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.