Chapter 11

"Never mind now. I rather imagine we shall learn more on this score as we go on with our work.

"At any rate, we may be sure of this: whatever it was that caused man to become supreme on the earth, that condition is lacking on Sanus!"

Van Emmon did not agree to this. "The condition may be there, doc, but there is some other factor which overbalances it; a factor such as is--well, more favorable to the bees."

The doctor looked around the circle. "What do you think? 'A factor more favorable to the bees.' Shall we let it go at that?" There was no remark, even from Smith; and the doctor went an:

"Coming back to the bees, then, we note that they are remarkable for several points of great value. First, as we have seen, they are very industrious by nature. Second, all bees possess wings and on that count alone they are far superior to humans.

"Third--and to me, the most important--the bees possess a remarkable combination of community life and specialization. Of course, when you come to analyze these two points, you see that they really belong to one another. The bees we know, for instance, are either queens, whose only function is to fertilize the eggs; or workers, who are unsexed females, and whose sole occupations are the collecting of honey, the building of hives, and the care of the young.

"Now," speaking carefully, "apparently these Sanusian bees have developed something that is not unknown to certain forms of earth's insect life. I mean, a soldier type. A kind of bee which specializes on fighting!"

Van Emmon was listening closely, yet he had got another idea: "Perhaps this soldier type is simply the plain worker bee, all gone to sting! It may be that these bees have given up labor altogether!"

"Still," muttered Smith, under his breath, "all this doesn't solve the real problem. Why aren't the HUMANS supreme?" For once he became emphatic. "That's what gets me! Why aren't the humans the rulers, doc?" Kinney waited until he felt sure the others were depending upon him. "Smith, the humans on Sanus are not supreme now because they were NEVER supreme."

Smith looked blank. "I don't get that."

"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!"

VII

THE MISSING FACTOR

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?"

Smith and Van Emmon both said they had. "Why?"

"Of course, it isn't likely, but--did you see anything like a volcano anywhere?"

"No," both replied.

"Another thing," Kinney went on. "So far, I've seen nothing that would indicate lightning, much less the thing itself. Did either of you," explicitly, "run across such a thing as a blasted tree?"

They said they had not. Billie hesitated a little with her reply, then stated that she had noted a tree or two in a state of disintegration, but none that showed the unmistakable scars due to being struck by lightning.

"Then we've got the key to the mystery!" declared the doctor. "Remember how brown and barren everything looks excepting only where there's artificial vegetation? Well, putting two and two together, I come to the conclusion that Sanus differs radically from the earth in this respect:

"The humans have arrived rather late in the planet's history. Or--and this is more likely--Sanus is somewhat smaller than the earth, and therefore has cooled off sooner. At any rate, the relationship between the age of the planet and the age of its human occupancy differs from what it is on the earth."

"I don't quite see," from Smith, "what that's got to do with it."

"No? Well, go back to the first point: the dried-up appearance of things. That means, their air and water are both less extensive than with us, and for that reason there are far fewer clouds; therefore, it is quite possible that there has been no lightning within the memory of the humans."

"How so?" demanded the geologist.

"Why, simply because lightning depends upon clouds. Lightning is merely the etheric electricity, drawn to the earth whenever there is enough water in the air to promote conductivity."

"Yes," agreed Smith; "but--what of it?"

Kinney went on unheeding. "As for volcanoes--probably the same explanation accounts for the lack of these also. You know how the earth, even, is rapidly coming to the end of her Volcanic period. Time was when there were volcanoes almost everywhere on the earth.

"The same is likely true of Sanus as well. The point is," and the doctor paused significantly, "there have been no volcanic eruptions, and no lightning discharges within the memory of Sanusian man!"

What was he getting at? The others eyed him closely. Neither Van Emmon nor Smith could guess what he meant; but Billie, her intuition wide awake, gave a great jump in her chair.

"I know!" she cried. A flood of light came to her face.

"The Sanusians--no wonder they let the bees put it over on them!"

"They haven't got FIRE! They've never had it!"

VIII

FIRE!

From the corner of his eyes Kinney saw Van Emmon turn a gaze of frank admiration at his wife. It lasted only a second, however; the geologist remembered, and masked the expression before Billie could detect it.

Smith had been electrified by the idea.

"By George!" he exclaimed two or three times. "Why didn't I think of that? It's simple as A, B, C now!"

"Why," Van Emmon exulted, "all we've got to do is put the idea of fire into their heads, and the job is done!" He jumped around in his chair. "Darn those bees, anyhow!"

"And yet," observed the doctor, "it's not quite as simple as we may think. Of course it's true that once they have fire, the humans ought to assert themselves. We'll let that stand without argument."

"Will we?" Smith didn't propose to back down that easy. "Do you mean to say that fire, and nothing more than fire, can bring about human ascendency?"

The doctor felt sure. "All the other animals are afraid of fire. Such exceptions as the moth are really not exceptions at all; the moth is simply driven so mad by the sight of flame that it commits suicide in it. Horses sometimes do the same.

"Humans are the only creatures that do not fear fire! Even a tiny baby will show no fear at the sight of it."

"Which ought to prove," Van Emmon cut in to silence Smith, "that superiority is due to fire, rather than fire due to superiority, for the simple reason that a newborn child is very low in the scale of evolution." Smith decided not to say what he intended to say. Van Emmon concluded:

"We've just got to give 'em fire! What's the first step?"

"I propose," from the doctor, "that when we get in touch this time we concentrate on the idea of fire. We've got to give them the notion first."

"Would you rather," inquired Billie, "that I kept the idea from Supreme?"

"Thanks," returned her husband, icily, "but you might just as well tell her, too. It'll make her afraid in advance, all the better!"

The engineer threw himself back in his seat. "I'm with you," said he, laying aside his argument. The rest followed his example, and presently were looking upon Sanus again.

All told, this particular session covered a good many hours. The four kept up a more or less connected mental conversation with each other as they went along, except, of course, when the events became too exciting. Mainly they were trying to catch their agents in the proper mood for receiving telepathic communications, and it proved no easy matter. It required a state of semi-consciousness, a condition of being neither awake nor asleep. It was necessary to wait until night had fallen on that particular part of the planet. [Footnote: It should be mentioned that all parts of Sanus showed the same condition of bee supremacy and human servitude. The spot in question was quite typical of all the colonies.]

Van Emmon was the first to get results. Corrus had driven his herd back from the brook at which they had got their evening drink, and after seeing them all quietly settled for the night, he lay down on the dried grass slope of a small hill, and stared up at the sky. Van Emmon had plenty of time to study the stars as seen from Sanus, and certainly the case demanded plenty of time.

For he saw a broad band of sky, as broad as the widest part of the Milky Way, which was neither black nor sparkling with stars, but glowing as brightly as the full moon! From the eastern horizon to the zenith it stretched, a great "Silvery Way," as Van Emmon labeled it; and as the darkness deepened and the night lengthened, the illumination crept on until the band of light stretched all the way across. Van Emmon racked his brains to account for the thing.

Then Corrus became drowsy. Van Emmon concentrated with all his might. At first he overdid the thing; Corrus was not quite drowsy enough, and the attempt only made him wakeful. Shortly, however, he became exceedingly sleepy, and the geologist's chance came.

At the end of a few minutes the herdsman sat up, blinking. He looked around at the dark forms of the cattle, then up at the stars; he was plainly both puzzled and excited. He remained awake for hours, in fact, thinking over the strange thing he had seen "in a dream."

Meanwhile Smith was having a similar experience with Dulnop. The young fellow was, like Corrus, alone at the time; and he, too, was made very excited and restless by what he saw.