“Everything. Not being able to export any venom, I went on with my research in biochemistry. I saw how you people were starving for flesh, and I decided to help you out. You had slaughtered and eaten all the horses at the antivenin laboratory within a month of your arrival. There was nothing left, for this is not a cattle country, and it never will be. There was nothing to do but try chemistry. I already had the greenhouses left by the engineers. They used to grow tomatoes and cucumbers before you came.”
“So you made these meat-fruits chemically?”
Beetle repressed a smile at the Dictator’s scientific innocence.
“Not exactly. But really it was almost as simple. There was nothing startlingly new about my idea. To see how simple it was, ask yourself what are the main differences between the higher forms of plant life and the lower forms of animal life. “Both are living things. But the plants cannot move about from place to place at will, whereas, the animals can. A plant is, literally, ‘rooted to the spot.’
“There are apparent exceptions, of course, like water hyacinths, yeast spores, and others that are transported by water or the atmosphere, but they do not transport themselves as the living animal does. Animals have a ‘dimension’ of freedom that plants do not have.”
“But the beef—”
“In a moment. I mentioned the difference between the freedoms of plants and animals because I anticipate that it will be of the utmost importance in the experiments I am now doing. However, this freedom was not, as you have guessed, responsible for the greenbeefos. It was another, less profound, difference between plants and animals that suggested the ‘meat-fruit.’ ”
Kadir seemed to suspect Beetle of hidden and unflattering meanings, with all this talk of freedom in a country dedicated to the ‘New Freedom’ of Kadir’s dictatorship. But he could do nothing about it, so he merely nodded as if he understood.
“Plants and animals,” Beetle continued, “both have “blood’ of a sort. The most important constituents in the ‘blood’ of both differ principally in the metals combined chemically in each.
“The “blood’ of a plant contains chlorophyll. The blood of an animal contains hemoglobin. Chemically, chlorophyll and hemoglobin are strangely alike. The metal in chlorophyll is magnesium; in hemoglobin, it is iron.
“Well, it occurred to chemists that if the magnesium could be ‘replaced’ chemically by iron, the chlorophyll could be converted into hemoglobin! And similarly for the other way about: replace the iron in hemoglobin by magnesium, and get chlorophyll!
“Of course it is not all as simple or as complete as I have made it sound. Between hemoglobin and chlorophyll is a long chain of intermediate compounds. Many of them have been formed in the laboratory, and they are definite links in the chain from plant blood to animal blood.”
“I see,” Kadir exclaimed, his face aglow with enthusiasm at the prospect of unlimited beef from green vegetables. He leaned over the table to question Beetle.
“It is the blood that gives flesh its appetizing taste and nourishing strength. You have succeeded in changing the plant blood to animal blood?”
Beetle did not contradict him. In fact, he evaded the question.
“I expect,” he confided, “to have tons of greenbeefos in a month, and thereafter a constant supply as great as you will need. Tray-culture—hydroponics—will enable us to grow hundreds of tons in a space no larger than this banquet hall.”
The “banquet hall” was only a ramshackle dining room that had been used by the miners before Kadir arrived. Nevertheless, it could be called anything that suited the Dictator’s ambition.
“Fortunately,” Beetle continued, “the necessary chemicals for tray-culture are abundant in Amazonia. My native staff has been extracting them on a large scale for the past four months, and we will have ample for our needs.”
“Why don’t you grow the greenbeefos in the open ground?” one of Kadir’s officers inquired a trifle suspiciously.
“Too inefficient. By feeding the plants only the chemicals they need directly, we can increase production several hundredfold and cut down the time between successive crops to a few weeks. By properly spacing the propagation of the plants, we can have a constant supply. The seasons cut no figure.”
They seemed satisfied, and discussion of the glorious future in store for Amazonia became general and animated. Presently Beetle and Consuelo asked the Dictator’s permission to retire. They had work to do at the laboratory.
“Hydroponics?” Kadir inquired jovially. Beetle nodded, and they bowed themselves out of the banquet hall.
Consuelo withheld her attack until they were safe from possible eavesdroppers.
“Kadir is a lout,” she began, “but that is no excuse for your filling him up with a lot of impossible rubbish.”
“But it isn’t impossible, and it isn’t rubbish,” Beetle protested. “You know as well as I do—”
“Of course I know about the work on chlorophyll and hemoglobin. But you didn’t make those filthy green plums taste like raw pork by changing the chlorophyll of the plants into hemoglobin or anything like it. How did you do it, by the way?”
“Listen, Buglette. If I tell you, it will only make you sick. You ate one, you know.”
“I would rather be sick than ignorant. Go on, you may as well tell me.”
“Very well. It’s a long story, but I’ll cut it short. Amazonia is the last refuge of the last important dictator on earth. When Kadir’s own people came to their senses a little over two years ago and kicked him out, he and his top men and their women came over here with their ‘new freedom.’ But the people of this continent didn’t want Kadir’s brand of freedom. Of course a few thousand crackpots in the larger cities welcomed him and his gang as their ‘liberators,’ but for once in history the mass of the people knew what they did not want. They combined forces and chased Kadir and his cronies up here.
“I never have been able to see why they did not exterminate Kadir and company as they would any other pests. But the presidents of the United Republics agreed that to do so would only be using dictatorial tactics, the very thing they had united to fight. So they let Kadir and his crew live-more or less—in strict quarantine. The temporary loss of a few rich gold mines was a small price to pay, they said,’ for world security against dictatorships.
“So here we are, prisoners in the last plague spot of civilization. And here is Kadir. He can dictate to his heart’s content, but he can’t start another war. He is as powerless as Napoleon was on his island.
“Well, when the last of our boys left, I promised to keep them in mind. And you heard my promise to help Kadir out. I am going to keep that promise, if it costs me my last snake.”
They had reached the laboratory. Juan, the night-nurse for the reptiles, was going his rounds.
“Everything all right, Juan?” Beetle asked cordially.
He liked the phlegmatic Portuguese who always did his job with a minimum of talk. Consuelo, for her part, heartily disliked the man and distrusted him profoundly. She had long suspected him of being a stool-pigeon for Kadir.
“Yes, Dr. Beetle. Good night.”
“Good night, Juan.”
When Juan had departed, Consuelo returned to her attack.
“You haven’t told me yet how you made these things taste like raw pork.”
She strolled over to the tank by the north window where a luxuriant greenbeefo, like an overdeveloped tomato vine, grew rankly up its trellis to the ceiling. About half a dozen of the huge greenish “plums” still hung on the vine.
Consuelo plucked one and was thoughtfully sampling its quality.
“This one tastes all right,” she said. “What did you do to the others?”
“Since you really want to know, I’ll tell you. I took a hypodermic needle and shot them full of snake blood. My pet constrictor had enough juice in him to do the whole job without discomfort to himself or danger to his health.”
Consuelo hurled her half-eaten fruit at her f
ather’s head, but missed. She stood wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
“So you can’t change the chlorophyll in a growing plant into anything like hemoglobin? You almost had me believing you could.”
“I never said I could. Nor can anybody else, so far as I know. But it made a good story to tell Kadir.”
“But why?”
“If you care to analyze one of these greenbeefos in your spare time, you will find their magnesium content extraordinarily high. That is not accident, as you will discover if you analyze the chemicals in the tanks. I shall be satisfied if I can get Kadir and his friends to gorge themselves on greenbeefos when the new crop comes in. Now, did I sell Kadir the green-beef 0 diet, or didn’t I? You saw how they all fell for it. And they will keep on falling as long as the supply of snake blood holds out.”
“There’s certainly no scarcity of snakes in this charming country,” Consuelo remarked. “I’m going to get the taste of one of them out of my mouth right now. Then you can tell me what you want me to do in this new culture of greenbeefos you’ve gone in for.”
So father and daughter passed their days under the last dictatorship. Beetle announced that in another week the lush crop of greenbeefos would be ripe. Kadir proclaimed the following Thursday “Festal Thursday” as the feast day inaugurating “the reign of plenty” in Amazonia.
As a special favor, Beetle had requested Kadir to forbid any sightseeing or other interference with his work.
Kadir had readily agreed, and for three weeks Beetle had worked twenty hours a day, preparing the coming banquet with his own hands.
“You keep out of this,” he had ordered Consuelo. “If there is any dirty work to be done, I’ll do it myself. Your job is to keep the staff busy as usual, and see that nobody steals any of the fruit. I have given strict orders that nobody is to taste a greenbeefo till next Thursday, and Kadir has issued a proclamation to that effect. So if you catch anyone thieving, report to me at once.”
The work of the native staff consisted in catching snakes. The workers could see but little sense in their job, as they knew that no venom was being exported. Moreover, the eccentric Doctor Beetle had urged them to bring in every reptile they found, harmless as well as poisonous, and he was constantly riding them to bestir themselves and collect more.
More extraordinary still, he insisted every morning that they carry away the preceding day’s catch and dump it in the river. The discarded snakes, they noticed, seemed half dead. Even the naturally most vicious put up no fight when they were taken from the pens.
Between ten and eleven every morning Beetle absented himself from the laboratory, and forbade anyone to accompany him. When Consuelo asked him what he had in the small black satchel he carried with him on these mysterious trips, he replied briefly:
“A snake. I’m going to turn the poor brute loose.”
And once, to prove his assertion, he opened the satchel and showed her the torpid snake.
“I must get some exercise, and I need to be alone,” he explained, “or my nerves will snap. Please don’t pester me.”
She had not pestered him, although she doubted his explanation. Left alone for an hour, she methodically continued her daily inspection of the plants till her father returned, when she had her lunch and he resumed his private business.
On the Tuesday before Kadir’s Festal Thursday, Consuelo did not see her father leave for his walk, as she was already busy with her inspection when he left. He had been gone about forty minutes when she discovered the first evidence of treachery.
The foliage of one vine had obviously been disturbed since : the last inspection. Seeking the cause, Consuelo found that two of the ripening fruits had been carefully removed from their stems. Further search disclosed the theft of three dozen in all. Not more than two had been stolen from any one plant.
Suspecting Juan, whom she had always distrusted, Consuelo hastened back to her father’s laboratory to await his return and report. There she was met by an unpleasant surprise.
She opened the door to find Kadir seated at Beetle’s desk, his face heavy with anger and suspicion.
“Where is your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come, come. I have made women talk before this when they were inclined to be obstinate. Where is he?”
“Again I tell you I don’t know. He always takes his exercise at this time, and he goes alone. Besides,” she flashed, “what business is it of yours where he is?”
“As to that,” Kadir replied carelessly, “everything in Amazonia is my business.”
“My father and I are not citizens—or subjects—of Amazonia.”
“No. But your own country is several thousand miles away, Senhorina Beetle. In case of impertinent questions I can always report—with regrets, of course—that you both died by one of the accidents so common in Amazonia. Of snakebite, for instance.”
“I see. But may I ask the reason for this sudden outburst?”
“So you have decided to talk? You will do as well as your father, perhaps better.”
His eyes roved to one of the wire pens.
In it were half a dozen small red snakes.
“What do you need those for, now that you are no longer exporting venom?”
“Nothing much. Just pets, I suppose.”
“Pets? Rather an unusual kind of pet, I should say.” His face suddenly contorted in fear and rage. “Why is your father injecting snake blood into the unripe meat-fruit?” he shouted.
Consuelo kept her head. “Who told you that absurdity?”
“Answer me!” he bellowed.
“How can I? If your question is nonsense, how can anybody answer it?”
“So you refuse. I know a way to make you talk. Unlock that pen.”
“I haven’t the key. My father trusts nobody but himself with the keys to the pens.”
“No? Well, this will do.” He picked up a heavy ruler and lurched over to the pen. In a few moments he had sprung the lock.
“Now you answer my question or I force your arm into that pen. When your father returns I shall tell him that someone had broken the lock, and that you had evidently been trying to repair it when you got bitten. He will have to believe me. You will be capable of speech for just about three minutes after one of those red beauties strikes. Once more, why did your father inject snake blood into the green meat-fruits?”
“And once more I repeat that you are asking nonsensical questions. Don’t you dare—”
But he did dare. Ripping the sleeve of her smock from her arm, he gripped her bare wrist in his huge fist and began dragging her toward the pen. Her frantic resistance was no match for his brutal strength. Instinctively she resorted to the only defense left her. She let out a yell that must have carried half a mile.
Startled in spite of himself, Kadir paused, but only for an instant. She yelled again.
This time Kadir did not pause. Her hand was already in the pen when the door burst open. Punctual as usual, Beetle had returned exactly at eleven o’clock to resume his daily routine.
The black satchel dropped from his hand.
“What the hell—” A well-aimed laboratory stool finished the sentence. It caught the Dictator squarely in the chest. Consuelo fell with him, but quickly disengaged herself and stood panting.
“You crazy fool,” Beetle spat at the prostrate man. “What do you think you are doing? Don’t you know that those snakes are the deadliest of the whole lot?”
Kadir got to his feet without replying and sat down heavily on Beetle’s desk. Beetle stood eying him in disgust.
“Come on, let’s have it. What were you trying to do to my daughter?”
“Make her talk,” Kadir muttered thickly. “She wouldn’t—”
“Oh, she wouldn’t talk. I get it. Consuelo! You keep out of this. I’ll take care of our friend. Now, Kadir, just what did you want her to talk about?”
Still dazed, Kadir blurted out the truth.
“Why are you inj
ecting snake blood into the unripe meat-fruit?”
Beetle eyed him curiously. With great deliberation he placed a chair in front of the Dictator and sat down.
“Let us get this straight. You ask why I am injecting snake blood into the greenbeefos. Who told you I was?”
“Juan. He brought three dozen of the unripe fruits to show me.”
“To show you what?” Beetle asked in deadly calm. Had that fool Juan brains enough to look for the puncture-marks made by the hypodermic needle?
“To show me that you are poisoning the fruit.”
“And did he show you?”
“How should I know? He was still alive when I came over here. I forced him to eat all three dozen.”
“You had to use force?”
“Naturally. Juan said the snake blood would poison him.” “Which just shows how ignorant Juan is.” Beetle sighed his relief. “Snake blood is about as poisonous as cows’ milk.” “Why are you injecting—”
“You believed what that ignorant fool told you? He must have been drinking again and seeing things. I’ve warned him before. This time he goes. That is, if he hasn’t come to his senses and gone already of his own free will.”
“Gone? But where could he go from here?”
“Into the forest, or the jungle,” Beetle answered indifferently. “He might even try to drape his worthless hide over a raft of rotten logs and float down the river. Anyhow, he will disappear after having made such a fool of himself. Take my word for it, we shan’t see Juan again in a month of Sundays.” “On the contrary,” Kadir retorted with a crafty smile, “I think we shall see him again in a very few minutes.” He glanced at the clock. It showed ten minutes past eleven. “I have been here a little over half an hour. Juan promised to meet me here. He found it rather difficult to walk after his meal. When he comes, we can go into the question of those injections more fully.”
For an instant Beetle looked startled, but quickly recovered his composure.
“I suppose as you say, Juan is slow because he has three dozen of those unripe greenbeefos under his belt. In fact I shouldn’t wonder if he were feeling rather unwell at this very moment.”
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