square purple seeds up into the air.
“Miaow!” went Flyball for the third time, rather more softly, so that the plants only shook a little. The Colonel walked slowly back along the path toward him.
Fred Stone, knowing that Flyball was a most intelligent cat, realized that he would not have called out unless it had been really necessary.
He came back to the clearing where the plants, driven back by the noise of Flyball’s calling, had opened a space round him. The Colonel’s camera was slung round his neck by a strap and he put it behind him in case Flyball needed help.
When Fred Stone reached Flyball he went down on one knee to see what could be the matter.
Then he looked up with a shocked expression on his face. He glanced wildly about him.
“Your boss here called you back,” the thought had come into his mind. “We want to find out about you and your purpose here.”
Colonel Stone looked at Flyball as if he suspected that his friend was playing a very fancy kind of joke at his expense. But Flyball just sat there looking innocent, scratching at his ear, the left one again.
“Do you really mean that you cannot communicate sensibly with one another without all that horrible noise?” the thought went on.
“Oh, you poor, poor creatures.”
Following Flyball’s example the bewildered Fred Stone tugged at the lobe of his ear. Then he shook his head as if to clear it.
“Who are you?” he thought hard. There did not seem to be any point in talking out loud, for the “thought” was certainly noiseless. Besides, he too had noticed that the plants did not like noises and, being a kind man, he did not want to make them any more uncomfortable than he could help.
“Look down,” came the answering thought, and the Colonel looked down at Flyball, who was polishing a whisker to show that, really, he was not in the least surprised.
Unfortunately for his show of disdain, he was polishing the same whisker over and over again as he thought that, since cats knew so much, it would be a pity to let even the Colonel suppose that they did not know all about everything.
“Flyball, you old fraud!” this time he knew it was the Colonel’s thought and not the other. He jumped up in the air in surprise.
Colonel Stone was smiling as he examined a flat, dark green mossy plant with tiny white flowers. His knee had been resting on the edge of this. Now he put his finger against it.
“Yes,” the thought was extremely strong. “I am the one who is in touch with you. When you put your knee on me and your friend, Flyball, had one of his paws resting on me, you were able to read his thoughts and send your own thoughts into his mind. Should you wish to be able to go on doing this, just remove a fragment of my fringe and fasten it to your person and let your companion do the same. It will not hurt or damage me if you do this.”
Obeying instructions, Fred Stone, with his knife, cut off two little pieces of the mossy plant. He slipped one of them under the strap of his wristwatch and tied the other round Flyball’s neck with a piece of tape he took from his pocket.
“Here’s a fine how-do-you-do, Flyball,” he thought. “Thought-reading plants! Are you getting my thoughts?”
“Of course I am,” Flyball thought back in his most dignified manner. “I now know exactly what you’re thinking. And I can’t say I’m sure I like the idea of your being able to break in on all my private thoughts. How do you like the idea of me doing it to you?”
“Hmm. I can see what you mean. Things might get a little difficult,” the Colonel allowed. “But, on the other hand, who would ever have supposed that we’d be able to stand here on Venus, exchanging thoughts at all! And look at it from your own point of view, too, Flyball. Now you’ll be able to let me know exactly what you need to make you comfortable. Up till now I’ve just had to guess. Now there’ll be no more guesswork! Just think of that!”
“Yes, that’s so, Fred,” Flyball replied with great solemnity. “That is if you don’t mind me calling you Fred, do you? After all you call me Flyball and I don’t think of you as Colonel Frederick Stone!”
“Not at all, not at all!” Fred was polite, but his face still bore a bewildered expression as if he could not quite believe what was happening. He had been unable to adjust himself to the new situation as quickly as Flyball, who had taken it as if he had been swapping thoughts with humans all his life.
Once again Fred squatted down on the ground beside the dark moss with the tiny white star-like flowers. He remained there for hours, gathering information about Venus.
It seemed that, while on Earth the animals had become the intelligent form of life, exactly the opposite
had happened on Venus. All around the planet the plants were able to communicate with one another, by exchanging thoughts, so that the plants in one place were able to find out almost at once what was happening in any other place. Even the seaweeds in the bright blue seas were able to play their part in this vast network of thought-exchanging.
As soon as the Halley had landed, the message that there were strangers on the planet had been passed around among the plants and now every plant on Venus was busy listening in to the exchange between Fred and the little moss.
The only kind of animal that was to be found on the whole of Venus was a small blue mouse-like creature with a bushy tail and six legs.
Rather like a mouse, Flyball thought with satisfaction. Even if there were no birds on Venus, at least they did have something rather like a mouse!
“No,” the thought seemed to shudder. “You mustn’t chase them! They’re harmless little creatures and we would not like to have them frightened. We use them for carrying pollen from one of us to the other, feeding them nectar in return, for they can travel more swiftly than we can, although, of course, we can move when we want to do so. Please do not worry them!”
Poor Flyball, who had forgotten for the moment that both the moss and Fred were listening in on his thoughts, felt rather ashamed of himself and hastily promised that come what might, he would respect the rights of any and all Venusian mice whom he met, and that he would even go so far as to offer them the paw of friendship.
After all, he consoled himself, he was the Space Cat and could well afford to leave the chasing of mice to other, lesser, Earth-bound cats. Really, he told himself, mice were beneath his dignity. Birds, on the other hand, ah birds! Now that was another matter. Just wait till he caught up with some birds and he’d show them! A cat trained in space-flight could surely compete with a bird!
It was odd, he realized, that, while he and Fred could only read each other’s thoughts as if they had been words, the moss seemed to be able to get pictures out of their minds, so that they did not have to explain to it what a bird was even though, until the arrival of the Halley, it had never seen a flying creature.
The only things that flew on Venus were the winged seeds of some of the plants. Although these seeds were not really intelligent like the fully-developed plants, they were able to soar and dip just like little gliders until they found a good place to land and put down their feeding-roots.
Fred was still making notes like mad when, suddenly and strongly, the moss forced a question into their minds. “Can you creatures live in ammonia?”
“Most certainly not!” the answering thought came vividly from them both.
“Well then you must hurry back to your ship. In a little time the ammonia rains will start. We need these rains, and you must remember to give these pieces of myself a daily drop of ammonia. Now you must hurry, for the rains are almost due!”
Fred jumped to his feet and set off through the jungle with Flyball perched on his shoulder. The plants opened a path before them, leading them back to the place on the shore where the Halley had landed. This was just as well, for with no sun to guide them they might have found it very hard to retrace their steps. The plants had closed the earlier path behind them and their feet had left no tracks on the rubbery ground.
Looking up, through a break in the fern-trees, Fred saw that the clouds were swirling lower and lower and he broke into a run, with Flyball on his shoulder holding on for dear life. Flyball was aware that Fred was thinking that it would start to rain at any moment, and he himself was hoping in return that they would get back to the ship before they were caught in the threatening downpour. The plants seemed to sense their hurry and flung themselves aside as the Colonel ran toward them.
When at last they reached the beach they could see that the clouds now hung only a few hundred feet above the Halley. Fred scooted down the beach, kicking up the blue pebbles as he ran. Panting, he reached the side of the Halley and flung the door open. They had barely scrambled in, and had not yet had time to close the door when the first heavy drops of ammonia splashed on the ground and on the ship.
With a sigh of relief, Fred shut the door and they waited until the air-pressure in the air-lock was equal to that in the ship before once more entering the cabin.
“That was a narrow squeak,” Fred thought, and Flyball agreed with him.
CHAPTER
FOUR
Once the rain really got going, there certainly was plenty of it. Even though they were snug inside the Halley, when they looked out through the uncovered glass ports, Flyball and Fred felt they could smell the pungent, throat-catching fumes of ammonia. Fred kept on jumping up to examine the dials that showed whether their air was pure. Naturally, none of the ammonia fumes could get into a ship which had been built to stand up to the emptiness of space. It was only the sight of the ammonia falling in sheets on the glass which made them feel as though they were smelling it.
After sitting around for sometime watching the downpour which made the worst cloudburst they had ever seen on Earth look like a summer shower, Fred turned to Flyball.
“I’m going to see if I can’t make lockets for our moss,” he announced without speaking. “If we go on carrying these little pieces around like this, one or other of us will be bound to lose his bit and then—bang goes our way of getting together!”
“Mmm. Yes,” thought Flyball, “and it won’t be a clever animal like a cat which will lose his piece, but a clumsy forgetful man!”
“Here, now,” Fred returned. “That’s not fair!”
“Sorry,” Flyball was penitent. “I was thinking to myself. You’re not supposed to have gotten that!”
Fred laughed. “I see what you meant when you thought there might be disadvantages to thinking out loud! Still, I suppose we’ll always be able to take off the moss when we want to be private. That’s still another reason for making lockets.”
He went over to the side of the ship and opened a locker which was a beautifully fitted workshop, complete with lathes, drills, electric saws and everything else the builders of the Halley had thought they could possibly need to do repairs to the ship or make anything else they might want.
Drawers were filled with all kinds of materials—phosphor bronze, aluminum, stainless steel, brass, copper, plastics and the rest of them. Fred set to work on a lathe and, before long, he had turned out two tiny bronze lockets with plastic faces, fastened to strong but slender chains. He fastened one of these round Flyball’s neck and the other round his own.
Then, with the lockets dangling from their necks, they suddenly discovered that the exchange of thoughts was no longer taking place.
“That’s odd,” said Fred, taking his locket in his fingers and turning it.
The thought in his mind suddenly reached Flyball and he realized what the trouble had been. The Colonel, naturally, had hung the little lockets with the plastic faces out and the bronze next to their bodies. Flyball’s locket, bouncing against him, had turned round, but Fred’s had remained with the metal against his skin, until he touched the plastic with his fingers.
He then made adjustments to the chains which meant that they could keep their lockets either in the position for sending and receiving, or to obtain privacy.
As the drenching ammonia rain continued falling for hour after hour, they gradually got tired of the sight of it sloshing down the thick glass ports. Finally Fred turned off the ship’s lights and they relaxed in their hammocks.
Before Flyball fell asleep he carefully twiddled his locket round with his paws. He did not want to have the Colonel peeking in on his dreams, let alone his private falling-asleep thoughts.
When they awoke, the cabin was again bathed in the mysterious violet light and, looking out, they could see no signs of the ammonia rain which had poured down so heavily only a few hours before. It seemed, judging from the dials, that all the ammonia had been absorbed by the thirsty plants and ground.
After they had eaten their rations, they d
iscussed the matter of further exploration.
Flyball was all in favor of returning home. “After all, Fred,” he argued, “you’ve got enough to go on with. There’ll be other expeditions and, besides, we’re both due for leave. For leave on Earth—where there are birds!”
Fred sighed. “When will you forget these birds, Flyball? You know you’ll never catch one. You’re far too impatient. Besides, I don’t suppose you’d know what to do with it if you did manage to lay your paws on one. Would you, now? It’s just the challenge, isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” Flyball acknowledged the question gravely. “After all, it really is beneath my dignity to go off chasing poor Earth-bound creatures now I’m a seasoned spacecat. Still,” he twitched an appreciative whisker, “I’ve got to teach those birds to stop being so cheeky!”
“All right,” Fred came back, “you can do your bird-chasing when we get our leave. In the meantime, whatever you may have told our friends, I’m still officially boss of this expedition! Let me go my own way about finding out all I can about this strange planet Venus! Of course, it’ll take a full-sized expedition to really do the job of exploring. Still, we may be able to find out things that’ll make their job easier. Besides, first-comers get the first serving. And I’m interested. Anyhow, we have discovered that men must not interfere with the plants or the little animals. If we hadn’t been lucky enough to find the moss so soon we might have made a lot of enemies. Let’s get going!”
“We found the moss,” Flyball thought, “you mean I found. . . .” Then, embarrassed, he realized that Fred was aware what he was thinking, and quickly sent on an apology.
Fred did not reply, but stood up and went toward the air-lock.