IV-3
483 Words
HE STOPPED AND STARED straight ahead of him, his eyes unseeing. Going out to start new living centers! Going out to build new buildings! Shining metallic buildings!
Like a cold wind from the past it came to him, a picture of that last night on Earth. He heard the whining wind on Mt. Kenya once again, the blaring of the radio from the machine shop door, the voice of the newscaster.
“Austin Gordon ... Congo Valley ... strange metallic city ... inhabited by strange metallic insects!”
The memory shook him from head to foot, left him cold and shivery with his knowledge.
“Hugh!” he croaked. “Hugh, I know what it’s all about!”
His brother stared at him: “Take it easy, kid. Don’t let it get you. Stick with me, kid. We’re going to make it all right.”
“But, Hugh,” Scott yelled, “there’s nothing wrong with me. Don’t you see, I know the answer to all this Martian business now. The lilies are the Martians! Those bugs are migrating to Earth. They’re machines. Don’t you see ... they could cross space and the lilies would be there to direct them.”
He jumped to his feet.
“They’re already building cities in the Congo!” he yelled. “Lord knows how many other places. They’re taking over the Earth! The Martians are invading the Earth, but Earth doesn’t know it!”
“Hold on,” Hugh yelled back at him. “How could flowers build cities?”
“They can’t,” said Scott breathlessly. “But the bugs can. Back on Earth they are wondering why the Martians don’t use their rockets to come to Earth. And that’s exactly what the Martians are doing. Those rockets full of seeds aren’t tokens at all. They’re colonization parties!”
“Wait a minute. Slow down,” Hugh pleaded. “Tell me this. If the lilies are the Martians and they sent seeds to Earth twelve years ago, why hadn’t they sent them before?”
“Because before that it would have been useless,” Scott told him. “They had to have someone to open the rockets and plant the seeds for them. We did that. They tricked us into it.
“They may have sent rockets of seeds before but if they did, nothing came of it. For the seeds would have been useless if they weren’t taken from the rocket. The rocket probably would have weathered away in time, releasing the seeds but by that time the seeds would have lost their germinating power.”
Hugh shook his head.
“It seems impossible,” he declared. “Impossible that plants could have real intelligence ... that flowers could hold the mastery of a planet. I’m ready to accept almost any theory but that one....”
“Your mind sticks on parallel evolution,” Scott argued. “There’s no premise for it. On Earth animals took the spotlight, pushing the plants into a subordinate position. Animals got the head start, jumped the gun on the plants. But there’s absolutely no reason why plants should not develop along precisely the same lines here that animals developed on Earth.”
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- Writer
