“It works!” Ham exulted. “You’re a genius, my boy — albeit a stupid sort of genius.” He felt obliged to temper the praise a bit, considering how easily Slim’s head was apt to enlarge.
But he had spoken too soon. It became apparent that there were quite a few of the shadows still in the way, and that some of these had evidently retained enough intelligence to see the danger in the searchlights.
For Ham saw out of the corner of his eye several black streaks fly off to the left of the main body. Divining their purpose, he frantically swerved and caught several of them in the beam from his lamp; but even as he saw them fall, he realized that in the moment that he must hold the beam on them, others were escaping off at a tangent. In a minute they would be coming from all directions.
“Head back for the ship, Slim,” he urged. “They’re flanking us!”
SLIM needed no coaxing. He had seen those oblique streaks of black and had come to the same conclusion. Grimly the two men strode along, hampered by the necessity of keeping the heavy searchlights continually swerving to catch those of the Mad Ones who were tearing in from the sides.
Sometimes one or the other of them would suddenly whirl and face the rear, warned by some mysterious sense that some of the enemy had managed to circle them.
And each time this occurred they would be rewarded by the sight of one or more of the inky blobs shriveling and dropping. The thought never occurred to them in the heat of the battle, that those warnings could hardly be part of their own sensory equipment. But as it became increasingly apparent that they never could fend off the menacing Mad Ones long enough to reach the safety of the ship, the source of the warnings made itself known.
Unexpectedly, each man felt a constricting band tighten around his waist and abruptly jerk him off his feet. Both thought the same thing — that one of the Mad Ones had finally reached them. They struggled frantically to free themselves, as the unseen being lifted them through the air.
“It is I,” came the reassuring tones of Jasper. “Keep the lights working, or they may get us yet.”
But in spite of the almost invisible rapidity of their dartings, the searchlights kept the menacing shadows at bay. Several times Jasper was forced to swing one of the men suddenly outward, to let him get a shot at one of the blobs attacking from above; but such was the coordination between amoeba and man, made possible by Jasper’s mental equipment, that every attempt by the Mad Ones was frustrated.
Once inside the ship, Slim slumped down at the controls.
“Where do we go from here?”
“We might learn how to build one of those projectors,” Ham suggested. “Jasper could give us the dope.”
“Where, stupid?”
“Why... How about Pluto? That’s far enough out that a wide-angle projector would cover the rest of the system.”
Slim snorted his disgust. “Pluto turns on its axis. How could you keep it aimed?”
Ham pondered this, discarded it; thought up some more ideas, and discarded them too. He was reduced to mentally kicking himself for having voiced a half-baked idea for Slim to scoff at, when suddenly he thought of another, and put it into words without thinking.
“Say!” he exploded. “Suppose we had managed to start that contraption. What was there to stop the Mad Ones from turning it off again?”
“Nothing except that I intended to seal the door over after we came out. The Mad Ones are too concerned with the business of finding raw meat to be bothered going to the trouble of breaking in. They weren’t after us because we wanted to turn on the projector. All they wanted was a meal.”
HAM paced the floor nervously. Slim continued to slump. Jasper said nothing and did nothing. Ham, glancing at him, decided he looked more like an oversized sofa pillow than an animate being. But then, you could not expect the guy to come out with an idea of how to murder his own relatives.
His glance then strayed idly to the medicine chest. His eyes lighted up avidly. With a quick stride, he reached the cabinet and jerked open the door.
Slim was too far gone in the doldrums even to raise his head at the sound of a familiar gurgle. But he roused himself at the satisfied aah which followed.
“Where did you get that?” he wanted to know.
“Medicinal purposes, old chap,” explained Ham. “I’m sick. In fact I almost got et. That’s enough to make anybody sick.”
“I’m sick too,” declared Slim, reaching for the bottle.
Fortunately it was only an eight-ounce bottle. If it had been a quart, it would have probably had the unusual effect of putting the pair of them asleep. Jasper, of course, didn’t drink.
And if it had been a quart, and they had gone to sleep, then Ham wouldn’t have become talkative, and Slim wouldn’t have given birth to his prize idea. Such a catastrophe would very likely have changed the course of history on two solar systems.
But, as the chronicle has already recorded, it was an eight-ounce bottle. And Ham did become talkative.
At first he merely marveled that a machine that was potentially capable of operating for millions of years was stilled merely because they couldn’t cross a few feet of ground to start it up.
From that his verbal wanderings progressed to wonderment at the methods used to supply power to run the machine all those millions of years. He had completely forgotten Jasper’s explanation of that point.
Then he began to reminisce. In the course of which he covered much ground on the subject of power.
“Do you remember,” he asked, “back before atomic power was developed?”
“Before my time,” Slim grunted, somewhat annoyed.
He was in no mood to be tolerant toward Ham’s lapses.
“I’m referring,” Ham enlarged, “to the time just before atomic power was harnessed, and shortly after they learned to transmit tight beams of radio power. That was when the Sun Power Company made fortunes for a half-dozen men who had vision. They bought up a vast stretch of jungle land in South America, right on the equator, installed half a million selenium light-gatherers, on poles, and broadcast the power all over the world. Made a fortune selling the receivers.
“But the clever thing about the idea was the way they managed to put power production on a twenty-four hour basis. Broadcasting power from the sun after the sun had set!”
Slim, who had again sunk into a sort of apathy after guzzling his half of the bottle’s contents, suddenly snapped to attention, Ham, not noticing, droned on.
“Yeah, that was pretty clever,” he repeated. “Hiring two space ships — they were rockets then, too — and having them set up a orbit so that a light-reflecting screen, stretched between them, would send the sun’s rays down to make daylight on the night side of the planet. They used to stay there a month at a time, conserving power by dissipating the screen when the sun was shining directly on the Amazon territory.”
SLIM, by this time, was on his feet, striding toward a door which led into the ship’s laboratory and work-shop. Jasper, suddenly come to life, floated after him. Ham, a bit bewildered but determined not to show it, followed in their footsteps.
Slim was already at work with a slide rule and a book of logarithms. After a few minutes he stopped, cupped chin in palm, and frowned. Ham was no less bewildered; but Jasper seemed quite aware of what was in Slim’s mind. “Power?” he inquired.
“Yes,” answered Slim. “It would take more than this ship could produce. I would want a screen a lot bigger than the one those Sun Power lads used.”
“Why?” asked Ham, suddenly realizing what they were talking about. “You only need a screen big enough to bathe this particular region, say a mile on all sides, with the full rays of Propus. And while you are up there maintaining the screen, I’ll be down here turning on the projector and fusing the doorway shut. Simple, eh?”
“Goofy would be a better word,” Slim asserted. “Where would you be while I am going up to erect the screen?”
Ham’s face fell. “Et, I suppose,” he said, lamely.
But Jasper, who had been indulging in quite a bit of thought along lines foreign to him before meeting these two representatives of a more primitive civilization, decided to take a hand in the discussion.
“Why did you wish to make a screen larger than the one suggested by your friend?” he inquired.
Slim looked steadily at the ameba.
“Jasper, old son, I think you know the answer to that. It was my hope that I could erect a screen, a curved screen, so huge in area that it would bathe the entire night side of this planet with intense sunlight. The thing is possible, too, with enough power. I wanted to exterminate every damned one of those Mad Ones.”
“Why, may I ask?” the ameba calmly insisted.
“You may,” returned Slim. “Though I think you know the answer to that also. It was because I think you Jaspers are too danged fine a race of beings to be killed off. And that’s just what will happen eventually, if the Mad Ones are allowed to continue in existence.
“While your people are living sedate lives, curtailing your rate of division so that the planet will not become over-populated, these creatures are madly thinking of nothing but their carnivorous appetites. And dividing at a terrific pace!
“You have deliberately understated the plight of your people, but I managed to see through your pretense that a reckoning was far in the future. It is imminent!
“Your doom is on top of you. How else could you unconsciously emit such a strong feeling of horror, at the presence of the Mad Ones? At first I thought it was a revulsion at the thought of cannibalism, but the last time it was much too strong to be merely that.
“And yet, in spite of that horror, you forced yourself to stay with us and help us out when the pinch came, even to swinging us around to get a shot at the enemy. Say, old boy, did you realize you were fighting? Well, after the way you acted, even if you had the instincts of a wild boar, I would want to do something for you. That’s why I wanted to set up the big screen.”
Chapter 6
JASPER evidently required some time to digest all this, for he ventured no comment. Ham, usually voluble, was shocked into temporary silence by the sudden realization that ever since Jasper had explained the nature of the Mad Ones earlier in the day, he had been unconsciously puzzled by hazy, nebulous thoughts about the ultimate fate of the amoebas.
Even then his mind had been toying with the memory of the soul-chilling emanations the amoeba had loosed on the night previous. But it had taken Slim’s keen insight to make those thoughts concrete.
“Say, Jasper,” Ham finally exploded. “You were saying something about your people never being required to fight any other forms of life in the past. You just rose in the air and fled.
“But just the same your flight was an expression of a universal instinct called self-preservation. And maybe when flight won’t do you any good, you’ll forget your principles and do what any other form of life does when it’s cornered.
“My personal opinion is that you only think you could stand being eaten by a Mad One without trying to fight back. I figure that as individuals you Jaspers will fight when the time conies.
“The only trouble is that when the time comes that you can no longer run, it will be because the Mad Ones have multiplied to the extent that they will begin to pick you off, one at a time, by ganging on you.
“What I’m getting at is that if I’m right, and your people will be forced by the instinct of self-preservation to fight when you are ultimately cornered, why can’t you push the calendar ahead a little bit and do your fighting now, collectively while there is still time to save yourselves? You’ll do it in the end, anyway, in spite of your finer instincts — but it’ll be too late then.”
THE two men looked at Jasper expectantly but once again he declined to answer.
For a brief moment they fancied there was some mysterious aura surrounding the amoeba. There was an electric tensity in the air that made the silence seem tangible. For a short space they imagined the air shimmered and waved about the figure.
But the impression lasted only an instant, and Jasper became the same inscrutable being he always was. His smooth body was devoid of a revealing feature to indicate the workings of his mind. The incongruous thought passed fleetingly through Ham’s mind that the amoeba had the ideal equipment for playing poker. He had something better than a poker face. He had no face at all.
“It’ll be too late then,” repeated Jasper, absently. “We must find out!”
This made no particular sense to either of the men, nor did Jasper’s following actions. He rose slowly from the floor, as if reluctant to continue, and floated toward the airlock. He hesitated over the spot where the men had dropped the powerful searchlights when they had dashed into the ship.
Then abruptly four pseudopodia thrust forth and grasped the two lamps, while a fifth reached out to open the door.
“Remain inside, please,” he said, and swung the door inward just far enough to let himself through. It slammed shut before any of the Mad Ones even noticed it had been opened.
AS ONE man, Ham and Slim rushed to the nearest porthole. At first there was nothing to be seen. Jasper was not yet in their range of vision, and the reddish-gray landscape was broken only by an occasional hazy blot, marking the spot where one of the Mad Ones had fallen in the recent skirmish.
Floating in the air were still a few who had not been struck by the light beams; but evidently the majority had moved on in quest of easier prey.
Presently Jasper came in sight as he moved slowly away from the ship; and simultaneously with his appearance two of the hovering Mad Ones plummeted toward him. Twin beams of blinding light met them half-way and down they dropped, seared inwardly by the converted heat from the rays.
JASPER evidently didn’t invite further attack, for he retreated toward the ship.
Ham dashed to the door to let him in, then stepped back as Jasper floated slowly past him and deposited the lamps on the floor. Neither he nor Slim spoke when Jasper silently descended to rest beside the searchlights. Both knew that they had witnessed a momentous event.
For Jasper had, without even the driving urge of self-preservation, actually wreaked violence on a living creature. The experience must have shaken him to the core.
“Gentlemen.” Jasper finally broke the silence. “My people have come to a decision. I have purposely refrained from telling you this, but ever since your ship entered our atmosphere you have been under observation. And ever since you began to inspect my body, your thoughts have gone forth to all of my race.
“I lied when I said that only when you spoke could I hear your thought vibrations. You would have realized that if you had remembered how long my people have been communicating by this means. The deception was advisable, for if you had known your mind was being probed, you would have been uneasy and suspicious.
“At first we were merely interested in you as two intrepid travelers, exploring a new world. We are great space-people ourselves, and took a kindly interest in you. But before long your thoughts began to stir up something in our placid egos.
“You thought primitive thoughts. Struggle and competition seemed to be the very essence of your existence. Your determination to find a way to restore the decreased rate of metabolism in your people interested us.
“To us, who have lived for millions of years in blissful tranquility, our needs foreseen and provided for without effort, so slothful that we could face our own destruction with equanimity, you — to use your own idiom — started something.
“Possibly it was an eon-long submerged racial vitality coming to the surface; some vital urge dating back before the conscious life of the race; something from the days when our unicelled ancestors struggled in the primal slime of this planet — but your vigorous thoughts of self-perpetuation have stirred a similar urge in us.
“We have come to a decision. We shall throw off this slothful inertia which has gripped us for so long, and destroy the Mad Ones before they destroy us!”
<
br /> SLIM jumped to his feet with a whoop and grabbed the extended hand of a gleeful Ham. Then they turned to Jasper with the full intention of slapping him on the shoulder, but this being obviously impractical, they just stood and grinned.
“But before this decision was made,” the amoeba continued, “it was necessary to determine whether or not a Jasper was capable of killing. Your argument that we would do it anyway, after it was too late, had to be tested. It was, therefore, suggested that I try it.
“As I once told you, we are alike in our reactions: if it were possible for me to force myself to do violence, then it would be equally possible for us all to do the necessary thing. And as you saw, I killed.
“You have shown us the way. We shall erect the screen — our mastery of vibration will make it simple — and maintain it until the last of the Mad Ones is dead. We can do this without regret, brothers though they may be, for we know that their state of mentality has fallen below that of the beast.
“Those of the present generation are conscious of but one thing, their appetites. They have no other mental pursuits, so we are fortifying ourselves with the thought that to kill them is no more a crime against our principles than killing the plant life which we use for food.
“We wish to assure you that this is to be accomplished immediately; and as soon as it is done, the cosmic ray projector will be restored to operation.
“Now I must request that you start your homeward journey at once. The thing we are about to do is to us a shameful act, for all its necessity, and we would rather it not be witnessed.”
THE two earth dwellers, however, saw nothing shameful or degrading about an act of self-preservation; and accordingly, like Lot’s wife, looked back. In fact, they did more than look back. They stopped the ship well out of sight of any of the intellectual beings of Propus’ second planet, and trained a telescope on it.
The Best of Argosy #2 - Minions on the Moon Page 16
