ONE moment the forest was serenely quiet, somnolent; the next it was in an uproar. For it was not every day that a space-ship dropped out of the swirling mists that topped the waving fern-crown of the tallest and most ancient of the great Ancadus tree-ferns, furrowing the rich dark loam of the clearing floor.
Not that the Ancadus guessed the long black cylinder to be a space-ship. Their conception of the universe was limited to that space beneath the gray cloud-masses that enfolded their world. Nor could they conceive of a vehicle of transportation. For their life began in an over-large hard-cased seed-spore that grew into a free-moving young tree-fern that made the best of its god-given activity until the urge to root itself came; then one stood ever upright, living and dreaming, conversing with one’s neighbors, ever ready to flip forth a tentacle to ensnare one of the silly, unthinkable animals that foolishly accepted the lure of the fleshy, false fruits that the Ancadus dangled as bait for just that purpose.
Nevertheless, they were stirred, curious. From amid the stationary boles of their elders came the young ferns, balancing themselves upon their five walking-roots, eager to see what they could see, just as young Earthlings would have pushed themselves forward between the bodies of their elders had such a strange phenomenon taken place on their Main Street.
Unmolested by the cutting ax of Man, with no other enemy than the encroaching life-choking parasitic vines that the Ancadus, by means of their long flexible tentacles, kept to the background, the great tree-ferns were truly the monarchs of all they surveyed. Since Mother Nature had failed to provide cross-pollination in the form of insects, and since their giant seed-spores were too heavy for the soft, gentle winds of Venus to bear aloft, they had developed perambulatory movement in the young so that all the planet might .know them, and that the young should not choke the old.
Early in their life history they had discovered a predilection for animal blood, and to satisfy this unnatural lust they had brought forth large flesh-flowers that the gurgura, the ruswan, the petrus and the bav could not resist. Wisely the great Ancadus tree-ferns did not kill outright, but took their toll of blood from each passing creature, leaving it to crawl away as best it could, knowing that as soon as it had replenished its life-fluid the silly little beast would come again and again to the bait.
Innocent-looking enough were these vampire trees with their pale, white trunks topped with snowy crowns of crackling fronds wherein nestled the furled tentacles, curled, like rosettes, just above the dead black band which was the eye-circle. But those selfsame tentacles, sometimes a hundred feet long, endowed with the twin senses of hearing and smelling, were as deadly as the cobra, and the eye-circle gave vision in every direction.
Now the Ancadus were filled with questions.
“What is it?”
“Is it animal or vegetable?”
“Whence did it come?”
“How did it get here?”
“Has anyone ever seen such life before?”
These were but a few of the questions coming from all sides, for during the long millenniums of their evolution the great Ancadus tree-ferns had evolved speech and thought. Not speech such as Man uses, nor voice tones like those of the lesser animals. No mechanism could have recorded the speech of the tree-ferns, since it possessed no sound as animal life knows sound. But it was there, within the consciousness of the trees themselves.
Suddenly there was an end to the questions. Old Gorn, the patriarch, standing on the edge of the clearing, was voicing his thoughts. And when he spoke, all else were silent.
“Children,” said he, “a strange visitant has come among us. Never in all my long centuries have I seen the like. None of us knows what this thing may portend for us. But only it can answer our questions. Therefore, let us commune with it, wait for it to break the silence. Only the foolish ask questions of the infinite.”
As if his words were the thing the black cylinder awaited, the cylinder spawned, there before their eyes, two six-feet high, free-moving creatures.
Never had the great Ancadus tree-ferns known such life. Tunnux and Nushu, two newly rooted tree-ferns, were too excited to heed the patriarch’s warning. Softly they conversed between themselves.
“What can they be? Certainly they are quite unlike any trees I ever saw in all my roving days,” whispered Tunnux.
“Adolescents, unquestionably,” murmured Nushu, “since they have freedom of movement and walk upright. No animal moves so. Only trees are thus gifted!”
“But how sparse grow their fern-crowns! Boor things, there is small beauty in their family if they are truly representative of their species.”
“Trees indeed! Look! Look again, my friends,” an older tree was speaking. “Did ever you see trees with bark that grows as theirs grows, away from the bole? And look you to the shortness of the upper tentacles. Ugh, they’re clawed, clawed like the animals. And see—no eye-circle either, merely two ugly seeing-balls set in pinkish bark. Then they possess but one sucker and those queer smelling-appendages such as animals use to smell out our flowers! Trees indeed! Soon they’ll come seeking our fruits to feast upon. Look you and see how like they are to that cacmu that I bled two days since, and from which I am still feeling indisposed.”
On all sides other discussions were carried on. Two camps were formed; those that likened the spawn of the cylinder to themselves, and those that likened them to the animals. That they walked upright as no animal walked upright, and wore a fern-crown, sparse though it was, made them comparable to the tree-ferns. But on the other hand, who had ever heard of trees with seeing-balls, single suckers, clawed tentacles and the like?
Too, if they were trees they had small intelligence (no one expected an animal to have intelligence), for they failed to grasp Gorn’s simplest communication. And now they were acting as no other tree, or animal either, for that matter, had ever acted.
Very rarely there occur on the planet great wind storms, storms-strong enough to sway the great Ancadus tree-ferns from side to side. Once, a decade back, there had been a storm that had actually bent the boles of the younger, slenderer trees half-way to the ground. Thus, the Ancadus had thought they knew something of bending. Yet here were the spawn of the black cylinder doing more than that. They were bending themselves in two!
And no wonder! Some of the young trees had to snicker. To pluck something from the ground the poor creatures had to bend themselves double for the simple reason that their grasping tentacles could not reach the ground. To think of it!
So engrossed were the trees over this ridiculous predicament of the visitors they had not bothered to notice what the creatures were picking up from the ground, were gathering together into a heap not far from the open mouth of the cylinder. When they did notice, it was something else to laugh over. The silly things, going to the trouble of collecting those things … twigs, sticks, desiccated remains of old fronds dropped by the Ancadus. Could one actually believe it? They must be related to the petrus that collects such trash upon which to lie down after tiring themselves by running here and there on their inadequate walking-roots.
But wait, what was this?
Before the very eye-circles of the trees they did it, bringing the old dead things to life once more. And such life!
Several young trees that had pushed close to the edge of the clearing all but lost their balance and toppled over in their surprise, and a great sigh went up from the whole watching forest. Who would have believed that such beautiful flowers dwelt in that old dead cellulose? Not even Gorn was able to name those dancing convolutions. For to the great Ancadus, fire was as unknown as were the men that had brought it into being.
What could the Ancadus know of fire in their mist-clothed world where even lightning was so rare a thing that Gorn, older than the oldest civilization of Man, had had no experience with it?
Ohing and ahing, the forest stared at the new beauty, enthralled. It was for Elsel, one of the youngest free-moving fern-trees, to consider investigating it.
; Carefully—oh so carefully!—so as to draw no attention to himself, he lowered his longest tentacle, unfurling it inch by inch, his eye-circlet upon those gorgeous flowers that bloomed and died as rapidly as do the flowers of the xmaur bush. And so fully were his senses trained upon those dancing efflorescences that he was not aware of the latest findings of his people concerning the intruders.
From downwind, across the clearing, Naxum, an old tree, was reporting. He had the scent. And to the adult trees the brilliance of the saltant flames was paled, all else was as nothing to this new intelligence. Blood and flesh. Blood! Blood!
By the forest right Gorn, the patriarch, should be first to taste the blood. As oldest of the clan it was his due when strange, new delicacies wandered thither. But the ancient tree-fern was wise. He had seen what had overtaken tree-ferns that had dined unwisely, for not all animal blood is beneficial to tree-life.
Not far from where he stood there leaned the remains of a tree-fern that had sipped the blood of a pocus, a creature tradition taught was poisonous. It had been at a time of famine, and Daxur, the rash tree, had not listened to Gorn’s sage wisdom when that soft-fleshed beast came into the forest. In consequence, Daxur no longer answered when spoken to. Bark had scaled from his sides, leaving ugly raw wounds, and he could no longer stand upright, but leaned against his nearer neighbors that would gladly have allowed him to fall had they been capable of moving their own rooted boles.
Therefore, Gorn suggested caution. He asked that lots be drawn, that but one of their number taste the blood of the strangers. That one’s reward, in turn, would be that of a hero—or a martyr, as the case might be.
“Wherefrom come this pair, therefrom will come others. Bide your time, and when the black cylinder spawns again all shall dine; else leave the creatures strictly alone, according to the findings!”
But for the first time in his patriarchy his people had not wanted to listen to Gorn. One only to be chosen to the repast? Was Gorn in his dotage? Nay, here was blood, and according to Naxum its odor was savory. The pocus, they all knew, was poisonous. Was that reason enough to condemn the new animals likewise? Nay, if Gorn refused his right, then the rest Would adhere to the Law. The Law!
And the next instant the forest bloomed like a fairy glade as every Ancadus within a quarter of a mile of the clearing, excepting Gorn, blossomed with brilliantly tinted false fruits that they brought at will from an excrescence at the tip of the long grasping tentacles. Henceforth, everything depended upon the prey itself; they would choose that fruit most attractive, and to whomsoever selected went the spoils. That was the law of the forest.
Never in the history of the Ancadus had any red-blooded creature refused the lure, and certainly they had no expectation that the newcomers would ignore it. Such a thing was unheard of. Yet the men gave but a long, wondering glance at the floral display, turning back to the strange, shiny object they had in the meantime dragged from the cylinder, a queer affair of queerer angles.
How were the Ancadus to know this for a radio with which the men intended to contact their home planet, to advise it of their safe arrival? Space, time, radio—these were as nothing to the Ancadus. They knew only consternation at this untoward event. Such a happening was without precedent in their annals. It went against all tradition. An animal to disregard their lush, richly odorous fruit? Unthinkable! Unwilling to believe that the creatures would not rise to the bait sooner or later, they waited, tense.
However, not all the Ancadus were thus aroused. Little Elsel, the young free-moving tree-fern, was not at all concerned in the blood of the cylinder’s spawn. Not until he had rooted himself would he bother himself about fleshy animals. It was the flowering flames of the campfire that intrigued him. By inching his tentacle forward over the ground he had reached a point midway between the fire and himself without having been detected by either the fire-breeders or the tree-ferns.
The radio, which the pair were setting up, likewise meant nothing to him; its squareness was something outside his comprehension. Only in the infinitesimal does Nature produce cube shapes, and the object before him was as outre to him as a three-dimensional object would be to a two dimensional creature. All the senses of the young tree-fern were concentrated upon the campfire with its ebullient blossoms rising and dying in one breath. So it happened that he did not notice that one of the pair had turned its seeing-balls in his direction.
Rising from the spot upon which he had folded himself, the creature shuffled across the clearing to where Elsel’s tentacle tip lay.
Frightened, the perambulatory tree-fern froze into immobility; his tentacle lay like a dead end of a creeper vine. It gave him shivers to see the beast bend down to inspect it with near-sighted eyeballs, and he sighed a great sigh of relief when the creature went back to the fire.
Waiting until he was settled once more, Elsel again took up his march to the flames. It was purely accidental that he brushed the stumpy walking-root of the second creature bending over that squarish object by the fire. Nor was he prepared for the wild yell the thing emitted, causing the pair of them to dash away in wild confusion. That, however, was to be expected; for did not all animals respect and fear the great Ancadus?
Only Elsel had not expected them to return so quickly, to pick up his offending tentacle. It made him cringe, that touch of warm, resilient animal flesh. Not until he had taken root could he know excitement at such close proximity. But when the same creature thrust an exploring claw inside one of his rubbery sucking-cups that covered the underside of his tentacle, his reaction in closing over the claw was entirely involuntary. If the creature had not screamed in fear and shaken him loose, Elsel would have released him anyway. Still, he was wholly unprepared for the next moment, when the tentacular feeler fell into the fire.
To think that those lovely, dancing flowers could be so bitter, so cruel! The agony of Elsel’s cry resounded throughout all the forest. The pain was of a proportion the like of which he had never dreamed. No wonder he writhed, beating the air, the ground, in his wild anguish. Again he screamed. Gradually, as the shock died away, he regained sufficient composure to withdraw his wounded appendage. Nursing his pain he turned away, halting now and then to unfurl the bedeviled member and plunge it deep into the cool, rich loam of the forest floor wherein there seemed to be a slight balm.
One would think that the Ancadus would have taken warning from that direful experience of the young tree-fern. They had all seen, and they had heard. Yet the smell of the blood that Elsel had drawn was too intoxicating.
Simultaneously a dozen or more long tentacles shot across the clearing to the cylinder into which the men had darted to escape the flaying whip. They avoided the fire, but beyond that the tree-ferns were insensible to any danger that might arise from their action.
Having learned something of the flexibility of those long, questing arms, the men did not quit the protective shadow of their space-ship immediately, and at sight of those feelers lashing out toward them they ran again within the confines of the cylinder. Before they could barricade themselves, half the tentacles had followed them in, feeling with sensitive tip-ends for the pair, forbidding the shutting of the ship’s mouth by their bulk.
Instantly, three tentacles fastened themselves upon the fighting form of’ one of the men. Somehow the other managed to hide himself, and no matter how the remaining feelers searched they could not find him. Though they possessed scent, they were blind, depending upon the eye-circles set just below the fern-crown of the tree, and the animal smell of the two was thick inside the cylinder.
Even after the captive had been withdrawn inch by inch, battling every step of the way, those others failed to locate his companion, concealed in some crevice. They withdrew at last, only to remain outside, waiting… .
Geeb, Masur and Jadan argued among themselves over their victim, each claiming himself in rightful possession as they dragged the man across the clearing, lifted him screaming and struggling into the air. Then Masuf fastened his suckers
upon the pink bark of the creature’s arm and imbibed deeply of the rich life-fluid. That was too much for the others. Forgetting their quarrel, they realized that part of the feast is better than none at all. Here was one creature who would not be allowed to crawl away half dead, to return again on the morrow. They would suck him dry and toss the husk away.
But it had not entered the thoughts of the Ancadus that the second man would actually come to the rescue of his brother creature. The Ancadus were individualists, banding together only when concerned with the common weal of their species. They could not conceive of unselfishness in another. Therefore, those that guarded the cylinder mouth had permitted their appendages to grow lax, and they were wholly unprepared to act instantly as the second man came hurtling into the open in answer to the pleas of his fellow.
Elsel had taught him how the Ancadus reacted to even a minor burn, and he had good reason to be glad that the campfire was ready at hand. Grasping a lighted brand, he flung it among the serpentine coils that held his friend aloft. And again the forest listen^! to the agony shriek of their kind in answer to the bite of the flame-blossoms. Unconsciously Masur and Jadan flinched, and in so doing loosed their hold upon their victim. Then as a second and third flaming brand came flying through the air they dropped the captive. ‘
Weakened by loss of blood, and dazed by the twelve-foot fall, the man was slow in reorganizing his faculties, and before he succeeded in regaining his upright position, two more tentacles reached out and grasped him. In their gluttony the rest of the tree-ferns disregarded the menace of the flame-flowers.
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