“I don’t want to sound overskeptical,” he said at last, “but all
this seems rather speculative. Such references could well be to
nothing more than mythical creations-similar to our own heroes of
folklore.”
“That occurred to me, too,” Hunt conceded. “But thinking about it,
I’m not so sure. The Lunarians were the last word in
pragmatism-they had no time for romanticism, religion, matters of
the spirit, or anything like that. In the situation they were in,
the only people who could help them were themselves, and they knew
it. They couldn’t afford the luxury and the delusion of in-venting
gods, heroes, and Father Christmases to work their problems out for
them.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe the Lunarians made up
any legends about these Giants. That would have been too much out
of character.”
“Very well,” Danchekker agreed, returning to his meal. “The
Lunarians were aware of the prior existence of the Ganymeans. I
suspect, however, that you had more than that in mind when you
called.”
“You’re right,” Hunt said. “While I was going through the texts, I
pulled together some other bits and pieces that are more in your
line.”
“Go on.”
“Well, supposing for the moment that the Ganymeans did ship a whole
zoo out to Minerva, the Lunarian biologists later on would have had
a hell of a problem making any sense out of what they found all
around them, wouldn’t they? I mean, with two different groups of
animals loose about the place, totally unrelated
-and bearing in mind that they couldn’t have known what we know
about terrestrial species. .”
“Worse than that, even,” Danchekker supplied. “They would have been
able to trace the native Minervan species all the way back to their
origins; the imported types, however, would extend back through
only twenty-five million years or so. Before that, there would have
been no record of any ancestors from which they could have
descended.”
“That’s precisely one of the things I wanted to ask you,” Hunt
said. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table.
“Suppose you were a Lunarian biologist and knew only the facts he
would have known. What sort of picture would it have added up to?”
Danchekker stopped chewing and thought for a long time, his eyes
staring far beyond where Hunt was sitting. At length he shook his
head slowly.
“That is a very diflicult question to answer. In that situation one
might, I suppose, speculate that the Ganymeans had introduced alien
species. But on the other hand, that is what a biologist from Earth
would think; he would be conditioned to expect a continuous fossil
record stretching back over hundreds of millions of years. A
Lunarian, without any such conditioning, might not regard the
absence of a complete record as in any way abnormal. If that was
part of the accepted way of things in the world in which he had
grown up. . .”
Danchekker’s voice faded away for a few seconds. “If I were a
Lunarian,” he said suddenly, his voice decisive, “I would explain
what I saw thus: Life began in the distant past on Minerva, evolved
through the accepted process of mutation and selection, and
branched into many diverse forms. About twenty-five million years
ago, a particularly violent series of mutations occurred in a short
time, out of which emerged a new family of forms, radically
different in structure from anything before. This family branched
to produce its own divergency of species, living alongside the
older models, and culminating in the emergence of the Lunarians
themselves. Yes, I would explain the new appearances in that way.
It’s similar to the appearance of insects on Earth-a whole family
in itself, structurally dissimilar to anything else.” He thought it
over again for a second and then nodded firmly. “Certainly,
compared to an explanation of that nature, suggestions of forced
interplanetary migrations would appear very farfetched indeed.”
“I was hoping you’d say something like that.” Hunt nodded,
satisfied. “In fact, that’s very much what they appear to have
believed. It’s not specifically stated in anything I’ve read, but
odds and ends from different places add up to that. But there’s
something odd about it as well.”