THE SEEDER
By MAX WILLIAMS
Being just plain Pop was not enough—he
was bucking for All-Fatherhood.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
It took me less than three thousand years to catch up with Pop; which,all things considered, was pretty good going. I came out of overdriveat 018970 hours in orbit around an ugly-looking A3-type planet, andthere was his ship below me.
I slammed my cruiser down right alongside—hard enough to pulverize acouple of feet of basalt and make Pop and his ship bounce a little.He'd put me to quite a bit of trouble and I was annoyed.
Pop got to his feet and stood there looking kind of sheepish as Iclimbed out of the cruiser. The old fool had his helmet off and wasbreathing in the foul atmosphere as if it were health gas. His gillshad begun to turn a little blue from the methane and CO2. He was acharacter all right.
His name wasn't really Pop, of course. I guess the nickname had beentacked on because he was such an eccentric, old codger, and becausehe looked like a couple of billion years old. Actually, of course, hewasn't nearly that old.
"Welcome aboard planet," he said. "I kind of figured you'd be alongsooner or later. Or someone like you."
"Well, I'm here," I said. He looked harmless, but I kept a 201Rprojector on him just in case. Pop had given Security Division a lot oftrouble, and I had strict orders.
I crawled over to his ship and slid inside. The cabin looked neatenough, but the old fool had so much junk crammed into the ship youcould hardly turn around. I found what I was looking for toward thebow—row after row of cylindrical canisters. I broke one open and thebio-detector on my back began to stutter like crazy. I dropped it andsprayed them all until they glowed dull green. By then the contentswere cooked.
Pop was still standing in the same place when I crawled out, looking ascasual as you please. He only had a few eyes on me. Most of them he hadturned toward the planet's oversize satellite and a raw, angry-lookingsea that was breaking a few ship's-lengths away.
"How'd you catch up with me?" he asked.
"Space warp. You left a trail a child could follow." I moved aroundhis ship and found the reason he was looking so innocent. He'd alreadyset up one of his canisters and the seal was about to break. I sprayedit. So much for several billion one-celled forms of life bottled underpressure.
"All right," I said. "That's the last of them. Let's get going."
"Okay," said Pop. "Never argue with Security Division. Still, you'vegot to admit I gave you a good run for your money. And I seeded quitea mess of planets."
I shouldn't have done it, but I was angry. I snapped a claw across hisnerve center before he could draw it back into his shell. It must havehurt plenty, because ten or twelve of his eyes began to water.
"Seeded, hell!" I said. "You touched down on exactly 9080 planets, andI sterilized every one of them after you left. That's what took me solong."
He seemed to shrink a little inside, and for the first time I realizedjust how old the nut really was.
"All that time," he said. "All that effort wasted. Damn. Double damn."
"You should have figured that in the first place," I said. "CentralMaxim 0438 clearl