It was purely by accident that he passed
Earth in his galactic travels. But it became a
matter of design that he land there, because—
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
December 1954
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The little sun was almost a light-year out of his way, and he couldhave made it on to Sirius without stopping. But the thirst within himwas strong. The delicious, yellow sun with its rich corona and tiny,tantalizing streamers was too tempting to pass up. Even before itsgravitic currents were strong enough to be of utility, he was decided.He would pause. He would gorge himself. He would drink until he wasblue-white.
The thought was the first pleasant, sensuous one he had allowed himselfon the long journey. In his haste to indulge, he ignored the nineplanets which normally would have attracted at least a curious glancefrom him. Not until he veered physically to avoid the third planet fromthe sun was he distracted from his goal.
A bevy of the clumsy little spaceships from distant Vega were swarmingjust outside the planet's turgid atmosphere. As he approached, one ofthe Vegans noted his presence and hailed him.
"Greetings, Sirian! Stop a bit and give us your worthy opinion."
Although the message took but half a micro-second, the Sirian wasalmost past the planet's pale satellite before he could repolarize hisphotons and reverse his direction. Being the haughty creatures theywere, the Vegan's invitation was both unusual and provocative.
The Sirian noted, as he returned, that the flight of one-man-disksseemed gathered about a mushroom-shaped cloud of opaque, gaseousmatter, entirely cold except for a modest radio-activity.
When he shot out an open query, the Vegan answered, "They did it!Those incredible little organic creatures down on the surface."
"Creatures? You mean there is an intelligent organic life-form onthis planet?" the Sirian asked somewhat incredulously. He had passedthis system a hundred times without suspecting such a thing.
"Well, not exactly intelligent in a galactic sense, but likelyyou'll agree that the principles of fission and fusion are somewhatremarkable to find mastered by a planet-bound life-form as primitiveas these entities. They are ordinary, liquid-and-solid, carbon-ring,ferro-protein, bi-symmetrical bipeds—you know, the kind you findscattered about on these oxygen-rich planets. But imagine! Nuclearmanipulation!"
The Sirian found the paradox both curious and amusing. Never, to hisknowledge, had solid-matter life-forms advanced beyond a rudimentaryuse of chemical combustion reactions, and even those who did masterfire more often worshipped it than made a sensible use of it.
"Interesting! Interesting, indeed. I think I will have a look."
"We were hoping you would," the Vegan replied. "We've done all theinvestigating we dare."
"How is that?"
"They've spotted us, we think. Every time we come close to the surfacethey dispatch little gas-expulsion vessels to chase us."
"Why don't you simply land and establish communications?"
"With our limitations we're not that curious. They're a violent,vicious, suspicious lot—some two or three billion of them. And theyhave some nasty little weapons at their disposal. Their nature seems tobe to hate what they don't understand. Shoot first and question later."
"Thanks for the warning—"
"Not that you need it. With your metamorphic abilities you can easily—"
"Of course. Now, on what question did you seek