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systems.
We go, in the happy and carefree days of youth, to great nurseries, and then
to great schools, great universities. We enter upon great and difficult
duties. It was different, in the old days."
Old men weren't any different, though, thought Newell. Wonder if they could
talk quite as well as that. When you listened to that rich resonant voice and
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didn't pay too much attention to the meaning, you might actually think he was
saying something different. So times have changed imagine thinking that was a
great discovery!
But that voice no wonder the old boy's a good hypnotist. The very way he
thinks is calculated to put you to sleep. Fuzzy mind, furry voice wonder if
they had any quite as good as him then, always looking back with regret to
their old days.
"My father, sir, lived to a hundred and sixty-three, and even then it was only
accident that ended his life. I was born when he was one hundred and eleven. I
come from a long-lived line, sir, a line that retains its manly powers for
many years."
Boasting, huh? Okay, Pop, go ahead.
Indra must have heard him. "Father," she called.
"Yes, dear?"
"I know that Mr. Newell is too polite and too considerate to ask you, but we
are doing something in a hurry "
"An enterprise of great moment, eh, dear?"
"Yes, it's important. It would be very nice if you could help."
"Anything within the limits of my abilities, Indra, dear, anything within the
rather wide limits of my abilities. Tell me your difficulties, and I shall do
my best to counsel you properly."
"You don't understand, Father.
We don't need advice. We'll tell you what to do."
The old throat cleared. "Unfortunately, Indra, as you know, I lack the
abounding physical energies that once were mine. Mentally I am as alert as
ever, but physically
"It won't be difficult, Father." "One moment. Indra, I must tell Mr. Newell
something. Would you believe it, sir, when I was twenty-three, and a student
at the Intermediate no, at the Lesser Galactic
Graduate School Section 4A or was it 5C? let me see, now "
"Here, Father," said Indra coaxingly. "It's really very simple. It's a matter
of digging furrows, as we sometimes see in the pictures that have come down to
us from primitive times."
"Such menial labor as that, eh, daughter?" But he went over to her, and Indra,
to Newell's surprise, soon had him doing useful work.
Newell shook his head to get all those words out of his ears, and then went on
with his own work.
Unexpected difficulties had cropped up.
The sun was two hours above the horizon when he finally began to plant the
dragon-tooth seeds.
IT WENT slower here than when he had first planted them. This was no cleared
field where he could stride without watching his footsteps. This was a partial
clearing at best, the path broken by trees, stumps, and bushes of all kinds.
But there had been no time to seek for better ground. This would have to do to
raise a crop of the dragon-tooth creatures.
The girl and the old man watched in awe as the shoots began to push their way
up. Now, as the growing plants became gradually more human in appearance,
there was no effect as of an army of men springing into existence. Each
plant-creature was surrounded by other plants, so that as the young shoots
grew they appeared to be merely coming out of a hiding place which they had
assumed long before.
"Remarkable," said the old man. "A most remarkable phenomenon. Still, it is
not absolutely unprecedented. I recall the descriptions of some of the
plant-beasts of the lesser known stars "
"Of course, Father." Indra turned to Newell. "How do you handle them now?"
"With lights. It isn't going to be easy. I have my flashlight, and I have the
glow of the hypnotizer. I'll have to condition them to signals of different
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intensity and different rhythms. They exhibit a natural tropism a tendency to
move toward red light and away from violet. It's doubtless connected with the
pinkness of the sun. At any rate, that helps me to control their movements,
and at the same time, gives me a chance to combine the light signals with loud
vocal commands, condition them to respond to words."
"Doesn't that take a great deal of time?"
"I should be able to get good results in a few hours."
Up above, there was the same roar he had heard the preceding night. The sun
glinted on a tiny silvery shape before distance shrank the ship to an
undetectable point.
"That's the space ship that came last night!" she exclaimed.
"They're still cruising around, trying to find Bulkley and me. I hope they
don't succeed in spotting the plastex huts too soon."
"But surely, now that they know something has happened to the first ship, they
won't be so easy to take by surprise!"
He shook his head. "I'm not counting on them. They know about the earthquakes
that occur here, and if they come across the ruins of the first ship, caught
in the ground, they may think at first that the ship was the victim of an
accident. Bulkley might even take steps to make them think that. He might, for
instance, put up a signal of distress."
"Then we don't have too much time!"
"Right. The sooner I can get my soldiers trained, the better off we'll be."
The minutes, as he was painfully aware, were ticking away all too rapidly.
Where on the previous occasion the plant-creatures had seemed to grow with
miraculous speed, now they hardly appeared to grow at all. What was that old
motto again a watched pot never boils? Motto proverb, whatever it was and
whatever a pot was it expressed what was happening now. Watched plants never
grew.
Somehow, however, they were full size, and then they began to free themselves
from the soil. Newell switched on his flashlight, began to coordinate his
light signals with spoken commands.
It was amazing to see how quickly they learned to obey or rather, were
conditioned to obey, for of learning in any conscious sense there could be
none. Quickly he reached the point where he could march them back and forth
across the field by the spoken word alone.
Up above him, the space ship flashed again. Fortunately, it did not land
nearby. Time, he was reminded, was growing short. It was almost with a sense
of desperation that he went on with his military drill.
He had taught them to march and maneuver. Now he had to teach them to kill. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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