Meteor Legacy by Raymond Z. Gallun

Author:Raymond Z. Gallun [Gallun, Raymond Z.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci Fi Short Story
Publisher: Astounding Science Fiction
Published: 1941-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

Crazy or not, that weird thought proved the originality of Tom Simms’ mind. It gave me an idea of what kind of a scientist he might have made, if, in his youth, he’d traded his burro and his shovel for a spell in a university lecture hall and lab, sending that restless soul of his along a different orbit.

As it was, that idea he’d given me began to soak into my imagination. And sweat, cold and clammy and nervous, began to soak out—into my shirt.

Meteor plants, from an ancient, shattered world, far, far away, in space. A vegetable civilization, utterly alien, and just dimly comprehensible. And now, here, maybe started again—on Earth! Had these plants perhaps inherited the memories and the knowledge of their ancestors? How far beyond anything a man might understand, did their weird powers go? Theirs was a science that had followed a different course.

It’s no fun to destroy anything wonderful. But there was danger here. Hatred. Suspicion. I had sensed these things many minutes ago. And now my own vague fears seemed to culminate in thoughts of action. No one could really guess to what strange, dread end this miracle that Tom Simms had started might lead, or what subtle means of attack these nameless monsters might use.

“Tom,” I said quietly, “there’s just one thing for us to do. Pour gasoline on the whole business, here. Bum it up. Quick!”

He nodded. “I thought you’d tell me that, Hal,” he said. “But I can’t do it. I won’t. Not yet, anyhow.”

I supposed that it was scientific interest—eagerness to ’learn more about these mysterious entities— that restrained Tom’s urge to destroy. Unless it was something else —something that the meteor plants had already planned and carried out.

“But you’ll be all alone here, Tom,” I argued quietly. “These things might kill you, some way, for all you know.”

He grinned wearily. “Nope, Hal. I don’t think so,” he said. “If I stopped taking care of these plants, keeping the machinery running and everything, they’d die after a while. I’m sure they realize that. And I can’t live long, anyhow. As for danger to other people—well—this is a long ways out in the desert. I guess I can take a chance. Please don’t tell anybody, Hal, when you go back to town.”

I felt anger rising in me gradually —anger at the stubbornness of this strange, lovable, free-thinking old miner—fury at the vague, threatening enigma he harbored. My right hand felt sore, reminding me of something. In the test-tube house I’d been pricked by the spines of one of those weird tendrils there. And it had felt warm, like animal flesh—as though this bizarre vegetation, native to so frigid a planet, could develop its own heat.

Well, it’s useless to argue with a free-soul like Tom Simms.

“O. K. I’m going now, Tom,” I said. “But I’m coming back tomorrow—and I’ll bring some other people with me. Folks have got to know.”

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