Microcosmic God

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “Yeah. You got something there. What interests me, though, is what’s in that shed. If we guessed right about who it was put up for, then the shed must cover something they want to keep Solar noses out of. Ah—it wouldn’t by any chance be what we’re looking for, would it?”

  Slimmy’s eyes glowed. “The transmutation plant? Could be, pal; could be. It’s adjacent to the Prob.-wave transmitter. It’s screened against Earth or Martian interference.”

  “Huh!” Bell ran a thick forefinger up behind his ear. “We got a problem here, little man. We toss ourselves through nine-odd light years of space and wind up flat-footed in front of a killer-wave thrown up around a cubist’s idea of a beanfield. I sort of expected a city—machinery, people, maybe.”

  “It’s not simple,” said Slimmy. “Howsomever, let’s see if you can make your brains go where you flat feet fear to tread. Let’s go to work on the Martians. From the looks of things, they’ve been messing around here for quite some time.”

  “Want to go right to work, don’t you?” grinned Bell. “Always wanted to get a Martian alone away from his playmates so you could tie a half hitch in his eyestalks! O.K., buddy—where do we find us one?”

  “If I know Martians, there ought to be a couple sniffing around our ship by this time.”

  There were.

  They were lined up in front of the air lock, their spare bodies quivering with the palpitation peculiar to their race, and with their eyestalks pointing rigidly toward the approaching Earthmen, points together, in the well-known Martian cross-eyed stare. They had, of course, sensed the body vibrations of the men quite some time ago; the very fact that they were there meant that they were ready for a showdown.

  “Hi, fellers,” said Slimmy laconically, flipping the butt of his atomic gun to make sure that it was loose in the holster.

  “What are you doing here?” piped the Martian on the right.

  “We’re rick-bijitting for a dew-jaw,” said Slimmy immediately.

  He had studied the masterworks of the ancients in his extreme youth.

  “Yes,” said Bell, taking the cue. “We willised the altibob, and no sooner did we jellik than—boom! here we are.”

  The Martians regarded them silently. “You do not tell the truth,” one of them said.

  “It ain’t a lie,” Bell dead-panned.

  The evasion served its purpose, for to them, anything that was not a lie was the truth, and vice versa. Their hearing apparatus was partly sensitive to air-vibration and partly telepathic. Bell’s last statement was the truth and they knew it was the truth; that convinced them. They’d die before they admitted they didn’t know what the men were talking about.

  “What are you doing here?” Slimmy countered, before their machinelike minds could work on the problem.

  The Martians stiffened. “It is not for you to ask,” said one of them.

  “Aw, don’t be like that, son,” drawled Bell. “Haven’t Martians always told Earthmen that Mars takes only its just due, and does nothing for Earth but good?”

  “Yeah,” said Slimmy. His inflection was drawn-out, lowering, and meant “That’s a lot of so-and-so!”

  But to the Martians “Yeah” meant “Yes,” and that was that. “Why should things be different here? You don’t have to hide the fact that you’re looking for the same thing we are; maybe we can make a little deal.”

  “Sure—come in and set awhile!” Bell pushed past the Martians and unlatched the airlock. He knew that turning his back on the enemy was bad tactics, but it was good diplomacy. Besides, fast on their feet as Martians were, no one in the Universe could draw, aim and fire faster than little Slimmy Cob.

  Slimmy walked around the Martians, not between them, and sidled into the ship. He apparently faced the Martians merely to talk to them. “Sure—come on in. Maybe we can give each other a hand. We can decide later what to do if we get the information we’re after.”

  Three sets of eyestalks intertwined briefly, and then the three spindly Martians bent and entered the silver ship.

  The Martians squatted in a row against the starboard bulkhead, sipping Earth’s legendary cocola through glassite straws and coming as near to a feeling of well-being as was possible to these unemotional logicians. Slimmy’s sharp eyes had noticed that one of them was taller than the others, the second taller than the third. Knowing that Martian names, being in the semi-telepathic Martian language, were unpronounceable to humans, he had dubbed them Heaven, Its Wonders, and Hell.

  “Have another coke,” said Bell heartily.

  Its Wonders passed his empty flask. Bellew flashed a glance at Slimmy and Slimmy nodded. The Martians were getting nicely mellow; a carbonated drink plasters up the Martian metabolism with amazing efficiency. Intoxication, however, is not befuddlement to a Martian. It merely makes him move slower and think faster. If he drinks enough, he will stop altogether and turn into a genius for an hour or so. The idea of gassing the Martians up was to disarm them as to the human’s motives; for they knew that no human would dare to try to pull the wool over a drunken Martian’s eyes.

  The Martians accepted the drink as a gesture of good faith, for they knew that they would soon be unable to navigate. It was the pipe of peace between them, with the Earthmen paying the piper, which was the way any deal with Mars seems to work out. So when the pale-blue flush began to blossom across their leathery hides, Slimmy went to work on them.

  “Look fellers,” he said bluntly, “there’s no sense in our cutting each other’s throats for a while yet. If you’ve guessed what we’re here after, you’ve probably guessed right. We know that Martian ’238 isn’t transmuted into ’235 on Mars. We know it’s done here, in that flat building under the killer field over there. All we want to know is how it’s done, and whether or not the method can be used in our System.”

  “What has that to do with us?” asked Hell.

  “I’ll take the question as a feeler,” Bellew cut in. “You want to find out how much else we know. All right. We know that more than half of Terrestrial and Martian industry is being diverted to the production of boron to pay for the Artnans’ processing of ’238. We know that Martian domina … er … control of the Solar System won’t be complete unless and until the Artnan process of transmutation is made the property of Mars; for every indication shows that the cost of the Artnan process must be practically nothing. We know that the Martian Command did not have the process when we left the System three years ago, and we know that you don’t have it yet because we wouldn’t have found any Martians here if you had.”

  Heaven said, “What do you want to find the process for?”

  “I might say that we of Earth would like to return to Mars some of the many kindnesses she has done us,” said Slimmy around the tongue of his cheek. “And I might say that it’s none of your damn business. I’ll do neither, and simply say that I won’t insult your intelligence by considering the question.”

  Three sets of eyestalks fumblingly sought each other out and, intertwining, connected their owners in a swift, silent conference. Coming out of the huddle, Heaven addressed the humans. “We have certain information bearing on the matter at hand. How can we be assured that it will be to our benefit to share it?”

  Bell answered that. “I’ve no idea how long you’ve been here, but it seems as though you haven’t got on the right track yet. I don’t know whether we’ll be able to find the process with your information and our brains. If we can, well and good. If we can’t, what have you lost?”

  “We will share it,” decided Its Wonders instantly. “All we know is this: The Artnans are a race totally unlike anything in our System. They have a mineral metabolism, feeding on ores and excreting sulphides. Their culture is beyond our understanding; they seem beyond the reach of Solar reasoning. They have made no attempt to drive us away from the planet. They have also made no attempt to communicate with us, in spite of the fact that they must know we are Martians and that it is with Martians that they trade. The vibration field aroun
d the transmutation plant cannot be penetrated by anything but light; it even excludes a spy ray. There is no way of estimating the extent of their science or their civilization. They exist mainly underground; for all we know, this may be an artificial planet. There is a possibility that their science is no more advanced than ours, but that it has simply progressed along other lines. The trade with Mars may be a major or a very minor industry with them. It is completely impossible to tell. That is all we have been able to discover.”

  “That might help,” said Bellew, “and it might not. We’ll work on it. Now. There’s one more little point we have to take care of. How can all concerned be sure that there is no dirty work? How do we know that we will not be killed if we get the secret; how do you know that we will not kill you for it if you beat us to the gun?”

  “We can promise,” said Its Wonders in his spark-coil voice.

  “Won’t do, chum,” said Slimmy. “No reflection on you, but in spite of the fact that a Martian has never been known to break his word, we don’t want you establishing precedents. Bad for the racial morale. Got any other ideas?”

  Bellew sometimes wished that Martians could add inflection, voice control, to their speech. You couldn’t tell whether they were sore, happy, insulted—anything. He shook his head quickly at Slimmy—the little man was pushing things a little.

  However, Its Wonders didn’t seem annoyed by the refusal of his word. “We could,” he said, “destroy each other’s weapons.”

  “Would you agree to such a proposition?”

  “Yes,” chorused the three Martians.

  Once they were together again in their emasculated ship, Slimmy and Bell compared notes.

  “What’s their ship like?” Slimmy wanted to know.

  “Smooth,” said Bell. “An Ikarion 44, with all the fixin’s. Got that old-style ether-cloud steering for hyper-space travel, though—you know—the one that builds etheric resistance on one bow or the other to turn the ship when she’s traveling faster than light? We can outmaneuver them if it comes to a chase.”

  Slimmy grinned. “That bootleg ether rudder of ours is so perfect because it’s so simple, but it’s not the easiest thing in the world to adapt to an Ikarion. How’s their spatial steering?”

  “Same as ours,” answered Bell. “So all we need is the process and a small start. Fat chance … By the way—remember what Its Wonders said about the killer field’s stopping a spy ray? That was a slip on his part. I got looking for one when I was busting up their big guns. They have one, sure enough—a neat, little portable, sound and visiscreen; and I’ll bet my back teeth it records. We got to watch our mouths.”

  “Yeah.” Slimmy walked over and drew himself a flask of cocola, then came and sat on his bunk next to Bell.

  Bell was surprised to find that on the way Slimmy had snatched up the cellotab and stylus. He took it, shielded it closely, and began to write as he talked about the Martian ship. In a few minutes he passed the tablet to Slimmy. It read:

  “A laugh for you. Heaven and Its Wonders no sooner got out of here than they began to pump me about why you’d tried to kill me just before we landed. We were right; they saw you shooting me with the water pistol and it threw their mental gears into six speeds at once. Couldn’t understand why you didn’t kill me or why I didn’t kill you for trying. Suggested that if I wanted to slip you the double-x, they’d see to it that you were killed. Gave me a phial of Martian paralysis virus. They told me that if we found the Artnan secret, if I killed you with the virus, I’d be protected when they brought me back to the System.”

  “Yep,” said Slimmy aloud as he reached for the stylus, “them Martians are certainly nice fellers.”

  Bellew motioned to Slimmy to duck the cellotab, winked, stretched and said, “You think we ought to grab some sleep?”

  Slimmy said, “Why, sure,” with admirable promptness, considering that both of them had had the sleep-centers removed from their brains by outlaw Earth surgeons in preparation for the trip.

  While Slimmy pulled off his shoes, Bell went to a locker and slid two pairs of thick spectacles under his tunic, along with two disks of the same material as the lenses. He switched off the lights, pulled his own bunk out from the bulkhead over Slimmy’s, dropped a pair of spectacles and a disk on the little man’s chest, and rolled into bed. Both men clipped the disks to their bunklights, switched them on, and donned the glasses. Martians, possessing vision far into the ultraviolet, are blind to the reds merging into the infrared which is so prevalent on their own planet. If the spy ray was functioning—and of course it was—all the screen showed was a lot of nothing on a background of the same, and all the amplifier picked up was the tiny whisper of a busy stylus.

  “Been thinking about those Artnans,” wrote Bell. “What do you suppose is the reason for their building that transmutation shed on the surface of the planet if their civilization is underground?”

  “To be near the transmitter, I’d imagine. Far as I know, a probability wave can’t operate below ground.”

  “Seems likely. What’s your guess about the process?”

  “That, bud, is our little stymie. The Martians have tested the ground right clear up to the edge of the killer field for vibrations from machinery. They heard the footsteps and the burrowing of the Artnans, and the noise from the Prob.-wave transmitter and receiver. But that’s all. Artnan workers—not more than eight or ten at a time—tend whatever’s in that shed. Now and then a blast of artificial wind rushes through the shed. Right afterward big suction intakes gather up a powdery material and collect it in the hoppers which feed ’235 into the transmitter. Then the wind blasts back with a slightly heavier powder. There’s also a little vegetative sound—spores popping and what-not—but our Martian friends don’t know whether there is some plant life in the shed or whether the vibrations come from the flora outside. That’s lot of info to get from ground vibrations, but you know Martian detection instruments.”

  “Wonder what the Artnans do with the boron they get from Mars?” Slimmy wrote after a silent interval.

  “Eat it, I guess. For all we know, the whole setup that has made Earth a slave and put Mars on the economic rocks may be just a sideline to the Artnans. Maybe it’s candy to them, or a liquor industry. That’s something we’ll never know as long as the Artnans act so unsociable.”

  “They don’t behave like an outfit that’s trying to keep a monopoly,” Slimmy scrawled. “Seems to me their very treatment of us and the Martians is their way of telling us, ‘We found the process. If you want to dig it up for yourselves, go to it.’ They don’t seem to give much of a damn whether we do or not.”

  “Seems sound enough. I wish we could get some slant on their psychology. Their reasoning is so alien to anything we have in our System. Old Laidlaw was right.”

  Bell handed this to Slimmy and then snatched it back excitedly. “The Laidlaw Hypothesis!” he underlined. “That’s the answer! Laidlaw said that each Solar System had civilizations and cultures with a common ancestor, which ancestor was peculiar to the System. For that reason there is no way of predicting in what direction a new system’s fauna will evolve. The Artnans are mineral eaters, right? Then, according to Laidlaw, their plants have a corresponding metabolism, and so has every other living thing in the system! Do you see what I’m getting at?”

  “No,” said Slimmy aloud, forgetting himself. Bell snatched the pad and belted the little man’s mouth with it before he wrote:

  “It isn’t an apparatus process, dope! The Artnans don’t transmute ’238 into ’235 by electrochemistry or radiophysics or any other process we ever heard of! Those Artnans in the shed aren’t scientists or even mechanics! They’re gardeners!”

  “Plants?” Slimmy’s amazement dug the stylus deep into the cellotab. “How can plants transmute one isotope into another?”

  “An Artnan might like to know how an Earth plant can change light and water and minerals into cellulose,” wrote Bell. “Now; plant or mold or fungus—what sort of
a place might it come from?”

  “Not here,” was Slimmy’s prompt reply. “The atmosphere is slightly humid. Water and pure ’235 don’t mix. Any plant that gave off atomic fuel that way would blow itself from here to Scranton. It must have been brought here from an airless planet or satellite too hot or too cold for water to exist.”

  “Is there such a body in this system?”

  In answer, Slimmy rolled out of his bunk and went to the chart desk, returning with a sketched astro map of the system.

  “Two,” he wrote on the edge of the chart. “This one”—an arrow indicated a large planet far away from the double sun—“and this peanut here. A ninety-six-day year, son, and it’s hot. I mean, but torrid. Don’t tell me anything from there could live here, if at all.”

  “Might, if it’s a mold, or a bacterium. Temperature wouldn’t make much difference to a really simple metallic mold. It’s worth a try. How do we get out there without taking our three little playmates with us?”

  They thought that over for a while, and then Slimmy giggled and wrote, “Buddy, I feel an awful attack of Martian paralysis coming on!”

  Bell snapped his fingers, lay back in his bunk and roared with laughter.

  Heaven, Its Wonders and Hell squatted excitedly before the portable spy-ray set in the center of their control room, watching the scene it pictured. Slimmy’s head protruded from a small iron lung built into the bulkhead, and his head was stretched back so far that the skin on his neck seemed on the breaking point. His face was bluish; there was a thin line of foam on his lips, and his breath whispered whistling through the annunciator.

  “Traitorous creature,” piped Its Wonders. “He has taken our advice and inoculated his companion with the disease.”

  Heaven waved his eyestalks. “Where is that Earthman, anyway?”

  A loud thuck! thuck! answered his question, as Bell Bellew banged on the insulated gate to the Martians’ air lock. Heaven reached out a long, jointless arm and pressed a panel; the door opened.