Nelson S. Bond

“ I snorted loudly. "A hell of a lot of good that does us! It'll be a matter of choosing seeds against seeds. And if I know those Cosmic Corporation crooks, they'll bribe the Iapetus governing board blue in the face."
"Wait!" cried Biggs. "It may not be seeds against seeds. It may be seeds against—flowers!" ”

“ Biggs said soberly, "Now don't get upset, Sparks. It's not so silly as it sounds. As a matter of fact, it's one of the most intelligent moves I've ever known the stuffed sh—I mean, the officials of our company to make. You see, flower seeds are a great deal more valuable than vegetable seeds."
"Oh, yeah! Sure! That's easy to prove, too. When a man's starving, just give him his choice between a loaf of bread and an orchid corsage—"
"No, Sparks, that's not the situation at all. You see, the problem here is not one of feeding the Iapetan colonists. They have plenty to eat. ”

“ If we boost it any higher we're taking chances. We may exceed the limiting velocity of light and lose ourselves in the negative universe like we did once before." A sudden anger disturbed his usual calm complacency. "If we lose this race," he stormed, "the Company has nobody to blame but itself! They merchandised the V-I unit and made it available to every ship in space. Still—we must beat the C.C. to Iapetus, even if we have to take chances."
He turned to me suddenly. "Sparks, call Jenkins again. See if you can get an exact locus on the Gemini." ”

“ Biggs said soberly, "Practically everybody who's heard about the discovery. You see, Sparks, they not only learned that Iapetus could sustain human life; they also discovered that the entire planet is one great storehouse of precious mineral ores.
"Miners, adventurers, homesteaders ... humans from all over the solar system are flocking there as fast as they can drive their space-craft. Iapetus is a boom planet. ”

“ I seen that bud before. But when I did, it wasn't blue! It was as red as an old maid's face at a strip-tease!"
"Looked red, you mean," corrected Biggs. "Not was red. That was a matter of color reflection, Sparks, caused by the Hertzian ray lamp I had installed in the laboratory. You will remember our faces were green, our lips purplish. You see, color is a tricky thing. For instance, when you see a green leaf, what color is that leaf?"
"Why, you just said. Green, of course."
"Ah, no!" said Biggs. "It is every color but green! Colors by which we designate objects are not their true colors. ”

“ What's that?"
"I think the governor should be told the truth," said Biggs. "We should confess that our seeds are not a first class product. Might not, indeed, even flourish in the soil of Iapetus."
"Lanse!" I cried. "Do you know what you're saying? Don't talk like that!"
"Yes, Governor," nodded Lancelot Biggs sorrowfully, "I'm afraid that's true. Your colony wouldn't want our seeds. For one thing, they're all roses. The Cosmic Corporation offers you all kinds of flowers. For another thing, our seeds are not particularly hardy. ”

“ The V-I (velocity-intensifier) unit is an invention of Lt. Lancelot Biggs which permits space-craft to attain velocities approaching the "limiting velocity" of light, i.e., approximately 186,000 miles per second.—ED.
[4] Science has already discovered that the bombardment of cosmic rays is at least partially responsible for the creation of "freaks," "sports," or "mutants," in both the animal and vegetable world. Life on atmosphere-blanketed planets is not subject to this bombardment, because of the protective Heaviside energy layer ... ”

“ Something to delight the eye with its color, soften the air with its fragrance. In short—flowers.
"You know, it's like some old Indian philosopher said way back in the 20th Century: If a man has but two coins in his pocket, he should take one of them and buy 'hyacinths wherewith to feed the soul'."
"Nevertheless—" I interrupted doggedly.
"So," pursued Biggs, "our company is being very clever in hurrying this shipment of flower seeds to Iapetus. ”

“ But to borrow an expression from a wise old book, 'Man does not live by bread alone.' There is such a thing, you know, as maintaining public morale, and one of the best ways of doing this is to offer people some small but tender fragment of beauty. ”

“ Thousands of people flocking to the Iapetus mines with picks and shovels and dreams of wealth ... and we join the gold rush with a cargo of seeds. Why?"
"But, don't you see?" explained Biggs. "Where there are mines there are humans. Where there are humans there are communities. Where there are communities—"
"People get hungry!" I burst in. "Of course! Now I get it. We're bringing them the seeds to sow vegetables with, is that it? ”

“ From the viewpoint of distance alone, they should drop gravs on Iapetus one hour before we do."
Hanson groaned. "Licked again!"
"No," said Biggs. "Not quite. There's one thing which may save us. Iapetus' diurnal revolution. It's not simply a matter of reaching the satellite. They must actually beat us to the mining city. If their calculators have figured our position as we have figured theirs, they may be overconfident and think they've licked us just because they have an hour's advantage. ”

“ I granted. "But those seeds are very young. And you've only got seventy-two hours to work in. Even with artificial culture, how are you going to bring them to full bloom in three days?"
Biggs said happily, "That's the most wonderful part of it, Sparks. It so happens that only recently I have been conducting a series of experiments on plant culture. If my theories are right, I think I have discovered a way to speed up the growth of living vegetation tremendously. ”

“ If you're going to start fiddling around again with things you don't know anything about—"
"But I do know all about it, Sparks," wailed Lancelot. "And I'm almost positive my plan will work. Now, be a good fellow, will you? Help me carry one of those lead containers up to that spare chamber on A Deck, and, let's see—I'll need a tank, a quart of vitamin B extract, an ultraviolet ray lamp—"
So, you know me. Lollypop Donovan, the eternal sucker. I helped him.
By way of alibi, I might as well confess here and now that I didn't think anything would come of Biggs' experiment. ”

“ There is, you surely realize, a certain amount of artistic falsification—or should I simply call it 'artistic license'?—employed in reproducing facsimiles of living objects. Therefore, in order to sell our goods we always attempt to offer a living example of our product. ”

“ If we can hold the velocity-intensifier in operation until just before we effect landing, we'll drop to normal acceleration right smack over that sector of Iapetus where the mines are, thus cancelling the sixty-odd minutes of stratosphere cruise the Gemini will have to make—and dropping us into the cradles at practically the same moment. ”

“ Let's turn on the juice and see what happens."
"All right," said Biggs. "Let's have that container. What have we here anyhow? Ah! Rosa rugosa! They should be lovely. Diane will be delighted."
"Oh, hell!" I said. "Did we get the wrong container? Wait a minute. I'll go get one with flower seeds in it."
"No, Sparks. Rosa rugosa is a type of beautiful red rose. These should be exquisite. Here, I've got the seals open. Help me scatter some of these seeds carefully on the surface of the water ... there ... that's it! Now, the radiation—"
He clicked a switch and the lamp turned on. ”

“ It ain't explosives. It's something perfectly harmless but very valuable, which it's important we get to Iapetus before the Cosmic Corporation beats us there. Now—will you get goin', or do I have to—?"
"Oh, goody!" squealed Diane. "A race, eh, Daddy?"
"That's right," growled Hanson. "And a mighty important one, too, with about a quarter of a million credits hanging on it."
I sniffed. "Is that all? Then what's all the rush about? The race is not always to the swift."
"Oh, no?" The Skipper glared at me. "Says who?" ”

“ And just as Cap Hanson leaped from our airlock, the Gemini's skipper burst from theirs.
Hanson bawled, "IPS-freighter-Saturn-landing-with-a-cargo-of-flower-seeds—"
His competitor screamed, "CC-freighter-Gemini-claiming-priority-on—"
But neither of them got to first base. A representative of the Iapetus colonists came to each ship, and the messages they delivered were identical.
"The governing board has decided that landings were effected simultaneously. Consequently you will present all wares for decision in open competition. Please report immediately to the general offices." ”

“ Come down to my growth chamber and we'll see."
We needed no second invitation. In minus zero seconds the three of us were galloping down the ramp to the room wherein Lancelot Biggs had installed his hydroponic tank. We waited breathlessly as he fumbled with the lock ... then gasped and choked as the door opened and a steamy mist gushed out to smack us in the pans with an almost ponderable force. Then regardless of the heat the three of us were crowding into the narrow cubicle and—
A welter of tropic growths tumbled out of the door. ”

“ You know they create mutants in dormant germinating cells. Now that them seeds been exposed they ain't worth a tinker's dam to anybody. They won't breed true. Lord only knows what kind of freaks and fiddle-di-diddles'll come up—if anything comes up at all. ”

“ Sparks, how far are you from Iapetus?"
I checked traj swiftly on my flight record. "About fifteen hours," I answered. "Twelve, maybe. Why?"
"Well, you'd better make it ten. Because we just got word the Cosmic Corporation freighter Gemini is closing in on Yappy with exactly the same thing you're carrying—a cargo of flower seeds! Orders are to beat them there at all costs. That is all. Salujo!" And he signed off.
I turned to the Old Man. "You heard that, Skipper?"
His face was the color of a 'dobe hut.
"I heard it," he croaked feebly, and stared at Biggs with lacklustre eyes. "Trouble, trouble ”