Free The Loafers of Refuge by Joseph Green

create an ill will that would be long in dying. At the same time he could not permit them to kill Kronstadt, not only because he was a fellow Earthman and farmer but because the Controlling powers of the Loafers were too well known. They would have to answer for their actions, and the results would be catastrophic for Loafer-Colonist relationships. Legally, Kronstadt had acted completely within his rights.
    “Hold! Instead of one life I will give you many,” Carey said loudly, raising his hand for attention. “I can make the breshwahr live again!”
    Kronstadt took two more jerky steps, perilously close to the whirling blade. Carey tensed himself to lunge at the three Controllers, though he had waited almost too long, and then Kronstadt stopped. He swayed visibly for a moment, then collapsed in a sobbing heap on the ground.
    There was a faint look of reproach on the Councillor’s face as he met Carey’s eyes. The younger man lowered his own in embarrassment. For a moment he had forgotten that he was dealing with Loafers, had ascribed to them the Earthman’s emotion of hate, an Earthman’s desire for vengeance. To the Loafers life was a sacred thing, never taken unnecessarily. They had not intended to kill Kronstadt, only frighten him.And judging by his hysterical weeping they had succeeded in a way he would never forget.
    Two hours later, when Harper guided the flitter to a stop in the field nearest the sacred grove, Kronstadt had recovered his self-control and gone. The breshwahr had stopped bleeding and was already turning brown. Evidently its circulation system and life processes were many times faster than those of a normal plant. And the Head Councillor, whose feebleness had caused him to fall behind his companions, had joined the other Loafers and been brought up to date on developments.
    Doreen was carrying a thick paper bag when she and Harper joined the others. She offered it to Carey with a happy grin, and he opened it and examined the contents. It was full of a white, gritty substance that resembled fine salt.
    “This had better be it, Sis,” said Carey fervently as he led them to the nearest breshwahr and began to dig with Harper’s shovel. He soon found a tender rootlet leading from the tree towards the peanut field. He sprinkled it lightly with the salt and then replaced the dirt. “Get in touch with it, Timmy, and see if we’ve guessed right,” he suggested.
    “But it takes hours—” Doreen started to protest, and then fell silent. It took hours for an ordinary tree’s metabolism to examine and accept or reject the material its roots encountered. This would not be true for the breshwahr. And she found herself wondering just how the intelligent tree differed from its fellow plants in physical structure. It would be interesting to examine the fallen giant, if she could get permission.
    Timmy lay flat again and closed his eyes. This time the contact seemed to be much easier. Apparently communing with plants, whose slower rate of doing everything, including thinking, made, them hard to contact, got easier as you grew accustomed to it.
    Timmy lay still for only a moment, then rose to his feet. “That is the salt, Carey.”
    “Doreen, what is it? How did you find it?” demanded Carey.
    Doreen smiled happily. “It wasn’t hard, once Sam made us realize it almost had to be in the fertilizer. As you know, we mine calcium fluorophosphate, or rock phosphate as it’s commonly called, and treat it with imported sulphuric acid to break it down to monocalcium phosphate and calcium sulphate, which are soluble in water. We’ve found through trial and error that river-bottom land will yield a much better first peanut crop if the land is dusted with superphosphate before you plant, and that’s why the handbook recommends it. At the fertilizer plant we found that Refuge is low in the element boron. The native plants have learned to get along without boron salts, but peanuts, and any other crop from Earth,