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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/35425-h.zip b/35425-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..390144f --- /dev/null +++ b/35425-h.zip diff --git a/35425-h/35425-h.htm b/35425-h/35425-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7eef705 --- /dev/null +++ b/35425-h/35425-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2892 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<!-- $Id: header.txt 236 2009-12-07 18:57:00Z vlsimpson $ --> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mad Planet, by Murray Leinster. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mad Planet, by Murray Leinster + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Mad Planet + +Author: Murray Leinster + +Release Date: February 28, 2011 [EBook #35425] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAD PLANET *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + +<h1>THE MAD PLANET</h1> + +<h2>by Murray Leinster</h2> + +<h3>The Argosy</h3> + +<h3><i>June 12, 1920</i></h3> + + +<p>In All His lifetime of perhaps twenty years, it had never occurred to +Burl to wonder what his grandfather had thought about his surroundings. +The grandfather had come to an untimely end in a rather unpleasant +fashion which Burl remembered vaguely as a succession of screams coming +more and more faintly to his ears while he was being carried away at the +top speed of which his mother was capable.</p> + +<p>Burl had rarely or never thought of the old gentleman since. Surely +he had never wondered in the abstract of what his great grandfather +thought, and most surely of all, there never entered his head +such a purely hypothetical question as the one of what his +many-times-great-grandfather—say of the year 1920—would have thought +of the scene in which Burl found himself.</p> + +<p>He was treading cautiously over a brownish carpet of fungus growth, +creeping furtively toward the stream which he knew by the generic title +of "water." It was the only water he knew. Towering far above his head, +three man-heights high, great toadstools hid the grayish sky from his +sight. Clinging to the foot-thick stalks of the toadstools were still +other fungi, parasites upon the growth that had once been parasites +themselves.</p> + +<p>Burl himself was a slender young man wearing a single garment twisted +about his waist, made from the wing-fabric of a great moth the members +of his tribe had slain as it emerged from its cocoon. His skin was fair, +without a trace of sunburn. In all his lifetime he had never seen the +sun, though the sky was rarely hidden from view save by the giant fungi +which, with monster cabbages, were the only growing things he knew. +Clouds usually spread overhead, and when they did not, the perpetual +haze made the sun but an indefinitely brighter part of the sky, never a +sharply edged ball of fire. Fantastic mosses, misshapen fungus growths, +colossal molds and yeasts, were the essential parts of the landscape +through which he moved.</p> + +<p>Once as he had dodged through the forest of huge toadstools, his +shoulder touched a cream-colored stalk, giving the whole fungus a tiny +shock. Instantly, from the umbrella-like mass of pulp overhead, a fine +and impalpable powder fell upon him like snow. It was the season when +the toadstools sent out their spores, or seeds, and they had been +dropped upon him at the first sign of disturbance.</p> + +<p>Furtive as he was, he paused to brush them from his head and hair. They +were deadly poison, as he knew well.</p> + +<p>Burl would have been a curious sight to a man of the twentieth century. +His skin was pink, like that of a child, and there was but little hair +upon his body. Even that on top of his head was soft and downy. His +chest was larger than his forefathers' had been, and his ears seemed +almost capable of independent movement, to catch threatening sounds from +any direction. His eyes, large and blue, possessed pupils which could +dilate to extreme size, allowing him to see in almost complete darkness.</p> + +<p>He was the result of the thirty thousand years' attempt of the human +race to adapt itself to the change that had begun in the latter half of +the twentieth century.</p> + +<p>At about that time, civilization had been high, and apparently secure. +Mankind had reached a permanent agreement among itself, and all men had +equal opportunities to education and leisure. Machinery did most of the +labor of the world, and men were only required to supervise its +operation. All men were well-fed, all men were well-educated, and it +seemed that until the end of time the earth would be the abode of a +community of comfortable human beings, pursuing their studies and +diversions, their illusions and their truths. Peace, quietness, privacy, +freedom were universal.</p> + +<p>Then, just when men were congratulating themselves that the Golden Age +had come again, it was observed that the planet seemed ill at ease. +Fissures opened slowly in the crust, and carbonic acid gas—the carbon +dioxide of chemists—began to pour out into the atmosphere. That gas had +long been known to be present in the air, and was considered necessary +to plant life. Most of the plants of the world took the gas and absorbed +its carbon into themselves, releasing the oxygen for use again.</p> + +<p>Scientists had calculated that a great deal of the earth's increased +fertility was due to the larger quantities of carbon dioxide released by +the activities of man in burning his coal and petroleum. Because of +those views, for some years no great alarm was caused by the continuous +exhalation from the world's interior.</p> + +<p>Constantly, however, the volume increased. New fissures constantly +opened, each one adding a new source of carbon dioxide, and each one +pouring into the already laden atmosphere more of the gas—beneficent in +small quantities, but as the world learned, deadly in large ones.</p> + +<p>The percentage of the heavy, vapor-like gas increased. The whole body of +the air became heavier through its admixture. It absorbed more moisture +and became more humid. Rainfall increased. Climates grew warmer. +Vegetation became more luxuriant—but the air gradually became less +exhilarating.</p> + +<p>Soon the health of mankind began to be affected. Accustomed through long +ages to breathe air rich in oxygen and poor in carbon dioxide, men +suffered. Only those who lived on high plateaus or on tall mountaintops +remained unaffected. The plants of the earth, though nourished and +increasing in size beyond those ever seen before, were unable to dispose +of the continually increasing flood of carbon dioxide.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>By the middle of the twenty-first century it was generally recognized +that a new carboniferous period was about to take place, when the +earth's atmosphere would be thick and humid, unbreathable by man, when +giant grasses and ferns would form the only vegetation.</p> + +<p>When the twenty-first century drew to a close the whole human race began +to revert to conditions closely approximating savagery. The low-lands +were unbearable. Thick jungles of rank growth covered the ground. The +air was depressing and enervating. Men could live there, but it was a +sickly, fever-ridden existence. The whole population of the earth +desired the high lands and as the low country became more unbearable, +men forgot their two centuries of peace.</p> + +<p>They fought destructively, each for a bit of land where he might live +and breathe. Then men began to die, men who had persisted in remaining +near sea-level. They could not live in the poisonous air. The danger +zone crept up as the earth-fissures tirelessly poured out their steady +streams of foul gas. Soon men could not live within five hundred feet of +sea level. The low-lands went uncultivated, and became jungles of a +thickness comparable only to those of the first carboniferous period.</p> + +<p>Then men died of sheer inanition at a thousand feet. The plateaus and +mountaintops were crowded with folk struggling for a foothold and food +beyond the invisible menace that crept up, and up—</p> + +<p>These things did not take place in one year, or in ten. Not in one +generation, but in several. Between the time when the chemists of the +International Geophysical Institute announced that the proportion of +carbon dioxide in the air had increased from .04 per cent to .1 per cent +and the time when at sea-level six per cent of the atmosphere was the +deadly gas, more than two hundred years intervened.</p> + +<p>Coming gradually, as it did, the poisonous effects of the deadly stuff +increased with insidious slowness. First the lassitude, then the +heaviness of brain, then the weakness of body. Mankind ceased to grow in +numbers. After a long period, the race had fallen to a fraction of its +former size. There was room in plenty on the mountaintops—but the +danger-level continued to creep up.</p> + +<p>There was but one solution. The human body would have to inure itself to +the poison, or it was doomed to extinction. It finally developed a +toleration for the gas that had wiped out race after race and nation +after nation, but at a terrible cost. Lungs increased in size to secure +the oxygen on which life depended, but the poison, inhaled at every +breath, left the few survivors sickly and filled with a perpetual +weariness. Their minds lacked the energy to cope with new problems or +transmit the knowledge which in one degree or another, they possessed.</p> + +<p>And after thirty thousand years, Burl, a direct descendant of the first +president of the Universal Republic, crept through a forest of +toadstools and fungus growths. He was ignorant of fire, or metals, of +the uses of stone and wood. A single garment covered him. His language +was a scanty group of a few hundred labial sounds, conveying no +abstractions and few concrete things.</p> + +<p>He was ignorant of the uses of wood. There was no wood in the scanty +territory furtively inhabited by his tribe. With the increase in heat +and humidity the trees had begun to die out. Those of northern climes +went first, the oaks, the cedars, the maples. Then the pines—the +beeches went early—the cypresses, and finally even the forests of the +jungles vanished. Only grasses and reeds, bamboos and their kin, were +able to flourish in the new, steaming atmosphere. The thick jungles gave +place to dense thickets of grasses and ferns, now become treeferns +again.</p> + +<p>And then the fungi took their place. Flourishing as never before, +flourishing on a planet of torrid heat and perpetual miasma, on whose +surface the sun never shone directly because of an ever-thickening bank +of clouds that hung sullenly overhead, the fungi sprang up. About the +dank pools that festered over the surface of the earth, fungus growths +began to cluster. Of every imaginable shade and color, of all monstrous +forms and malignant purposes, of huge size and flabby volume, they +spread over the land.</p> + +<p>The grasses and ferns gave place to them. Squat footstools, flaking +molds, evil-smelling yeasts, vast mounds of fungi inextricably mingled +as to species, but growing, forever growing and exhaling an odor of dark +places.</p> + +<p>The strange growths now grouped themselves in forests, horrible +travesties on the vegetation they had succeeded. They grew and grew with +feverish intensity beneath a clouded or a haze-obscured sky, while +above them fluttered gigantic butterflies and huge moths, sipping +daintily of their corruption.</p> + +<p>The insects alone of all the animal world above water, were able to +endure the change. They multiplied exceedingly, and enlarged themselves +in the thickened air. The solitary vegetation—as distinct from fungus +growths—that had survived, was now a degenerate form of the cabbages +that had once fed peasants. On those rank, colossal masses of foliage, +the stolid grubs and caterpillars ate themselves to maturity, then swung +below in strong cocoons to sleep the sleep of metamorphosis from which +they emerged to spread their wings and fly.</p> + +<p>The tiniest butterflies of former days had increased their span until +their gaily colored wings should be described in terms of feet, while +the larger emperor moths extended their purple sails to a breadth of +yards upon yards. Burl himself would have been dwarfed beneath the +overshadowing fabric of their wings.</p> + +<p>It was fortunate that they, the largest flying creatures, were harmless +or nearly so. Burl's fellow tribesmen sometimes came upon a cocoon just +about to open, and waited patiently beside it until the beautiful +creature within broke through its matted shell and came out into the +sunlight.</p> + +<p>Then, before it had gathered energy from the air, and before its wings +had swelled to strength and firmness, the tribesmen fell upon it, +tearing the filmy, delicate wings from its body and the limbs from its +carcass. Then, when it lay helpless before them, they carried away the +juicy, meat-filled limbs to be eaten, leaving the still living body to +stare helplessly at this strange world through its many faceted eyes, +and become a prey to the voracious ants who would soon clamber upon it +and carry it away in tiny fragments to their underground city.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Not all the insect world was so helpless or so unthreatening. Burl knew +of wasps almost the length of his own body who possessed stings that +were instantly fatal. To every species of wasp, however, some other +insect is predestined prey, and the furtive members of Burl's tribe +feared them but little as they sought only the prey to which their +instinct led them.</p> + +<p>Bees were similarly aloof. They were hard put to it for existence, those +bees. Few flowers bloomed, and they were reduced to expedients once +considered signs of degeneracy in their race. Bubbling yeasts and fouler +things, occasionally the nectarless blooms of the rank, giant cabbages. +Burl knew the bees. They droned overhead, nearly as large as he was +himself, their bulging eyes gazing at him with abstracted preoccupation. +And crickets, and beetles, and spiders—</p> + +<p>Burl knew spiders! His grandfather had been the prey of one of the +hunting tarantulas, which had leaped with incredible ferocity from his +excavated tunnel in the earth. A vertical pit in the ground, two feet in +diameter, went down for twenty feet. At the bottom of that lair the +black-bellied monster waited for the tiny sounds that would warn him of +prey approaching his hiding-place (<i>Lycosa fasciata</i>).</p> + +<p>Burl's grandfather had been careless, and the terrible shrieks he +uttered as the horrible monster darted from the pit and seized him had +lingered vaguely in Burl's mind ever since. Burl had seen, too, the +monster webs of another species of spider, and watched from a safe +distance as the misshapen body of the huge creature sucked the juices +from a three-foot cricket that had become entangled in its trap.</p> + +<p>Burl had remembered the strange stripes of yellow and black and silver +that crossed upon its abdomen (<i>Epiera fasciata</i>). He had been +fascinated by the struggles of the imprisoned insect, coiled in a +hopeless tangle of sticky, gummy ropes the thickness of Burl's finger, +cast about its body before the spider made any attempt to approach.</p> + +<p>Burl knew these dangers. They were a part of his life. It was his +accustomedness to them, and that of his ancestors, that made his +existence possible. He was able to evade them; so he survived. A moment +of carelessness, an instant's relaxation of his habitual caution, and he +would be one with his forebears, forgotten meals of long-dead, inhuman +monsters.</p> + +<p>Three days before, Burl had crouched behind a bulky, shapeless fungus +growth while he watched a furious duel between two huge horned beetles. +Their jaws, gaping wide, clicked and clashed upon each other's +impenetrable armor. Their legs crashed like so many cymbals as their +polished surfaces ground and struck against each other. They were +fighting over some particularly attractive bit of carrion.</p> + +<p>Burl had watched with all his eyes until a gaping orifice appeared in +the armor of the smaller of the two. It uttered a shrill cry, or seemed +to cry out. The noise was, actually, the tearing of the horny stuff +beneath the victorious jaws of the adversary.</p> + +<p>The wounded beetle struggled more and more feebly. At last it collapsed, +and the conqueror placidly began to eat the conquered before life was +extinct.</p> + +<p>Burl waited until the meal was finished, and then approached the scene +with caution. An ant—the forerunner of many—was already inspecting the +carcass.</p> + +<p>Burl usually ignored the ants. They were stupid, short-sighted insects, +and not hunters. Save when attacked, they offered no injury. They were +scavengers, on the lookout for the dead and dying, but they would fight +viciously if their prey were questioned, and they were dangerous +opponents. They were from three inches, for the tiny black ants, to a +foot for the large termites.</p> + +<p>Burl was hasty when he heard the tiny clickings of their limbs as they +approached. He seized the sharp-pointed snout of the victim, detached +from the body, and fled from the scene.</p> + +<p>Later, he inspected his find with curiosity. The smaller victim had been +a minotaur beetle, with a sharp-pointed horn like that of a rhinoceros +to reinforce his offensive armament, already dangerous because of his +wide jaws. The jaws of a beetle work from side to side, instead of up +and down, and this had made the protection complete in no less than +three directions.</p> + +<p>Burl inspected the sharp, dagger-like instrument in his hand. He felt +its point, and it pricked his finger. He flung it aside as he crept to +the hiding-place of his tribe. There were only twenty of them, four or +five men, six or seven women, and the rest girls and children.</p> + +<p>Burl had been wondering at the strange feelings that came over him when +he looked at one of the girls. She was younger than Burl—perhaps +eighteen—and fleeter of foot than he. They talked together, sometimes, +and once or twice Burl shared with her an especially succulent find of +foodstuffs.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The next morning he found the horn where he had thrown it, sticking in +the flabby side of a toadstool. He pulled it out, and gradually, far +back in his mind, an idea began to take shape. He sat for some time with +the thing in his hand, considering it with a far-away look in his eyes. +From time to time he stabbed at a toadstool, awkwardly, but with +gathering skill. His imagination began to work fitfully. He visualized +himself stabbing food with it as the larger beetle had stabbed the +former owner of the weapon he had in his hand.</p> + +<p>Burl could not imagine himself coping with one of the fighting insects. +He could only picture himself, dimly, stabbing something that was food +with this death-dealing thing. It was no longer than his arm and though +clumsy to the hand, an effective and terribly sharp implement.</p> + +<p>He thought: Where was there food, food that lived, that would not fight +back? Presently he rose and began to make his way toward the tiny river. +Yellow-bellied newts swam in its waters. The swimming larvae of a +thousand insects floated about its surface or crawled upon its bottom.</p> + +<p>There were deadly things there, too. Giant crayfish snapped their horny +claws at the unwary. Mosquitoes of four-inch wing-spread sometimes made +their humming way above the river. The last survivors of their race, +they were dying out for lack of the plant-juices on which the male of +the species lived, but even so they were formidable. Burl had learned to +crush them with fragments of fungus.</p> + +<p>He crept slowly through the forest of toadstools. Brownish fungus was +underfoot. Strange orange, red, and purple molds clustered about the +bases of the creamy toadstool stalks. Once Burl paused to run his +sharp-pointed weapon through a fleshy stalk and reassure himself that +what he planned was practicable.</p> + +<p>He made his way furtively through the forest of misshapen growths. Once +he heard a tiny clicking, and froze into stillness. It was a troop of +four or five ants, each some eight inches long, returning along their +habitual pathway to their city. They moved sturdily, heavily laden, +along the route marked with the black and odorous formic acid exuded +from the bodies of their comrades. Burl waited until they had passed, +then went on.</p> + +<p>He came to the bank of the river. Green scum covered a great deal of its +surface, scum occasionally broken by a slowly enlarging bubble of some +gas released from decomposing matter on the bottom. In the center of the +placid stream the current ran a little more swiftly, and the water +itself was visible.</p> + +<p>Over the shining current, water-spiders ran swiftly. They had not shared +in the general increase of size that had taken place in the insect +world. Depending upon the capillary qualities of the water to support +them, an increase in size and weight would have deprived them of the +means of locomotion.</p> + +<p>From the spot where Burl first peered at the water the green scum spread +out for many yards into the stream. He could not see what swam and +wriggled and crawled beneath the evil-smelling covering. He peered up +and down the banks.</p> + +<p>Perhaps a hundred and fifty yards below, the current came near the +shore. An outcropping of rock there made a steep descent to the river, +from which yellow shelf-fungi stretched out. Dark red and orange above, +they were light yellow below, and they formed a series of platforms +above the smoothly flowing stream. Burl made his way cautiously toward +them.</p> + +<p>On his way he saw one of the edible mushrooms that formed so large a +part of his diet, and paused to break from the flabby flesh an amount +that would feed him for many days. It was too often the custom of his +people to find a store of food, carry it to their hiding place, and then +gorge themselves for days, eating, sleeping, and waking only to eat +again until the food was gone.</p> + +<p>Absorbed as he was in his plan of trying his new weapon, Burl was +tempted to return with his booty. He would give Saya of this food, and +they would eat together. Saya was the maiden who roused unusual emotions +in Burl. He felt strange impulses stirring within him when she was near, +a desire to touch her, to caress her. He did not understand.</p> + +<p>He went on, after hesitating. If he brought her food, Saya would be +pleased, but if he brought her of the things that swam in the stream, +she would be still more pleased. Degraded as his tribe had become, Burl +was yet a little more intelligent than they. He was an atavism, a +throwback to ancestors who had cultivated the earth and subjugated its +animals. He had a vague idea of pride, unformed but potent.</p> + +<p>No man within memory had hunted or slain for food. They knew of meat, +yes, but it had been the fragments left by an insect hunter, seized and +carried away by the men before the perpetually alert ant colonies had +sent their foragers to the scene.</p> + +<p>If Burl did what no man before him had done, if he brought a whole +carcass to his tribe, they would envy him. They were preoccupied solely +with their stomachs, and after that with the preservation of their +lives. The perpetuation of the race came third in their consideration.</p> + +<p>They were herded together in a leaderless group, coming to the same +hiding place that they might share in the finds of the lucky and gather +comfort from their numbers. Of weapons, they had none. They sometimes +used stones to crack open the limbs of the huge insects they found +partly devoured, cracking them open for the sweet meat to be found +inside, but they sought safety from their enemies solely in flight and +hiding.</p> + +<p>Their enemies were not as numerous as might have been imagined. Most of +the meat-eating insects have their allotted prey. The sphex—a hunting +wasp—feeds solely upon grasshoppers. Others wasps eat flies only. The +pirate-bee eats bumblebees only. Spiders were the principal enemies of +man, as they devour with a terrifying impartiality all that falls into +their clutches.</p> + +<p>Burl reached the spot from which he might gaze down into the water. He +lay prostrate, staring into the shallow depths. Once a huge crayfish, as +long as Burl's body, moved leisurely across his vision. Small fishes and +even the huge newts fled before the voracious creature.</p> + +<p>After a long time the tide of underwater life resumed its activity. The +wriggling grubs of the dragonflies reappeared. Little flecks of silver +swam into view—a school of tiny fish. A larger fish appeared, moving +slowly through the water.</p> + +<p>Burl's eyes glistened and his mouth watered. He reached down with his +long weapon. It barely touched the water. Disappointment filled him, yet +the nearness and the apparent practicability of his scheme spurred him +on.</p> + +<p>He considered the situation. There were the shelf-fungi below him. He +rose and moved to a point just above them, then thrust his spear down. +They resisted its point. Burl felt them tentatively with his foot, then +dared to thrust his weight to them. They held him firmly. He clambered +down and lay flat upon them, peering over the edge as before.</p> + +<p>The large fish, as long as Burl's arm, swam slowly to and fro below him. +Burl had seen the former owner of his spear strive to thrust it into his +opponents, and knew that a thrust was necessary. He had tried his weapon +upon toadstools—had practiced with it. When the fish swam below him, he +thrust sharply downward. The spear seemed to bend when it entered the +water, and missed its mark by inches, to Burl's astonishment. He tried +again and again.</p> + +<p>He grew angry with the fish below him for eluding his efforts to kill +it. Repeated strokes had left it untouched, and it was unwary, and did +not even try to run away.</p> + +<p>Burl became furious. The big fish came to rest directly beneath his +hand. Burl thrust downward with all his strength. This time the spear, +entering vertically, did not seem to bend. It went straight down. Its +point penetrated the scales of the swimmer below, transfixing that lazy +fish completely.</p> + +<p>An uproar began. The fish, struggling to escape, and Burl, trying to +draw it up to his perch, made a huge commotion. In his excitement Burl +did not observe a tiny ripple some distance away. The monster crayfish +was attracted by the disturbance, and was approaching.</p> + +<p>The unequal combat continued. Burl hung on desperately to the end of his +spear. Then there was a tremor in Burl's support, it gave way, and fell +into the stream with a mighty splash. Burl went under, his eyes open, +facing death. And as he sank, his wide-open eyes saw waved before him +the gaping claws of the huge crayfish, large enough to sever a limb with +a single stroke of their jagged jaws.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He opened his mouth to scream—a replica of the terrible screams of his +grandfather, seized by a black-bellied tarantula years before—but no +sound came forth. Only bubbles floated to the surface of the water. He +beat the unresisting fluid with his hands—he did not know how to swim. +The colossal creature approached leisurely, while Burl struggled +helplessly.</p> + +<p>His arms struck a solid object, and grasped it convulsively. A second +later he had swung it between himself and the huge crustacean. He felt a +shock as the mighty jaws closed upon the corklike fungus, then felt +himself drawn upward as the crayfish released his hold and the +shelf-fungus floated to the surface. Having given way beneath him, it +had been carried below him in his fall, only to rise within his reach +just when most needed.</p> + +<p>Burl's head popped above water and he saw a larger bit of the fungus +floating near by. Less securely anchored to the rocks of the river bank +than the shelf to which Burl had trusted himself, it had been dislodged +when the first shelf gave way. It was larger than the fragment to which +Burl clung, and floated higher in the water.</p> + +<p>Burl was cool with a terrible self-possession. He seized it and +struggled to draw himself on top of it. It tilted as his weight came +upon it, and nearly overturned, but he paid no heed. With desperate +haste, he clawed with hands and feet until he could draw himself clear +of the water, of which he would forever retain a slight fear.</p> + +<p>As he pulled himself upon the furry, orange-brown upper surface, a sharp +blow struck his foot. The crayfish, disgusted at finding only what was +to it a tasteless morsel in the shelf-fungus, had made a languid stroke +at Burl's wriggling foot in the water. Failing to grasp the fleshy +member, the crayfish retreated, disgruntled and annoyed.</p> + +<p>And Burl floated downstream, perched, weaponless and alone, frightened +and in constant danger, upon a flimsy raft composed of a degenerate +fungus floating soggily in the water. He floated slowly down the stream +of a river in whose waters death lurked unseen, upon whose banks was +peril, and above whose reaches danger fluttered on golden wings.</p> + +<p>It was a long time before he recovered his self-possession, and when he +did he looked first for his spear. It was floating in the water, still +transfixing the fish whose capture had endangered Burl's life. The fish +now floated with its belly upward, all life gone.</p> + +<p>So insistent was Burl's instinct for food that his predicament was +forgotten when he saw his prey just out of his reach. He gazed at it, +and his mouth watered, while his cranky craft went downstream, spinning +slowly in the current. He lay flat on the floating fungoid, and strove +to reach out and grasp the end of the spear.</p> + +<p>The raft tilted and nearly flung him overboard again. A little later he +discovered that it sank more readily on one side than on the other. That +was due, of course, to the greater thickness—and consequently greater +buoyancy—of the part which had grown next the rocks of the river bank.</p> + +<p>Burl found that if he lay with his head stretching above that side, it +did not sink into the water. He wriggled into this new position, then, +and waited until the slow revolution of his vessel brought the +spear-shaft near him. He stretched his fingers and his arm, and touched, +then grasped it.</p> + +<p>A moment later he was tearing strips of flesh from the side of the fish +and cramming the oily mess into his mouth with great enjoyment. He had +lost his edible mushroom. That danced upon the waves several yards away, +but Burl ate contentedly of what he possessed. He did not worry about +what was before him. That lay in the future, but suddenly he realized +that he was being carried farther and farther from Saya, the maiden of +his tribe who caused strange bliss to steal over him when he +contemplated her.</p> + +<p>The thought came to him when he visualized the delight with which she +would receive a gift of part of the fish he had caught. He was suddenly +stricken with dumb sorrow. He lifted his head and looked longingly at +the river banks.</p> + +<p>A long, monotonous row of strangely colored fungus growths. No healthy +green, but pallid, cream-colored toadstools, some bright orange, +lavender, and purple molds, vivid carmine "rusts" and mildews, spreading +up the banks from the turgid slime. The sun was not a ball of fire, but +merely shone as a bright golden patch in the haze-filled sky, a patch +whose limits could not be defined or marked.</p> + +<p>In the faintly pinkish light that filtered down through the air, a +multitude of flying objects could be seen. Now and then a cricket or a +grasshopper made its bullet-like flight from one spot to another. Huge +butterflies fluttered gayly above the silent, seemingly lifeless world. +Bees lumbered anxiously about, seeking the cross-shaped flowers of the +monster cabbages. Now and then a slender-waisted, yellow-stomached wasp +flew alertly through the air.</p> + +<p>Burl watched them with a strange indifference. The wasps were as long as +he himself. The bees, on end, could match his height. The butterflies +ranged from tiny creatures barely capable of shading his face to +colossal things in the folds of whose wings he could have been lost. And +above him fluttered dragonflies, whose long, spindle-like bodies were +three times the length of his own.</p> + +<p>Burl ignored them all. Sitting there, an incongruous creature of pink +skin and soft brown hair upon an orange fungus floating in midstream, he +was filled with despondency because the current carried him forever +farther and farther from a certain slender-limbed maiden of his tiny +tribe, whose glances caused an odd commotion in his breast.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The day went on. Once, Burl saw upon the blue-green mold that spread +upward from the river, a band of large, red Amazon ants, marching in +orderly array, to raid the city of a colony of black ants, and carry +away the eggs they would find there. The eggs would be hatched, and the +small black creatures made the slaves of the brigands who had stolen +them.</p> + +<p>The Amazon ants can live only by the labor of their slaves, and for that +reason are mighty warriors in their world. Later, etched against the +steaming mist that overhung everything as far as the eye could reach, +Burl saw strangely shaped, swollen branches rearing themselves from the +ground. He knew what they were. A hard-rinded fungus that grew upon +itself in peculiar mockery of the vegetation that had vanished from the +earth.</p> + +<p>And again he saw pear-shaped objects above some of which floated little +clouds of smoke. They, too, were fungus growths, puffballs, which when +touched emit what seems a puff of vapor. These would have towered above +Burl's head, had he stood beside them.</p> + +<p>And then, as the day drew to an end, he saw in the distance what seemed +a range of purple hills. They were tall hills to Burl, some sixty or +seventy feet high, and they seemed to be the agglomeration of a formless +growth, multiplying its organisms and forms upon itself until the whole +formed an irregular, cone-shaped mound. Burl watched them apathetically.</p> + +<p>Presently, he ate again of the oily fish. The taste was pleasant to him, +accustomed to feed mostly upon insipid mushrooms. He stuffed himself, +though the size of his prey left by far the larger part uneaten.</p> + +<p>He still held his spear firmly beside him.</p> + +<p>It had brought him into trouble, but Burl possessed a fund of obstinacy. +Unlike most of his tribe, he associated the spear with the food it had +secured, rather than the difficulty into which it had led him. When he +had eaten his fill he picked it up and examined it again. The sharpness +of its point was unimpaired.</p> + +<p>Burl handled it meditatively, debating whether or not to attempt to fish +again. The shakiness of his little raft dissuaded him, and he abandoned +the idea. Presently he stripped a sinew from the garment about his +middle and hung the fish about his neck with it. That would leave him +both hands free. Then he sat cross-legged upon the soggily floating +fungus, like a pink-skinned Buddha, and watched the shores go by.</p> + +<p>Time had passed, and it was drawing near sunset. Burl, never having seen +the sun save as a bright spot in the overhanging haze, did not think of +the coming of night as "sunset." To him it was the letting down of +darkness from the sky.</p> + +<p>Today happened to be an exceptionally bright day, and the haze was not +as thick as usual. Far to the west, the thick mist turned to gold, while +the thicker clouds above became blurred masses of dull red. Their +shadows seemed like lavender, from the contrast of shades. Upon the +still surface of the river, all the myriad tints and shadings were +reflected with an incredible faithfulness, and the shining tops of the +giant mushrooms by the river brim glowed faintly pink.</p> + +<p>Dragonflies buzzed over his head in their swift and angular flight, the +metallic luster of their bodies glistening in the rosy light. Great +yellow butterflies flew lightly above the stream. Here, there, and +everywhere upon the water appeared the shell-formed boats of a thousand +caddis flies, floating upon the surface while they might.</p> + +<p>Burl could have thrust his hand down into their cavities and seized the +white worms that inhabited the strange craft. The huge bulk of a tardy +bee droned heavily overhead. Burl glanced upward and saw the long +proboscis and the hairy hinder legs with their scanty load of pollen. He +saw the great, multiple-lensed eyes with their expression of stupid +preoccupation, and even the sting that would mean death alike for him +and for the giant insect, should it be used.</p> + +<p>The crimson radiance grew dim at the edge of the world. The purple hills +had long been left behind. Now the slender stalks of ten thousand +round-domed mushrooms lined the river bank and beneath them spread fungi +of all colors, from the rawest red to palest blue, but all now fading +slowly to a monochromatic background in the growing dusk.</p> + +<p>The buzzing, fluttering, and the flapping of the insects of the day died +slowly down, while from a million hiding places there crept out into the +deep night soft and furry bodies of great moths, who preened themselves +and smoothed their feathery antennae before taking to the air. The +strong-limbed crickets set up their thunderous noise—grown gravely bass +with the increasing size of the organs by which the sound was made—and +then there began to gather on the water those slender spirals of tenuous +mist that would presently blanket the stream in a mantle of thin fog.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Night fell. The clouds above seemed to lower and grow dark. Gradually, +now a drop and then a drop, now a drop and then a drop, the languid fall +of large, warm raindrops that would drip from the moisture-laden skies +all through the night began. The edge of the stream became a place where +great disks of coolly glowing flame appeared.</p> + +<p>The mushrooms that bordered on the river were faintly phosphorescent +(<i>Pleurotus phosphoreus</i>) and shone coldly upon the "rusts" and +flake-fungi beneath their feet. Here and there a ball of lambent flame +appeared, drifting idly above the steaming, festering earth.</p> + +<p>Thirty thousand years before, men had called them "will-o'-the-wisps," +but Burl simply stared at them, accepting them as he accepted all that +passed. Only a man attempting to advance in the scale of civilization +tries to explain everything that he sees. The savage and the child is +most often content to observe without comment, unless he repeats the +legends told him by wise folk who are possessed by the itch of +knowledge.</p> + +<p>Burl watched for a long time. Great fireflies whose beacons lighted up +their surroundings for many yards—fireflies Burl knew to be as long as +his spear—shed their intermittent glows upon the stream. Softly +fluttering wings, in great beats that poured torrents of air upon him, +passed above Burl.</p> + +<p>The air was full of winged creatures. The night was broken by their +cries, by the sound of their invisible wings, by their cries of anguish +and their mating calls. Above him and on all sides the persistent, +intense life of the insect world went on ceaselessly, but Burl rocked +back and forth upon his frail mushroom boat and wished to weep because +he was being carried from his tribe, and from Saya—Saya of the swift +feet and white teeth, of the shy smile.</p> + +<p>Burl may have been homesick, but his principal thoughts were of Saya. He +had dared greatly to bring a gift of fresh meat to her, meat captured as +meat had never been known to be taken by a member of the tribe. And now +he was being carried from her!</p> + +<p>He lay, disconsolate, upon his floating atom on the water for a great +part of the night. It was long after midnight when the mushroom raft +struck gently and remained grounded upon a shallow in the stream.</p> + +<p>When the light came in the morning, Burl gazed about him keenly. He was +some twenty yards from the shore, and the greenish scum surrounded his +now disintegrating vessel. The river had widened out until the other +bank was barely to be seen through the haze above the surface of the +river, but the nearer shore seemed firm and no more full of dangers than +the territory his tribe inhabited. He felt the depth of the water with +his spear, then was struck with the multiple usefulness of that weapon. +The water would come to but slightly above his ankles.</p> + +<p>Shivering a little with fear, Burl stepped down into the water, then +made for the bank at the top of his speed. He felt a soft something +clinging to one of his bare feet. With an access of terror, he ran +faster, and stumbled upon the shore in a panic. He stared down at his +foot. A shapeless, flesh-colored pad clung to his heel, and as Burl +watched, it began to swell slowly, while the pink of its wrinkled folds +deepened.</p> + +<p>It was no more than a leech, sharing in the enlargement nearly all the +lower world had undergone, but Burl did not know that. He thrust at it +with the side of his spear, then scraped frantically at it, and it fell +off, leaving a blotch of blood upon the skin where it came away. It lay, +writhing and pulsating, upon the ground, and Burl fled from it.</p> + +<p>He found himself in one of the toadstool forests with which he was +familiar, and finally paused, disconsolately. He knew the nature of the +fungus growths about him, and presently fell to eating. In Burl the +sight of food always produced hunger—a wise provision of nature to make +up for the instinct to store food, which he lacked.</p> + +<p>Burl's heart was small within him. He was far from his tribe, and far +from Saya. In the parlance of this day, it is probable that no more than +forty miles separated them, but Burl did not think of distances. He had +come down the river. He was in a land he had never known or seen. And he +was alone.</p> + +<p>All about him was food. All the mushrooms that surrounded him were +edible, and formed a store of sustenance Burl's whole tribe could not +have eaten in many days, but that very fact brought Saya to his mind +more forcibly. He squatted on the ground, wolfing down the insipid +mushroom in great gulps, when an idea suddenly came to him with all the +force of inspiration.</p> + +<p>He would bring Saya here, where there was food, food in great +quantities, and she would be pleased. Burl had forgotten the large and +oily fish that still hung down his back from the sinew about his neck, +but now he rose, and its flapping against him reminded him again.</p> + +<p>He took it and fingered it all over, getting his hands and himself +thoroughly greasy in the process, but he could eat no more. The thought +of Saya's pleasure at the sight of that, too, reinforced his +determination.</p> + +<p>With all the immediacy of a child or a savage he set off at once. He had +come along the bank of the stream. He would retrace his steps along the +bank of the stream.</p> + +<p>Through the awkward aisles of the mushroom forest he made his way, eyes +and ears open for possibilities of danger. Several times he heard the +omnipresent clicking of ants on their multifarious businesses in the +wood, but he could afford to ignore them. They were short-sighted at +best, and at worst they were foragers rather than hunters. He only +feared one kind of ant, the army-ant, which sometimes travels in hordes +of millions, eating all that it comes upon. In ages past, when they were +tiny creatures not an inch long, even the largest animals fled from +them. Now that they measured a foot in length, not even the gorged +spiders whose distended bellies were a yard in thickness, dared offer +them battle.</p> + +<p>The mushroom forest came to an end. A cheerful grasshopper (<i>Ephigger</i>) +munched delicately at some dainty it had found. Its hind legs were +bunched beneath it in perpetual readiness for flight. A monster wasp +appeared above—as long as Burl himself—poised an instant, dropped, and +seized the luckless feaster.</p> + +<p>There was a struggle, then the grasshopper became helpless, and the +wasp's flexible abdomen curved delicately. Its sting entered the +jointed armor of its prey, just beneath the head. The sting entered with +all the deliberate precision of a surgeon's scalpel, and all struggle +ceased.</p> + +<p>The wasp grasped the paralyzed, not dead, insect and flew away. Burl +grunted, and passed on. He had hidden when the wasp darted down from +above.</p> + +<p>The ground grew rough, and Burl's progress became painful. He clambered +arduously up steep slopes and made his way cautiously down their farther +sides. Once he had to climb through a tangled mass of mushrooms so +closely placed, and so small, that he had to break them apart with blows +of his spear before he could pass, when they shed upon him torrents of a +fiery red liquid that rolled off his greasy breast and sank into the +ground (<i>Lactarius deliciosus</i>).</p> + +<p>A strange self-confidence now took possession of Burl. He walked less +cautiously and more boldly. The mere fact that he had struck something +and destroyed it provided him with a curious fictitious courage.</p> + +<p>He had climbed slowly to the top of a red clay cliff, perhaps a hundred +feet high, slowly eaten away by the river when it overflowed. Burl could +see the river. At some past floodtime it had lapped at the base of the +cliff on whose edge he walked, though now it came no nearer than a +quarter-mile.</p> + +<p>The cliffside was almost covered with shelf-fungi, large and small, +white, yellow, orange, and green, in indescribable confusion and +luxuriance. From a point halfway up the cliff the inch-thick cable of a +spider's web stretched down to an anchorage on the ground, and the +strangely geometrical pattern of the web glistened evilly.</p> + +<p>Somewhere among the fungi of the cliffside the huge creature waited +until some unfortunate prey should struggle helplessly in its monster +snare. The spider waited in a motionless, implacable patience, +invincibly certain of prey, utterly merciless to its victims.</p> + +<p>Burl strutted on the edge of the cliff, a silly little pink-skinned +creature with an oily fish slung about his neck and a draggled fragment +of a moth's wing about his middle. In his hand he bore the long spear of +a minotaur beetle. He strutted, and looked scornfully down upon the +whitely shining trap below him. He struck mushrooms, and they had fallen +before him. He feared nothing. He strode fearlessly along. He would go +to Saya and bring her to this land where food grew in abundance.</p> + +<p>Sixty paces before him, a shaft sank vertically in the sandy, clayey +soil. It was a carefully rounded shaft, and lined with silk. It went +down for perhaps thirty feet or more, and there enlarged itself into a +chamber where the owner and digger of the shaft might rest. The top of +the hole was closed by a trap door, stained with mud and earth to +imitate with precision the surrounding soil. A keen eye would have been +needed to perceive the opening. But a keen eye now peered out from a +tiny crack, the eye of the engineer of the underground dwelling.</p> + +<p>Eight hairy legs surrounded the body of the creature that hung +motionless at the top of the silk-lined shaft. A huge misshapen globe +formed its body, colored a dirty brown. Two pairs of ferocious mandibles +stretched before its fierce mouth-parts. Two eyes glittered evilly in +the darkness of the burrow. And over the whole body spread a rough, +mangy fur.</p> + +<p>It was a thing of implacable malignance, of incredible ferocity. It was +the brown hunting-spider, the American tarantula (<i>Mygale Hentzii</i>). Its +body was two feet and more in diameter, and its legs, outstretched, +would cover a circle three yards across. It watched Burl, its eyes +glistening. Slaver welled up and dropped from its jaws.</p> + +<p>And Burl strutted forward on the edge of the cliff, puffed up with a +sense of his own importance. The white snare of the spinning spider +below him impressed him as amusing. He knew the spider would not leave +its web to attack him. He reached down and broke off a bit of fungus +growing at his feet. Where he broke it, it was oozing a soupy liquid and +was full of tiny maggots in a delirium of feasting. Burl flung it down +into the web, and then laughed as the black bulk of the hidden spider +swung down from its hiding place to investigate.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The tarantula, peering from its burrow, quivered with impatience. Burl +drew near, and nearer. He was using his spear as a lever, now, and +prying off bits of fungus to fall down the cliffside into the colossal +web. The spider, below, went leisurely from one place to another, +investigating each new missile with its palpi, then leaving them, as +they appeared lifeless and undesirable prey. Burl laughed again as a +particularly large lump of shelf-fungus narrowly missed the +black-and-silver figure below. Then—</p> + +<p>The trap door fell into place with a faint click, and Burl whirled +about. His laughter turned to a scream. Moving toward him with +incredible rapidity, the monster tarantula opened its dripping jaws. Its +mandibles gaped wide. The poison fangs were unsheathed. The creature was +thirty paces away, twenty paces—ten. It leaped into the air, eyes +glittering, all its eight legs extended to seize, fangs bared—</p> + +<p>Burl screamed again, and thrust out his arms to ward off the impact of +the leap. In his terror, his grasp upon his spear had become agonized. +The spear point shot out, and the tarantula fell upon it. Nearly a +quarter of the spear entered the body of the ferocious thing.</p> + +<p>It struck upon the spear, writhing horribly, still struggling to reach +Burl, who was transfixed with horror. The mandibles clashed, strange +sounds came from the beast. Then one of the attenuated, hairy legs +rasped across Burl's forearm. He gasped in ultimate fear and stepped +backward—and the edge of the cliff gave way beneath him.</p> + +<p>He hurtled downward, still clutching the spear which led the writhing +creature from him. Down through space, eyes glassy with panic, the two +creatures—the man and the giant tarantula—fell together. There was a +strangely elastic crash and crackling. They had fallen into the web +beneath them.</p> + +<p>Burl had reached the end of terror. He could be no more fear-struck. +Struggling madly in the gummy coils of an immense web, which ever bound +him more tightly, with a wounded creature shuddering in agony not a yard +from him—yet a wounded creature that still strove to reach him with its +poison fangs—Burl had reached the limit of panic.</p> + +<p>He fought like a madman to break the coils about him. His arms and +breast were greasy from the oily fish, and the sticky web did not adhere +to them, but his legs and body were inextricably fastened by the elastic +threads spread for just such prey as he.</p> + +<p>He paused a moment, in exhaustion. Then he saw, five yards away, the +silvery and black monster waiting patiently for him to weary himself. It +judged the moment propitious. The tarantula and the man were one in its +eyes, one struggling thing that had fallen opportunely into its snare. +They were moving but feebly now. The spider advanced delicately, +swinging its huge bulk nimbly along the web, paying out a cable after it +came inexorably toward him.</p> + +<p>Burl's arms were free, because of the greasy coating they had received. +He waved them wildly, shrieking at the pitiless monster that approached. +The spider paused. Those moving arms suggested mandibles that might +wound or slap.</p> + +<p>Spiders take few hazards. This spider was no exception to the rule. It +drew cautiously near, then stopped. Its spinnerets became busy, and with +one of its six legs, used like an arm, it flung a sheet of gummy silk +impartially over both the tarantula and the man.</p> + +<p>Burl fought against the descending shroud. He strove to thrust it away, +but in vain. In a matter of minutes he was completely covered in a +silken cloth that hid even the light from his eyes. He and his enemy, +the giant tarantula, were beneath the same covering, though the +tarantula moved but weakly.</p> + +<p>The shower ceased. The web-spider had decided that they were helpless. +Then Burl felt the cables of the web give slightly, as the spider +approached to sting and suck the sweet juices from its prey.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The web yielded gently as the added weight of the black-bellied spider +approached. Burl froze into stillness under his enveloping covering. +Beneath the same silken shroud the tarantula writhed in agony upon the +point of Burl's spear. It clashed its jaws, shuddering upon the horny +barb.</p> + +<p>Burl was quiet in an ecstasy of terror. He waited for the poison-fangs +to be thrust into him. He knew the process. He had seen the leisurely +fashion in which the giant spiders delicately stung their prey, then +withdrew to wait without impatience for the poison to do its work.</p> + +<p>When their victim had ceased to struggle, they drew near again, and +sucked the sweet juices from the body, first from one point and then +another, until what had so recently been a creature vibrant with life +became a shrunken, withered husk—to be flung from the web at nightfall. +Most spiders are tidy housekeepers, destroying their snares daily to +spin anew.</p> + +<p>The bloated, evil creature moved meditatively about the shining sheet of +silk it had cast over the man and the giant tarantula when they fell +from the cliff above. Now only the tarantula moved feebly. Its body was +outlined by a bulge in the concealing shroud, throbbing faintly as it +still struggled with the spear in its vitals. The irregularly rounded +protuberance offered a point of attack for the web spider. It moved +quickly forward, and stung.</p> + +<p>Galvanized into fresh torment by this new agony, the tarantula writhed +in a very hell of pain. Its legs, clustered about the spear still +fastened into its body, struck out purposelessly, in horrible gestures +of delirious suffering. Burl screamed as one of them touched him, and +struggled himself.</p> + +<p>His arms and head were free beneath the silken sheet because of the +grease and oil that coated them. He clutched at the threads about him +and strove to draw himself away from his deadly neighbor. The threads +did not break, but they parted one from another, and a tiny opening +appeared. One of the tarantula's attenuated limbs touched him again. +With the strength of utter panic he hauled himself away, and the opening +enlarged. Another struggle, and Burl's head emerged into the open air, +and he stared down for twenty feet upon an open space almost carpeted +with the chitinous remains of his present captor's former victims.</p> + +<p>Burl's head was free, and his breast and arms. The fish slung over his +shoulder had shed its oil upon him impartially. But the lower part of +his body was held firm by the gummy snare of the web-spider, a snare far +more tenacious than any bird-lime ever manufactured by man.</p> + +<p>He hung in his tiny window for a moment, despairing. Then he saw, at a +little distance, the bulk of the monster spider, waiting patiently for +its poison to take effect and the struggling of its prey to be stilled. +The tarantula was no more than shuddering now. Soon it would be still, +and the black-bellied creature waiting on the web would approach for its +meal.</p> + +<p>Burl withdrew his head and thrust desperately at the sticky stuff about +his loins and legs. The oil upon his hands kept it from clinging to +them, and it gave a little. In a flash of inspiration, Burl understood. +He reached over his shoulder and grasped the greasy fish; tore it in a +dozen places and smeared himself with the now rancid exudation, pushing +the sticky threads from his limbs and oiling the surface from which he +had thrust it away.</p> + +<p>He felt the web tremble. To the spider, its poison seemed to have failed +of effect. Another sting seemed to be necessary. This time it would not +insert its fangs into the quiescent tarantula, but would sting where the +disturbance was manifest—would send its deadly venom into Burl.</p> + +<p>He gasped, and drew himself toward his window. It was as if he would +have pulled his legs from his body. His head emerged, his +shoulders—half his body was out of the hole.</p> + +<p>The colossal spider surveyed him, and made ready to cast more of its +silken sheet upon him. The spinnerets became active, and the sticky +stuff about Burl's feet gave way! He shot out of the opening and fell +sprawling, awkwardly and heavily, upon the earth below, crashing upon +the shrunken shell of a flying beetle which had fallen into the snare +and had not escaped.</p> + +<p>Burl rolled over and over, and then sat up. An angry, foot-long ant +stood before him, its mandibles extended threateningly, while its +antennae waved wildly in the air. A shrill stridulation filled the air.</p> + +<p>In ages past, when ants were tiny creatures of lengths to be measured in +fractions of an inch, learned scientists debated gravely if their tribe +possessed a cry. They believed that certain grooves upon the body of the +insects, after the fashion of those upon the great legs of the cricket, +might offer the means of uttering an infinitely high-pitched sound too +shrill for man's ears to catch.</p> + +<p>Burl knew that the stridulation was caused by the doubtful insect before +him, though he had never wondered how it was produced. The cry was used +to summon others of its city, to help it in its difficulty or good +fortune.</p> + +<p>Clickings sounded fifty or sixty feet away. Comrades were coming to aid +the pioneer. Harmless save when interfered with—all save the army ant, +that is—the whole ant tribe was formidable when aroused. Utterly +fearless, they could pull down a man and slay him as so many infuriated +fox terriers might have done thirty thousand years before.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Burl fled, without debate, and nearly collided with one of the +anchoring cables of the web from which he had barely escaped a moment +before. He heard the shrill sound behind him suddenly subside. The ant, +short-sighted as all ants were, no longer felt itself threatened and +went peacefully about the business Burl had interrupted, that of finding +among the gruesome relics beneath the spider's web some edible carrion +which might feed the inhabitants of its city.</p> + +<p>Burl sped on for a few hundred yards, and stopped. It behooved him to +move carefully. He was in strange territory, and as even the most +familiar territory was full of sudden and implacable dangers, unknown +lands were doubly or trebly perilous.</p> + +<p>Burl, too found difficulty in moving. The glutinous stuff from the +spider's shroud of silk still stuck to his feet and picked up small +objects as he went along. Old ant-gnawed fragments of insect armour +pricked him even through his toughened soles.</p> + +<p>He looked about cautiously and removed them, took a dozen steps and had +to stop again. Burl's brain had been uncommonly stimulated of late. It +had gotten him into at least one predicament—due to his invention of a +spear—but had no less readily led to his escape from another. But for +the reasoning that had led him to use the grease from the fish upon his +shoulder in oiling his body when he struggled out of the spider's snare, +he would now be furnishing a meal for that monster.</p> + +<p>Cautiously, Burl looked all about him. He seemed to be safe. Then, quite +deliberately, he sat down to think. It was the first time in his life +that he had done such a thing. The people of his tribe were not given to +meditation. But an idea had struck Burl with all the force of +inspiration—an abstract idea.</p> + +<p>When he was in difficulties, something within him seemed to suggest a +way out. Would it suggest an inspiration now? He puzzled over the +problem. Childlike—and savage-like—the instant the thought came to +him, he proceeded to test it out. He fixed his gaze upon his foot. The +sharp edges of pebbles, of the remains of insect-armour, of a dozen +things, hurt his feet when he walked. They had done so ever since he had +been born, but never had his feet been sticky so that the irritation +continued with him for more than a single step.</p> + +<p>Now he gazed upon his foot, and waited for the thought within him to +develop. Meanwhile, he slowly removed the sharp-pointed fragments, one +by one. Partly coated as they were with the half-liquid gum from his +feet, they clung to his fingers as they had to his feet, except upon +those portions where the oil was thick as before.</p> + +<p>Burl's reasoning, before, was simple and of the primary order. Where oil +covered him, the web did not. Therefore he would coat the rest of +himself with oil. Had he been placed in the same predicament again, he +would have used the same means of escape. But to apply a bit of +knowledge gained in one predicament to another difficulty was something +he had not yet done.</p> + +<p>A dog may be taught that by pulling on the latchstring of a door he may +open it, but the same dog coming to a high and close-barred gate with a +latchstring attached, will never think of pulling on this second +latchstring. He associates a latchstring with the opening of the door. +The opening of a gate is another matter entirely.</p> + +<p>Burl had been stirred to one invention by imminent peril. That is not +extraordinary. But to reason in cold blood, as he presently did, that +oil on his feet would nullify the glue upon his feet and enable him +again to walk in comfort—that was a triumph. The inventions of savages +are essentially matters of life and death, of food and safety. Comfort +and luxury are only produced by intelligence of a high order.</p> + +<p>Burl, in safety, had added to his comfort. That was truly a more +important thing in his development than almost any other thing he could +have done. He oiled his feet.</p> + +<p>It was an almost infinitesimal problem, but Burl's struggles with the +mental process of reasoning were actual. Thirty thousand years before +him, a wise man had pointed out that education is simply training in +thought, in efficient and effective thinking. Burl's tribe had been too +much preoccupied with food and mere existence to think, and now Burl, +sitting at the base of a squat toadstool that all but concealed him, +reexemplified Rodin's "Thinker" for the first time in many generations.</p> + +<p>For Burl to reason that oil upon the soles of his feet would guard him +against sharp stones was as much a triumph of intellect as any +masterpiece of art in the ages before him. Burl was learning how to +think.</p> + +<p>He stood up, walked, and crowed in sheer delight, then paused a moment +in awe of his own intelligence. Thirty-five miles from his tribe, naked, +unarmed, utterly ignorant of fire, of wood, of any weapons save a spear +he had experimented with the day before, abysmally uninformed concerning +the very existence of any art or science, Burl stopped to assure himself +that he was very wonderful.</p> + +<p>Pride came to him. He wished to display himself to Saya, these things +upon his feet, and his spear. But his spear was gone.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>With touching faith in the efficacy of this new pastime, Burl sat +promptly down again and knitted his brows. Just as a superstitious +person, once convinced that by appeal to a favorite talisman he will be +guided aright, will inevitably apply to that talisman on all occasions, +so Burl plumped himself down to think.</p> + +<p>These questions were easily answered. Burl was naked. He would search +out garments for himself. He was weaponless. He would find himself a +spear. He was hungry—and would seek food, and he was far from his +tribe, so he would go to them. Puerile reasoning, of course, but +valuable, because it was consciously reasoning, consciously appealing to +his mind for guidance in difficulty, deliberate progress from a mental +desire to a mental resolution.</p> + +<p>Even in the high civilization of ages before, few men had really used +their brains. The great majority of people had depended upon machines +and their leaders to think for them. Burl's tribefolk depended on their +stomachs. Burl, however, was gradually developing the habit of thinking +which makes for leadership and which would be invaluable to his little +tribe.</p> + +<p>He stood up again and faced upstream, moving slowly and cautiously, his +eyes searching the ground before him keenly and his ears alert for the +slightest sound of danger. Gigantic butterflies, riotous in coloring, +fluttered overhead through the misty haze. Sometimes a grasshopper +hurtled through the air like a projectile, its transparent wings beating +the air frantically. Now and then a wasp sped by, intent upon its +hunting, or a bee droned heavily along, anxious and worried, striving in +a nearly flowerless world to gather the pollen that would feed the hive.</p> + +<p>Here and there Burl saw flies of various sorts, some no larger than his +thumb, but others the size of his whole hand. They fed upon the juices +that dripped from the maggot-infested mushrooms, when filth more to +their liking was not at hand.</p> + +<p>Very far away a shrill roaring sounded faintly. It was like a multitude +of clickings blended into a single sound, but was so far away that it +did not impress itself upon Burl's attention. He had all the strictly +localized vision of a child. What was near was important, and what was +distant could be ignored. Only the imminent required attention, and Burl +was preoccupied.</p> + +<p>Had he listened, he would have realized that army ants were abroad in +countless millions, spreading themselves out in a broad array and eating +all they came upon far more destructively than so many locusts.</p> + +<p>Locusts in past ages had eaten all green things. There were only giant +cabbages and a few such tenacious rank growths in the world that Burl +knew. The locusts had vanished with civilization and knowledge and the +greater part of mankind, but the army ants remained as an invincible +enemy to men and insects, and the most of the fungus growths that +covered the earth.</p> + +<p>Burl did not notice the sound, however. He moved forward, briskly though +cautiously, searching with his eyes for garments, food, and weapons. He +confidently expected to find all of them within a short distance.</p> + +<p>Surely enough he found a thicket—if one might call it so—of edible +fungi no more than half a mile beyond the spot where he had improvised +his sandals to protect the soles of his feet.</p> + +<p>Without especial elation, Burl tugged at the largest until he had broken +off a food supply for several days. He went on, eating as he did so, +past a broad plain a mile and more across, being broken into odd little +hillocks by gradually ripening and suddenly developing mushrooms with +which he was unfamiliar.</p> + +<p>The earth seemed to be in process of being pushed aside by rounded +protuberances of which only the tips showed. Blood-red hemispheres +seemed to be forcing aside the earth so they might reach the outer air.</p> + +<p>Burl looked at them curiously, and passed among them without touching +them. They were strange, and to him most strange things meant danger. In +any event, he was full of a new purpose now. He wished garments and +weapons.</p> + +<p>Above the plain a wasp hovered, a heavy object dangling beneath its +black belly, ornamented by a single red band. It was a wasp—the hairy +sand-wasp—and it was bringing a paralyzed gray caterpillar to its +burrow.</p> + +<p>Burl watched it drop down with the speed and sureness of an arrow, pull +aside a heavy, flat stone, and descend into the ground. It had a +vertical shaft dug down for forty feet or more.</p> + +<p>It descended, evidently inspected the interior, reappeared, and vanished +into the hole again, dragging the gray worm after it. Burl, marching on +over the broad plain that seemed stricken with some erupting disease +from the number of red pimples making their appearance, did not know +what passed below, but observed the wasp emerge again and busily scratch +dirt and stones into the shaft until it was full.</p> + +<p>The wasp had paralyzed a caterpillar, taken it to the already prepared +burrow, laid an egg upon it, and rilled up the entrance. In course of +time the egg would hatch into a grub barely as long as Burl's +forefinger, which would then feed upon the torpid caterpillar until it +had waxed large and fat. Then it would weave itself a chrysalis and +sleep a long sleep, only to wake as a wasp and dig its way to the open +air.</p> + +<p>Burl reached the farther side of the plain and found himself threading +the aisles of one of the fungus forests in which the growths were +hideous, misshapen travesties upon the trees they had supplanted. +Bloated, yellow limbs branched off from rounded, swollen trunks. Here +and there a pear-shaped puff-ball, Burl's height and half as much again, +waited craftily until a chance touch should cause it to shoot upward a +curling puff of infinitely fine dust.</p> + +<p>Burl went cautiously. There were dangers here, but he moved forward +steadily, none the less. A great mass of edible mushroom was slung under +one of his arms, and from time to time he broke off a fragment and ate +of it, while his large eyes searched this way and that for threats of +harm.</p> + +<p>Behind him, a high, shrill roaring had grown slightly in volume and +nearness, but was still too far away to impress Burl. The army ants were +working havoc in the distance. By thousands and millions, myriads upon +myriads, they were foraging the country, clambering upon every eminence, +descending into every depression, their antennae waving restlessly and +their mandibles forever threateningly extended. The ground was black +with them, each was ten inches and more in length.</p> + +<p>A single such creature would be formidable to an unarmed and naked man +like Burl, whose wisest move would be flight, but in their thousands and +millions they presented a menace from which no escape seemed possible. +They were advancing steadily and rapidly, shrill stridulations and a +multitude of clickings marking their movements.</p> + +<p>The great helpless caterpillars upon the giant cabbages heard the sound +of their coming, but were too stupid to flee. The black multitudes +covered the rank vegetables, and tiny but voracious jaws began to tear +at the flaccid masses of flesh.</p> + +<p>Each creature had some futile means of struggling. The caterpillars +strove to throw off their innumerable assailants by writhings and +contortions, wholly ineffective. The bees fought their entrance to the +gigantic hives with stings and wingbeats. The moths took to the air in +helpless blindness when discovered by the relentless throngs of small +black insects which reeked of formic acid and left the ground behind +them denuded in every living thing.</p> + +<p>Before the oncoming horde was a world of teeming life, where mushrooms +and fungi fought with thinning numbers of giant cabbages for foothold. +Behind the black multitude was—nothing. Mushrooms, cabbages, bees, +wasps, crickets. Every creeping and crawling thing that did not get +aloft before the black tide reached it was lost, torn to bits by tiny +mandibles. Even the hunting spiders and tarantulas fell before the host +of insects, having killed many in their final struggles, but overwhelmed +by sheer numbers. And the wounded and dying army ants made food for +their sound comrades.</p> + +<p>There is no mercy among insects. Only the web-spiders sat unmoved and +immovable in their colossal snares, secure in the knowledge that their +gummy webs would discourage attempts at invasion along the slender +supporting cables.</p> + +<p>Surging onward, flowing like a monstrous, murky tide over the yellow, +steaming earth, the army ants advanced. Their vanguard reached the +river, and recoiled. Burl was perhaps five miles distant when they +changed their course, communicating the altered line of march to those +behind them in some mysterious fashion of transmitting intelligence.</p> + +<p>Thirty thousand years before, scientists had debated gravely over the +means of communication among ants. They had observed that a single ant +finding a bit of booty too large for him to handle alone would return to +the ant-city and return with others. From that one instance they deduced +a language of gestures made with the antennae.</p> + +<p>Burl had no wise theories. He merely knew facts, but he knew that the +ants had some form of speech or transmission of ideas. Now, however, he +was moving cautiously along toward the stamping grounds of his tribe, in +complete ignorance of the black blanket of living creatures creeping +over the ground toward him.</p> + +<p>A million tragedies marked the progress of the insect army. There was a +tiny colony of mining bees—Zebra bees—a single mother, some four feet +long, had dug a huge gallery with some ten cells, in which she laid her +eggs and fed her grubs with hard-gathered pollen. The grubs had waxed +fat and large, became bees, and laid eggs in their turn, within the +gallery their mother had dug out for them.</p> + +<p>Ten such bulky insects now foraged busily for grubs within the ancestral +home, while the founder of the colony had grown draggled and wingless +with the passing of time. Unable to forage herself, the old bee became +the guardian of the nest or hive, as is the custom among the mining +bees. She closed the opening of the hive with her head, making a living +barrier within the entrance, and withdrawing to give entrance and exit +only to duly authenticated members of the extensive colony.</p> + +<p>The ancient and draggled concierge of the underground dwelling was at +her post when the wave of army ants swept over her. Tiny, evil-smelling +feet trampled upon her. She emerged to fight with mandible and sting for +the sanctity of the hive. In a moment she was a shaggy mass of biting +ants, rending and tearing at her chitinous armour. The old bee fought +madly, viciously, sounding a buzzing alarm to the colonists yet within +the hive. They emerged, fighting as they came, for the gallery leading +down was a dark flood of small insects.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For a few moments a battle such as would make an epic was in progress. +Ten huge bees, each four to five feet long, fighting with legs and jaw, +wing and mandible, with all the ferocity of as many tigers. The tiny, +vicious ants covered them, snapping at their multiple eyes, biting at +the tender joints in their armour—sometimes releasing the larger prey +to leap upon an injured comrade wounded by the huge creature they +battled in common.</p> + +<p>The fight, however, could have but one ending. Struggle as the bees +might, herculean as their efforts might be, they were powerless against +the incredible numbers of their assailants, who tore them into tiny +fragments and devoured them. Before the last shred of the hive's +defenders had vanished, the hive itself was gutted alike of the grubs it +had contained and the food brought to the grubs by such weary effort of +the mature bees.</p> + +<p>The army ants went on. Only an empty gallery remained, that and a few +fragments of tough armour, unappetizing even to the omniverous ants.</p> + +<p>Burl was meditatively inspecting the scene of a recent tragedy, where +rent and scraped fragments of a great beetle's shiny casing lay upon the +ground. A greater beetle had come upon the first and slain him. Burl was +looking upon the remains of the meal.</p> + +<p>Three or four minims, little ants barely six inches long, foraged +industriously among the bits. A new ant city was to be formed and the +queen-ant lay hidden a half-mile away. These were the first hatchlings, +who would feed the larger ants on whom would fall the great work of the +ant-city. Burl ignored them, searching with his eyes for a spear or +weapon.</p> + +<p>Behind him the clicking roar, the high-pitched stridulations of the +horde of army ants, rose in volume. Burl turned disgustedly away. The +best he could find in the way of a weapon was a fiercely toothed hind +leg. He picked it up, and an angry whine rose from the ground.</p> + +<p>One of the black minims was working busily to detach a fragment of flesh +from the joint of the leg, and Burl had snatched the morsel from him. +The little creature was hardly half a foot in length, but it advanced +upon Burl, shrilling angrily. He struck it with the leg and crushed it. +Two of the other minims appeared, attracted by the noise the first had +made. Discovering the crushed body of their fellow, they unceremoniously +dismembered it and bore it away in triumph.</p> + +<p>Burl went on, swinging the toothed limb in his hand. It made a fair +club, and Burl was accustomed to use stones to crush the juicy legs of +such giant crickets as his tribe sometimes came upon. He formed a +half-defined idea of a club. The sharp teeth of the thing in his hand +made him realize that a sidewise blow was better than a spearlike +thrust.</p> + +<p>The sound behind him had become a distant whispering, high-pitched, and +growing nearer. The army ants swept over a mushroom forest, and the +yellow, umbrella-like growths swarmed with black creatures devouring the +substance on which they found a foothold.</p> + +<p>A great bluebottle fly, shining with a metallic luster, reposed in an +ecstasy of feasting, sipping through its long proboscis the dark-colored +liquid that dripped slowly from a mushroom. Maggots filled the mushroom, +and exuded a solvent pepsin that liquefied the white firm "meat."</p> + +<p>They fed upon this soup, this gruel, and a surplus dripped to the ground +below, where the bluebottle drank eagerly. Burl drew near, and struck. +The fly collapsed into a writhing heap. Burl stood over it for an +instant, pondering.</p> + +<p>The army ants came nearer, down into a tiny valley, swarming into and +through a little brook over which Burl had leaped. Ants can remain under +water for a long time without drowning, so the small stream was but a +minor obstacle, though the current of water swept many of them off their +feet until they choked the brook-bed, and their comrades passed over +their struggling bodies dry-shod. They were no more than temporarily +annoyed, however, and presently crawled out to resume their march.</p> + +<p>About a quarter of a mile to the left of Burl's line of march, and +perhaps a mile behind the spot where he stood over the dead bluebottle +fly, there was a stretch of an acre or more where the giant, rank +cabbages had so far resisted the encroachments of the ever present +mushrooms. The pale, cross-shaped flowers of the cabbages formed food +for many bees, and the leaves fed numberless grubs and worms, and +loud-voiced crickets which crouched about on the ground, munching busily +at the succulent green stuff. The army ants swept into the green area, +ceaselessly devouring all they came upon.</p> + +<p>A terrific din arose. The crickets hurtled away in a rocketlike flight, +in a dark cloud of wildly beating wings. They shot aimlessly in any +direction, with the result that half, or more than half, fell in the +midst of the black tide of devouring insects and were seized as they +fell. They uttered terrible cries as they were being torn to bits. +Horrible inhuman screams reached Burl's ears.</p> + +<p>A single such cry of agony would not have attracted Burl's attention—he +lived in the very atmosphere of tragedy—but the chorus of creatures in +torment made him look up. This was no minor horror. Wholesale slaughter +was going on. He peered anxiously in the direction of the sound.</p> + +<p>A wild stretch of sickly yellow fungus, here and there interspersed with +a squat toadstool or a splash of vivid color where one of the many +"rusts" had found a foothold. To the left a group of awkward, misshapen +fungoids clustered in silent mockery of a forest of trees. There a mass +of faded green, where the giant cabbages stood.</p> + +<p>With the true sun never shining upon them save through a blanket of +thick haze or heavy clouds, they were pallid things, but they were the +only green things Burl had seen. Their nodding white flowers with four +petals in the form of a cross glowed against the yellowish green leaves. +But as Burl gazed toward them, the green became slowly black.</p> + +<p>From where he stood, Burl could see two or three great grubs in lazy +contentment, eating ceaselessly on the cabbages on which they rested. +Suddenly first one and then the other began to jerk spasmodically. Burl +saw that about each of them a tiny rim of black had clustered. Tiny +black motes milled over the green surfaces of the cabbages. The grubs +became black, the cabbages became black. Horrible contortions of the +writhing grubs told of the agonies they were enduring. Then a black wave +appeared at the further edge of the stretch of the sickly yellow fungus, +a glistening, living wave, that moved forward rapidly with the roar of +clickings and a persistent overtone of shrill stridulations.</p> + +<p>The hair rose upon Burl's head. He knew what this was! He knew all too +well the meaning of that tide of shining bodies. With a gasp of terror, +all his intellectual preoccupations forgotten, he turned and fled in +ultimate panic. And the tide came slowly on after him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>He flung away the great mass of edible mushroom, but clung to his +sharp-toothed club desperately, and darted through the tangled aisles of +the little mushroom forest with a heedless disregard of the dangers that +might await him there. Flies buzzed about him loudly, huge creatures, +glittering with a metallic luster. Once he was struck upon the shoulder +by the body of one of them, and his skin was torn by the swiftly +vibrating wings of the insect, as long as Burl's hand.</p> + +<p>Burl thrust it away and sped on. The oil with which he was partly +covered had turned rancid, now, and the odor attracted them, +connoisseurs of the fetid. They buzzed over his head, keeping pace even +with his headlong flight.</p> + +<p>A heavy weight settled upon his head, and in a moment was doubled. Two +of the creatures had dropped upon his oily hair, to sip the rancid oil +through their disgusting proboscises. Burl shook them off with his hand +and ran madly on. His ears were keenly attuned to the sound of the army +ants behind him, and it grew but little farther away.</p> + +<p>The clicking roar continued, but began to be overshadowed by the buzzing +of the flies. In Burl's time the flies had no great heaps of putrid +matter in which to lay their eggs. The ants—busy scavengers—carted +away the debris of the multitudinous tragedies of the insect world long +before it could acquire the gamey flavor beloved by the fly maggots. +Only in isolated spots were the flies really numerous, but there they +clustered in clouds that darkened the sky.</p> + +<p>Such a buzzing, whirling cloud surrounded the madly running figure of +Burl. It seemed as though a miniature whirlwind kept pace with the +little pink-skinned man, a whirlwind composed of winged bodies and +multi-faceted eyes. He twirled his club before him, and almost every +stroke was interrupted by an impact against a thinly armoured body which +collapsed with a spurting of reddish liquid.</p> + +<p>An agonizing pain as of a red-hot iron struck upon Burl's back. One of +the stinging flies had thrust its sharp-tipped proboscis into Burl's +flesh to suck the blood.</p> + +<p>Burl uttered a cry and—ran full tilt into the thick stalk of a +blackened and draggled toadstool. There was a curious crackling as of +wet punk or brittle rotten wood. The toadstool collapsed upon itself +with a strange splashing sound. Many flies had laid their eggs in the +fungoid, and it was a teeming mass of corruption and ill-smelling +liquid.</p> + +<p>With the crash of the toadstool's "head" upon the ground, it fell into a +dozen pieces, and the earth for yards around was spattered with a +stinking liquid in which tiny, headless maggots twitched convulsively.</p> + +<p>The buzzing of the flies took on a note of satisfaction, and they +settled by hundreds about the edges of the ill-smelling pools, becoming +lost in the ecstacy of feasting while Burl staggered to his feet and +darted off again. This time he was but a minor attraction to the flies, +and but one or two came near him. From every direction they were +hurrying to the toadstool feast, to the banquet of horrible, liquefied +fungus that lay spread upon the ground.</p> + +<p>Burl ran on. He passed beneath the wide-spreading leaves of a giant +cabbage. A great grasshopper crouched upon the ground, its tremendous +jaws crunching the rank vegetation voraciously. Half a dozen great worms +ate steadily from their resting-places among the leaves. One of them had +slung itself beneath an overhanging leaf—which would have thatched a +dozen homes for as many men—and was placidly anchoring itself in +preparation for the spinning of a cocoon in which to sleep the sleep of +metamorphosis.</p> + +<p>A mile away, the great black tide of army ants was advancing +relentlessly. The great cabbage, the huge grasshopper, and all the +stupid caterpillars upon the wide leaves would soon be covered with the +tiny biting insects. The cabbage would be reduced to a chewed and +destroyed stump, the colossal, furry grubs would be torn into a myriad +mouthfuls and devoured by the black army ants, and the grasshopper would +strike out with terrific, unguided strength, crushing its assailants by +blows of its powerful hind legs and bites of its great jaws. But it +would die, making terrible sounds of torment as the vicious mandibles of +the army ants found crevices in its armour.</p> + +<p>The clicking roar of the ants' advance overshadowed all other sounds, +now. Burl was running madly, breath coming in great gasps, his eyes wide +with panic. Alone of all the world about him, he knew the danger behind. +The insects he passed were going about their business with that +terrifying efficiency found only in the insect world.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There is something strangely daunting in the actions of an insect. It +moves so directly, with such uncanny precision, with such utter +indifference to anything but the end in view. Cannibalism is a rule, +almost without exception. The paralysis of prey, so it may remain alive +and fresh—though in agony—for weeks on end, is a common practice. The +eating piecemeal of still living victims is a matter of course.</p> + +<p>Absolute mercilessness, utter callousness, incredible inhumanity beyond +anything known in the animal world is the natural and commonplace +practice of the insects. And these vast cruelties are performed by +armoured, machine-like creatures with an abstraction and a routine air +that suggests a horrible Nature behind them all.</p> + +<p>Burl nearly stumbled upon a tragedy. He passed within a dozen yards of a +space where a female dung-beetle was devouring the mate whose honeymoon +had begun that same day and ended in that gruesome fashion. Hidden +behind a clump of mushrooms, a great yellow-banded spider was coyly +threatening a smaller male of her own species. He was discreetly ardent, +but if he won the favor of the gruesome creature he was wooing, he would +furnish an appetizing meal for her some time within twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>Burl's heart was pounding madly. The breath whistled in his +nostrils—and behind him, the wave of army ants was drawing nearer. They +came upon the feasting flies. Some took to the air and escaped, but +others were too engrossed in their delicious meal. The twitching little +maggots, stranded upon the earth by the scattering of their soupy broth, +were torn in pieces. The flies who were seized vanished into tiny maws. +The serried ranks of black insects went on.</p> + +<p>The tiny clickings of their limbs, the perpetual challenges and +cross-challenges of crossed antennae, the stridulations of the +creatures, all combined to make a high-pitched but deafening din. Now +and then another sound pierced the noises made by the ants themselves. A +cricket, seized by a thousand tiny jaws, uttered cries of agony. The +shrill note of the crickets had grown deeply bass with the increase in +size of the organs that uttered it.</p> + +<p>There was a strange contrast between the ground before the advancing +horde and that immediately behind it. Before, a busy world, teeming with +life. Butterflies floating overhead on lazy wings, grubs waxing fat and +huge upon the giant cabbages, crickets eating, great spiders sitting +quietly in their lairs waiting with invincible patience for prey to draw +near their trap doors or fall into their webs, colossal beetles +lumbering heavily through the mushroom forests, seeking food, making +love in monstrous, tragic fashion.</p> + +<p>And behind the wide belt of army ants—chaos. The edible mushrooms gone. +The giant cabbages left as mere stumps of unappetizing pulp, the busy +life of the insect world completely wiped out save for the flying +creatures that fluttered helplessly over an utterly changed landscape. +Here and there little bands of stragglers moved busily over the denuded +earth, searching for some fragment of food that might conceivably have +been overlooked by the main body.</p> + +<p>Burl was putting forth his last ounce of strength. His limbs trembled, +his breathing was agony, sweat stood out upon his forehead. He ran a +little, naked man with the disjointed fragment of a huge insect's limb +in his hand, running for his insignificant life, running as if his +continued existence among the million tragedies of that single day were +the purpose for which the whole of the universe had been created.</p> + +<p>He sped across an open space a hundred yards across. A thicket of +beautifully golden mushrooms (<i>Agaricus caesareus</i>) barred his way. +Beyond the mushrooms a range of strangely colored hills began, purple +and green and black and gold, melting into each other, branching off +from each other, inextricably tangled.</p> + +<p>They rose to a height of perhaps sixty or seventy feet, and above them a +little grayish haze had gathered. There seemed to be a layer of tenuous +vapor upon their surfaces, which slowly rose and coiled, and gathered +into a tiny cloudlet above their tips.</p> + +<p>The hills, themselves, were but masses of fungus, mushrooms and fungoids +of every description, yeasts, "musts," and every form of fungus growth +which had grown within itself and about itself until this great mass of +strangely colored, spongy stuff had gathered in a mass that undulated +unevenly across the level earth for miles.</p> + +<p>Burl burst through the golden thicket and attacked the ascent. His feet +sank into the spongy sides of the hillock. Panting, gasping, staggering +from exhaustion, he made his way up the top. He plunged into a little +valley on the farther side, up another slope. For perhaps ten minutes he +forced himself on, then collapsed. He lay, unable to move further, in a +little hollow, his sharp-toothed club still clasped in his hands. Above +him, a bright yellow butterfly with a thirty-foot spread of wing, +fluttered lightly.</p> + +<p>He lay motionless, breathing in great gasps, his limbs stubbornly +refusing to lift him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The sound of the army ants continued to grow near. At last, above the +crest of the last hillock he had surmounted, two tiny antennae appeared, +then the black glistening head of an army ant, the forerunner of its +horde. It moved deliberately forward, waving its antennae ceaselessly. +It made its way toward Burl, tiny clickings coming from the movements of +its limbs.</p> + +<p>A little wisp of tenuous vapor swirled toward the ant, a wisp of the +same vapor that had gathered above the whole range of hills as a thin, +low cloud. It enveloped the insect—and the ant seemed to be attacked by +a strange convulsion. Its legs moved aimlessly. It threw itself +desperately about. If it had been an animal, Burl would have watched +with wondering eyes while it coughed and gasped, but it was an insect +breathing through air-holes in its abdomen. It writhed upon the spongy +fungus growth across which it had been moving.</p> + +<p>Burl, lying in an exhausted, panting heap upon the purple mass of +fungus, was conscious of a strange sensation. His body felt strangely +warm. He knew nothing of fire or the heat of the sun, and the only +sensation of warmth he had ever known was that caused when the members +of his tribe had huddled together in their hiding place when the damp +chill of the night had touched their soft-skinned bodies. Then the heat +of their breaths and their bodies had kept out the chill.</p> + +<p>This heat that Burl now felt was a hotter, fiercer heat. He moved his +body with a tremendous effort, and for a moment the fungus was cool and +soft beneath him. Then, slowly, the sensation of heat began again, and +increased until Burl's skin was red and inflamed from the irritation.</p> + +<p>The thin and tenuous vapor, too, made Burl's lungs smart and his eyes +water. He was breathing in great, choking gasps, but the period of +rest—short as it was—had enabled him to rise and stagger on. He +crawled painfully to the top of the slope, and looked back.</p> + +<p>The hill-crest on which he stood was higher than any of those he had +passed in his painful run, and he could see clearly the whole of the +purple range. Where he was, he was near the farther edge of the range, +which was here perhaps half a mile wide.</p> + +<p>It was a ceaseless, undulating mass of hills and hollows, ridges and +spurs, all of them colored, purple and brown and golden-yellow, deepest +black and dingy white. And from the tips of most of the pointed hills +little wisps of vapor rose up.</p> + +<p>A thin, dark cloud had gathered overhead. Burl could look to the right +and left, and see the hills fading into the distance, growing fainter as +the haze above them seemed to grow thicker. He saw, too, the advancing +cohorts of the army ants, creeping over the tangled mass of fungus +growth. They seemed to be feeding as they went, upon the fungus that had +gathered into these incredible monstrosities.</p> + +<p>The hills were living. They were not upheavals of the ground, they were +festering heaps of insanely growing, festering mushrooms and fungus. +Upon most of them a purple mould had spread itself so that they seemed a +range of purple hills, but here and there patches of other vivid colors +showed, and there was a large hill whose whole side was a brilliant +golden hue. Another had tiny bright red spots of a strange and malignant +mushroom whose properties Burl did not know, scattered all over the +purple with which it was covered.</p> + +<p>Burl leaned heavily upon his club and watched dully. He could run no +more. The army ants were spreading everywhere over the mass of fungus. +They would reach him soon.</p> + +<p>Far to the right the vapor thickened. A column of smoke arose. What Burl +did not know and would never know was that far down in the interior of +that compressed mass of fungus, slow oxidization had been going on. The +temperature of the interior had been raised. In the darkness and the +dampness deep down in the hills, spontaneous combustion had begun.</p> + +<p>Just as the vast piles of coal the railroad companies of thirty thousand +years before had gathered together sometimes began to burn fiercely in +their interiors, and just as the farmers' piles of damp straw suddenly +burst into fierce flames from no cause, so these huge piles of +tinder-like mushrooms had been burning slowly within themselves.</p> + +<p>There had been no flames, because the surface remained intact and nearly +air-tight. But when the army ants began to tear at the edible surfaces +despite the heat they encountered, fresh air found its way to the +smouldering masses of fungus. The slow combustion became rapid +combustion. The dull heat became fierce flames. The slow trickle of thin +smoke became a huge column of thick, choking, acrid stuff that set the +army ants that breathed it into spasms of convulsive writhing.</p> + +<p>From a dozen points the flames burst out. A dozen or more columns of +blinding smoke rose to the heavens. A pall of fume-laden smoke gathered +above the range of purple hills, while Burl watched apathetically. And +the serried ranks of army ants marched on to the widening furnaces that +awaited them.</p> + +<p>They had recoiled from the river, because their instinct had warned +them. Thirty thousand years without danger from fire, however, had let +their racial fear of fire die out. They marched into the blazing +orifices they had opened in the hills, snapping with their mandibles at +the leaping flames, springing at the glowing tinder.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The blazing area widened, as the purple surface was undermined and fell +in. Burl watched the phenomenon without comprehension and even without +thankfulness. He stood, panting more and more slowly, breathing more and +more easily, until the glow from the approaching flames reddened his +skin and the acrid smoke made tears flow from his eyes.</p> + +<p>Then he retreated slowly, leaning on his club and looking back. The +black wave of the army ants was sweeping into the fire, sweeping into +the incredible heat of that carbonized material burning with an open +flame. At last there were only the little bodies of stragglers from the +great ant-army, scurrying here and there over the ground their comrades +had denuded of all living things. The bodies of the main army had +vanished—burnt to crisp ashes in the furnace of the hills.</p> + +<p>There had been agony in that flame, dreadful agony such as no man would +like to dwell upon. The insane courage of the ants, attacking with their +horny jaws the burning masses of fungus, rolling over and over with a +flaming missile clutched in their mandibles, sounding their shrill war +cry while cries of agony came from them—blinded, their antennae burnt +off, their lidless eyes scorched by the licking flames, yet going madly +forward on flaming feet to attack, ever attack this unknown and +unknowable enemy.</p> + +<p>Burl made his way slowly over the hills. Twice he saw small bodies of +the army ants. They had passed between the widening surfaces their +comrades had opened, and they were feeding voraciously upon the hills +they trod on. Once Burl was spied, and a shrill war cry was sounded, but +he moved on, and the ants were busily eating. A single ant rushed toward +him. Burl brought down his club, and a writhing body remained to be +eaten later by its comrades when they came upon it.</p> + +<p>Again night fell. The skies grew red in the west, though the sun did not +shine through the ever present cloud bank. Darkness spread across the +sky. Utter blackness fell over the whole mad world, save where the +luminous mushrooms shed their pale light upon the ground and fireflies +the length of Burl's arm shed their fitful gleams upon an earth of +fungus growths and monstrous insects.</p> + +<p>Burl made his way across the range of mushroom hills, picking his path +with his large blue eyes whose pupils expanded to great size. Slowly, +from the sky, now a drop and then a drop, now a drop and then a drop, +the nightly rain that would continue until daybreak began.</p> + +<p>Burl found the ground hard beneath his feet. He listened keenly for +sounds of danger. Something rustled heavily in a thicket of mushrooms a +hundred yards away. There were sounds of preening, and of delicate feet +placed lightly here and there upon the ground. Then the throbbing beat +of huge wings began suddenly, and a body took to the air.</p> + +<p>A fierce, down-coming current of air smote Burl, and he looked upward in +time to catch the outline of a huge body—a moth—as it passed above +him. He turned to watch the line of its flight, and saw a strange glow +in the sky behind him. The mushroom hills were still burning.</p> + +<p>He crouched beneath a squat toadstool and waited for the dawn, his club +held tightly in his hands, and his ears alert for any sound of danger. +The slow-dropping, sodden rain kept on. It fell with irregular, drumlike +beats upon the tough top of the toadstool under which he had taken +refuge.</p> + +<p>Slowly, slowly, the sodden rainfall continued. Drop by drop, all the +night long, the warm pellets of liquid came from the sky. They boomed +upon the hollow heads of the toadstools, and splashed into the steaming +pools that lay festering all over the fungus-covered earth.</p> + +<p>And all the night long the great fires grew and spread in the mass of +already half-carbonized mushroom. The flare at the horizon grew brighter +and nearer. Burl, naked and hiding beneath a huge mushroom, watched it +grow near him with wide eyes, wondering what this thing was. He had +never seen a flame before.</p> + +<p>The overhanging clouds were brightened by the flames. Over a stretch at +least a dozen miles in length and from half a mile to three miles +across, seething furnaces sent columns of dense smoke up to the roof of +clouds, luminous from the glow below them, and spreading out and forming +an intermediate layer below the cloudbanks.</p> + +<p>It was like the glow of all the many lights of a vast city thrown +against the sky—but the last great city had moulded into fungus-covered +rubbish thirty thousand years before. Like the flitting of airplanes +above a populous city, too, was the flitting of fascinated creatures +above the glow.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Moths and great flying beetles, gigantic gnats and midges grown huge +with the passing of time, they fluttered and danced the dance of death +above the flames. As the fire grew nearer to Burl, he could see them.</p> + +<p>Colossal, delicately formed creatures swooped above the strange blaze. +Moths with their riotously colored wings of thirty-foot spread beat the +air with mighty strokes, and their huge eyes glowed like carbuncles as +they stared with the frenzied gaze of intoxicated devotees into the +glowing flames below them.</p> + +<p>Burl saw a great peacock moth soaring above the burning mushroom hills. +Its wings were all of forty feet across, and fluttered like gigantic +sails as the moth gazed down at the flaming furnace below. The separate +flames had united, now, and a single sheet of white-hot burning stuff +spread across the country for miles, sending up its clouds of smoke, in +which and through which the fascinated creatures flew.</p> + +<p>Feathery antennae of the finest lace spread out before the head of the +peacock moth, and its body was softest, richest velvet. A ring of +snow-white down marked where its head began, and the red glow from below +smote on the maroon of its body with a strange effect.</p> + +<p>For one instant it was outlined clearly. Its eyes glowed more redly than +any ruby's fire, and the great, delicate wings were poised in flight. +Burl caught the flash of the flames upon two great iridescent spots upon +the wide-spread wings. Shining purple and vivid red, the glow of opal +and the sheen of pearl, all the glory of chalcedony and chrysoprase +formed a single wonder in the red glare of burning fungus. White smoke +compassed the great moth all about, dimming the radiance of its gorgeous +dress.</p> + +<p>Burl saw it dart straight into the thickest and brightest of the licking +flames, flying madly, eagerly, into the searing, hellish heat as a +willing, drunken sacrifice to the god of fire.</p> + +<p>Monster flying beetles with their horny wing-cases stiffly stretched, +blundered above the reeking, smoking pyre. In the red light from before +them they shone like burnished metal, and their clumsy bodies with the +spurred and fierce-toothed limbs darted like so many grotesque meteors +through the luminous haze of ascending smoke.</p> + +<p>Burl saw strange collisions and still stranger meetings. Male and female +flying creatures circled and spun in the glare, dancing their dance of +love and death in the wild radiance from the funeral pyre of the purple +hills. They mounted higher than Burl could see, drunk with the ecstasy +of living, then descended to plunge headlong to death in the roaring +fires beneath them.</p> + +<p>From every side the creatures came. Moths of brightest yellow with soft +and furry bodies palpitant with life flew madly into the column of light +that reached to the overhanging clouds, then moths of deepest black with +gruesome symbols upon their wings came swiftly to dance, like motes in a +bath of sunlight, above the glow.</p> + +<p>And Burl sat crouched beneath an overshadowing toadstool and watched. +The perpetual, slow, sodden raindrops fell. A continual faint hissing +penetrated the sound of the fire—the raindrops being turned to steam. +The air was alive with flying things. From far away, Burl heard a +strange, deep bass muttering. He did not know the cause, but there was a +vast swamp, of the existence of which he was ignorant, some ten or +fifteen miles away, and the chorus of insect-eating giant frogs reached +his ears even at that distance.</p> + +<p>The night wore on, while the flying creatures above the fire danced and +died, their numbers ever recruited by fresh arrivals. Burl sat tensely +still, his wide eyes watching everything, his mind groping for an +explanation of what he saw. At last the sky grew dimly gray, then +brighter, and day came on. The flames of the burning hills grew faint as +the fire died down, and after a long time Burl crept from his hiding +place and stood erect.</p> + +<p>A hundred yards from where he was, a straight wall of smoke rose from +the still smouldering fungus, and Burl could see it stretching for miles +in either direction. He turned to continue on his way, and saw the +remains of one of the tragedies of the night.</p> + +<p>A huge moth had flown into the flames, been horribly scorched, and +floundered out again. Had it been able to fly, it would have returned to +its devouring deity, but now it lay immovable upon the ground, its +antennae seared hopelessly, one beautiful, delicate wing burned in +gaping holes, its eyes dimmed by flame and its exquisitely tapering +limbs broken and crushed by the force with which it had struck the +ground. It lay helpless upon the earth, only the stumps of its antennae +moving restlessly, and its abdomen pulsating slowly as it drew +pain-racked breaths.</p> + +<p>Burl drew near and picked up a stone. He moved on presently, a velvet +cloak cast over his shoulders, gleaming with all the colors of the +rainbow. A gorgeous mass of soft, blue moth fur was about his middle, +and he had bound upon his forehead two yard-long, golden fragments of +the moth's magnificent antennae. He strode on, slowly, clad as no man +had been clad in all the ages.</p> + +<p>After a little he secured a spear and took up his journey to Saya, +looking like a prince of Ind upon a bridal journey—though no mere +prince ever wore such raiment in days of greatest glory.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>For many long miles Burl threaded his way through a single forest of +thin-stalked toadstools. They towered three-man-heights high, and all +about their bases were streaks and splashes of the rusts and moulds that +preyed upon them. Twice Burl came to open glades wherein open, bubbling +pools of green slime festered in corruption, and once he hid himself +fearfully as a monster scarabeus beetle lumbered within three yards of +him, moving heavily onward with a clanking of limbs as of some mighty +machine.</p> + +<p>Burl saw the mighty armour and the inward-curving jaws of the creature, +and envied him his weapons. The time was not yet come, however, when +Burl would smile at the great insect and hunt him for the juicy flesh +contained in those armoured limbs.</p> + +<p>Burl was still a savage, still ignorant, still timid. His principal +advance had been that whereas he had fled without reasoning, he now +paused to see if he need flee. In his hands he bore a long, +sharp-pointed chitinous spear. It had been the weapon of a huge, unnamed +flying insect scorched to death in the burning of the purple hills, +which had floundered out of the flames to die. Burl had worked for an +hour before being able to detach the weapon he coveted. It was as long +and longer than Burl himself.</p> + +<p>He was a strange sight, moving slowly and cautiously through the +shadowed lanes of the mushroom forest. A cloak of delicate velvet in +which all the colors of the rainbow played in iridescent beauty hung +from his shoulders. A mass of soft and beautiful moth fur was about his +middle, and in the strip of sinew about his waist the fiercely toothed +limb of a fighting beetle was thrust carelessly. He had bound to his +forehead twin stalks of a great moth's feathery golden antennae.</p> + +<p>Against the play of color that came from his borrowed plumage his pink +skin showed in odd contrast. He looked like some proud knight walking +slowly through the gardens of a goblin's castle. But he was still a +fearful creature, no more than the monstrous creatures about him save in +the possession of latent intelligence. He was weak—and therein lay his +greatest promise. A hundred thousand years before him his ancestors had +been forced by lack of claws and fangs to develop brains.</p> + +<p>Burl was sunk as low as they had been, but he had to combat more +horrifying enemies, more inexorable threatenings, and many times more +crafty assailants. His ancestors had invented knives and spears and +flying missiles. The creatures about Burl had knives and spears a +thousand times more deadly than the weapons that had made his ancestors +masters of the woods and forests.</p> + +<p>Burl was in comparison vastly more weak than his forebears had been, and +it was that weakness that in times to come would lead him and those who +followed him to heights his ancestors had never known. But now—</p> + +<p>He heard a discordant, deep bass bellow, coming from a spot not twenty +yards away. In a flash of panic he darted behind a clump of mushrooms +and hid himself, panting in sheer terror. He waited for an instant in +frozen fear, motionless and tense. His wide, blue eyes were glassy.</p> + +<p>The bellow came again, but this time with a querulous note. Burl heard a +crashing and plunging as of some creature caught in a snare. A mushroom +fell with a brittle snapping, and the spongy thud as it fell to the +ground was followed by a tremendous commotion. Something was fighting +desperately against something else, but Burl did not know what creature +or creatures might be in combat.</p> + +<p>He waited for a long time, and the noise gradually died away. Presently +Burl's breath came more slowly, and his courage returned. He stole from +his hiding place, and would have made away, but something held him back. +Instead of creeping from the scene, he crept cautiously over toward the +source of the noise.</p> + +<p>He peered between two cream-colored toadstool stalks and saw the cause +of the noise. A wide, funnel-shaped snare of silk was spread out before +him, some twenty yards across and as many deep. The individual threads +could be plainly seen, but in the mass it seemed a fabric of sheerest, +finest texture. Held up by the tall mushrooms, it was anchored to the +ground below, and drew away to a tiny point through which a hole gave on +some yet unknown recess. And all the space of the wide snare was hung +with threads, fine, twisted threads no more than half the thickness of +Burl's finger.</p> + +<p>This was the trap of a labyrinth spider. Not one of the interlacing +threads was strong enough to hold the feeblest of prey, but the threads +were there by thousands. A great cricket had become entangled in the +maze of sticky lines. Its limbs thrashed out, smashing the snare-lines +at every stroke, but at every stroke meeting and becoming entangled with +a dozen more. It thrashed about mightily, emitting at intervals the +horrible, deep bass cry that the chirping voice of the cricket had +become with its increase in size.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Burl breathed more easily, and watched with a fascinated curiosity. Mere +death—even tragic death—as among insects held no great interest for +him. It was a matter of such common and matter-of-fact occurrence that +he was not greatly stirred. But a spider and his prey was another +matter.</p> + +<p>There were few insects that deliberately sought man. Most insects have +their allotted victims, and will touch no others, but spiders have a +terrifying impartiality. One great beetle devouring another was a matter +of indifference to Burl. A spider devouring some luckless insect was but +an example of what might happen to him. He watched alertly, his gaze +traveling from the enmeshed cricket to the strange orifice at the rear +of the funnel-shaped snare.</p> + +<p>The opening darkened. Two shining, glistening eyes had been watching +from the rear of the funnel. It drew itself into a tunnel there, in +which the spider had been waiting. Now it swung out lightly and came +toward the cricket. It was a gray spider (<i>Agelena labyrinthica</i>), with +twin black ribbons upon its thorax, next the head, and with two stripes +of curiously speckled brown and white upon its abdomen. Burl saw, too, +two curious appendages like a tail.</p> + +<p>It came nimbly out of its tunnel-like hiding place and approached the +cricket. The cricket was struggling only feebly now, and the cries it +uttered were but feeble, because of the confining threads that fettered +its limbs. Burl saw the spider throw itself upon the cricket and saw the +final, convulsive shudder of the insect as the spider's fangs pierced +its tough armour. The sting lasted a long time, and finally Burl saw +that the spider was really feeding. All the succulent juices of the now +dead cricket were being sucked from its body by the spider. It had stung +the cricket upon the haunch, and presently it went to the other leg and +drained that, too, by means of its powerful internal suction-pump. When +the second haunch had been sucked dry, the spider pawed the lifeless +creature for a few moments and left it.</p> + +<p>Food was plentiful, and the spider could afford to be dainty in its +feeding. The two choicest titbits had been consumed. The remainder could +be discarded.</p> + +<p>A sudden thought came to Burl and quite took his breath away. For a +second his knees knocked together in self-induced panic. He watched the +gray spider carefully with growing determination in his eyes. He, Burl, +had killed a hunting-spider upon the red-clay cliff. True, the killing +had been an accident, and had nearly cost him his own life a few minutes +later in the web-spider's snare, but he had killed a spider, and of the +most deadly kind.</p> + +<p>Now, a great ambition was growing in Burl's heart. His tribe had always +feared spiders too much to know much of their habits, but they knew one +or two things. The most important was that the snare-spiders never left +their lairs to hunt—never! Burl was about to make a daring application +of that knowledge.</p> + +<p>He drew back from the white and shining snare and crept softly to the +rear. The fabric gathered itself into a point and then continued for +some twenty feet as a tunnel, in which the spider waited while dreaming +of its last meal and waiting for the next victim to become entangled in +the labyrinth in front. Burl made his way to a point where the tunnel +was no more than ten feet away, and waited.</p> + +<p>Presently, through the interstices of the silk, he saw the gray bulk of +the spider. It had left the exhausted body of the cricket, and returned +to its resting place. It settled itself carefully upon the soft walls +of the tunnel, with its shining eyes fixed upon the tortuous threads of +its trap. Burl's hair was standing straight up upon his head from sheer +fright, but he was the slave of an idea.</p> + +<p>He drew near and poised his spear, his new and sharp spear, taken from +the body of an unknown flying creature killed by the burning purple +hills. Burl raised the spear and aimed its sharp and deadly point at the +thick gray bulk he could see dimly through the threads of the tunnel. He +thrust it home with all his strength—and ran away at the top of his +speed, glassy-eyed from terror.</p> + +<p>A long time later he ventured near again, his heart in his mouth, ready +to flee at the slightest sound. All was still. Burl had missed the +horrible convulsions of the wounded spider, had not heard the frightful +gnashings of its fangs as it tore at the piercing weapon, had not seen +the silken threads of the tunnel ripped as the spider—hurt to +death—had struggled with insane strength to free itself.</p> + +<p>He came back beneath the overshadowing toadstools, stepping quietly and +cautiously, to find a great rent in the silken tunnel, to find the great +gray bulk lifeless and still, half-fallen through the opening the spear +had first made. A little puddle of evil-smelling liquid lay upon the +ground below the body, and from time to time a droplet fell from the +spear into the puddle with a curious splash.</p> + +<p>Burl looked at what he had done, saw the dead body of the creature he +had slain, saw the ferocious mandibles, and the keen and deadly fangs. +The dead eyes of the creature still stared at him malignantly, and the +hairy legs were still braced as if further to enlarge the gaping hole +through which it had partly fallen.</p> + +<p>Exultation filled Burl's heart. His tribe had been but furtive vermin +for thousands of years, fleeing from the mighty insects, hiding from +them, and if overtaken but waiting helplessly for death, screaming +shrilly in terror.</p> + +<p>He, Burl, had turned the tables. He had slain one of the enemies of his +tribe. His breast expanded. Always his tribesmen went quietly and +fearfully, making no sound. But a sudden, exultant yell burst from +Burl's lips—the first hunting cry from the lips of a man in three +hundred centuries!</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The next second his pulse nearly stopped in sheer panic at having made +such a noise. He listened fearfully, but there was no sound. He drew +near his prey and carefully withdrew his spear. The viscid liquid made +it slimy and slippery, and he had to wipe it dry against a leathery +toadstool. Then Burl had to conquer his illogical fear again before +daring to touch the creature he had slain.</p> + +<p>He moved off presently, with the belly of the spider upon his back and +two of the hairy legs over his shoulders. The other limbs of the monster +hung limp, and trailed upon the ground. Burl was now a still more +curious sight as a gayly colored object with a cloak shining in +iridescent colors, the golden antennae of a great moth rising from his +forehead, and the hideous bulk of a gray spider for a burden.</p> + +<p>He moved through the thin-stalked mushroom forest, and, because of the +thing he carried, all creatures fled before him. They did not fear +man—their instinct was slow-moving—but during all the millions of +years that insects have existed, there have existed spiders to prey upon +them. So Burl moved on in solemn state, a brightly clad man bent beneath +the weight of a huge and horrible monster.</p> + +<p>He came upon a valley full of torn and blackened mushrooms. There was +not a single yellow top among them. Every one had been infested with +tiny maggots which had liquefied the tough meat of the mushroom and +caused it to drip to the ground below. And all the liquid had gathered +in a golden pool in the center of the small depression. Burl heard a +loud humming and buzzing before he topped the rise that opened the +valley for his inspection. He stopped a moment and looked down.</p> + +<p>A golden-red lake, its center reflecting the hazy sky overhead. All +about, blackened mushrooms, seeming to have been charred and burned by a +fierce flame. A slow-flowing golden brooklet trickled slowly over a +rocky ledge, into the larger pool. And all about the edges of the golden +lake, in ranks and rows, by hundreds, thousands, and by millions, were +ranged the green-gold, shining bodies of great flies.</p> + +<p>They were small as compared with the other insects. They had increased +in size but a fraction of the amount that the bees, for example, had +increased; but it was due to an imperative necessity of their race.</p> + +<p>The flesh-flies laid their eggs by hundreds in decaying carcases. The +others laid their eggs by hundreds in the mushrooms. To feed the maggots +that would hatch, a relatively great quantity of food was needed, +therefore the flies must remain comparatively small, or the body of a +single grasshopper, say, would furnish food for but two or three grubs +instead of the hundreds it must support.</p> + +<p>Burl stared down at the golden pool. Bluebottles, greenbottles, and all +the flies of metallic luster were gathered at the Lucullan feast of +corruption. Their buzzing as they darted above the odorous pool of +golden liquid made the sound Burl had heard. Their bodies flashed and +glittered as they darted back and forth, seeking a place to alight and +join in the orgy.</p> + +<p>Those which clustered about the banks of the pool were still as if +carved from metal. Their huge, red eyes glowed, and their bodies shone +with an obscene fatness. Flies are the most disgusting of all insects. +Burl watched them a moment, watched the interlacing streams of light as +they buzzed eagerly above the pool, seeking a place at the festive +board.</p> + +<p>A drumming roar sounded in the air. A golden speck appeared in the sky, +a slender, needle-like body with transparent, shining wings and two huge +eyes. It grew nearer and became a dragonfly twenty feet and more in +length, its body shimmering, purest gold. It poised itself above the +pool and then darted down. Its jaws snapped viciously and repeatedly, +and at each snapping the glittering body of a fly vanished.</p> + +<p>A second dragonfly appeared, its body a vivid purple, and a third. They +swooped and rushed above the golden pool, snapping in mid air, turning +their abrupt, angular turns, creatures of incredible ferocity and +beauty. At the moment they were nothing more or less than +slaughtering-machines. They darted here and there, their many-faceted +eyes burning with blood-lust. In that mass of buzzing flies even the +most voracious appetite must be sated, but the dragonflies kept on. +Beautiful, slender, graceful creatures, they dashed here and there above +the pond like avenging fiends or the mythical dragons for which they had +been named.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Only a few miles farther on Burl came upon a familiar landmark. He knew +it well, but from a safe distance as always. A mass of rock had heaved +itself up from the nearly level plain over which he was traveling, and +formed an outjutting cliff. At one point the rock overhung a sheer drop, +making an inverted ledge—a roof over nothingness—which had been +pre-empted by a hairy creature and made into a fairylike dwelling. A +white hemisphere clung tenaciously to the rock above, and long cables +anchored it firmly.</p> + +<p>Burl knew the place as one to be fearfully avoided. A Clotho spider +(<i>Clotho Durandi, LATR</i>) had built itself a nest there, from which it +emerged to hunt the unwary. Within that half-globe there was a monster, +resting upon a cushion of softest silk. But if one went too near, one of +the little inverted arches, seemingly firmly closed by a wall of silk, +would open and a creature out of a dream of hell emerge, to run with +fiendish agility toward its prey.</p> + +<p>Surely, Burl knew the place. Hung upon the outer walls of the silken +palace were stones and tiny boulders, discarded fragments of former +meals, and the gutted armour from limbs of ancient prey. But what caused +Burl to know the place most surely and most terribly was another +decoration that dangled from the castle of this insect ogre. This was +the shrunken, desiccated figure of a man, all its juices extracted and +the life gone.</p> + +<p>The death of that man had saved Burl's life two years before. They had +been together, seeking a new source of edible mushrooms for food. The +Clotho spider was a hunter, not a spinner of snares. It sprang suddenly +from behind a great puff-ball, and the two men froze in terror. Then it +came swiftly forward and deliberately chose its victim. Burl had escaped +when the other man was seized. Now he looked meditatively at the hiding +place of his ancient enemy. Some day—</p> + +<p>But now he passed on. He went past the thicket in which the great moths +hid during the day, and past the pool—a turgid thing of slime and +yeast—in which a monster water snake lurked. He penetrated the little +wood of the shining mushrooms that gave out light at night, and the +shadowed place where the truffle-hunting beetles went chirping +thunderously during the dark hours.</p> + +<p>And then he saw Saya. He caught a flash of pink skin vanishing behind +the thick stalk of a squat toadstool, and ran forward, calling her name. +She appeared, and saw the figure with the horrible bulk of the spider +upon its back. She cried out in horror, and Burl understood. He let his +burden fall and then went swiftly toward her.</p> + +<p>They met. Saya waited timidly until she saw who this man was, and then +astonishment went over her face. Gorgeously attired, in an iridescent +cloak from the whole wing of a great moth, with a strip of softest fur +from a night-flying creature about his middle, with golden, feathery +antennae bound upon his forehead, and a fierce spear in his hands—this +was not the Burl she had known.</p> + +<p>But then he moved slowly toward her, filled with a fierce delight at +seeing her again, thrilling with joy at the slender gracefulness of her +form and the dark richness of her tangled hair. He held out his hands +and touched her shyly. Then, manlike, he began to babble excitedly of +the things that had happened to him, and dragged her toward his great +victim, the gray-bellied spider.</p> + +<p>Saya trembled when she saw the furry bulk lying upon the ground, and +would have fled when Burl advanced and took it upon his back. Then +something of the pride that filled him came vicariously to her. She +smiled a flashing smile, and Burl stopped short in his excited +explanation. He was suddenly tongue-tied. His eyes became pleading and +soft. He laid the huge spider at her feet and spread out his hands +imploringly.</p> + +<p>Thirty thousand years of savagery had not lessened the femininity in +Saya. She became aware that Burl was her slave, that these wonderful +things he wore and had done were as nothing if she did not approve. She +drew away—saw the misery in Burl's face—and abruptly ran into his arms +and clung to him, laughing happily. And quite suddenly Burl saw with +extreme clarity that all these things he had done, even the slaying of a +great spider, were of no importance whatever beside this most wonderful +thing that had just happened, and told Saya so quite humbly, but holding +her very close to him as he did so.</p> + +<p>And so Burl came back to his tribe. He had left it nearly naked, with +but a wisp of moth-wing twisted about his middle, a timid, fearful, +trembling creature. He returned in triumph, walking slowly and +fearlessly down a broad lane of golden mushrooms toward the hiding place +of his people.</p> + +<p>Upon his shoulders was draped a great and many-colored cloak made from +the whole of a moth's wing. Soft fur was about his middle. A spear was +in his hand and a fierce club at his waist. He and Saya bore between +them the dead body of a huge spider—aforetime the dread of the +pink-skinned, naked men. But to Burl the most important thing of all was +that Saya walked beside him openly, acknowledging him before all the +tribe.</p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mad Planet, by Murray Leinster + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAD PLANET *** + +***** This file should be named 35425-h.htm or 35425-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/2/35425/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Mad Planet + +Author: Murray Leinster + +Release Date: February 28, 2011 [EBook #35425] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAD PLANET *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + THE MAD PLANET + + by Murray Leinster + + The Argosy + + _June 12, 1920_ + + +In All His lifetime of perhaps twenty years, it had never occurred to +Burl to wonder what his grandfather had thought about his surroundings. +The grandfather had come to an untimely end in a rather unpleasant +fashion which Burl remembered vaguely as a succession of screams coming +more and more faintly to his ears while he was being carried away at the +top speed of which his mother was capable. + +Burl had rarely or never thought of the old gentleman since. Surely +he had never wondered in the abstract of what his great grandfather +thought, and most surely of all, there never entered his head +such a purely hypothetical question as the one of what his +many-times-great-grandfather--say of the year 1920--would have thought +of the scene in which Burl found himself. + +He was treading cautiously over a brownish carpet of fungus growth, +creeping furtively toward the stream which he knew by the generic title +of "water." It was the only water he knew. Towering far above his head, +three man-heights high, great toadstools hid the grayish sky from his +sight. Clinging to the foot-thick stalks of the toadstools were still +other fungi, parasites upon the growth that had once been parasites +themselves. + +Burl himself was a slender young man wearing a single garment twisted +about his waist, made from the wing-fabric of a great moth the members +of his tribe had slain as it emerged from its cocoon. His skin was fair, +without a trace of sunburn. In all his lifetime he had never seen the +sun, though the sky was rarely hidden from view save by the giant fungi +which, with monster cabbages, were the only growing things he knew. +Clouds usually spread overhead, and when they did not, the perpetual +haze made the sun but an indefinitely brighter part of the sky, never a +sharply edged ball of fire. Fantastic mosses, misshapen fungus growths, +colossal molds and yeasts, were the essential parts of the landscape +through which he moved. + +Once as he had dodged through the forest of huge toadstools, his +shoulder touched a cream-colored stalk, giving the whole fungus a tiny +shock. Instantly, from the umbrella-like mass of pulp overhead, a fine +and impalpable powder fell upon him like snow. It was the season when +the toadstools sent out their spores, or seeds, and they had been +dropped upon him at the first sign of disturbance. + +Furtive as he was, he paused to brush them from his head and hair. They +were deadly poison, as he knew well. + +Burl would have been a curious sight to a man of the twentieth century. +His skin was pink, like that of a child, and there was but little hair +upon his body. Even that on top of his head was soft and downy. His +chest was larger than his forefathers' had been, and his ears seemed +almost capable of independent movement, to catch threatening sounds from +any direction. His eyes, large and blue, possessed pupils which could +dilate to extreme size, allowing him to see in almost complete darkness. + +He was the result of the thirty thousand years' attempt of the human +race to adapt itself to the change that had begun in the latter half of +the twentieth century. + +At about that time, civilization had been high, and apparently secure. +Mankind had reached a permanent agreement among itself, and all men had +equal opportunities to education and leisure. Machinery did most of the +labor of the world, and men were only required to supervise its +operation. All men were well-fed, all men were well-educated, and it +seemed that until the end of time the earth would be the abode of a +community of comfortable human beings, pursuing their studies and +diversions, their illusions and their truths. Peace, quietness, privacy, +freedom were universal. + +Then, just when men were congratulating themselves that the Golden Age +had come again, it was observed that the planet seemed ill at ease. +Fissures opened slowly in the crust, and carbonic acid gas--the carbon +dioxide of chemists--began to pour out into the atmosphere. That gas had +long been known to be present in the air, and was considered necessary +to plant life. Most of the plants of the world took the gas and absorbed +its carbon into themselves, releasing the oxygen for use again. + +Scientists had calculated that a great deal of the earth's increased +fertility was due to the larger quantities of carbon dioxide released by +the activities of man in burning his coal and petroleum. Because of +those views, for some years no great alarm was caused by the continuous +exhalation from the world's interior. + +Constantly, however, the volume increased. New fissures constantly +opened, each one adding a new source of carbon dioxide, and each one +pouring into the already laden atmosphere more of the gas--beneficent in +small quantities, but as the world learned, deadly in large ones. + +The percentage of the heavy, vapor-like gas increased. The whole body of +the air became heavier through its admixture. It absorbed more moisture +and became more humid. Rainfall increased. Climates grew warmer. +Vegetation became more luxuriant--but the air gradually became less +exhilarating. + +Soon the health of mankind began to be affected. Accustomed through long +ages to breathe air rich in oxygen and poor in carbon dioxide, men +suffered. Only those who lived on high plateaus or on tall mountaintops +remained unaffected. The plants of the earth, though nourished and +increasing in size beyond those ever seen before, were unable to dispose +of the continually increasing flood of carbon dioxide. + + * * * * * + +By the middle of the twenty-first century it was generally recognized +that a new carboniferous period was about to take place, when the +earth's atmosphere would be thick and humid, unbreathable by man, when +giant grasses and ferns would form the only vegetation. + +When the twenty-first century drew to a close the whole human race began +to revert to conditions closely approximating savagery. The low-lands +were unbearable. Thick jungles of rank growth covered the ground. The +air was depressing and enervating. Men could live there, but it was a +sickly, fever-ridden existence. The whole population of the earth +desired the high lands and as the low country became more unbearable, +men forgot their two centuries of peace. + +They fought destructively, each for a bit of land where he might live +and breathe. Then men began to die, men who had persisted in remaining +near sea-level. They could not live in the poisonous air. The danger +zone crept up as the earth-fissures tirelessly poured out their steady +streams of foul gas. Soon men could not live within five hundred feet of +sea level. The low-lands went uncultivated, and became jungles of a +thickness comparable only to those of the first carboniferous period. + +Then men died of sheer inanition at a thousand feet. The plateaus and +mountaintops were crowded with folk struggling for a foothold and food +beyond the invisible menace that crept up, and up-- + +These things did not take place in one year, or in ten. Not in one +generation, but in several. Between the time when the chemists of the +International Geophysical Institute announced that the proportion of +carbon dioxide in the air had increased from .04 per cent to .1 per cent +and the time when at sea-level six per cent of the atmosphere was the +deadly gas, more than two hundred years intervened. + +Coming gradually, as it did, the poisonous effects of the deadly stuff +increased with insidious slowness. First the lassitude, then the +heaviness of brain, then the weakness of body. Mankind ceased to grow in +numbers. After a long period, the race had fallen to a fraction of its +former size. There was room in plenty on the mountaintops--but the +danger-level continued to creep up. + +There was but one solution. The human body would have to inure itself to +the poison, or it was doomed to extinction. It finally developed a +toleration for the gas that had wiped out race after race and nation +after nation, but at a terrible cost. Lungs increased in size to secure +the oxygen on which life depended, but the poison, inhaled at every +breath, left the few survivors sickly and filled with a perpetual +weariness. Their minds lacked the energy to cope with new problems or +transmit the knowledge which in one degree or another, they possessed. + +And after thirty thousand years, Burl, a direct descendant of the first +president of the Universal Republic, crept through a forest of +toadstools and fungus growths. He was ignorant of fire, or metals, of +the uses of stone and wood. A single garment covered him. His language +was a scanty group of a few hundred labial sounds, conveying no +abstractions and few concrete things. + +He was ignorant of the uses of wood. There was no wood in the scanty +territory furtively inhabited by his tribe. With the increase in heat +and humidity the trees had begun to die out. Those of northern climes +went first, the oaks, the cedars, the maples. Then the pines--the +beeches went early--the cypresses, and finally even the forests of the +jungles vanished. Only grasses and reeds, bamboos and their kin, were +able to flourish in the new, steaming atmosphere. The thick jungles gave +place to dense thickets of grasses and ferns, now become treeferns +again. + +And then the fungi took their place. Flourishing as never before, +flourishing on a planet of torrid heat and perpetual miasma, on whose +surface the sun never shone directly because of an ever-thickening bank +of clouds that hung sullenly overhead, the fungi sprang up. About the +dank pools that festered over the surface of the earth, fungus growths +began to cluster. Of every imaginable shade and color, of all monstrous +forms and malignant purposes, of huge size and flabby volume, they +spread over the land. + +The grasses and ferns gave place to them. Squat footstools, flaking +molds, evil-smelling yeasts, vast mounds of fungi inextricably mingled +as to species, but growing, forever growing and exhaling an odor of dark +places. + +The strange growths now grouped themselves in forests, horrible +travesties on the vegetation they had succeeded. They grew and grew with +feverish intensity beneath a clouded or a haze-obscured sky, while +above them fluttered gigantic butterflies and huge moths, sipping +daintily of their corruption. + +The insects alone of all the animal world above water, were able to +endure the change. They multiplied exceedingly, and enlarged themselves +in the thickened air. The solitary vegetation--as distinct from fungus +growths--that had survived, was now a degenerate form of the cabbages +that had once fed peasants. On those rank, colossal masses of foliage, +the stolid grubs and caterpillars ate themselves to maturity, then swung +below in strong cocoons to sleep the sleep of metamorphosis from which +they emerged to spread their wings and fly. + +The tiniest butterflies of former days had increased their span until +their gaily colored wings should be described in terms of feet, while +the larger emperor moths extended their purple sails to a breadth of +yards upon yards. Burl himself would have been dwarfed beneath the +overshadowing fabric of their wings. + +It was fortunate that they, the largest flying creatures, were harmless +or nearly so. Burl's fellow tribesmen sometimes came upon a cocoon just +about to open, and waited patiently beside it until the beautiful +creature within broke through its matted shell and came out into the +sunlight. + +Then, before it had gathered energy from the air, and before its wings +had swelled to strength and firmness, the tribesmen fell upon it, +tearing the filmy, delicate wings from its body and the limbs from its +carcass. Then, when it lay helpless before them, they carried away the +juicy, meat-filled limbs to be eaten, leaving the still living body to +stare helplessly at this strange world through its many faceted eyes, +and become a prey to the voracious ants who would soon clamber upon it +and carry it away in tiny fragments to their underground city. + + * * * * * + +Not all the insect world was so helpless or so unthreatening. Burl knew +of wasps almost the length of his own body who possessed stings that +were instantly fatal. To every species of wasp, however, some other +insect is predestined prey, and the furtive members of Burl's tribe +feared them but little as they sought only the prey to which their +instinct led them. + +Bees were similarly aloof. They were hard put to it for existence, those +bees. Few flowers bloomed, and they were reduced to expedients once +considered signs of degeneracy in their race. Bubbling yeasts and fouler +things, occasionally the nectarless blooms of the rank, giant cabbages. +Burl knew the bees. They droned overhead, nearly as large as he was +himself, their bulging eyes gazing at him with abstracted preoccupation. +And crickets, and beetles, and spiders-- + +Burl knew spiders! His grandfather had been the prey of one of the +hunting tarantulas, which had leaped with incredible ferocity from his +excavated tunnel in the earth. A vertical pit in the ground, two feet in +diameter, went down for twenty feet. At the bottom of that lair the +black-bellied monster waited for the tiny sounds that would warn him of +prey approaching his hiding-place (_Lycosa fasciata_). + +Burl's grandfather had been careless, and the terrible shrieks he +uttered as the horrible monster darted from the pit and seized him had +lingered vaguely in Burl's mind ever since. Burl had seen, too, the +monster webs of another species of spider, and watched from a safe +distance as the misshapen body of the huge creature sucked the juices +from a three-foot cricket that had become entangled in its trap. + +Burl had remembered the strange stripes of yellow and black and silver +that crossed upon its abdomen (_Epiera fasciata_). He had been +fascinated by the struggles of the imprisoned insect, coiled in a +hopeless tangle of sticky, gummy ropes the thickness of Burl's finger, +cast about its body before the spider made any attempt to approach. + +Burl knew these dangers. They were a part of his life. It was his +accustomedness to them, and that of his ancestors, that made his +existence possible. He was able to evade them; so he survived. A moment +of carelessness, an instant's relaxation of his habitual caution, and he +would be one with his forebears, forgotten meals of long-dead, inhuman +monsters. + +Three days before, Burl had crouched behind a bulky, shapeless fungus +growth while he watched a furious duel between two huge horned beetles. +Their jaws, gaping wide, clicked and clashed upon each other's +impenetrable armor. Their legs crashed like so many cymbals as their +polished surfaces ground and struck against each other. They were +fighting over some particularly attractive bit of carrion. + +Burl had watched with all his eyes until a gaping orifice appeared in +the armor of the smaller of the two. It uttered a shrill cry, or seemed +to cry out. The noise was, actually, the tearing of the horny stuff +beneath the victorious jaws of the adversary. + +The wounded beetle struggled more and more feebly. At last it collapsed, +and the conqueror placidly began to eat the conquered before life was +extinct. + +Burl waited until the meal was finished, and then approached the scene +with caution. An ant--the forerunner of many--was already inspecting the +carcass. + +Burl usually ignored the ants. They were stupid, short-sighted insects, +and not hunters. Save when attacked, they offered no injury. They were +scavengers, on the lookout for the dead and dying, but they would fight +viciously if their prey were questioned, and they were dangerous +opponents. They were from three inches, for the tiny black ants, to a +foot for the large termites. + +Burl was hasty when he heard the tiny clickings of their limbs as they +approached. He seized the sharp-pointed snout of the victim, detached +from the body, and fled from the scene. + +Later, he inspected his find with curiosity. The smaller victim had been +a minotaur beetle, with a sharp-pointed horn like that of a rhinoceros +to reinforce his offensive armament, already dangerous because of his +wide jaws. The jaws of a beetle work from side to side, instead of up +and down, and this had made the protection complete in no less than +three directions. + +Burl inspected the sharp, dagger-like instrument in his hand. He felt +its point, and it pricked his finger. He flung it aside as he crept to +the hiding-place of his tribe. There were only twenty of them, four or +five men, six or seven women, and the rest girls and children. + +Burl had been wondering at the strange feelings that came over him when +he looked at one of the girls. She was younger than Burl--perhaps +eighteen--and fleeter of foot than he. They talked together, sometimes, +and once or twice Burl shared with her an especially succulent find of +foodstuffs. + + * * * * * + +The next morning he found the horn where he had thrown it, sticking in +the flabby side of a toadstool. He pulled it out, and gradually, far +back in his mind, an idea began to take shape. He sat for some time with +the thing in his hand, considering it with a far-away look in his eyes. +From time to time he stabbed at a toadstool, awkwardly, but with +gathering skill. His imagination began to work fitfully. He visualized +himself stabbing food with it as the larger beetle had stabbed the +former owner of the weapon he had in his hand. + +Burl could not imagine himself coping with one of the fighting insects. +He could only picture himself, dimly, stabbing something that was food +with this death-dealing thing. It was no longer than his arm and though +clumsy to the hand, an effective and terribly sharp implement. + +He thought: Where was there food, food that lived, that would not fight +back? Presently he rose and began to make his way toward the tiny river. +Yellow-bellied newts swam in its waters. The swimming larvae of a +thousand insects floated about its surface or crawled upon its bottom. + +There were deadly things there, too. Giant crayfish snapped their horny +claws at the unwary. Mosquitoes of four-inch wing-spread sometimes made +their humming way above the river. The last survivors of their race, +they were dying out for lack of the plant-juices on which the male of +the species lived, but even so they were formidable. Burl had learned to +crush them with fragments of fungus. + +He crept slowly through the forest of toadstools. Brownish fungus was +underfoot. Strange orange, red, and purple molds clustered about the +bases of the creamy toadstool stalks. Once Burl paused to run his +sharp-pointed weapon through a fleshy stalk and reassure himself that +what he planned was practicable. + +He made his way furtively through the forest of misshapen growths. Once +he heard a tiny clicking, and froze into stillness. It was a troop of +four or five ants, each some eight inches long, returning along their +habitual pathway to their city. They moved sturdily, heavily laden, +along the route marked with the black and odorous formic acid exuded +from the bodies of their comrades. Burl waited until they had passed, +then went on. + +He came to the bank of the river. Green scum covered a great deal of its +surface, scum occasionally broken by a slowly enlarging bubble of some +gas released from decomposing matter on the bottom. In the center of the +placid stream the current ran a little more swiftly, and the water +itself was visible. + +Over the shining current, water-spiders ran swiftly. They had not shared +in the general increase of size that had taken place in the insect +world. Depending upon the capillary qualities of the water to support +them, an increase in size and weight would have deprived them of the +means of locomotion. + +From the spot where Burl first peered at the water the green scum spread +out for many yards into the stream. He could not see what swam and +wriggled and crawled beneath the evil-smelling covering. He peered up +and down the banks. + +Perhaps a hundred and fifty yards below, the current came near the +shore. An outcropping of rock there made a steep descent to the river, +from which yellow shelf-fungi stretched out. Dark red and orange above, +they were light yellow below, and they formed a series of platforms +above the smoothly flowing stream. Burl made his way cautiously toward +them. + +On his way he saw one of the edible mushrooms that formed so large a +part of his diet, and paused to break from the flabby flesh an amount +that would feed him for many days. It was too often the custom of his +people to find a store of food, carry it to their hiding place, and then +gorge themselves for days, eating, sleeping, and waking only to eat +again until the food was gone. + +Absorbed as he was in his plan of trying his new weapon, Burl was +tempted to return with his booty. He would give Saya of this food, and +they would eat together. Saya was the maiden who roused unusual emotions +in Burl. He felt strange impulses stirring within him when she was near, +a desire to touch her, to caress her. He did not understand. + +He went on, after hesitating. If he brought her food, Saya would be +pleased, but if he brought her of the things that swam in the stream, +she would be still more pleased. Degraded as his tribe had become, Burl +was yet a little more intelligent than they. He was an atavism, a +throwback to ancestors who had cultivated the earth and subjugated its +animals. He had a vague idea of pride, unformed but potent. + +No man within memory had hunted or slain for food. They knew of meat, +yes, but it had been the fragments left by an insect hunter, seized and +carried away by the men before the perpetually alert ant colonies had +sent their foragers to the scene. + +If Burl did what no man before him had done, if he brought a whole +carcass to his tribe, they would envy him. They were preoccupied solely +with their stomachs, and after that with the preservation of their +lives. The perpetuation of the race came third in their consideration. + +They were herded together in a leaderless group, coming to the same +hiding place that they might share in the finds of the lucky and gather +comfort from their numbers. Of weapons, they had none. They sometimes +used stones to crack open the limbs of the huge insects they found +partly devoured, cracking them open for the sweet meat to be found +inside, but they sought safety from their enemies solely in flight and +hiding. + +Their enemies were not as numerous as might have been imagined. Most of +the meat-eating insects have their allotted prey. The sphex--a hunting +wasp--feeds solely upon grasshoppers. Others wasps eat flies only. The +pirate-bee eats bumblebees only. Spiders were the principal enemies of +man, as they devour with a terrifying impartiality all that falls into +their clutches. + +Burl reached the spot from which he might gaze down into the water. He +lay prostrate, staring into the shallow depths. Once a huge crayfish, as +long as Burl's body, moved leisurely across his vision. Small fishes and +even the huge newts fled before the voracious creature. + +After a long time the tide of underwater life resumed its activity. The +wriggling grubs of the dragonflies reappeared. Little flecks of silver +swam into view--a school of tiny fish. A larger fish appeared, moving +slowly through the water. + +Burl's eyes glistened and his mouth watered. He reached down with his +long weapon. It barely touched the water. Disappointment filled him, yet +the nearness and the apparent practicability of his scheme spurred him +on. + +He considered the situation. There were the shelf-fungi below him. He +rose and moved to a point just above them, then thrust his spear down. +They resisted its point. Burl felt them tentatively with his foot, then +dared to thrust his weight to them. They held him firmly. He clambered +down and lay flat upon them, peering over the edge as before. + +The large fish, as long as Burl's arm, swam slowly to and fro below him. +Burl had seen the former owner of his spear strive to thrust it into his +opponents, and knew that a thrust was necessary. He had tried his weapon +upon toadstools--had practiced with it. When the fish swam below him, he +thrust sharply downward. The spear seemed to bend when it entered the +water, and missed its mark by inches, to Burl's astonishment. He tried +again and again. + +He grew angry with the fish below him for eluding his efforts to kill +it. Repeated strokes had left it untouched, and it was unwary, and did +not even try to run away. + +Burl became furious. The big fish came to rest directly beneath his +hand. Burl thrust downward with all his strength. This time the spear, +entering vertically, did not seem to bend. It went straight down. Its +point penetrated the scales of the swimmer below, transfixing that lazy +fish completely. + +An uproar began. The fish, struggling to escape, and Burl, trying to +draw it up to his perch, made a huge commotion. In his excitement Burl +did not observe a tiny ripple some distance away. The monster crayfish +was attracted by the disturbance, and was approaching. + +The unequal combat continued. Burl hung on desperately to the end of his +spear. Then there was a tremor in Burl's support, it gave way, and fell +into the stream with a mighty splash. Burl went under, his eyes open, +facing death. And as he sank, his wide-open eyes saw waved before him +the gaping claws of the huge crayfish, large enough to sever a limb with +a single stroke of their jagged jaws. + + * * * * * + +He opened his mouth to scream--a replica of the terrible screams of his +grandfather, seized by a black-bellied tarantula years before--but no +sound came forth. Only bubbles floated to the surface of the water. He +beat the unresisting fluid with his hands--he did not know how to swim. +The colossal creature approached leisurely, while Burl struggled +helplessly. + +His arms struck a solid object, and grasped it convulsively. A second +later he had swung it between himself and the huge crustacean. He felt a +shock as the mighty jaws closed upon the corklike fungus, then felt +himself drawn upward as the crayfish released his hold and the +shelf-fungus floated to the surface. Having given way beneath him, it +had been carried below him in his fall, only to rise within his reach +just when most needed. + +Burl's head popped above water and he saw a larger bit of the fungus +floating near by. Less securely anchored to the rocks of the river bank +than the shelf to which Burl had trusted himself, it had been dislodged +when the first shelf gave way. It was larger than the fragment to which +Burl clung, and floated higher in the water. + +Burl was cool with a terrible self-possession. He seized it and +struggled to draw himself on top of it. It tilted as his weight came +upon it, and nearly overturned, but he paid no heed. With desperate +haste, he clawed with hands and feet until he could draw himself clear +of the water, of which he would forever retain a slight fear. + +As he pulled himself upon the furry, orange-brown upper surface, a sharp +blow struck his foot. The crayfish, disgusted at finding only what was +to it a tasteless morsel in the shelf-fungus, had made a languid stroke +at Burl's wriggling foot in the water. Failing to grasp the fleshy +member, the crayfish retreated, disgruntled and annoyed. + +And Burl floated downstream, perched, weaponless and alone, frightened +and in constant danger, upon a flimsy raft composed of a degenerate +fungus floating soggily in the water. He floated slowly down the stream +of a river in whose waters death lurked unseen, upon whose banks was +peril, and above whose reaches danger fluttered on golden wings. + +It was a long time before he recovered his self-possession, and when he +did he looked first for his spear. It was floating in the water, still +transfixing the fish whose capture had endangered Burl's life. The fish +now floated with its belly upward, all life gone. + +So insistent was Burl's instinct for food that his predicament was +forgotten when he saw his prey just out of his reach. He gazed at it, +and his mouth watered, while his cranky craft went downstream, spinning +slowly in the current. He lay flat on the floating fungoid, and strove +to reach out and grasp the end of the spear. + +The raft tilted and nearly flung him overboard again. A little later he +discovered that it sank more readily on one side than on the other. That +was due, of course, to the greater thickness--and consequently greater +buoyancy--of the part which had grown next the rocks of the river bank. + +Burl found that if he lay with his head stretching above that side, it +did not sink into the water. He wriggled into this new position, then, +and waited until the slow revolution of his vessel brought the +spear-shaft near him. He stretched his fingers and his arm, and touched, +then grasped it. + +A moment later he was tearing strips of flesh from the side of the fish +and cramming the oily mess into his mouth with great enjoyment. He had +lost his edible mushroom. That danced upon the waves several yards away, +but Burl ate contentedly of what he possessed. He did not worry about +what was before him. That lay in the future, but suddenly he realized +that he was being carried farther and farther from Saya, the maiden of +his tribe who caused strange bliss to steal over him when he +contemplated her. + +The thought came to him when he visualized the delight with which she +would receive a gift of part of the fish he had caught. He was suddenly +stricken with dumb sorrow. He lifted his head and looked longingly at +the river banks. + +A long, monotonous row of strangely colored fungus growths. No healthy +green, but pallid, cream-colored toadstools, some bright orange, +lavender, and purple molds, vivid carmine "rusts" and mildews, spreading +up the banks from the turgid slime. The sun was not a ball of fire, but +merely shone as a bright golden patch in the haze-filled sky, a patch +whose limits could not be defined or marked. + +In the faintly pinkish light that filtered down through the air, a +multitude of flying objects could be seen. Now and then a cricket or a +grasshopper made its bullet-like flight from one spot to another. Huge +butterflies fluttered gayly above the silent, seemingly lifeless world. +Bees lumbered anxiously about, seeking the cross-shaped flowers of the +monster cabbages. Now and then a slender-waisted, yellow-stomached wasp +flew alertly through the air. + +Burl watched them with a strange indifference. The wasps were as long as +he himself. The bees, on end, could match his height. The butterflies +ranged from tiny creatures barely capable of shading his face to +colossal things in the folds of whose wings he could have been lost. And +above him fluttered dragonflies, whose long, spindle-like bodies were +three times the length of his own. + +Burl ignored them all. Sitting there, an incongruous creature of pink +skin and soft brown hair upon an orange fungus floating in midstream, he +was filled with despondency because the current carried him forever +farther and farther from a certain slender-limbed maiden of his tiny +tribe, whose glances caused an odd commotion in his breast. + + * * * * * + +The day went on. Once, Burl saw upon the blue-green mold that spread +upward from the river, a band of large, red Amazon ants, marching in +orderly array, to raid the city of a colony of black ants, and carry +away the eggs they would find there. The eggs would be hatched, and the +small black creatures made the slaves of the brigands who had stolen +them. + +The Amazon ants can live only by the labor of their slaves, and for that +reason are mighty warriors in their world. Later, etched against the +steaming mist that overhung everything as far as the eye could reach, +Burl saw strangely shaped, swollen branches rearing themselves from the +ground. He knew what they were. A hard-rinded fungus that grew upon +itself in peculiar mockery of the vegetation that had vanished from the +earth. + +And again he saw pear-shaped objects above some of which floated little +clouds of smoke. They, too, were fungus growths, puffballs, which when +touched emit what seems a puff of vapor. These would have towered above +Burl's head, had he stood beside them. + +And then, as the day drew to an end, he saw in the distance what seemed +a range of purple hills. They were tall hills to Burl, some sixty or +seventy feet high, and they seemed to be the agglomeration of a formless +growth, multiplying its organisms and forms upon itself until the whole +formed an irregular, cone-shaped mound. Burl watched them apathetically. + +Presently, he ate again of the oily fish. The taste was pleasant to him, +accustomed to feed mostly upon insipid mushrooms. He stuffed himself, +though the size of his prey left by far the larger part uneaten. + +He still held his spear firmly beside him. + +It had brought him into trouble, but Burl possessed a fund of obstinacy. +Unlike most of his tribe, he associated the spear with the food it had +secured, rather than the difficulty into which it had led him. When he +had eaten his fill he picked it up and examined it again. The sharpness +of its point was unimpaired. + +Burl handled it meditatively, debating whether or not to attempt to fish +again. The shakiness of his little raft dissuaded him, and he abandoned +the idea. Presently he stripped a sinew from the garment about his +middle and hung the fish about his neck with it. That would leave him +both hands free. Then he sat cross-legged upon the soggily floating +fungus, like a pink-skinned Buddha, and watched the shores go by. + +Time had passed, and it was drawing near sunset. Burl, never having seen +the sun save as a bright spot in the overhanging haze, did not think of +the coming of night as "sunset." To him it was the letting down of +darkness from the sky. + +Today happened to be an exceptionally bright day, and the haze was not +as thick as usual. Far to the west, the thick mist turned to gold, while +the thicker clouds above became blurred masses of dull red. Their +shadows seemed like lavender, from the contrast of shades. Upon the +still surface of the river, all the myriad tints and shadings were +reflected with an incredible faithfulness, and the shining tops of the +giant mushrooms by the river brim glowed faintly pink. + +Dragonflies buzzed over his head in their swift and angular flight, the +metallic luster of their bodies glistening in the rosy light. Great +yellow butterflies flew lightly above the stream. Here, there, and +everywhere upon the water appeared the shell-formed boats of a thousand +caddis flies, floating upon the surface while they might. + +Burl could have thrust his hand down into their cavities and seized the +white worms that inhabited the strange craft. The huge bulk of a tardy +bee droned heavily overhead. Burl glanced upward and saw the long +proboscis and the hairy hinder legs with their scanty load of pollen. He +saw the great, multiple-lensed eyes with their expression of stupid +preoccupation, and even the sting that would mean death alike for him +and for the giant insect, should it be used. + +The crimson radiance grew dim at the edge of the world. The purple hills +had long been left behind. Now the slender stalks of ten thousand +round-domed mushrooms lined the river bank and beneath them spread fungi +of all colors, from the rawest red to palest blue, but all now fading +slowly to a monochromatic background in the growing dusk. + +The buzzing, fluttering, and the flapping of the insects of the day died +slowly down, while from a million hiding places there crept out into the +deep night soft and furry bodies of great moths, who preened themselves +and smoothed their feathery antennae before taking to the air. The +strong-limbed crickets set up their thunderous noise--grown gravely bass +with the increasing size of the organs by which the sound was made--and +then there began to gather on the water those slender spirals of tenuous +mist that would presently blanket the stream in a mantle of thin fog. + + * * * * * + +Night fell. The clouds above seemed to lower and grow dark. Gradually, +now a drop and then a drop, now a drop and then a drop, the languid fall +of large, warm raindrops that would drip from the moisture-laden skies +all through the night began. The edge of the stream became a place where +great disks of coolly glowing flame appeared. + +The mushrooms that bordered on the river were faintly phosphorescent +(_Pleurotus phosphoreus_) and shone coldly upon the "rusts" and +flake-fungi beneath their feet. Here and there a ball of lambent flame +appeared, drifting idly above the steaming, festering earth. + +Thirty thousand years before, men had called them "will-o'-the-wisps," +but Burl simply stared at them, accepting them as he accepted all that +passed. Only a man attempting to advance in the scale of civilization +tries to explain everything that he sees. The savage and the child is +most often content to observe without comment, unless he repeats the +legends told him by wise folk who are possessed by the itch of +knowledge. + +Burl watched for a long time. Great fireflies whose beacons lighted up +their surroundings for many yards--fireflies Burl knew to be as long as +his spear--shed their intermittent glows upon the stream. Softly +fluttering wings, in great beats that poured torrents of air upon him, +passed above Burl. + +The air was full of winged creatures. The night was broken by their +cries, by the sound of their invisible wings, by their cries of anguish +and their mating calls. Above him and on all sides the persistent, +intense life of the insect world went on ceaselessly, but Burl rocked +back and forth upon his frail mushroom boat and wished to weep because +he was being carried from his tribe, and from Saya--Saya of the swift +feet and white teeth, of the shy smile. + +Burl may have been homesick, but his principal thoughts were of Saya. He +had dared greatly to bring a gift of fresh meat to her, meat captured as +meat had never been known to be taken by a member of the tribe. And now +he was being carried from her! + +He lay, disconsolate, upon his floating atom on the water for a great +part of the night. It was long after midnight when the mushroom raft +struck gently and remained grounded upon a shallow in the stream. + +When the light came in the morning, Burl gazed about him keenly. He was +some twenty yards from the shore, and the greenish scum surrounded his +now disintegrating vessel. The river had widened out until the other +bank was barely to be seen through the haze above the surface of the +river, but the nearer shore seemed firm and no more full of dangers than +the territory his tribe inhabited. He felt the depth of the water with +his spear, then was struck with the multiple usefulness of that weapon. +The water would come to but slightly above his ankles. + +Shivering a little with fear, Burl stepped down into the water, then +made for the bank at the top of his speed. He felt a soft something +clinging to one of his bare feet. With an access of terror, he ran +faster, and stumbled upon the shore in a panic. He stared down at his +foot. A shapeless, flesh-colored pad clung to his heel, and as Burl +watched, it began to swell slowly, while the pink of its wrinkled folds +deepened. + +It was no more than a leech, sharing in the enlargement nearly all the +lower world had undergone, but Burl did not know that. He thrust at it +with the side of his spear, then scraped frantically at it, and it fell +off, leaving a blotch of blood upon the skin where it came away. It lay, +writhing and pulsating, upon the ground, and Burl fled from it. + +He found himself in one of the toadstool forests with which he was +familiar, and finally paused, disconsolately. He knew the nature of the +fungus growths about him, and presently fell to eating. In Burl the +sight of food always produced hunger--a wise provision of nature to make +up for the instinct to store food, which he lacked. + +Burl's heart was small within him. He was far from his tribe, and far +from Saya. In the parlance of this day, it is probable that no more than +forty miles separated them, but Burl did not think of distances. He had +come down the river. He was in a land he had never known or seen. And he +was alone. + +All about him was food. All the mushrooms that surrounded him were +edible, and formed a store of sustenance Burl's whole tribe could not +have eaten in many days, but that very fact brought Saya to his mind +more forcibly. He squatted on the ground, wolfing down the insipid +mushroom in great gulps, when an idea suddenly came to him with all the +force of inspiration. + +He would bring Saya here, where there was food, food in great +quantities, and she would be pleased. Burl had forgotten the large and +oily fish that still hung down his back from the sinew about his neck, +but now he rose, and its flapping against him reminded him again. + +He took it and fingered it all over, getting his hands and himself +thoroughly greasy in the process, but he could eat no more. The thought +of Saya's pleasure at the sight of that, too, reinforced his +determination. + +With all the immediacy of a child or a savage he set off at once. He had +come along the bank of the stream. He would retrace his steps along the +bank of the stream. + +Through the awkward aisles of the mushroom forest he made his way, eyes +and ears open for possibilities of danger. Several times he heard the +omnipresent clicking of ants on their multifarious businesses in the +wood, but he could afford to ignore them. They were short-sighted at +best, and at worst they were foragers rather than hunters. He only +feared one kind of ant, the army-ant, which sometimes travels in hordes +of millions, eating all that it comes upon. In ages past, when they were +tiny creatures not an inch long, even the largest animals fled from +them. Now that they measured a foot in length, not even the gorged +spiders whose distended bellies were a yard in thickness, dared offer +them battle. + +The mushroom forest came to an end. A cheerful grasshopper (_Ephigger_) +munched delicately at some dainty it had found. Its hind legs were +bunched beneath it in perpetual readiness for flight. A monster wasp +appeared above--as long as Burl himself--poised an instant, dropped, and +seized the luckless feaster. + +There was a struggle, then the grasshopper became helpless, and the +wasp's flexible abdomen curved delicately. Its sting entered the +jointed armor of its prey, just beneath the head. The sting entered with +all the deliberate precision of a surgeon's scalpel, and all struggle +ceased. + +The wasp grasped the paralyzed, not dead, insect and flew away. Burl +grunted, and passed on. He had hidden when the wasp darted down from +above. + +The ground grew rough, and Burl's progress became painful. He clambered +arduously up steep slopes and made his way cautiously down their farther +sides. Once he had to climb through a tangled mass of mushrooms so +closely placed, and so small, that he had to break them apart with blows +of his spear before he could pass, when they shed upon him torrents of a +fiery red liquid that rolled off his greasy breast and sank into the +ground (_Lactarius deliciosus_). + +A strange self-confidence now took possession of Burl. He walked less +cautiously and more boldly. The mere fact that he had struck something +and destroyed it provided him with a curious fictitious courage. + +He had climbed slowly to the top of a red clay cliff, perhaps a hundred +feet high, slowly eaten away by the river when it overflowed. Burl could +see the river. At some past floodtime it had lapped at the base of the +cliff on whose edge he walked, though now it came no nearer than a +quarter-mile. + +The cliffside was almost covered with shelf-fungi, large and small, +white, yellow, orange, and green, in indescribable confusion and +luxuriance. From a point halfway up the cliff the inch-thick cable of a +spider's web stretched down to an anchorage on the ground, and the +strangely geometrical pattern of the web glistened evilly. + +Somewhere among the fungi of the cliffside the huge creature waited +until some unfortunate prey should struggle helplessly in its monster +snare. The spider waited in a motionless, implacable patience, +invincibly certain of prey, utterly merciless to its victims. + +Burl strutted on the edge of the cliff, a silly little pink-skinned +creature with an oily fish slung about his neck and a draggled fragment +of a moth's wing about his middle. In his hand he bore the long spear of +a minotaur beetle. He strutted, and looked scornfully down upon the +whitely shining trap below him. He struck mushrooms, and they had fallen +before him. He feared nothing. He strode fearlessly along. He would go +to Saya and bring her to this land where food grew in abundance. + +Sixty paces before him, a shaft sank vertically in the sandy, clayey +soil. It was a carefully rounded shaft, and lined with silk. It went +down for perhaps thirty feet or more, and there enlarged itself into a +chamber where the owner and digger of the shaft might rest. The top of +the hole was closed by a trap door, stained with mud and earth to +imitate with precision the surrounding soil. A keen eye would have been +needed to perceive the opening. But a keen eye now peered out from a +tiny crack, the eye of the engineer of the underground dwelling. + +Eight hairy legs surrounded the body of the creature that hung +motionless at the top of the silk-lined shaft. A huge misshapen globe +formed its body, colored a dirty brown. Two pairs of ferocious mandibles +stretched before its fierce mouth-parts. Two eyes glittered evilly in +the darkness of the burrow. And over the whole body spread a rough, +mangy fur. + +It was a thing of implacable malignance, of incredible ferocity. It was +the brown hunting-spider, the American tarantula (_Mygale Hentzii_). Its +body was two feet and more in diameter, and its legs, outstretched, +would cover a circle three yards across. It watched Burl, its eyes +glistening. Slaver welled up and dropped from its jaws. + +And Burl strutted forward on the edge of the cliff, puffed up with a +sense of his own importance. The white snare of the spinning spider +below him impressed him as amusing. He knew the spider would not leave +its web to attack him. He reached down and broke off a bit of fungus +growing at his feet. Where he broke it, it was oozing a soupy liquid and +was full of tiny maggots in a delirium of feasting. Burl flung it down +into the web, and then laughed as the black bulk of the hidden spider +swung down from its hiding place to investigate. + + * * * * * + +The tarantula, peering from its burrow, quivered with impatience. Burl +drew near, and nearer. He was using his spear as a lever, now, and +prying off bits of fungus to fall down the cliffside into the colossal +web. The spider, below, went leisurely from one place to another, +investigating each new missile with its palpi, then leaving them, as +they appeared lifeless and undesirable prey. Burl laughed again as a +particularly large lump of shelf-fungus narrowly missed the +black-and-silver figure below. Then-- + +The trap door fell into place with a faint click, and Burl whirled +about. His laughter turned to a scream. Moving toward him with +incredible rapidity, the monster tarantula opened its dripping jaws. Its +mandibles gaped wide. The poison fangs were unsheathed. The creature was +thirty paces away, twenty paces--ten. It leaped into the air, eyes +glittering, all its eight legs extended to seize, fangs bared-- + +Burl screamed again, and thrust out his arms to ward off the impact of +the leap. In his terror, his grasp upon his spear had become agonized. +The spear point shot out, and the tarantula fell upon it. Nearly a +quarter of the spear entered the body of the ferocious thing. + +It struck upon the spear, writhing horribly, still struggling to reach +Burl, who was transfixed with horror. The mandibles clashed, strange +sounds came from the beast. Then one of the attenuated, hairy legs +rasped across Burl's forearm. He gasped in ultimate fear and stepped +backward--and the edge of the cliff gave way beneath him. + +He hurtled downward, still clutching the spear which led the writhing +creature from him. Down through space, eyes glassy with panic, the two +creatures--the man and the giant tarantula--fell together. There was a +strangely elastic crash and crackling. They had fallen into the web +beneath them. + +Burl had reached the end of terror. He could be no more fear-struck. +Struggling madly in the gummy coils of an immense web, which ever bound +him more tightly, with a wounded creature shuddering in agony not a yard +from him--yet a wounded creature that still strove to reach him with its +poison fangs--Burl had reached the limit of panic. + +He fought like a madman to break the coils about him. His arms and +breast were greasy from the oily fish, and the sticky web did not adhere +to them, but his legs and body were inextricably fastened by the elastic +threads spread for just such prey as he. + +He paused a moment, in exhaustion. Then he saw, five yards away, the +silvery and black monster waiting patiently for him to weary himself. It +judged the moment propitious. The tarantula and the man were one in its +eyes, one struggling thing that had fallen opportunely into its snare. +They were moving but feebly now. The spider advanced delicately, +swinging its huge bulk nimbly along the web, paying out a cable after it +came inexorably toward him. + +Burl's arms were free, because of the greasy coating they had received. +He waved them wildly, shrieking at the pitiless monster that approached. +The spider paused. Those moving arms suggested mandibles that might +wound or slap. + +Spiders take few hazards. This spider was no exception to the rule. It +drew cautiously near, then stopped. Its spinnerets became busy, and with +one of its six legs, used like an arm, it flung a sheet of gummy silk +impartially over both the tarantula and the man. + +Burl fought against the descending shroud. He strove to thrust it away, +but in vain. In a matter of minutes he was completely covered in a +silken cloth that hid even the light from his eyes. He and his enemy, +the giant tarantula, were beneath the same covering, though the +tarantula moved but weakly. + +The shower ceased. The web-spider had decided that they were helpless. +Then Burl felt the cables of the web give slightly, as the spider +approached to sting and suck the sweet juices from its prey. + + * * * * * + +The web yielded gently as the added weight of the black-bellied spider +approached. Burl froze into stillness under his enveloping covering. +Beneath the same silken shroud the tarantula writhed in agony upon the +point of Burl's spear. It clashed its jaws, shuddering upon the horny +barb. + +Burl was quiet in an ecstasy of terror. He waited for the poison-fangs +to be thrust into him. He knew the process. He had seen the leisurely +fashion in which the giant spiders delicately stung their prey, then +withdrew to wait without impatience for the poison to do its work. + +When their victim had ceased to struggle, they drew near again, and +sucked the sweet juices from the body, first from one point and then +another, until what had so recently been a creature vibrant with life +became a shrunken, withered husk--to be flung from the web at nightfall. +Most spiders are tidy housekeepers, destroying their snares daily to +spin anew. + +The bloated, evil creature moved meditatively about the shining sheet of +silk it had cast over the man and the giant tarantula when they fell +from the cliff above. Now only the tarantula moved feebly. Its body was +outlined by a bulge in the concealing shroud, throbbing faintly as it +still struggled with the spear in its vitals. The irregularly rounded +protuberance offered a point of attack for the web spider. It moved +quickly forward, and stung. + +Galvanized into fresh torment by this new agony, the tarantula writhed +in a very hell of pain. Its legs, clustered about the spear still +fastened into its body, struck out purposelessly, in horrible gestures +of delirious suffering. Burl screamed as one of them touched him, and +struggled himself. + +His arms and head were free beneath the silken sheet because of the +grease and oil that coated them. He clutched at the threads about him +and strove to draw himself away from his deadly neighbor. The threads +did not break, but they parted one from another, and a tiny opening +appeared. One of the tarantula's attenuated limbs touched him again. +With the strength of utter panic he hauled himself away, and the opening +enlarged. Another struggle, and Burl's head emerged into the open air, +and he stared down for twenty feet upon an open space almost carpeted +with the chitinous remains of his present captor's former victims. + +Burl's head was free, and his breast and arms. The fish slung over his +shoulder had shed its oil upon him impartially. But the lower part of +his body was held firm by the gummy snare of the web-spider, a snare far +more tenacious than any bird-lime ever manufactured by man. + +He hung in his tiny window for a moment, despairing. Then he saw, at a +little distance, the bulk of the monster spider, waiting patiently for +its poison to take effect and the struggling of its prey to be stilled. +The tarantula was no more than shuddering now. Soon it would be still, +and the black-bellied creature waiting on the web would approach for its +meal. + +Burl withdrew his head and thrust desperately at the sticky stuff about +his loins and legs. The oil upon his hands kept it from clinging to +them, and it gave a little. In a flash of inspiration, Burl understood. +He reached over his shoulder and grasped the greasy fish; tore it in a +dozen places and smeared himself with the now rancid exudation, pushing +the sticky threads from his limbs and oiling the surface from which he +had thrust it away. + +He felt the web tremble. To the spider, its poison seemed to have failed +of effect. Another sting seemed to be necessary. This time it would not +insert its fangs into the quiescent tarantula, but would sting where the +disturbance was manifest--would send its deadly venom into Burl. + +He gasped, and drew himself toward his window. It was as if he would +have pulled his legs from his body. His head emerged, his +shoulders--half his body was out of the hole. + +The colossal spider surveyed him, and made ready to cast more of its +silken sheet upon him. The spinnerets became active, and the sticky +stuff about Burl's feet gave way! He shot out of the opening and fell +sprawling, awkwardly and heavily, upon the earth below, crashing upon +the shrunken shell of a flying beetle which had fallen into the snare +and had not escaped. + +Burl rolled over and over, and then sat up. An angry, foot-long ant +stood before him, its mandibles extended threateningly, while its +antennae waved wildly in the air. A shrill stridulation filled the air. + +In ages past, when ants were tiny creatures of lengths to be measured in +fractions of an inch, learned scientists debated gravely if their tribe +possessed a cry. They believed that certain grooves upon the body of the +insects, after the fashion of those upon the great legs of the cricket, +might offer the means of uttering an infinitely high-pitched sound too +shrill for man's ears to catch. + +Burl knew that the stridulation was caused by the doubtful insect before +him, though he had never wondered how it was produced. The cry was used +to summon others of its city, to help it in its difficulty or good +fortune. + +Clickings sounded fifty or sixty feet away. Comrades were coming to aid +the pioneer. Harmless save when interfered with--all save the army ant, +that is--the whole ant tribe was formidable when aroused. Utterly +fearless, they could pull down a man and slay him as so many infuriated +fox terriers might have done thirty thousand years before. + + * * * * * + +Burl fled, without debate, and nearly collided with one of the +anchoring cables of the web from which he had barely escaped a moment +before. He heard the shrill sound behind him suddenly subside. The ant, +short-sighted as all ants were, no longer felt itself threatened and +went peacefully about the business Burl had interrupted, that of finding +among the gruesome relics beneath the spider's web some edible carrion +which might feed the inhabitants of its city. + +Burl sped on for a few hundred yards, and stopped. It behooved him to +move carefully. He was in strange territory, and as even the most +familiar territory was full of sudden and implacable dangers, unknown +lands were doubly or trebly perilous. + +Burl, too found difficulty in moving. The glutinous stuff from the +spider's shroud of silk still stuck to his feet and picked up small +objects as he went along. Old ant-gnawed fragments of insect armour +pricked him even through his toughened soles. + +He looked about cautiously and removed them, took a dozen steps and had +to stop again. Burl's brain had been uncommonly stimulated of late. It +had gotten him into at least one predicament--due to his invention of a +spear--but had no less readily led to his escape from another. But for +the reasoning that had led him to use the grease from the fish upon his +shoulder in oiling his body when he struggled out of the spider's snare, +he would now be furnishing a meal for that monster. + +Cautiously, Burl looked all about him. He seemed to be safe. Then, quite +deliberately, he sat down to think. It was the first time in his life +that he had done such a thing. The people of his tribe were not given to +meditation. But an idea had struck Burl with all the force of +inspiration--an abstract idea. + +When he was in difficulties, something within him seemed to suggest a +way out. Would it suggest an inspiration now? He puzzled over the +problem. Childlike--and savage-like--the instant the thought came to +him, he proceeded to test it out. He fixed his gaze upon his foot. The +sharp edges of pebbles, of the remains of insect-armour, of a dozen +things, hurt his feet when he walked. They had done so ever since he had +been born, but never had his feet been sticky so that the irritation +continued with him for more than a single step. + +Now he gazed upon his foot, and waited for the thought within him to +develop. Meanwhile, he slowly removed the sharp-pointed fragments, one +by one. Partly coated as they were with the half-liquid gum from his +feet, they clung to his fingers as they had to his feet, except upon +those portions where the oil was thick as before. + +Burl's reasoning, before, was simple and of the primary order. Where oil +covered him, the web did not. Therefore he would coat the rest of +himself with oil. Had he been placed in the same predicament again, he +would have used the same means of escape. But to apply a bit of +knowledge gained in one predicament to another difficulty was something +he had not yet done. + +A dog may be taught that by pulling on the latchstring of a door he may +open it, but the same dog coming to a high and close-barred gate with a +latchstring attached, will never think of pulling on this second +latchstring. He associates a latchstring with the opening of the door. +The opening of a gate is another matter entirely. + +Burl had been stirred to one invention by imminent peril. That is not +extraordinary. But to reason in cold blood, as he presently did, that +oil on his feet would nullify the glue upon his feet and enable him +again to walk in comfort--that was a triumph. The inventions of savages +are essentially matters of life and death, of food and safety. Comfort +and luxury are only produced by intelligence of a high order. + +Burl, in safety, had added to his comfort. That was truly a more +important thing in his development than almost any other thing he could +have done. He oiled his feet. + +It was an almost infinitesimal problem, but Burl's struggles with the +mental process of reasoning were actual. Thirty thousand years before +him, a wise man had pointed out that education is simply training in +thought, in efficient and effective thinking. Burl's tribe had been too +much preoccupied with food and mere existence to think, and now Burl, +sitting at the base of a squat toadstool that all but concealed him, +reexemplified Rodin's "Thinker" for the first time in many generations. + +For Burl to reason that oil upon the soles of his feet would guard him +against sharp stones was as much a triumph of intellect as any +masterpiece of art in the ages before him. Burl was learning how to +think. + +He stood up, walked, and crowed in sheer delight, then paused a moment +in awe of his own intelligence. Thirty-five miles from his tribe, naked, +unarmed, utterly ignorant of fire, of wood, of any weapons save a spear +he had experimented with the day before, abysmally uninformed concerning +the very existence of any art or science, Burl stopped to assure himself +that he was very wonderful. + +Pride came to him. He wished to display himself to Saya, these things +upon his feet, and his spear. But his spear was gone. + + * * * * * + +With touching faith in the efficacy of this new pastime, Burl sat +promptly down again and knitted his brows. Just as a superstitious +person, once convinced that by appeal to a favorite talisman he will be +guided aright, will inevitably apply to that talisman on all occasions, +so Burl plumped himself down to think. + +These questions were easily answered. Burl was naked. He would search +out garments for himself. He was weaponless. He would find himself a +spear. He was hungry--and would seek food, and he was far from his +tribe, so he would go to them. Puerile reasoning, of course, but +valuable, because it was consciously reasoning, consciously appealing to +his mind for guidance in difficulty, deliberate progress from a mental +desire to a mental resolution. + +Even in the high civilization of ages before, few men had really used +their brains. The great majority of people had depended upon machines +and their leaders to think for them. Burl's tribefolk depended on their +stomachs. Burl, however, was gradually developing the habit of thinking +which makes for leadership and which would be invaluable to his little +tribe. + +He stood up again and faced upstream, moving slowly and cautiously, his +eyes searching the ground before him keenly and his ears alert for the +slightest sound of danger. Gigantic butterflies, riotous in coloring, +fluttered overhead through the misty haze. Sometimes a grasshopper +hurtled through the air like a projectile, its transparent wings beating +the air frantically. Now and then a wasp sped by, intent upon its +hunting, or a bee droned heavily along, anxious and worried, striving in +a nearly flowerless world to gather the pollen that would feed the hive. + +Here and there Burl saw flies of various sorts, some no larger than his +thumb, but others the size of his whole hand. They fed upon the juices +that dripped from the maggot-infested mushrooms, when filth more to +their liking was not at hand. + +Very far away a shrill roaring sounded faintly. It was like a multitude +of clickings blended into a single sound, but was so far away that it +did not impress itself upon Burl's attention. He had all the strictly +localized vision of a child. What was near was important, and what was +distant could be ignored. Only the imminent required attention, and Burl +was preoccupied. + +Had he listened, he would have realized that army ants were abroad in +countless millions, spreading themselves out in a broad array and eating +all they came upon far more destructively than so many locusts. + +Locusts in past ages had eaten all green things. There were only giant +cabbages and a few such tenacious rank growths in the world that Burl +knew. The locusts had vanished with civilization and knowledge and the +greater part of mankind, but the army ants remained as an invincible +enemy to men and insects, and the most of the fungus growths that +covered the earth. + +Burl did not notice the sound, however. He moved forward, briskly though +cautiously, searching with his eyes for garments, food, and weapons. He +confidently expected to find all of them within a short distance. + +Surely enough he found a thicket--if one might call it so--of edible +fungi no more than half a mile beyond the spot where he had improvised +his sandals to protect the soles of his feet. + +Without especial elation, Burl tugged at the largest until he had broken +off a food supply for several days. He went on, eating as he did so, +past a broad plain a mile and more across, being broken into odd little +hillocks by gradually ripening and suddenly developing mushrooms with +which he was unfamiliar. + +The earth seemed to be in process of being pushed aside by rounded +protuberances of which only the tips showed. Blood-red hemispheres +seemed to be forcing aside the earth so they might reach the outer air. + +Burl looked at them curiously, and passed among them without touching +them. They were strange, and to him most strange things meant danger. In +any event, he was full of a new purpose now. He wished garments and +weapons. + +Above the plain a wasp hovered, a heavy object dangling beneath its +black belly, ornamented by a single red band. It was a wasp--the hairy +sand-wasp--and it was bringing a paralyzed gray caterpillar to its +burrow. + +Burl watched it drop down with the speed and sureness of an arrow, pull +aside a heavy, flat stone, and descend into the ground. It had a +vertical shaft dug down for forty feet or more. + +It descended, evidently inspected the interior, reappeared, and vanished +into the hole again, dragging the gray worm after it. Burl, marching on +over the broad plain that seemed stricken with some erupting disease +from the number of red pimples making their appearance, did not know +what passed below, but observed the wasp emerge again and busily scratch +dirt and stones into the shaft until it was full. + +The wasp had paralyzed a caterpillar, taken it to the already prepared +burrow, laid an egg upon it, and rilled up the entrance. In course of +time the egg would hatch into a grub barely as long as Burl's +forefinger, which would then feed upon the torpid caterpillar until it +had waxed large and fat. Then it would weave itself a chrysalis and +sleep a long sleep, only to wake as a wasp and dig its way to the open +air. + +Burl reached the farther side of the plain and found himself threading +the aisles of one of the fungus forests in which the growths were +hideous, misshapen travesties upon the trees they had supplanted. +Bloated, yellow limbs branched off from rounded, swollen trunks. Here +and there a pear-shaped puff-ball, Burl's height and half as much again, +waited craftily until a chance touch should cause it to shoot upward a +curling puff of infinitely fine dust. + +Burl went cautiously. There were dangers here, but he moved forward +steadily, none the less. A great mass of edible mushroom was slung under +one of his arms, and from time to time he broke off a fragment and ate +of it, while his large eyes searched this way and that for threats of +harm. + +Behind him, a high, shrill roaring had grown slightly in volume and +nearness, but was still too far away to impress Burl. The army ants were +working havoc in the distance. By thousands and millions, myriads upon +myriads, they were foraging the country, clambering upon every eminence, +descending into every depression, their antennae waving restlessly and +their mandibles forever threateningly extended. The ground was black +with them, each was ten inches and more in length. + +A single such creature would be formidable to an unarmed and naked man +like Burl, whose wisest move would be flight, but in their thousands and +millions they presented a menace from which no escape seemed possible. +They were advancing steadily and rapidly, shrill stridulations and a +multitude of clickings marking their movements. + +The great helpless caterpillars upon the giant cabbages heard the sound +of their coming, but were too stupid to flee. The black multitudes +covered the rank vegetables, and tiny but voracious jaws began to tear +at the flaccid masses of flesh. + +Each creature had some futile means of struggling. The caterpillars +strove to throw off their innumerable assailants by writhings and +contortions, wholly ineffective. The bees fought their entrance to the +gigantic hives with stings and wingbeats. The moths took to the air in +helpless blindness when discovered by the relentless throngs of small +black insects which reeked of formic acid and left the ground behind +them denuded in every living thing. + +Before the oncoming horde was a world of teeming life, where mushrooms +and fungi fought with thinning numbers of giant cabbages for foothold. +Behind the black multitude was--nothing. Mushrooms, cabbages, bees, +wasps, crickets. Every creeping and crawling thing that did not get +aloft before the black tide reached it was lost, torn to bits by tiny +mandibles. Even the hunting spiders and tarantulas fell before the host +of insects, having killed many in their final struggles, but overwhelmed +by sheer numbers. And the wounded and dying army ants made food for +their sound comrades. + +There is no mercy among insects. Only the web-spiders sat unmoved and +immovable in their colossal snares, secure in the knowledge that their +gummy webs would discourage attempts at invasion along the slender +supporting cables. + +Surging onward, flowing like a monstrous, murky tide over the yellow, +steaming earth, the army ants advanced. Their vanguard reached the +river, and recoiled. Burl was perhaps five miles distant when they +changed their course, communicating the altered line of march to those +behind them in some mysterious fashion of transmitting intelligence. + +Thirty thousand years before, scientists had debated gravely over the +means of communication among ants. They had observed that a single ant +finding a bit of booty too large for him to handle alone would return to +the ant-city and return with others. From that one instance they deduced +a language of gestures made with the antennae. + +Burl had no wise theories. He merely knew facts, but he knew that the +ants had some form of speech or transmission of ideas. Now, however, he +was moving cautiously along toward the stamping grounds of his tribe, in +complete ignorance of the black blanket of living creatures creeping +over the ground toward him. + +A million tragedies marked the progress of the insect army. There was a +tiny colony of mining bees--Zebra bees--a single mother, some four feet +long, had dug a huge gallery with some ten cells, in which she laid her +eggs and fed her grubs with hard-gathered pollen. The grubs had waxed +fat and large, became bees, and laid eggs in their turn, within the +gallery their mother had dug out for them. + +Ten such bulky insects now foraged busily for grubs within the ancestral +home, while the founder of the colony had grown draggled and wingless +with the passing of time. Unable to forage herself, the old bee became +the guardian of the nest or hive, as is the custom among the mining +bees. She closed the opening of the hive with her head, making a living +barrier within the entrance, and withdrawing to give entrance and exit +only to duly authenticated members of the extensive colony. + +The ancient and draggled concierge of the underground dwelling was at +her post when the wave of army ants swept over her. Tiny, evil-smelling +feet trampled upon her. She emerged to fight with mandible and sting for +the sanctity of the hive. In a moment she was a shaggy mass of biting +ants, rending and tearing at her chitinous armour. The old bee fought +madly, viciously, sounding a buzzing alarm to the colonists yet within +the hive. They emerged, fighting as they came, for the gallery leading +down was a dark flood of small insects. + + * * * * * + +For a few moments a battle such as would make an epic was in progress. +Ten huge bees, each four to five feet long, fighting with legs and jaw, +wing and mandible, with all the ferocity of as many tigers. The tiny, +vicious ants covered them, snapping at their multiple eyes, biting at +the tender joints in their armour--sometimes releasing the larger prey +to leap upon an injured comrade wounded by the huge creature they +battled in common. + +The fight, however, could have but one ending. Struggle as the bees +might, herculean as their efforts might be, they were powerless against +the incredible numbers of their assailants, who tore them into tiny +fragments and devoured them. Before the last shred of the hive's +defenders had vanished, the hive itself was gutted alike of the grubs it +had contained and the food brought to the grubs by such weary effort of +the mature bees. + +The army ants went on. Only an empty gallery remained, that and a few +fragments of tough armour, unappetizing even to the omniverous ants. + +Burl was meditatively inspecting the scene of a recent tragedy, where +rent and scraped fragments of a great beetle's shiny casing lay upon the +ground. A greater beetle had come upon the first and slain him. Burl was +looking upon the remains of the meal. + +Three or four minims, little ants barely six inches long, foraged +industriously among the bits. A new ant city was to be formed and the +queen-ant lay hidden a half-mile away. These were the first hatchlings, +who would feed the larger ants on whom would fall the great work of the +ant-city. Burl ignored them, searching with his eyes for a spear or +weapon. + +Behind him the clicking roar, the high-pitched stridulations of the +horde of army ants, rose in volume. Burl turned disgustedly away. The +best he could find in the way of a weapon was a fiercely toothed hind +leg. He picked it up, and an angry whine rose from the ground. + +One of the black minims was working busily to detach a fragment of flesh +from the joint of the leg, and Burl had snatched the morsel from him. +The little creature was hardly half a foot in length, but it advanced +upon Burl, shrilling angrily. He struck it with the leg and crushed it. +Two of the other minims appeared, attracted by the noise the first had +made. Discovering the crushed body of their fellow, they unceremoniously +dismembered it and bore it away in triumph. + +Burl went on, swinging the toothed limb in his hand. It made a fair +club, and Burl was accustomed to use stones to crush the juicy legs of +such giant crickets as his tribe sometimes came upon. He formed a +half-defined idea of a club. The sharp teeth of the thing in his hand +made him realize that a sidewise blow was better than a spearlike +thrust. + +The sound behind him had become a distant whispering, high-pitched, and +growing nearer. The army ants swept over a mushroom forest, and the +yellow, umbrella-like growths swarmed with black creatures devouring the +substance on which they found a foothold. + +A great bluebottle fly, shining with a metallic luster, reposed in an +ecstasy of feasting, sipping through its long proboscis the dark-colored +liquid that dripped slowly from a mushroom. Maggots filled the mushroom, +and exuded a solvent pepsin that liquefied the white firm "meat." + +They fed upon this soup, this gruel, and a surplus dripped to the ground +below, where the bluebottle drank eagerly. Burl drew near, and struck. +The fly collapsed into a writhing heap. Burl stood over it for an +instant, pondering. + +The army ants came nearer, down into a tiny valley, swarming into and +through a little brook over which Burl had leaped. Ants can remain under +water for a long time without drowning, so the small stream was but a +minor obstacle, though the current of water swept many of them off their +feet until they choked the brook-bed, and their comrades passed over +their struggling bodies dry-shod. They were no more than temporarily +annoyed, however, and presently crawled out to resume their march. + +About a quarter of a mile to the left of Burl's line of march, and +perhaps a mile behind the spot where he stood over the dead bluebottle +fly, there was a stretch of an acre or more where the giant, rank +cabbages had so far resisted the encroachments of the ever present +mushrooms. The pale, cross-shaped flowers of the cabbages formed food +for many bees, and the leaves fed numberless grubs and worms, and +loud-voiced crickets which crouched about on the ground, munching busily +at the succulent green stuff. The army ants swept into the green area, +ceaselessly devouring all they came upon. + +A terrific din arose. The crickets hurtled away in a rocketlike flight, +in a dark cloud of wildly beating wings. They shot aimlessly in any +direction, with the result that half, or more than half, fell in the +midst of the black tide of devouring insects and were seized as they +fell. They uttered terrible cries as they were being torn to bits. +Horrible inhuman screams reached Burl's ears. + +A single such cry of agony would not have attracted Burl's attention--he +lived in the very atmosphere of tragedy--but the chorus of creatures in +torment made him look up. This was no minor horror. Wholesale slaughter +was going on. He peered anxiously in the direction of the sound. + +A wild stretch of sickly yellow fungus, here and there interspersed with +a squat toadstool or a splash of vivid color where one of the many +"rusts" had found a foothold. To the left a group of awkward, misshapen +fungoids clustered in silent mockery of a forest of trees. There a mass +of faded green, where the giant cabbages stood. + +With the true sun never shining upon them save through a blanket of +thick haze or heavy clouds, they were pallid things, but they were the +only green things Burl had seen. Their nodding white flowers with four +petals in the form of a cross glowed against the yellowish green leaves. +But as Burl gazed toward them, the green became slowly black. + +From where he stood, Burl could see two or three great grubs in lazy +contentment, eating ceaselessly on the cabbages on which they rested. +Suddenly first one and then the other began to jerk spasmodically. Burl +saw that about each of them a tiny rim of black had clustered. Tiny +black motes milled over the green surfaces of the cabbages. The grubs +became black, the cabbages became black. Horrible contortions of the +writhing grubs told of the agonies they were enduring. Then a black wave +appeared at the further edge of the stretch of the sickly yellow fungus, +a glistening, living wave, that moved forward rapidly with the roar of +clickings and a persistent overtone of shrill stridulations. + +The hair rose upon Burl's head. He knew what this was! He knew all too +well the meaning of that tide of shining bodies. With a gasp of terror, +all his intellectual preoccupations forgotten, he turned and fled in +ultimate panic. And the tide came slowly on after him. + + * * * * * + +He flung away the great mass of edible mushroom, but clung to his +sharp-toothed club desperately, and darted through the tangled aisles of +the little mushroom forest with a heedless disregard of the dangers that +might await him there. Flies buzzed about him loudly, huge creatures, +glittering with a metallic luster. Once he was struck upon the shoulder +by the body of one of them, and his skin was torn by the swiftly +vibrating wings of the insect, as long as Burl's hand. + +Burl thrust it away and sped on. The oil with which he was partly +covered had turned rancid, now, and the odor attracted them, +connoisseurs of the fetid. They buzzed over his head, keeping pace even +with his headlong flight. + +A heavy weight settled upon his head, and in a moment was doubled. Two +of the creatures had dropped upon his oily hair, to sip the rancid oil +through their disgusting proboscises. Burl shook them off with his hand +and ran madly on. His ears were keenly attuned to the sound of the army +ants behind him, and it grew but little farther away. + +The clicking roar continued, but began to be overshadowed by the buzzing +of the flies. In Burl's time the flies had no great heaps of putrid +matter in which to lay their eggs. The ants--busy scavengers--carted +away the debris of the multitudinous tragedies of the insect world long +before it could acquire the gamey flavor beloved by the fly maggots. +Only in isolated spots were the flies really numerous, but there they +clustered in clouds that darkened the sky. + +Such a buzzing, whirling cloud surrounded the madly running figure of +Burl. It seemed as though a miniature whirlwind kept pace with the +little pink-skinned man, a whirlwind composed of winged bodies and +multi-faceted eyes. He twirled his club before him, and almost every +stroke was interrupted by an impact against a thinly armoured body which +collapsed with a spurting of reddish liquid. + +An agonizing pain as of a red-hot iron struck upon Burl's back. One of +the stinging flies had thrust its sharp-tipped proboscis into Burl's +flesh to suck the blood. + +Burl uttered a cry and--ran full tilt into the thick stalk of a +blackened and draggled toadstool. There was a curious crackling as of +wet punk or brittle rotten wood. The toadstool collapsed upon itself +with a strange splashing sound. Many flies had laid their eggs in the +fungoid, and it was a teeming mass of corruption and ill-smelling +liquid. + +With the crash of the toadstool's "head" upon the ground, it fell into a +dozen pieces, and the earth for yards around was spattered with a +stinking liquid in which tiny, headless maggots twitched convulsively. + +The buzzing of the flies took on a note of satisfaction, and they +settled by hundreds about the edges of the ill-smelling pools, becoming +lost in the ecstacy of feasting while Burl staggered to his feet and +darted off again. This time he was but a minor attraction to the flies, +and but one or two came near him. From every direction they were +hurrying to the toadstool feast, to the banquet of horrible, liquefied +fungus that lay spread upon the ground. + +Burl ran on. He passed beneath the wide-spreading leaves of a giant +cabbage. A great grasshopper crouched upon the ground, its tremendous +jaws crunching the rank vegetation voraciously. Half a dozen great worms +ate steadily from their resting-places among the leaves. One of them had +slung itself beneath an overhanging leaf--which would have thatched a +dozen homes for as many men--and was placidly anchoring itself in +preparation for the spinning of a cocoon in which to sleep the sleep of +metamorphosis. + +A mile away, the great black tide of army ants was advancing +relentlessly. The great cabbage, the huge grasshopper, and all the +stupid caterpillars upon the wide leaves would soon be covered with the +tiny biting insects. The cabbage would be reduced to a chewed and +destroyed stump, the colossal, furry grubs would be torn into a myriad +mouthfuls and devoured by the black army ants, and the grasshopper would +strike out with terrific, unguided strength, crushing its assailants by +blows of its powerful hind legs and bites of its great jaws. But it +would die, making terrible sounds of torment as the vicious mandibles of +the army ants found crevices in its armour. + +The clicking roar of the ants' advance overshadowed all other sounds, +now. Burl was running madly, breath coming in great gasps, his eyes wide +with panic. Alone of all the world about him, he knew the danger behind. +The insects he passed were going about their business with that +terrifying efficiency found only in the insect world. + + * * * * * + +There is something strangely daunting in the actions of an insect. It +moves so directly, with such uncanny precision, with such utter +indifference to anything but the end in view. Cannibalism is a rule, +almost without exception. The paralysis of prey, so it may remain alive +and fresh--though in agony--for weeks on end, is a common practice. The +eating piecemeal of still living victims is a matter of course. + +Absolute mercilessness, utter callousness, incredible inhumanity beyond +anything known in the animal world is the natural and commonplace +practice of the insects. And these vast cruelties are performed by +armoured, machine-like creatures with an abstraction and a routine air +that suggests a horrible Nature behind them all. + +Burl nearly stumbled upon a tragedy. He passed within a dozen yards of a +space where a female dung-beetle was devouring the mate whose honeymoon +had begun that same day and ended in that gruesome fashion. Hidden +behind a clump of mushrooms, a great yellow-banded spider was coyly +threatening a smaller male of her own species. He was discreetly ardent, +but if he won the favor of the gruesome creature he was wooing, he would +furnish an appetizing meal for her some time within twenty-four hours. + +Burl's heart was pounding madly. The breath whistled in his +nostrils--and behind him, the wave of army ants was drawing nearer. They +came upon the feasting flies. Some took to the air and escaped, but +others were too engrossed in their delicious meal. The twitching little +maggots, stranded upon the earth by the scattering of their soupy broth, +were torn in pieces. The flies who were seized vanished into tiny maws. +The serried ranks of black insects went on. + +The tiny clickings of their limbs, the perpetual challenges and +cross-challenges of crossed antennae, the stridulations of the +creatures, all combined to make a high-pitched but deafening din. Now +and then another sound pierced the noises made by the ants themselves. A +cricket, seized by a thousand tiny jaws, uttered cries of agony. The +shrill note of the crickets had grown deeply bass with the increase in +size of the organs that uttered it. + +There was a strange contrast between the ground before the advancing +horde and that immediately behind it. Before, a busy world, teeming with +life. Butterflies floating overhead on lazy wings, grubs waxing fat and +huge upon the giant cabbages, crickets eating, great spiders sitting +quietly in their lairs waiting with invincible patience for prey to draw +near their trap doors or fall into their webs, colossal beetles +lumbering heavily through the mushroom forests, seeking food, making +love in monstrous, tragic fashion. + +And behind the wide belt of army ants--chaos. The edible mushrooms gone. +The giant cabbages left as mere stumps of unappetizing pulp, the busy +life of the insect world completely wiped out save for the flying +creatures that fluttered helplessly over an utterly changed landscape. +Here and there little bands of stragglers moved busily over the denuded +earth, searching for some fragment of food that might conceivably have +been overlooked by the main body. + +Burl was putting forth his last ounce of strength. His limbs trembled, +his breathing was agony, sweat stood out upon his forehead. He ran a +little, naked man with the disjointed fragment of a huge insect's limb +in his hand, running for his insignificant life, running as if his +continued existence among the million tragedies of that single day were +the purpose for which the whole of the universe had been created. + +He sped across an open space a hundred yards across. A thicket of +beautifully golden mushrooms (_Agaricus caesareus_) barred his way. +Beyond the mushrooms a range of strangely colored hills began, purple +and green and black and gold, melting into each other, branching off +from each other, inextricably tangled. + +They rose to a height of perhaps sixty or seventy feet, and above them a +little grayish haze had gathered. There seemed to be a layer of tenuous +vapor upon their surfaces, which slowly rose and coiled, and gathered +into a tiny cloudlet above their tips. + +The hills, themselves, were but masses of fungus, mushrooms and fungoids +of every description, yeasts, "musts," and every form of fungus growth +which had grown within itself and about itself until this great mass of +strangely colored, spongy stuff had gathered in a mass that undulated +unevenly across the level earth for miles. + +Burl burst through the golden thicket and attacked the ascent. His feet +sank into the spongy sides of the hillock. Panting, gasping, staggering +from exhaustion, he made his way up the top. He plunged into a little +valley on the farther side, up another slope. For perhaps ten minutes he +forced himself on, then collapsed. He lay, unable to move further, in a +little hollow, his sharp-toothed club still clasped in his hands. Above +him, a bright yellow butterfly with a thirty-foot spread of wing, +fluttered lightly. + +He lay motionless, breathing in great gasps, his limbs stubbornly +refusing to lift him. + + * * * * * + +The sound of the army ants continued to grow near. At last, above the +crest of the last hillock he had surmounted, two tiny antennae appeared, +then the black glistening head of an army ant, the forerunner of its +horde. It moved deliberately forward, waving its antennae ceaselessly. +It made its way toward Burl, tiny clickings coming from the movements of +its limbs. + +A little wisp of tenuous vapor swirled toward the ant, a wisp of the +same vapor that had gathered above the whole range of hills as a thin, +low cloud. It enveloped the insect--and the ant seemed to be attacked by +a strange convulsion. Its legs moved aimlessly. It threw itself +desperately about. If it had been an animal, Burl would have watched +with wondering eyes while it coughed and gasped, but it was an insect +breathing through air-holes in its abdomen. It writhed upon the spongy +fungus growth across which it had been moving. + +Burl, lying in an exhausted, panting heap upon the purple mass of +fungus, was conscious of a strange sensation. His body felt strangely +warm. He knew nothing of fire or the heat of the sun, and the only +sensation of warmth he had ever known was that caused when the members +of his tribe had huddled together in their hiding place when the damp +chill of the night had touched their soft-skinned bodies. Then the heat +of their breaths and their bodies had kept out the chill. + +This heat that Burl now felt was a hotter, fiercer heat. He moved his +body with a tremendous effort, and for a moment the fungus was cool and +soft beneath him. Then, slowly, the sensation of heat began again, and +increased until Burl's skin was red and inflamed from the irritation. + +The thin and tenuous vapor, too, made Burl's lungs smart and his eyes +water. He was breathing in great, choking gasps, but the period of +rest--short as it was--had enabled him to rise and stagger on. He +crawled painfully to the top of the slope, and looked back. + +The hill-crest on which he stood was higher than any of those he had +passed in his painful run, and he could see clearly the whole of the +purple range. Where he was, he was near the farther edge of the range, +which was here perhaps half a mile wide. + +It was a ceaseless, undulating mass of hills and hollows, ridges and +spurs, all of them colored, purple and brown and golden-yellow, deepest +black and dingy white. And from the tips of most of the pointed hills +little wisps of vapor rose up. + +A thin, dark cloud had gathered overhead. Burl could look to the right +and left, and see the hills fading into the distance, growing fainter as +the haze above them seemed to grow thicker. He saw, too, the advancing +cohorts of the army ants, creeping over the tangled mass of fungus +growth. They seemed to be feeding as they went, upon the fungus that had +gathered into these incredible monstrosities. + +The hills were living. They were not upheavals of the ground, they were +festering heaps of insanely growing, festering mushrooms and fungus. +Upon most of them a purple mould had spread itself so that they seemed a +range of purple hills, but here and there patches of other vivid colors +showed, and there was a large hill whose whole side was a brilliant +golden hue. Another had tiny bright red spots of a strange and malignant +mushroom whose properties Burl did not know, scattered all over the +purple with which it was covered. + +Burl leaned heavily upon his club and watched dully. He could run no +more. The army ants were spreading everywhere over the mass of fungus. +They would reach him soon. + +Far to the right the vapor thickened. A column of smoke arose. What Burl +did not know and would never know was that far down in the interior of +that compressed mass of fungus, slow oxidization had been going on. The +temperature of the interior had been raised. In the darkness and the +dampness deep down in the hills, spontaneous combustion had begun. + +Just as the vast piles of coal the railroad companies of thirty thousand +years before had gathered together sometimes began to burn fiercely in +their interiors, and just as the farmers' piles of damp straw suddenly +burst into fierce flames from no cause, so these huge piles of +tinder-like mushrooms had been burning slowly within themselves. + +There had been no flames, because the surface remained intact and nearly +air-tight. But when the army ants began to tear at the edible surfaces +despite the heat they encountered, fresh air found its way to the +smouldering masses of fungus. The slow combustion became rapid +combustion. The dull heat became fierce flames. The slow trickle of thin +smoke became a huge column of thick, choking, acrid stuff that set the +army ants that breathed it into spasms of convulsive writhing. + +From a dozen points the flames burst out. A dozen or more columns of +blinding smoke rose to the heavens. A pall of fume-laden smoke gathered +above the range of purple hills, while Burl watched apathetically. And +the serried ranks of army ants marched on to the widening furnaces that +awaited them. + +They had recoiled from the river, because their instinct had warned +them. Thirty thousand years without danger from fire, however, had let +their racial fear of fire die out. They marched into the blazing +orifices they had opened in the hills, snapping with their mandibles at +the leaping flames, springing at the glowing tinder. + + * * * * * + +The blazing area widened, as the purple surface was undermined and fell +in. Burl watched the phenomenon without comprehension and even without +thankfulness. He stood, panting more and more slowly, breathing more and +more easily, until the glow from the approaching flames reddened his +skin and the acrid smoke made tears flow from his eyes. + +Then he retreated slowly, leaning on his club and looking back. The +black wave of the army ants was sweeping into the fire, sweeping into +the incredible heat of that carbonized material burning with an open +flame. At last there were only the little bodies of stragglers from the +great ant-army, scurrying here and there over the ground their comrades +had denuded of all living things. The bodies of the main army had +vanished--burnt to crisp ashes in the furnace of the hills. + +There had been agony in that flame, dreadful agony such as no man would +like to dwell upon. The insane courage of the ants, attacking with their +horny jaws the burning masses of fungus, rolling over and over with a +flaming missile clutched in their mandibles, sounding their shrill war +cry while cries of agony came from them--blinded, their antennae burnt +off, their lidless eyes scorched by the licking flames, yet going madly +forward on flaming feet to attack, ever attack this unknown and +unknowable enemy. + +Burl made his way slowly over the hills. Twice he saw small bodies of +the army ants. They had passed between the widening surfaces their +comrades had opened, and they were feeding voraciously upon the hills +they trod on. Once Burl was spied, and a shrill war cry was sounded, but +he moved on, and the ants were busily eating. A single ant rushed toward +him. Burl brought down his club, and a writhing body remained to be +eaten later by its comrades when they came upon it. + +Again night fell. The skies grew red in the west, though the sun did not +shine through the ever present cloud bank. Darkness spread across the +sky. Utter blackness fell over the whole mad world, save where the +luminous mushrooms shed their pale light upon the ground and fireflies +the length of Burl's arm shed their fitful gleams upon an earth of +fungus growths and monstrous insects. + +Burl made his way across the range of mushroom hills, picking his path +with his large blue eyes whose pupils expanded to great size. Slowly, +from the sky, now a drop and then a drop, now a drop and then a drop, +the nightly rain that would continue until daybreak began. + +Burl found the ground hard beneath his feet. He listened keenly for +sounds of danger. Something rustled heavily in a thicket of mushrooms a +hundred yards away. There were sounds of preening, and of delicate feet +placed lightly here and there upon the ground. Then the throbbing beat +of huge wings began suddenly, and a body took to the air. + +A fierce, down-coming current of air smote Burl, and he looked upward in +time to catch the outline of a huge body--a moth--as it passed above +him. He turned to watch the line of its flight, and saw a strange glow +in the sky behind him. The mushroom hills were still burning. + +He crouched beneath a squat toadstool and waited for the dawn, his club +held tightly in his hands, and his ears alert for any sound of danger. +The slow-dropping, sodden rain kept on. It fell with irregular, drumlike +beats upon the tough top of the toadstool under which he had taken +refuge. + +Slowly, slowly, the sodden rainfall continued. Drop by drop, all the +night long, the warm pellets of liquid came from the sky. They boomed +upon the hollow heads of the toadstools, and splashed into the steaming +pools that lay festering all over the fungus-covered earth. + +And all the night long the great fires grew and spread in the mass of +already half-carbonized mushroom. The flare at the horizon grew brighter +and nearer. Burl, naked and hiding beneath a huge mushroom, watched it +grow near him with wide eyes, wondering what this thing was. He had +never seen a flame before. + +The overhanging clouds were brightened by the flames. Over a stretch at +least a dozen miles in length and from half a mile to three miles +across, seething furnaces sent columns of dense smoke up to the roof of +clouds, luminous from the glow below them, and spreading out and forming +an intermediate layer below the cloudbanks. + +It was like the glow of all the many lights of a vast city thrown +against the sky--but the last great city had moulded into fungus-covered +rubbish thirty thousand years before. Like the flitting of airplanes +above a populous city, too, was the flitting of fascinated creatures +above the glow. + + * * * * * + +Moths and great flying beetles, gigantic gnats and midges grown huge +with the passing of time, they fluttered and danced the dance of death +above the flames. As the fire grew nearer to Burl, he could see them. + +Colossal, delicately formed creatures swooped above the strange blaze. +Moths with their riotously colored wings of thirty-foot spread beat the +air with mighty strokes, and their huge eyes glowed like carbuncles as +they stared with the frenzied gaze of intoxicated devotees into the +glowing flames below them. + +Burl saw a great peacock moth soaring above the burning mushroom hills. +Its wings were all of forty feet across, and fluttered like gigantic +sails as the moth gazed down at the flaming furnace below. The separate +flames had united, now, and a single sheet of white-hot burning stuff +spread across the country for miles, sending up its clouds of smoke, in +which and through which the fascinated creatures flew. + +Feathery antennae of the finest lace spread out before the head of the +peacock moth, and its body was softest, richest velvet. A ring of +snow-white down marked where its head began, and the red glow from below +smote on the maroon of its body with a strange effect. + +For one instant it was outlined clearly. Its eyes glowed more redly than +any ruby's fire, and the great, delicate wings were poised in flight. +Burl caught the flash of the flames upon two great iridescent spots upon +the wide-spread wings. Shining purple and vivid red, the glow of opal +and the sheen of pearl, all the glory of chalcedony and chrysoprase +formed a single wonder in the red glare of burning fungus. White smoke +compassed the great moth all about, dimming the radiance of its gorgeous +dress. + +Burl saw it dart straight into the thickest and brightest of the licking +flames, flying madly, eagerly, into the searing, hellish heat as a +willing, drunken sacrifice to the god of fire. + +Monster flying beetles with their horny wing-cases stiffly stretched, +blundered above the reeking, smoking pyre. In the red light from before +them they shone like burnished metal, and their clumsy bodies with the +spurred and fierce-toothed limbs darted like so many grotesque meteors +through the luminous haze of ascending smoke. + +Burl saw strange collisions and still stranger meetings. Male and female +flying creatures circled and spun in the glare, dancing their dance of +love and death in the wild radiance from the funeral pyre of the purple +hills. They mounted higher than Burl could see, drunk with the ecstasy +of living, then descended to plunge headlong to death in the roaring +fires beneath them. + +From every side the creatures came. Moths of brightest yellow with soft +and furry bodies palpitant with life flew madly into the column of light +that reached to the overhanging clouds, then moths of deepest black with +gruesome symbols upon their wings came swiftly to dance, like motes in a +bath of sunlight, above the glow. + +And Burl sat crouched beneath an overshadowing toadstool and watched. +The perpetual, slow, sodden raindrops fell. A continual faint hissing +penetrated the sound of the fire--the raindrops being turned to steam. +The air was alive with flying things. From far away, Burl heard a +strange, deep bass muttering. He did not know the cause, but there was a +vast swamp, of the existence of which he was ignorant, some ten or +fifteen miles away, and the chorus of insect-eating giant frogs reached +his ears even at that distance. + +The night wore on, while the flying creatures above the fire danced and +died, their numbers ever recruited by fresh arrivals. Burl sat tensely +still, his wide eyes watching everything, his mind groping for an +explanation of what he saw. At last the sky grew dimly gray, then +brighter, and day came on. The flames of the burning hills grew faint as +the fire died down, and after a long time Burl crept from his hiding +place and stood erect. + +A hundred yards from where he was, a straight wall of smoke rose from +the still smouldering fungus, and Burl could see it stretching for miles +in either direction. He turned to continue on his way, and saw the +remains of one of the tragedies of the night. + +A huge moth had flown into the flames, been horribly scorched, and +floundered out again. Had it been able to fly, it would have returned to +its devouring deity, but now it lay immovable upon the ground, its +antennae seared hopelessly, one beautiful, delicate wing burned in +gaping holes, its eyes dimmed by flame and its exquisitely tapering +limbs broken and crushed by the force with which it had struck the +ground. It lay helpless upon the earth, only the stumps of its antennae +moving restlessly, and its abdomen pulsating slowly as it drew +pain-racked breaths. + +Burl drew near and picked up a stone. He moved on presently, a velvet +cloak cast over his shoulders, gleaming with all the colors of the +rainbow. A gorgeous mass of soft, blue moth fur was about his middle, +and he had bound upon his forehead two yard-long, golden fragments of +the moth's magnificent antennae. He strode on, slowly, clad as no man +had been clad in all the ages. + +After a little he secured a spear and took up his journey to Saya, +looking like a prince of Ind upon a bridal journey--though no mere +prince ever wore such raiment in days of greatest glory. + + * * * * * + +For many long miles Burl threaded his way through a single forest of +thin-stalked toadstools. They towered three-man-heights high, and all +about their bases were streaks and splashes of the rusts and moulds that +preyed upon them. Twice Burl came to open glades wherein open, bubbling +pools of green slime festered in corruption, and once he hid himself +fearfully as a monster scarabeus beetle lumbered within three yards of +him, moving heavily onward with a clanking of limbs as of some mighty +machine. + +Burl saw the mighty armour and the inward-curving jaws of the creature, +and envied him his weapons. The time was not yet come, however, when +Burl would smile at the great insect and hunt him for the juicy flesh +contained in those armoured limbs. + +Burl was still a savage, still ignorant, still timid. His principal +advance had been that whereas he had fled without reasoning, he now +paused to see if he need flee. In his hands he bore a long, +sharp-pointed chitinous spear. It had been the weapon of a huge, unnamed +flying insect scorched to death in the burning of the purple hills, +which had floundered out of the flames to die. Burl had worked for an +hour before being able to detach the weapon he coveted. It was as long +and longer than Burl himself. + +He was a strange sight, moving slowly and cautiously through the +shadowed lanes of the mushroom forest. A cloak of delicate velvet in +which all the colors of the rainbow played in iridescent beauty hung +from his shoulders. A mass of soft and beautiful moth fur was about his +middle, and in the strip of sinew about his waist the fiercely toothed +limb of a fighting beetle was thrust carelessly. He had bound to his +forehead twin stalks of a great moth's feathery golden antennae. + +Against the play of color that came from his borrowed plumage his pink +skin showed in odd contrast. He looked like some proud knight walking +slowly through the gardens of a goblin's castle. But he was still a +fearful creature, no more than the monstrous creatures about him save in +the possession of latent intelligence. He was weak--and therein lay his +greatest promise. A hundred thousand years before him his ancestors had +been forced by lack of claws and fangs to develop brains. + +Burl was sunk as low as they had been, but he had to combat more +horrifying enemies, more inexorable threatenings, and many times more +crafty assailants. His ancestors had invented knives and spears and +flying missiles. The creatures about Burl had knives and spears a +thousand times more deadly than the weapons that had made his ancestors +masters of the woods and forests. + +Burl was in comparison vastly more weak than his forebears had been, and +it was that weakness that in times to come would lead him and those who +followed him to heights his ancestors had never known. But now-- + +He heard a discordant, deep bass bellow, coming from a spot not twenty +yards away. In a flash of panic he darted behind a clump of mushrooms +and hid himself, panting in sheer terror. He waited for an instant in +frozen fear, motionless and tense. His wide, blue eyes were glassy. + +The bellow came again, but this time with a querulous note. Burl heard a +crashing and plunging as of some creature caught in a snare. A mushroom +fell with a brittle snapping, and the spongy thud as it fell to the +ground was followed by a tremendous commotion. Something was fighting +desperately against something else, but Burl did not know what creature +or creatures might be in combat. + +He waited for a long time, and the noise gradually died away. Presently +Burl's breath came more slowly, and his courage returned. He stole from +his hiding place, and would have made away, but something held him back. +Instead of creeping from the scene, he crept cautiously over toward the +source of the noise. + +He peered between two cream-colored toadstool stalks and saw the cause +of the noise. A wide, funnel-shaped snare of silk was spread out before +him, some twenty yards across and as many deep. The individual threads +could be plainly seen, but in the mass it seemed a fabric of sheerest, +finest texture. Held up by the tall mushrooms, it was anchored to the +ground below, and drew away to a tiny point through which a hole gave on +some yet unknown recess. And all the space of the wide snare was hung +with threads, fine, twisted threads no more than half the thickness of +Burl's finger. + +This was the trap of a labyrinth spider. Not one of the interlacing +threads was strong enough to hold the feeblest of prey, but the threads +were there by thousands. A great cricket had become entangled in the +maze of sticky lines. Its limbs thrashed out, smashing the snare-lines +at every stroke, but at every stroke meeting and becoming entangled with +a dozen more. It thrashed about mightily, emitting at intervals the +horrible, deep bass cry that the chirping voice of the cricket had +become with its increase in size. + + * * * * * + +Burl breathed more easily, and watched with a fascinated curiosity. Mere +death--even tragic death--as among insects held no great interest for +him. It was a matter of such common and matter-of-fact occurrence that +he was not greatly stirred. But a spider and his prey was another +matter. + +There were few insects that deliberately sought man. Most insects have +their allotted victims, and will touch no others, but spiders have a +terrifying impartiality. One great beetle devouring another was a matter +of indifference to Burl. A spider devouring some luckless insect was but +an example of what might happen to him. He watched alertly, his gaze +traveling from the enmeshed cricket to the strange orifice at the rear +of the funnel-shaped snare. + +The opening darkened. Two shining, glistening eyes had been watching +from the rear of the funnel. It drew itself into a tunnel there, in +which the spider had been waiting. Now it swung out lightly and came +toward the cricket. It was a gray spider (_Agelena labyrinthica_), with +twin black ribbons upon its thorax, next the head, and with two stripes +of curiously speckled brown and white upon its abdomen. Burl saw, too, +two curious appendages like a tail. + +It came nimbly out of its tunnel-like hiding place and approached the +cricket. The cricket was struggling only feebly now, and the cries it +uttered were but feeble, because of the confining threads that fettered +its limbs. Burl saw the spider throw itself upon the cricket and saw the +final, convulsive shudder of the insect as the spider's fangs pierced +its tough armour. The sting lasted a long time, and finally Burl saw +that the spider was really feeding. All the succulent juices of the now +dead cricket were being sucked from its body by the spider. It had stung +the cricket upon the haunch, and presently it went to the other leg and +drained that, too, by means of its powerful internal suction-pump. When +the second haunch had been sucked dry, the spider pawed the lifeless +creature for a few moments and left it. + +Food was plentiful, and the spider could afford to be dainty in its +feeding. The two choicest titbits had been consumed. The remainder could +be discarded. + +A sudden thought came to Burl and quite took his breath away. For a +second his knees knocked together in self-induced panic. He watched the +gray spider carefully with growing determination in his eyes. He, Burl, +had killed a hunting-spider upon the red-clay cliff. True, the killing +had been an accident, and had nearly cost him his own life a few minutes +later in the web-spider's snare, but he had killed a spider, and of the +most deadly kind. + +Now, a great ambition was growing in Burl's heart. His tribe had always +feared spiders too much to know much of their habits, but they knew one +or two things. The most important was that the snare-spiders never left +their lairs to hunt--never! Burl was about to make a daring application +of that knowledge. + +He drew back from the white and shining snare and crept softly to the +rear. The fabric gathered itself into a point and then continued for +some twenty feet as a tunnel, in which the spider waited while dreaming +of its last meal and waiting for the next victim to become entangled in +the labyrinth in front. Burl made his way to a point where the tunnel +was no more than ten feet away, and waited. + +Presently, through the interstices of the silk, he saw the gray bulk of +the spider. It had left the exhausted body of the cricket, and returned +to its resting place. It settled itself carefully upon the soft walls +of the tunnel, with its shining eyes fixed upon the tortuous threads of +its trap. Burl's hair was standing straight up upon his head from sheer +fright, but he was the slave of an idea. + +He drew near and poised his spear, his new and sharp spear, taken from +the body of an unknown flying creature killed by the burning purple +hills. Burl raised the spear and aimed its sharp and deadly point at the +thick gray bulk he could see dimly through the threads of the tunnel. He +thrust it home with all his strength--and ran away at the top of his +speed, glassy-eyed from terror. + +A long time later he ventured near again, his heart in his mouth, ready +to flee at the slightest sound. All was still. Burl had missed the +horrible convulsions of the wounded spider, had not heard the frightful +gnashings of its fangs as it tore at the piercing weapon, had not seen +the silken threads of the tunnel ripped as the spider--hurt to +death--had struggled with insane strength to free itself. + +He came back beneath the overshadowing toadstools, stepping quietly and +cautiously, to find a great rent in the silken tunnel, to find the great +gray bulk lifeless and still, half-fallen through the opening the spear +had first made. A little puddle of evil-smelling liquid lay upon the +ground below the body, and from time to time a droplet fell from the +spear into the puddle with a curious splash. + +Burl looked at what he had done, saw the dead body of the creature he +had slain, saw the ferocious mandibles, and the keen and deadly fangs. +The dead eyes of the creature still stared at him malignantly, and the +hairy legs were still braced as if further to enlarge the gaping hole +through which it had partly fallen. + +Exultation filled Burl's heart. His tribe had been but furtive vermin +for thousands of years, fleeing from the mighty insects, hiding from +them, and if overtaken but waiting helplessly for death, screaming +shrilly in terror. + +He, Burl, had turned the tables. He had slain one of the enemies of his +tribe. His breast expanded. Always his tribesmen went quietly and +fearfully, making no sound. But a sudden, exultant yell burst from +Burl's lips--the first hunting cry from the lips of a man in three +hundred centuries! + + * * * * * + +The next second his pulse nearly stopped in sheer panic at having made +such a noise. He listened fearfully, but there was no sound. He drew +near his prey and carefully withdrew his spear. The viscid liquid made +it slimy and slippery, and he had to wipe it dry against a leathery +toadstool. Then Burl had to conquer his illogical fear again before +daring to touch the creature he had slain. + +He moved off presently, with the belly of the spider upon his back and +two of the hairy legs over his shoulders. The other limbs of the monster +hung limp, and trailed upon the ground. Burl was now a still more +curious sight as a gayly colored object with a cloak shining in +iridescent colors, the golden antennae of a great moth rising from his +forehead, and the hideous bulk of a gray spider for a burden. + +He moved through the thin-stalked mushroom forest, and, because of the +thing he carried, all creatures fled before him. They did not fear +man--their instinct was slow-moving--but during all the millions of +years that insects have existed, there have existed spiders to prey upon +them. So Burl moved on in solemn state, a brightly clad man bent beneath +the weight of a huge and horrible monster. + +He came upon a valley full of torn and blackened mushrooms. There was +not a single yellow top among them. Every one had been infested with +tiny maggots which had liquefied the tough meat of the mushroom and +caused it to drip to the ground below. And all the liquid had gathered +in a golden pool in the center of the small depression. Burl heard a +loud humming and buzzing before he topped the rise that opened the +valley for his inspection. He stopped a moment and looked down. + +A golden-red lake, its center reflecting the hazy sky overhead. All +about, blackened mushrooms, seeming to have been charred and burned by a +fierce flame. A slow-flowing golden brooklet trickled slowly over a +rocky ledge, into the larger pool. And all about the edges of the golden +lake, in ranks and rows, by hundreds, thousands, and by millions, were +ranged the green-gold, shining bodies of great flies. + +They were small as compared with the other insects. They had increased +in size but a fraction of the amount that the bees, for example, had +increased; but it was due to an imperative necessity of their race. + +The flesh-flies laid their eggs by hundreds in decaying carcases. The +others laid their eggs by hundreds in the mushrooms. To feed the maggots +that would hatch, a relatively great quantity of food was needed, +therefore the flies must remain comparatively small, or the body of a +single grasshopper, say, would furnish food for but two or three grubs +instead of the hundreds it must support. + +Burl stared down at the golden pool. Bluebottles, greenbottles, and all +the flies of metallic luster were gathered at the Lucullan feast of +corruption. Their buzzing as they darted above the odorous pool of +golden liquid made the sound Burl had heard. Their bodies flashed and +glittered as they darted back and forth, seeking a place to alight and +join in the orgy. + +Those which clustered about the banks of the pool were still as if +carved from metal. Their huge, red eyes glowed, and their bodies shone +with an obscene fatness. Flies are the most disgusting of all insects. +Burl watched them a moment, watched the interlacing streams of light as +they buzzed eagerly above the pool, seeking a place at the festive +board. + +A drumming roar sounded in the air. A golden speck appeared in the sky, +a slender, needle-like body with transparent, shining wings and two huge +eyes. It grew nearer and became a dragonfly twenty feet and more in +length, its body shimmering, purest gold. It poised itself above the +pool and then darted down. Its jaws snapped viciously and repeatedly, +and at each snapping the glittering body of a fly vanished. + +A second dragonfly appeared, its body a vivid purple, and a third. They +swooped and rushed above the golden pool, snapping in mid air, turning +their abrupt, angular turns, creatures of incredible ferocity and +beauty. At the moment they were nothing more or less than +slaughtering-machines. They darted here and there, their many-faceted +eyes burning with blood-lust. In that mass of buzzing flies even the +most voracious appetite must be sated, but the dragonflies kept on. +Beautiful, slender, graceful creatures, they dashed here and there above +the pond like avenging fiends or the mythical dragons for which they had +been named. + + * * * * * + +Only a few miles farther on Burl came upon a familiar landmark. He knew +it well, but from a safe distance as always. A mass of rock had heaved +itself up from the nearly level plain over which he was traveling, and +formed an outjutting cliff. At one point the rock overhung a sheer drop, +making an inverted ledge--a roof over nothingness--which had been +pre-empted by a hairy creature and made into a fairylike dwelling. A +white hemisphere clung tenaciously to the rock above, and long cables +anchored it firmly. + +Burl knew the place as one to be fearfully avoided. A Clotho spider +(_Clotho Durandi, LATR_) had built itself a nest there, from which it +emerged to hunt the unwary. Within that half-globe there was a monster, +resting upon a cushion of softest silk. But if one went too near, one of +the little inverted arches, seemingly firmly closed by a wall of silk, +would open and a creature out of a dream of hell emerge, to run with +fiendish agility toward its prey. + +Surely, Burl knew the place. Hung upon the outer walls of the silken +palace were stones and tiny boulders, discarded fragments of former +meals, and the gutted armour from limbs of ancient prey. But what caused +Burl to know the place most surely and most terribly was another +decoration that dangled from the castle of this insect ogre. This was +the shrunken, desiccated figure of a man, all its juices extracted and +the life gone. + +The death of that man had saved Burl's life two years before. They had +been together, seeking a new source of edible mushrooms for food. The +Clotho spider was a hunter, not a spinner of snares. It sprang suddenly +from behind a great puff-ball, and the two men froze in terror. Then it +came swiftly forward and deliberately chose its victim. Burl had escaped +when the other man was seized. Now he looked meditatively at the hiding +place of his ancient enemy. Some day-- + +But now he passed on. He went past the thicket in which the great moths +hid during the day, and past the pool--a turgid thing of slime and +yeast--in which a monster water snake lurked. He penetrated the little +wood of the shining mushrooms that gave out light at night, and the +shadowed place where the truffle-hunting beetles went chirping +thunderously during the dark hours. + +And then he saw Saya. He caught a flash of pink skin vanishing behind +the thick stalk of a squat toadstool, and ran forward, calling her name. +She appeared, and saw the figure with the horrible bulk of the spider +upon its back. She cried out in horror, and Burl understood. He let his +burden fall and then went swiftly toward her. + +They met. Saya waited timidly until she saw who this man was, and then +astonishment went over her face. Gorgeously attired, in an iridescent +cloak from the whole wing of a great moth, with a strip of softest fur +from a night-flying creature about his middle, with golden, feathery +antennae bound upon his forehead, and a fierce spear in his hands--this +was not the Burl she had known. + +But then he moved slowly toward her, filled with a fierce delight at +seeing her again, thrilling with joy at the slender gracefulness of her +form and the dark richness of her tangled hair. He held out his hands +and touched her shyly. Then, manlike, he began to babble excitedly of +the things that had happened to him, and dragged her toward his great +victim, the gray-bellied spider. + +Saya trembled when she saw the furry bulk lying upon the ground, and +would have fled when Burl advanced and took it upon his back. Then +something of the pride that filled him came vicariously to her. She +smiled a flashing smile, and Burl stopped short in his excited +explanation. He was suddenly tongue-tied. His eyes became pleading and +soft. He laid the huge spider at her feet and spread out his hands +imploringly. + +Thirty thousand years of savagery had not lessened the femininity in +Saya. She became aware that Burl was her slave, that these wonderful +things he wore and had done were as nothing if she did not approve. She +drew away--saw the misery in Burl's face--and abruptly ran into his arms +and clung to him, laughing happily. And quite suddenly Burl saw with +extreme clarity that all these things he had done, even the slaying of a +great spider, were of no importance whatever beside this most wonderful +thing that had just happened, and told Saya so quite humbly, but holding +her very close to him as he did so. + +And so Burl came back to his tribe. He had left it nearly naked, with +but a wisp of moth-wing twisted about his middle, a timid, fearful, +trembling creature. He returned in triumph, walking slowly and +fearlessly down a broad lane of golden mushrooms toward the hiding place +of his people. + +Upon his shoulders was draped a great and many-colored cloak made from +the whole of a moth's wing. Soft fur was about his middle. A spear was +in his hand and a fierce club at his waist. He and Saya bore between +them the dead body of a huge spider--aforetime the dread of the +pink-skinned, naked men. But to Burl the most important thing of all was +that Saya walked beside him openly, acknowledging him before all the +tribe. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mad Planet, by Murray Leinster + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAD PLANET *** + +***** This file should be named 35425.txt or 35425.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/4/2/35425/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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