Flowering Evil

Captain Bjornson shook a grizzled head. "I never saw a plant I liked the looks of less," he said. "I don't know how he got it through the planetary plant quarantine. You take my advice, Amy, and watch out for it." He took another of the little geela nut cookies from the quaint old lucite platter, and bit into it appreciatively.

Mrs. Dinsmore sniffed, "I don't know what you're driving at," she said coldly, "or why you're so prejudiced against my poor little Rambler. You know perfectly well that Robert would never send me anything the least bit dangerous."

Captain Bjornson paused with another cookie half-way to his lips and looked at her. "Wouldn't send you anything dangerous!" he exclaimed. "Why, Amy, have you forgotten how your face was swelled up for two weeks from that tree cutting he sent you? The doctor said it was a contact poison worse than sumach, and he tried to get you to go to the hospital. What about the time that cactus from the Blue Desert went to seed, and I spent thirty-six hours picking spines out of you? What about--" Mrs. Dinsmore gave a warning sniff.

"Well, all right," Bjornson said. "I know how fond you are of Bob, and I know you don't like me to mention his mistakes. I'll grant you he means well. So what? He's flighty, scatter-brained, and brash. To use an expression that was current when I was a boy, Bob is a twerp."

Mrs. Dinsmore pulled the lucite platter so far over to her own side of the table that Bjornson couldn't get another cookie from it without getting up and stretching out along the table cloth. "I don't agree with you," she said distantly. "Robert is a splendid fellow, so thoughtful and considerate. He takes a real interest in my soap carvings, and how many young men with an important position like his, third mate on a space freighter with a regularly scheduled run, would remember to send back plants from every port of call to an aunt on earth? I shouldn't be surprised if I won a blue ribbon at the flower show again this year; my Golden Rain plant is about to bloom. Robert tells me it's a lovely thing."

The captain cast a wistful look at the cookie plate. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you," he replied. "When's Bob due in port?"

Mrs. Dinsmore's face relaxed. "Around the twenty-fifth," she said, "he sent me a 'gram. Here, have another cookie. I must think up some little thing to cook for him as a surprise."

The captain snaffled a handful of cookies from the plate and stood up to go. "Your ordinary cooking's good enough for me," he declared, "but, if you mean something like those little shrimps fried in batter you had the last time he was here, go ahead. And watch for that plant." He stalked off across the lawn.

He's getting old, thought Amy Dinsmore, watching the gruff old codger limp around a flower bed (Bjornson had had prosthetic surgery after he lost his foot and, though it had been successful, grafts were never as flexible as natural members), positively old. He ought to see a geriatrician right away. She'd tell him so the next time he came to see her. Talking about Robert that way!

She set the dial on the robot gardener on the front lawn to "Weeding: dandelions" and started along the path that led to the little hothouse where most of the plants Robert had sent her were growing; even in the deep tropics Terra was, with few exceptions, too cold and dry for them. The Martian subjects, on the other hand, were in a psychroplex lean-to, with hygro-scopes and a battery of infra-red lamps to keep the temperature up during the day.