F. L. Wallace

“ We know an impossible task when we see it. And so we're leaving, first making sure that this animal will never make use of the products of our civilization. It may reach this planet, but it will not be able to untangle our code—it's too stupid. You who will have to face it, please forgive us. It's the only thing that we're ashamed of."
"Don't listen," said the Ribboneer and, bending his broad, thin body, he sprang to the translator, shook it and banged with his ribbons until the machine was silent. "You don't have to tell anyone," crackled Taphetta. ”

“ Firmon of hydroponics slouched in, a tall man with scanty hair and an equal lack of grace. He seemed to have difficulty in taking his eyes off Meredith, though, since he was a notch or so above her in the mating scale, he shouldn't have been so interested. But his planet had been inexplicably slow in developing and he wasn't completely aware of his place in the human hierarchy. ”

“ It was Halden who answered him. "There's the satisfaction of knowing where we came from."
"Of course," rustled the Ribboneer. "But a lot of money and equipment was required for this expedition. I can't believe that the educational institutions that are backing you did so purely out of intellectual curiosity."
"Cultural discoveries," rumbled Emmer. "How did our ancestors live? When a creature is greatly reduced in size, as we are, more than physiology is changed—the pattern of life itself is altered. Things that were easy for them are impossible for us. Look at their life span." ”

“ Muttering something about primitive women, Firmon turned to the biologist. "The pilot doesn't like our air."
"Then change it to suit him. He's in charge of the ship and knows more about these things than I do."
"More than a man?" Firmon leered at Meredith and, when she failed to smile, added plaintively, "I did try to change it, but he still complains."
Halden took a deep breath. "Seems all right to me."
"To everybody else, too, but the tapeworm hasn't got lungs. He breathes through a million tubes scattered over his body." ”

“ Taphetta rattled the head fronds together in a surprisingly good imitation of speech. "Yes, I've heard the legend."
"It's more than a legend," said Sam Halden, biologist. The reaction was not unexpected—non-humans tended to dismiss the data as convenient speculation and nothing more. "There are at least a hundred kinds of humans, each supposedly originating in strict seclusion on as many widely scattered planets. Obviously there was no contact throughout the ages before space travel—and yet each planetary race can interbreed with a minimum of ten others! ”

“ Taphetta crinkled his ribbons in amusement. Kelburn frowned at the interruption, but no one else paid any attention.
The translator went on. "Our metabolic rate is the lowest of any creature we know of. We live several thousand revolutions of any recorded planet and our rate of increase is extremely low; under the most favorable circumstances, we can do no more than double our numbers in two hundred generations." ”

“ We can't demolish all the planets we unthinkingly let it loose on; there are too many and it lives too fast. The stars drift and we would lose some, and before we could eliminate the last one, it would develop space travel—it has little intelligence, but it could get that far—and it would escape ahead of us. ”

“ Meredith leaned back. "Were the puppets exactly like the pests? And if not, will the pests be fooled?"
"The electronic puppets were a good imitation, but the animals don't have to identify them as their species. If they're smart enough, they'll know the value of a knife, no matter who uses it."
"What if they're smarter? Suppose they know a knife can't be used by a creature without real hands?"
"That's part of our precautions. They'll never know until they try—and they'll never get away from the trap to try." ”

“ Man was the most numerous though not always the most advanced—Ribboneers had a civilization as high as anything in the known section of the Milky Way, and there were others—and humans were more than a little feared. If they ever got together—but they hadn't except in agreement as to their common origin.
Still, Taphetta the Ribboneer was an experienced pilot and could be very useful. A clear statement of their position was essential in helping him make up his mind. "You've heard of the adjacency mating principle?" asked Sam Halden.
"Vaguely. Most people have if they've been around men." ”

“ Kelburn said, though it wasn't, for they had left. "What makes you think they were afraid?"
"No air. If your calculations are right, there must have been an extensive atmosphere a few hundred thousand years ago and now there isn't any. A planet this size doesn't lose air that fast. Therefore, it's an artificial condition. Who takes the trouble to leave a planet uninhabitable except someone who's afraid others will use it—and who else runs away?"
"They may have done it to preserve what they left," suggested Halden.
"Perhaps," said Taphetta, but it was obvious he didn't think so. ”

“ The theory is that humans who can mate with each other were once physically close. We've got a list of all our races arranged in sequence. If planetary race F can mate with race E back to A and forward to M, and race G is fertile only back to B, but forward to O, then we assume that whatever their positions are now, at once time G was actually adjacent to F, but was a little further along. When we project back into time those star systems on which humans existed prior to space travel, we get a certain pattern. Kelburn can explain it to you. ”

“ Anyway, non-humans weren't trained in the fine distinctions that men made among themselves. And, higher or lower, he was as good a biologist as the other was a mathematician. And there was the matter of training; he'd been on several expeditions and this was Kelburn's first trip. Damn it, he thought, that rated some respect.
The Ribboneer shifted his attention. "Aside from the sudden illness of your pilot, why did you ask for me?" ”

“ They had always been loathsome little beasts that walked instead of rolling or creeping, but now they became even more vicious, spawning explosively and fighting with the same incessant violence. They had always harbored diseases which spread to us, but now they've become hot-houses for still smaller parasites that also are able to infect us. ”

“ That was what Taphetta had been afraid of—there was one kind of technical advancement that multiplied unceasingly. The race that could improve itself through scientific control of its germ plasm had a start that could never be headed. The Ribboneer needn't worry now.
"Why do we have to watch it on the screen?" asked Meredith, glancing up. "I'd rather be in hydroponics."
Halden shrugged. "They may or may not be smarter than planetbound animals, but they're warier. They don't come out when anyone's near." ”

“ It would do no good to explain that Taphetta wasn't a worm, that his evolution had taken a different course, but that he was in no sense less complex than Man. It was a paradox that some biologically higher humans hadn't developed as much as lower races and actually weren't prepared for the multitude of life-forms they'd meet in space. Firmon's reaction was quite typical. ”

“ Taphetta looked around. "Who would have thought it? You were completely mistaken as to your origin." Kelburn was staring vacantly ahead, but didn't see a thing. Meredith was leaning against Halden; her eyes were closed. "The woman has finally chosen, now that she knows she was once vermin," clicked the Ribboneer. "But there are tears in her eyes."
"The intelligence of the beast has advanced slightly, though there isn't much difference between the highest and the lowest—and we've checked both ends of all four journeys. ”

“ It's reasonable to assume that, if men were set down on a hundred such worlds, they'd seem to fit in with native life-forms on a few of them. That's what happened on Earth; when Man arrived, there was actually a manlike creature there. Naturally our early evolutionists stretched their theories to cover the facts they had. ”

“ But there are other worlds in which humans who were there before the Stone Age aren't related to anything else there. We have to conclude that Man didn't originate on any of the planets on which he is now found. ”

“ Instead, he evolved elsewhere and later was scattered throughout this section of the Milky Way."
"And so, to account for the unique race that can interbreed across thousands of light-years, you've brought in the big ancestor," commented Taphetta dryly. "It seems an unnecessary simplification."
"Can you think of a better explanation?" asked Kelburn.
"Something had to distribute one species so widely and it's not the result of parallel evolution—not when a hundred human races are involved, and only the human race." ”

“ And they had, no matter who or what they were, biologically late or early, in the depths of the bronze age or the threshold of atomic—because they were human. That was sometimes a frightening thing for non-humans, that the race stuck together. They weren't actually aggressive, but their total number was great and they held themselves aloof. The unknown ancestor again. ”

“ Emmer just misses being able to breed with my kind, but there's a fair chance that I'd be fertile with Meredith and a similar though lesser chance that her fertility may extend to Kelburn."
Taphetta rustled his speech ribbons quizzically. "But I thought it was proved that some humans did originate on one planet, that there was an unbroken line of evolution that could be traced back a billion years."
"You're thinking of Earth," said Halden. "Humans require a certain kind of planet. ”

“ It must be a fairly intelligent creature to be so hard to get rid of. But it can be lured into traps, if the bait's strong enough."
"That's what I don't like," said Taphetta, curling. "Let me think it over while I ask questions." He turned to Emmer. "I'm curious about humans. ”