Part 12 (1/2)

Kane recalled it had been so before, particularly with theoreticians. When Lise Meitner decided to test for barium among the products of the neutron bombardment of uranium, Kane had been there, an unnoticed plodder along a corridor nearby.

He had been picking up leaves and trash in a park in 1904 when the young Einstein had pa.s.sed by, pondering. Einstein's steps had quickened with the impact of sudden thought. Kane felt it like an electric shock.

But he didn't know how it was done. Does a spider know architectural theory when it begins to construct its first web?

It went further back. The day the young Newton had stared at the moon with the dawn of a certain thought, Kane had been there. And further back still.

The panorama of New Mexico, ordinarily deserted, was alive With human ants crawling about the metal shaft lancing upward. This one was different from all the similar structures that had preceded it.

This would go free of Earth more nearly than any other. It would reach out and circle the moon before falling back. It would be crammed with instruments that would photograph the moon and measure its heat emissions, probe for radioactivity, and test by microwave for chemical structure. It would, by automation, do almost everything that could be expected of a manned vehicle. And it would learn enough to make certain that the next s.h.i.+p sent out would would be a manned vehicle. be a manned vehicle.

Except that, in a way, this first one was a manned vehicle after all.

There were representatives of various governments, of various industries, of various social and economic groupings. There were television cameras and feature writers.

Those who could not be there watched in their homes and heard numbers counted backward in painstaking monotone in the manner grown traditional in a mere three decades.

At zero the reaction motors came to life and ponderously the s.h.i.+p lifted.

Kane heard the noise of the rus.h.i.+ng gases, as though from a distance, and felt the gathering acceleration press against him.

He detached his mind, lifting it up and outward, freeing it from direct connection with his body in order that he might be unaware of the pain and discomfort.

Dizzily, he knew his long journey was nearly over. He would no longer have to maneuver carefully to avoid having people realize he was immortal. He would no longer have to fade into the background, no longer wander eternally from place to place, changing names and personality, manipulating minds.

It had not been perfect, of course. The myths of the Wandering Jew and the Flying Dutchman had arisen, but he was still here. He had not been disturbed.

He could see his spot in the sky. Through the ma.s.s and solidity of the s.h.i.+p he could see it. Or not ”see” really. He didn't have the proper word.

He knew there was a proper word, though. He could not say how he knew a fraction of the things he knew, except that as the centuries had pa.s.sed he had gradually grown to know them with a sureness that required no reason.

He had begun as an ovum (or as something for which ”ovum” was the nearest word he knew), deposited on Earth before the first cities had been built by the wandering hunting creatures since called ”men.” Earth had been chosen carefully by his progenitor. Not every world would do.

What world would? What was the criterion? That he still didn't know.

Does an ichneumon wasp study ornithology before it finds the one species of spider that will do for her eggs, and stings it just so in order that it may remain alive?

The ovum spilt him forth at length and he took the shape of a man and lived among men and protected himself against men. And his one purpose was to arrange to have men travel along a path that would end with a s.h.i.+p and within the s.h.i.+p a hole and within the hole, himself.

It had taken eight thousand years of slow striving and stumbling.

The spot in the sky became sharper now as the s.h.i.+p moved out of the atmosphere. That was the key that opened his mind. That was the piece that completed the puzzle.

Stars blinked within that spot that could not be seen by a man's eye unaided. One in particular shone brilliantly and Kane yearned toward it. The expression that had been building within him for so long burst out now.

”Home,” he whispered.

He knew? Does a salmon study cartography to find the headwaters of the fresh-water stream in which years before it had been born?

The final step was taken in the slow maturing that had taken eight thousand years, and Kane was no longer larval, but adult.

The adult Kane fled from the human flesh that had protected the larva, and fled the s.h.i.+p, too. It hastened onward, at inconceivable speeds, toward home, from which someday it, too, might set off on wanderings through s.p.a.ce to fertilize some planet with its ovum.

It sped through s.p.a.ce, giving no thought to the s.h.i.+p carrying an empty chrysalis. It gave no thought to the fact that it had driven a whole world toward technology and s.p.a.ce travel in order only that the thing that had been Kane might mature and reach its fulfillment.

Does a bee care what has happened to a flower when the bee has done and gone its way?

Going through DOES A BEE CARE? makes me think of the many editors with whom I have dealt, and with the way in which they sometimes vanish into limbo.

There had been editors whom, for a period of time, I saw frequently, and with whom I felt quite close. Then, for one reason or another, they left their positions and vanished out of my ken. I haven't seen Horace Gold for many years, for instance-and I haven't seen James L. Quinn, who bought DOES A BEE CARE? and a few other stories of mine.

He had a southern accent, I remember, and was a delightful person-and now I don't know where he is or even if he is still alive.

The next story, SILLY a.s.sES, is one that I had better say very little about or the commentary will be longer than the story. I wrote it on July 29, 1957, and it was rejected by two different magazines before Bob Lowndes kindly made a home for it. It appeared in the February 1958 issue of Future. Future.

SILLY a.s.sES.

Naron of the long-lived Rigellian race was the fourth of his line to keep the galactic records.

He had the large book which contained the list of the numerous races throughout the galaxies that had developed intelligence, and the much smaller book that listed those races that had reached maturity and had qualified for the Galactic Federation. In the first book, a number of those listed were crossed out; those that, for one reason or another, had failed. Misfortune, biochemical or biophysical shortcomings, social maladjustment took their toll. In the smaller book, however, no member listed had yet blanked out.

And now Naron, large and incredibly ancient, looked up as a messenger approached.

”Naron,” said the messenger. ”Great One!”

”Well, well, what is it? Less ceremony.”

” Another group of organisms has attained maturity.”

”Excellent. Excellent. They are coming up quickly now. Scarcely a year pa.s.ses without a new one. And who are these?”

The messenger gave the code number of the galaxy and the coordinates of the world within it.

”Ah, yes,” said Naron. ”I know the world.” And in flowing script he noted it in the first book and transferred its name into the second, using, as was customary, the name by which the planet was known to the largest fraction of its populace. He wrote: Earth.

He said, ”These new creatures have set a record. No other group has pa.s.sed from intelligence to maturity so quickly. No mistake, I hope.”

”None, sir,” said the messenger. ”They have attained to thermonuclear power, have they?”

”Yes. sir.”

”Well, that's the criterion.” Naron chuckled. ”And soon their s.h.i.+ps will probe out and contact the Federation.”

”Actually, Great One,” said the messenger, reluctantly, ”the Observers tell us they have not yet penetrated s.p.a.ce.”