stop telling them.
At length, Danchekker, who had been noticeably silent through most
of the proceedings and appeared to be growing increasingly
impatient as they continued, obtained leave from the chair to
address the meeting. He rose to his feet, clasped his lapels, and
cleared his throat. “We have devoted as much time as can be excused
to exploring improbable and far-flung suggestions which, as we have
seen, turn out to be fallacious.” He spoke confidently, taking in
the length of the table with side-to-side swings of his body. “The
time has surely come, gentlemen, for us to daily no longer, but to
concentrate our efforts on what must be the only viable line of
reasoning open to us. I state, quite categorically, that the race
of beings to whom we have come to refer as the Lunarians originated
here, on Earth, as did the rest of us. Forget all your fantasies of
visitors from other worlds, interstellar travelers, and the like.
The Lunarians were simply products of a civilization that developed
here on our own planet and died out for reasons we have yet to
determine. What, after all, is so strange about that? Civilizations
have grown and passed away in the brief span of our more orthodox
history, and no doubt others will continue the pattern. This
conclusion follows from comprehensive and consistent evidence and
from the proven principles of the various natural sci
ences. It requires no invention, fabrication, or supposition, but
derives directly from unquestionable facts and the straightforward
application of established methods of inference!’ He paused and
cast his eyes around the table to invite comment.
Nobody commented. They already knew his arguments. Danchekker,
however, seemed about to go through it all again. Evidently he had
concluded that attempts to make them see the obvious by appealing
to their powers of reason alone were not enough; his only resort
then was insistent repetition until they either concurred or went
insane.
Hunt leaned back in his chair, took a cigarette from a box lying
nearby on the table, and tossed his pen down on his pad. He still
had reservations about the professor’s dogmatic attitude, but at
the same time he was aware that Danchekker’s record of academic
distinction was matched by those of few people alive at the time.
Besides, this wasn’t Hunt’s field. His main objection was something
else, a truth he accepted for what it was and made no attempt to
fool himself by rationalizing: Everything about Danchekker
irritated him. Danchekker was too thin; his clothes were too
old-fashioned-he carried them as if they had been hung on to dry.
His anachronistic gold-rimmed spectacles were ridiculous. His
speech was too formal. He had probably never laughed in his life. A
skull vacuum-packed in skin, Hunt thought to himself.
“Allow me to recapitulate,” Danchekker continued. “Homo
sapiens-modern man-belongs to the phylum Vertebrata. So, also, do
all the mammals, fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles that have
ever walked, crawled, flown, slithered, or swum in every corner of
the Earth. All vertebrates share a common pattern of basic
architecture, which has remained unchanged over millions of years
despite the superficial, specialized adaptations that on first
consideration might seem to divide the countless species we see
around us.
“The basic vertebrate pattern is as follows: an internal skeleton
of bone or cartilage and a vertebral colunm. The vertebrate has two
pairs of appendages, which may be highly developed or degenerate,
likewise a tail. It has a ventrally located heart, divided into two
or more chambers, and a closed circulatory system of blood made up
of red cells containing hemoglobin. It has a dorsal nerve cord
which bulges at one end into a five-part brain contained in a head.
It also has a body cavity that contains most of its
vital organs and its digestive system. All vertebrates conform to
these rules and are thereby related.”
The professor paused and looked around as if the conclusion were
too obvious to require summarizing. “In other words, Charlie’s
whole structure shows him to be directly related to a million and
one terrestrial animal species, extinct, alive, or yet to come.
Furthermore, all terrestrial vertebrates, including ourselves and
Charlie, can be traced back through an unbroken succession of