The Thing from Another World Page #5

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to have 30,000 dinners...

Then he's not a wolf anymore?

That's fine philosophy.

So you really want your hands untied.

Just when everything was nice and peaceful.

You know, I'm glad we decided

to start over again. I like it.

- I like that too.

- Talk about Japanese tortures.

No, not at all. I think this

was a great idea.

Come here.

Well, look at you...

...sitting there like a civilized man instead

of grabbing around like a throwback.

If you weren't tied up, I wouldn't dare

have told you how much I liked you.

You know, Pat, the trouble with you is that

you don't know anything about women.

What a woman wants is to...

Is to...

- How long have you been loose?

- Long enough.

It's been a very interesting evening.

Good night, Miss Nicholson.

- Pat, if you walk out on me like this...

- I wouldn't go, except I gotta check up.

Get a good night's sleep.

I'll see you in the morning.

It's the eyes being open that gets you.

Makes you feel so...

Hi, Pat. Barnes just got here. Sure glad

I'm not looking at that guy anymore.

- All set, Barnes?

- Yes, sir.

- Got an electric flying suit and coffee.

- Bob will relieve you at 2400.

- Take it easy.

- Yeah.

That's better.

Capt. Hendry! Capt. Hendry!

Capt. Hendry.

What's the matter, corporal?

Where's the captain? I've got to tell him

that thing's alive. I saw it.

It chased me. It's not dead. It's...

Capt. Hendry!

That thing's alive, sir.

I saw it. I shot at it. I hit it, I know it.

Nothing happened. It kept coming at me,

making a noise like a cat meowing.

If you could have seen those hands and

those eyes! You've got to do something...

Mac, Bob, get some guns.

Now, Barnes, what happened?

I'm sorry, sir. I don't know exactly, but all of

a sudden it was alive and coming at me.

I shot at it and hit it.

Nothing happened, so I ran...

- Easy, easy.

- I'm sorry, sir.

- Here, captain.

- Take care of him. Will you?

Get back to sleep.

Get back with the rest of them.

- What could've...?

- Kid said he was alive. I believe him.

I knew it. All the time I was here,

I could feel it.

Here's what did it.

This blanket was on. It's still warm.

- He got out of here, all right.

- Get parkas, boots and a flashlight!

- Listen. They'll tear him to pieces.

- We must save him.

Hold it, doctor. You'll freeze to death

in five minutes. Use your head!

- I expect you're right. I was overanxious.

- Look over here, captain!

- I think I've got yours.

- May I have one, captain?

Better let us go, doctor.

- Doc, can you see anything out there?

- Not much.

- You all set?

- Let her go.

Captain, it would help if you, any of you,

would describe what you saw out there.

It was too cold to see well,

but the dogs had him down.

- He got up with three hanging on his arm.

- He threw one at the rest.

- Two were dead.

- Looked like they'd been through a chopper.

- Where did you find the arm?

- Partly under one of them.

Could dogs tear off an arm?

This kind of an arm.

- Be careful, doctor. Those barbs are sharp.

- Seems to be a sort of chitinous substance.

Speak English.

Something between a beetle's back

and a rose thorn.

- Thorn-fingered?

- Amazingly strong.

- Very effective as a weapon.

- Very.

We don't have to worry about that. An arm

off and out in that cold, he's dead now.

Got along fine in a block of ice

for 24 hours.

- Pretty spry for a guy with 12 dogs on him.

- And for losing an arm.

- I'm losing my mind.

- Amazing, isn't it?

- Amazingly strong.

- Strange.

- I'm sure of it.

- That is blood on the hand. Isn't it?

- Yes, but not his.

- Probably from one of the dogs.

There's no blood in the arm,

no animal tissue.

Dr. Stern, would you have a look at this

under the microscope?

No, Mr. Scott. I doubt very much if it

can die, as we understand dying.

- Holy cat!

- Yes.

Well, doctor?

No arterial structure indicated.

No nerve endings visible.

Porous, unconnected cellular growth.

Just a minute, doctor. Sounds like

you're trying to describe a vegetable.

- I am. Are you getting all of this?

- Oh, for Pete's sake!

You know, doctor, that could be why

Sgt. Barnes' bullets had no effect.

- That's right.

- Merely holes drilled into vegetable matter.

This green fluid here.

- Like plant sap.

- We'll probably find it has a sugar base.

Please, doctor, I've got to ask this.

It sounds like, well... Just as though

you're describing some form of super carrot.

That's nearly right, Mr. Scott.

This carrot, as you call it, has constructed an

aircraft capable of flying millions of miles...

...propelled by a force

as yet unknown to us.

- An intellectual carrot. The mind boggles.

- It shouldn't.

Imagine how strange it would have seemed

during the Pliocene age...

...to forecast that worms, fish, lizards that

crawled over the Earth would evolve into us.

On the planet from which our visitor came...

...vegetable life underwent an evolution

similar to that of our own animal life...

...which would account

for the superiority of its brain.

Its development was not handicapped

by emotional or sexual factors.

Dr. Carrington, you won the Nobel Prize.

You've received every kind of kudos

a scientist can attain.

If you were for sale, I could get a million

bucks for you from any foreign government.

I'm not, therefore, gonna stick my neck out

and say you're stuffed full...

...of wild blueberry muffins. But I promise

you, my readers are gonna think so.

Not for long, Mr. Scott. Not if they know

anything about the flora of their own planet.

You mean there are vegetables

right here on Earth that can think?

A certain kind of thinking, yes.

You ever hear of the telegraph vine?

- Not recently.

- Or the...

- Is it the acanthus century plant, Dr. Stern?

- Yes.

Go ahead, doctor. That's your field.

Well, the century plant catches mice,

bats, squirrels, any small mammals.

Uses a sweet syrup as bait,

then holds onto its catch and feeds on it.

What's the telegraph vine?

The vine, research has proven, can signal

to other vines of the same species...

...vines 20 to 100 miles away.

Intelligence in plants and vegetables

is an old story, Mr. Scott.

Older even than the animal arrogance

that has overlooked it.

- That's one for Ripley.

- Look here.

I took this from under the soft tissue

in the palm of the hand.

- A seedpod.

- Seedpod?

Yes. The neat and unconfused

reproductive technique of vegetation.

No pain or pleasure as we know it.

No emotions...

...no heart.

Our superior. Our superior in every way.

Gentlemen, do you realize

what we've found?

A being from another world as different

from us as one pole from the other.

If we can only communicate with it...

...we can learn secrets that have been

hidden from mankind since the beginning...

Holy cat. It's moving.

- Miss Nicholson.

- Yes, doctor?

At 12:
10 a.m., the hand became alive.

The temperature of the forearm

showed a 20-degree rise.

Because of this rise in temperature,

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