MALCOLM JAMESON: Science Fiction Collection - 17 Books in One Edition. Malcolm Jameson

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      CHAPTER XII

       New Beginnings

       Table of Contents

      The establishment beneath the iridescent dome was amazing indeed. It was, as the pilot had said, a universe in a thimble, though the thimble was a sizable one — fifty miles across and several deep.

      Colorful villas nestled at the foot of the cliffs among groves of terrestrial trees, while a grassy plain, criss-crossed with roads, formed the crater bottom. A score or more of lesser cones stuck their heads up into the Earthly atmosphere, but it could be seen that they were covered with domes of their own and had entrance portals cut into their flanks.

      Despite the genial artificial climate of the museum as a whole, some of the small craters were perpetually covered with frost and patches of ice, indicating they were severely refrigerated within. Those were the ones holding the exhibits from dim Uranus and Neptune.

      A staff car took Winchester to a long low building near the Crater of Venus. There he presented his passport, his orders and other credentials to a gimlet-eyed police official. After answering a few perfunctory questions, he was sent into an adjoining office to meet his new superior, the Curator-in-Chief. He was a sad-visaged, weary-looking man of about sixty, and very gaunt.

      "Your work," he said, "will be adapting other planet life-forms to Earthly conditions. Some can be made to live, some not. It is a matter of chemistry and temperature, largely — sometimes glands. You will learn about this as you go along. You will be quartered in the Botanical Section, where they will tell you more."

      The chief dismissed Winchester with a nod of his head.

      The suite to which the American was assigned was H-3, as had been foretold him. It contained not only a small, well-equipped laboratory, but living rooms. The comfort and seeming privacy of the apartment astonished Winchester, for his experience until then had been that all of the conquered race were treated like dogs. He was to learn in the next few days that there were many exceptions, particularly among the scientist class.

      Presently the instructor to whom Winchester was assigned took him to a large greenhouse, situated just outside one of the smaller craters.

      "Take it easy in here," he was advised. "The air is thin, and contains much less oxygen than you are used to. We are trying to wean some Ionian Harps for transplantation to the Khan's villa in America."

      The instructor led the way to a row of purplish plants that resembled kettledrums. As they appeared, Winchester observed that they gave off a sweet, doleful, humming sound through the vibration of a number of tightly stretched fibers just above the drumhead. He thought he could detect a definite tune and rhythm in the quaint music, but he was so distracted by the swarm of insects that kept annoying him that he could not be certain.

      "This is an amusing plant," explained the tutor. "It grows wild on Io. You see, it has a resonant diaphragm over which is a natural harp. Each string of the harp has its own pitch. Furthermore, each string exudes a perfume of its own, different from that of any other string.

      "The perfumes attract these insects flying about, and they dash themselves against the fibers, causing them to vibrate, producing music. That, in turn, attracts small birds, which are caught and eaten by the plant."

      "Neat, but elaborate," commented Winchester dryly.

      Shortly afterwards they climbed into a lunabile and struck out along one of the roads. A few minutes later they heard a series of dull booms ahead, as if blasting was in progress. They came to a stretch of road shielded on one side by metallic plates, in which observation slits had been cut every few hundred feet. The bombardment on the other side continued intermittently.

      "Floribombs," explained the tutor tersely, in response to Winchester's inquiring look.

      He pulled the scooter to the side of the road near a peeping slot and got out. Winchester cautiously put an eye to the hole. A field of liverish-colored soil stretched out before him, dotted here and there with bushes. As he looked, a clump of them blew up with a boom that shook the ground.

      When the dust cleared away, there were only ragged holes where the plants had been.

      "That is a Mercurian plant — in a double sense," said the tutor. "It comes from Mercury, and it feeds on mercury, as well as nitrogen and water. Now is its seeding-time. The soil you see is a mixture of cinnabar, ordinary earth and some selected nitrate fertilizers. The plant synthesizes some of these elements into fulminate of mercury, which gathers in its seed pods just as the seeds begin to ripen.

      "When the accumulation is complete, the least jar will set it off, throwing the seeds for hundreds of yards around. A faint breeze is all that is needed, which makes the plants rather dangerous to have around. We hope to put them to industrial use, but so far no one has worked out a safe way to harvest them."

      The instructor stopped talking as another of the plants disintegrated, then went back to the lunabile.

      "They appropriate twenty Grade-P slaves a year for experimental use," he added glumly. "But so far, it has resulted only in simple massacres. I am glad they took me off that work." He coughed. "The Khan is great and wise."

      "He is the All-Highest," murmured Winchester, shuddering.

      They came to a turn in the road, and were passing a group of the gray-clad slaves of the lower grades. Some of them already had on crude suits of armor, while others were still dressing. Armed guards stood over them, urging speed, lest all the plants blow up before they could get out onto the field.

      The lunabile drew up before another laboratory building five miles beyond.

      "You'll need a gas mask here," warned the tutor, producing a pair of them from a compartment in the car. "This is the Lotusol distillery."

      It was not a large building. Winchester found himself in the receiving room. Here several masked slaves were feeding fat, lush leaves to a set of rolls which squeezed the juice out of them. This was drained off into pans and piped into the next room, where there was a series of retorts set over low flames.

      A single scientist watched the apparatus here. In the room beyond, glass piping of small СКАЧАТЬ