“Crossfertilization for vigor? Yes.”
“But we were the agents that arranged for the mingling. We landed on one planet and were coated with pollen. Remember the blooms closing? That must have been just after they released their pollen; and that's what was making us sneeze, too. Then we landed on the other planet and knocked the pollen off our clothes. A new hybrid strain win start up. We were just a pair of two-legged bees, Chouns, doing our duty by the flowers.”
Chouns smiled tentatively. “ An inglorious role, in a way.”
“Hen, that's not it. Don't you see the danger? Don't you see why we have to get back home fast?”
“Why?”
“Because organisms don't adapt themselves to nothing. Those plants seem to be adapted to interplanetary fertilization. We even got paid off, the way bees are; not with nectar, but with Gamow sighters.”
“Well?”
“Well, you can't have interplanetary fertilization unless something or someone is there to do the job. We did it this time, but we were the first humans ever to enter the cluster. So, before this, it must be nonhumans who did it; maybe the same nonhumans who transplanted the blooms in the first place. That means that somewhere in this cluster there is an intelligent race of beings; intelligent enough for space travel. And Earth must know about that.”
Slowly Chouns shook his head. Smith frowned. “You find flaws somewhere in the reasoning?”
Chouns put hi!; head between his own palms and looked miserable. “Let's say you've missed almost everything.”
“What have I missed?” demanded Smith angrily.
“Your crossfertilization theory is good, as far as it goes, but you haven't considered a few points. When we approached that stellar system our hyperatomic motor went out of order in a way the automatic controls could neither diagnose nor correct. After we landed we made no effort to adjust them. We forgot about them, in fact; and when you handled them later you found they were in perfect order, and were so unimpressed by that that you didn't even mention it to me for another few hours.
“Take something else: How conveniently we chose landing spots near a grouping of animal life on both planets. Just luck? And our incredible confidence in the good will of the creatures. We never even bothered checking atmospheres for trace poisons before exposing ourselves.
“And what bothers me most of all is that I went completely crazy over the Gamow sighters. Why? They're valuable, yes, but not that valuable-and I don't generally go overboard for a quick buck.”
Smith had kept an uneasy silence during all that. Now he said, “I don't see that any of that adds up to anything.”
“Get off it, Smith; you know better than that. Isn't it obvious to you that we were under mental control from the outside?”
Smith's mouth twisted and caught halfway between derision and doubt. “ Are you on the psionic kick again?”
“Yes; facts are facts. I told you that my hunches might be a form of rudimentary telepathy.”
“Is that a fact, too? You didn't think so a couple of days ago.”
“I think so now. Look, I'm a better receiver than you, and I was more strongly affected. Now that it's over, I understand more about what happened because I received more. Understand?”
“No,” said Smith harshly.
“Then listen further. You said yourself the (Gamow sighters were the nectar that bribed us into pollination. You said that.”
“All right.”
“Well, then, where did they come from? They were Earth products; we even read the manufacturer's name and model on them, letter by letter. Yet, if no human beings have ever been in the cluster, where did the sighters come from? Neither one of us worried about that, then; and you don't seem to worry about it even now.”
“Well-”
“What did you do with the sighters after we got on board ship, Smith? You took them from me; I remember that.”
“I put them in the safe,” said Smith defensively. “Have you touched them since?”
“No.”
“Have I?”
“Not as far as I know.”
“You have my word I didn't. Then why not open the safe now?”
Smith stepped slowly to the safe. It was keyed to his fingerprints, and it opened. Without looking he reached in. His expression altered and with a sharp cry he first stared at the contents, then scrabbled them out.
He held four rocks of assorted color, each of them roughly rectangular.
“They used our own emotions to drive us,” said Chouns softly, as though insinuating the words into the other's stubborn skull one at a time. “They made us think the hyperatomics were wrong so we could land on one of the planets; it didn't matter which, I suppose. They made us think we had precision instruments in our hand after we landed on one so we would race to the other.”
“Who are 'they'?” groaned Smith. “The tails or the snakes? Or both?”
“Neither,” said Chouns. “It was the plants.”
“The plants? The flowers?”
“Certainly. We saw two different sets of animals tending the same species of plant. Being animals ourselves, we assumed the animals were the masters. But why should we assume that? It was the plants that were being taken care of.”
“We cultivate plants on Earth, too, Chouns.”
“But we eat those plants,” said Chouns.
“And maybe those creatures eat their plants, too.”
“Let's say I know they don't,” said Chouns. “Theymaneuvered us well enough. Remember how careful I was to find a bare spot on which to land.”
“I felt no such urge.”
“You weren't at the controls; they weren't worried about you. Then, too, remember that we never noticed the pollen, though we were covered with it-not till we were safely on the second planet. Then we dusted the pollen off, on order.”
“I never heard anything so impossible.”
“Why is it impossible? We don't associate intelligence with plants, because plants have no nervous systems; but these might have. Remember the fleshy buds on the stems? Also, plants aren't free-moving; but they don't have to be if they develop psionic powers and can make use of free-moving animals. They get cared for, fertilized, irrigated, pollinated, and so on. The animals tend them with single-minded devotion and are happy over it because the plants make them feel happy.”
“I'm sorry for you,” said Smith in a monotone. “If you try to tell this story back on Earth, I'm sorry for you.”
“I have no illusions,” muttered Chouns, “yet-what can I do but try to warn Earth. You see what they do to animals.”
“They make slaves of them, according to you.”
“Worse than that. Either the tailed creatures or the snake-things, or both, must have been civilized enough to have developed space travel once; otherwise the plants couldn't be on both planets. But once the plants developed psionic powers (a mutant strain, perhaps), that came to an end. Animals at the atomic stage are dangerous. So they were made to forget; they were reduced to what they are. -Damn it, Smith, those plants are the most dangerous things in the universe. Earth must be informed about them, because some other Earthmen may be entering that cluster.”
Smith laughed. “You know, you're completely off base. If those plants really had us under control, why would they let us get away to warn the others?”
Chouns paused. “I don't know.” Smith's good humor was restored. He said, “For a minute you had me going, I don't mind telling you.”
Chouns rubbed his skull violently. Why were they let go? And for that matter, why did he feel this horrible urgency to warn Earth about a matter with which Earthmen would not come into contact for millennia perhaps?
He thought desperately and something came glimmering. He fumbled for it, but it drifted away. For a moment he thought desperately that it was as though the thought had been pushed away: but then that feeling, too, left.