Cycle of Fire

“Either that, or dismemberment. What happened in the Chesapeake in the days when the oystermen thought they could get rid of starfish by chopping them up and throwing them back in the water?”

“You miss the point, Commander — and I’m afraid young Kruger has missed it, too. The really important fact is that Dar Lang Ahn’s people have to die in order to reproduce. Have you thought of it that way?” There was a long silence before the commander answered.

“No, I can’t say that I have. That does put another color to the whole situation.” He paused again in thought. “Have you any idea of why this occurs — or rather, since it’s an obvious evolutionary development for a planet like this, how it occurs?”

“We have. It was hard to figure, mostly because there is a good deal of evidence that this drastic climate change only started to occur in the last ten million years or so, but a certain organism of our own planet gave us the lead.”

“What? What creature of Earth is exposed to anything like the conditions met with here?”

“None, so far as I know; that wasn’t the sort of lead. One of the men — Ellerbee, as I recall — was working with a group of ‘hot’ animals that we’d obtained in the usual way, in one of our biggest conditioned cages. He was trying to determine whether the carnivores usually left enough of their victims to reproduce, and incidentally to see the regeneration process which Dar had told us about — we didn’t really know whether it applied to the ‘hot’ forms or not. Naturally Ellerbee was doing his best to keep track of the types and numbers of animals present, and he was a bit surprised, after a while, to find some creatures he hadn’t seen before. Fortunately he didn’t simply write the matter off as a slip in his earlier observations; he checked it carefully, and found that when the atmosphere and temperature change occurred it was possible to get animals from soil samples in which no ‘parents’ had been present.”

“Which means?”

“That some of the ‘hot’ forms reproduce by some form of microscopic spore which survives in the soil during the unfavorable season. Whether any of the ‘cold’ ones can do the same is still uncertain; we haven’t found any.”

“And what does this imply?”

“It got Ellerbee suspicious of the general theory that Dar Lang Ahn and those fire-blooded starfish are actually alternate generations of the same species. We talked over the matter at one of our regular discussion sessions and found that there was already some more evidence in. Dan Leclos had found in one type of animal a number of small, bony spheroids which experiment had showed to be the source of the ‘hot’ generation for that particular species. If they were removed before exposing the creature to heat and nitrogen dioxide no descendants appeared, although the flesh behaved in the usual manner, while if the spheres themselves were exposed to the changed conditions they produced embryonic specimens of ‘hot’ life.”

“I don’t see what all that means.”

“It seems to mean that the ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ forms are completely alien types of life, which originally evolved independently. Each produced spores, or some equivalent, that were capable of surviving the unsuitable conditions.

“In the natural course of evolution some of them developed the trick of attaching or implanting their spores in the bodies of active animals of the other type — perhaps by arranging for them to be eaten, as some parasites on Earth still do.”

“But in that case you should be able to find the seeds, or whatever they are, in any of the creatures you examine. You said they were present in only one. How about that?”

“That’s where the lead from Earth came in. You may know that there are some types of virus whose natural prey are bacteria. The virus makes contact with the germ, penetrates its cell wall, and after a while a hundred or so new viruses emerge from the deflated remains of the bacterium.”

“I didn’t know that, but there seems nothing strange about it.”

“There isn’t, so far. However, it sometimes happens that after the virus enters the body of its victim the latter goes on living as though nothing had happened.”

“Still reasonable. There’s always a scattering of immunes in any population.”

“Let me finish. The bacterium lives out its time and divides in the usual fashion; its descendants do the same for ten or twenty or perhaps a hundred generations. Then, under the stimulus of radiation or chemicals or for no apparent reason at all most or all of the descendants of the original bacterium collapse — and clouds of virus particles emerge from the remains!”

“Eh?”

“Precisely. The original virus infected its first victim, all right, in such a way that the reproductive material of the virus was divided when that of the bacterium did the same and carried on to all the descendants of that first one. Eventually some change in conditions made them revert to their usual method of reproduction.”

“I see,” Burke said slowly. “You think that a similar ability has developed here — that every cell of a being like Dar Lang Ahn has in its nucleus the factors which will produce one of those starfish under the proper conditions.”

“Exactly, and yet the relationship is no more a parent-and-child one than that between Jack Cardigan and his pet canary. There’s a suspicion that the chloroplasts in earthly plants bear the same relation to them.”

“I don’t see what difference it makes, really.”

“In a way, it might justify the attitude of the ‘hot’ creatures toward Dar’s people.”

“Perhaps. However, nothing you’ve said eases my first worry, except your point that both forms have to die to reproduce. You’ve added one thing that bothers me more.”

“What’s that?”

“This business about the time in which adaptation to this climate has taken place. If you’re right, one at least of these races has evolved from a standing start to intelligence comparable with our own in something under ten million years. It took Earth a hundred times as long to do the job — maybe twice that. These things must be among the most adaptable life forms in the universe — and that’s the point where man has held the edge, so far.”

“You’re afraid, I take it, that if they get access to human technology they’ll spread out into the galaxy and start supplanting man?”

“Frankly, yes.”

“Just where would you expect them to settle?”

“For Heaven’s sake, man — anywhere! Earth — Mars — Mercury — any of fifty worlds where we can live, and as many more where we can’t! If they can’t stand them now they soon will — it’s that adaptability that has me worried. If we get into an argument with them how do we fight — how do you kill a creature that grows new arms and legs to replace the old, that produces a whole crop of descendants if you blow it to pieces with a bomb?”

“I don’t know and I don’t think it matters.”

“Why not?” Burke’s voice sounded almost strangled by his emotion.

“Because, while Dar Lang Ahn could live on Earth and a lot of other worlds, and his fire-blooded opposite numbers could do the same in a higher temperature range, as you justly point out, none of the planets you mentioned provides both temperature ranges. If a group of Dar’s people decides to migrate to Earth how will the ‘hot’ folks whose relatives are riding along with them like it? Dar undoubtedly wants descendants as much as one of us; how will he feel at the thought of the starfish which develop from his body moving to Vega Two, or Mercury? What happens to his kids, then? No, Commander, I realize that most of us have decided, pretty much without discussion, that the Teacher down there by the hot springs is an opinionated, narrow-minded, dictatorial old fuddy-duddy whose opinion isn’t worth the energy used to express it, but if you’ll think a bit longer you’ll realize that he’s more far-sighted than a lot of others I could name!”

Burke shook his head slowly, keeping his gaze fixed on the biologist.

“I had thought of that point long ago, Dr. Richter, and I suppose you’re right in thinking that that Teacher has done the same. I’m a little disappointed, however, that you have gone no farther.”

“How’s that?”

“Your point is well taken — only if these races lack technical knowledge! Dar won’t mind having the gene structures which are to produce his offspring spend a few years anywhere the starfish carrying them wants to — if he knows that eventually that creature will either travel to a planet where they can develop or park himself in a mechanical refrigerator to achieve the same end. Remember, those creatures will have the same desires as regards