for the green… May I have your key?”
“What do you want the key for?”
“To stop a murder! When did you last see the shoots?”
“Yesterday afternoon. But if you think something’s wrong, I’ll go over with you.”
“All you can do is unlock the door, but let’s go.”
As they cut across the lawn, she had to hurry to match his long stride. When she opened the door, he took the pot from its hook and brought it to the table by the doorway. Two tiny tulips with perfectly formed blooms had stood at the foot of the adult plant, and the female still stood. The male had fallen limply to the sod. Hal looked down and said, “Well, he got it.”
“Paul told me the male root system drained the sod of chemicals necessary to other males,” Freda said.
“Paul didn’t want to upset you, but I’m not so sensitive. Look at this!”
He probed beneath the root system of the dead tulip with his finger. Cupping the bloom in his palm, he pulled the tiny stalk from the sod. Clinging to its roots was a tightly compressed nodule of extenders from the root system of the larger tulip that had destroyed the small male.
As if he were laying out the body of a dead child, Hal placed the tulip on the table and stood back, hands on hips, and said, “The big bull killed his competition early.”
Sensing that he was emotionally shaken, she said, “Purely a behavioristic response to chemical stimuli in the root systems, Hal. The tulips can’t think.”
“Freda, you’re choking on your own methodology,” he said. “The big brute killed the baby. Of course it was a behavioristic response to chemical stimuli. What else is thinking?”
Silence was the better part of discretion, she reasoned, but she knew that disappointment had blunted his perception. Looking down at the tulip, burnished by the sunlight, she knew such beauty could never wantonly destroy other beauty.
“Maybe I am oversensitive,” Hal said, “but I have a feeling for miniature plants. I’m going to Bakersfield Saturday to a bonsai exhibition. The tulip wasn’t dwarfed. It was just a baby, but it would have caused a sensation.”
He was coming out of his grief, and she offered, “You were right about the rare earths. Chemical analysis of the dead tulip showed an unusual rate of phosphorus, fluorine, and potassium, also. Of course, such analyses reveal nothing of the life-support system.”
“Yes,” he said. “When I feel egotistical I remind myself that I’m essentially nothing more than a bucket of water.”
He rehung the tulips and locked the door for her, saying, “Doctor, you might be interested in the bonsai exhibit. Would you care to join me Saturday? I heard you were going to Washington… If you’re not committed to Doctor Gaynor’s program, I’ve had second thoughts about Flora. I guess that was my real reason for wanting you to join me.”
“I keep an open mind, of course. But so far, all the reports that I’ve summarized on the Planet of Flowers have been favorable.”
“I know,” he said. “The specialists can’t see over the walls of their specialties… And I’m only a poor druid priest.”
Walking along beside him, she did not have to ask where he had gotten information on a trip that had not been announced officially. On checking the bulletin board in the ladies’ lounge this morning, she had read the scrawled notation, “Charlie’s going to do it to Freda, without love, when they get to Washington.”
“Somehow or other,” Hal said, “I’ve got the idea that Doctor Gaynor’s experimental station may turn out to be a Siberia for Bureau employees who don’t measure up to the doctor’s standards of administrative excellence, and I’d resign from the profession before I’d go back.”
Here was an attitude quite different from the earth alienation that Doctor Berkeley had feared. Freda alerted to an opportunity. “I would like to hear a dissenting opinion,” she remarked, “particularly from a druid priest.
“What do you want the key for?”
“To stop a murder! When did you last see the shoots?”
“Yesterday afternoon. But if you think something’s wrong, I’ll go over with you.”
“All you can do is unlock the door, but let’s go.”
As they cut across the lawn, she had to hurry to match his long stride. When she opened the door, he took the pot from its hook and brought it to the table by the doorway. Two tiny tulips with perfectly formed blooms had stood at the foot of the adult plant, and the female still stood. The male had fallen limply to the sod. Hal looked down and said, “Well, he got it.”
“Paul told me the male root system drained the sod of chemicals necessary to other males,” Freda said.
“Paul didn’t want to upset you, but I’m not so sensitive. Look at this!”
He probed beneath the root system of the dead tulip with his finger. Cupping the bloom in his palm, he pulled the tiny stalk from the sod. Clinging to its roots was a tightly compressed nodule of extenders from the root system of the larger tulip that had destroyed the small male.
As if he were laying out the body of a dead child, Hal placed the tulip on the table and stood back, hands on hips, and said, “The big bull killed his competition early.”
Sensing that he was emotionally shaken, she said, “Purely a behavioristic response to chemical stimuli in the root systems, Hal. The tulips can’t think.”
“Freda, you’re choking on your own methodology,” he said. “The big brute killed the baby. Of course it was a behavioristic response to chemical stimuli. What else is thinking?”
Silence was the better part of discretion, she reasoned, but she knew that disappointment had blunted his perception. Looking down at the tulip, burnished by the sunlight, she knew such beauty could never wantonly destroy other beauty.
“Maybe I am oversensitive,” Hal said, “but I have a feeling for miniature plants. I’m going to Bakersfield Saturday to a bonsai exhibition. The tulip wasn’t dwarfed. It was just a baby, but it would have caused a sensation.”
He was coming out of his grief, and she offered, “You were right about the rare earths. Chemical analysis of the dead tulip showed an unusual rate of phosphorus, fluorine, and potassium, also. Of course, such analyses reveal nothing of the life-support system.”
“Yes,” he said. “When I feel egotistical I remind myself that I’m essentially nothing more than a bucket of water.”
He rehung the tulips and locked the door for her, saying, “Doctor, you might be interested in the bonsai exhibit. Would you care to join me Saturday? I heard you were going to Washington… If you’re not committed to Doctor Gaynor’s program, I’ve had second thoughts about Flora. I guess that was my real reason for wanting you to join me.”
“I keep an open mind, of course. But so far, all the reports that I’ve summarized on the Planet of Flowers have been favorable.”
“I know,” he said. “The specialists can’t see over the walls of their specialties… And I’m only a poor druid priest.”
Walking along beside him, she did not have to ask where he had gotten information on a trip that had not been announced officially. On checking the bulletin board in the ladies’ lounge this morning, she had read the scrawled notation, “Charlie’s going to do it to Freda, without love, when they get to Washington.”
“Somehow or other,” Hal said, “I’ve got the idea that Doctor Gaynor’s experimental station may turn out to be a Siberia for Bureau employees who don’t measure up to the doctor’s standards of administrative excellence, and I’d resign from the profession before I’d go back.”
Here was an attitude quite different from the earth alienation that Doctor Berkeley had feared. Freda alerted to an opportunity. “I would like to hear a dissenting opinion,” she remarked, “particularly from a druid priest.
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