Presently Burl's casual talk of the lowlands produced results. An
atmosphere-flier came out of the ship's storage-compartments. And
through the educator Burl was now a civilized man. He had not the
specialized later information of his guests, but he had knowledge they
could not dream of, and which it would take much of a century to put in
recordable form for an educator.
So an atmosphere-flier went down into the lowlands through the
cloud-banks. There were three men on board. They had good hunting.
Magnificent hunting. Even more importantly, they found another cluster
of human beings who lived as fugitives among the insect giants. They
brought them to the plateau, a few at a time. Sportsmen stayed in the
lowlands with modern weapons, hunting enthusiastically, while the
transfer took place.
In all, the _Wapiti_ stayed for two months Earth-time. When it left, its
sportsmen had such trophies as would make them envied of all other
hunters in three star-clusters. They left behind weapons and
atmosphere-fliers and their library and tools. But they took with them
enthusiasm for the sport on the once-forgotten planet, and rather warm
feelings of friendship for Burl.
They sent their friends back. The next ship to come in found a small
city on the plateau, with a population of three hundred souls,--all
civilized by educator. Naturally, they'd had no trouble building
civilized dwellings or practising sanitation, or developing a neatly
adapted culture-pattern for their particular environment. This second
ship brought more weapons and fliers and news from the first party
about commercial demand for the incredibly luxurious moth-fur, to be
found on only one planet in all the galaxy.
The fourth ship to land on the plateau was a trading-ship anxious to
load such furs for recklessly bidding merchants in a dozen
interplanetary marts. There were then nearly a thousand people living on
the plateau. They had a natural monopoly,--not of moth-fur and
butterfly-wing fabric, and panels of irridescent chitin for luxurious
decoration, but--of the strictly practical and detailed knowledge of
insect-habits which made it possible to obtain them. Off-planet visitors
who tried to hunt without local knowledge did not come back from the
lowlands. In time, Burl firmly enacted a planetary law which forbade the
inexperienced to go below the cloud-layer.
Because, of course, a government had to be formed for the planet. But
men with the basic education of citizens everywhere did not fumble it.
They had a job to do which was more important than anybody's vanity. It
was a job which gave deep and abiding satisfaction. When naked,
trembling folk were found in the mushroom-jungles and brought to the
plateau, they had one instant, feverish desire as soon as they got over
the headache from the educator.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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