Podus replies that there are certainly straight lines in the construction of the artifact outside. Eptus says, if it is an artifact. Podas maintains that it definitely is an artifact and the existence of a creature which is just a sack full of tubes is riot reasonable in itself, let alone that it should generate reason.
And that, for the moment, is how things stand.
Report No. 3. All states and positions (except casualty) —No change. Casualty — one lost.
Little progress to report. One intelligent being of a kind has been discovered. Contact with it is not yet established. The term ‘intelligent’ is here to be understood technically as being the power to influence reflexes to some extent.
Both ratiocination and perception are so restricted in the specimen observed as to make it appear unlikely that this can be the most advanced form here. The creature is hostile and has caused one casualty — Althis, engineer. Contact with more intelligent forms is still awaited.
Dear Zenn. Too much of the good things of life presents almost as many problems as too little. The temptation of such a wealth of easily assimilable silicates has proved too much for several of our party. A dozen have succumbed to it and indulged in what can only be described as an orgy of gormandizing a little west of our position.
When discovered, they had already created a pit of some size and had increased themselves beyond possibility of their re-entering the redoubt. So there they will have to stay and take their chance. I drew the attention of the rest to the result of such intemperance with, I hope, salutary effect. We shall see.
Meanwhile Podas has turned out to be astonishingly justified in some of his deductions. Eptus is a trifle piqued about this and doggedly insists upon applying reason in what seems to me — and to Podas — an unreasonable way.
As I pointed out to him, this is by no means a reasonable planet. After what we have seen of it I, for one, would be by no means surprised to find that two and two make seven by the local rules. To this Eptus obstinately asserts that reason is absolute and universal and therefore must hold good on even the craziest planet. All I can say to that is that it just doesn't look that way from here.
Podas' second specimen — the one taken from the disked artifact — after lying for some time doing nothing perceptible beyond expansion and contraction, then began for no discoverable reason to show signs of re-animation. It moved a little.
Then we observed that small flaps in the tegument —the permanent, not the dispensable tegument — covering the blunt projection were drawn back, uncovering a kind of lenses made, seemingly, of liquid. For a short while no more happened. But it was then that we realized that it did have intelligence of a kind.
We could feel its mind, which had apparently been absent or in some way diffused before, coalescing into some sort of form. Quite suddenly it raised its cylindrical main mass to the vertical on the rounded lower end — where, in this species, there is no tapered projection.
Immediate reflex concern filled its mind at the absence of the detachable teguments Podas had removed when examining it. This concern, however, was quickly replaced by another — an urgent fear of falling. It turned its lenses downward. There was immediate chaos in its mind but the dominant question seemed to be — why did it not drop to the ground some little distance beneath?
Well, why should it? It was supported on a solid block of boltik, which in turn rested on the solid boltik floor. This it presently discovered for itself by sliding one of its slender upper projections over the surface. At this its confusion grew rather than diminished.
Then we made the surprising discovery that its lenses were extraordinarily defective. Their range was so limited that they were quite insensitive not only to boltik but to all our other materials, including ourselves! It had no means of detecting them or us except by touch.
Consequently, what it was now asking itself was how it came to be suspended above the ground in the middle of a desert. It gave a long look at the damaged artifact outside.
It took hold of a part of itself, apparently with the intention of proving its own existence to itself.
Hostility is evidently instinctive to this species. Its weapon is concealed somewhere within it and is projected from an orifice a little below the lenses. It takes the form of a slot or a rough circle according to the force employed. It began to use it now, fortunately on a low power and register which caused us no more than a slight discomfort.
It moved one of its lower projections and found the edge of the block. Thence it felt downward to the floor. Assured by touch that that existed it put down the matching projection — but instead of bring down the other pair of projections, it remained balanced upon two!
At this point Eptus complained that he must be suffering from hallucinations. The creature was so manifestly top-heavy that it was against reason for it to remain stable in the position in which he now saw it.
We agreed in principle, but pointed out that we were seeing the same thing, so that we must accept its reality in spite of reason. Eptus declared that Podas must have overlooked a gyroscope somewhere in the tangle of tubes.
The creature remained vertical but stationary for a moment. It then began to make its way, by an ungainly swaying of its weight from one projection to the other, towards the disked artifact.
Not being able to perceive the wall of the redoubt it encountered it somewhat suddenly and with natural surprise. It continued its manifestations of hostility as it felt about the boltik surface in bewilderment. Then, discouraged, it turned back.
It was at that moment that it saw for the first time the other specimen which Podas' investigations had reduced to a rather disorderly condition.
It stopped. Its lenses widened. The slot below them also widened. In that instant we learned how terrible the attack of these creatures can be. Although it could not see us it must have sensed in some way that we were there — we could feel its awareness of danger — so it gave its weapon full power.
By misfortune, I think, rather than by design, it had the range of one of us exactly. Poor Althis, the engineer, was shattered in a twinkling and fell in a pile of dust. Simultaneously a fissure occurred in one of the interior walls of the redoubt.
Luckily the sharp report of Althis' disintegration startled the creature. It ceased the attack momentarily and stood looking round to see whence the sound had come. Before it could renew its attack we took action, holding the creature in such a way that it could not use its weapon.
Podas, with great presence of mind, cast a shape of boltik and cooled it — for we have found that the substance of these creatures calcines at quite low temperatures — and then fitted it to the creature in such a way that it could not open its slot and was thus virtually disarmed.
It is true that this did not pacify it, for it continued to attempt to use its weapon, but its power was reduced to mere nuisance value. When we released it, it struck at us with its upper projections although it could not see us.
In doing so it cut its soft tegument on Eptus and left a smear of its red liquid upon him. The sight of this moving as he moved seemed to worry it a great deal. Finding that its soft members suffered in this way when they encountered us, it desisted and turned its attention to trying to rid itself of Podus' frame in order to attack us again.
This was, of course, far beyond its feeble power and in a short time it began to feel its way round the interior of the redoubts, apparently seeking for a way out and still making suppressed attempts to use its weapon.