Astronauts -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space ships -- Fiction
SEN. KUELL: You're forgetting--are you not, colonel?--that a vast
difference exists between an olive _grove_ and an olive _leaf_. And how
do you explain why these ancient voyageurs of yours brought animals
with them? More important, how do you explain what became of these
animals? Surely if they had been landed, some evidence of them would
remain, and just as surely, that evidence would have come to light by
now.
LT. COL. GREAVES: Maybe they were brought along out of compassion.
More probably, they were brought along because the survivors were
flesh-eaters. In either case, you can be certain that they were
transported from the mother-ship to Earth. As to why no evidence of
their existence has ever been found, isn't it reasonable to assume that
Planet X paralleled Earth in lower, as well as higher, forms of life?
SEN. KUELL: Only if you're trying to shore up a theory that is about
to collapse. But it will do you no good, Colonel Greaves: the text of
Genesis confutes your entire contention.
LT. COL. GREAVES: On the contrary, the text of Genesis substantiates my
contention. Let me quote one or two passages by way of illustration.
'--the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up,
and the windows of heaven were opened.' This is race memory coming
to the fore in the form of an imagery so strong that it survives
translation, and with the aid of a little imagination, the passage can
be interpreted to mean that all is in readiness for the launching.
'And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth: and all the
high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered'. If you
will substitute 'distances' for 'waters' and 'over' for 'upon', you
will obtain a fairly clear mental picture of a planet fading from
sight in the viewscreen of a departing spaceship. And how about the
'stories' referred to in the building specification? '--with lower,
second, and third stories shalt thou make it'? Those weren't 'stories',
senator--they were stages. Rocket stages. The number of rocket stages
that would be required to launch a ship the size of Spaceship X into
space.
* * * * *
SEN. KUELL: I submit, colonel, that your reasoning is defective. I
submit furthermore that it is not the sort of reasoning which normal
well-adjusted Americans indulge in, and I hereby recommend to this
committee that both yours and Commander Perkins' qualifications be
reexamined at the earliest possible opportunity and that both of you be
relieved from duty until such time as it can satisfactorily be proven
that both of you have recovered from your hallucinatory experience.
LT. COL. GREAVES: But the scrolls I brought back aren't hallucinatory,
senator. Neither is the fragment of--of--yes, of gopherwood. And
certainly the photograph is real enough.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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