Vargas started out, "But throughout the entire system-"
McIlvaine cut him short. "Anthropocentric, terrocentric, solocentric-it is still a provincial approach. These creatures may be from outside the solar system entirely."
I said, "Oh, no!" I had had a sudden flash picture of the planet Titan and with it a choking sensation.
Neither one paid any attention to me. McIlvaine continued, "If you must have analogy, take the amoeba-an earlier, more basic, and much more successful life form than ours. The motivational psychology of the amoeba-"
I switched off my ears; I suppose free speech gives a man the right to talk about the 'psychology' of an amoeba, but I don't have to listen. They never did get back to asking me how long a conference takes, not that I could have told them. A conference is, well-timeless.
They did do some direct experimentation which raised my opinion of them a little. Vargas ordered brought in a baboon who was wearing a slug and had him introduced into the cage with the gibbons and the chimps. Up to then the gibbons had been acting like gibbons, grooming each other and such, except that they seemed rather quiet-and kept a sharp eye on our movements. As soon as the newcomer was dumped in they gathered in a ring facing outwards and went into direct conference, slug to slug. McIlvaine jabbed his finger excitedly at them. "You see? You see? Conference is not for reproduction, but for exchange of memory. The organism, temporarily divided, has now re-identified itself."
I could have told him the same thing without the double talk; a master who has been out of touch always gets into direct conference as soon as possible.
"Hypothesis!" Vargas snorted. "Pure hypothesis-they have no opportunity to reproduce just now. George!" He ordered the boss of the handling crew to bring in another ape.
"Little Abe?" asked the crew boss.
"No, I want one which is not supporting a parasite. Let me see-make it Old Red."
The crew boss glanced at the gibbons, looked away at once, and said, "Gripes, Doc, I'd rather you didn't pick on Old Red."
"This won't hurt him."
"Why can't I bring in Satan? He's a mean bastard anyway."
"All right, all right! But hurry it up; you are keeping Dr. McIlvaine waiting."
So they brought in Satan, a coal black chimp. He may have been aggressive elsewhere; he was not so here. They dumped him inside, he took one look around, shrank back against the door, and began to whine. It was like watching an execution; I could not stand to look but I couldn't look away. I had had my nerves under control-a man can get used to anything; there are people who make their livings by pumping out cesspools-but the ape's hysteria was contagious. I wanted to run.
At first the hag-ridden apes did nothing; they simply stared at him like a jury. It went on that way for a long while. Satan's whines changed to low, sobbing moans and he covered his face with his hands. Presently Vargas said, "Doctor! Look!"
"Where?"
"Lucy-the old female. There." He pointed.
It was the matriarch of the family of consumptive gibbons. Her back was toward us; I could see that the slug thereon had humped itself together. An iridescent line ran down the center of it.
It began to split as an egg splits. In a few minutes only, the division was complete. One new slug centered itself over her spine; the other flowed down her back. She was squatting, buttocks almost to the floor; it slithered off and plopped gently on the concrete.
It crept slowly toward Satan. The ape must have peeked through his fingers, for he screamed hoarsely-and swarmed up into the top of the cage.
So help me, they sent a squad to arrest him. Four of the biggest-two gibbons, a chimp, and a baboon. They tore him loose and hauled him down and held him face down on the floor.
The slug slithered closer.
It was a good two feet away when it grew a pseudopod-slowly, at first-a slimy stalk that weaved around like a cobra. Then it lashed out and struck the ape on the foot. The others promptly let go of him but Satan did not move.
The titan seemed to pull itself in by the extension it had formed and attached itself to Satan's foot. From there it crawled up; when it reached the base of his spine the ape stirred. Before it was settled at the top of his back Satan sat up. He shook himself and joined the others, stopping only to look us over.
Vargas and McIlvaine started talking excitedly, apparently quite unmoved otherwise. I wanted to smash something-for me, for Satan, for the whole simian race.
Vargas was insisting that nothing had been proved, while McIlvaine maintained that we were seeing something new to our concepts; an intelligent creature which was, by the fashion in which it was organized, immortal and continuous in its personal identity-or its group identity; the argument grew confused. In any case McIlvaine was theorizing that such a creature would have continuous memory of all its experiences, not just from the moment of fission, but back to its racial beginning. He described the slug as a four dimensional worm in space-time, intertwined with itself as a single organism, and the talk grew so esoteric as to be silly.
As for me, I did not know and did not care. All very interesting, no doubt, but the only way I cared about slugs was to kill them. I wanted to kill them, early and often and as many as possible.
About that uninterrupted "racial memory" idea: wouldn't it be rather cumbersome to be able to recall exactly what you did the second Wednesday in March a million years ago?
Chapter 20
For a wonder, when I got back the Old Man was available and wanted to talk. The President had left to address a secret session of the United Nations and the Old Man had not been included in the party. I wondered if he had fallen out of official favor, but I did not say so.
He had me report fully on what I had seen at the zoo and questioned me closely; he had not been down there himself. I added my opinion of Vargas and McIlvaine. "A couple of boy scouts," I complained, "comparing stamp collections. They don't realize it's serious."
The Old Man took time out before answering. "Don't sell those boys short, son," he advised me. "They are more likely to come up with the answer than are you and I."
"Humph!" I said, or something stronger. "They are more likely to let those slugs escape. Remember Graves?"
"I do remember Graves. You don't understand scientific detachment."
"I hope I never do!"
"You won't. But it's the ignition system of the world; without it, we're sunk. Matter of fact, they did let one escape."
"Huh?"
"Didn't they tell you about the elephant?"
"What elephant? They damn near didn't tell me anything; they got interested in each other and ignored me."
"Sure that's not what's biting you? About the elephant: an ape with a rider got out, somehow. Its body was found trampled to death in the elephant house. And one of the elephants was gone."
"You mean there is an elephant loose with a slug on him!" I had a horrid vision of what that could mean-something like a tank with a cybernetic brain.
"Her," the Old Man corrected me, "it was a cow elephant. I didn't say so, anyhow. They found her over in Maryland, quietly pulling up cabbages. No parasite."
"Where did the slug get to?" Involuntarily I glanced around. The Old Man chuckled.
"Don't worry; I don't have it in here. But a duo was stolen in the adjoining village. I'd say the slug is somewhere west of the Mississippi by now."