Dynasty of the Small

by John Russell Fearn

  Side by side with this unparalleled horror came the constant smashing and toppling of buildings as still-active roots tore their way to the light. Riven streets, shattered edifices, fermenting and rotted limbs and corpses were commonplace sights in those black and ruthless days. Yet the survivors still toiled on, protected by their antiseptic suits, and built the domains for the remaining inhabitants. Now and again work was ruined by the intrusion of roots, but on the whole success was achieved.

  It was the late fall; overworked Nature was slowing down her pace, but, as ever, living trees and plants continued to reinforce themselves within, awaiting the spring when they would again burst forth on the Gargantuan race.

  And now there was real drought to be faced. What little rain had fallen during the summer had rapidly been absorbed by the plants’ osmosis. Springs, ponds, lakes and rivers had ceased to be. The reservoirs were sucked dry, and in their stead reposed tall and invincible grasses that hurled defiance to the first cold winds of approaching winter. By far did the dead outnumber the living. Only a few head of cattle were alive, and these were jealously guarded against the time when they might one day be of use again. Hence, meat supply failed. Milk was at a premium and water was rare. The only method of securing it was by filterization of sea water; but so difficult was the task of distribution, and so hard pressed was everybody in the building of shelters, the matter was shamefully neglected. Still, enough was obtained to meagerly satisfy the survivors, whilst food consisted of biscuits and dried foods all made before the giantism had come. In no other way was the certainty of security from the ravages of the disease.

  Thuswise, in November, 2019, mankind in every country retired to the shelters assigned to him, to await the development of circumstances, to study out what was to emerge from this vast and complex upheaval.

  To the forefront in the study of the existing conditions there were naturally Dr. Blair, Captain Northern, the officials of Explorations, Inc., and several scientists of international repute, amongst whom in particular was Professor Libby the noted English bacteriologist, a tall, gray-haired acrimonious man of uncertain age, who possessed a penchant for arguing every scientific detail, great or small.

  Their particular shelter building, larger than average on account of the instruments and apparatus housed therein, stood to the left of the now deserted Cures, Inc., building, commanding a perfect view of a small park to the front, with a vision of sadly shattered New York beyond.

  The metropolis was empty of people, but in the park at the base of the colossal trees, or half buried in rank grasses, lay the cadavers of those who had fallen.

  The disease had been arrested now, of that Blair was sure, but he shuddered when he thought of the unguessable trillions of unopposed bacteria multiplying and evolving outside, pursuing, he felt certain, some enigmatic and organized plan of their own.

  Not that there was any absolute guarantee of non-development of bacteria within the shelters, but certainly there was less chance of it than in the vast outer world where extinguishment was utterly impossible.

  Throughout the winter there seemed to be little evidence of any change. Somehow man struggled through on his short rations, afraid to venture outside. Frost and snow came and went, absorbed into the ground by the silent, now ungrowing trees. But deep down in the earth roots grasped the moisture and pushed their way farther into man’s domain. And deep down in the earth, too, were the first dim stirrings of an incredible evolution, a process quite invisible at that time to the anxious eyes of watching millions.

  Bacteria were developing with incredible speed, multiplying and expanding, freed utterly from all restraining influence. Strange and wonderful thing, this cyclonic and progressive development of spheres, rods and intermediate shapes, born of the soil, the colossal trees, the dead and festering remains of luckless humans. It was a birth and transformation sufficient surely to cause the late Louis Pasteur to turn in his grave.

  That bacilli, the rod-like bacteria, could ever have developed to visual size would have seemed a laughable fantasy in the ordinary world—yet toward the February of 2020 that was exactly what met the eyes of a staggered world, and particularly the eyes of the scientists connected with Explorations, Inc.

  Reproduction began to take form in the manner of lowly sexual activity! By degrees each offspring began to assume greater and stronger form, and began to obtrude from the barrenness of the winter soil, hard and dry on the surface but moist below; from the trunks of the mammoth trees grew magnificently delicate growths of an unusually feathery consistency, roots buried tenaciously into whatever gave them sustenance.

  These things, this astounding development of invisible life into beautiful and almost exotic vegetation, was an occurrence that caused Dr. Blair to gaze worriedly through the window, as he had gazed for so many long, tedious months.

  “Incredible!” he muttered. “And yet so blatantly, irresistibly true! Northern, those things are alive! Thinking bacteria! There’s no room for doubt.”

  The explorer gazed doubtfully; the other scientists grouped about him.

  “That’s putting it rather wildly, isn’t it?” Northern asked. “Whoever heard of thinking plants?”

  “They’re not plants; they only resemble them. They are evolved minute organisms—bacilli. Look at this fellow here by the window! Those branches are the absolute equivalent of ganglionic neurons and synaptic resistances, similar to those existing in a human system. Of course, I do not expect we shall have any sure sign of intelligence until the flowers on these queer things open. You see the buds?”

  “Umph,” Northern grunted. “Looks like a mixture of nasturtiums and spiraea to me.”

  “But tell me, Blair,” remarked Professor Libby, gazing through the window, “how can you possibly believe in the evolution of bacteria into thinking creatures?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not indeed! It’s against all scientific reason, Blair. I’m surprised at a man of your sagacity entertaining such a theory.”

  “On the contrary, my dear professor, it’s the only theory worth entertaining. Evolution being infinite in time and possibility, the war of the human race and higher mammals with the forces of disease was, before this happened, only in the very earliest stages—the greater battles were still to come. The spores of bacilli were, and still are, the most difficult forms of life to destroy.

  “Such other forms of life, like man, mammals, birds, reptiles and insects, are doomed to perish from any given habitable planet, overcome in turn through long ages of warfare by the indomitable forces of disease. These germs, with their life force of indestructible grandeur, are destined millions of years in the future to develop on the earth into a race of beings more and more intelligent than man could ever be.

  “Along with the gigantic prehistoric animals already extinct, all other species will have perished until these smallest and least subject to gravitation will alone survive and dominate the earth. Here we have that evolution taking place right before us, brought about solely by the disappearance of hampering, destructive Protozoa.”

  “I see,” the professor muttered. “In that case what do you propose we do? I had thought a worldwide fire might be beneficial in destroying these things.”

  “And lose perhaps the greatest revelation of all time?” Blair asked in shocked alarm.

  “I am thinking of ourselves. lf these things do turn out to be intelligent, there is no telling what may happen. They may be deadly and hostile; indeed, it seems to be the only conclusion permissible. Look how they create disease in humans!”

  “Ah, yes, but not from a vicious sense, Libby. They had to live. Their exact reasons we may learn later. Personally, I see no reason to anticipate hostility. A high intelligence is rarely hostile, you know. According to recent radio reports everybody can last out a while longer, so why spoil the chance of seeing or ourselves?”

  The professor shrugged his thin shoulders. “It’s in the hands of the majority,” he answered quietly. />
  CHAPTER 4

  Until April the astonishing transition of bacilli from their natural lowly form persisted. Everywhere, in every direction, throughout the length and breadth of the earth, there grew and advanced these remarkable but by no means unlovely creations. Radio reported their presence in cities, suburbs, outlying districts, and rural areas—everywhere indeed that life could gain a hold,

  In some cases climatic unsuitability caused a retardation, but on the whole the surface of the earth was covered by veritable eight-foot-high jungles of the stuff. They grew amidst the ruins of New York, leaving the broken buildings standing like islands, in mute testimony Ito the littleness of man.

  In particular did the domain of the scientists of Explorations, Inc., stand isolated amidst these living enigmas

  Day by day the baffled scientists looked out in dazed wonder, still unable to fully reconcile this mad metamorphosis of bacteriological evolution.

  In May, 2020, the buds opened—and it seemed noteworthy that no other plant life budded at all. Trees and grass remained with the cold, bare barrenness of winter. In many instances there were evidences that the struggling giants of the previous terrible summer were dying, not living. Even steadfast, towering oaks were shedding their bark and. becoming leachy white. A subtle, deadly necrosis had seized the earth’s natural beauty. The living bacilli had become parasites, feeding upon the very plants they had once assisted.

  The world became beautiful again when the bacilli buds opened into flowers. They resembled in general formation the vast, homely faces of giant sunflowers, only that they were far and away more delicate and ethereal in constitution.

  The petals themselves, on the outer edge, were absolutely black, which caused no little controversy amongst the botanists who had declared a dead black could not exist in the plant world, except without recourse to skilled grafting, This array of black-spiked petals was presented in vivid contrast to the salmon-pink tentacled disks, as the countless hundreds of majestic plants bent gently in the first winds of that unparalleled summer.

  It was when the flowers had been open for two weeks, no matter what the vagaries of the weather, that Explorations, Inc., decided that there lay before them one of the most unusual exploration trips in their annals. They resolved, by mutual assent, to venture outside. If the plants were alive and possessed means of communication there was no means of determining the fact within the heavily proofed walls.

  Outside, there seemed to be little danger, nor was there anything to suggest that the plants were carnivorous unless directly attacked. The liberation of a white rabbit from the building revealed that the plants ignored it completely until it started to make an investigative nibble of a thick stem. Then a tentacled disk bent forward in sudden fury; branches lashed savagely, and the unfortunate rodent was torn in pieces with merciless ferocity. Afterward the plant in question resumed its passive and erect position.

  “Obviously we must not attack them,” commented Blair, after he and the others had been rather horrified observers of this little episode. “Everything else seems safe, There is certainly no danger of disease now; germs have grown up. Come—we’ll go outside. You, captain—and you. Professor Libby, and any of you other gentlemen who care to come along.”

  The others nodded silent assent. Captain Northern, more from experience than aught else, took a rifle from the wall rack and fingered it lovingly.

  “I don’t like these darned things,” he confessed. “Give me lions or tigers—anything natural! A collection of infernal plants isn’t my idea of game at all.”

  “Take your rifle if it consoles you, captain, but don’t, for Heaven’s sake, fire without cause,” Blair warned him grimly. “Now, gentlemen, let us be going.”

  Cautiously, the door bolts were slipped back and the little party of men filed rather uneasily into the jungle of eight-foot plants about them, looking curiously at the livid-green stems of the things, noting in silence the peculiar formation of roots.

  “I say, do you smell anything?” Northern asked presently, pausing and sniffing strongly.

  The others stopped. The air was suddenly and unaccountably heavy with the oddest and most indefinable of odors.

  “Lord!” Northern breathed, swaying slightly in spite of himself. “The stuff’s got the kick of a supercharged cocktail. What do you make of it, Blair?”

  The little scientist stood perfectly still, his face crinkled in the oddest expression, as he sniffed and considered simultaneously.

  “Don’t you notice something besides the smell?” he asked at last, and his voice seemed to indicate that he was almost afraid of his own thoughts.

  “Don’t you detect a kind of—of mental perturbation?”

  “I’ve noticed it for some time,” Professor Libby commented pensively. “It feels just as though these things were trying to communicate through smell! Of course the thing is idiotic!”

  “I wonder if it is?” Blair muttered, looking about him. “After all, in what other way could a plant growth convey its thoughts? Of what use is a flower’s perfume by itself? Think of the exotic, overpowering odor of acacia; the heavy and sickly smell of a hyacinth in a heated room; the rank, earthy reek of a full-blown chrysanthemum, so suggestive of the fall and death.

  “I repeat—botanists have never found the reason for a plant’s odor. Might it not be a very rudimentary form of thought-radiation, entirely misunderstood by our hopelessly undeveloped sense of smell—the least developed of all our senses?”

  “I never looked at it quite like that before,” Professor Libby confessed. “Now you mention it, I—” .He stopped suddenly in obvious surprise. “The plant odor has changed!” he cried in astonishment. “You notice? It smells like—like coffee! Doesn’t that rather confound your plant-odor theory, Blair?”

  “Not at all; several of the rarer tropical plants change their perfume just as a chameleon changes its color.”

  The scientists ceased to wrangle, fell silent, baffled by the peculiarities with which they were surrounded; but of one fact they could be sure: the bacilli plants changed the exhalation of their perfume almost constantly. At every forward step they took, the explorers into this new and unexpected world became conscious of new and unsuspected uses for their olfactory nerves. They sensed, by their very action of inhaling the multitudinous perfumes, a first dim effort at communication, which was either too feeble or else their brains were too dense to grasp it.

  Altogether, that first exploration was none too illuminating. They learned nothing; indeed only realized with a numbing, leaden bitterness that the fair face of the normal earth had gone for all time—that they, in common with the countless other millions of earth’s inhabitants, were a decadent race, prey to these odd but relentless objects that were neither plant nor animal, but something hovering on that strange, invisible bridge between.

  * * * *

  It is said, with considerable truth, that familiarity breeds contempt.

  Certainly it did so in the case of the scientists in whom we are most interested. Day after day, becoming bolder each time, Blair led his little party of immediate followers into the surrounding bacteria jungle, and each day they became palpably conscious of a new meaning to the varied odors.

  Their olfactory nerves became gradually adjusted to the unexpected conditions, with the result that a sense of smell, formerly the prime possession of animals, became .a superb development in man! Nerve responded to nerve, affecting, too, the nerves of the brain, until at last, three months later, after constant inhalations of the perfume, those of Explorations, Inc., sensed the first real portents of dawning; revelation entering their minds.

  Instead of speech heard by the ears, it was odor conveyed by the nostrils, the formerly least developed sense in man suddenly taking on vital significance.

  Thus in September of 2020 Dr. Blair and his associates perceived with perfect clarity the real meaning behind this incredible evolution. He and the others assembled in the little clearing wherein they so far
had daily investigated and, inhaling the laden air, read the first messages—beyond question the strangest messages ever conveyed in living men. The only drawback was the inability to convey replies. Answers could not even be given by pantomime, for it had become increasingly obvious that the objects had no visual organs. Their entire process of detection seemed. to be accomplished by a complex form óf sensitivity, as though their oddly-formed nerves were responsive to every change of light radiation, sound, or air movement.

  Gradually the message took on form:

  “That you are men, flesh-and-blood creations born originally of chromosomes, we know full well. We have sensed the aura of your presences, and to a great extent have gathered information from your minds. We would wish it to be understood that since our advent to maturity, the completion of our evolutionary cycle, we have taken stock of the world into which we have come. To humans, as we sense you call yourselves, we have no hostility, and much less so to your particular party.

  “You, Dr. Blair, are our greatest benefactor. By the removal of what you call Protozoa you took from our paths what would be to you the equivalent of three things—time, war, and death! With none of those to hamper you, think what you could do! You gave to us a similar opportunity, and for that we are grateful.

  “That we have developed to maturity so quickly is not really so wonderful a thing as you seem to imagine. Before, our microscopic size, our almost two-dimensional limitations, caused our purposes and advancement to be invisible to your eyes. We had the same powers then as now, but you couldn’t detect them.

  “Our world was a flat and uninteresting place; we were surrounded by giants, almost beaten in our struggle to attain full proportions by the ravages of the merciless Protozoa. Now that we have emerged from our cramping environment, now that we have, as it were, a totally different relative outlook—as different nearly as a new universe would be to you—we shall pursue our intelligent pursuits....”