By the time the four once more got together in the doctor's study,
each had had a chance to consider the Sanusian situation pretty
thoroughly. All but Billie were convinced that the humans were
deserving people, whose position was all the more regrettable
because due, so far as could be seen, the insignificant little
detail of the barbless sting.
Were these people doomed forever to live their lives for the sake of
insects? Were they always to remain, primitive and uncultured, in
ignorance of the things that civilization is built upon, obeying the
orders of creatures who were content to eat, reproduce, and die? For
that is all that bees know!
Perhaps it was for the best. Possibly Rolla and her friends were
better off as they were. It might have been that a wise Providence,
seeing how woefully the human animal had missed its privileges on
other worlds, had decided to make man secondary on Sanus. Was that
the reason for it all?
All but Billie scouted the idea. To them the affair was a ghastly
perversion of what Nature intended. Van Emmon stated the case in a
manner which showed how strongly he felt about it.
"Those folks will never get anywhere if the bees can help it!" he
charged." We've got to lend a hand, here, and see that they get a
chance!"
Smith said that, so far as he was concerned, the bees might all be
consigned to hell. "I'm not going to have anything to do with the
agent I had, any more!" he declared. "I'm going to get in touch with
that chap, Dulnop. What is he like, doc?"
Kinney told him, and then Van Emmon asked for details of the
herdsman, Corrus. "No more bees in my young life, either. From now
on it's up to us. What do you think?" turning to his wife, and
carefully avoiding any use of her name.
The architect knew well enough that the rest were wondering how she
would decide. She answered with deliberation:
"I'm going to stay in touch with Supreme!"
"You are!" incredulously, from her husband.
"Yes! I've got a darned sight more sympathy for those bees than for
the humans! The 'fraid-cats!" disgustedly.
"But listen," protested Van Emmon. "We can't stand by and let those
cold-blooded prisoners keep human beings, like ourselves, in rank
slavery! Not much!"
Evidently he thought he needed to explain. "A human is a human, no
matter where we find him! Why, how can those poor devils show what
they're good for if we don't give 'em a chance? That's the only way
to develop people--give 'em a chance to show what's in 'em! Let the
best man win!"
Billie only closed her mouth tighter; and Smith decided to say,
"Billie, you don't need to stand by your guns just because the
Sanusian working class happens to be insects. Besides, we're three
to one in favor of the humans!"
"Oh, well," she condescended, "if you put it that way I'll agree not
to interfere. Only, don't expect me to help you any with your
schemes; I'll just keep an eye on Supreme, that's all."
"Then we're agreed." The doctor put on his bracelets. "Suppose we go
into the trance state for about three minutes--long enough to learn
what's going on today."
Shortly Billie again using the eyes and ears of the extraordinarily
capable bee who ruled the rest, once more looked down upon Sanus.
She saw the big "city," which she now knew to be a vast collection
of hives, built by the humans at the command of the bees. At the
moment the air was thick with workers, returning with their loads of
honey from the fields which the humans had been compelled to
cultivate. What a diabolical reversal of the accepted order of
things!
The architect had time to note something very typical of the case.
On the outskirts of the city two humans were at work, erecting a new
hive. Having put it together, they proceeded to lift the big box and
place it near those already inhabited. They set it down in what
looked like a good location, but almost immediately took it up again
and shifted it a foot to one side. This was not satisfactory,
either; they moved it a few inches in another direction.
All told, it took a full minute to place that simple affair where it
was wanted; and all the while those two humans behaved as though
some one were shouting directions to them--silent directions, as it
were. Billie knew that a half-dozen soldier bees, surrounding their
two heads, were coolly and unfeelingly driving them where they
willed. And when, the work done, they left the spot, two soldiers
went along behind them to see that they did not loiter.
As for the doctor, he came upon Rolla when the woman was deep in an
experiment. She stood in front of a rude trough, one of perhaps
twenty located within a large, high-walled inclosure. In the trough
was a quantity of earth, through the surface of which some tiny
green shoots were beginning to show.
Rolla inspected the shoots, and then, with her stone knife, she made
a final notch in the wood on the edge of the trough. There were
twenty-odd of these notches; whereas, on other troughs which the
doctor had a chance to see, there were over thirty in many cases,
and still no shoots.
The place, then, was an experimental station. This was proven by
Rolla's next move. She went outside the yard and studied five heaps
of soil, each of a different appearance, also three smaller piles of
pulverized mineral--nitrates, for all that the doctor knew. And
before Kinney severed his connection with the Sanusian, she had
begun the task of mixing up a fresh combination of these ingredients
in a new trough. In the midst of this she heard a sound; and turning
about, waved a hand excitedly toward a distant figure on the far
side of a nearby field.
Meanwhile Smith had managed to get in touch with Dulnop. He found
the young man engaged in work which did not, at first, become clear
to the engineer. Then he saw that the chap was simply sorting over
big piles of broken rock, selecting certain fragments which he
placed in separate heaps. Not far away two assistants were pounding
these fragments to powder, using rude pestles, in great, nature-made
mortars--"pot-holes," from some river-bed.
It was this powder, beyond a doubt, that Rolla was using in her
work. To Smith, Dulnop's task seemed like a ridiculously simple
occupation for a nearly grown man, until he reflected that these
aborigines were exactly like toddling children in intellects.
Van Emmon had no trouble in making connections with Corrus. The
herdsman was in charge of a dozen cows, wild looking creatures which
would have been far too much for the man had they been horned, which
they were not. He handled them by sheer force, using the great club
he always carried. Once while Van Emmon was watching, a cow tried to
break away from the group; but Corrus, with an agility amazing in so
short and heavy a man, dashed after the creature and tapped her
lightly on the top of her head. Dazed and contrite, she followed him
meekly back into the herd.
The place was on the edge of a meadow, at the beginning of what
looked like a grain field. Stopping here, Corrus threw a hand to his
mouth and gave a ringing shout. Immediately it was answered,
faintly, by another at a distance; and then Van Emmon made out the
form of Rolla among some huts on the other side of the grain. She
beckoned toward the herdsman, and he took a half-dozen steps toward
her.
Just as abruptly he stopped, almost in mid-stride. Simultaneously
Van Emmon heard a loud buzzing in either ear. Corrus was being
warned. Like a flash he dropped his head and muttered: "Vey well. I
will remember--next time." And trembling violently he turned back to
his cows.
"Well," remarked the geologist, when the four "came out" of their
seance, "the bees seem to have everything their own way. How can we
help the humans best? Hurry up with your idea; I'm getting sick of
these damned poisoners."
The doctor asked if the others had any suggestions. Smith offered
this: why couldn't the humans retire to some cave, or build
tight-walled huts, and thus bar out the bees?
No sooner had he made the remark, however, than the engineer
declared his own plan no good. "These people aren't like us; they
couldn't stand such imprisonment long enough to make their 'strike'
worth while."
"Is there any reason," suggested Billie, indifferently, "why they
couldn't weave face nets from some kind of grass, and protect
themselves in that way?"
Smith saw the objection to that, too. "They'd have to protect
themselves all over as well; every inch would have to be covered
tightly. From what I've seen of them I'd say that the arrangement
would drive them frantic. It would be worse than putting clothes on
a cat."
"It's a man-sized job we've tackled," commented the doctor. "What
Smith says is true; such people would never stand for any measures
which would restrict their physical freedom. They are simply animals
with human possibilities, nothing more."
He paused, and then added quietly, "By the way, did either of you
notice any mountains just now?"