Plot: 7/9. It’s a fiery confrontation between two species meeting for the first time. As usual, humanity who were less powerful yet more intelligent discovered the blind spots of the enemy and thus won the day. The principle used here was simple but classical yet I indeed failed to guess it out.
People mistook mangors as innocuous shrubbery and consequently crushed its branches into its middle for specimens. In retaliation, mangors hence lifted their all-terrain vehicle up, squeezed and reverse it, which were their standard strategies against their primordial enemies. But all-terrain vehicle was so sturdy that those methods proved futile.
Human’s first attempt to save their stranded colleagues by using their lethal plasma rifles to clear a way was thwarted by mangors’ intentional ambush. When mangors sensed merely the squeeze was unable to annihilate their prisoners, it released erosive juice which dissolved the upper layer of their space suits. To agitate the case, the last free man was caught while rushing out towards crying hostages.
At the critical moment, the biologist in the all-terrain vehicle observed that giant water lice eating leaves inside mangors remained undisturbed by their ongoing warfare. Moreover, mangors appeared too fatigued to lift their new captive up now.
Seizing the opportunity, the biologist ventured outside the vehicle and crawled through mangors, which proved that mangors could not detect what kinds of tiny creature abode inside them just as in normal conditions, human were unconscious of the existence of microbes within their own bodies.
Soon all the passengers came out and liberated their hapless mates—a scene strikingly reminiscent of the sculpture of Laocoon.
Eventually, the hurricane foreshadowed at the beginning of the article bonged the death knell of mangors bent on holding their all-terrain vehicle.
Core: 7/9. I’m particularly interested in science fiction with elements of puzzles, mysteries and adventure. This is why this story indeed turned me on with its detailed observations, dramatic conflicts and reasonable but unexpected solutions, although this concise ending was not vivid enough for me.
Character: 6/9. I would give a higher score if other characters were described with more detail. Although the biologist here was admirable with his incredulous adaptability, intrepid experiment and psychological activity:
In particular, one had to realize that mankind’s omnipotence was not in his strength or in the powerful forms of energy he had mastered, or in the complexity of its machines….It was not even in its wisdom: It was to be found in the flexibility, breadth, and farsightedness of his thought. Another prejudice: One had to be aware that a tactic that had worked a thousand times would not definitely work the thousand and first. And another: One had to clear one’s mind of the idea that human beings are always rational, when in fact they are only rational when they can seize and assess something new and rebuild their former image of the world, and act in accordance with reality, whatever that might now be.