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                              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 overdrive
at 018970 hours in orbit around an ugly-looking A3-type planet, and
there was his ship below me.

I slammed my cruiser down right alongside--hard enough to pulverize a
couple 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 I
climbed out of the cruiser. The old fool had his helmet off and was
breathing in the foul atmosphere as if it were health gas. His gills
had begun to turn a little blue from the methane and CO2. He was a
character all right.

His name wasn't really Pop, of course. I guess the nickname had been
tacked on because he was such an eccentric, old codger, and because
he looked like a couple of billion years old. Actually, of course, he
wasn't nearly that old.

"Welcome aboard planet," he said. "I kind of figured you'd be along
sooner or later. Or someone like you."

"Well, I'm here," I said. He looked harmless, but I kept a 201R
projector on him just in case. Pop had given Security Division a lot of
trouble, and I had strict orders.

I crawled over to his ship and slid inside. The cabin looked neat
enough, but the old fool had so much junk crammed into the ship you
could hardly turn around. I found what I was looking for toward the
bow--row after row of cylindrical canisters. I broke one open and the
bio-detector on my back began to stutter like crazy. I dropped it and
sprayed them all until they glowed dull green. By then the contents
were cooked.

       *       *       *       *       *

Pop was still standing in the same place when I crawled out, looking as
casual as you please. He only had a few eyes on me. Most of them he had
turned toward the planet's oversize satellite and a raw, angry-looking
sea 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 around
his ship and found the reason he was looking so innocent. He'd already
set up one of his canisters and the seal was about to break. I sprayed
it. So much for several billion one-celled forms of life bottled under
pressure.

"All right," I said. "That's the last of them. Let's get going."

"Okay," said Pop. "Never argue with Security Division. Still, you've
got to admit I gave you a good run for your money. And I seeded quite
a mess of planets."

I shouldn't have done it, but I was angry. I snapped a claw across his
nerve center before he could draw it back into his shell. It must have
hurt plenty, because ten or twelve of his eyes began to water.

"Seeded, hell!" I said. "You touched down on exactly 9080 planets, and
I sterilized every one of them after you left. That's what took me so
long."

He seemed to shrink a little inside, and for the first time I realized
just 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. "Central
Maxim 0438 clearly states that no life is to be introduced into the
outer galaxies. And don't ask me why. I'm no biologist. I just follow
orders."

"Listen," said Pop. "_Please_ listen. Back at Central Galaxy they think
we--our race--is pretty much immortal. But they don't _know_. They
don't know for sure if _any_ life will be left in our galaxy after two
or three hundred wars like the last one and--"

"Hold it," I said. "You're wasting your time. I'm not a philosopher and
you know it."

"That's right," said Pop. "And you're not a biologist, either. You
told me." He waved a claw in gesture of resignation number seven.
"Well, maybe you're right. Maybe I have been an old fool. Let's go
home. No use hanging around an ugly planet like this one." He made
gesture of contempt number fifteen.

Well, I thought, that's a relief. Maybe the old geezer wasn't as crazy
as I'd figured. Maybe he just needed some sense slapped into him. At
any rate, he didn't make any trouble when I disintegrated his ship--the
old crate wasn't spaceworthy to begin with--and he climbed into my
cruiser meek as could be.

       *       *       *       *       *

I put the drive in low and pulled out of the system. The next
planet--Pop had landed on the third--was going through G14
disintegration into asteroids, but I eased through without any trouble
and began to pick up speed.

Just then Pop swung around in his seat and made good-luck gesture eight
and long-life gesture twelve toward the planet we'd left.

I stared at him. "I don't get it," I said. "Just a while ago you
agreed that was an ugly hunk of rock. You even made contempt gesture
fifteen--you spat on it."

"That's right," said Pop. "I did, didn't I? Right into a pool of
brackish water." Then he began to chuckle. He kept on chuckling for
five years, until I got annoyed and slapped his nerve center again.

Aside from that, the return voyage was uneventful.