Bright Segment

by Theodore Sturgeon

  “Don’t!” said Teague sharply. Carl let go and backed away. Teague switched on the lights and examined the instrument. “It’s already connected to the compensators,” he said. “Hmp! Our hosts are most helpful.” He looked at the setting of the small motors which moved the instrument to cancel diurnal rotation effects. “Twenty-eight hours, thirteen minutes plus. Well, if that’s correct for this planet, it’s proof that this isn’t Earth or Prime—if we needed proof.” He touched the controls lightly. “Carl, what’s the matter here?”

  Carl bent to look. There were dabs of dull silver on the threads of the adjusting screws. He touched them. “Parametal,” he said. “Unflashed, but it has adhered enough to jam the threads. Take a couple days to get it off without jarring it. Look here—they’ve done the same thing with the objective screws!”

  “We look at what they want us to see, and like it,” said Tod.

  “Maybe it’s something we want to see,” said April gently.

  Only half-teasing, Tod said, “Whose side are you on, anyway?”

  Teague put his eye to the instrument. His hands, by habit, strayed to the focusing adjustment, but found it locked the same way as the others. “Is there a Galactic Atlas?”

  “Not in the rack,” said Moira a moment later.

  “Here,” said April from the chart table. Awed, she added, “Open.”

  Tensely they waited while Teague took his observation and referred to the atlas and to the catalog they found lying under it. When at last he lifted his face from the calculations, it bore the strangest expression Tod had ever seen there.

  “Our diving helmet,” he said at last, very slowly, too evenly, “—that is, the factor which rationalizes our two mutually exclusive facts—is simply that our captors have a faster-than-light drive.”

  “But according to theory—”

  “According to our telescope,” Teague interrupted, “through which I have just seen Sol, and these references so thoughtfully laid out for us …” Shockingly, his voice broke. He took two deep breaths, and said, “Sol is two-hundred and seventeen light-years away. That sun which set a few minutes ago is Beta Librae.” He studied their shocked faces, one by one. “I don’t know what we shall eventually call this place,” he said with difficulty, “but we had better get used to calling it home.”

  They called the planet Viridis (“the greenest name I can think of,” Moira said) because none among them had ever seen such a green. It was more than the green of growing, for the sunlight was green-tinged and at night the whole sky glowed green, a green as bright as the brightest silver of Earth’s moon, as water molecules, cracked by the star’s intense ultraviolet, celebrated their nocturnal reunion.

  They called the moons Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, and the sun they called—the sun.

  They worked like slaves, and then like scientists, which is a change of occupation but not a change of pace. They built a palisade of a cypress-like, straight-grained wood, each piece needle-pointed, double-laced with parametal wire. It had a barred gate and peepholes with periscopes and permanent swivel-mounts for the needle-guns they were able to fabricate from tube-stock and spare solenoids. They roofed the enclosure with parametal mesh, which, at one point, could be rolled back to launch the lifeboat.

  They buried Alma.

  They tested and analyzed, classified, processed, researched everything in the compound and within easy reach of it—soil, vegetation, fauna. They developed an insect-repellent solution to coat the palisade and an insecticide with an automatic spray to keep the compound clear of the creatures, for they were numerous, large, and occasionally downright dangerous, like the “flying caterpillar” which kept its pseudopods in its winged form and enthusiastically broke them off in the flesh of whatever attacked it, leaving an angry rash and suppurating sores. They discovered three kinds of edible seed and another which yielded a fine hydrocarbonic oil much like soy, and a flower whose calyces, when dried and then soaked and broiled, tasted precisely like crabmeat.

  For a time they were two separate teams, virtually isolated from each other. Moira and Teague collected minerals and put them through the mass spectroscope and the radioanalyzers, and it fell to April to classify the life-forms, with Carl and Tod competing mightily to bring in new ones. Or at least photographs of new ones. Two-ton Parametrodon, familiarly known as Dopey—a massive herbivore with just enough intelligence to move its jaws—was hardly the kind of thing to be carried home under one’s arm, and Felodon, the scaly carnivore with catlike tusks, though barely as long as a man, was about as friendly as a half-starved wolverine.

  Tetrapodys (Tod called it ‘Umbrellabird’) turned out to be a rewarding catch. They stumbled across a vine which bore foul-smelling pods; these the clumsy amphibious bats found irresistible. Carl synthesized the evil stuff and improved upon it, and they smeared it on tree-boles by the river. Tetrapodys came there by the hundreds and laid eggs apparently in sheer frustration. These eggs were camouflaged by a frilly green membrane, for all the world like the ground-buds of the giant water-fern. The green shoots tasted like shallots and were fine for salad when raw and excellent as onion soup when stewed. The half-hatched Tetrapodys yielded ligaments which when dried made excellent self-baited fishhooks. The wing muscles of the adult tasted like veal cutlet with fish sauce, and the inner or main shell of the eggs afforded them an amazing shoe sole—light, tough, and flexible, which, for some unknown reason, Felodon would not track.

  Pteronauchis, or “flapping frog,” was the gliding newt they had seen on that first day. Largely nocturnal, it was phototropic; a man with strong light could fill a bushel with the things in minutes. Each specimen yielded twice as many, twice as large, and twice as good frog-legs as a Terran frog.

  There were no mammals.

  There were flowers in profusion—white (a sticky green in that light), purple, brown, blue, and, of course, the ubiquitous green. No red—as a matter of fact, there was virtually no red anywhere on the planet. April’s eyes became a feast for them all. It is impossible to describe the yearning one can feel for an absent color. And so it was that a legend began with them. Twice Tod had seen a bright red growth. The first time he thought it was a mushroom, the second it seemed more of a lichen. The first time it was surrounded by a sea of crusher ants on the move—a fearsome carpet which even Parametrodon respected. The second time he had seen it from twenty meters away and had just turned toward it when not one but three Felodons came hurtling through the undergrowth at him.

  He came back later, both times, and found nothing. And once Carl swore he saw a brilliant red plant move slowly into a rock crevice as he approached. The thing became their edelweiss—very nearly their Grail.

  Rough diamonds lay in the streambeds and emeralds glinted in the night-glow, and for the Terran-oriented mind there was incalculable treasure to be scratched up just below the steaming humus: iridium, ruthenium, metallic neptunium 237. There was an unaccountable (at first) shift toward the heavier metals. The ruthenium-rhodium-palladium group was as plentiful on Viridis as the iron-nickel-cobalt series on Earth; cadmium was actually more plentiful here than its relative, zinc. Technetium was present, though rare, on the crust, while Earth’s had long since decayed.

  Vulcanism was common on Viridis, as could be expected in the presence of so many radioactives. From the lifeboat they had seen bald-spots where there were particularly high concentrations of “hot” material. In some of these there was life.

  At the price of a bout of radiation sickness, Carl went into one such area briefly for specimens. What he found was extraordinary—a tree which was warm to the touch, which used minerals and water at a profligate pace, and which, when transplanted outside an environment which destroyed cells almost as fast as they developed, went cancerous, grew enormously, and killed itself with its own terrible viability. In the same lethal areas lived a primitive worm which constantly discarded segments to keep pace with its rapid growth, and which also grew visibly and died of living too fast when taken outsi
de.

  The inclination of the planet’s axis was less than 2°, so that there were virtually no seasons, and very little variation in temperature from one latitude to another. There were two continents and an equatorial sea, no mountains, no plains, and few large lakes. Most of the planet was gently rolling hill-country and meandering rivers, clothed in thick jungle or grass. The spot where they had awakened was as good as any other, so there they stayed, wandering less and less as they amassed information. Nowhere was there an artifact of any kind, nor any slightest trace of previous habitation. Unless, of course, one considered the existence itself of life on this planet. For Permian life can hardly be expected to develop in less than a billion years; yet the irreproachable calendar inherent in the radioactive bones of Viridis insisted that the planet was no more than thirty-five million years old.

  V

  When Moira’s time came, it went hard with her, and Carl forgot to swagger because he could not help. Teague and April took care of her, and Tod stayed with Carl, wishing for the right thing to say and not finding it, wanting to do something for this new strange man with Carl’s face, and the unsure hands which twisted each other, clawed the ground, wiped cruelly at the scalp, at the shins, restless, terrified. Through Carl, Tod learned a little more of what he never wanted to know—what it must have been like for Teague when he lost Alma.

  Alma’s six children were toddlers by then, bright and happy in the only world they had ever known. They had been named for moons—Wynken, Blynken and Nod, Rhea, Callisto and Titan. Nod and Titan were the boys, and they and Rhea had Alma’s eyes and hair and sometimes Alma’s odd, brave stillness—a sort of suspension of the body while the mind went out to grapple and conquer instead of fearing. If the turgid air and the radiant ground affected them, they did not show it, except perhaps in their rapid development.

  They heard Moira cry out. It was like laughter, but it was pain. Carl sprang to his feet. Tod took his arm and Carl pulled it away. “Why can’t I do something? Do I have to just sit here?”

  “Shh. She doesn’t feel it. That’s a tropism. She’ll be all right. Sit down, Carl. Tell you what you can do—you can name them. Think. Think of a nice set of names, all connected in some way. Teague used moons. What are you going to—”

  “Time enough for that,” Carl grunted. “Tod … do you know what I’ll … I’d be if she—if something happened?”

  “Nothing’s going to happen.”

  “I’d just cancel out. I’m not Teague. I couldn’t carry it. How does Teague do it?…” Carl’s voice lapsed to a mumble.

  “Names,” Tod reminded him. “Seven, eight of ’em. Come on, now.”

  “Think she’ll have eight?”

  “Why not? She’s normal.” He nudged Carl. “Think of names. I know! How many of the old signs of the zodiac would make good names?”

  “Don’t remember ’em.”

  “I do. Aries, that’s good. Taurus. Gem—no; you wouldn’t want to call a child ‘Twins.’ Leo—that’s fine!”

  “Libra,” said Carl, “for a girl. Aquarius, Sagittarius—how many’s that?”

  Tod counted on his fingers. “Six. Then, Virgo and Capricorn. And you’re all set!” But Carl wasn’t listening. In two long bounds he reached April, who was just stepping into the compound. She looked tired. She looked more than tired. In her beautiful eyes was a great pity, the color of a bleeding heart.

  “Is she all right? Is she?” They were hardly words, those hoarse, rushed things.

  April smiled with her lips, while her eyes poured pity. “Yes, yes, she’ll be all right. It wasn’t too bad.”

  Carl whooped and pushed past her. She caught his arm, and for all her frailty, swung him around.

  “Not yet, Carl. Teague says to tell you first—”

  “The babies? What about them? How many, April?”

  April looked over Carl’s shoulder at Tod. She said, “Three.”

  Carl’s face relaxed, numb, and his eyes went round. “Th—what? Three so far, you mean. There’ll surely be more …”

  She shook her head.

  Tod felt the laughter explode within him, and he clamped his jaws on it. It surged at him, hammered in the back of his throat. And then he caught April’s pleading eyes. He took strength from her, and bottled up a great bray of merriment.

  Carl’s voice was the last fraying thread of hope. “The others died, then.”

  She put a hand on his cheek. “There were only three. Carl … don’t be mean to Moira.”

  “Oh, I won’t,” he said with difficulty. “She couldn’t … I mean it wasn’t her doing.” He flashed a quick, defensive look at Tod, who was now glad he had controlled himself. What was in Carl’s face meant murder for anyone who dared laugh.

  April said, “Not your doing either, Carl. It’s this planet. It must be.”

  “Thanks, April,” Carl muttered. He went to the door, stopped, shook himself like a big dog. He said again, “Thanks,” but this time his voice didn’t work and it was only a whisper. He went inside.

  Tod bolted for the corner of the building, whipped around it and sank to the ground, choking. He held both hands over his mouth and laughed until he hurt. When at last he came to a limp silence, he felt April’s presence. She stood quietly watching him, waiting.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. But … it is funny.”

  She shook her head gravely. “We’re not on Earth, Tod. A new world means new manners, too. That would apply even on Terra Prime if we’d gone there.”

  “I suppose,” he said, and then repressed another giggle.

  “I always thought it was a silly kind of joke anyway,” she said primly. “Judging virility by the size of a brood. There isn’t any scientific basis for it. Men are silly. They used to think that virility could be measured by the amount of hair on their chests, or how tall they were. There’s nothing wrong with having only three.”

  “Carl?” grinned Tod. “The big ol’ swashbuckler?” He let the grin fade. “All right, Ape. I won’t let Carl see me laugh. Or you either. All right?” A peculiar expression crossed his face. “What was that you said? April! Men never had hair on their chests!”

  “Yes, they did. Ask Teague.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” He shuddered. “I can’t imagine it unless a man had a tail too. And bony ridges over his eyes.”

  “It wasn’t so long ago that they had. The ridges, anyway. Well—I’m glad you didn’t laugh in front of him. You’re nice, Tod.”

  “You’re nice too.” He pulled her down beside him and hugged her gently. “Bet you’ll have a dozen.”

  “I’ll try.” She kissed him.

  When specimen-hunting had gone as far as it could, classification became the settlement’s main enterprise. And gradually, the unique pattern of Viridian life began to emerge.

  Viridis had its primitive fish and several of the mollusca, but the fauna was primarily arthropods and reptiles. The interesting thing about each of the three branches was the close relationship between species. It was almost as if evolution took a major step with each generation, instead of bumbling along as on Earth, where certain stages of development are static for thousands, millions of years. Pterodon, for example, existed in three varieties, the simplest of which showed a clear similarity to pteronauchis, the gliding newt. A simple salamander could be shown to be the common ancestor of both the flapping frog and massive Parametrodon, and there were strong similarities between this salamander and the worm which fathered the arthropods.

  They lived close to the truth for a long time without being able to see it, for man is conditioned to think of evolution from simple to complex, from ooze to animalcule to mollusc to ganoid; amphibid to monotreme to primate to tinker … losing the significance of the fact that all these co-exist. Was the vertebrate eel of prehistory a higher form of life than his simpler descendant? The whale lost his legs; this men call recidivism, a sort of backsliding in evolution, and treat it as a kind of illegitimacy.

&nb
sp; Men are oriented out of simplicity toward the complex, and make of the latter a goal. Nature treats complex matters as expediencies and so is never confused. It is hardly surprising, then, that the Viridis colony took so long to discover their error, for the weight of evidence was in error’s favor. There was indeed an unbroken line from the lowest forms of life to the highest, and to assume that they had a common ancestor was a beautifully consistent hypothesis, of the order of accuracy an archer might display in hitting dead center, from a thousand paces, a bowstring with the nock of his arrow.

  The work fell more and more on the younger ones. Teague isolated himself, not by edict, but by habit. It was assumed that he was working along his own lines; and then it became usual to proceed without him, until finally he was virtually a hermit in their midst. He was aging rapidly; perhaps it hurt something in him to be surrounded by so much youth. His six children thrived, and, with Carl’s three, ran naked in the jungle armed only with their sticks and their speed. They were apparently immune to practically everything Viridis might bring against them, even Crotalidus’s fangs, which gave them the equivalent of a severe bee-sting (as opposed to what had happened to Moira once, when they had had to reactivate one of the Coffins to keep her alive).

  Tod would come and sit with him sometimes, and as long as there was no talk the older man seemed to gain something from the visits. But he preferred to be alone, living as much as he could with memories for which not even a new world could afford a substitute.

  Tod said to Carl, “Teague is going to wither up and blow away if we can’t interest him in something.”

  “He’s interested enough to spend a lot of time with whatever he’s thinking about,” Carl said bluntly.

  “But I’d like it better if he was interested in something here, now. I wish we could … I wish—” But he could think of nothing, and it was a constant trouble to him.

  Little Titan was killed, crushed under a great clumsy Parametrodon which slid down a bank on him while the child was grubbing for the scarlet cap of the strange red mushroom they had glimpsed from time to time. It was in pursuit of one of these that Moira had been bitten by the Crotalidus. One of Carl’s children was drowned—just how, no one knew. Aside from these tragedies, life was easy and interesting. The compound began to look more like a kraal as they acclimated, for although the adults never adapted as well as the children, they did become far less sensitive to insect bites and the poison weeds which first troubled them.