“How long ago was that?” asked the Doctor.—“I mean for how long has the animal and vegetable world here been able to communicate with one another?”
“Precisely,” said the vines, “we can’t tell you. Of course some sort of communication goes back a perfectly enormous long way, some hundreds of thousands of years. But it was not always as good as it is now. It has been improving all the time. Nowadays it would be impossible for anything of any importance at all to happen in our corner of the Moon without its being passed along through plants and trees and insects and birds to every other corner of our globe within a few moments. For instance we have known almost every movement you and your party have made since you landed in our world.”
“Dear me!” muttered the Doctor. “I had no idea. However, please proceed.”
“Of course,” they went on, “it was not always so. But after the institution of the Council communication and cooperation became much better and continued to grow until it reached its present stage.”
THE EIGHTEENTH CHAPTER
The President
The Whispering Vines then went on to tell the Doctor in greater detail of that institution which they had vaguely spoken of already, “The Council.” This was apparently a committee or general government made up of members from both the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms. Its main purpose was to regulate life on the Moon in such a way that there should be no more warfare. For example, if a certain kind of shrub wanted more room for expansion, and the territory it wished to take over was already occupied by, we’ll say, bullrushes, it was not allowed to thrust out its neighbors without first submitting the case to the Council. Or if a certain kind of butterfly wished to feed upon the honey of some flower and was interfered with by a species of bee or beetle, again the argument had to be put to the vote of this all-powerful committee before any action could be taken.
This information explained a great deal which had heretofore puzzled us.
“You see, Stubbins,” said the Doctor, “the great size of almost all life here, the development of intelligence in plant forms, and much more besides, could not possibly have come about if this regulation had not been in force. Our world could learn a lot from the Moon, Stubbins—the Moon, its own child whom it presumes to despise! We have no balancing or real protection of life. With us it is, and always has been, ‘dog eat dog.’ ”
The Doctor shook his head and gazed off into space to where the globe of our mother Earth glowed dimly. Just so had I often seen the Moon from Puddleby by daylight.
