"Yes, I guessed what the Barbarian's cargo consisted of, Ron," Anna returned. "I was working in the fields all the time, seeing those plants, which had never been on Titan before. Not even many of the slaves remembered them, though, since we've all been a long time away from home, and from some of the familiar things, there. But I'm a school teacher, and I know a little about biology, and the common afflictions of humankind. But I kept still, because secrecy might be important. Well, those plants grew like wild-fire, under the stimulating rays of the sun-towers. And I was praying that they'd hurry up and blossom. Callisto's a flowerless world, Ron. Probably that's the big point. With an equal start in their growing, the plants blossomed all at once. And the winds blew, and the plague came. And now we colonists are masters of Titan once more. The Acharians can never threaten us again. Not even if they find a way to face the pestilence with filter-masks and so forth. For we've got the major part of their space fleet to protect us. Do you know what I'm talking about now, Ron? Everybody?"
There was an awed quiet in the listening crowd. Then Bart Mallory whooped suddenly. "I get it!" he shouted in triumph. "Of course! Callistan lungs are huge and delicate and entirely unacclimated to one Earthly condition! Naturally they'd react to it far more violently even than we do! And now Terra is mistress of this section of space! My sun-towers must have helped some, by increasing the normal virulence of the plants. But most of the thanks go to Arne Reynaud, and to you, Anna, and to you, Ron."
Mallory, the scientist, swept his arms out toward the fields. Waving there in the bright artificial sunshine, was a tattery green host of plants, that men of Earth had known and lived with, with considerable discomfort but scant real harm for countless ages.
Was it just the wind that blew that host, making it sway and undulate with a simple grandeur, while huge Saturn looked on? Or was the unseen spirit of Arne Reynaud, the old horticulturist, the old fool, the dreamer and the wizzard, stirring them, too?
Ron Leiccsen scowled, still lost and bogged down with the enigma, as were most of the other listeners. "I guess you've got to draw me a diagram, Anna," he grumbled, shaking his head ruefully. "I know a lot about machinery and space ships and Saturn's Rings, but it looks as though this biological problem goes beyond my depth."
Anna Charles smiled a faint, twisted little smile. "We've been through a lot together, Ronnie," she said wistfully, not caring if the others heard. "We've quarreled a lot, learned an awful lot together, and I think at last found that life could be beautiful for us both. So I can afford to be patient. Now look—"
She bent down. Her little fists clutched a tall, tattery plant, that grew nearby in the grass. Tugging vigorously, she pulled it out. From its top, where there was a cluster of homely golden nodules, there dusted a fine, yellowish powder. Pollen.
Anna's nose wrinkled. Suddenly she sneezed very hard.
"Somebody ought to write some music about this plant, now," she said at last. "It is commonly known as—Ragweed. Some Terrestrials are terribly alergic to it, though nothing like the poor Acharians from flowerless Achar, of course. Its dry pollen, drifting with the summer breeze, causes more—and more violent—hay-fever, than anything else known on Earth!"