The Commander seemed to wince. “The one I saw?”
“Yes, Commander. It said it had hurt one person. They had to try with you because you were the Commander, and they…did damage.”
The Commander ignored that and said, “Did you ever have any mental problems before you came here?”
“No, Commander. You can consult my Central Computer record.”
Sam thought: He must have had problems, but they let it go because he’s a genius and they had to have him.
Then he thought: Was that my own idea? Or had it been put there?
The Commander was speaking. Sam had almost missed it. He said, “What you saw can’t be real. There is no intelligent life-form on this planet.”
“Yes, sir. There is.”
“Oh? And no one ever discovered it till you came here, and in three days you did the job?”
The Commander smiled very briefly. “I’m afraid I have no choice but to-”
“Wait, Commander,” said Sam, in a strangled voice. “We know about the intelligent life-form. It’s the insects, the little flying things.”
“You say the insects are intelligent?”
“Not an individual insect by itself, but they fit together when they want to, like little jigsaw pieces. They can do it in any way they want. And when they do, their nervous systems fit together, too, and build up. A lot of them together are intelligent.”
The Commander’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s an interesting idea, anyway. Almost crazy enough to be true. How did you come to that conclusion, young man?”
“By observation, sir. Everywhere I walked, I disturbed the insects in the grass and they flew about in all directions. But once the cow started to form, and I walked toward it, there was nothing to see or hear. The insects were gone. They had gathered together in front of me and they weren’t in the grass anymore. That’s how I knew.”
“You talked with a cow?”
“It was a cow at first, because that’s what I thought of. But they had it wrong, so they switched and came together to form a human being-me.”
“You?” And then, in a lower voice, “Well, that fits anyway.”
“Did you see it that way, too, Commander?”
The Commander ignored that. “ And when it shaped itself like you, it could talk as you did? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“No, Commander. The talking was in my mind. “
“Telepathy?”
“Sort of.”
“And what did it say to you, or think to you?”
“It wanted us to refrain from disturbing this planet. It wanted us not to take it over. “ Sam was all but holding his breath. The interview had lasted more than five minutes already, and the Commander was making no move to put an end to it, to send him home.
“Quite impossible.”
“Why, Commander?”
“Any other base will double and triple the expense. We’re having enough trouble getting grants as it is. Fortunately, it is all a hallucination, young man, and the problem does not arise. “ He closed his eyes, then opened them and looked at Sam without really focusing on him. “I’m sorry, young man. You will be sent back-officially.”
Sam gambled again. “We can’t afford to ignore the insects, Commander. They have a lot to give us.”
The Commander had raised his hand halfway as though about to give a signal. He paused long enough to say, “Really? What do they have that they can give us?
“The one thing more important than energy, Commander. An understanding of the brain.” “How do you know that?”
“I can demonstrate it. I have them here.” Sam seized his hamper and swung it forward onto the desk.
“What's that?”
Sam did not answer in words. He opened the hamper, and a softly whirring, smoky cloud appeared.
The Commander rose suddenly and cried out. He lifted his hand high and an alarm bell sounded. Through the door came Gentry, and others behind him. Sam felt himself seized by the arms, and then a kind of stunned and motionless silence prevailed in the room.
The smoke was condensing, wavering, taking on the shape of a Head, a thin head, with high cheekbones, a smooth forehead and receding hairline. It had the appearance of the Commander.
“I'm seeing things,” croaked the Commander.
Sam said, “We're all seeing the same thing, aren't we?” He wriggled and was released. Gentry said in a low voice, “ Mass hysteria.”
“No,” said.Sam, “it's real.” He reached toward the Head in midair, and brought back his finger with a tiny insect on it. He flicked it and it could just barely be seen making its way back to its
Companions.
No one moved.
Sam said, “Head, do you see the problem with the Commander's mind?”
Sam had the brief vision of a snarl in an otherwise smooth curve, but it vanished and left nothing behind. It was not something that could be easily put into human thought. He hoped the others experienced that quick snarl. Yes, they had. He knew it.
The Commander said, “There is no problem.“ Sam said, “Can you adjust it, Head?”
Of course, they could not. It was not right to invade a mind. Sam said, “Commander, give permission.”
The Commander put his hands to his eyes and muttered something Sam did not make out. Then he said, clearly, “It's a nightmare, but I've been in one since-Whatever must be done, I give permission.”
Nothing happened.
Or nothing seemed to happen.
And then slowly, little by little, the Commander's face lit in a smile.
He said, just above a whisper. “ Astonishing. I'm watching a sun rise. It's been cold night for so long, and now I feel the warmth again. “ His voice rose high. “I feel wonderful.”
The Head deformed at that point, turned into a vague, pulsing fog, then formed a curving, narrowing arrow that sped into the hamper. Sam snapped it shut.
He said, “Commander, have I your permission to restore these little insect-things to their own world?”
“Yes, yes,” said the Commander, dismissing that with a wave of his hand. “Gentry, call a meeting.
We’ve got to change all our plans.”
Sam had been escorted outside the Dome by a stolid guard and had then been confined to his quarters for the rest of the day.
It was late when Gentry entered, stared at him thoughtfully, and said, “That was an amazing demonstration of yours. The entire incident has been fed into the Central Computer and we now have a double project-neutron-star energy and neurophysiology. I doubt that there will be any question about pouring money into this project now. And we’ll have a group of neurophysiologists arriving eventually.
Until then you’re going to be working with those little things and you’ll probably end up the most important person here.”
Sam said, “But will we leave their world to them?”
Gentry said, “We’ll have to if we expect to get anything out of them, won’t we? The Commander thinks we’re going to build elaborate settlements in orbit about this world and shift all operations to them except for a skeleton crew in this Dome to maintain direct contact with the insects-or whatever we’ll decide to call them. It will cost a great deal of money, and take time and labor, but it’s going to be worth it. No one will question that.”
Sam said “Good!”
Gentry stared at him again, longer and more thoughtfully than before.
“My boy,” he said, “it seems that what happened came about because you did not fear the supposed hallucination. Your mind remained open, and that was the whole difference. Why was that? Why weren’t you afraid?”
Sam flushed. “I’m not sure, sir. As I look back on it, though, it seemed to me I was puzzled as to why I was sent here. I had been doing my best to study neurophysiology through my computerized courses, and I knew very little about astrophysics. The Central Computer had my record, all of it, the full details of everything I had ever studied and I couldn’t imagine why I had been sent here.
“Then, when you first mentioned the hallucinations, I thought, ‘That must be it. I was sent here to look into it.’ I just made up my mind that was the thing I had to do. I had no time to be afraid, Dr. Gentry. I had a problem to solve and I-I had faith in the Central Computer. It wouldn’t have sent me here, if I weren’t up to it.”