"Don't you? Look here: you'll admit that success begets success,
won't you?"
"Success begets success? Sure! 'Nothing succeeds like success.'"
"Well, isn't that merely another way of saying that the
consciousness of superiority will lead to further conquests? We
humans are thoroughly conscious of our supremacy; if we weren't we'd
never attempt the things we do!"
Van Emmon saw the point. "In other words, the humans on the earth
never began to show their superiority until something--something
big, happened to demonstrate their ability!"
"Exactly!" cried Kinney. "Our prehistoric ancestors would never have
handed down such a tremendous ambition to you and me if they, at
that time, had not been able to point to some definite feat and say,
'That proves I'm a bigger man than a horse,' for example."
"Of course," reflected Billie, aloud; "of course, there were other
factors."
"Yes; but they don't alter the case. Originally the human was only
slightly different from the apes he associated with. There was
perhaps only one slight point of superiority; today there are
millions of such points. Man is infinitely superior, now, and it's
all because he was slightly superior, then."
"Suppose we grant that," remarked the geologist. "What then? Does
that explain why the bees have made good on Sanus?"
"To a large degree. Some time in the past the Sanusian bee
discovered that he possessed a certain power which enabled him to
force his will upon other creatures. This power was his poisonous
sting. He found that, when he got his fellows together and formed a
swarm, they could attack any animal in such large numbers as to make
it helpless."
"Any creature?"
"Yes; even reptiles, scales or no scales. They'd attack the eyes."
"But that doesn't explain how the bees ever began to make humans
work for them," objected Van Emmon.
The doctor thought for a few minutes. "Let's see. Suppose we assume
that a certain human once happened to be in the neighborhood of a
hive, just when it was attacked by a drove of ants. Ants are great
lovers of honey, you know. Suppose the man stepped among the ants
and was bitten. Naturally he would trample them to death, and smash
with his hands all that he couldn't trample. Now, what's to prevent
the bees from seeing how easily the man had dealt with the ants? A
man would be far more efficient, destroying ants, than a bee; just
as a horse is more efficient, dragging a load, than a man. And yet
we know that the horse was domesticated, here on the earth, simply
because the humans saw his possibilities; the horse could do a
certain thing more efficiently than a human.
"You notice," the doctor went on, with great care, "that everything
I've assumed is natural enough: the combination of an ant attack and
the man's approach, occurring at the same time. Suppose we add a
third factor: that the bees, even while fighting the ants, also
started to attack the man; but that he chanced to turn his attention
to the ants FIRST. So that the bees let him alone!
"We know what remarkable things bees are, when it comes to telling
one another what they know. Is there any reason why such an
experience--all natural enough--shouldn't demonstrate to them that
they, by merely threatening a man, could compel him to kill ants for
them?"
Billie was dubious for a moment; then agreed that the man, also,
might notice that the bees failed to sting him as long as he
continued to destroy their other enemies. If so, it was quite
conceivable that, bit by bit, the bees had found other and more
positive ways of securing the aid of men through threatening to
sting. "Even to cultivating flowers for their benefit," she
conceded. "It's quite possible."
Smith had been thinking of something else. "I always understood that
a bee's stinging apparatus is good for only one attack. Doesn't it
always remain behind after stinging?"
"Yes," from the doctor, quietly. "That is true. The sting has tiny
barbs on its tip, and these cause it to remain in the wound. The
sting is actually torn away from the bee when it flies away. It
never grows another. That is why, in fact, the bee never stings
except as a last resort, when it thinks it's a question of
self-defense."
"Just what I thought!" chuckled Smith. "A bee is helpless without
its sting! If so, how can you account for anything like a soldier
bee?"
The doctor returned his gaze with perfect equanimity. He looked at
Van Emmon and Billie; they, too, seemed to think that the engineer
had found a real flaw in Kinney's reasoning. The doctor dropped his
eyes, and searched his mind thoroughly for the best words. He
removed his bracelets while he was thinking; the others did the
same. All four got to their feet and stretched, silently but
thoroughly. Not until they were ready to quit the study did the
doctor make reply.
"Smith, I don't need to remind you that it's the little things that
count. It's too old a saying. In this case it happens to be the
greatest truth we have found today.
"Smith"--speaking with the utmost care--"what we have just said
about the bee's sting is all true; but only with regard to the bees
on the earth. It is only on the earth, so far as we know positively,
that the bee is averse to stinging, for fear of losing his sting.
"There is only one way to account for the soldier bee. Its sting has
no barbs!"
"No barbs?"
"Why not? If the poison is virulent enough, the barbs wouldn't be
necessary, would they? Friends, the Sanusian bee is the supreme
creature on its planet; it is superior to all the other insects, all
the birds, all the animals; and its supremacy is due solely and
entirely to the fact that there are no barbs on its sting!"