The Ninth Golden Age of Science Fiction Megapack by Dave Dryfoos

Author:Dave Dryfoos [Dryfoos, Dave]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, pulp, comics, space opera, sci-fi
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2014-11-09T21:00:00+00:00

FACTS OF LIFE

On our planet Septimo there was the ooze and our Mind—and eternal, intelligent tranquility; then a woman came from Earth, and stepped on us, and we found out all about sex.

The woman—her name was Martha Cotton; she was young, brown-eyed, and a psychologist—came in a ship. Not alone—she brought Bert Sommers, a skinny lad and a head full of undigested biological theory.

They braked with the usual spirals and circled our planet a few times to look it over, so our Mind had penetrated their thoughts and speech—widely different—by the time they were ready to land.

Physically ready, that is; Martha had mental reservations. “I don’t know,” she said, long fingers hesitant among the co-pilot’s controls. “I think maybe we should go back to the Big Ship and get a larger party…”

“Don’t be chicken,” Bert argued. “There’s no sign of life except that green scum; the air tests o.k.; gravity’s close to one—”

“But—”

“Look. Between the Big Ship and this runabout, we’ve been inside metal hulls for over a year. If we go back to headquarters, they’ll send someone else in your place for sure—and probably chain me at a desk, too. So let’s send no signal and just go down for a few minutes and have some fun; it’ll be like getting out of jail!”

“I wouldn’t know!” Martha grinned. Then she frowned. “‘That feeling of release, though…it scares me, Bert. I mean—well—here on the ship, one or the other of us is busy every minute. But down there, excited and all… Besides, people will talk… I’m afraid—”

“Of me?”

“Noooo…”

She wouldn’t admit she was afraid of herself, so they landed.

* * * *

Our air smelled good to them. Our green-clad, rolling hills, and greener swampy lowlands, were more different from their metal ships than from their native Earth; they got out, laughing.

At first they shouted and ran aimlessly around like a couple of pups released from the kitchen. Then, swinging joined hands, they walked up and over the nearest hill, too excitedly breathless to talk till they got over the crest.

But when Bert wanted to rest and enjoy the view, Martha objected. “Look at my boots,” she pouted. “All smeared with this green slime. We can’t sit down, Bert; it’ll get all over ourself.”

“I’ll scrape off a patch of ground,” he said, after exploratory nudgings with his toe. “It’s dry underneath; and the ooze won’t hurt you even if it touches your skin. See?”

He held up a slimy finger. “Dirty stuff, but harmless.”

Had our Mind been emotional, that would have insulted us. The green ooze was us—the living substance of our Mind—billions of trillions of tiny cell-colonies, each just large enough to support a few members in leisured freedom from food-making.

From the leisured cells had evolved our collective Mind, a single mentality for an entire planet—endowed, of course, with far more intelligence than can be possessed by any fractionated individual, human or other. And we needed no physical body, either; we used our collective psychic power to travel through time and space—within our planet and its atmosphere—collect facts and influence matter.

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