It would be so easy. Return to Transgalactic and claim that the planet had been vacated and demand the right to take possession. They might not give immediate approval but within a year and four months the three year period would be up and they would have to approve. Transgalactic might insist on a search of the planet but the odds were against their finding the Free Lives. Then he could warn the two thousand about the trees. “What do I owe those Free Lives?” he thought. “Dirty, primitive little bunch of misfits!”
But he thought of the children. The trees emitted some sort of hypnotic control. The specialists could find out what band the waves were on and shield themselves against it. Then the Free Lives could be cut down. Maybe the physiological changes had been so severe that to cut them down would mean killing them. Why take the chance? But he realized that he was rationalizing. The chance had to be taken. Humans deserved better than to be enlisted into the life cycle of a plant.
His mind made up, the loss of the planet a sickness within him, Timothy took off and drifted outside the atmospheric envelope that insulated space-casts. With a fifty-two-minute transmission time he made his emergency report to Central Communications on Earth’s moon. He waited and at last the answer came, promising a rescue ship within fourteen days.
When the rescue mission arrived the neuro-surgeons immediately took charge of Timothy Trench and it took them eleven days to bring him back from the brink of nearly hopeless insanity.
They found then that, during the fourteen days of waiting, the fruit had ripened, fallen, burst and its seed had taken root in the damp soil under the trees. Great care was taken to eliminate all the pale green shoots as well as the massive trees.
Transgalactic decided to make an exception to the waiting time in Timothy’s case.