"RR Winterbotham - Specialization" - читать интересную книгу автора (Winterbotham R R)

SPECIALIZATION
by R. R. Winterbotham
version 1.0 - scanned from Astounding Stories, August 1937 by drOrlof


A STRANGE regard was in the woman's eyes. It was admiration, undoubtedly, for Ted Riker was young, handsome and quickwitted. But the glance was not all that which a young woman bestows upon an interesting young man who is a guest in her father's home. It was something akin to pity.
Nor was Riker intrigued by Kathryn Von Shuler. She was as ruthless in her manner as a hidden reef, just as hard in her analytical composure and in that note of pity in her glance was a hint of danger.
"Your father said nothing about you in his invitation to visit his laboratory," said Riker, politely. "It is a surprise to learn he has a daughter."
"An agreeable one, I hope?" She smiled. "More agreeable than the general surroundings, at least?"
Riker nodded. "It is rather weird here, with all these stuffed animals and fossils."
She nodded. "We're isolated from town. There are no near neighbors. Father prefers that we live in this way. His experiments are never understood by laymen."
"Yes," agreed Riker. Karl Von Shuler's reputation as a choleric biologist would explain, perhaps, why the scientist was always at odds with every one but himself.
The young woman led Riker into a large room, apparently the ballroom of the old house. Now it was transformed.
"Father will be ready to meet you in a few moments," she explained. "Perhaps you'd like to look around?"
"It's a regular museum!" gasped Riker.
"It is quite an extensive collection of specialized vertebrate types," said the young woman modestly. "Father's a bigwig in the field, you know. But then, you're one, too!"
"My specialty is reptiles. I'm working on an antidote for snake and gila poisons."
"Father goes into all lines - birds, for instance, living and dead. He's proud of that ten-foot fossil moa, his dodo skeleton and other rarities. He prefers spectacular types."
"Birds in the bush, eh? I like mystery, too."
"Personally, I prefer mammals to birds," she went on. "They're more intelligent - closer to the ultimate perfection. Father has some dissectual studies here of the aard-vark. See? That case. He's appended a diagramatic study of the construction of its muzzle and tubular mouth. He's always off the beaten track. Look - koalas, wombats and marsupialia moles from Australia!"
"And not a single garter snake from Indiana?"
"No. But if you're so interested in reptiles, here's a sphenodon from New Zealand. It's the only reptile of its order extant and it's nearly extinct. It has a third eye. See the diagram. The eye is an invertabrate heirloom, resembling the invertebrate eye more than the paired eyes of chordates. In men, what's left of the eye forms the pineal gland and causes migrane headaches."
Miss Von Shuler led the visitor to a section displaying types of extinct, primitive Ungulata.
"It's a Noah's ark of freaks," exclaimed Riker involuntarily. "It's a scientific hodge-podge of side-tracked life!" He gazed, fascinated, at the downwardly directed tusks of a fossil dinotherium giganteum. "His collection is focused on the blind alleys life has traveled in its course toward - did you say 'ultimate perfection'?"
"If you think man is perfection, get the idea out of your head!"
It was almost an ominous voice that echoed in the hall. Ted whirled, startled. In an aisle between near-by specimen cases stood a figure, slender to the point of skinniness, hump-shouldered and shrouded in a black laboratory gown, which halted short of his knees. The man had something of a ludicrous appearance. He was not more than forty, but a beard, accentuating his slim face, made him look older, the grandfather rather than the father of the eighteen-year-old girl standing by Riker. The man could be only one person - Dr. Von Shuler.
"Mr. Riker, I believe?" He smiled sourly and extended his hand. "I'm glad you came."
Ted took the hand. It was soft, clammy.
"My education would not be complete without viewing your collection, doctor," said Riker. "You see, I, like you, am interested in specialization. I study the most specialized of the vertebrates : reptiles. I've often wondered why nature specializes so frequently and why her specialists die. I've read several of your monographs and I believed an exchange of ideas on the subject would be mutually profitable."
Dr. Von Shuler waved his hand deprecatingly. "It is only an apparent mystery - a real one no longer. Mr. Riker, I know the reason for specialization. That is why I accepted your suggestion for an exchange of ideas. That is why I invited you here. I want you to see ten thousand centuries of evolution completed in thirty minutes!"


THE SCIENTIST led the couple through a side door. It was apparent that Dr. Von Shuler's collection did not end in the large room, nor was his assemblage of bizarre animal life all in glass cases. They walked through a glass inclosure. On each side was a garden, teeming with specialized forms.
Alligators and crocodiles basked near shallow pools. Storks and pelicans waded in search of fish. At the far end was a building from which eerie cries of animals reached the ears of the group.
"My zoo." Dr. Von Shuler smiled. "It is one of the most extensive private animal collections in the world."
They entered.
"I overheard your remarks to Kathryn," continued the scientist. "You referred to 'the blind alleys of life.' I was amused. Once I thought that nature never made the same mistake twice. But I was mistaken. Nature often repeats her mistakes.
"The kangaroo, for instance, supports itself like the Iguanodon, one of the better-known genera of dinosaurs. We have flying fish, flying lizards, flying mammals and birds. Even man flies in an airplane. The Triceratops looked something like a rhinoceros.
"We may expect similarities in closely related species. There are lizards that can be distinguished from a snake only by close examination. The glass snake, for instance, which disjoints its tail to escape an enemy, is really a lizard. But in vastly separated branches of the animal kingdom similarities are still found. There are millions of years between the Draco volans, a flying lizard, and the bird or bat or the insect. The bat and the bird are equally unrelated. The worm, the eel and the snake look alike, yet are not the same. The whale and the general run of fishes look like cousins; but even a schoolboy knows that a whale is a mammal."
Ted Riker wrinkled his brow. "There are similarities, of course, doctor. But a biologist can easily point out vast differences in structure."
"I am merely calling attention to certain trends in specialization. The trends are so definite and so recognizable that I dare say on other planets one may find the same general types of animal life that exist here on earth." Dr. Von Shuler led the two into a sun room, inclosed with quartz glass. Scores of monkeys were in glass cages.
Dr. Von Shuler paused before a cage filled with scampering lemurs. "These are prosimii," he explained, "the earliest type of primate. Note the flat nails on all digits of both feet, excepting the second of the hind feet, which are equipped with claws. Biologists contend that a general form of life progressed through this stage. It grew upward, developing along the lines of anthropoidea, hapalidae, cebidae, and so on to man. At various intervals forms were left behind, specialized stragglers such as aboral apes, marmosets, squirrel monkeys, baboons, gorillas. These forms are footprints in the sands of evolution. The original general type may have been different, but undoubtedly these forms sprang from that type as it progressed toward what you have miscalled 'the ultimate perfection.'"
The scientist stopped in front of another cage that was empty, save for electrical apparatus.
"This general form of life now is indistinguishable from man," he continued. "But it exists. Certain groups of men will progress toward a higher stage of evolution. Others will lag behind, leaving another footprint in evolution's sands. It does not matter which individual race fathers the superman of the future. For all races have an equal power to progress."
Riker's eyes twinkled. "I think you have made a misstatement, doctor," said the young biologist. "You have pointed out that some primitive forms of primates failed to progress. Others did. Why did not all forms progress? Why do we have the footprints?"
The doctor smiled. "They lacked the stimulus," he said. "I have caused rapid progress in living forms of such specialized primates as the spider monkeys and capuchins. I did this not in the usual way - in the manner in which fruit flies are exposed to cosmic rays to cause alterations or mutations in their descendants - but by altering the individual itself. I changed the creatures' entire cell structures by artificial fever!"
"The animals survived such treatment?" Riker was excited.
A low voice answered. It was Kathryn who spoke. "Most of the poor brutes lived only a week or two," she said. "One specimen has lived several years and is still alive."