The Venus Trap Read online

* * * *

  Phyllis stiffened. "Frankly, if I had imagined I was going to have atree for a sister-in-law, I would have thought before I married you,James." Bursting into tears, she ran inside the cottage.

  "Sorry," he said miserably to Magnolia. "It's a long trip out from Earthand an uncomfortable one. I don't suppose the other women wereespecially nice to her, either. Faculty wives mostly and you know howthey are.... No, I don't suppose you would. But she shouldn't have actedthat way toward you."

  "Not your fault," Magnolia told him, sighing with such intensity that hecould feel the humidity rise. "I know how you've been looking forward toher arrival. Rather a letdown, isn't it?"

  "Oh, I'm sure it'll be all right." He tried to sound confident. "And Iknow you'll like Phyllis when you get to know her."

  "Possibly, but so far I'm afraid I must admit--since there never hasbeen any pretense between us--that she is a bit of a disappointment.I--and my sisters also--had expected your females, when they came, to beas upright and true blue as you. Instead, what are they? Shrubs."

  The door to the cottage flew open. "A shrub, am I!" Phyllis brandishedan axe which, James winced to recall, was an item of the equipment hehad ordered from Earth before the scout team had learned that the treeswere intelligent. "I'll shrub you!"

  "Phyllis!" He wrested the axe from her grip. "That would be murder!"

  "'Woodman,' as the Terrestrial poem goes," the tree remarked, "'sparethat tree! Touch not a single bough! In youth it sheltered me and I'llprotect it now!'"

  Good of her to take the whole thing so calmly--rather, to pretend totake it so calmly, for he knew how sensitive Magnolia really was--but hewas afraid this show of moral courage would not diminish Phyllis'sdislike for her; those without self-control seldom appreciate those whohave it.

  "If you'll excuse us," he said, putting his arm around his wife'sheaving shoulders, "I'd better see to Phyllis; she's a little upset.Holdover from spacesickness, I expect. Poor girl, she's a long way fromhome and frightened."

  "I understand, Jim," Magnolia told him, "and, remember, whateverhappens, you can always count on me."

  * * * * *

  "I must say you're not a very admirable representative of Terrestrialwomanhood!" James snapped, as soon as the door had slammed behind himand his wife, leaving them alone together in the principal room of thecottage. "Insulting the very first native you meet!"

  "I did not either insult her. All I said was, 'What beautifulflowers--do you suppose the fruit is edible?' How was I to knowit--_she_ could understand? Naturally I wouldn't dream of eating herfruit now. It would probably taste nasty anyway. And how do you think_I_ felt when a _tree_ answered me back? You don't care that I fainteddead away, and I've never fainted before in my life. All you care aboutis that old vegetable's feelings! It was bad enough, feeling for fivemonths that someone had come between us, but to find out it wasn'tsome_one_ but some_thing_--!"

  "Phyllis," he said coldly, "I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue inyour head."

  Dropping into the overstuffed chair, his wife dabbed at her eyes with ahandkerchief. "She wasn't so very polite to me!"

  "Look, Phyllis--" he strove to make his voice calm, adult,reasonable--"you happened to have hit on rather a touchy point with her.Those trees are dioecious, you know, like us, and she isn't mated. And,well, she has rather a lot of xylem zones--rings, you know."

  "Are you trying to tell me she's old?"

  "Well, she's no sapling any more. And, consideration aside, you knowit's government's policy for us to establish good relations with anyintelligent life-form we have to share a planet with. You weren't inthere trying."

  Phyllis put away her handkerchief with what he hoped would be a finalsniff. "I suppose I shouldn't have acted that way," she conceded.

  "Now you're talking like my own dear Phyllis," James said tenderly,though, as a matter of fact, he had a very remote idea of what his owndear Phyllis was like. He had met her only a couple of months before thescout mission was scheduled, and so their courtship had been brief, andthe actual weeks of marriage even briefer. He had remembered Phyllis asbeautiful--and she was beautiful. He had not, however, remembered her aspig-headed--and pig-headed she was, too.

  "How come she hasn't a mate? I didn't think trees were choosy."

  * * * * *

  He wouldn't take exception to that statement, uncharitable though itwas; after all, someone whose only acquaintance with trees had been withthe Terrestrial variety would naturally be incapable of appreciating thetotal tree at its highest development.

  "It's a great tragedy," he told her in a hushed tone. "There was ablight some years back and most of the male trees died off, except for afew on the other side of the planet--well out of bee-shot, even if thefemales there would let the females here have any pollen, which theyabsolutely won't."

  "I don't blame them," Phyllis said coldly. Of course she would identifyat once with the trees whose domestic lives seemed to be threatened.

  "It's not that so much. It's that the male trees produce so littlepollen."

  "This would be a good place for people with hay fever then, wouldn'tit?"

  "And even when there is fruit, so much of it tends to beparthenocarpous--no seeds." He sighed. "The entire race is dying out."

  "How is it you know so much about botany?" she asked suspiciously. "It'snot your field."

  "I don't know so very much, really," he smiled. "I had to learn alittle, if I wanted to work the land, so I borrowed an elementary textfrom Cutler." Had he been a trifle idealistic in quitting his snug, ifuninspiring, job on the faculty to join in this Utopian venture? So manyof the other men at the university had enrolled, it had seemed asplendid idea until Phyllis's arrival.

  "Daddy never had any trouble working his land and he doesn't know athing about botany. You've been boning up on it just to please _her_!"

  "Phyllis! How can you jump to conclusions without a shred of evidence?"Not that she wouldn't be able to collect such evidence later, becausethe allegation happened to be correct. _If, instead of coming toElysium, I had merely gone to China, would she have thought it so oddthat I studied Chinese? Then why, where the natives are trees, shouldn'tI study botany? The woman is unreasonable._

  * * * * *

  "And will her--people let you farm?"

  Now he could show her how cogently and comprehensively he could answer alogical question. "That aspect of the situation will be all right, dear,because only the trees are an intelligent species and, even of them,some aren't so bright. They won't have any more objection to our eatingthe other fruit and vegetables than we would have to anextraterrestrial's eating our eggs and chickens, for example. We'regoing to try to introduce some Earth plants here, though, as the higherforms of vegetation are dying out and we're afraid the lower mightfollow. Pity it's too late for a sound conservation program."

  * * * * *

  Phyllis said grimly, "She doesn't think it's too late for a soundconservation program. She still has hopes--far-fetched, maybe, and I'mnot so sure they are. Mark my words, James, she's got designs on _you_."

  "Don't be idiotic," he protested. "That would be--" he attempted tointroduce a light note--"it would be miscegenation."

  "These foreigners can't be expected to have our standards." And sheburst into tears again. "A fine thing to go through that miserablefive-month trip only to find out a tree has alienated my husband'saffections."

  "Oh, come on, Phyl!" He still was trying for a smile. "What would a treesee in me?"

  "I'm beginning to wonder what I saw in you. You never loved me; you justwanted a wife to come out and colonize with you and b-b-breed."

  What could he say? It was almost true. Phyllis was a beautiful girl andhe loved her, but, if he had planned to remain as an instructor with theRomance Languages Department instead of joining the scout mission, heknew he would never have asked her to be his wife ..
. for her sake, ofcourse, as well as his own. He should say something to reassure her, butthe words wouldn't come.

  "I don't like it here," Phyllis sobbed. "I don't like blue leaves. Idon't like blue grass. I like them green, the way they're supposed tobe. I hate this nasty planet. It's all wrong. I