“Take a motion picture of a man walking and run it through the lantern rapidly and he seems to be flying. We have none of the awkward fallings and recoveries that are the tempo7 of walking as we see it.
“I take it that the movement of these Things is a conscious breaking of the gravitational current just as much as is our own movement, but by a rhythm so swift that it appears to be continuous.
“Doubtless if we could so control our sight as to admit the vibrations8 of light slowly enough we would see this apparently9 smooth motion as a series of leaps — just as we do when the motion-picture operator slows down his machine sufficiently10 to show us walking in a series of stumbles.
“Very well — so far, then, we have nothing in this phenomenon which the human mind cannot conceive as possible; therefore intellectually we still remain masters of the phenomena11; for it is only that which human thought cannot encompass12 which it need fear.”
“Metallic13,” he said, “and crystalline. And yet — why not? What are we but bags of skin filled with certain substances in solution and stretched over a supporting and mobile mechanism14 largely made up of lime? Out of that primeval jelly which Gregory calls Protobion came after untold15 millions of years us with our skins, our nails, and our hair; came, too, the serpents with their scales, the birds with their feathers; the horny hide of the rhinoceros16 and the fairy wings of the butterfly; the shell of the crab18, the gossamer19 loveliness of the moth20 and the shimmering21 wonder of the mother-of-pearl.
“Is there any greater gap between any of these and the metallic? I think not.”
“Not materially,” I answered. “No. But there remains22 — consciousness!”
“That,” he said, “I cannot understand. Ventnor spoke23 of — how did he put it? — a group consciousness, operating in our sphere and in spheres above and below ours, with senses known and unknown. I got — glimpses — Goodwin, but I cannot understand.”
“We have agreed for reasons that seem sufficient to us to call these Things metallic, Dick,” I replied. “But that does not necessarily mean that they are composed of any metal that we know. Nevertheless, being metal, they must be of crystalline structure.
“As Gregory has pointed24 out, crystals and what we call living matter had an equal start in the first essentials of life. We cannot conceive life without giving it the attribute of some sort of consciousness. Hunger cannot be anything but conscious, and there is no other stimulus25 to eat but hunger.
“The crystals eat. The extraction of power from food is conscious because it is purposeful, and there can be no purpose without consciousness; similarly the power to work from such derived26 energy is also purposeful and therefore conscious. The crystals do both. And the crystals can transmit all these abilities to their children, just as we do. For although there would seem to be no reason why they should not continue to grow to gigantic size under favorable conditions — yet they do not. They reach a size beyond which they do not develop.
“Instead, they bud — give birth, in fact — to smaller ones, which increase until they reach the size of the
* J. W. Gregory, F.R.S.D.Sc., Professor of Geology, University of Glasgow.
preceding generation. And like the children of man and animals, these younger generations grow on precisely27 as their progenitors28!
“Very well, then — we arrive at the conception of a metallically29 crystalline being, which by some explosion of the force of evolution has burst from the to us familiar and apparently inert30 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 amphibian31 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 I would assume that he means a communal32 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 coordination33 either for attack or movement or work without apparent communication having passed between the units, there is nothing more remarkable34 than the swarming35 of a hive of bees where also without apparent communication just so many waxmakers, nurses, honey-gatherers, chemists, bread-makers, and all the varied36 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 haphazard37 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 lizards38. 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, plodding39 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 groaned40.
“Maybe we’ll 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 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 spores41 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 crouched42, right hand close to the butt17 of my automatic, facing him.
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1
acquiesced
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| v.默认，默许( acquiesce的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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locomotion
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| n.运动，移动 | |
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rhythmic
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| adj.有节奏的，有韵律的 | |
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vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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akin
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| adj.同族的，类似的 | |
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simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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tempo
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| n.(音乐的)速度；节奏，行进速度 | |
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vibrations
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| n.摆动( vibration的名词复数 )；震动；感受；（偏离平衡位置的）一次性往复振动 | |
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9
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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encompass
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| vt.围绕，包围；包含，包括；完成 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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mechanism
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| n.机械装置；机构，结构 | |
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untold
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| adj.数不清的，无数的 | |
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rhinoceros
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| n.犀牛 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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crab
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| n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气 | |
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gossamer
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| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
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moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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progenitors
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| n.祖先( progenitor的名词复数 )；先驱；前辈；原本 | |
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29
metallically
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| 金属的 | |
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inert
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| adj.无活动能力的，惰性的；迟钝的 | |
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amphibian
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| n.两栖动物；水陆两用飞机和车辆 | |
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32
communal
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| adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的 | |
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coordination
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| n.协调，协作 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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haphazard
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| adj.无计划的，随意的，杂乱无章的 | |
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38
lizards
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| n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 ) | |
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39
plodding
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| a.proceeding in a slow or dull way | |
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40
groaned
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| v.呻吟( groan的过去式和过去分词 )；发牢骚；抱怨；受苦 | |
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41
spores
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| n.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的名词复数 )v.（细菌、苔藓、蕨类植物）孢子( spore的第三人称单数 ) | |
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42
crouched
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| v.屈膝，蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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