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    Van Emmon saw the point. "In other words, the humans on the earth never BEGAN
    to show their superiority until something something big, happened to
    demonstrate their ability!"
    "Exactly!" cried Kinney. "Our prehistoric ancestors would never have handed
    down such a tremendous ambition to you and me if they, at that time, had not
    been able to point to some definite feat and say, 'That proves I'm a bigger
    man than a horse,' for example."
    "Of course," reflected Billie, aloud; "of course, there were other factors."
    "Yes; but they don't alter the case. Originally the human was only slightly
    different from the apes he associated with. There was perhaps only one slight
    point of superiority; today there are millions of such points. Man is
    infinitely superior, now, and it's all because he was slightly superior,
    then."
    "Suppose we grant that," remarked the geologist. "What then? Does that explain
    why the bees have made good on Sanus?"
    "To a large degree. Some time in the past the Sanusian bee discovered that he
    possessed a certain power which enabled him to force his will upon other
    creatures. This power was his poisonous sting. He found that, when he got his
    fellows together and formed a swarm, they could attack any animal in such
    large numbers as to make it helpless."
    "Any creature?"
    "Yes; even reptiles, scales or no scales. They'd attack the eyes."
    "But that doesn't explain how the bees ever began to make humans work for
    them,"
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    objected Van Emmon.
    The doctor thought for a few minutes. "Let's see. Suppose we assume that a
    certain human once happened to be in the neighborhood of a hive, just when it
    was attacked by a drove of ants. Ants are great lovers of honey, you know.
    Suppose the man stepped among the ants and was bitten. Naturally he would
    trample them to death, and smash with his hands all that he couldn't trample.
    Now, what's to prevent the bees from seeing how easily the man had dealt with
    the ants? A man would be far more efficient, destroying ants, than a bee;
    just as a horse is more efficient, dragging a load, than a man. And yet we
    know that the horse was domesticated, here on the earth, simply because the
    humans saw his possibilities; the horse could do a certain thing more
    efficiently than a human.
    "You notice," the doctor went on, with great care, "that everything I've
    assumed is natural enough: the combination of an ant attack and the man's
    approach, occurring at the same time. Suppose we add a third factor: that the
    bees, even while fighting the ants, also started to attack the man; but that
    he chanced to turn his attention to the ants FIRST. So that the bees let him
    alone!
    "We know what remarkable things bees are, when it comes to telling one another
    what they know. Is there any reason why such an experience all natural
    enough shouldn't demonstrate to them that they, by merely threatening a man,
    could compel him to kill ants for them?"
    Billie was dubious for a moment; then agreed that the man, also, might notice
    that the bees failed to sting him as long as he continued to destroy their
    other enemies. If so, it was quite conceivable that, bit by bit, the bees had
    found other and more positive ways of securing the aid of men through
    threatening to sting. "Even to cultivating flowers for their benefit," she
    conceded. "It's quite possible."
    Smith had been thinking of something else. "I always understood that a bee's
    stinging apparatus is good for only one attack. Doesn't it always remain
    behind after stinging?"
    "Yes," from the doctor, quietly. "That is true. The sting has tiny barbs on
    its tip, and these cause it to remain in the wound. The sting is actually torn
    away from the bee when it flies away. It never grows another. That is why, in
    fact, the bee never stings except as a last resort, when it thinks it's a
    question of self-defense."
    "Just what I thought!" chuckled Smith. "A bee is helpless without its sting!
    If so, how can you account for anything like a soldier bee?"
    The doctor returned his gaze with perfect equanimity. He looked at Van Emmon
    and
    Billie; they, too, seemed to think that the engineer had found a real flaw in
    Kinney's reasoning. The doctor dropped his eyes, and searched his mind
    thoroughly for the best words. He removed his bracelets while he was thinking;
    the others did the same. All four got to their feet and stretched, silently
    but
    thoroughly. Not until they were ready to quit the study did the doctor make
    reply.
    "Smith, I don't need to remind you that it's the little things that count.
    It's too old a saying. In this case it happens to be the greatest truth we
    have found today.
    "Smith" speaking with the utmost care "what we have just said about the bee's
    sting is all true; but only with regard to the bees on the earth. It is only
    on the earth, so far as we know positively, that the bee is averse to
    stinging, for fear of losing his sting. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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