Argosy All-Story Weekly — "The Purple Limited" — page 136: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

702 ‘Very well, then—we arrive at the con- ception of a metallically crystalline being, which by some explosion of the force of evolution has burst from the to us familiar and apparently inert stage into these Things that hold us! 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 was our remote ancestor? Or be- tween 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 con- sciousness I would 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 group- ings—just as the geometric arrangement of those groupings shows also clearly their crystalline intelligence! “T submit that in their rapid coordina- tion either for attack or movement or work without any apparent communication hav- ing-passed between the units, there is noth- ing more remarkable than in the swarming of a hive of bees where also without ap- parent communication just so many wax- makers, nurses, honey-gatherers, chemists, bread-makers, cleaners, 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 with- out any means of communication that we recognize. ligent selection. For if it were hap-hazard all the honey-makers 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 con- scious. 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, pre-supposes aeons of time— Still it is most obviously intel-: ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. ' 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 Vent- nor’s right—at humanity until now?” “T 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. “Tt might be so of these—some ex- traordinary 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 evi- dently one of their highways. Or they might have ‘dropped here upon some frag- ment of a broken world, found in this val- ley the right conditions and developed in amazing rapidity.* They’re all possible theories—take your pick.”’ “ Something’s held them back—artd they’re rushing to a climax,” he whispered. ‘“Ventnor’s right about that I feel it. And what can we do? What in the devil can we do, Doc?” ; | “Go back to the 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.” “It was more than that.” Drake’s brows knit into a bar over stern eyes. ‘“‘ More than that. It was the agony of a soul who sees the fate of humanity upon the balance! And if he’s right—good God! The fate of humanity is in the balance with only us two to throw the saving weight ‘upon the scales. And what can we do— just two men—against these Things?” “That we may find out — when we're back in the city,” I answered. “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 heli!” * Professor Svante Arrhenius’s theory of propagation of life by means of minute spores T. G. carried through Space. See his “ Worlds in the Making.” —W. (CCO)INN 6)(0)©) (A) S (C(O) nn