And is there any greater difference between the forms with which we are familiar and them than there is between us and the crawling amphibian which is our remote ancestor? Or between that and the amoeba--the little swimming stomach from which it evolved? Or the amoeba and the inert jelly of the Protobion?
"As for what Ventnor calls a group consciousness Iwould assume that he means a communal intelligence such as that shown by the bees and the ants--that in the case of the former Maeterlinck calls the 'Spirit of the Hive.' It is shown in their groupings--just as the geometric arrangement of those groupings shows also clearly their crystalline intelligence.
"I submit that in their rapid coordination either for attack or movement or work without apparent communication having passed between the units, there is nothing more remarkable than the swarming of a hive of bees where also without apparent communication just so many waxmakers, nurses, honey-gatherers, chemists, bread-makers, and all the varied specialists of the hive go with the old queen, leaving behind sufficient number of each class for the needs of the young queen.
"All this apportionment is effected without any means of communication that we recognize.Still it is most obviously intelligent selection.For if it were haphazard all the honeymakers might leave and the hive starve, or all the chemists might go and the food for the young bees not be properly prepared--and so on and so on.""But metal," he muttered, "and conscious.It's all very well--but where did that consciousness come from? And what is it? And where did they come from? And most of all, why haven't they overrun the world before this?
"Such development as theirs, such an evolution, presupposes aeons of time--long as it took us to drag up from the lizards.What have they been doing--why haven't they been ready to strike--if Ventnor's right--at humanity until now?""I don't know," I answered, helplessly."But evolution is not the slow, plodding process that Darwin thought.
There seem to be explosions--nature will create a new form almost in a night.Then comes the long ages of development and adjustment, and suddenly another new race appears.
"It might be so of these--some extraordinary conditions that shaped them.Or they might have developed through the ages in spaces within the earth--there's that incredible abyss we saw that is evidently one of their highways.Or they might have dropped here upon some fragment of a broken world, found in this valley the right conditions and developed in amazing rapidity.*They're all possible theories--take your pick.""Something's held them back--and they're rushing to a climax," he whispered."Ventnor's right about that--I feel it.And what can we do?"
"Go back to their city," I said."Go back as he ordered.
I believe he knows what he's talking about.And I believe he'll be able to help us.It wasn't just a request he made, nor even an appeal--it was a command.""But what can we do--just two men--against these Things?" he groaned.
"Maybe we'll find out--when we're back in the city," Ianswered.
"Well," his old reckless cheerfulness came back to him, "in every crisis of this old globe it's been up to one man to turn the trick.We're two.And at the worst we can only go down fighting a little before the rest of us.
So, after all, whatEVER the hell, WHAT the hell."For a time we were silent.
"Well," he said at last, "we have to go to the city in the morning." He laughed."Sounds as though we were living in the suburbs, somehow, doesn't it?""It can't be many hours before dawn," I said."Turn in for a while, I'll wake you when I think you've slept enough.""It doesn't seem fair," he protested, but sleepily.
* Professor Svante Arrhenius's theory of propagation of life by means of minute spores carried through space.See his "Worlds in the Making."--W.T.G.
"I'm not sleepy," I told him; nor was I.
But whether I was or not, I wanted to question Yuruk, uninterrupted and undisturbed.
Drake stretched himself out.When his breathing showed him fast asleep indeed, I slipped over to the black eunuch and crouched, right hand close to the butt of my automatic, facing him.
