The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum Part 29

"A normal- Well, I'm glad I'm not a biologist! Or a woman!"

"So'm I," said Pat demurely. "Oscar, how much do you know?"

"Everything."

"Do you know where my people come from?"

"From beyond the light."

"Yes; but before that?"

"No."

"We come from another planet," said the girl impressively. At Oscar's silence she said: "Do you know what a planet is?" "Yes."

"But did you know before I said the word?"

"Yes. Long before."

"But how? Do you know what machinery is? Do you know what weapons are? Do you know how to make them?" "Yes."

"Then-why don't you?"

"There is no need."

"No need!" she gasped. "With light-even with fire-you could keep the triopses-trioptes, I mean-away. You could keep them from eating you!"

There is no need."

She turned helplessly to Ham.

"The thing's lying," he suggested.

"I-don't think so," she murmured. "It's something else-something we don't understand. Oscar, how do you know all those things?"

"Intelligence."

At the next cave another pod popped sullenly.

"But how? Tell me how you discover facts."

"From any fact," clicked the creature on the ice, "intelli-gence can build a picture of the-" There was silence. "Universe?" she suggested.

"Yes. The universe. I start with one fact and I reason from it. I build a picture of the universe. I start with another fact. I reason from it. I find that the universe I picture is the same as the first. I know that the picture is true."

Both listeners stared in awe at the creature. "Say!" gulped Ham. "If that's true we could find out anything from Oscar!

Oscar, can you tell us secrets that we don't know?" "No."

"Why not?"

"You must first have the words to give me. I cannot tell you that for which you have no words."

"It's true!" whispered Pat. "But Oscar, I have the words time and s.p.a.ce and energy and matter and law and cause. Tell me the ultimate law of the universe?"

"It is the law of-" Silence.

"Conservation of energy or matter? Gravitation?" "No."

"Of-of G.o.d?""No."

"Of-life?"

"No. Life is of no importance."

"Of-what? I can't think of another word."

"There's a chance," said Ham tensely, "that there is no word!"

"Yes," clicked Oscar. "It is the law of chance. Those other words are different sides of the law of chance."

"Good Heaven!" breathed Pat. "Oscar, do you know what I mean by stars, suns, constellations, planets, nebulae, and atoms, protons, and electrons?"

' "Yes."

"But-how? Have you ever seen the stars that are above these eternal clouds? Or the Sun there beyond the barrier?"

"No. Reason is enough, because there is only one possible way in which the universe could exist. Only what is possible is real; what is not real is also not possible:"

"That-that seems to mean something," murmured Pat. "I don't see exactly what. But Oscar, why-why don't you use your knowledge to protect yourselves from your enemies?"

"There is no need. There is no need to do anything. In a hundred years we shall be-" Silence.

"Safe?"

"Yes-no."

"What?" A horrible thought struck her. "Do you mean-extinct?"

"Yes."

"But-oh, Oscar! Don't you want to live? Don't your peo-ple want to survive?"

"Want," shrilled Oscar. "Want-want-want. That word means nothing."

"It means-it means desire, need."

"Desire means nothing. Need-need. No. My people do not need to survive."

"Oh," said Pat faintly. "Then why do you reproduce?"

As if in answer, a bursting pod sent its pungent dust over them. "Because we must," clicked Oscar.

"When the spores strike us, we must."

"I-see," murmured Pat slowly. "Ham, I think I've got it. I think I understand. Let's get back to the ship."

Without farewell she turned away and he followed her thoughtfully. A strange listlessness oppressed him.

They had one slight mishap. A stone flung by some stray trioptes sheltered behind the ridge shattered the left lamp in Pat's helmet. It seemed hardly to disturb the girl; she glanced briefly aside and plodded on. But all the way back, in the gloom to their left now illumined only by his own lamps, hoots and shrieks and mocking laughter pursued them.

Within the rocket Pat swung her specimen bag wearily to the table and sat down without removing her heavy outer arment. Nor did Ham; despite the oppressive warmth of it, le, too, dropped listlessly to a seat on the bunk.

"I'm tired," said the girl, "but not too tired to realize what hat mystery out there means."

"Then Iet's hear it."

"Ham," she said, "what's the big difference between plant and animal life?"

"Why-plants derive their sustenance directly from soil nd air. Animals need plants or other animals as food."

"That isn't entirely true, Ham. Some plants are parasitic, mnd prey on other life. Think of the Hotlands, or think, even, )f some terrestrial plants-the fungi, the pitcher plant, the Dionaea that trap flies."

"Well, animals move, then, and plants don't."

"That's not true, either. Look at microbes; they're plants, )ut they swim about in search of food."

"Then what is the difference?"

"Sometimes it's hard to say," she murmured, "but I think [ see it now. It's this: Animals have desire andplants necessity. Do you understand?"

"Not a d.a.m.n bit."

"Listen, then. A plant-even a moving one-acts the way t does because it must, because it's made so. An animal acts ,ecause it wants to, or because it's made so that it wants to."

"What's the difference?"

"There is a difference. An animal has will, a plant hasn't. Do you see now? Oscar has all the magnificent intelligence of a but he hasn't the will of a worm. He has reactions, but no desire. When the wind is warm he comes out and feeds; when it's cold he crawls back into the cave melted by his body seat. But that isn't will; it's just a reaction. He has no desires!"

Ham stared, roused out of his la.s.situde. "I'll be d.a.m.ned if t isn't true!" he cried. "That's why he-or they-never ask luestions. It takes desire or will to ask a question! And that's why they have no civilization and never will have!"

"That and other reasons," said Pat. "Think of this: Oscar sas no s.e.x, and in spite of your Yankee pride, s.e.x has been a )ig factor in building civilization. It's the basis of the family, ind among Oscar's people there is no such thing as parent and hild. He splits; each half of him is an adult, probably with Al the knowledge and memory of the original.

"There's no need for love, no place for it, in fact, and therefore no call to fight for mate and family, and no reason to make life easier than it already is, and no cause to apply his intelligence to develop art or science or-or anything!" She paused. "And did you ever hear of the Malthusian law, Ham?"

"Not that I remember."

"Well, the law of Malthus says that population presses on the food supply. Increase the food and the population in-creases in proportion. Man evolved under that law; for a cen-tury or so it's been suspended, but our race grew to be human under it."

"Suspended! It sounds sort of like repealing the law of gravi-tation or amending the law of inverse squares."

"No, no," she said. "It was suspended by the development of machinery in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which shot the food supply so far ahead, that population hasn't caught up. But it will and the Malthusian law will rule again."

"And what's that got to do with Oscar?"

"This, Ham: He never evolved under that law. Other fac-tors kept his numbers below the limit of the food supply, and so his species developed free of the need to struggle for food. He's so perfectly adapted to his environment that he needs nothing more. To him a civilization would be superfluous!"

"But-then what of the triops?"

"Yes, the triops. You see, Ham, just as I argued days ago, the triops is a newcomer, pushed over from the twilight zone. When those devils arrived, Oscar's people were already evolved, and they couldn't change to meet the new conditions, or couldn't change quickly enough. So-they're doomed.

"As Oscar says, they'll be extinct soon-and-and they don't even care." She shuddered. "All they do, all they can do, is sit before their caves and think. Probably they think G.o.d-like thoughts, but they can't summon even a mouse-like will. That's what a vegetable intelligence is; that's what it has to be!"

"I think-I think you're right," he muttered. "In a way it's horrible, isn't it?"

"Yes." Despite her heavy garments she shivered. "Yes; it's horrible. Those vast, magnificent minds and no way for them to work. It's like a powerful gasoline motor with its drive shaft broken, and no matter how well it runs it can't turn the wheels. Ham, do you know what I'm going to namethem? The Lotophagi Veneris-the Lotus Eaters! Content to sit and dream away existence while lesser minds-ours and the trioptes'-battle for their planet."

"It's a good name, Pat." As she rose he asked in surprise: "Your specimens? Aren't you going to prepare them?"

"Oh, tomorrow." She flung herself, parka and all, on her bunk.

"But they'll spoil! And your helmet light-I ought to fix it." "'Tomorrow," she repeated wearily, and hisown languor kept him from further argument.

When the nauseous odor of decay awakened him some hours later Pat was asleep, still garbed in the heavy suit. He flung bag and specimens from the door, and then slipped the parka from her body. She hardly stirred as he tucked her gently into her bunk.

Pat never missed the specimen bag at all, and, somehow, the next day, if one could call that endless night a day, found them trudging over the bleak plateau with the girl's helmet lamp still unrepaired. Again at their left, the wildly mocking laughter of the night dwellers followed them, drifting eerily down on the underwind, and twice far-flung stones chipped glittering ice from neighboring spires. They plodded listlessly and silently, as if in a sort of fascination, but their minds seemed strangely clear.

Pat addressed the first Lotus Eater they saw. "We're back, Oscar," she said with a faint rebirth of her usual flippancy. "How'd you spend the night?"

"I thought," clicked the thing.

"What'd you think about?"

"I thought about-" The voice ceased.

A pod popped, and the curiously pleasant pungent odor was in their nostrils.

"About-us?"

"No."

"About-the world?"

"No."

"About- What's the use?" she ended wearily. "We could keep that up forever, and perhaps never hit on the right question."