James H. Schmitz - Balanced Ecology

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2024-12-15 0 0 281.4KB 13 页 5.9玖币

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Next is a farm story, if you likebut this is no ordinary farm.

Under the bucolic surface of this tale of another planet, with its

consistent and beautifully worked out details, there is a tricky

problem, about which I will give you one or two hints;

Ecology is something human beings can adapt to suit their own

purposes; right? But human beings in an environment are part

of its ecology . . .

Or: if an experimental animal alters its responses in order to

get food from the experimenterwho is conditioning whom?

BALANCED ECOLOGY

James H. Schmitz

The diamondwood tree farm was restless this morning, llf

Cholm had been aware of it for about an hour but had said

nothing to Auris, thinking he might be getting a summer fever

or a stomach upset and imagining things and that Auris would

decide they should go back to the house so llf's grandmother

could dose him. But the feeling continued to grow, and by now

llf knew it was the farm.

Outwardly, everyone in the forest appeared to be going

about their usual business. There had been a rainfall earlier in

the day; and the tumbleweeds had uprooted themselves and

were moving about in the bushes, lapping water off the leaves.

llf had noticed a small one rolling straight towards a waiting

slurp and stopped for a moment to watch the slurp catch it. The

slurp was of average size, which gave it a tongue-reach of

between twelve and fourteen feet, and the tumbleweed was

already within range.

The tongue shot out suddenly, a thin, yellow flash. Its tip

flicked twice around the tumbleweed, jerked it off the ground

and back to the feed opening in the imitation tree stump within

which the rest of the slurp was concealed. The tumbleweed

said "Oof!" in the surprised way they always did when

something caught them, and went in through the opening.

After a moment, the slurp's tongue tip appeared in the opening

again and waved gently around, ready for somebody else of the

right size to come within reach.

llf, just turned eleven and rather small for his age, was the

right size for this slurp, though barely. But, being a human boy,

he was in no danger. The slurps of the diamondwood farms on

Wrake didn't attack humans. For a moment, he was tempted to

tease the creature into a brief fencing match. If he picked up a

stick and banged on the stump with it a few times, the slurp

would become annoyed and dart its tongue out and try to knock

the stick from his hand.

But it wasn't the day for entertainment of that kind. llf

couldn't shake off his crawly, uncomfortable feeling, and while

he had been standing there, Auris and Sam had moved a couple

of hundred feet farther uphill, in the direction of the Queen

Grove, and home. He turned and sprinted after them, caught

up with them as they came out into one of the stretches of

grassland which lay between the individual groves of

diamondwood trees.

Auris, who was two years, two months, and two days older

than llf, stood on top of Sam's semiglobular shell, looking off to

the right towards the valley where the diamondwood factory

was. Most of the world of Wrake was on the hot side, either

rather dry or rather steamy; but this was cool mountain

country. Far to the south, below the valley and the foothills

behind it, lay the continental plain, shimmering like a flat,

green-brown sea. To the north and east were higher plateaus,

above the level where the diamondwood liked to grow. llf ran

past Sam's steadily moving bulk to the point where the forward

rim of the shell made a flat upward curve, close enough to the

ground so he could reach it.

Sam rolled a somber brown eye back for an instant as llf

caught the shell and swung up on it, but his huge beaked head

didn't turn. He was a mossback, Wrake's version of the turtle

pattern, and except for the full-grown trees and perhaps some

members of the clean-up squad, the biggest thing on the farm.

His corrugated shell was overgrown with a plant which had the

appearance of long green fur; and occasionally when Sam fed,

he would extend and use a pair of heavy arms with three-

fingered hands, normally held folded up against the lower rim

of the shell.

Auris had paid no attention to llf's arrival. She still seemed to

be watching the factory in the valley. She and llf were cousins

but didn't resemble each other, llf was small and wiry, with

tight-curled red hair. Auris was slim and blond, and stood a

good head taller than he did. He thought she looked as if-she

owned everything she could see from the top of Sam's shell; and

she did, as a matter of fact, own a good deal of itnine tenths of

the diamondwood farm and nine tenths of the factory, llf

owned the remaining tenth of both.

He scrambled up the shell, grabbing the moss-fur to haul

himself along, until he stood beside her. Sam, awkward as he

looked when walking, was moving at a good ten miles an hour,

clearly headed for the Queen Grove, llf didn't know whether

it was Sam or Auris who bad decided to go back to the house.

Whichever it had been, he could feel the purpose of going

there.

"They're nervous about something," he told Auris, meaning

the whole farm. "Think there's a big storm coming?"

"Doesn't look like a storm," Auris said.

llf glanced about the sky, agreed silently. "Earthquake,

maybe?"

Auris shook her head. "It doesn't feel like earthquake."

She hadn't turned her gaze from the factory, llf asked,

"Something going on down there?"

Auris shrugged. "They're cutting a lot today," she said.

"They got in a limit order."

Sam swayed on into the next grove while llf considered the

information. Limit orders were fairly unusual; but it hardly

explained the general uneasiness. He sighed, sat down, crossed

his legs, and looked about. This was a grove of young trees,

fifteen years and lisss. There was plenty of open space left

between them. Ahead, a huge tumbleweed was dying, making

happy, chuckling sounds as it pitched its scarlet seed pellets far

out from its slowly unfolding leaves. The pellets rolled

hurriedly farther away from the old weed as soon as they

touched the ground. In a twelve-foot circle about their parent,

the earth was being disturbed, churned, shifted steadily about.

The clean-up squad had arrived to dispose of the dying

tumbleweed; as Hf looked, it suddenly settled six or seven

inches deeper into the softened dirt. The pellets were hurrying

to get beyond the reach of the clean-up squad so they wouldn't

get hauled down, too. But half-grown tumbleweeds, speckled

yellow-green and ready to start their rooted period, were rolling

through the grove towards the disturbed area. "They would wait

around the edge of the circle until the clean-up squad finished,

then move in and put down their roots. The ground where the

squad had worked recently was always richer than any other

spot in the forest.

Bf wondered, as he had many times before, what the clean-

up squad looked like. Nobody ever caught so much as a glimpse

of them. Riquol Cholm, his grandfather, had told him of

attempts made by scientists to catch a member of the squad

with digging machines. Even the smallest ones could dig much

faster than the machines could dig after them, so the scientists

always gave up finally and went away.

"llf, come in for lunch!" called llf's grandmother's voice.

llf filled his lungs, shouted, "Coming, Grand"

He broke off, looked up at Auris. She was smirking.

"Caught me again," llf admitted. "Dumb humbugs!" He

yelled, "Come out. Lying Lou! I know who it was."

Meldy Cholm laughed her low, sweet laugh, a silverbell

called, the giant greenweb of the Queen Grove sounded its

deep harp note, more or less all together. Then Lying Lou and

Gabby darted into sight, leaped up on the mossback's hump.

The humbugs were small, brown, bobtailed animals, built with

spider leanness and very quick. They had round skulls, monkey

faces, and the pointed teeth of animals who lived by catching

and killing other animals. Gabby sat down beside llf, inflating

and deflating his voice pouch, while Lou burst into a series of

rattling, clicking, spitting sounds.

"They've been down at the factory?" llf asked.

"Yes," Auris said. "Hush now. I'm listening."

Lou was jabbering along at the rate at which the humbugs

chattered among themselves, but this sounded like, and was, a

recording of human voices played back at high speed. When

Auris wanted to know what people somewhere were talking

about, she sent the humbugs off to listen. They remembered

everything they heard, came back and repeated it to her at their

own speed, which saved time. llf, if he tried hard, could

understand scraps of it. Auris understood it all. She was

hearing now what the people at the factory had been saying

during the morning.

Gabby inflated his voice pouch part way, remarked in

Grandfather Riquol's strong, rich voice, "My, my! We're not

being quite on our best behavior today, are we, llf?"

"Shut up," said llf.

"Hush now," Gabby said in Auris' voice. "I'm listening." He

added in llf's voice, sounding crestfallen, "Caught me again!"

then chuckled nastily.

llf made a fist of his left hand and swung fast. Gabby became

a momentary brown blur, and was sitting again on llf's other

side. He looked at llf with round, innocent eyes, said in a

solemn tone, "We must pay more attention to details, men.

Mistakes can be expensive!"

He'd probably picked that up at the factory, llf ignored him.

Trying to hit a humbug was a waste of effort. So was talking

back to them. He shifted his attention to catching what Lou

was saying; but Lou had finished up at that moment. She and

Gabby took off instantly in a leap from Sam's back and were

gone in the bushes, llf thought they were a little jittery and

erratic in their motions today, as if they, too, were keyed up

even more than usual. Auris walked down to the front lip of the

shell and sat on it, dangling her legs. llf joined her there.

"What were they talking about at the factory?" he asked.

"They did get in a limit order yesterday," Auris said. "And

another one this morning. They're not taking any more orders

until they've filled those two."

"That's good, isn't it?" llf asked.

"I guess so."

After a moment, llf asked, "Is that what they're worrying

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摘要：

Nextisafarmstory,ifyoulikebutthisisnoordinaryfarm.Underthebucolicsurfaceofthistaleofanotherplanet,withitsconsistentandbeautifullyworkedoutdetails,thereisatrickyproblem,aboutwhichIwillgiveyouoneortwohints;Ecologyissomethinghumanbeingscanadapttosuittheirownpurposes;right?Buthumanbeingsinanenvironmenta...

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James H. Schmitz - Balanced Ecology

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