UDSKRIFT 🔗
WEBVTT
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Welcome, weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar. You've stepped into the horror
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fiction side of Weird Darkness. And it happens to be midnight.
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In the macabre. From space, the planet Viridian resembled a
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great green moss-covered tennis ball. the spaceship had arrowed even
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closer to the lush jungle that was the surface of
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the 7,000-mile sphere, there was still no visible break in
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the green cloak of the planet. Even when they dipped
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almost below their margin of safety— spaceships were poorly built
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for extended flight within the atmosphere— it took nearly a
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complete circuit of the planet before a triangle of emptiness
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was spotted. It was in the midst of the tangled
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canopy of treetops, themselves interwoven inextricably with coarse-leaved ropey vines
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that sprawled and coiled about the upthrust branches like underfed anacondas.
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Into the center of this triangle, the ship was lowered
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on sputtering blue pillars of crackling energy to come to
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rest on the soft, loamy earth. A bare instant after set-down,
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crewmen exploded from the airlock and dashed into the jungle
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shadows with high-pressure tanks of gushing spume. Their job was
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to coat, cool, and throttle the hungry fires trickling in
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bright orange fingers through the heat-blackened grasses. Higher in the trees,
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a few vines smoldered fitfully where the fires had brushed them,
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then hissed into smoky wet ash as their own glutinous
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sap smothered the urgent embers. But the fire was going out.
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Under control, sir, reported a returning crewman. Lieutenant Jerry Norquist
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emerged into the green gloaming that cloaked the base of
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the ship with a net of harlequin diamonds. Jerry nodded
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abstractly as the other crewmen laid a lightweight form-fitting couch
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alongside the tail fins near the airlock. On this couch,
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Jerry reclined. Remaining crew members turned their firefighting gear over
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to companions and stood guard in a rough semi-circle, with
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loaded rifles, their backs to the figure on the couch,
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facing the jungle and whatever predatory dangers it might hold.
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Ensign Bob Ryder, the technician who had the much softer
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job of simply controlling and coordinating any information relayed by Jerry,
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leaned out through the open circle in the hull. All set, sir,
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said the tech. Jerry nodded and settled a heavily wired
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helmet onto his head, while Bob made a hookup between
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the helmet and the power outlet that was concealed under
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a flap of metal on the tail fin. Helmet secured,
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Jerry lay back upon the couch and closed his eyes.
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Anytime you're ready, Henson. Bob hurried back inside, found the
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panel he sought among the jumble of high-powered machinery there,
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and placed a spool of microtape on a spindle inside it.
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He shut the panel and thumbed the button that started
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an impulse radiating from the tape into the jungle. The
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impulse had been detected and taped by a robo-rocket which
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had circled the planet for months before their arrival. It
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was one of the two Viridian species whose types were
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as yet uncatalogued by the Space Corps, in its vast
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files of alien life. Jerry's job as a space zoologist
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was to complete those files, planet by planet, throughout the
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spreading wave of the slowly colonized universe. Bob made sure
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the tape was functioning. Then he clicked the switch that
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would stimulate the contact center in Jerry's brain and release
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his mind into that of the taped alien for an
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immutable forty minutes. Outside the ship, recumbent in the warm
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green-gold shadows, Jerry's consciousness was dwarfed for an instant by
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a white lightning flash of energy, and then his body
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went limp as his mind sprang with thought speed into contact.
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Jerry opened his eyes to a dizzying view of the
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dull brown jungle floor. He blinked a moment, then looked
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toward his feet. He saw two sets of thin, knobby
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Vs extending forward and partly around the tiny limb he
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stood upon, their chitinous surface shiny with the wetness of
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Load full transcript
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the jungle air. Slowly working his jaws, he heard the
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extremely gentle click as they came together. The endoskeleton must
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exist all over his host's body. After making certain it
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would not disturb his balance on the limb, he attempted
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bringing whatever on the alien passed for hands before his face.
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Sometimes aliens had no hands, nor any comparable organisms. Then,
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Jerry would have to soft-pedal the mental nagging of being amputated,
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an unavoidable carryover from his subconscious, wrong feeling about armlessness.
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But this time, the effort moved up multi-jointed limbs, spindly
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as a cat's whiskers, terminating in a perpetually coiling, soft
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prehensile tip. He tried feeling along his torso to determine
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its size and shape, but the worm-like tips were tactilely insensitive.
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Hoping to deduce his shape from his shadow, he inched
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sideways along the limb on those inadequate-looking two-pronged feet toward
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a blob of yellow sunlight nearer the trunk. The silhouette
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on the branch showed him a stubby, cigar-shaped torso.' I
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seem to be a semi-tentacled, no-hop grasshopper,' he mused to himself,
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vainly trying to turn his head on his neck.' Head, thorax,
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and abdomen all one piece.' He tried flexing what would
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be in a man the region of his shoulder blades.
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He was rewarded by the appearance of long, narrow wings,
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two sets of them, like a dragonfly's, from beneath two
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flaps of chitin on his back. He tried an experimental flapping.
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The pair of wings, white and stiff like starched tissue paper,
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not venous as in earth insects, dissolved in a buzzing
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blur of motion. The limb fell away from under his
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tiny V-shaped feet. and then he was up above the
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blinding green blanket of jungle treetops, his shadow pacing his
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forward movement along the close-packed quilt of wide leaves below.
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I'd better be careful, thought Jerry. There may be avian
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life here that consider my species the pièce de résistance
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of the pteroid set. Slowing his rapid wingbeat, he let
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himself drop down toward the nearest mattress-sized leaf. He folded
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his outthrust feet in midair and dropped the last few
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inches to a cushiony rest. A slight shimmer of dizziness
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gripped his mind. Perhaps the skull of this creature was
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ill-equipped to ward off the hot rays of the tropic sunlight.
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Lest his brain be fried in its own casing, Jerry
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scuttled along the velvet top of the leaf and ducked
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quickly beneath its nearest overlapping companion. The wave of vertigo
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passed quickly. There, in the deep shadow. Under the canopy
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of leaves, Jerry crawled back to a limb near the
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top of the tree. A few feet from where he stood,
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something moved. Jerry turned that way. Another creature of the
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same species was balancing lightly on a green limb of
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wire thickness, its gaze fixed steadily toward the jungle flooring,
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as Jerry's own had been on entering the alien body.
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Watching out for predators? Or for victims? He could, he knew,
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pull his consciousness back enough to let the creature's own
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consciousness carry it through its daily cycle of eating, avoiding destruction,
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and the manifold business of being an ambient creature. But
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he decided to keep control. It would be easier to
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figure out his host's ecological status in the planet's natural
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life balance by observing the other one for a while.
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Jerry always felt more comfortable when he was in full control.
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You never knew when an alien might stupidly step into
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a fatality that any intelligent mind could easily have avoided. Idly,
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as he watched his fellow creature down near the inner
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part of the branch, he wondered how much more time
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he would be in contact. Subjectively, he'd seemed to be
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inhosted for about ten minutes, but one of the drawbacks
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of contact was the subjugation of personal time sense to
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that of the host. Depending on the species he inhosted,
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the 40-minute contact period could be an eternity or the
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blink of
an eye. Nothing further seemed to be occurring.
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Jury reluctantly withdrew some of his control from the insect
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mind to see what would happen. Immediately, it inched forward,
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until it was in the same position it had been
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in when Jerry made contact. V-shaped feet forward and slightly
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around the narrow branch, eyes fixed upon the brownish jungle floor,
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body motionless with folded wings. For a while, Jerry tried
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listening to its mind, but received no readable thoughts, only
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a sense of imminence, of patience, of waiting. It didn't
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take long for Jerry to grow bored with this near-mindless outlook.
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He reassumed full control. Guiding the fragile feet carefully along
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the branch, he made his way to his fellow watcher
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and tried out the creature's communication system. His mind strove
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to activate something on the order of a larynx. The
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insect's nervous system received this impulse, changed in interspecies translation
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as a broad request for getting a message to its fellow.
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Its body responded by lifting the multi-jointed arms forward. It
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clapped the hard inner surfaces of the wrists together so
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fast that they blurred into invisibility, as the wings had done.
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A thin, ratchety sound came forth from that hard shell contact.
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The other insect looked up in annoyance, then returned its
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gaze to the ground again. Oral conversation thus obviated, Jerry
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tried for physical attention-getting. He reached out a vermiform, four-limbed
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tip and tugged urgently at the other insect's nearest hind leg.
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An angry movement came out of the unmistakable pantomimic message,
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For Pete's sake, get off my back, I'm busy. The
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other insect spread its thin double wings and went buzzing
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off a few trees away, then settled on a limb
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there and took up its earthward vigil once more. Well,
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they're not gregarious, that's for sure, said Jerry to himself,
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I wish I knew what the hell we were waiting for.
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He decided he was sick of ground-watching and turned his
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attention to his immediate vicinity. His gaze wandered along all
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the twists, juts, and thrusts of branch and vine beneath
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the sun-blocking leaves, and all at once he realized he
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was staring at another of his kind, so still had
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its dull green-brown body been that he'd taken it for
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a ripple of bark along a branch. Carefully, he looked
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further on. Beyond the small figure, he soon located another
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like it, and then another. Within a short space of time,
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he had found three dozen of the insects sitting silently
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around him in a spherical area barely ten feet in diameter.
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Oddly disconcerted, he once more spread his stiff white wings
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and fluttered away through the treetops, careful to avoid coming
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out in direct sunlight this time. He flew until a
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resurgence of giddiness told him that he was overstraining his
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creature's stamina. He dropped onto a limb and looked about
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once more. Within a very short time, he had spotted
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dozens more of the grasshopper things. All were the same,
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sitting in camouflaged silence, steadily eyeing the ground. Damn, thought Jerry.
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They don't seem interested in eating, mating, or fighting. All
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they want to do is sit. Sit and wait. But
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what are they waiting for? There was, of course, the
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possibility that he'd caught them in an off period. If
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the species were nocturnal, then he wouldn't get any action
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from them till after sunset. That, he realized gloomily, meant
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a re-contact later on. One way or another, he would
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have to determine the functions, capabilities, and menace, if any,
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of the species with regard to the influx of colonists
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who would come to Viridian only if his report pronounced
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it safe. Once again, he let the insect's mind take over. Again,
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that overpowering feeling of imminence. He was irritated. He couldn't
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just be looking forward to nightfall. There were too many
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things tied in with the imminence feeling, the necessity for quiet,
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for motionlessness, for careful watching. The more he thought on it,
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the more he had the distinct intuition that it would
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sit and stare at the soft, mulch-covered jungle floor, be
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it bright daylight or blackest gloom, waiting and waiting and waiting.
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and suddenly the slight feel of imminence became almost unbearable apprehension.
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The change in intensity was due to a soft, cautious,
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shuffling sound from down in the green-gold twilight. Something was
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coming through the jungle, something that moved on careful feet
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along the springy, moist brown surface below the trees. Far below,
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A shadow detached itself slowly from the deeper shadows of
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the trees, and a form began to emerge in the
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wand-filtered sunlight. It. An all-encompassing lance of silent white lightning.
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Contact was over. Jerry sat up on the couch, angry.
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He pulled the helmet off his head as Bob Ryder
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leaned out the airlock once more. How'd it go, sir? Lousy.
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I'll have to re-establish. Didn't have time to learn it sufficiently.
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A slight expression of disappointment on the tech's face made
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him add, Don't tell me you have the other tape
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in place already. Sorry, Bob said. You usually do a
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complete learning in one contact. Oh. Jerry shrugged and reached
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for the helmet again. Never mind, I'll take on the
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second alien, long as it's already set up. I may
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just have hit the first one in an off period.
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The delay in recontact may be just what I need
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to catch it in action. Setting the helmet snugly on
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his head once more, he leaned back onto the couch
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and waited. He heard the tech's feet clanking along the
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metal plates inside the ship, then the soft clang of
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an opening door in the power room, and whiteness, writhing
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electrical whiteness and cold silence. And he was in contact.
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Darkness and musky warmth. Then a slot of light appeared.
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A thin, fuzzy line of yellow striped with spiky green.
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Jerry had time in the brief flicker to
observe thick,
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bear-like forelimbs holding up a squarish trapdoor fastened with cross-twigs
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for support. Then the powerful forepaws let the door drop
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back into place, and it was dark again. He had
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not liked those forepaws. Though thick as and pawed like
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a bear's, they were devoid of hair. They had skin
231
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thin as a caterpillar's, mottled pink with sick-looking areas of
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deathly white. Skin like that would be a pushover to
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actinic rays for any lung exposure. Probably the thing lived
234
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underground here, almost permanently. His eyes had detected a rude
235
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assortment of thick, wooden limbs curving in and out at
236
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regular intervals in the vertical wall of soil that was
237
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the end of this tunnel just below the trapdoor. Tree roots,
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but formed by some odd natural quirk into a utile ladder.
239
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But why had the thing peered out? then dropped the
240
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door to wait. Did every species on this planet hang
241
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around expectantly and nothing else? And what was the waiting for?
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Then he felt the urge within the creature, the urge
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00:15:51.570 --> 00:15:55.769
to scurry up that ladder into the light. But there was, simultaneously,
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a counter-urge in the thing, telling it to please wait
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a little longer. Jerry recognized the urge by quick anthropomorphosis.
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It was the goofy urge, the crazy urge, like one
247
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gets on the brinks of awesome heights or on subway
248
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platforms as the train roars in, the impulsive urge to self-destruction,
249
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so swiftly frightening and so swiftly suppressed. Yet, it had
250
00:16:20.299 --> 00:16:22.879
lifted and dropped that lid too briefly to have seen
251
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anything outside. Could it be listening for something? Carefully, he
252
00:16:28.049 --> 00:16:32.029
relinquished his control of the beast, fraction by fraction, to
253
00:16:32.070 --> 00:16:35.009
see what it would do. It rose on tiptoe at
254
00:16:35.149 --> 00:16:38.870
once and again lifted that earthen door. It squinted at
255
00:16:38.909 --> 00:16:42.940
the profusion of green-yellow sunlight that stung its eyes. Then
256
00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:46.159
it rose on powerful hind limbs and clambered just high
257
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enough on that ladder to see over the grassy rim
258
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of the trapdoor hole. Jerry then heard the soft shuffling
259
00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:56.529
sound that had re-alerted it and saw the source. Out
260
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of the matted brown jungle flooring beneath the towering trees...
261
00:17:00.169 --> 00:17:02.889
Another of the bear things was moving forward from an
262
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open turf door, emitting low, whimpering snorts as it inched
263
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along through the dappling yellow sunlight. Obviously, it was following
264
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that manic destruction impulse that he'd just felt and managed
265
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to suppress. It must have been almost a hundred degrees
266
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out there, and the damned thing was shivering. Here and there,
267
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Jerry noticed suddenly other half-opened trap doors were framing other
268
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bear things' heads. the air was taut with electric tension,
269
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the tension of a slow trigger squeeze that moves millimeter
270
00:17:34.849 --> 00:17:39.230
by millimeter toward the instant explosion. The soft shuffling sounds
271
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of the animal's movement jogged Jerry's memory then, and he
272
00:17:42.589 --> 00:17:44.690
knew it for the sound he had heard when inhosted
273
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in the grasshopper thing. Was a bear thing what they'd
274
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been waiting in the trees so silently for? And what
275
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would be the culmination of that vigil? Then the bear
276
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thing he was in contact with hitched itself up another
277
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root rung. Jerry saw the thing toward which the quaking
278
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creature was headed, in a hunched crawl, its whimpers more
279
00:18:05.630 --> 00:18:09.289
anguished by the moment. Pendant in the green gloaming about
280
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four feet above the spongy brown jungle floor hung a
281
00:18:12.769 --> 00:18:16.029
thick yellow-gray gourd at the tip of a long vine.
282
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Its sides glittered stickily with condensed moisture that mingled with
283
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the effluvium of the gourd itself. The odor was both
284
00:18:23.750 --> 00:18:27.779
noisome and compelling. powerful as a bushel of rotting roses.
285
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It sickened as it lured, teased the nostrils as it
286
00:18:31.460 --> 00:18:36.700
cloyed within the lungs. To this dangling obscenity, the bear-fang moved.
287
00:18:37.289 --> 00:18:40.309
Its eyes were no longer afraid, but glazed and dulled
288
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by the strength of that musky lure. Its movements were
289
00:18:43.710 --> 00:18:48.089
fluid and trance-like. It arose on sturdy hind limbs and
290
00:18:48.210 --> 00:18:50.880
struck at
the gourd with a gentle paw, sending it
291
00:18:51.019 --> 00:18:54.420
jouncing to one side on its long green hive. As
292
00:18:54.460 --> 00:18:56.910
it bobbed back, The creature struck it off in the
293
00:18:56.950 --> 00:19:01.309
opposite direction with a sharper blow. Jerry watched in fascination.
294
00:19:01.890 --> 00:19:06.829
The gourd swung faster. The mottled pink-white alien creature swayed
295
00:19:06.869 --> 00:19:09.900
and wove its forelimbs and thick body in a ritual
296
00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:14.180
dance matching the tempo of the arcing gourd. Then Jerry
297
00:19:14.240 --> 00:19:17.480
noted that the vine was unlike earth vines which parasitically
298
00:19:17.539 --> 00:19:21.349
employ treetops as their unwilling trellises. It is a limp
299
00:19:21.450 --> 00:19:24.950
extension of the tip of a tree branch itself. So
300
00:19:25.019 --> 00:19:27.799
were all the other vines in that green matting overhead.
301
00:19:28.839 --> 00:19:31.480
A ripping sound yanked his gaze back to the dazed
302
00:19:31.539 --> 00:19:35.519
creature and the gourd again. A ragged tear had riven
303
00:19:35.559 --> 00:19:38.339
the side of the gourd. Tiny coils of green were
304
00:19:38.400 --> 00:19:41.509
dribbled out in batches, like watch springs spilled from a
305
00:19:41.529 --> 00:19:44.490
paper bag. They struck with a bounce and wriggle on
306
00:19:44.509 --> 00:19:48.450
the resilient brown mulch. And then, as they straightened themselves,
307
00:19:48.630 --> 00:19:51.789
Jerry knew them for what they were. Miniature versions of
308
00:19:51.809 --> 00:19:55.519
the grasshopper things, shaped precisely like the adults, but only
309
00:19:55.559 --> 00:19:58.740
a third as large. The bear things movements had gone
310
00:19:58.779 --> 00:20:02.720
from graceful fluidity to frenzy now. A loud whistle of
311
00:20:02.819 --> 00:20:05.440
fright escaped it as the last of the twitching green
312
00:20:05.500 --> 00:20:08.900
things flopped from its vegetable cocoon, whirred white wings to
313
00:20:08.940 --> 00:20:12.160
dry them, and flew off. And the lumbering creature had
314
00:20:12.279 --> 00:20:15.890
reason for its fright. The instant the last coil of
315
00:20:16.009 --> 00:20:19.170
wiggly green life was a vanishing blur in the green shadows,
316
00:20:19.809 --> 00:20:22.829
a cloud of darker green descended upon the pink form
317
00:20:22.869 --> 00:20:26.369
of the beast from the trees. The grasshopper things were
318
00:20:26.410 --> 00:20:30.519
waiting no longer. Thousands swarmed on the writhing form until
319
00:20:30.539 --> 00:20:34.279
the bear-thing was a lumpy, green parody of itself. As
320
00:20:34.359 --> 00:20:37.500
quickly as the cloud had plunged and clustered, it fell away.
321
00:20:37.960 --> 00:20:41.410
The earth was teeming with the flip-flopping forms of dying insects,
322
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with white wings going dark brown and curling like cellophane
323
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in open flame. The bear-thing itself was no longer recognizable,
324
00:20:49.089 --> 00:20:52.769
its flesh a myriad egg-like white lumps. It swayed in
325
00:20:52.950 --> 00:20:56.910
agony for a moment, then toppled. Instantly, the other creatures,
326
00:20:57.170 --> 00:20:59.829
his host with them, were racing forward to the site
327
00:20:59.869 --> 00:21:03.410
of the encounter. Jerry felt his host's long, gummy tongue
328
00:21:03.529 --> 00:21:06.210
flick out and snare one, just one, of the dead
329
00:21:06.309 --> 00:21:09.930
adult insects. It was ingested whole by a deft backflip
330
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of tongue to gullet. As his host turned tail and
331
00:21:13.089 --> 00:21:16.000
scurried for the tunnel once more, Jerry swiftly took control
332
00:21:16.059 --> 00:21:19.940
again and halted it to observe any further developments. Each
333
00:21:19.980 --> 00:21:23.359
of the other things, after a one insect gulp, was
334
00:21:23.420 --> 00:21:27.430
just vanishing back underground. The turf tops were dropping neatly
335
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into almost undetectable place hiding the tunnels. The sunlight nipped
336
00:21:31.559 --> 00:21:34.359
at his pale flesh, but Jerry held off from a
337
00:21:34.420 --> 00:21:38.720
return to the underground sanctuary, still watching that lump-covered corpse
338
00:21:38.940 --> 00:21:43.549
on the earth. Then, the vine, its burden gone, began
339
00:21:43.589 --> 00:21:46.109
to drip a thick ichor from its ragged end upon
340
00:21:46.130 --> 00:21:49.369
the dead animal beneath it. And as the ichor touched
341
00:21:49.430 --> 00:21:53.210
upon a white lump, the lump would swell, wriggle, and
342
00:21:53.269 --> 00:21:57.470
change color. Jerry watched with awe as the color became
343
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a mottled pink, and the surface of the lumps cracked
344
00:22:00.450 --> 00:22:04.130
and shriveled away, and tiny forms plopped out onto the ground.
345
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Miniature bear things, tiny throats emitting eager mouse squeaks of hunger.
346
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They rushed upon the body in which they'd been so
347
00:22:12.680 --> 00:22:18.720
violently incubated and swiftly, systematically devoured it, blood, bone, and sinew.
348
00:22:19.569 --> 00:22:21.730
and when not even a memory of the dead beast
349
00:22:21.789 --> 00:22:25.130
was left upon the soil, the tiny pink-white things began
350
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to burrow downward into the ground. Soon there was nothing
351
00:22:28.579 --> 00:22:31.220
left in the area but a dried fragment of vine,
352
00:22:31.720 --> 00:22:35.380
a few loose mounds of soil, and a vast silence.
353
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I'll be a monkey's uncle, said Jerry, forgetting in his
354
00:22:40.299 --> 00:22:43.339
excitement that this phrase was nearly a concise parody of
355
00:22:43.359 --> 00:22:47.059
the space zoologist's final oath of duty, and
kiddingly used
356
00:22:47.180 --> 00:22:50.029
as such by the older members of the group. the
357
00:22:50.069 --> 00:22:55.589
whole damned planet was symbiotic. After witnessing those alien life-death rites,
358
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it didn't take him long to figure out the screwball
359
00:22:58.329 --> 00:23:03.009
connections between the species. Insects, once born of vine gourds
360
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and fully grown, then propagated their species by a strange means,
361
00:23:07.329 --> 00:23:11.569
laying bear eggs in a bear thing and dying. And dying,
362
00:23:11.890 --> 00:23:14.750
eaten by the surviving bears, they turned to seeds, which,
363
00:23:14.970 --> 00:23:17.569
left in the tunnels by the bear things as droppings,
364
00:23:18.140 --> 00:23:22.160
in turn took root and became trees. And the trees,
365
00:23:22.460 --> 00:23:25.559
under the onslaught of another bear thing on a dangling pod,
366
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would produce new insects, then drip its ichor to fertilize
367
00:23:30.089 --> 00:23:33.769
the eggs in the newly dead bear thing. Cherry found
368
00:23:33.809 --> 00:23:37.549
this mind-tangling as he attempted a better pinpointing of the
369
00:23:37.589 --> 00:23:42.769
planet-animal-insect relationship. A dead adult insect, plus a trip through
370
00:23:42.789 --> 00:23:46.960
a bear thing's elementary canal, produced a tree, A tree
371
00:23:47.109 --> 00:23:50.529
pod with the swatting stimulus of a bear thing's paws
372
00:23:51.009 --> 00:23:54.990
gave birth to new insects, and insect eggs in animal
373
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flesh stimulated by the tree ichor gestated swiftly into young animals.
374
00:24:01.039 --> 00:24:05.920
That meant, simply, that insect plus bear equals tree, tree
375
00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:10.890
plus bear equals insect, and insect plus tree equals bear.
376
00:24:11.950 --> 00:24:16.250
with three systems, each relied on the non-inclusive member for
377
00:24:16.269 --> 00:24:20.450
the breeding ground. Insect plus ichor produced small animals in
378
00:24:20.470 --> 00:24:24.839
the animal flesh. Dead insect plus bear produced tree in
379
00:24:24.859 --> 00:24:28.099
the tree flesh, if one considered dead tree leaves and
380
00:24:28.180 --> 00:24:31.539
bark and such as the makeup of the soil. Bear
381
00:24:31.619 --> 00:24:36.549
swats plus tree produced insects. Damn, said Jerry to himself,
382
00:24:37.349 --> 00:24:40.690
but not in the insect flesh. The thing won't round off.
383
00:24:42.099 --> 00:24:45.059
He tried again, thinking hard. In effect, the trees were
384
00:24:45.099 --> 00:24:48.359
parents to the insects, insects parents to the bears, and
385
00:24:48.440 --> 00:24:52.349
the bears parents to the trees. Though, in another sense,
386
00:24:52.529 --> 00:24:57.210
bear flesh gave birth to new bears, digesting insects gave birth,
387
00:24:57.450 --> 00:25:01.190
through the tree medium, to new insects, and trees,
through
388
00:25:01.210 --> 00:25:06.119
the insect medium, gave birth to new trees. Jerry's head
389
00:25:06.380 --> 00:25:09.759
spun pleasantly as he tried vainly to solve the confusion.
390
00:25:10.710 --> 00:25:13.829
Men of science, he realized, would spend decades trying to
391
00:25:13.910 --> 00:25:17.849
figure out which species were responsible for which. It made
392
00:25:17.869 --> 00:25:21.720
the ancient chicken or egg question beneath consideration. And a
393
00:25:21.759 --> 00:25:24.339
lot of die-hard evolutionists were going to be bedded down
394
00:25:24.380 --> 00:25:28.460
with severe migraines when his report went into circulation. A
395
00:25:28.519 --> 00:25:33.869
dazzle of silent lightning and contact was over. Ready with
396
00:25:33.910 --> 00:25:37.460
that first tape again? Bob Ryder said as Jerry removed
397
00:25:37.519 --> 00:25:40.309
the contact helmet and brushed his snow-white hair back from
398
00:25:40.349 --> 00:25:43.549
his tanned, youthful face. Or do you want a breather first?
399
00:25:44.990 --> 00:25:47.990
Jerry shook his head. I won't need to recontact that
400
00:25:48.029 --> 00:25:51.349
other species, Ensign. I got his life relationships from the
401
00:25:51.369 --> 00:25:57.059
second contact. Really, sir? said Bob. That's pretty unusual, isn't it?
402
00:25:57.920 --> 00:26:02.180
The whole damn planet's unusual, said Jerry. rising from his
403
00:26:02.220 --> 00:26:05.829
supine position and stretching luxuriously in the warm jungle air.
404
00:26:06.730 --> 00:26:08.990
You'll see what I mean when you process the second tape.
405
00:26:10.569 --> 00:26:13.230
Bob decided that Jerry, running pretty true to form for
406
00:26:13.269 --> 00:26:17.410
a space zoologist, wasn't in a particularly talkative mood, so
407
00:26:17.430 --> 00:26:20.210
he had to satisfy himself with waiting for the transcription
408
00:26:20.250 --> 00:26:24.019
of the contact to get the details. Later that day,
409
00:26:24.299 --> 00:26:27.779
an hour after takeoff, with Viridian already vanished behind them
410
00:26:27.880 --> 00:26:30.759
as the great ship plowed through hyperspace toward Earth and home,
411
00:26:31.279 --> 00:26:34.150
Bob finished reading the report. Then he went down the
412
00:26:34.190 --> 00:26:37.809
passageway to the ward room for coffee. Jerry was seated
413
00:26:37.849 --> 00:26:41.769
there already. Bob, quickly filling a mug from the polished percolator,
414
00:26:42.230 --> 00:26:44.569
slid into a seat across the table from his superior
415
00:26:44.910 --> 00:26:47.259
and asked the question that had been bugging him since
416
00:26:47.380 --> 00:26:52.099
seeing the report.' Sir, on that second contact, has it
417
00:26:52.160 --> 00:26:55.140
occurred to you that you'd relinquished control to the host
418
00:26:55.220 --> 00:26:57.680
before you saw that other creature move out and start
419
00:26:57.759 --> 00:27:01.940
swatting the gourd thing?' You mean, was I taking
a
420
00:27:01.960 --> 00:27:04.269
chance on being destroyed and the host of the creature
421
00:27:04.549 --> 00:27:06.730
that I was contacting gave in to the urge to
422
00:27:06.769 --> 00:27:11.069
do the swatting? Yes, sir, said Bob. I mean, you
423
00:27:11.109 --> 00:27:14.369
know you can take control any time if things get dangerous,
424
00:27:14.430 --> 00:27:18.849
but wasn't that cutting it kind of thin? Jerry shook
425
00:27:18.890 --> 00:27:22.890
his head and sipped his coffee. Wrong urge, Ensign. You'll
426
00:27:22.930 --> 00:27:25.980
note I recognized it as the goofy urge, the impulse
427
00:27:26.019 --> 00:27:29.539
to die followed instantly by a violent surge of self-preservation.
428
00:27:30.299 --> 00:27:32.940
It wasn't the death wish at all. Myself and the
429
00:27:32.980 --> 00:27:35.500
creatures who remained safely at the tunnel mouths had a
430
00:27:35.599 --> 00:27:37.960
milder form of what was affecting the creature that did
431
00:27:38.019 --> 00:27:42.039
start swatting the gourd. Then what was the difference, sir?
432
00:27:42.660 --> 00:27:45.970
Why did that one particular creature get the full self-destruction
433
00:27:46.170 --> 00:27:50.309
urge and no other? Jerry wrinkled his face in thought.
434
00:27:51.549 --> 00:27:54.170
I wish I didn't suspect the answer to that, Ensign.
435
00:27:55.049 --> 00:27:57.380
The only thing I hope it isn't is the thing
436
00:27:57.500 --> 00:28:02.519
I have the strongest inkling it is. rotation. Something in
437
00:28:02.539 --> 00:28:05.160
their biology has set them up in a certain order
438
00:28:05.359 --> 00:28:10.799
for destruction. That rite I saw performed was so un-animal,
439
00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:15.289
so formalized. Bob's eyes widened as he caught the inference.'
440
00:28:15.940 --> 00:28:18.980
You think they have an inbuilt protocol? That if one
441
00:28:19.039 --> 00:28:23.880
particular creature missed its cue, somehow the designated subsequent creature
442
00:28:23.940 --> 00:28:29.220
would simply wait forever, never jumping its turn?'' That' s what
443
00:28:29.269 --> 00:28:33.789
I mean,' nodded Jerry. I hope I'm wrong. But the
444
00:28:33.849 --> 00:28:37.509
right creature made it, said Bob, blinking. We can't have
445
00:28:37.569 --> 00:28:41.700
upset the ecology, can we? Things develop fast on Viridian,
446
00:28:42.259 --> 00:28:45.900
mused Jerry. If I figure the time relationship between their
447
00:28:46.099 --> 00:28:49.859
egg-hatching rate and growth rate, those trees must mature in
448
00:28:49.900 --> 00:28:54.130
growth in about a month, and we managed to shrivel
449
00:28:54.170 --> 00:28:57.289
a half-dozen vines with our rocket fires when we landed.
450
00:28:57.990 --> 00:29:01.710
and probably that many again when we blasted off. We
451
00:29:01.730 --> 00:29:05.049
dropped CO2 bombs after we cleared the trees, offered the
452
00:29:05.089 --> 00:29:09.720
tech uneasily. The fire was out in seconds. That wouldn't
453
00:29:09.759 --> 00:29:13.500
help an already shriveled vine, though, now would it? sighed Jerry.
454
00:29:14.240 --> 00:29:17.539
And if my hunch about protocol is correct, the life
455
00:29:17.579 --> 00:29:23.619
cycle would interrupt, gasped the tech. We'll see, said Jerry.
456
00:29:24.690 --> 00:29:27.140
It'll take us a month to get back, and there'll
457
00:29:27.160 --> 00:29:29.779
be another six months before the first wave of engineers
458
00:29:29.859 --> 00:29:34.369
is sent to begin the homesteads and industry sites. We'll see, Ensign.
459
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It took two months for the engineers to go out
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and return. They hadn't landed. A few orbits about the
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planet had shown them nothing but a vast, dead ball
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of dust and rotted vegetation, totally unfit for human habitation.
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They brought back photographs taken of the dead planet that
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no longer deserved the name it had rated in life.
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But Jerry Norquist, space zoologist, made it a special point
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to avoid looking at any of them. Thanks for joining me.
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Find more horror fiction at WeirdDarkness.com slash midnight. I'm Darren Marlar.
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And I hope you'll join me again soon. At midnight.
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In the macabre.