The Native Soil

: The Native Soil

Before the first ship from Earth made a landing on Venus, there was much

speculation about what might be found beneath the cloud layers obscuring

that planet's surface from the eyes of all observers.



One school of thought maintained that the surface of Venus was a jungle,

rank with hot-house moisture, crawling with writhing fauna and

man-eating flowers. Another group contended hotly that Venus was an arid

desert of wind-carved sandstone, dry and cruel, whipping dust into

clouds that sunlight could never penetrate. Others prognosticated an

ocean planet with little or no solid ground at all, populated by

enormous serpents waiting to greet the first Earthlings with jaws agape.



But nobody knew, of course. Venus was the planet of mystery.



When the first Earth ship finally landed there, all they found was a

great quantity of mud.



There was enough mud on Venus to go all the way around twice, with some

left over. It was warm, wet, soggy mud--clinging and tenacious. In some

places it was gray, and in other places it was black. Elsewhere it was

found to be varying shades of brown, yellow, green, blue and purple. But

just the same, it was still mud. The sparse Venusian vegetation grew up

out of it; the small Venusian natives lived down in it; the steam rose

from it and the rain fell on it, and that, it seemed, was that. The

planet of mystery was no longer mysterious. It was just messy. People

didn't talk about it any more.



But technologists of the Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc., R&D squad found a

certain charm in the Venusian mud.



They began sending cautious and very secret reports back to the Home

Office when they discovered just what, exactly was growing in that

Venusian mud besides Venusian natives. The Home Office promptly bought

up full exploratory and mining rights to the planet for a price that was

a brazen steal, and then in high excitement began pouring millions of

dollars into ships and machines bound for the muddy planet. The Board of

Directors met hoots of derision with secret smiles as they rubbed their

hands together softly. Special crews of psychologists were dispatched to

Venus to contact the natives; they returned, exuberant, with

test-results that proved the natives were friendly, intelligent,

co-operative and resourceful, and the Board of Directors rubbed their

hands more eagerly together, and poured more money into the Piper

Venusian Installation.



It took money to make money, they thought. Let the fools laugh. They

wouldn't be laughing long. After all, Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc., could

recognize a gold mine when they saw one.



They thought.



* * * * *



Robert Kielland, special investigator and trouble shooter for Piper

Pharmaceuticals, Inc., made an abrupt and intimate acquaintance with

the fabulous Venusian mud when the landing craft brought him down on

that soggy planet. He had transferred from the great bubble-shaped

orbital transport ship to the sleek landing craft an hour before, bored

and impatient with the whole proposition. He had no desire whatever to

go to Venus. He didn't like mud, and he didn't like frontier projects.

There had been nothing in his contract with Piper demanding that he

travel to other planets in pursuit of his duties, and he had balked at

the assignment. He had even balked at the staggering bonus check they

offered him to help him get used to the idea.



It was not until they had convinced him that only his own superior

judgment, his razor-sharp mind and his extraordinarily shrewd powers of

observation and insight could possibly pull Piper Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,

out of the mudhole they'd gotten themselves into, that he had

reluctantly agreed to go. He wouldn't like a moment of it, but he'd go.



Things weren't going right on Venus, it seemed.



The trouble was that millions were going in and nothing was coming out.

The early promise of high production figures had faltered, sagged,

dwindled and vanished. Venus was getting to be an expensive project to

have around, and nobody seemed to know just why.



Now the pilot dipped the landing craft in and out of the cloud blanket,

braking the ship, falling closer and closer to the surface as Kielland

watched gloomily from the after port. The lurching billows of clouds

made him queasy; he opened his Piper samples case and popped a pill into

his mouth. Then he gave his nose a squirt or two with his Piper

Rhino-Vac nebulizer, just for good measure. Finally, far below them, the

featureless gray surface skimmed by. A sparse scraggly forest of twisted

gray foliage sprang up at them.



The pilot sighted the landing platform, checked with Control Tower, and

eased up for the final descent. He was a skillful pilot, with many

landings on Venus to his credit. He brought the ship up on its tail and

sat it down on the landing platform for a perfect three-pointer as the

jets rumbled to silence.



Then, abruptly, they sank--landing craft, platform and all.



The pilot buzzed Control Tower frantically as Kielland fought down

panic. Sorry, said Control Tower. Something must have gone wrong. They'd

have them out in a jiffy. Good lord, no, don't blast out again, there

were a thousand natives in the vicinity. Just be patient, everything

would be all right.



They waited. Presently there were thumps and bangs as grapplers clanged

on the surface of the craft. Mud gurgled around them as they were hauled

up and out with the sound of a giant sipping soup. A mud-encrusted

hatchway flew open, and Kielland stepped down on a flimsy-looking

platform below. Four small rodent-like creatures were attached to it by

ropes; they heaved with a will and began paddling through the soupy mud

dragging the platform and Kielland toward a row of low wooden buildings

near some stunted trees.



As the creatures paused to puff and pant, the back half of the platform

kept sinking into the mud. When they finally reached comparatively solid

ground, Kielland was mud up to the hips, and mad enough to blast off

without benefit of landing craft.



He surveyed the Piper Venusian Installation, hardly believing what he

saw. He had heard the glowing descriptions of the Board of Directors. He

had seen the architect's projections of fine modern buildings resting on

water-proof buoys, neat boating channels to the mine sites, fine

orange-painted dredge equipment (including the new Piper Axis-Traction

Dredges that had been developed especially for the operation). It had

sounded, in short, just the way a Piper Installation ought to sound.



But there was nothing here that resembled that. Kielland could see a

group of little wooden shacks that looked as though they were ready at a

moment's notice to sink with a gurgle into the mud. Off to the right

across a mud flat one of the dredges apparently had done just that: a

swarm of men and natives were hard at work dragging it up again. Control

Tower was to the left, balanced precariously at a slight tilt in a sea

of mud.



The Piper Venusian Installation didn't look too much like a going

concern. It looked far more like a ghost town in the latter stages of

decay.



Inside the Administration shack Kielland found a weary-looking man

behind a desk, scribbling furiously at a pile of reports. Everything in

the shack was splattered with mud. The crude desk and furniture was

smeared; the papers had black speckles all over them. Even the man's

face was splattered, his clothing encrusted with gobs of still-damp mud.

In a corner a young man was industriously scrubbing down the wall with a

large brush.



The man wiped mud off Kielland and jumped up with a gleam of hope in his

tired eyes. "Ah! Wonderful!" he cried. "Great to see you, old man.

You'll find all the papers and reports in order here, everything ready

for you--" He brushed the papers away from him with a gesture of

finality. "Louie, get the landing craft pilot and don't let him out of

your sight. Tell him I'll be ready in twenty minutes--"



"Hold it," said Kielland. "Aren't you Simpson?"



The man wiped mud off his cheeks and spat. He was tall and graying.

"That's right."



"Where do you think you're going?"



"Aren't you relieving me?"



"I am not!"



"Oh, my." The man crumbled behind the desk, as though his legs had just

given way. "I don't understand it. They told me--"



"I don't care what they told you," said Kielland shortly. "I'm a trouble

shooter, not an administrator. When production figures begin to drop, I

find out why. The production figures from this place have never gotten

high enough to drop."



"This is supposed to be news to me?" said Simpson.



"So you've got troubles."



"Friend, you're right about that."



"Well, we'll straighten them out," Kielland said smoothly. "But first I

want to see the foreman who put that wretched landing platform

together."



Simpson's eyes became wary. "Uh--you don't really want to see him?"



"Yes, I think I do. When there's such obvious evidence of incompetence,

the time to correct it is now."



"Well--maybe we can go outside and see him."



"We'll see him right here." Kielland sank down on the bench near the

wall. A tiny headache was developing; he found a capsule in his samples

case and popped it in his mouth.



Simpson looked sad and nodded to the orderly who had stopped scrubbing

down the wall. "Louie, you heard the man."



"But boss--"



Simpson scowled. Louie went to the door and whistled. Presently there

was a splashing sound and a short, gray creature padded in. His hind

feet were four-toed webbed paddles; his legs were long and powerful like

a kangaroo's. He was covered with thick gray fur which dripped with

thick black mud. He squeaked at Simpson, wriggling his nose. Simpson

squeaked back sharply.



Suddenly the creature began shaking his head in a slow, rhythmic

undulation. With a cry Simpson dropped behind the desk. The orderly fell

flat on the floor, covering his face with his arm. Kielland's eyes

widened; then he was sitting in a deluge of mud as the little Venusian

shook himself until his fur stood straight out in all directions.



Simpson stood up again with a roar. "I've told them a thousand times if

I've told them once--" He shook his head helplessly as Kielland wiped

mud out of his eyes. "This is the one you wanted to see."



Kielland sputtered. "Can it talk to you?"



"It doesn't talk, it squeaks."



"Then ask it to explain why the platform it built didn't hold the

landing craft."



Simpson began whistling and squeaking at length to the little creature.

Its shaggy tail crept between its legs and it hung its head like a

scolded puppy.



"He says he didn't know a landing craft was supposed to land on the

platform," Simpson reported finally. "He's sorry, he says."



"But hasn't he seen a landing craft before?"



Squeak, squeak. "Oh, yes."



"Wasn't he told what the platform was being made for?"



Squeak, squeak. "Of course."



"Then why didn't the platform stand up?"



Simpson sighed. "Maybe he forgot what it was supposed to be used for in

the course of building it. Maybe he never really did understand in the

first place. I can't get questions like that across to him with this

whistling, and I doubt that you'll ever find out which it was."



"Then fire him," said Kielland. "We'll find some other--"



"Oh, no! I mean, let's not be hasty," said Simpson. "I'd hate to have to

fire this one--for a while yet, at any rate."



"Why?"



"Because we've finally gotten across to him--at least I think we

have--just how to take down a dredge tube." Simpson's voice was almost

tearful. "It's taken us months to teach him. If we fire him, we'll have

to start all over again with another one."



Kielland stared at the Venusian, and then at Simpson. "So," he said

finally, "I see."



"No, you don't," Simpson said with conviction. "You don't even begin to

see yet. You have to fight it for a few months before you really see."

He waved the Venusian out the door and turned to Kielland with burden of

ten months' frustration in his voice. "They're stupid," he said

slowly. "They are so incredibly stupid I could go screaming into the

swamp every time I see one of them coming. Their stupidity is positively

abysmal."



"Then why use them?" Kielland spluttered.



"Because if we ever hope to mine anything in this miserable mudhole,

we've got to use them to do it. There just isn't any other way."



With Simpson leading, they donned waist-high waders with wide, flat

silicone-coated pans strapped to the feet and started out to inspect the

installation.



A crowd of a dozen or more Venusian natives swarmed happily around them

like a pack of hounds. They were in and out of the steaming mud,

circling and splashing, squeaking: and shaking. They seemed to be having

a real field day.



"Of course," Simpson was saying, "since Number Four dredge sank last

week there isn't a whale of a lot of Installation left for you to

inspect. But you can see what there is, if you want."



"You mean Number Four dredge is the only one you've got to use?"

Kielland asked peevishly. "According to my records you have five

Axis-Traction dredges, plus a dozen or more of the old kind."



"Ah!" said Simpson. "Well, Number One had its vacuum chamber corroded

out a week after we started using dredging. Ran into a vein of stuff

with 15 per cent acid content, and it got chewed up something fierce.

Number Two sank without a trace--over there in the swamp someplace." He

pointed across the black mud flats to a patch of sickly vegetation. "The

Mud-pups know where it is, they think, and I suppose they could go drag

it up for us if we dared take the time, but it would lose us a month,

and you know the production schedule we've been trying to meet."



"So what about Numbers Three and Five?"



"Oh, we still have them. They won't work without a major overhaul,

though."



"Overhaul! They're brand new."



"They were. The Mud-pups didn't understand how to sluice them down

properly after operations. When this guck gets out into the air it

hardens like cement. You ever see a cement mixer that hasn't been

cleaned out after use for a few dozen times? That's Numbers Three and

Five."



"What about the old style models?"



"Half of them are out of commission, and the other half are holding the

islands still."



"Islands?"



"Those chunks of semisolid ground we have Administration built on. The

chunk that keeps Control Tower in one place."



"Well, what are they going to do--walk away?"



"That's just about right. The first week we were in operation we kept

wondering why we had to travel farther every day to get to the dredges.

Then we realized that solid ground on Venus isn't solid ground at all.

It's just big chunks of denser stuff that floats on top of the mud like

dumplings in a stew. But that was nothing compared to the other

things--"



They had reached the vicinity of the salvage operation on Number Five

dredge. To Kielland it looked like a huge cylinder-type vacuum cleaner

with a number of flexible hoses sprouting from the top. The whole

machine was three-quarters submerged in clinging mud. Off to the right a

derrick floated hub-deep in slime; grapplers from it were clinging to

the dredge and the derrick was heaving and splashing like a trapped

hippopotamus. All about the submerged machine were Mud-pups, working

like strange little beavers as the man supervising the operation wiped

mud from his face and carried on a running line of shouts, curses,

whistles and squeaks.



Suddenly one of the Mud-pups saw the newcomers. He let out a squeal,

dropped his line in the mud and bounced up to the surface, dancing like

a dervish on his broad webbed feet as he stared in unabashed curiosity.

A dozen more followed his lead, squirming up and staring, shaking gobs

of mud from their fur.



"No, no!" the man supervising the operation screamed. "Pull, you

idiots. Come back here! Watch out--"



The derrick wobbled and let out a whine as steel cable sizzled out.

Confused, the Mud-pups tore themselves away from the newcomers and

turned back to their lines, but it was too late. Number Five dredge

trembled, with a wet sucking sound, and settled back into the mud,

blub--blub--blub.



The supervisor crawled down from his platform and sloshed across to

where Simpson and Kielland were standing. He looked like a man who had

suffered the torment of the damned for twenty minutes too long. "No

more!" he screamed in Simpson's face. "That's all. I'm through. I'll

pick up my pay any time you get it ready, and I'll finish off my

contract at home, but I'm through here. One solid week I work to teach

these idiots what I want them to do, and you have to come along at the

one moment all week when I really need their concentration." He glared,

his face purple. "Concentration! I should hope for so much! You got to

have a brain to have concentration--"



"Barton, this is Kielland. He's here from the Home Office, to solve all

our problems."



"You mean he brought us an evacuation ship?"



"No, he's going to tell us how to make this Installation pay. Right,

Kielland?" Simpson's grin was something to see.



Kielland scowled. "What are you going to do with the dredge--just leave

it there?" he asked angrily.



"No--I'm going to dig it out, again," said Barton, "after we take

another week off to drum into those quarter-brained mud-hens just what

it is we want them to do--again--and then persuade them to do

it--again--and then hope against hope that nothing happens along to

distract them--again. Any suggestions?"



Simpson shook his head. "Take a rest, Barton. Things will look brighter

in the morning."



"Nothing ever looks brighter in the morning," said Barton, and he

sloshed angrily off toward the Administration island.



"You see?" said Simpson. "Or do you want to look around some more?"



* * * * *



Back in Administration shack, Kielland sprayed his throat with Piper

Fortified Bio-Static and took two tetracycline capsules from his

samples case as he stared gloomily down at the little gob of blue-gray

mud on the desk before him.



The Venusian bonanza, the sole object of the multi-million-dollar Piper

Venusian Installation, didn't look like much. It ran in veins deep

beneath the surface. The R&D men had struck it quite by accident in the

first place, sampled it along with a dozen other kinds of Venusian

mud--and found they had their hands on the richest 'mycin-bearing

bacterial growth since the days of the New Jersey mud flats.



The value of the stuff was incalculable. Twenty-first century Earth had

not realized the degree to which it depended upon its effective

antibiotic products for maintenance of its health until the mutating

immune bacterial strains began to outpace the development of new

antibacterials. Early penicillin killed 96 per cent of all organisms in

its spectrum--at first--but time and natural selection undid its work in

three generations. Even the broad-spectrum drugs were losing their

effectiveness to a dangerous degree within decades of their

introduction. And the new drugs grown from Earth-born bacteria, or

synthesized in the laboratories, were too few and too weak to meet the

burgeoning demands of humanity--



Until Venus. The bacteria indigenous to that planet were alien to

Earth--every attempt to transplant them had failed--but they grew with

abandon in the warm mud currents of Venus. Not all mud was of value:

only the singular blue-gray stuff that lay before Kielland on the desk

could produce the 'mycin-like tetracycline derivative that was more

powerful than the best of Earth-grown wide spectrum antibiotics, with

few if any of the unfortunate side-effects of the Earth products.



The problem seemed simple: find the mud in sufficient quantities for

mining, dredge it up, and transport it back to Earth to extract the

drug. It was the first two steps of the operation that depended so

heavily on the mud-acclimated natives of Venus for success. They were as

much at home in the mud as they were in the dank, humid air above. They

could distinguish one type of mud from another deep beneath the surface,

and could carry a dredge-tube down to a lode of the blue-gray muck with

the unfailing accuracy of a homing pigeon.



If they could only be made to understand just what they were expected to

do. And that was where production ground down to a slow walk.



The next few days were a nightmare of frustration for Kielland as he

observed with mounting horror the standard operating procedure of the

Installation.



Men and Mud-pups went to work once again to drag Number Five dredge out

of the mud. It took five days of explaining, repeating, coaxing and

threatening to do it, but finally up it came--with mud caked and

hardened in its insides until it could never be used again.



So they ferried Number Six down piecemeal from the special orbital

transport ship that had brought it. Only three landing craft sank during

the process, and within two weeks Simpson and Barton set bravely off

with their dull-witted cohorts to tackle the swamp with a spanking new

piece of equipment. At last the delays were over--



Of course, it took another week to get the actual dredging started. The

Mud-pups who had been taught the excavation procedure previously had

either disappeared into the swamp or forgotten everything they'd ever

been taught. Simpson had expected it, but it was enough to keep Kielland

sleepless for three nights and drive his blood pressure to suicidal

levels. At length, the blue-gray mud began billowing out of the dredge

onto the platforms built to receive it, and the transport ship was

notified to stand by for loading. But by the time the ferry had landed,

the platform with the load had somehow drifted free of the island and

required a week-long expedition into the hinterland to track it down. On

the trip back they met a rainstorm that dissolved the blue-gray stuff

into soup which ran out between the slats of the platform, and back into

the mud again.



They did get the platform back, at any rate.



Meanwhile, the dredge began sucking up green stuff that smelled of

sewage instead of the blue-gray clay they sought--so the natives dove

mud-ward to explore the direction of the vein. One of them got caught in

the suction tube, causing a three-day delay while engineers dismantled

the dredge to get him out. In re-assembling, two of the dredge tubes got

interlocked somehow, and the dredge burned out three generators trying

to suck itself through itself, so to speak. That took another week to

fix.



Kielland buried himself in the Administration shack, digging through the

records, when the reign of confusion outside became too much to bear. He

sent for Tarnier, the Installation physician, biologist, and erstwhile

Venusian psychologist. Dr. Tarnier looked like the breathing soul of

failure; Kielland had to steel himself to the wave of pity that swept

through him at the sight of the man. "You're the one who tested these

imbeciles originally?" he demanded.



Dr. Tarnier nodded. His face was seamed, his eyes lustreless. "I tested

'em. God help me, I tested 'em."



"How?"



"Standard procedures. Reaction times. Mazes. Conditioning. Language.

Abstractions. Numbers. Associations. The works."



"Standard for Earthmen, I presume you mean."



"So what else? Piper didn't want to know if they were Einsteins or not.

All they wanted was a passable level of intelligence. Give them natives

with brains and they might have to pay them something. They thought

they were getting a bargain."



"Some bargain."



"Yeah."



"Only your tests say they're intelligent. As intelligent, say, as a

low-normal human being without benefit of any schooling or education.

Right?"



"That's right," the doctor said wearily, as though he had been through

this mill again and again. "Schooling and education don't enter into it

at all, of course. All we measured was potential. But the results said

they had it."



"Then how do you explain the mess we've got out there?"



"The tests were wrong. Or else they weren't applicable even on a basic

level. Or something. I don't know. I don't even care much any more."



"Well I care, plenty. Do you realize how much those creatures are

costing us? If we ever do get the finished product on the market, it'll

cost too much for anybody to buy."



Dr. Tarnier spread his hands. "Don't blame me. Blame them."



"And then this so-called biological survey of yours," Kielland

continued, warming to his subject. "From a scientific man, it's a prize.

Anatomical description: limited because of absence of autopsy specimens.

Apparently have endoskeleton, but organization of the internal organs

remains obscure. Thought to be mammalianoid--there's a fence-sitter for

you--but can't be certain of this because no young have been observed,

nor any females in gestation. Extremely gregarious, curious, playful,

irresponsible, etc., etc., etc. Habitat under natural conditions:

uncertain. Diet: uncertain. Social organization: uncertain." Kielland

threw down the paper with a snort. "In short, the only thing we're

certain of is that they're here. Very helpful. Especially when every

dime we have in this project depends on our teaching them how to count

to three without help."



Dr. Tarnier spread his hands again. "Mr. Kielland, I'm a mere mortal. In

order to measure something, it has to stay the same long enough to get

it measured. In order to describe something, it has to hold still long

enough to be observed. In order to form a logical opinion of a

creature's mental capacity, it has to demonstrate some perceptible

mental capacity to start with. You can't get very far studying a

creature's habitat and social structure when most of its habitating goes

on under twenty feet of mud."



"How about the language?"



"We get by with squeaks and whistles and sign language. A sort of

pidgin-Venusian. They use a very complex system among themselves." The

doctor paused, uncertainly. "Anyway, it's hard to get too tough with the

Pups," he burst out finally. "They really seem to try hard--when they

can just manage to keep their minds to it."



"Just stupid, carefree, happy-go-lucky kids, eh?"



Dr. Tarnier shrugged.



"Go away," said Kielland in disgust, and turned back to the reports with

a sour taste in his mouth.



Later he called the Installation Comptroller. "What do you pay Mud-pups

for their work?" he wanted to know.



"Nothing," said the Comptroller.



"Nothing!"



"We have nothing they can use. What would you give them--United Nations

coin? They'd just try to eat it."



"How about something they can eat, then?"



"Everything we feed them they throw right back up. Planetary

incompatibility."



"But there must be something you can use for wages," Kielland

protested. "Something they want, something they'll work hard for."



"Well, they liked tobacco and pipes all right--but it interfered with

their oxygen storage so they couldn't dive. That ruled out tobacco and

pipes. They liked Turkish towels, too, but they spent all their time

parading up and down in them and slaying the ladies and wouldn't work at

all. That ruled out Turkish towels. They don't seem to care too much

whether they're paid or not, though--as long as we're decent to them.

They seem to like us, in a stupid sort of way."



"Just loving, affectionate, happy-go-lucky kids. I know. Go away."

Kielland growled and turned back to the reports ... except that there

weren't any more reports that he hadn't read a dozen times or more.

Nothing that made sense, nothing that offered a lead. Millions of Piper

dollars sunk into this project, and every one of them sitting there

blinking at him expectantly.



For the first time he wondered if there really was any solution to the

problem. Stumbling blocks had been met and removed before--that was

Kielland's job, and he knew how to do it. But stupidity could be a

stumbling block that was all but insurmountable.



Yet he couldn't throw off the nagging conviction that something more

subtle than stupidity was involved....



Then Simpson came in, cursing and sputtering and bellowing for Louie.

Louie came, and Simpson started dictating a message for relay to the

transport ship. "Special order, rush, repeat, rush," Simpson grated.

"For immediate delivery Piper Venusian Installation--one Piper

Axis-Traction Dredge, previous specifications applicable--"



Kielland stared at him. "Again?"



Simpson gritted his teeth. "Again."



"Sunk?"



"Blub," said Simpson. "Blub, blub, blub."



Slowly, Kielland stood up, glaring first at Simpson, then at the little

muddy creatures that were attempting to hide behind his waders, looking

so forlorn and chastised and woebegone. "All right," Kielland said,

after a pregnant pause. "That's all. You won't need to relay that order

to the ship. Forget about Number Seven dredge. Just get your files in

order and get a landing craft down here for me. The sooner the better."



Simpson's face lit up in pathetic eagerness. "You mean we're going to

leave?"



"That's what I mean."



"The company's not going to like it--"



"The company ought to welcome us home with open arms," Kielland snarled.

"They should shower us with kisses. They should do somersaults for joy

that I'm not going to let them sink another half billion into the mud

out here. They took a gamble and got cleaned, that's all. They'd be as

stupid as your pals here if they kept coming back for more." He pulled

on his waders, brushing penitent Mud-pups aside as he started for the

door. "Send the natives back to their burrows or whatever they live in

and get ready to close down. I've got to figure out some way to make a

report to the Board that won't get us all fired."



He slammed out the door and started across to his quarters, waders going

splat-splat in the mud. Half a dozen Mud-pups were following him. They

seemed extraordinarily exuberant as they went diving and splashing in

the mud. Kielland turned and roared at them, shaking his fist. They

stopped short, then slunk off with their tails between their legs.



But even at that, their squeaking sounded strangely like laughter to

Kielland....



In his quarters the light was so dim that he almost had his waders off

before he saw the upheaval. The little room was splattered from top to

bottom with mud. His bunk was coated with slime; the walls dripped

blue-gray goo. Across the room his wardrobe doors hung open as three

muddy creatures rooted industriously in the leather case on the floor.



Kielland let out a howl and threw himself across the room. His samples

case! The Mud-pups scattered, squealing. Their hands were filled with

capsules, and their muzzles were dripping with white powder. Two went

between Kielland's legs and through the door. The third dove for the

window with Kielland after him. The company man's hand closed on a

slippery tail, and he fell headlong across the muddy bed as the culprit

literally slipped through his fingers.



He sat up, wiping mud from his hair and surveying the damage. Bottles

and boxes of medicaments were scattered all over the floor of the

wardrobe, covered with mud but unopened. Only one large box had been

torn apart, its contents ravaged.



Kielland stared at it as things began clicking into place in his mind.

He walked to the door, stared out across the steaming gloomy mud flats

toward the lighted windows of the Administration shack. Sometimes, he

mused, a man can get so close to something that he can't see the

obvious. He stared at the samples case again. Sometimes stupidity works

both ways--and sometimes what looks like stupidity may really be

something far more deadly.



He licked his lips and flipped the telephone-talker switch. After a

misconnection or two he got Control Tower. Control Tower said yes, they

had a small exploratory scooter on hand. Yes, it could be controlled on

a beam and fitted with cameras. But of course it was special equipment,

emergency use only--



He cut them off and buzzed Simpson excitedly. "Cancel all I said--about

leaving. I mean. Change of plan. Something's come up. No, don't order

anything--but get one of those natives that can understand your

whistling and give him the word."



Simpson bellowed over the wire. "What word? What do you think you're

doing?"



"I may just be saving our skins--we won't know for a while. But however

you manage it, tell them we're definitely not leaving Venus. Tell them

they're all fired--we don't want them around any more. The Installation

is off limits to them from here on in. And tell them we've devised a way

to mine the lode without them--got that? Tell them the equipment will be

arriving as soon as we can bring it down from the transport."



"Oh, now look--"



"You want me to repeat it?"



Simpson sighed. "All right. Fine. I'll tell them. Then what?"



"Then just don't bother me for a while. I'm going to be busy. Watching



TV."



An hour later Kielland was in Control Tower, watching the pale screen as

the little remote-controlled explorer circled the installation. Three TV

cameras were in operation as he settled down behind the screen. He told

Sparks what he wanted to do, and the ship whizzed off in the direction

the Mud-pup raiders had taken.



At first, there was nothing but dreary mud flats sliding past the

cameras' watchful eyes. Then they picked up a flicker of movement, and

the ship circled in lower for a better view. It was a group of

natives--a large group. There must have been fifty of them working

busily in the mud, five miles away from the Piper Installation. They

didn't look so carefree and happy-go-lucky now. They looked very much

like desperately busy Mud-pups with a job on their hands, and they were

so absorbed they didn't even see the small craft circling above them.



They worked in teams. Some were diving with small containers; some were

handling lines attached to the containers; still others were carrying

and dumping. They came up full, went down empty, came up full. The

produce was heaped in a growing pile on a small semisolid island with a

few scraggly trees on it. As they worked the pile grew and grew.



It took only a moment for Kielland to tell what they were doing. The

color of the stuff was unmistakable. They were mining piles of blue-gray

mud, just as fast as they could mine it.



With a gleam of satisfaction in his eye, Kielland snapped off the screen

and nodded at Sparks to bring the cameras back. Then he rang Simpson

again.



"Did you tell them?"



Simpson's voice was uneasy. "Yeah--yeah, I told them. They left in a

hurry. Quite a hurry."



"Yes, I imagine they did. Where are your men now?"



"Out working on Number Six, trying to get it up."



"Better get them together and pack them over to Control Tower, fast,"

said Kielland. "I mean everybody. Every man in the Installation. We may

have this thing just about tied up, if we can get out of here soon

enough--"



Kielland's chair gave a sudden lurch and sailed across the room,

smashing into the wall. With a yelp he tried to struggle up the sloping

floor; it reared and heaved over the other way, throwing Kielland and

Sparks to the other wall amid a heap of instruments. Through the windows

they could see the gray mud flats careening wildly below them. It took

only an instant to realize what was happening. Kielland shouted, "Let's

get out of here!" and headed down the stairs, clinging to the railing

for dear life.



Control Tower was sinking in the mud. They had moved faster than he had

anticipated, Kielland thought, and snarled at himself all the way down

to the landing platform below. He had hoped at least to have time to

parley, to stop and discuss the whys and wherefores of the situation

with the natives. Now it was abundantly clear that any whys and

wherefores that were likely to be discussed would be discussed later.



And very possibly under twenty feet of mud--



A stream of men were floundering out of Administration shack, plowing

through the mud with waders only half strapped on as the line of low

buildings began shaking and sinking into the morass. From the direction

of Number Six dredge another crew was heading for the Tower. But the

Tower was rapidly growing shorter as the buoys that sustained it broke

loose with ear-shattering crashes.



Kielland caught Sparks by the shoulder, shouting to be heard above the

racket. "The transport--did you get it?"



"I--I think so."



"They're sending us a ferry?"



"It should be on its way."



Simpson sloshed up, his face heavy with dismay. "The dredges! They've

cut loose the dredges."



"Bother the dredges. Get your men collected and into the shelters. We'll

have a ship here any minute."



"But what's happening?"



"We're leaving--if we can make it before these carefree, happy-go-lucky

kids here sink us in the mud, dredges, Control Tower and all."



Out of the gloom above there was a roar and a streak of murky yellow as

the landing craft eased down through the haze. Only the top of Control

Tower was out of the mud now. The Administration shack gave a lurch,

sagging, as a dozen indistinct gray forms pulled and tugged at the

supporting structure beneath it. Already a circle of natives was

converging on the Earthmen as they gathered near the landing platform

shelters.



"They're cutting loose the landing platform!" somebody wailed. One of

the lines broke with a resounding snap, and the platform lurched. Then a

dozen men dived through the mud to pull away the slippery, writhing

natives as they worked to cut through the remaining guys. Moments later

the landing craft was directly overhead and men and natives alike

scattered as she sank down.



The platform splintered and jolted under her weight, began skidding,

then held firm to the two guy ropes remaining. A horde of gray creatures

hurled themselves on those lines as a hatchway opened above and a ladder

dropped down. The men scurried up the ropes just as the plastic dome of

the Control Tower sank with a gurgle.



Kielland and Simpson paused at the bottom of the ladder, blinking at the

scene of devastation around them.



"Stupid, you say," said Kielland heavily. "Better get up there, or we'll

go where Control Tower went."



"But--everything--gone!"



"Wrong again. Everything saved." Kielland urged the administrator up the

ladder and sighed with relief as the hatch clanged shut. The jets

bloomed and sprayed boiling mud far and wide as the landing craft lifted

soggily out of the mire and roared for the clouds above.



Kielland wiped sweat from his forehead and sank back on his cot with a

shudder. "We should be so stupid," he said.



"I must admit," he said later to a weary and mystified Simpson, "that I

didn't expect them to move so fast. But when you've decided in your mind

that somebody's really pretty stupid, it's hard to adjust to the idea

that maybe he isn't, all of a sudden. We should have been much more

suspicious of Dr. Tarnier's tests. It's true they weren't designed for

Venusians, but they were designed to assess intelligence, and

intelligence isn't a quality that's influenced by environment or

species. It's either there or it isn't, and the good Doctor told us

unequivocally that it was there."



"But their behavior."



"Even that should have tipped us off. There is a very fine line dividing

incredible stupidity and incredible stubbornness. It's often a tough

differential to make. I didn't spot it until I found them wolfing down

the tetracycline capsules in my samples case. Then I began to see the

implications. Those Mud-pups were stubbornly and tenaciously determined

to drive the Piper Venusian Installation off Venus permanently, by fair

means or foul. They didn't care how it got off--they just wanted it

off."



"But why? We weren't hurting them. There's plenty of mud on Venus."



"Ah--but not so much of the blue-gray stuff we were after, perhaps.

Suppose a space ship settled down in a wheatfield in Kansas along about

harvest time and started loading wheat into the hold? I suppose the

farmer wouldn't mind too much. After all, there's plenty of vegetation

on Earth--"



"They're growing the stuff?"



"For all they're worth," said Kielland. "Lord knows what sort of

metabolism uses tetracycline for food--but they are growing mud that

yields an incredibly rich concentration of antibiotic ... their native

food. They grow it, harvest it, live on it. Even the way they shake

whenever they come out of the mud is a giveaway--what better way to

seed their crop far and wide? We were mining away their staff of life,

my friend. You really couldn't blame them for objecting."



"Well, if they think they can drive us off that way, they're going to

have to get that brilliant intelligence of theirs into action," Simpson

said ominously. "We'll bring enough equipment down there to mine them

out of house and home."



"Why?" said Kielland. "After all, they're mining it themselves a lot

more efficiently than we could ever do it. And with Piper warehouses

back on Earth full of old, useless antibiotics that they can't sell for

peanuts? No, I don't think we'll mine anything when a simple trade

arrangement will do just as well." He sank back in his cot, staring

dreamily through the port as the huge orbital transport loomed large

ahead of them. He found his throat spray and dosed himself liberally in

preparation for his return to civilization. "Of course, the natives are

going to be wondering what kind of idiots they're dealing with to sell

them pure refined extract of Venusian beefsteak in return for raw chunks

of unrefined native soil. But I think we can afford to just let them

wonder for a while."



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