"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 no? 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!"