All the world considered
him the greatest scientist of all time--except, of course, the people
who knew something about science. But the first actual voyagers in space
had become immediately greater heroes than himself. It was intolerable
to Dabney to be restricted to taking bows on programs in which they
starred. So he wrote a star part for himself.
The bearded biologist who followed him was to have lectured on the
pictures and reports forwarded to him beforehand. But he could not
ignore so promising a lead to show how much he knew. So he lectured
authoritatively on the danger of extra-terrestrial disease-producing
organisms being introduced on Earth. He painted a lurid picture, quoting
from the history of pre-sanitation epidemics. He wound up with a
specific prophecy of something like the Black Death of the middle ages
as lurking among the stars to decimate humanity. He was a victim of the
well-known authority-trauma which affects some people on television when
they think millions of other people are listening to them. They depart
madly from their scripts to try to say something startling enough to
justify all the attention they're getting.
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