The Pollinators of Eden by John Boyd

Berkeley remarked.
    Gaynor ignored the remark. “I’m taking two members of my management team to Washington with me—you, Doctor Berkeley, because you can support me with the opinion of one who has been there; and you, Doctor Caron, because you weren’t and can support my petition without planetary bias. Thus, you see, my advisory staff will be completely balanced, and you, Doctor Berkeley, might advance a few theories supporting the psychological benignity of Flora, as icing on the cake.”
    “What kind of theories do you want from me, Charles?” Doctor Berkeley grunted, and Freda noticed with horror that he had gone back to his crossword puzzle.
    Gaynor looked at him, vexation flicking behind his composure. “You could shape the picture in a therapeutic direction, say—hit them with a few ideas from the mental-health angle.”
    “I’d have to take that suggestion under careful advisement. I’m not sure of my own reactions yet, and the reactions I’ve gotten from others point toward a few indices indicating earth alienation.”
    “Nonsense, Jim! If any member of Able Section has suffered at all, it’s from a surfeit of honey. There are always a few malcontents in any administrative group… What could you possibly object to?”
    “The few malcontents who’ve tasted honey. I don’t wish to sign any petition that might be construed later as an escape clause… from earth. How much time are you giving us to prepare an opinion?”
    “Ten days is the most I can allow. I want to strike while the iron’s hot, and send the Gaynor Station out with the Charlie Section.”
    “Ten days should be enough, one way or the other.”
    “One way or the other? Are you telling me, Jim, that I can’t unequivocally count on a supporting opinion from your department?”
    “Oh, you can get that… Whatever I come up with, Doctor Youngblood is bound to come up with a dissenting opinion.”
    “Ah, yes,” Gaynor said. “I’ve been favorably impressed by Doctor Youngblood. I think the lad’s managerial timber.”
    From her course in management techniques, Freda knew that Gaynor’s remark was figuratively a knife against Berkeley’s throat. Although she felt empathy for the Frommian, another thought had occurred to her: an experimental station included on its Table of Organization a maximum-care psychiatric ward.
    Although she did not for one minute think Paul aberrant, any man who even considered that orchids might be ambulatory had potentials. “Doctor Gaynor, I would be honored to condense and summarize the findings in favor of the Gaynor Station.”
    Without being dismissed, Doctor Berkeley arose and walked toward the door, grunting as he went, “Yep, beat the Russians!”
    Doctor Gaynor shook his head sadly as the psychiatrist went through the door. “One would think he was presenting the petition. Sometimes I can’t fathom Doctor Berkeley.”
    To that remark Freda breathed a silent “Amen.”
    In four days the mystery of the missing seeds solved itself. Two shoots sprang up from the base of the plant hanging from the rack—shoots with the unmistakable green of Flora. Freda had been so busy planting the seed boxes that the plants were three inches high before she discovered them. She was so excited that when she saw Hal waiting in a cafeteria line the next day she went to tell him.
    He listened with a furrowed brow and said, “Doctor, the male plant was seven feet off the floor and twenty feet away.”
    “I know; that’s why I didn’t find the shoots until yesterday.”
    “You don’t understand,” he said, putting his empty tray down. “The female shot the seeds at the male plant… Is your greenhouse locked?”
    “Yes, but the seeds are glider seeds. They can sail twenty yards. It was an accident that they landed in the pot.”
    “No, ma’am,” he said emphatically. “When a man makes two holes-in-one on a thirty-two-hole course, that’s luck, yes. But at least you can figure the man was shooting