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diff --git a/41637-8.txt b/41637-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6e46688..0000000 --- a/41637-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,6496 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forgotten 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 Forgotten Planet - -Author: Murray Leinster - -Release Date: December 16, 2012 [EBook #41637] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORGOTTEN PLANET *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - _The FORGOTTEN PLANET_ - - By MURRAY LEINSTER - - [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence - that the copyright had been renewed.] - - - ACE BOOKS - A Division of A. A. Wyn, Inc. - 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y. - - THE FORGOTTEN PLANET - Copyright, 1954, by Murray Leinster - An Ace Book, by arrangement with Gnome Press, Inc. - - _The Forgotten Planet_ is based upon _Mad Planet_ and _Red Dust_ - (copyrighted Amazing Stories 1926, 1927), and _Nightmare Planet_ - (copyrighted 1953 by Gernsback Publications Inc.). - - - To Joan Patricia Jenkins - - - - -NATURE'S MISLEAD MADHOUSE! - - -Beneath dense gray clouds through which no sun shone lay a forgotten -planet. It was a nightmare world of grotesque and terrifying -animal-plant life. Gigantic beetles, spiders, bugs and ants filled the -putrid, musty earth--ready to kill and devour anything in sight. - -There were men amidst this horror--men who cringed and ran from the -ravening monsters and huddled in the mushroom forests at night. - -Burl was one of these creatures. But one day inspiration hit Burl. He -would find a weapon--he would fight back. - -And with this idea the first step was taken in man's most desperate -flight for freedom in this most horrible of all worlds. But it was only -a first step. - - - - - -About the characters in this book: - - -This is something of an oddity among fiction stories, because some of -its characters may be met in person if you wish. Down at the nearest -weed-patch or thicket you are quite likely to see a large and unusually -perfect spider-web with a zig-zag silk ribbon woven into its center. Its -engineer is the yellow-banded garden spider (_Epeira Fasciata_) whose -abdomen may be as big as your thumb. I do not name it to impress you, -but to suggest a sort of science-fiction experience. - -Take a bit of straw and disturb the web. Don't break the cables. Simply -tap them a bit. The spider will know by the feel of things that you -aren't prey and that it can't eat you. So it will set out frightening -you away. It will run nimbly to the center of the web and shake itself -violently. The whole web will vibrate, so that presently the spider may -be swinging through an arc inches in length, and blurred by the speed of -its swing. You are supposed to be scared. When you are alarmed enough, -the spider will stop. - -That spider, very much magnified, is in this book with crickets and -grasshoppers and divers beetles you may not know personally. But this is -not an insect book, but science-fiction. If the habits of the creatures -in it are authentic, it is because they are much more dramatic and -interesting than things one can invent. - -Murray Leinster - - - - -_PROLOGUE_ - - -The Survey-Ship _Tethys_ made the first landing on the planet, which had -no name. It was an admirable planet in many ways. It had an ample -atmosphere and many seas, which the nearby sun warmed so lavishly that a -perpetual cloud-bank hid them and most of the solid ground from view. It -had mountains and continents and islands and high plateaus. It had day -and night and wind and rain, and its mean temperature was within the -range to which human beings could readily accommodate. It was rather on -the tropic side, but not unpleasant. - -But there was no life on it. - -No animals roamed its continents. No vegetation grew from its rocks. Not -even bacteria struggled with its stones to turn them into soil. So there -was no soil. Rock and stones and gravel and even sand--yes. But no soil -in which any vegetation could grow. No living thing, however small, swam -in its oceans, so there was not even mud on its ocean-bottoms. It was -one of that disappointing vast majority of worlds which turned up when -the Galaxy was first explored. People couldn't live on it because -nothing had lived there before. - -Its water was fresh and its oceans were harmless. Its air was germ-free -and breathable. But it was of no use whatever for men. The only possible -purpose it could serve would have been as a biological laboratory for -experiments involving things growing in a germ-free environment. But -there were too many planets like that already. When men first traveled -to the stars they made the journey because it was starkly necessary to -find new worlds for men to live on. Earth was over-crowded--terribly so. -So men looked for new worlds to move to. They found plenty of new -worlds, but presently they were searching desperately for new worlds -where life had preceded them. It didn't matter whether the life was meek -and harmless, or ferocious and deadly. If life of any sort were present, -human beings could move in. But highly organized beings like men could -not live where there was no other life. - -So the Survey-Ship _Tethys_ made sure that the world had no life upon -it. Then it made routine measurements of the gravitational constant and -the magnetic field and the temperature gradient; it took samples of the -air and water. But that was all. The rocks were familiar enough. No -novelties there! But the planet was simply useless. The survey-ship put -its findings on a punched card, six inches by eight, and went hastily on -in search of something better. The ship did not even open one of its -ports while on the planet. There were no consequences of the _Tethys'_ -visit except that card. None whatever. - -No other ship came near the planet for eight hundred years. - -Nearly a millenium later, however, the Seed-Ship _Orana_ arrived. By -that time humanity had spread very widely and very far. There were -colonies not less than a quarter of the way to the Galaxy's rim, and -Earth was no longer over-crowded. There was still emigration, but it was -now a trickle instead of the swarming flood of centuries before. Some of -the first-colonized worlds had emigrants, now. Mankind did not want to -crowd itself together again! Men now considered that there was no excuse -for such monstrous slums as overcrowding produced. - -Now, too, the star-ships were faster. A hundred light-years was a short -journey. A thousand was not impractical. Explorers had gone many times -farther, and reported worlds still waiting for mankind on beyond. But -still the great majority of discovered planets did not contain life. -Whole solar systems floated in space with no single living cell on any -of their members. - -So the Seed-Ships came into being. Theirs was not a glamorous service. -They merely methodically contaminated the sterile worlds with life. The -Seed-Ship _Orana_ landed on this planet--which still had no name. It -carefully infected it. It circled endlessly above the clouds, dribbling -out a fine dust,--the spores of every conceivable microörganism which -could break down rock to powder, and turn that dust to soil. It was also -a seeding of moulds and fungi and lichens, and everything which could -turn powdery primitive soil into stuff on which higher forms of life -could grow. The _Orana_ polluted the seas with plankton. Then it, too, -went away. - -More centuries passed. Human ships again improved. A thousand -light-years became a short journey. Explorers reached the Galaxy's very -edge, and looked estimatingly across the emptiness toward other island -universes. There were colonies in the Milky Way. There were -freight-lines between star-clusters, and the commercial center of human -affairs shifted some hundreds of parsecs toward the Rim. There were many -worlds where the schools painstakingly taught the children what Earth -was, and where, and that all other worlds had been populated from it. -And the schools repeated, too, the one lesson that humankind seemed -genuinely to have learned. That the secret of peace is freedom, and the -secret of freedom is to be able to move away from people with whom you -do not agree. There were no crowded worlds any more. But human beings -love children, and they have them. And children grow up and need room. -So more worlds had to be looked out for. They weren't urgently needed -yet, but they would be. - -Therefore, nearly a thousand years after the _Orana_, the Ecology-Ship -_Ludred_ swam to the planet from space and landed on it. It was a -gigantic ship of highly improbable purpose. First of all, it checked on -the consequences of the _Orana's_ visit. - -They were highly satisfactory, from a technical point of view. Now there -was soil which swarmed with minute living things. There were fungi -which throve monstrously. The seas stank of minuscule life-forms. There -were even some novelties, developed by the strictly local conditions. -There were, for example, paramoecia as big as grapes, and yeasts had -increased in size until they bore flowers visible to the naked eye. The -life on the planet was not aboriginal, though. All of it was descended -and adapted and modified from the microörganisms planted by the -seed-ship whose hulk was long since rust, and whose crew were merely -names in genealogies--if that. - -The _Ludred_ stayed on the planet a considerably longer time than either -of the ships that had visited it before. It dropped the seeds of plants. -It broadcast innumerable varieties of things which should take root and -grow. In some places it deliberately seeded the stinking soil. It put -marine plants in the oceans. It put alpine plants on the high ground. -And when all its stable varieties were set out it added plants which -were genetically unstable. For generations to come they would throw -sports, some of which should be especially suited to this planetary -environment. - -Before it left, the _Ludred_ dumped finny fish into the seas. At first -they would live on the plankton which made the oceans almost broth. -There were many varieties of fish. Some would multiply swiftly while -small; others would grow and feed on the smaller varieties. And as a -last activity, the _Ludred_ set up refrigeration-units loaded with -insect-eggs. Some would release their contents as soon as plants had -grown enough to furnish them with food. Others would allow their -contents to hatch only after certain other varieties had multiplied--to -be their food-supply. - -When the Ecology-Ship left, it had done a very painstaking job. It had -treated the planet to a sort of Russell's Mixture of life-forms. The -real Russell's Mixture is that blend of the simple elements in the -proportions found in suns. This was a blend of life-forms in which some -should survive by consuming the now-habituated flora, others by preying -on the former. The planet was stocked, in effect, with everything that -it could be hoped would live there. - -But only certain things could have that hope. Nothing which needed -parental care had any chance of survival. The creatures seeded at this -time had to be those which could care for themselves from the instant -they burst their eggs. So there were no birds or mammals. Trees and -plants of many kinds, fish and crustaceans and tadpoles, and all kinds -of insects could be planted. But nothing else. - -The _Ludred_ swam away through emptiness. - -There should have been another planting centuries later. There should -have been a ship from the Zoölogical Branch of the Ecological Service. -It should have landed birds and beasts and reptiles. It should have -added pelagic mammals to the seas. There should have been herbivorous -animals to live on the grasses and plants which would have thriven, and -carnivorous animals to live on them in turn. There should have been -careful stocking of the planet with animal life, and repeated visits at -intervals of a century or so to make sure that a true ecological balance -had been established. And then when the balance was fixed men would come -and destroy it for their own benefit. - -But there was an accident. - -Ships had improved again. Even small private space-craft now journeyed -tens of light-years on holiday journeys. Personal cruisers traveled -hundreds. Liners ran matter-of-factly on ship-lines tens of thousands of -light-years long. An exploring-ship was on its way to a second island -universe. (It did not come back.) The inhabited planets were all members -of a tenuous organization which limited itself to affairs of space, -without attempting to interfere in surface matters. That tenuous -organization moved the Ecological Preparation Service files to Algol IV -as a matter of convenience. In the moving, a card-file was upset. The -cards it contained were picked up and replaced, but one was missed. It -was not picked up. It was left behind. - -So the planet which had no name was forgotten. No other ship came to -prepare it for ultimate human occupancy. It circled its sun, unheeded -and unthought-of. Cloud-banks covered it from pole to pole. There were -hazy markings in some places, where high plateaus penetrated its clouds. -But that was all. From space the planet was essentially featureless. -Seen from afar it was merely a round white ball--white from its -cloud-banks--and nothing else. - -But on its surface, on its lowlands, it was pure nightmare. But this -fact did not matter for a very long time. - -Ultimately, it mattered a great deal--to the crew of the space-liner -_Icarus_. The _Icarus_ was a splendid ship of its time. It bore -passengers headed for one of the Galaxy's spiral arms, and it cut across -the normal lanes and headed through charted but unvisited parts of the -Galaxy toward its destination. And it had one of the very, very, very -few accidents known to happen to space-craft licensed for travel off the -normal space-lanes. It suffered shipwreck in space, and its passengers -and crew were forced to take to the life-craft. - -The lifeboats' range was limited. They landed on the planet that the -_Tethys_ had first examined, that the _Orana_ and the _Ludred_ had -seeded, and of which there was no longer any record in the card-files of -the Ecological Service. Their fuel was exhausted. They could not leave. -They could not signal for help. They had to stay there. And the planet -was a place of nightmares. - -After a time the few people--some few thousands--who knew that there was -a space-liner named _Icarus_, gave it up for lost. They forgot about it. -Everybody forgot. Even the passengers and crew of the ship forgot it. -Not immediately, of course. For the first few generations their -descendants cherished hopes of rescue. But the planet which had no -name--the forgotten planet--did not encourage the cherishing of hope. - -After forty-odd generations, nobody remembered the _Icarus_ anywhere. -The wreckage of the lifeboats was long since hidden under the seething, -furiously striving fungi of the soil. The human beings had forgotten not -only their ancestors' ship, but very nearly everything their ancestors -had brought to this world: the use of metals, the existence of fire, and -even the fact that there was such a thing as sunshine. They lived in the -lowlands, deep under the cloud-bank, amid surroundings which were -riotous, swarming, frenzied horror. They had become savages. - -They were less than savages, because they had forgotten their destiny as -men. - - - - -_1. MAD PLANET_ - - -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 fashion which Burl -remembered as a succession of screams coming more and more faintly to -his ears, while he was being carried away at the topmost speed of which -his mother was capable. - -Burl had rarely or never thought of his grandfather since. Surely he had -never wondered what his great-grandfather had thought, and most surely -of all he never speculated upon what his many-times-removed -great-grandfather had thought when his lifeboat landed from the -_Icarus_. Burl had never heard of the _Icarus_. He had done very little -thinking of any sort. When he did think, it was mostly agonized effort -to contrive a way to escape some immediate and paralyzing danger. When -horror did not press upon him, it was better not to think, because there -wasn't much but horror to think about. - -At the moment, he was treading cautiously over a brownish carpet of -fungus, creeping furtively toward the stream which he knew only by the -generic name of "water." It was the only water he knew. Towering far -above his head, three man-heights high, great toadstools hid the gray -sky from his sight. Clinging to the yard-thick stalks of the toadstools -were still other fungi, parasites upon the growths that once had been -parasites themselves. - -Burl appeared a fairly representative specimen of the descendants of the -long-forgotten _Icarus_ crew. He wore a single garment twisted about his -middle, made from the wing-fabric of a great moth which 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 he surely had seen the sky often enough. It was rarely -hidden from him save by giant fungi, like those about him now, and -sometimes by the gigantic cabbages which were nearly the only green -growths he knew. To him normal landscape contained only fantastic pallid -mosses, and misshapen fungus growths, and colossal moulds and yeasts. - -He moved onward. Despite his caution, his shoulder once touched a -cream-colored toadstool stalk, giving the whole fungus a tiny shock. -Instantly a fine and impalpable powder fell upon him from the umbrella -like top above. It was the season when the toadstools sent out their -spores. He paused to brush them from his head and shoulders. They were, -of course, deadly poison. - -Burl knew such matters with an immediate and specific and detailed -certainty. He knew practically nothing else. He was ignorant of the use -of fire, of metals, and even of the uses of stone and wood. His language -was a scanty group of a few hundred labial sounds, conveying no -abstractions and few concrete ideas. He knew nothing of wood, because -there was no wood in the territory furtively inhabited by his tribe. -This was the lowlands. Trees did not thrive here. Not even grasses and -tree-ferns could compete with mushrooms and toadstools and their kin. -Here was a soil of rusts and yeasts. Here were toadstool forests and -fungus jungles. They grew with feverish intensity beneath a cloud-hidden -sky, while above them fluttered butterflies no less enlarged than they, -moths as much magnified, and other creatures which could thrive on their -corruption. - -The only creatures on the planet which crawled or ran or flew--save only -Burl's fugitive kind--were insects. They had been here before men came, -and they had adapted to the planet's extraordinary ways. With a world -made ready before their first progenitors arrived, insects had thriven -incredibly. With unlimited food-supplies, they had grown large. With -increased size had come increased opportunity for survival, and -enlargement became hereditary. Other than fungoid growths, the solitary -vegetables were the sports of unstable varieties of the plants left -behind by the _Ludred_. There were enormous cabbages, with leaves the -size of ship-sails, on which stolid grubs and caterpillars ate -themselves to maturity, and then swung below in strong cocoons to sleep -the sleep of metamorphosis. The tiniest butterflies of Earth had -increased their size here until their wings spread feet across, and -some--like the emperor moths--stretched out purple wings which were -yards in span. Burl himself would have been dwarfed beneath a great -moth's wing. - -But he wore a gaudy fabric made of one. The moths and giant butterflies -were harmless to men. Burl's fellow tribesmen sometimes came upon a -cocoon when it was just about to open, and if they dared they waited -timorously beside it until the creature inside broke through its -sleeping-shell and came out into the light. - -Then, before it gathered energy from the air and before its wings -swelled to strength and firmness, the tribesmen fell upon it. They tore -the delicate wings from its body and the still-flaccid limbs from their -places. And when it lay helpless before them they fled away to feast on -its juicy meat-filled limbs. - -They dared not linger, of course. They left their prey helpless--staring -strangely at the world about it through its many-faceted eyes--before -the scavengers came to contest its ownership. If nothing more deadly -appeared, surely the ants would come. Some of them were only inches -long, but others were the size of fox-terriers. All of them had to be -avoided by men. They would carry the moth-carcass away to their -underground cities, triumphantly, in shreds and morsels. - -But most of the insect world was neither so helpless nor so -unthreatening. Burl knew of wasps almost the length of his own body, -with stings that were instantly fatal. To every species of wasp, -however, some other insect is predestined prey. Wasps need not be -dreaded too much. And bees were similarly aloof. They were hard put to -it for existence, those bees. Since few flowers bloomed, they were -reduced to expedients that once were considered signs of degeneracy in -their race: bubbling yeasts and fouler things, or occasionally the -nectarless blooms of the rank giant cabbages. Burl knew the bees. They -droned overhead, nearly as large as he was, their bulging eyes gazing at -him and everything else in abstracted preoccupation. - -There were crickets, and beetles, and spiders.... Burl knew spiders! His -grandfather had been the prey of a hunting tarantula which had leaped -with incredible ferocity from its tunnel in the ground. A vertical pit, -a yard in diameter, went down for twenty feet. At the bottom of the lair -the monster waited for the tiny sounds that would warn him of prey -approaching his hiding-place. - -Burl's grandfather had been careless. The terrible shrieks he uttered as -he was seized still lingered vaguely in Burl's mind. And he had seen, -too, the webs of another species of spider--inch-thick cables of dirty -silk--and watched from a safe distance as the misshapen monster sucked -the juices from a three-foot cricket its trap had caught. He remembered -the stripes of yellow and black and silver that crossed upon its -abdomen. He had been fascinated and horrified by the blind struggling of -the cricket, tangled in hopeless coils of gummy cord, before the spider -began its feast. - -Burl knew these dangers. They were part of his life. It was this -knowledge that made life possible. He knew the ways to evade these -dangers. But if he yielded to carelessness for one moment, or if he -relaxed his caution for one instant, he would be one with his ancestors. -They were the long-forgotten meals of inhuman monsters. - -Now, to be sure, Burl moved upon an errand that probably no other of his -tribe would have imagined. The day before, he had crouched behind a -shapeless mound of inter-tangled growths and watched a duel between two -huge horned beetles. Their bodies were feet long. Their carapaces were -waist-high to Burl when they crawled. Their mandibles, gaping laterally, -clicked and clashed upon each other's impenetrable armor. Their legs -crashed like so many cymbals as they struck against each other. They -fought over some particularly attractive bit of carrion. - -Burl had watched with wide eyes until a gaping hole appeared in the -armor of the smaller one. It uttered a grating outcry--or seemed to. The -noise was actually the tearing of its shell between the mandibles of the -victor. - -The wounded creature struggled more and more feebly. When it ceased to -offer battle, the conqueror placidly began to dine before its prey had -ceased to live. But this was the custom of creatures on this planet. - -Burl watched, timorous but hopeful. When the meal was finished, he -darted in quickly as the diner lumbered away. He was almost too late, -even then. An ant--the forerunner of many--already inspected the -fragments with excitedly vibrating antennae. - -Burl needed to move quickly and he did. Ants were stupid and -short-sighted insects; few of them were hunters. Save when offered -battle, most of them were scavengers only. They hunted the scenes of -nightmare for the dead and dying only, but fought viciously if their -prey were questioned. And always there were others on the way. - -Some were arriving now. Hearing the tiny clickings of their approach, -Burl was hasty. Over-hasty. He seized a loosened fragment and fled. It -was merely the horn, the snout of the dead and eaten creature. But it -was loose and easily carried. He ran. - -Later he inspected his find with disappointment. There was little meat -clinging to it. It was merely the horn of a Minotaur beetle, shaped like -the horn of a rhinoceros. Plucking out the shreds left by its murderer, -he pricked his hand. Pettishly, he flung it aside. The time of darkness -was near, so he crept to the hiding place of his tribe to huddle with -them until light came again. - -There were only twenty of them; four or five men and six or seven women. -The rest were girls or 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. They talked -together sometimes and, once or twice, Burl shared an especially -succulent find of foodstuffs with her. - -He could share nothing with her now. She stared at him in the deepening -night when he crept to the labyrinthine hiding place the tribe now used -in a mushroom forest. He considered that she looked hungry and hoped -that he would have food to share. And he was bitterly ashamed that he -could offer nothing. He held himself a little apart from the rest, -because of his shame. Since he too was hungry, it was some time before -he slept. Then he dreamed. - -Next morning he found the horn where he had thrown it disgustedly the -day before. It was sticking in the flabby trunk of a toadstool. He -pulled it out. In his dream he had used it.... - -Presently he tried to use it. Sometimes--not often--the men of the tribe -used the saw-toothed edge of a cricket-leg, or the leg of a -grasshopper, to sever tough portions of an edible mushroom. The horn had -no cutting edge, but Burl had used it in his dream. He was not quite -capable of distinguishing clearly between reality and dreams; so he -tried to duplicate what happened in the dream. Remembering that it had -stuck into the mushroom-stalk, he thrust it. It stabbed. He remembered -distinctly how the larger beetle had used its horn as a weapon. It had -stabbed, too. - -He considered absorbedly. He could not imagine himself fighting one of -the dangerous insects, of course. Men did not fight, on the forgotten -planet. They ran away. They hid. But somehow Burl formed a fantastic -picture of himself stabbing food with this horn, as he had stabbed a -mushroom. It was longer than his arm and though naturally clumsy in his -hand, it would have been a deadly weapon in the grip of a man prepared -to do battle. - -Battle did not occur to Burl. But the idea of stabbing food with it was -clear. There could be food that would not fight back. Presently he had -an inspiration. His face brightened. He began to make his way toward the -tiny river that ran across the plain in which the tribe of humans lived -by foraging in competition with the ants. Yellow-bellied newts--big -enough to be lusted for--swam in its waters. The swimming larvae of a -thousand kinds of creatures floated on the sluggish surface or crawled -over the bottom. - -There were deadly things there, too. Giant crayfish snapped their claws -at the unwary. One of them could sever Burl's arm with ease. Mosquitoes -sometimes hummed high above the river. Mosquitoes had a four-inch -wing-spread, now, though they were dying out for lack of plant-juices on -which the males of their species fed. But they were formidable. Burl had -learned to crush them between fragments of fungus. - -He crept slowly through the forest of toadstools. What should have been -grass underfoot was brownish rust. Orange and red and purple moulds -clustered about the bases of the creamy mushroom-trunks. Once, Burl -paused to run his weapon through a fleshy column and reassure himself -that what he planned was possible. - -He made his way furtively through the bulbous growths. Once he heard -clickings and froze to stillness. Four or five ants, minims only eight -inches long, were returning by an habitual pathway to their city. They -moved sturdily along, heavily laden, over the route marked by the scent -of formic acid left by their fellow-townsmen. Burl waited until they had -passed, then went on. - -He came to the bank of the river. It flowed slowly, green scum covering -a great deal of its surface in the backwaters, occasionally broken by a -slowly enlarging bubble released from decomposing matter on the bottom. -In the center of the stream the current ran a little more swiftly and -the water itself seemed clear. Over it ran many water-spiders. They had -not shared in the general increase of size in the insect world. -Depending as they did on the surface tension of the water for support, -to have grown larger and heavier would have destroyed them. - -Burl surveyed the scene. His search was four parts for danger and only -one part for a way to test his brilliant notion, but that was natural. -Where he stood, the green scum covered the stream for many yards. -Down-river a little, though, the current came closer to the bank. Here -he could not see whatever swam or crawled or wriggled underwater; there -he might. - -There was an outcropping rock forming a support for crawling stuff, -which in turn supported shelf-fungi making wide steps almost down to the -water's edge. Burl was making his way cautiously toward them when he saw -one of the edible mushrooms which formed so large a part of his diet. He -paused to break off a flabby white piece large enough to feed him for -many days. It was the custom of his people, when they found a store of -food, to hide with it and not venture out again to danger until it was -all eaten. Burl was tempted to do just that with his booty. He could -give Saya of this food and they would eat together. They might hide -together until it was all consumed. - -But there was a swirling in the water under the descending platforms of -shelf-fungi. A very remarkable sensation came to Burl. He may have been -the only man in many generations to be aware of the high ambition to -stab something to eat. He may have been a throw-back to ancestors who -had known bravery, which had no survival-value here. But Burl had -imagined carrying Saya food which he had stabbed with the spear of a -Minotaur beetle. It was an extraordinary idea. - -It was new, too. Not too long ago, when he was younger, Burl would have -thought of the tribe instead. He'd have thought of old Jon, bald-headed -and wheezing and timorous, and how that patriarch would pat his arm -exuberantly when handed food; or old Tama, wrinkled and querulous, whose -look of settled dissatisfaction would vanish at sight of a tidbit; of -Dik and Tet, the tribe-members next younger, who would squabble -zestfully over the fragments allotted them. - -But now he imagined Saya looking astonished and glad when he grandly -handed her more food than she could possibly eat. She would admire him -enormously! - -Of course he did not imagine himself fighting to get food for Saya. He -meant only to stab something edible in the water. Things in the water -did not fight things on land. Since he would not be in the water, he -would not be in a fight. It was a completely delectable idea, which no -man within memory had ever entertained before. If Burl accomplished it, -his tribe would admire him. Saya would admire him. Everybody, observing -that he had found a new source of food, would even envy him until he -showed them how to do it too. Burl's fellow-humans were preoccupied with -the filling of their stomachs. The preservation of their lives came -second. The perpetuation of the race came a bad third in their -consideration. They were herded together in a leaderless group, coming -to the same hiding-place nightly only that they might share the finds of -the lucky and gather comfort from their numbers. They had no weapons. -Even Burl did not consider his spear a weapon. It was a tool for -stabbing something to eat only. Yet he did not think of it in that way -exactly. His tribe did not even consciously use tools. Sometimes they -used stones to crack open the limbs of great insects they found -incompletely devoured. They did not even carry rocks about with them for -that purpose. Only Burl had a vague idea of taking something to some -place to do something with it. It was unprecedented. Burl was at least -an atavar. He may have been a genius. - -But he was not a high-grade genius. Certainly not yet. - -He reached a spot from which he could look down into the water. He -looked behind and all about, listening, then lay down to stare into the -shallow depths. Once, a huge crayfish, a good eight feet long, moved -leisurely across his vision. Small fishes and even huge newts fled -before it. - -After a long time the normal course of underwater life resumed. The -wriggling caddis-flies in their quaintly ambitious houses reappeared. -Little flecks of silver swam into view--a school of tiny fish. Then a -larger fish appeared, moving slowly in the stream. - -Burl's eyes glistened; his mouth watered. He reached down with his long -weapon. It barely broke through the still surface of the water below. -Disappointment filled him, yet the nearness and apparent probability of -success spurred him on. - -He examined the shelf-fungi beneath him. Rising, he moved to a point -above them and tested one with his spear. It resisted. Burl felt about -tentatively with his foot, then dared to put his whole weight on the -topmost. It held firmly. He clambered down upon the lower ones, then -lay flat and peered over the edge. - -The large fish, fully as long as Burl's arm, swam slowly to and fro -beneath him. Burl had seen the former owner of this spear strive to -thrust it into his adversary. The beetle had been killed by the more -successful stab of a similar weapon. Burl had tried this upon -toadstools, practising with it. When the silver fish drifted close by -again, he thrust sharply downward. - -The spear seemed to bend when it entered the water. It missed its mark -by inches, much to Burl's astonishment. He tried again. Once more the -spear seemed diverted by the water. He grew angry with the fish for -eluding his efforts to kill it. - -This anger was as much the reaction of a throw-back to a less fearful -time as the idea of killing itself. But Burl scowled at the fish. -Repeated strokes had left it untouched. It was unwary. It did not even -swim away. - -Then it came to rest directly beneath his hand. He thrust directly -downward, with all his strength. This time the spear, entering -vertically, did not appear to bend, but went straight down. Its point -penetrated the scales of the swimming fish, transfixing the creature -completely. - -An uproar began with the fish wriggling desperately as Burl tried to -draw it up to his perch. In his excitement he did not notice a tiny -ripple a little distance away. The monster crayfish, attracted by the -disturbance, was coming back. - -The unequal combat continued. Burl hung on desperately to the end of his -spear. Then there was a tremor in the shelf-fungus on which he lay. It -yielded, collapsed, and fell into the stream with a mighty splash. Burl -went under, his eyes wide open, facing death. As he sank he saw the -gaping, horrible claws of the crustacean, huge enough to sever any of -Burl's limbs with a single snap. - -He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Only bubbles -floated up to the surface. He beat the unresisting fluid in a frenzy of -horror with his hands and feet as the colossal crayfish leisurely -approached. - -His arms struck a solid object. He clutched it convulsively. A second -later he had swung it between himself and the crustacean. He felt the -shock as the claws closed upon the cork-like fungus. Then he felt -himself drawn upward as the crayfish disgustedly released its hold and -the shelf-fungus floated slowly upward. Having given way beneath him, it -had been pushed below when he fell, 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 nearby. Even less securely anchored to the river-bank than the -shelf to which he had trusted himself, it had broken away when he fell. -It was larger and floated higher. - -He seized it, crazily trying to climb up. It tilted under his weight and -very nearly overturned. He paid no heed. With desperate haste he clawed -and kicked until he could draw himself clear of the water. - -As he pulled himself up on the furry, orange-brown surface, a sharp blow -struck his foot. The crayfish, disappointed at finding nothing tasty in -the shelf-fungus, had made a languid stroke at Burl's foot wriggling in -the water. Failing to grasp the fleshy member, it went annoyedly away. - -Burl floated downstream, perched weaponless and alone upon a flimsy raft -of degenerate fungus; floated slowly down a stagnant river in which -death swam, between banks of sheer peril, past long reaches above which -death floated on golden wings. - -It was a long while before he recovered his self-possession. Then--and -this was an action individual in Burl: none of his tribesmen would have -thought of it--he looked for his spear. - -It was floating in the water, still transfixing the fish whose capture -had brought him to this present predicament. That silvery shape, so -violent before, now floated belly-up, all life gone. - -Burl's mouth watered as he gazed at the fish. He kept it in view -constantly while the unsteady craft spun slowly downstream in the -current. Lying flat he tried to reach out and grasp the end of the spear -when it circled toward him. - -The raft tilted, nearly capsizing. A little later he discovered that it -sank more readily on one side than the other. This was due, of course, -to the greater thickness of one side. The part next to the river-bank -had been thicker and was, therefore, more buoyant. - -He lay with his head above that side of the raft. It did not sink into -the water. Wriggling as far to the edge as he dared, he reached out and -out. He waited impatiently for the slower rotation of his float to -coincide with the faster motion of the speared fish. The spear-end came -closer, and closer.... He reached out--and the raft dipped dangerously. -But his fingers touched the spear-end. He got a precarious hold, pulled -it toward him. - -Seconds later he was tearing strips of scaly flesh from the side of the -fish and cramming the greasy stuff into his mouth with vast enjoyment. -He had lost the edible mushroom. It floated several yards away. He ate -contentedly none-the-less. - -He thought of the tribesfolk as he ate. This was more than he could -finish alone. Old Tama would coax him avidly for more than her share. -She had a few teeth left. She would remind him anxiously of her gifts of -food to him when he was younger. Dik and Tet--being boys--would -clamorously demand of him where he'd gotten it. How? He would give some -to Cori, who had younger children, and she would give them most of the -gift. And Saya--. - -Burl gloated especially over Saya's certain reaction. - -Then he realized that with every second he was being carried further -away from her. The nearer river-bank moved past him. He could tell by -the motion of the vividly colored growths upon the shore. - -Overhead, the sun was merely a brighter patch in the haze-filled sky. In -the pinkish light all about, Burl looked for the familiar and did not -find it, and dolefully knew that he was remote from Saya and going -farther all the time. - -There were a multitude of flying objects to be seen in the miasmatic -air. In the daytime a thin mist always hung above the lowlands. Burl had -never seen any object as much as three miles distant. The air was never -clear enough to permit it. But there was much to be seen even within the -limiting mist. - -Now and then a cricket or a grasshopper made its bullet-like flight from -one spot to another. Huge butterflies fluttered gaily above the silent, -loathesome ground. Bees lumbered anxiously about, seeking the -cross-shaped flowers of the giant cabbages which grew so rarely. -Occasionally a slender-waisted, yellow-bellied wasp flashed swiftly by. - -But Burl did not heed any of them. Sitting dismally upon his fungus -raft, floating in midstream, an incongruous figure of pink skin and -luridly-tinted loin-cloth, with a greasy dead fish beside him, he was -filled with a panicky anguish because the river carried him away from -the one girl of his tiny tribe whose glances roused a commotion in his -breast. - -The day wore on. Once, he saw a band of large amazon ants moving briskly -over a carpet of blue-green mould to raid the city of a species of black -ants. The eggs they would carry away from the city would hatch and the -small black creatures would become the slaves of the brigands who had -stolen them. - -Later, strangely-shaped, swollen branches drifted slowly into view. They -were outlined sharply against the steaming mist behind them. He knew -what they were: a hard-rinded fungus growing upon itself in peculiar -mockery of the trees which Burl had never seen because no trees could -survive the conditions of the lowland. - -Much later, as the day drew to an end, Burl ate again of the oily fish. -The taste was pleasant compared to the insipid mushrooms he usually ate. -Even though he stuffed himself, the fish was so large that the greater -part remained still uneaten. - -The spear was beside him. Although it had brought him trouble, he still -associated it 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 -to examine again. The oil-covered point remained as sharp as before. - -Not daring to use it again from so unsteady a raft, he set it aside as -he stripped a sinew from his loin-cloth to hang the fish around his -neck. This would leave his arms free. Then he sat cross-legged, fumbling -with the spear as he watched the shores go past. - - - - -_2. A MAN ESCAPES_ - - -It was near to sunset. Burl had never seen the sun, so it did not occur -to him to think of the coming of night as the setting of anything. To -him it was the letting down of darkness from the sky. - -The process was invariable. Overhead there was always a thick and -unbroken bank of vapor which seemed featureless until sunset. Then, -toward the west, the brightness overhead turned orange and then pink, -while to the east it simply faded to a deeper gray. As nightfall -progressed, the red colorings grew deeper, moving toward mid-sky. -Ultimately, scattered blotches of darkness began to spot that reddening -sky as it grew darker in tone, going down toward that impossible -redness which is indistinguishable from black. It was slowly achieving -that redness. - -Today Burl watched as never before. On the oily surface of the river the -colors and shadings of dusk were reflected with incredible faithfulness. -The round tops of toadstools along the shore glowed pink. Dragonflies -glinted in swift and angular flight, the metallic sheen of their bodies -flashing in the redness. Great, yellow butterflies sailed lightly above -the stream. In every direction upon the water appeared the scrap-formed -boats of a thousand caddis-flies, floating at the surface while they -might. Burl could have thrust his hand down into their cavities to seize -the white worms nesting there. - -The bulk of a tardy bee droned heavily overhead. He saw the long -proboscis and the hairy hind-legs with their scanty load of pollen. The -great, multi-faceted eyes held an expression of stupid preoccupation. - -The crimson radiance grew dim and the color overhead faded toward black. -Now the stalks of ten thousand domed mushrooms lined the river-bank. -Beneath them spread fungi of all colors, from the rawest red to palest -blue, now all fading slowly to a monochromatic background as the -darkness deepened. - -The buzzing and fluttering and flapping of the insects of the day died -down. From a million hiding places there crept out--into the night--the -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 noise-making organs. Then there began to gather -on the water those slender spirals of deeper mist which would presently -blanket the stream in fog. - -Night arrived. The clouds above grew wholly black. Gradually the languid -fall of large, warm raindrops--they would fall all through the -night--began. The edge of the stream became a place where disks of cold -blue flame appeared. - -The mushrooms on the river bank were faintly phosphorescent, shedding a -ghostly light over the ground below them. Here and there, lambent chilly -flames appeared in mid-air, drifting idly above the festering earth. On -other planets men call them "Will-o'-the-wisps," but on this planet -mankind had no name for them at all. - -Then huge, pulsating glows appeared in the blackness: fireflies that -Burl knew to be as long as his spear. They glided slowly through the -darkness over the stream, shedding intermittent light over Burl crouched -on his drifting raft. On the shore, too, tiny paired lights glowed -eagerly upward as the wingless females of the species crawled to where -their signals could be seen. And there were other glowing things. -Fox-fire burned in the night, consuming nothing. Even the water of the -river glowed with marine organisms--adapted to fresh water -here--contributing their mites of brilliance. - -The air was full of flying creatures. The beat of invisible wings came -through the night. Above, about, on every side the swarming, feverish -life of the insect world went on ceaselessly, while Burl rocked back and -forth upon his unstable raft, wanting to weep because he was being -carried farther away from Saya whom he could picture looking for him, -now, among the hidden, furtive members of the tribe. About him sounded -the discordant, machine-like mating cries of creatures trying to serve -life in the midst of death and the horrible noises of those who met -death and were devoured in the dark. - -Burl was accustomed to such tumult. But he was not accustomed to such -despair as he felt at being lost from Saya of the swift feet and white -teeth and shy smile. He lay disconsolate on his bobbing craft for the -greater part of the night. It was long past midnight when the raft -struck gently, swung, and then remained grounded upon a shallow in the -stream. - -When light came back in the morning, Burl gazed about him fearfully. He -was some twenty yards from the shore and thick greenish scum surrounded -his disintegrating vessel. The river had widened greatly until the -opposite bank was hidden in the morning mist, but the nearer shore -seemed firm and no more full of dangers than the territory inhabited by -Burl's tribe. - -He tested the depth of the water with his spear, struck by the multiple -usefulness of the weapon. The water was no more than ankle-deep. - -Shivering a little, Burl stepped down into the green scum and made for -the shore at top speed. He felt something soft clinging to his bare -foot. With a frantic rush he ran even faster and stumbled upon the shore -with horror not at his heels but on one. He stared down at his foot. A -shapeless, flesh-colored pad clung to the skin. As he watched, it -swelled visibly, the pink folds becoming a deeper shade. - -It was no more than a leech, the size of his palm, sharing in the -enlargement nearly all the insect and fungoid world had undergone, but -Burl did not know that. He thrust at it with the edge of his spear, -scraping it frantically away. As it fell off Burl stared in horror, -first at the blotch of blood on his foot, then at the thing writhing and -pulsating on the ground. He fled. - -A short while later he stumbled into one of the familiar toadstool -forests and paused, uncertainly. The towering toadstools were not -strange to Burl. He fell to eating. The sight of food always produced -hunger in him--a provision of nature to make up for the lack of any -instinct to store food away. In human beings the storage of food has to -be dictated by intellect. The lower orders of creatures are not required -to think. - -Even eating, though, Burl's heart was small within him. He was far from -his tribe and Saya. By the measurements of his remotest ancestors, no -more than forty miles separated them. But Burl did not think in such -terms. He'd never had occasion to do so. He'd come down the river to a -far land filled with unknown dangers. And he was alone. - -All about him was food, an excellent reason for gladness. But being -solitary was reason enough for distress. Although Burl was a creature to -whom reflection was normally of no especial value and, therefore, not -practiced in thought, this was a situation providing an emotional -paradox. A good fourth of the mushrooms in this particular forest were -edible. Burl should have gloated over this vast stock of food. But he -was isolated, alone; in particular, he was far away from Saya, -therefore, he should have wept. But he could not gloat because he was -away from Saya and he could not mourn because he was surrounded by food. - -He was subject to a stimulus to which apparently only humankind can -respond: an emotional dilemma. Other creatures can respond to objective -situations where there is the need to choose a course of action: flight -or fighting, hiding or pursuit. But only man can be disturbed by not -knowing which of two emotions to feel. Burl had reason to feel two -entirely different emotional states at the same time. He had to resolve -the paradox. The problem was inside him, not out. So he thought. - -He would bring Saya here! He would bring her and the tribe to this place -where there was food in vast quantity! - -Instantly pictures flooded into his mind. He could actually see old Jon, -his bald head naked as a mushroom itself, stuffing his belly with the -food which was so plentiful here. He imagined Cori feeding her children. -Tama's complaints stilled by mouthfuls of food. Tet and Dik, stuffed to -repletion, throwing scraps of foodstuff at each other. He pictured the -tribe zestfully feasting.--And Saya would be very glad. - -It was remarkable that Burl was able to think of his feelings instead of -his sensations. His tribesmen were closer to it than equally primitive -folk had been back on Earth, but they did not often engage in thought. -Their waking lives were filled with nerve-racked physical responses to -physical phenomena. They were hungry and they saw or smelled food: they -were alive and they perceived the presence of death. In the one case -they moved toward the sensory stimulus of food; in the other they fled -from the detected stimulus of danger. They responded immediately to the -world about them. Burl, for the first significant time in his life, had -responded to inner feelings. He had resolved conflicting emotions by -devising a purpose that would end their conflict. He determined to do -something because he wanted to and not because he had to. - -It was the most important event upon the planet in generations. - -With the directness of a child, or a savage, Burl moved to carry out his -purpose. The fish still slung about his neck scraped against his chest. -Fingering it tentatively, he got himself thoroughly greasy in the -process, but could not eat. Although he was not hungry now, perhaps Saya -was. He would give it to her. He imagined her eager delight, the image -reinforcing his resolve. He had come to this far place down the river -flowing sluggishly past this riotously-colored bank. To return to the -tribe he would go back up that bank, staying close to the stream. - -He was remarkably exultant as he forced a way through the awkward aisles -of the mushroom-forest, but his eyes and ears were still open for any -possible danger. Several times he heard the omnipresent clicking of ants -scavenging in the mushroom-glades, but they could be ignored. At best -they were short-sighted. If he dropped his fish, they would become -absorbed in it. There was only one kind of ant he needed to fear--the -army ant, which sometimes traveled in hordes of millions, eating -everything in their path. - -But there was nothing of the sort here. The mushroom forest came to an -end. A cheerful grasshopper munched delicately at some dainty it had -found--the barrel-sized young shoot of a cabbage-plant. Its hind legs -were bunched beneath it in perpetual readiness for flight. A monster -wasp appeared a hundred feet overhead, checked in its flight, and -plunged upon the luckless banqueter. - -There was a struggle, but it was brief. The grasshopper strained -terribly in the grip of the wasp's six barbed legs. The wasp's flexible -abdomen curved delicately. Its sting entered the jointed armor of its -prey just beneath the head with all the deliberate precision of a -surgeon's scalpel. A ganglion lay there; the wasp-poison entered it. The -grasshopper went limp. It was not dead, of course, simply paralyzed. -Permanently paralyzed. The wasp preened itself, then matter-of-factly -grasped its victim and flew away. The grasshopper would be incubator and -food-supply for an egg to be laid. Presently, in a huge mud castle, a -small white worm would feed upon the living, motionless victim of its -mother--who would never see it, or care, or remember.... - -Burl went on. - -The ground grew rougher; progress became painful. He clambered arduously -up steep slopes--all of forty or fifty feet high--and made his way -cautiously down to the farther sides. Once he climbed through a tangled -mass of mushrooms so closely placed and so small that he had to break -them apart with blows of his spear in order to pass. As they crumbled, -torrents of a fiery-red liquid showered down upon him, rolling off his -greasy breast and sinking into the ground. - -A strange self-confidence now took possession of Burl. He walked less -cautiously and more boldly. He had thought and he had struck something, -feeling the vainglorious self-satisfaction of a child. He pictured -himself leading his tribe to this place of very much food--he had no -real idea of the distance--and he strutted all alone amid the -nightmare-growths of the planet that had been forgotten. - -Presently he could see the river. He had climbed to the top of a -red-clay mound perhaps a hundred feet high. One side was crumbled where -the river overflowed. At some past flood-time the water had lapped at -the base of the cliff along which Burl was strutting. But now there was -a quarter-mile of space between himself and the water. And there was -something else in mid-air. - -The cliffside was thickly coated with fungi in a riotous confusion of -white and yellow and orange and green. From a point halfway up the cliff -the inch-thick cable of a spider-web stretched down to anchorage on the -ground below. There were other cables beyond this one and circling about -their radial pattern the snare-cords of the web formed a perfect -logarithmic spiral. - -Somewhere among the fungi of the cliffside the huge spider who had built -this web awaited the entrapment of prey. When some unfortunate creature -struggled frenziedly in its snare it would emerge. Until then it waited -in a motionless, implacable patience; utterly certain of victims, -utterly merciless to them. - -Burl strutted on the edge of the cliff, a rather foolish pink-skinned -creature with an oily fish slung about his neck and the draggled -fragment of moth's wing draping his middle. He waved the long shard of -beetle armor exultantly above his head. - -The activity was not very sensible. It served no purpose. But if Burl -was a genius among his fellows, then he still had a great deal to learn -before his genius would be effective. Now he looked down scornfully upon -the shining white trap below. He had struck a fish, killing it. When he -hit mushrooms they fell into pieces before him. Nothing could frighten -him! He would go to Saya and bring her to this land where food grew in -abundance. - -Sixty paces away from Burl, near the edge of the cliff, a shaft sank -vertically into the soil of the clay-mound. It was carefully rounded and -lined with silk. Thirty feet down, it enlarged itself into a chamber -where the engineer and proprietor of the shaft might rest. The top of -the hole was closed by a trap-door, stained with mud and earth to -imitate the surrounding soil. A sharp eye would have been needed to -detect the opening. But a keener eye now peered out from the crack at -its edge. - -That eye belonged to the proprietor. - -Eight hairy legs surrounded the body of the monster hanging motionless -at the top of the silk-lined shaft. Its belly was a huge misshapen globe -colored a dirty brown. Two pairs of mandibles stretched before its -mouth-parts; two eyes glittered in the semi-darkness of the burrow. Over -the whole body spread a rough and mangy fur. - -It was a thing of implacable malignance, of incredible ferocity. It was -the brown hunting spider, the American tarantula, enlarged here upon the -forgotten planet so that its body was two feet and more in diameter. Its -legs, outstretched, would cover a circle three yards across. The -glittering eyes followed as Burl strutted forward on the edge of the -cliff, puffed up with a sense of his own importance. - -Spread out below, the white snare of the spinning-spider impressed Burl -as amusing. He knew the spider wouldn't leave its web to attack him. -Reaching down, he broke off a bit of fungus growing at his feet. Where -he broke it away oozed a soupy liquid full of tiny maggots in a delirium -of feasting. Burl flung it down into the web, laughing as the black bulk -of the watchful spider swung down from its hiding place to investigate. - -The tarantula, peering from its burrow, quivered with impatience. Burl -drew nearer, gleefully using his spear as a lever to pry off bits of -trash to fall down the cliffside into the giant web. The spider below -moved leisurely from one spot to another, investigating each new missile -with its palpi and then ignoring it as lifeless and undesirable prey. - -Burl leaped and laughed aloud as a particularly large lump of putrid -fungus narrowly missed the black-and-silver shape below. Then-- - -The trap-door fell into place with a faint sound. Burl whirled about, -his laughter transformed instantly into a scream. Moving toward him -furiously, its eight legs scrambling, was the monster tarantula. Its -mandibles gaped wide; the poison fangs were unsheathed. It was thirty -paces away--twenty paces--ten. - -Eyes glittering, it leaped, all eight legs extended to seize the prey. - -Burl screamed again and thrust out his arms to ward off the creature. It -was pure blind horror. There was no genius in that gesture. Because of -sheer terror his grip upon the 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. - -Stuck upon the spear the spider writhed horribly, still striving to -reach the paralytically frozen Burl. The great mandibles clashed. -Furious bubbling noises came from it. The hairy legs clutched at his -arm. He cried out hoarsely in ultimate fear and staggered backward--and -the edge of the cliff gave way beneath him. - -He hurtled downward, still clutching the spear, incapable of letting go. -Even while falling the writhing thing still struggled maniacally to -reach him. Down through emptiness they fell together, Burl glassy-eyed -with panic. Then there was a strangely elastic crash and crackling. They -had fallen into the web at which Burl had been laughing so scornfully -only a little while before. - -Burl couldn't think. He only struggled insanely in the gummy coils of -the web. But the snare-cords were spiral threads, enormously elastic, -exuding impossibly sticky stuff, like bird-lime, from between twisted -constituent fibres. Near him--not two yards away--the creature he had -wounded thrashed and fought to reach him, even while shuddering in -anguish. - -Burl had reached the absolute limit of panic. His arms and breast were -greasy from the oily fish; the sticky web did not adhere to them. But -his legs and body were inextricably tangled by his own frantic -struggling in the gummy and adhesive elastic threads. They had been -spread for prey. He was prey. - -He paused in his blind struggle, gasping from pure exhaustion. Then he -saw, not five yards away, the silvery-and-black monster he had mocked so -recently now patiently waiting for him to cease his struggles. The -tarantula and the man were one to its eyes--one struggling thing that -had fallen opportunely into its trap. They were moving but feebly, now. -The web-spider advanced delicately, swinging its huge bulk nimbly, -paying out a silken cable behind it as it approached. - -Burl's arms were free; he waved them wildly, shrieking at the monster. -The spider paused. Burl's moving arms suggested mandibles that might -wound. - -Spiders take few chances. This one drew near cautiously, then stopped. -Its spinnerets became busy and with one of its eight legs, used like an -arm, it flung a sheet of gummy silk impartially over the tarantula and -the man. - -Burl fought against the descending shroud. He strove to thrust it away, -futilely. Within minutes he was completely covered in a coarse silken -fabric that hid even the light from his eyes. He and his enemy, the -monstrous tarantula, were beneath the same covering. The tarantula moved -feebly. - -The shower ceased. The web-spider had decided they were helpless. Then -Burl felt the cables of the web give slightly as the spider approached -to sting and suck the juices from its prey. - -The web yielded gently. Burl froze in an ecstasy of horror. But the -tarantula still writhed in agony upon the spear piercing it. It clashed -its jaws, shuddering upon the horny shaft. - -Burl waited for the poison-fangs to be thrust into him. He knew the -process. He had seen the leisurely fashion in which the web-spider -delicately stung its victim, then withdrew to wait with horrible -patience for the poison to take effect. When the victim no longer -struggled, it drew near again to suck out the juices first from one -joint or limb and then from another, leaving a creature once vibrant -with life a shrunken, withered husk, to be flung from the web at -nightfall. - -The bloated monstrosity now moved meditatively about the double object -swathed in silk. Only the tarantula stirred. Its bulbous abdomen stirred -the concealing shroud. It throbbed faintly as it still struggled with -the spear in its vitals. The irregularly rounded projection was an -obvious target for the web-spider. It moved quickly forward. With fine, -merciless precision, it stung. - -The tarantula seemed to go mad with pain. Its legs struck out -purposelessly, in horrible gestures of delirious suffering. Burl -screamed as a leg touched him. He struggled no less wildly. - -His arms and head were enclosed by the folds of silk, but not glued to -it because of the grease. Clutching at the cords he tried desperately to -draw himself away from his deadly neighbor. The threads wouldn't break, -but they did separate. A tiny opening appeared. - -One of the tarantula's horribly writhing legs touched him again. With a -strength born of utter panic he hauled himself away and the opening -enlarged. Another lunge and Burl's head emerged into the open air. He -was suspended twenty feet above the ground, which was almost carpeted -with the chitinous remains of past victims of this same web. - -Burl's head and breast and arms were free. 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 viscous gumminess of the web-spider's -cord. It was vastly more adhesive than any bird-lime ever made by men. - -He hung in the little window for a moment, despairing. Then he saw the -bulk of his captor a little distance away, waiting patiently for its -poison to work and its prey to cease struggling. The tarantula was no -more than shuddering now. Soon it would be quite still and the -black-bellied creature 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 them free. The silk -shroud gave a little. Burl grasped at the thought as at a straw. He -grasped the fish and tore it, pushing frantically at his own body with -the now-rancid, scaly, odorous mass. He scraped gum from his legs with -the fish, smearing the rancid oils all over them in the process. - -He felt the web tremble again. To the spider Burl's movements meant that -its poison had not taken full effect. Another sting seemed to be -necessary. This time it would not insert its sting into the quiescent -tarantula, but where there was still life. It would send its venom into -Burl. - -He gasped and drew himself toward his window 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 great spider surveyed him and made ready to cast more of its silken -stuff upon him. The spinnerets became active. A leg gathered it up-- - -The sticky stuff about Burl's feet gave way. - -He shot out of the opening and fell heavily, sprawling upon the earth -below and crashing into the shrunken shell of a flying beetle that had -blundered into the snare and not escaped as he had done. - -Burl rolled over and over and then sat up. An angry, foot-long ant stood -before him, its mandibles extended threateningly, while a shrill -stridulation filled the air. - -In ages past, back on Earth--where most ants were to be measured in -fractions of an inch--the scientists had debated gravely whether their -tribe possessed a cry. They believed that certain grooves upon the body -of the insect, like those upon the great legs of the cricket, might be -the means of making a sound too shrill for human ears to catch. It was -greatly debated, but evidence was hard to obtain. - -Burl did not need evidence. He knew that the stridulation was caused by -the insect before him, though he had never wondered how it was produced. -The cry was emitted to summon other ants from its city to help it in -difficulty or good fortune. - -Harsh clickings sounded fifty or sixty feet away; comrades were coming. -And while only army ants were normally dangerous, any tribe of ants -could be formidable when aroused. It was overwhelming enough to pull -down and tear a man to shreds as a pack of infuriated fox-terriers might -do on Earth. - -Burl fled without further delay, nearly colliding with one of the web's -anchor-cables. Then he heard the shrill outcry subside. The ant, -short-sighted as all its kind, no longer felt threatened. It went -peacefully about the business Burl had interrupted. Presently it found -some edible carrion among the debris from the spider-web and started -triumphantly back to its city. - -Burl sped on for a few hundred yards and then stopped. He was shaken and -dazed. For the moment, he was as timid and fearful as any other man in -his tribe. Presently he would realize the full meaning of the -unparalleled feat he had performed in escaping from the giant spider web -while cloaked with folds of gummy silk. It was not only unheard-of; it -was unimaginable! But Burl was too shaken to think of it now. - -Rather quaintly, the first sensation that forced itself into his -consciousness was that his feet hurt. The gluey stuff from the web still -stuck to his soles, picking up small objects as he went along. Old, -ant-gnawed fragments of insect armor pricked him so persistently, even -through his toughened foot-soles, that he paused to scrape them away, -staring fearfully about all the while. After a dozen steps more he was -forced to stop again. - -It was this nagging discomfort, rather than vanity or an emergency which -caused Burl to discover--imagine--blunder into a new activity as -epoch-making as anything else he had done. His brain had been uncommonly -stimulated in the past twenty-some hours. It had plunged him into at -least one predicament because of his conceiving the idea of stabbing -something, but it had also allowed him escape from another even more -terrifying one just now. In between it had led to the devising of a -purpose--the bringing of Saya here--though that decision was not so -firmly fixed as it had been before the encounter with the web-spider. -Still, it had surely been reasoning of a sort that told him to grease -his body with the fish. Otherwise he would now be following the -tarantula as a second course for the occupant of the web. - -Burl looked cautiously all about him. It seemed to be quite safe. Then, -quite deliberately, he sat down to think. It was the first time in his -life that he had ever deliberately contemplated a problem with the idea -of finding an answer to it. And the notion of doing such a thing was -epoch-making--on this planet! - -He examined his foot. The sharp edges of pebbles and the remnants of -insect-armor hurt his feet when he walked. They had done so ever since -he had been born, but never before had his feet been sticky, so that the -irritation from one object persisted for more than a step. He carefully -picked away each sharp-pointed fragment, one by one. Partly coated with -the half-liquid gum, they even tended to cling to his fingers, except -where the oil was thick. - -Burl's reasoning had been of the simplest sort. He had contemplated a -situation--not deliberately but because he had to--and presently his -mind showed him a way out of it. It was a way specifically suited to the -situation. Here he faced something different. Presently he applied the -answer of one problem to a second problem. Oil on his body had let him -go free of things that would stick to him. Here things stuck to his -feet; so he oiled them. - -And it worked. Burl strode away, almost--but not completely--untroubled -by the bothersome pebbles and bits of discarded armor. Then he halted to -regard himself with astonished appreciation. He was still thirty-five -miles from his tribe; he was naked and unarmed, utterly ignorant of wood -and fire and weapons other than the one he had lost. But he paused to -observe with some awe that he was very wonderful indeed. - -He wanted to display himself. But his spear was gone. So Burl found it -necessary to think again. And the remarkable thing about it was that he -succeeded. - -In a surprisingly brief time he had come up with a list of answers. He -was naked, so he would find garments for himself. He was weaponless: he -would find himself a spear. He was hungry and he would seek food. Since -he was far from his tribe, he would go to them. And this was, in a -fashion, quite obviously thought; but it was not oblivious on the -forgotten planet because it had been futile--up to now. The importance -of such thought in the scheme of things was that men had not been -thinking even so simply as this, living only from minute to minute. Burl -was fumbling his way into a habit of thinking from problem to problem. -And that was very important indeed. - -Even in the advanced civilization of other planets, few men really used -their minds. The great majority of people depended on machines not only -for computations but decisions as well. Any decisions not made by -machines most men left to their leaders. Burl's tribesfolk thought -principally with their stomachs, making few if any decisions on any -other basis--though they did act, very often, under the spur of fear. -Fear-inspired actions, however, were not thought out. Burl was thinking -out his actions. - -There would be consequences. - -He faced upstream and began to move again, slowly and warily, his eyes -keenly searching out the way ahead, ears alert for the slightest sound -of danger. Gigantic butterflies, riotous in coloring, fluttered overhead -through the hazy air. Sometimes a grasshopper hurtled from one place to -another like a projectile, its transparent wings beating frantically. -Now and then a wasp sped by, intent upon its hunting, or a bee droned -heavily alone, anxious and worried, striving to gather pollen in a -nearly flowerless world. - -Burl marched on. From somewhere far behind him came a very faint sound. -It was a shrill noise, but very distant indeed. Absorbed in immediate -and nearby matters, Burl took no heed. He had the limited local -viewpoint of a child. What was near was important and what was distant -could be ignored. Anything not imminent still seemed to him -insignificant--and he was preoccupied. - -The source of this sound was important, however. Its origin was a myriad -of clickings compounded into a single noise. It was, in fact, the -far-away but yet perceptible sound of army ants on the march. The -locusts of Earth were very trivial nuisances compared to the army ants -of this planet. - -Locusts, in past ages on Earth, had eaten all green things. Here in the -lowlands were only giant cabbages and a few rank, tenacious growths. -Grasshoppers were numerous here, but could never be thought of as a -plague; they were incapable of multiplying to the size of locust hordes. -Army ants, however.... - -But Burl did not notice the sound. He moved forward briskly though -cautiously, searching the fungus-landscape for any sign of garments, -food, and weapons. He confidently expected to find all of them within a -short distance. Indeed, he did find food very soon. No more than a half -mile ahead he found a small cluster of edible fungi. - -With no special elation, Burl broke off a food supply from the largest -of them. Naturally, he took more than he could possibly eat at one time. -He went on, nibbling at a big piece of mushroom abstractedly, past a -broad plain, more than a mile across and broken into odd little hillocks -by gradually ripening mushrooms which were unfamiliar to him. In several -places the ground had been pushed aside by rounded objects, only the -tips showing. Blood-red hemispheres seemed to be forcing themselves -through the soil, so they might reach the outer air. Careful not to -touch any of them, Burl examined the hillocks curiously as he entered -the plain. They were strange, and to Burl most strange things meant -danger. In any event, he had two conscious purposes now. He wanted -garments and weapons. - -Above the plain a wasp hovered, dangling a heavy object beneath its -black belly across which ran a single red band. It was the gigantic -descendant of the hairy sand-wasp, differing only in size from its -far-away, remote ancestors on Earth. It was taking 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 burrow with its caterpillar-prey momentarily laid aside. - -It vanished underground into a vertical shaft dug down forty feet or -more. It evidently inspected the refuge. Reappearing, it vanished into -the hole again, dragging the gray worm after it. Burl, marching on over -the broad plain spotted with some eruptive disease, did not know what -passed below. But he did observe the wasp emerge again to scratch dirt -and stones previously excavated laboriously back into the shaft until it -was full. - -The wasp had paralyzed a caterpillar, taken it into the ready-prepared -burrow, laid an egg upon it, and sealed up the entrance. In time the egg -would hatch into a grub barely the size of Burl's forefinger. And the -grub, deep underground, would feed upon the living but helpless -caterpillar until it waxed large and fat. Then it would weave itself a -cocoon and sleep a long sleep, only to wake as a wasp and dig its way -out to the open air. - -Reaching the farther side of the plain, Burl found himself threading the -aisles of a fungus forest in which the growths were misshapen travesties -of the trees which could not live here. Bloated yellow limbs branched -off from rounded swollen trunks. Here and there a pear-shaped puffball, -Burl's height and half his height again, waited until a chance touch -should cause it to shoot upward a curling puff of infinitely fine dust. - -He continued to move with caution. There were dangers here, but he went -forward steadily. He still held a great mass of edible mushroom under -one arm and from time to time broke off a fragment, chewing it -meditatively. But always his eyes searched here and there for threats of -harm. - -Behind him the faint, shrill outcry had risen only slightly in volume. -It was still too far away to attract his notice. Army ants, however, -were working havoc in the distance. By thousands and millions, myriads -of them advanced across the fungoid soil. They clambered over every -eminence. They descended into every depression. Their antennae waved -restlessly. Their mandibles were extended threateningly. The ground was -black with them, each one more than ten inches long. - -A single such creature, armored and fearless as it was, could be -formidable enough to an unarmed and naked man like Burl. The better part -of discretion would be avoidance. But numbering in the thousands and -millions, they were something which could not be avoided. They advanced -steadily and rapidly; the chorus of shrill stridulations and clickings -marking their progress. - -Great, inoffensive caterpillars crawling over the huge cabbages heard -the sound of their coming, but were too stupid to flee. The black -multitudes blanketed the rank vegetables. Tiny, voracious jaws tore at -the flaccid masses of greasy flesh. - -The caterpillars strove to throw off their assailants by writhings and -contortions--uselessly. The bees fought their entrance into the monster -hives with stings and wing-beats. Moths took to the air in daylight with -dazzled, blinded eyes. But nothing could withstand the relentless hordes -of small black things that reeked of formic acid and left the ground -behind them empty of life. - -Before the horde was a world of teeming life, where mushrooms and other -fungi fought with thinning numbers of cabbages and mutant earth-weeds -for a foothold. Behind the black multitude was--nothing. Mushrooms, -cabbages, bees, wasps, crickets, grubs--every living thing that could -not flee before the creeping black tide reached it was lost, torn to -bits by tiny mandibles. - -Even the hunting spiders and tarantulas fell before the black host. They -killed many in their desperate self-defense, but the army ants could -overwhelm anything--anything at all--by sheer numbers and ferocity. -Killed or wounded ants served as food for their sound comrades. Only the -web spiders sat unmoved and immovable in their collossal snares, secure -in the knowledge that their gummy webs could not be invaded along the -slender supporting cables. - - - - -_3. THE PURPLE HILLS_ - - -The army ants flowed over the ground like a surging, monstrous, inky -tide. Their vanguard reached the river and recoiled. Burl was perhaps -five miles away when they changed their course. The change was made -without confusion, the leaders somehow communicating the altered line of -march to those behind them. - -Back on Earth, scientists had gravely debated the question of how ants -conveyed ideas to each other. Honeybees, it was said, performed -elaborate ritual dances to exchange information. Ants, it had been -observed, had something less eccentric. A single ant, finding a bit of -booty too big for it to manage alone, would return to its city to secure -the help of others. From that fact men had deduced that a language of -gestures made with crossed antennae must exist. - -Burl had no theories. He merely knew facts, but he did know that ants -could and did pass information to one another. Now, however, he moved -cautiously along toward the sleeping-place of his tribe in complete -ignorance of the black blanket of living creatures spreading over the -ground behind him. - -A million tragedies marked the progress of the insect army. There was a -tiny colony of mining bees, their habits unchanged despite their greater -size, here on the forgotten planet. A single mother, four feet long, had -dug a huge gallery with some ten offshooting cells, in which she had -laid her eggs and fed her grubs with hard-gathered pollen. The grubs had -waxed fat and large, become bees, and laid eggs in their turn within the -same gallery their mother had dug out for them. - -Ten bulky insects now foraged busily to feed their grubs within the -ancestral home, while the founder of the colony had grown draggled and -wingless with the passing of time. Unable to bring in food, herself, the -old bee became the guardian of the hive. She closed the opening with her -head, making a living barrier within the entrance. She withdrew only to -grant admission or exit to the duly authorized members,--her daughters. - -The ancient concierge of the underground dwelling was at her post when -the wave of army ants swept over. Tiny, evil-smelling feet trampled upon -her and she emerged to fight with mandible and sting for the sanctity of -her brood. Within moments she was a shaggy mass of biting ants. They -rent and tore at her chitinous armor. But she fought on madly, sounding -a buzzing alarm to the colonists yet within. - -They came out, fighting as they came: ten huge bees, each four to five -feet long and fighting with legs and jaws, with wing and mandible, and -with all the ferocity of so many tigers. But the small ants covered -them, snapping at their multiple eyes, biting at the tender joints in -their armour,--and sometimes releasing the larger prey to leap upon an -injured comrade, wounded by the monster they battled together. - -Such a fight, however, could have but one end. Struggle as the bees -might, they were powerless against their un-numbered assailants. They -were being devoured even as they fought. And before the last of the ten -was down the underground gallery had been gutted both of the stored food -brought by the adult defenders and the last morsels of what had been -young grubs, too unformed to do more than twitch helplessly, -inoffensively, as they were torn to shreds. - -When the army ants went on there were merely an empty tunnel and a few -fragments of tough armor, unappetizing even to the ants. - -Burl heard them as he meditatively inspected the scene of a tragedy of -not long before. The 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 regarded 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 lay hidden half a mile away. These were the first hatchlings. They -would feed their younger kindred until they grew large enough to take -over the great work of the ant-city. Burl ignored the minims. He -searched for a weapon of some sort. Behind him the clicking, -high-pitched roar of the horde of army ants increased in volume. - -He turned away disgustedly. The best thing he could find in the way of -a weapon was a fiercely-toothed hind-leg. When he picked it up an angry -whine rose from the ground. One of the minims had been struggling to -detach a morsel of flesh from the leg-joint. Burl had snatched the -tidbit from him. - -The little creature was surely no more than half a foot long, but it -advanced angrily upon Burl, shrilling a challenge. He struck with the -beetle's leg and crushed the ant. Two of the other minims appeared, -attracted by the noise the first had made. They discovered the crushed -body of their fellow, unceremoniously dismembered it, and bore it away -in triumph. - -Burl went on, swinging the toothed limb in his hand. The sound behind -him became a distant whispering, high-pitched and growing steadily -nearer. The army ants swept into a mushroom forest and the yellow, -umbrella-like growths soon swarmed with the black creatures. - -A great bluebottle fly, shining with a metallic lustre, stood beneath a -mushroom on the ground. The mushroom was infected with maggots which -exuded a solvent pepsin that liquefied the firm white meat. They swam -ecstatically in the liquid gruel, some of which dripped and dripped to -the ground. The bluebottle was sipping the dark-colored liquid through -its long proboscis, quivering with delight as it fed on the noisomeness. - -Burl drew near and struck. The fly collapsed in a quivering heap. Burl -stood over it for an instant and pondered. - -The army ants were nearer, now. They swarmed down into a tiny valley, -rushing into and through a little brook over which Burl had leaped. -Since ants can remain underwater for a long time without drowning, the -small stream was not even dangerous. Its current did sweep some of them -away. A great many of them, however, clung together until they chocked -its flow by the mass of their bodies, the main force marching across the -bridge they constituted. - -The ants reached a place about a quarter of a mile to the left of Burl's -line of march, perhaps a mile from the spot where he stood over the dead -bluebottle. There was an expanse of some acres in which the giant, rank -cabbages had so far succeeded in their competition with the world of -fungi. The pale, cross-shaped flowers of the cabbages formed food for -many bees. The leaves fed numberless grubs and worms. Under the -fallen-away dead foliage--single leaves were twenty feet across at their -largest--crickets hid and fed. - -The ant-army flowed into this space, devouring every living thing it -encountered. A terrible din arose. The crickets hurtled away in erratic -leapings. They shot aimlessly in any direction. More than half of them -landed blindly in the carpeting of clicking black bodies which were the -ants from whose vanguard they had fled. Their blind flight had no effect -save to give different individuals the opportunity to seize them as they -fell and instantly begin to devour them. As they were torn to fragments, -horrible screamings reached Burl's ears. - -A single such cry of agony would not have attracted Burl's attention. He -lived in a world of nightmare horror. But a chorus of creatures in -torment made him look up. This was no minor horror. Something wholesale -was in progress. He jerked his head about to see what it was. - -A wild stretch of sickly yellow fungus was interspersed here and there -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 branched fungoids -clustered in silent mockery of a true forest. Burl saw the faded green -of the cabbages. - -With the sun never shining on the huge leaves save through the -cloud-bank overhead, the cabbages were not vivid. There were even some -mouldy yeasts of a brighter green and slime much more luridly tinted. -Even so, the cabbages were the largest form of true vegetation Burl had -ever seen. The nodding white cruciform flowers stood out plainly -against the yellowish, pallid green of the leaves. But as Burl gazed at -them, the green slowly became black. - -Three great grubs, in lazy contentment, were eating ceaselessly of the -cabbages on which they rested. Suddenly first one and then another began -to jerk spasmodically. Burl saw that around each of them a rim of black -had formed. Then black motes milled all over them. - -The grubs became black--covered with biting, devouring ants. The -cabbages became black. The frenzied contortions of the grubs told of the -agonies they underwent as they were literally devoured alive. And then -Burl saw a black wave appear at the nearer edge of the stretch of yellow -fungus. A glistening, living flood flowed forward over the ground with a -roar of clickings and a persistent overtone of shrill stridulations. - -Burl's scalp crawled. He knew what this meant. And he did not pause to -think. With a gasp of pure panic he turned and fled, all intellectual -preoccupations forgotten. - -The black tide came on after him. - -He flung away the edible mushroom he had carried under his arm. Somehow, -though, he clung to the sharp-toothed club as he darted between tangled -masses of fungus, ignoring now the dangers that ordinarily called for -vast caution. - -Huge flies appeared. They buzzed about him loudly. Once he was struck on -the shoulder by one of them--at least as large as his hand--and his skin -torn by its swiftly vibrating wings. - -He brushed it away and sped on. But the oil with which he was partly -covered had turned rancid, now, and the fetid odor attracted them. There -were half a dozen--then a dozen creatures the size of pheasants, droning -and booming as they kept pace with his wild flight. - -A weight pressed onto his head. It doubled. Two of the disgusting -creatures had settled upon his oily hair to sip the stuff through their -hairy feeding-tubes. Burl shook them off with his hand and raced madly -on, his ears attuned to the sounds of the ants behind him. - -That clicking roar continued, but in Burl's ears it was almost drowned -out by the noise made by the halo of flies accompanying him. Their -buzzing had deepened in pitch with the increase in size of all their -race. It was now the note close to the deepest bass tone of an organ. -Yet flies--though greatly enlarged on the forgotten planet--had not -become magnified as much as some of the other creatures. There were no -great heaps of putrid matter for them to lay their eggs in. The ants -were busy scavengers, carting away the debris of tragedies in the insect -world long before it could acquire the gamey flavor beloved of -fly-maggots. Only in isolated spots were the flies really numerous. In -such places they clustered in clouds. - -Such a cloud began to form about Burl as he fled. It seemed as though a -miniature whirlwind kept pace with him--a whirlwind composed of furry, -revolting bodies and multi-faceted eyes. Fleeing, Burl had to swing his -club before him to clear the way. Almost every stroke was interrupted by -an impact against some thinly-armored body which collapsed with the -spurting of reddish liquid. - -Then an anguish as of red-hot iron struck upon Burl's back. One of the -stinging flies had thrust its sharp-tipped proboscis into his flesh to -suck the blood. Burl uttered a cry and ran full-tilt into the stalk of a -blackened, draggled toadstool. - -There was a curious crackling as of wet punk. The toadstool collapsed -upon itself with a strange splashing sound. A great many creatures had -laid their eggs in it, until now it was a seething mass of corruption -and ill-smelling liquid. - -When the toadstool crashed to the ground, it crumbled into a dozen -pieces, spattering the earth for yards all about with stinking stuff in -which tiny, headless maggots writhed convulsively. - -The deep-toned buzzing of the flies took on a note of solemn -satisfaction. They settled down upon this feast. Burl staggered to his -feet and darted off again. Now he was nothing but a minor attraction to -the flies, only three or four bothering to come after him. The others -settled by the edges of the splashing fluid, quickly absorbed in an -ecstasy of feasting. The few still hovering about his head, Burl -killed,--but he did not have to smash them all. The remaining few -descended to feast on their fallen comrades twitching feebly at his -feet. - -He ran on and passed beneath the wide-spreading leaves of an isolated -giant cabbage. A great grasshopper crouched on the ground, its -tremendous radially-opening jaws crunching the rank vegetation. Half a -dozen great worms ate steadily of the leaves that supported them. One -had swung itself beneath an overhanging leaf--which would have thatched -houses for men--and was placidly anchoring itself for the spinning of a -cocoon in which to sleep the sleep of metamorphosis. - -A mile away, the great black tide of army ants advanced relentlessly. -The great cabbage, the huge grasshopper, and all the stupid caterpillars -on the leaves would presently be covered with small, black demons. The -cocoon would never be spun. The caterpillars would be torn into -thousands of furry fragments and devoured. The grasshopper would strike -out with his terrific, unguided strength, crushing its assailants with -blows of its great hind-legs and powerful jaws. But it would die, making -terrible sounds of torments as the ants consumed it piecemeal. - -The sound of the ants' advance overwhelmed all other noises now. Burl -ran madly, his breath coming in great gasps, his eyes wide with panic. -Alone of the world about him, he knew the danger that followed him. The -insects he passed went about their business with that terrifying, -abstracted efficiency found only in the insect world. - -Burl's heart pounded madly from his running. The breath whistled in his -nostrils--and behind him the flood of army ants kept pace. They came -upon the feasting flies. Some took to the air and escaped. Others were -too absorbed in their delicious meal. The twitching maggots, stranded by -the scattering of their soupy broth, were torn to shreds and eaten. The -flies who were seized vanished into tiny maws. And the serried ranks of -ants moved on. - -Burl could hear nothing else, now, but the clickings of their limbs and -the stridulating challenges and cross-challenges they uttered. Now and -then another sound pierced the noises made by the ants themselves: a -cricket, perhaps, seized and dying, uttering deep-bass cries of agony. - -Before the horde there was a busy world which teemed with life. -Butterflies floated overhead on lazy wings; grubs waxed fat and huge; -crickets feasted; great spiders sat quietly in their lairs, waiting with -implacable patience for prey to fall into the trap-doors and snares; -great beetles lumbered through the mushroom forests, seeking food and -making love in monstrous, tragic fashion. - -Behind the wide front of the army ants was--chaos. Emptiness. -Desolation. All life save that of the army ants was exterminated, though -some bewildered flying creatures still fluttered helplessly over the -silent landscape. Yet even behind the army ants little bands of -stragglers from the horde marched busily here and there, seeking some -trace of life that had been overlooked by the main body. - -Burl put forth his last ounce of strength. His limbs trembled. His -breathing was agony. Sweat stood out upon his forehead. He ran for his -life with the desperation of one who knows that death is at his heels. -He ran as if his continued existence among the million tragedies of the -single day were the purpose for which the universe had been created. - -There was redness in the west and in the cloud-bank overhead. To the -east gray sky became a deeper gray--much deeper. It was not yet time for -the creatures of the day to seek their hiding-places, nor for the -night-insects to come forth. But in many secret spots there were vague -and sleepy stirrings. - -Heedless of the approaching darkness Burl sped over an open space a -hundred yards across. A thicket of beautifully golden mushrooms barred -his way. Danger lay there. He dogged aside and saw in the gray dusk a -glistening sheet of white, barely a yard above the ground. It was the -web of the morning-spider which, on Earth, was noted only in hedges and -such places when the dew of earliest dawn exposed it as a patternless -plate of diamond-dust. There were anchor-cables, of course, but no -geometry. Tidy housewives--also on Earth--used to mop it out of corners -as a filmy fabric of irritating gossamer. On the forgotten planet it was -a net with strength and bird-lime qualities that increased day by day, -as its spinner moved restlessly over the surface, always trailing sticky -cord behind itself. - -Burl had no choice but to avoid it, even though he lost ground to the -ant-horde roaring behind him. And night was definitely on the way. It -was inconceivable that a human should travel in the lowlands after dark. -It literally could not be done over the normal nightmare terrain. Burl -had not only to escape the army ants, but find a hiding-place quickly if -he was to see tomorrow's light. But he could not think so far ahead, -just now. - -He blundered through a screen of puffballs that shot dusty powder toward -the sky. Ahead, a range of strangely colored hills came into -view--purple, green, black and gold--melting into each other and -branching off, inextricably mingled. They rose to a height of perhaps -sixty or seventy feet. A curious grayish haze had gathered above them. -It seemed to be a layer of thin vapor, not like mist or fog, clinging to -certain parts of the hills, rising slowly to coil and gather into an -indefinitely thicker mass above the ridges. - -The hills themselves were not geological features, but masses of fungus -that had grown and cannibalized, piling up upon themselves to the -thickness of carboniferous vegetation. Over the face of the hills grew -every imaginable variety of yeast and mould and rust. They grew within -and upon themselves, forming freakish conglomerations that piled up into -a range of hills, stretching across the lunatic landscape for miles. - -Burl blundered up the nearest slope. Sometimes the surface was a hard -rind that held him up. Sometimes his feet sank--perhaps inches, perhaps -to mid-leg. He scrambled frantically. Panting, gasping, staggering from -the exhaustion of moving across the fungus quicksand, he made his way to -the top of the first hill, plunged down into a little valley on the -farther side, and up another slope. He left a clear trail behind him of -disturbed and scurrying creatures that had inevitably found a home in -the mass of living stuff. Small sinuous centipedes scuttled here and -there, roused by his passage. At the bottom of his footprints writhed -fat white worms. Beetles popped into view and vanished again.... - -A half mile across the range and Burl could go no farther. He stumbled -and fell and lay there, gasping hoarsely. Overhead the gray sky had -become a deep-red which was rapidly melting into that redness too deep -to be seen except as black. But there was still some light from the -west. - -Burl sobbed for breath in a little hollow, his sharp-toothed club still -clasped in his hands. Something huge, with wings like sails, soared in -silhouette against the sunset. Burl lay motionless, breathing in great -gasps, his limbs refusing to lift him. - -The sound of the army ants continued. At last, above the crest of the -last hillock he had surmounted, two tiny glistening antennae appeared, -then the small, deadly shape 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 its limbs. - -A little wisp of vapor swirled toward the ant. It was the vapor that had -gathered over the whole range of hills as a thin, low cloud. It -enveloped the ant which seemed to be thrown into a strange convulsion, -throwing itself about, legs moving aimlessly. If it had been an animal -instead of an insect, it would have choked and gasped. But ants breathe -through air-holes in their abdomens. It writhed helplessly on the spongy -stuff across which it had been moving. - -Burl was conscious of a strange sensation. His body felt remarkably -warm. It felt hot. It was an unparalleled sensation, because Burl had no -experience of fire or the heat of the sun. The only warmth he had ever -known was when huddling together with his tribesmen in some hiding-place -to avoid the damp chill of the night. - -Then, the heat of their breath and flesh helped to combat discomfort. -But this was a fiercer heat. It was intolerable. Burl moved his body -with a tremendous effort and for a moment the fungus soil was cool -beneath him. Then the sensation of hotness began again and increased -until Burl's skin was reddened and inflamed. - -The tenuous vapor, too, seemed to swirl his way. It made his lungs smart -and his eyes water. He still breathed in painful gasps, but even that -short period of rest had done him some good. But it was the heat that -drove him to his feet again. He crawled painfully to the crest of the -next hill. He looked back. - -This was the highest hill he had come upon and he could see most of the -purple range in the deep, deep dusk. Now he was more than halfway -through the hills. He had barely a quarter-mile to go, northward. But -east and west the range of purple hills was a ceaseless, undulating mass -of lifts and hollows, of ridges and spurs of all imaginable colorings. - -And at the tips of most of them were wisps of curling gray. - -From his position he could see a long stretch of the hills not hidden by -the surrounding darkness. Back along the way he had come, the army ants -now swept up into the range of hills. Scouts and advance-guard parties -scurried here and there. They stopped to devour the creatures inhabiting -the surface layers. But the main body moved on inexorably. - -The hills, though, were alive, not upheavals of the ground but festering -heaps of insanely growing fungus, hollowed out in many places by -tunnels, hiding-places, and lurking-places. These the ants invaded. They -swept on, devouring everything.... - -Burl leaned heavily upon his club and watched dully. He could run no -more. The army ants were spreading everywhere. They would reach him -soon. - -Far to the right, the vapor thickened. A thin column of smoke arose in -the dim half-light. Burl did not know smoke, of course. He could not -conceivably guess that deep down in the interior of the insanely growing -hills, pressure had killed and oxidation had carbonized the once-living -material. By oxidation the temperature down below had been raised. In -the damp darkness of the bowels of the hills spontaneous combustion had -begun. - -The great mounds of tinderlike mushroom had begun to burn very slowly, -quite unseen. There had been no flames because the hills' surface -remained intact and there was no air to feed the burning. But when the -army ants dug ferociously for fugitive small things, air was admitted to -tunnels abandoned because of heat. - -Then slow combustion speeded up. Smoulderings became flames. Sparks -became coals. A dozen columns of fume-laden smoke rose into the heavens -and gathered into a dense pall above the range of purple hills. And Burl -apathetically watched the serried ranks of army ants march on toward the -widening furnaces that awaited them. - -They had recoiled from the river instinctively. But their ancestors had -never known fire. In the Amazon basin, on Earth, there had never been -forest fires. On the forgotten planet there had never been fires at all, -unless the first forgotten colonists tried to make them. In any case the -army ants had no instinctive terror of flame. They marched into the -blazing openings that appeared in the hills. They snapped with their -mandibles at the leaping flames, and sprang to grapple with the burning -coals. - -The blazing areas widened as the purple surface was consumed. Burl -watched without comprehension--even without thankfulness. He stood -breathing more and more easily until the glow from approaching flames -reddened his skin and the acrid smoke made tears flow from his eyes. -Then he retreated slowly, leaning on his club and often looking back. - -Night had fallen, but yet it was light to the army ants. They marched -on, shrilling their defiance. They poured devotedly--and -ferociously--into the inferno of flame. At last there were only small -groups of stragglers from the great ant-army scurrying here and there -over the ground their comrades had stripped of all life. The bodies of -the main army made a vast malodor, burning in the furnace of the hills. - -There had been pain in that burning, agony such as no one would willing -dwell upon. But it came of the insane courage of the ants, attacking the -burning stuff with their horny jaws, rolling over and over with flaming -lumps of charcoal clutched in their mandibles. Burl heard them shrilling -their war-cry even as they died. Blinded, antennae singed off, legs -shriveling, they yet went forward to attack their impossible enemy. - -Burl made his way slowly over the hills. Twice he saw small bodies of -the vanished army. They had passed between the widening furnaces and -furiously devoured all that moved as they forged ahead. Once Burl was -spied, and a shrill cry sounded, but he moved on and only a single ant -rushed after him. Burl brought down his club and a writhing body -remained to be eaten by its comrades when they came upon it. - -And now the last faint traces of light had vanished in the west. There -was no real brightness anywhere except the flames of the burning hills. -The slow, slow nightly rain that dripped down all through the dark hours -began. It made a pattering noise upon the unburnt part of the hills. - -Burl found firm ground beneath his feet. He listened keenly for sounds -of danger. Something rustled heavily in a thicket of toadstools a -hundred feet away. There were sounds of preening, and of feet delicately -placed here and there upon the ground. Then a great body took to the air -with the throbbing beat of mighty wings. - -A fierce down-current of air smote Burl, and he looked upward in time to -glimpse the outline of a huge moth passing overhead. He turned to watch -the line of its flight, and saw the fierce glow filling all the horizon. -The hills burned brighter as the flames widened. - -He crouched beneath a squat toadstool and waited for the dawn. The -slow-dripping rain kept on, falling with irregular, drum-like beats upon -the tough top of the toadstool. - -He did not sleep. He was not properly hidden, and there was always -danger in the dark. But this was not the darkness Burl was used to. The -great fires grew and spread in the masses of ready-carbonized mushroom. -The glare on the horizon grew brighter through the hours. It also came -nearer. - -Burl shivered a little, as he watched. He had never even dreamed of fire -before, and even the overhanging clouds were lighted by these flames. -Over a stretch at least a dozen miles in length and from half a mile to -three miles across, the seething furnaces and columns of flame-lit smoke -sent illumination over the world. It was like the glow the lights of a -city can throw upon the sky. And like the flitting of aircraft above a -city was the assembly of fascinated creatures of the night. - -Great moths and flying beetles, gigantic gnats and midges grown huge -upon this planet, fluttered and danced above the flames. As the fire -came nearer, Burl could see them: colossal, delicately-formed creatures -sweeping above the white-hot expanse. There were moths with -riotously-colored wings of thirty-foot spread, beating the air with -mighty strokes, their huge eyes glowing like garnets as they stared -intoxicatedly at the incandescence below them. - -Burl saw a great peacock-moth soaring above the hills with wings all of -forty feet across. They fluttered like sails of unbelievable -magnificence. And this was when all the separate flames had united to -form a single sheet of white-hot burning stuff spread across the land -for miles. - -Feathery antennae of the finest lace spread out before the head of the -peacock-moth; its body was of softest velvet. A ring of snow-white fur -marked where its head began. The glare from below smote the maroon of -its body with a strange effect. For one instant it was outlined clearly. -Its eyes shone more redly than any ruby's fire. The great, delicate -wings were poised in flight. Burl caught the flash of flame upon the two -great irridescent spots on the wings. Shining purple and bright red, all -the glory of chalcedony and of chrysoprase was reflected in the glare of -burning fungi. - -And then Burl saw it plunge downward, straight into the thickest and -fiercest of the leaping flames. It flung itself into the furnace as a -willing, drunken victim of their beauty. - -Flying beetles flew clumsily above the pyre also, their horny wing-cases -stiffly outstretched. In the light from below they shone like burnished -metal. Their clumsy bodies, with spurred and fierce-toothed limbs, -darted through the flame-lit smoke like so many grotesque meteors. - -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. They mounted higher than Burl could see, drunk with the -ecstasy of living, and then descended to plunge headlong in the roaring -flames below. - -From every side the creatures came. Moths of brightest yellow, with -furry bodies palpitant with life, flew madly to destruction. Other moths -of a deepest black, with gruesome symbols on their wings, swiftly came -to dance above the glow like motes in sunlight. - -And Burl crouched beneath a toadstool, watching while the perpetual, -slow raindrops fell and fell, and a continuous hissing noise came from -where the rain splashed amid the flames. - - - - -_4. A KILLER OF MONSTERS_ - - -The night wore on, while the creatures above the firelight danced and -died, their numbers ever reinforced by fresh arrivals. Burl sat tensely -still, his eyes watching everything while his mind groped for an -explanation of what he saw. At last the sky grew dimly gray, then -brighter, and after a long time it was day. The flames of the burning -hills seemed to dim and die as all the world became bright. After a long -while Burl crawled from his hiding-place and stood erect. - -No more than two hundred paces from where he stood, a straight wall of -smoke rose from the still-smouldering fungus-range. Burl could see the -smoke rising for miles on either hand. He turned to continue on his way, -and saw the remains of one of the tragedies of the night. - -A great 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 upon the ground, its antennae -hopelessly seared. One beautiful wing was nothing but gaping holes. The -eyes had been dimmed by flame. The exquisitely tapering limbs lay -broken and crushed by the violence of landing. The creature was helpless -on the ground, only the stumps of its antennae moving restlessly and the -abdomen pulsating slowly as it drew pain-racked breaths. - -Burl drew near. He raised his club. - -When he moved on there was a velvet cloak cast over his shoulders, -gleaming with all the colors of the rainbows. A gorgeous mass of soft -blue moth-fur was about his middle, and he had bound upon his forehead -two yard-long fragments of the moth's magnificent antennae. - -He strode on slowly, clad as no man had been clad in all the ages before -him. After a while another victim of the holocaust--similarly blundered -out to die--yielded him a spear that was longer and sharper and much -more deadly than his first. So he took up his journey to Saya looking -like a prince of Ind upon a bridal journey--though surely no mere prince -ever wore such raiment. - -For many miles, Burl threaded his way through an extensive forest of -thin-stalked toadstools. They towered high over his head, colorful, -parasitic moulds and rusts all about their bases. Twice he came upon -open glades where bubbling pools of green slime festered in corruption. -Once he hid himself as a monster scarabeus beetle lumbered by three -yards away, clanking like some mighty machine. - -Burl saw the heavy armor and inward-curving jaws of the monster. He -almost envied him his weapons. The time was not yet come, though, when -Burl and his kind would hunt such giants for the juicy flesh within its -armored limbs. Burl was still a savage, still ignorant, still -essentially timid. His only significant advance had been that where at -first he had fled without reasoning, now he paused to see if he need -flee. - -He was a strange sight, moving through the shadowed lanes of the forest -in his cloak of velvet. The fierce-toothed leg of a fighting beetle -rested in a strip of sinew about his waist, ready for use. His new spear -was taller than himself. He looked like a conqueror. But he was still a -fearful and feeble creature, no match for the monstrous creatures about -him. He was weak--and in that lay his greatest hope. Because if he were -strong, he would not need to think. - -Hundreds of thousands of years before, his ancestors had been forced to -develop brains as penalty for the lack of claws or fangs. Burl was sunk -as low as any of them, but he had to combat more horrifying enemies, -more inexorable dangers, and many times more crafty antagonists. His -ancestors had invented knives and spears and flying missiles, but the -creatures about Burl had weapons a thousand times more deadly than the -ones that had defended the first humans. - -The fact, however, simply put a premium on the one faculty Burl had -which the insect world has not. - -In mid-morning he heard a discordant, deep-bass bellow, coming from a -spot not twenty yards from where he moved. He hid in panic, waiting for -an instant, listening. - -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 -tumbled with a spongelike sound, and the thud was followed by a -tremendous commotion. Something was fighting desperately against -something else, but Burl did not know what creatures were in combat. - -He waited, and the noise died gradually away. Presently his breath came -more slowly and his courage returned. He stole from his hiding-place and -would have made away, but new curiosity held him back. Instead of -creeping from the scene, he moved cautiously toward the source of the -noise. - -Peering between two cream-colored stalks he saw a wide, funnel-shaped -snare of silk 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 tall -mushrooms, it was anchored to the ground below and drew away to a small -point through which a hole led to some as yet unseen recess. 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 -strands was strong enough to hold any but the feeblest prey, but the -threads were there by thousands. A cricket had become entangled in the -sticky maze. Its limbs thrashed out and broke threads with every stroke, -but each time became entangled in a dozen more. It struggled mightily, -emitting at intervals--again--its horrible bass roar. - -Burl breathed more easily. He watched with fascinated eyes. Mere death -among insects--even tragic death--held no great interest for him. It was -too common an occurrence. And there were few insects which deliberately -sought man. Most insects have their allotted prey and will seek no -others. - -But this involved a spider, and spiders have a terrifying impartiality. -A spider devouring some luckless insect was but an example of what might -happen to Burl. So he watched alertly, his eyes traveling from the -enmeshed cricket to the strange opening at the back of the funnel-shaped -labyrinth. - -That opening darkened. Two shining, glistening eyes had been watching -from the tunnel in which the spider had been waiting. Now it swung out -lightly, revealing itself as a gray spider, with twin black ribbons upon -its thorax and two stripes of curiously speckled brown and white upon -its abdomen. Burl saw, also, two curious appendages like a tail, as it -came nimbly out of its hiding-place and approached the trapped creature. - -The cricket was struggling weakly, now, and the cries it uttered were -but feeble, because of the cords that fettered its limbs. Burl saw the -spider throw itself upon the cricket which gave one final, convulsive -shudder as fangs pierced its armor. - -Shortly after, the spider fed. With bestial enjoyment it sucked all the -succulence, all the fluid, from its victim's carcass. - -Then the breath left Burl in a peculiar, frightened gasp. It was not -from anything he saw or heard. It was something that he thought. - -For a second, his knees knocked together in self-induced panic. It -occurred to him that he, Burl, had killed a hunting spider--a -tarantula--upon the red-clay cliff. True, the killing had been an -accident and had nearly cost him his own life in the web-spider's snare. -But--he had killed a spider and of the most deadly kind. Now it occurred -to Burl that he could kill another. - -Spiders were the ogres of the human tribes on the forgotten planet. -Knowledge of them was hard to come by, because to study them was death. -But all men knew that web-spiders never left their traps. Never! And -Burl had imagined himself making an impossibly splendid, incredibly -daring use of that fact. - -Denying to himself that he intended any action so suicidal, he -nevertheless drew back from the front of the snare and made his way to -the back, where the spider's tunnel was no more than ten feet away. - -Then he found himself waiting. - -Presently, through the interstices of the silk, he saw the gray bulk of -the spider. It had left the drained and shrunken carcass of the cricket -to return to its resting-place, settling itself carefully upon the soft -walls of the fabric tunnel. From the yielding, globular nest at the -tunnel's end it fixed maniacal eyes once more upon the threads of its -snare, seen down the length of the passage-way. - -Burl's hair stood on end from sheer fright, but he was the slave of an -idea. - -The tunnel and the nest at its end did not rest on the ground, but were -suspended in air by cables like those that spread the gin itself. The -gray labyrinth-spider bulged the fabric. It lay in luxurious comfort, -waiting for victims to approach. - -There was sweat on Burl's face as he raised his spear. The bare idea of -attacking a spider was horrifying. But actually he was in no danger -whatever before the instant of the spear-thrust, because web-spiders -never, never, leave their webs to hunt. - -So Burl sweated, and grasped his spear with agonized firmness--and -thrust it into the bulge that was the spider's body in its nest. He -thrust with hysterical fury. - -And then he ran as if the devil were after him. - -It was a long time before he dared come back, his heart in his throat. -All was still. He had missed the horrid convulsions of the wounded -spider; he had not heard the frightful gnashings of its fangs at the -piercing weapon, nor seen the silken threads of the tunnel ripped and -torn in the spider's death-struggle. Burl came back to quietness. There -was a great rent in the silken tunnel, and a puddle of ill-smelling -stuff lay upon the ground. From time to time another droplet fell from -the spear to join it. And the great spider had fallen half through its -own enlargement of the rent made by the spear in the wall of the nest. - -Burl stared. Even when he saw it, the thing was not easy to believe. The -dead eyes of the spider looked at him with mad, frozen malignity. The -fangs were still raised to kill. The hairy legs were still braced as if -to enlarge further the gaping hole through which it had partly fallen. - -Then Burl felt exultation. His tribe had been furtive vermin for almost -forty generations, fleeing from the mighty insects, hiding from them, -and when caught waiting helplessly for death, screaming shrilly in -horror. But he, Burl, had turned the tables. He, a man, had killed a -spider! His breast expanded. Always his tribesmen went quietly and -fearfully, making no sound. But a sudden, surprising, triumphant yell -burst from Burl's lips--the first hunting-cry of man upon the forgotten -planet in two thousand years. - -Next second, of course, his pulse almost stopped in sheer terror because -he had made such a noise. He listened fearfully. The insect world was -oblivious to him. Presently, shuddering but infinitely proud, he drew -near his prey. He carefully withdrew his spear, poised to flee if the -spider stirred. It did not. It was dead. The blood upon the spear was -revolting. Burl wiped it off on a leathery toadstool. Then.... - -He thought of Saya and his tribesmen. Trembling even as he gloated over -his own remarkable self, he shifted the spider and worked it out of the -nest. Presently he moved off with the belly of the spider upon his back -and two of its hairy legs over his shoulders. The other limbs of the -monster hung limp, trailing on the ground behind him. - -Marching, then he was the first such spectacle in history. His velvet -cloak shining with its irridescent spots, the yard-long scraps of golden -antennae bound to his forehead, a spear in his hand, and the hideous -bulk of a gray spider for burden--Burl was a very strange sight indeed. - -He believed that other creatures fled before him because of the thing he -carried. He tended to grow haughty. But actually, of course, insects do -not know fear. They recognize their own specific enemies. That is -necessary. But the his of the lowlands on the forgotten planet went on -abstractedly, despite the splendid feat of one man. - -Burl marched. He came upon a valley full of torn and tattered mushrooms. -There was not a single yellow top among them. Every one had been -infested with maggots that had liquefied the tough meat of the -mushroom-tops, causing it to drip to the ground below. The liquid was -gathered in a golden pool in the center of the small depression. Burl -heard a loud and deep-toned humming before he saw the valley. Then he -stopped and looked down. - -He saw the golden pond, its surface reflecting the gray sky and the -darkened stumps of mushrooms on the hillside which looked as if they had -been blackened by a running flame. A small brooklet of golden liquid -trickled over a rocky ledge, and all round the edges of the pond and -brook, in ranks and rows, by hundreds and by thousands and it seemed by -millions, were the green-gold bodies of great flies. - -They were small compared to other insects. The flesh-flies laid their -eggs by the hundreds in decaying carcasses. The others chose mushrooms -to lay their eggs in. 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 would furnish -food for only a few maggots instead of the hundreds it must support. -There must also be a limit to the size of worms if hundreds were to -feast upon a single fungus. - -But there was no limitation to the greediness of the adult creatures. -There were bluebottles and green-bottles and all the flies of metallic -lustre, gathered at a Lucullan feast of corruption. The buzzing of those -swarming above the golden pool was a tremendous sound. The flying bodies -flashed and glittered as they flew back and forth, seeking a place to -alight and join in the orgy. - -The glittering bodies clustered in already-found places were motionless -as if carved from metal. Burl watched them. And then he saw motion -overhead. - -A slender, brilliant shape appeared, darting swiftly through the air, -enlarging into a needle-like body with transparent, shining wings and -two huge eyes. It circled and enlarged again, becoming a shimmering -dragonfly, twenty feet and more in length. It poised itself abruptly -above the pool, and then darted down, its jaws snapping viciously. They -snapped again and again. Burl could not follow their slashings. And with -each snap the glittering body of a fly vanished. - -A second dragonfly appeared and a third. They swooped above the golden -pool, snapping in mid-air, making their abrupt and angular turns, -creatures of incredible ferocity and beauty. In that mass of buzzing -creatures, even the most voracious appetite must soon have been sated, -but the slender creatures still darted about in frenzied destruction. - -And all this while the loud, contented, deep-bass humming went on as -before. Their comrades were slaughtered by the hundreds not forty feet -above their heads, but still the glittering rows of red-eyed flies -gorged themselves upon the fluid of the pond. The dragonflies feasted -until they were unable to devour even a single one more of their chosen -prey. But even then they continued to sweep madly above the pool, -striking down the buzzing flies though their bodies must perforce remain -uneaten. - -Some of the dead flies, crushed to pulp by the angry dragonflies, -dropped among their feasting brothers. Presently, one of them placed its -disgusting proboscis upon the mangled creature. It sipped daintily from -the contents of the broken armor. Another joined it and another. In a -little while a cluster of them pushed against each other for a chance to -join them in a cannibalistic feast. - -Burl turned aside and went on, leaving the dragonflies still at their -massacre and the flies absorbed and ecstatic at their feast. The feast, -indeed, was improved by the rain of murdered brethren from overhead. - -Only a few miles farther on, Burl came upon a familiar landmark. He knew -it well, but had always kept at a safe distance from it. A mass of rock -had heaved itself up from the almost level plain over which he traveled -to form an out-jutting cliff. At one point the rock overhung, forming an -inverted ledge--a roof over nothingness--which had been preempted by a -hairy monster and made into a fairy-like dwelling. A white hemisphere -clung to the rock, firmly anchored by long cables. - -Burl knew the place as one to be feared. A clotho spider had built -itself a nest there, from which it emerged to hunt the unwary. Within -the silken globe was a monstrosity, resting upon cushions of softest -silk. The exterior had been beautiful once. But if one went too near one -of the little inverted arches seemingly closed by panels of silk--it -would open and out would rush a creature from a dream of hell. - -Surely Burl knew this place. Hung upon the walls of the fairy palace -were trophies. They had a purpose, of course. Stones and boulders hung -there, too, to hold the structure firm against the storm-winds that -rarely blew. But amid the stones and fragments of insect-armor there was -a very special decoration: the shrunken, dessicated skeleton of a man. - -The death of that man had saved Burl's life two years before. They had -been together, seeking a new source of edible mushroom. The clotho -spider was a hunter, not a spinner of webs. It had sprung suddenly from -behind a great puffball as the two men froze in horror. Then it had come -forward and deliberately chosen its victim. It did not choose Burl. - -Now he looked with half-frightened speculation at the lair of his -ancient enemy. Some day, perhaps.... - -But now he passed on. He went past the thicket in which the great moths -hid by day, past the slimy pool in which something unknown but terrible -lurked. He penetrated the little forest of mushrooms that glowed at -night and the place where the truffle-hunting beetles chirped -thunderously during the dark hours. - -And then he saw Saya. He caught a flash of pink skin vanishing behind a -squat toadstool, and he ran forward calling her name. She emerged, and -saw the figure with the horrible bulk of the spider on its back. She -cried out in horror, and Burl understood. He let his burden fall, -running swiftly to her. - -They met. Saya waited timidly until she saw who this man was, and then -she was astounded indeed. With golden plumes rising from his head, a -velvet cloak about his shoulders, blue moth-fur about his middle, and a -spear in his hand--and a dead spider behind him!--this was not the Burl -she had known. - -He took her hands, babbling proudly. She stared at him and at his -victim--but the language of men had diminished sadly--struggling to -comprehend. Presently her eyes glowed. She pulled at his wrists. - -When they found the other tribesmen, they were carrying the dead spider -between them, Saya looking more proud than Burl. - - - - -_5. MEAT OF MAN'S KILLING!_ - - -In their climb up from savagery, the principal handicap from which men -have always suffered is the fact that they are human. Or it can be said -that human beings always have to struggle against the obstacle which is -simply that they are men. To Burl his splendid return to the tribe -called for a suitable reaction. He expected them to take note that he -was remarkable, unparalleled, and in all ways admirable. He expected -them to look at him with awe. He rather hoped that the sight of him -would involve something like ecstasy. - -And as a matter of fact, it did. For fully an hour they gathered around -him while he used his--and their--scanty vocabulary to tell them of his -unique achievements and adventures during the past two days and nights. -They listened attentively and with appropriate admiration and vicarious -pride. - -This in itself was a step upward. Mostly their talk was of where food -might be found and where danger lurked. Strictly practical data -connected with the pressing business of getting enough to eat and -staying alive. The sheer pressure of existence was so great that the -humans Burl knew had altogether abandoned such luxuries as boastful -narrative. They had given up tradition. They did not think of art in -even its most primitive forms, and the only craft they knew was the -craftiness which promoted simple survival. So for them to listen to a -narrative which did not mean either food or even a lessening of danger -to themselves was a step upward on the cultural scale. - -But they were savages. They inspected the dead spider, shuddering. It -was pure horror. They did not touch it--the adults not at all, and even -Dik and Tet not for a very long time. Nobody thought of spiders as food. -Too many of them had been spiders' food. - -But presently even the horror aroused by the spider palled. The younger -children quailed at sight of it, of course; but the adults came to -ignore it. Only the two gangling boys tried to break off a furry leg -with which to charge and terrify the younger ones still further. They -failed to get it loose because they did not think of cutting it. But -they had nothing to cut it with anyhow. - -Old Jon went wheezing off, foraging. He waved a hand to Burl as he went. -Burl was indignant. But it was true that he had brought back no food. -And people must eat. - -Tama went off, her tongue clacking, with Lona the half-grown girl to -help her find and bring back something edible. Dor, the strongest man in -the tribe, went away to look where he thought there might be edible -mushrooms full-grown again. Cori left with her children--very carefully -on watch for danger to them--to see what she could find. - -In little more than an hour Burl's audience had diminished to Saya. -Within two hours ants found the spider where it had been placed for the -tribe to admire. Within three hours there was nothing left of it. During -the fourth hour--as Burl struggled to dredge up some new, splendid item -to tell Saya for the tenth time, or thereabouts--during the fourth hour -one of the tribeswomen beckoned to Saya. She left with a flashing -backward smile for Burl. She went, actually, to help dig up underground -fungi--much like truffles--discovered by the older woman. She -undoubtedly expected to share them with Burl. - -But in five hours it was night and Burl was very indignant with his -tribesfolk. They had shifted the location of the hiding-place for the -night, and nobody had thought to tell him. And if Saya wished to come -for Burl, to lead him to that place, she did not dare for the simple -reason that it was night. - -For a long time after he found a hiding-place, Burl fumed bitterly to -himself. He was very much of a human being, differing from his -fellows--so far--mainly because he had been through experiences not -shared by them. He had resolved a subjective dilemma of sorts by -determining to return to his tribe. He had discovered a weapon which, at -first, had promised--and secured--foodstuff, and later had saved him -from a tarantula. His discovery that fish-oil was useful when applied to -spider-snares and things sticking to the feet was of vast importance to -the tribe. Most remarkable of all, he had deliberately killed a spider. -And he had experienced triumph. Temporarily he had even experienced -admiration. - -The adulation was a thing which could never be forgotten. Human -appetites are formed by human experiences. One never had an appetite for -a thing one has not known in some fashion. But no human being who has -known triumph is ever quite the same again, and anybody who has once -been admired by his fellows is practically ruined for life--at least so -far as being independent of admiration is concerned. - -So during the dark hours, while the slow rain dipped in separate, heavy -drops from the sky, Burl first coddled his anger--which was a very good -thing for a member of a race grown timorous and furtive--and then began -to make indignant plans to force his tribesmen to yield him more of the -delectable sensations he alone had begun to know. - -He was not especially comfortable during the night. The hiding-place he -had chosen was not water-tight. Water trickled over him for several -hours before he discovered that his cloak, though it would not keep him -dry--which it would have done if properly disposed--would still keep the -same water next to his skin where his body could warm it. Then he slept. -When morning came he felt singularly refreshed. For a savage, he was -unusually clean, too. - -He woke before dawn with vainglorious schemes in his head. The sky grew -gray and then almost white. The overhanging cloud bank seemed almost to -touch the earth, but gradually withdrew. The mist among the -mushroom-forests grew thinner, and the slow rain ceased reluctantly. -When he peered from his hiding-place, the mad world he knew was, as far -as he could see, quite mad, as usual. The last of the night-insects had -vanished. The day-creatures began to venture out. - -Not too far from the crevice where he'd hidden was an ant-hill, -monstrous by standards on other planets. It was piled up not of sand but -gravel and small boulders. Burl saw a stirring. At a certain spot the -smooth, outer surface crumbled and fell into an invisible opening. A -spot of darkness appeared. Two slender, thread-like antennae popped out. -They withdrew and popped out again. The spot enlarged until there was a -sizeable opening. An ant appeared, one of the warrior-ants of this -particular breed. It stood fiercely over the opening, waving its -antennae agitatedly as if striving to sense some danger to its -metropolis. - -He was fourteen inches long, this warrior, and his mandibles were fierce -and strong. After a moment, two other warriors thrust past him. They ran -about the whole extent of the ant-hill, their legs clicking, antennae -waving restlessly. - -They returned, seeming to confer with the first, then went back down -into the city with every appearance of satisfaction. As if they made a -properly reassuring report, within minutes afterward, a flood of black, -ill-smelling workers poured out of the opening and dispersed about -their duties. - -The city of the ants had begun its daily toil. There were deep galleries -underground here: graineries, storage-vaults, refectories, and -nurseries, and even a royal apartment in which the queen-ant reposed. -She was waited upon by assiduous courtiers, fed by royal stewards, and -combed and caressed by the hands of her subjects and children. A dozen -times larger than her loyal servants, she was no less industrious than -they in her highly specialized fashion. From the time of waking to the -time of rest she was queen-mother in the most literal imaginable sense. -At intervals, to be measured only in minutes, she brought forth an egg, -perhaps three inches in length, which was whisked away to the municipal -nursery. And this constant, insensate increase in the population of the -city made all its frantic industry at once possible and necessary. - -Burl came out and spread his cloak on the ground. In a little while he -felt a tugging at it. An ant was tearing off a bit of the hem. Burl slew -the ant angrily and retreated. Twice within the next half-hour he had to -move swiftly to avoid foragers who would not directly attack him because -he was alive--unless he seemed to threaten danger--but who lusted after -the fabric of his garments. - -This annoyance--and Burl would merely have taken it as a thing to be -accepted a mere two days before--this annoyance added to Burl's -indignation with the world about him. He was in a very bad temper indeed -when he found old Jon, wheezing as he checked on the possibility of -there being edible mushrooms in a thicket of poisonous, pink-and-yellow -amanitas. - -Burl haughtily commanded Jon to follow him. Jon's untidy whiskers parted -as his mouth dropped open in astonishment. Burl's tribe was so far from -being really a tribe that for anybody to give a command was astonishing. -There was no social organization, absolutely no tradition of command. -As a rule life was too uncertain for anybody to establish authority. - -But Jon followed Burl as he stamped on through the morning mist. He saw -a small movement and shouted imperatively. This was appalling! Men did -not call attention to themselves! He gathered up Dor, the strongest of -the men. Later, he found Jak who some day would wear an expression of -monkey-like wisdom. Then Tet and Dik, the half-grown boys, came trooping -to see what was happening. - -Burl led onward. A quarter of a mile and they came upon a great, gutted -shell which had been a rhinoceros beetle the day before. Today it was a -disassembled mass of chitinous armor. Burl stopped, frowning -portentously. He showed his quaking followers how to arm themselves. Dor -picked up the horn hesitantly, Burl showing him how to use it. He -stabbed out awkwardly with the sharp fragment of armor. Burl showed -others how to use the leg-sections for clubs. They tested them without -conviction. In any sort of danger, they would trust to their legs and a -frantically effective gift for hiding. - -Burl snarled at his tribesmen and led them on. It was unprecedented. But -because of that fact there was no precedent for rebellion. Burl led them -in a curve. They glanced all about apprehensively. - -When they came to an unusually large and attractive clump of golden -edible mushrooms, there were murmurings. Old Jon was inclined to go and -load himself and retire to some hiding-place for as long as the food -lasted. But Burl snarled again. - -Numbly they followed on--Dor and Jon and Jak and the two youngsters. The -ground inclined upward. They came upon puffballs. There was a new kind -visible, colored a lurid red, that did not grow like the others. It -seemed to begin and expand underground, then thrust away the soil above -in its development. Its taut, angry-red parchment envelope seemed to -swell from a reservoir of subterranean material. Burl and the others had -never seen anything like it. - -They climbed higher. As other edible mushrooms came into view Burl's -followers cheered visibly. This was a new tribal ground anyhow and it -had not been fully explored. But Burl was leading them to quantities of -food they had never suspected before. - -Quaintly, it was Burl himself who began to feel an uncomfortable dryness -in his throat. He knew what he was about. His followers did not suspect -because to them what he intended was simply inconceivable. They couldn't -suspect it because they couldn't imagine anybody doing such a thing. It -simply couldn't be thought of at all. - -It is rather likely that Burl began to regret that he had thought of it. -It had come to him first as an angry notion in the night. Then the idea -had developed as a suitable punishment for his abandonment. By dawn it -was an ambition so terrifying that it fascinated him. Now he was -committed to it in his own mind, and the only way to keep his knees from -knocking together was to keep moving. If his followers had protested -now, he would have allowed himself to be persuaded. But he heard more -pleased murmurs. There was more edible stuff, in quantity. But there -were no ant-trails here, no sounds of foraging beetles. This was an area -which Burl's tribesmen could clearly see was almost devoid of dangerous -life. They seemed to brighten a little. This, they seemed to think, -would be a good place to move to. - -But Burl knew better. There were few ground-insects here because the -area was hunted out. And Burl knew what had done the hunting. - -He expected the others to realize where they were when they dodged -around a clump of the new red puffballs and saw bald rock before them -and a falling-away to emptiness beyond. Even then they could have -retreated, but it did not enter their heads that Burl could do anything -like this. - -They didn't know where they were until Burl held up his hand for silence -almost at the edge of the rock-knob which rose a hundred feet sheer, -curving out a little near its top. They looked out uncomprehendingly at -the mist-filled air and the nightmare landscape fading into its -grayness. A tiny spider, the very youngest of hatchlings and barely four -inches across, stealthily stalked another vastly smaller mite. The other -was the many-legged larva of the oil-beetle. The larva itself had been -called--on other planets by other men--the bee-louse. It could easily -hide in the thick furl of a giant bumble-bee. But this one small -creature never practiced that ability. The hatchling spider sprang and -the small midge died. When the spider had grown and, being grown, spun a -web, it would slay great crickets with the same insane ferocity. - -Burl's followers saw first this and then certain three-quarter-inch -strands of dirty silk that came up over the edge of the precipice. As -one man after another realized where he was, he trembled violently. Dor -turned gray. Jon and Jak were paralyzed with horror. They couldn't run. - -Seeing the others even more frightened than himself filled Burl with a -wholly unwarranted courage. When he opened his mouth, they cringed. If -he shouted then at least one, more likely several, of them would die. - -And this was because some forty or fifty feet down the mould-speckled -precipice hung a drab-white object nearly hemispherical, some six feet -in its half-diameter. A number of little semi-circular doors were fixed -about its sides like arches. Though each one seemed to be a doorway, -only one would open. - -The thing had been oddly beautiful at first glance. It was held fast to -the inward-sloping stone by cables, one or two of which stretched down -toward the ground. Others reached up over the precipice-edge to hold it -fast. It was a most unusual engineering feat, yet something more than -that: this was also an ogre's castle. Ghastly trophies were fastened to -the outer walls and hung by silken cords below it. Here was the hind-leg -of one of the smaller beetles, there the wing-case of a flying creature. -Here a snail-shell--the snails of Earth would hardly have recognized -their descendant--and there a boulder weighing forty pounds or more. The -shrunken head-armor of a beetle, the fierce jaws of a cricket, the -pitiful shreds of dozens of creatures--all had once provided meals for -the monster in the castle. And dangling by the longest cord of all was -the shrunken, shriveled body of a long-dead man. - -Burl glared at his tribesmen, clamping his jaws tight lest they chatter. -He knew, as did the others, that any noise would bring the clotho spider -swinging up its anchor-cables to the cliff-top. The men didn't dare -move. But every one of them--and Burl was among the foremost--knew that -inside the half-dome of gruesome relics the monster reposed in luxury -and ease. It had eight furry, attenuated legs and a face that was a mask -of horror. The eyes glittered malevolently above needle-sharp mandibles. -It was a hunting-spider. At any moment it might leave the charnel-house -in which it lived to stalk and pursue prey. - -Burl motioned the others forward. He led one of them to the end of a -cable where it curled up over the edge for an anchorage. He ripped the -end free--and his flesh crawled as he did so. He found a boulder and -knotted the end of the cable about it. In a whisper that imitated a -spider's ferocity, Burl gave the man orders. He plucked a second quaking -tribesman by the arm. With the jerky, uncontrolled movements of a robot, -Dor allowed himself to be led to a second cable. - -Burl commanded in a frenzy. He worked with stiff fingers and a dry -throat, not knowing how he could do this thing. He had formed a plan in -anger which he somehow was carrying out in a panic. Although his -followers were as responsive as dead men, they obeyed him because they -felt like dead men, unable to resist. After all, it was simple enough. -There were boulders at the top of the precipice and silken cables hung -taut over the edge. As Burl fastened a heavy boulder to each cable he -could find, he loosened the silken strand until it hung tight only at -the very edge of the more-than-vertical fall. - -He took his post--and his followers gazed at him with the despairing -eyes of zombies--and made a violent, urgent gesture. One man dumped his -boulder over the precipice's edge. Burl cried out shrilly to the others, -half-mad with his own terror. There was a ripping sound. The other men -dumped their boulders over, fleeing with the movement--the paralysis of -horror relieved by that one bit of exertion. - -Burl could not flee. He panted and gasped, but he had to see. He stared -down the dizzy wall. Boulders ripped and tore their way down the -cliff-wall, pulling the cables loose from the face of the precipice. -They shot out into space and jerked violently at the half-globular nest, -ripping it loose from its anchorage. - -Burl cried out exultantly. And as he cried out the shout became a -bubbling sound; for although the ogre's silken castle did swing clear, -it did not drop the sixty feet to the hard ground below. There was one -cable Burl had missed, hidden by rock-tripe and mould in a depressed -part of the cliff-top. The spider's house was dangling crazily by that -one strand, bobbing erratically to and fro in mid-air. - -And there was a convulsive struggle inside it. One of the arch-doors -opened and the spider emerged. It was doubtless confused, but spiders -simply do not know terror. Their one response to the unusual is -ferocity. There was still one cable leading up the cliff-face--the -thing's normal climbing-rope to its hunting-ground above. The spider -leaped for this single cable. Its legs grasped the cord. It swarmed -upward, poison fangs unsheathed, mandibles clashing in rage. The shaggy -hair of its body seemed to bristle with insane ferocity. The skinny -articulated legs fairly twinkled as it rose. It made slavering noises, -unspeakably horrifying. - -Burl's followers were already in panic-stricken flight. He could hear -them crashing through obstacles as they ran glassy-eyed from the horror -they only imagined, but which Burl could not but encounter. Burl -shivered, his body poised for equally frenzied but quite hopeless -flight. But his first step was blocked. There was a boulder behind him, -standing on end, reaching up to his knee. He could not take the first -step without dodging it. - -It was not the Burl of the terror-filled childhood who acted then. It -was the throw-back, the atavism to a bolder ancestry. While the Burl who -was a product of his environment was able to know only the stunned -sensations of purest panic, the other Burl acted on a sounder basis of -desperation. The emerging normal human seized the upright boulder. He -staggered to the rock-face with it. He dumped it down the line of the -descending cable. - -Humans do have ancestral behavior-patterns built into their nervous -systems. A frightened small child does not flee; it swarms up the -nearest adult to be carried away from danger. At ten a child does not -climb but runs. And there is an age when it is normal for a man to stand -at bay. This last instinct can be conditioned away. In Burl's fellows -and his immediate forbears it had been. But things had happened to Burl -to break that conditioning. - -He flung the pointed boulder down. For the fraction of a second he heard -only the bubbling, gnashing sounds the spider made as it climbed toward -him. Then there was a quite indescribable cushioned impact. After that, -there were seconds in which Burl heard nothing whatever--and then a -noise which could not be described either, but was the impact of the -spider's body on the ground a hundred feet below, together with the -pointed boulder it had fought insanely during all its fall. And the -boulder was on top. The noise was sickening. - -Burl found himself shaking all over. His every muscle was tense and -strained. But the spider did not crawl over the edge of the precipice -and something had hit far below. - -A long minute later he managed to look. - -The nest still dangled at the end of the single cable, festooned with -its gruesome trophies. But Burl saw the spider. It was, of course, -characteristically tenacious of life. Its legs writhed and kicked, but -the body was crushed and mangled. - -As Burl stared down, trying to breathe again, an ant drew near the -shattered creature. It stridulated. Other ants came. They hovered -restlessly at the edge of the death-scene. One loathesome leg did not -quiver. An ant moved in on it. - -The ants began to tear the dead spider apart, carrying its fragments to -their city a mile away. - -Up on the cliff-top Burl got unsteadily to his feet and found that he -could breathe. He was drenched in sweat, but the shock of triumph was as -overwhelming as any of the terrors felt by ancestors on this planet. - -On no other planet in the Galaxy could any human experience such triumph -as Burl felt now because never before had human beings been so -completely subjugated by their environment. On no other planet had such -an environment existed, with humans flung so helplessly upon its mercy. - -Burl had been normal among his fellows when he was as frightened and -furtive as they. Now he had been given shock treatment by fate. He was -very close to normal for a human being newly come to the forgotten -planet, save that he had the detailed information which would enable a -normal man to cope with the nightmare environment. What he lacked now -was the habit. - -But it would be intolerable for him to return to his former state of -mind. - -He walked almost thoughtfully after his fled followers. And he was -still a savage in that he was remarkably matter-of-fact. He paused to -break off a huge piece of the edible golden mushrooms his fellow-men had -noticed on the way up. Lugging it easily, he went back down over the -ground that had looked so astonishingly free of inimical life--which it -was because of the spider that had used it as a hunting-preserve. - -Burl began to see that it was not satisfactory to be one of a tribe of -men who ran away all the time. If one man with a spear or stone could -kill spiders, it was ridiculous for half a dozen men to run away and -leave that one man the job alone. It made the job harder. - -It occurred to Burl that he had killed ants without thinking too much -about it, but nobody else had. Individual ants could be killed. If he -got his followers to kill foot-long ants, they might in time battle the -smaller, two-foot beetles. If they came to dare so much, they might -attack greater creatures and ultimately attempt to resist the real -predators. - -Not clearly but very dimly, the Burl who had been shocked back to the -viewpoint which was normal to the race of men saw that human beings -could be more than the fugitive vermin on which other creatures preyed. -It was not easy to envision, but he found it impossible to imagine -sinking back to his former state. As a practical matter, if he was to -remain as leader his tribesmen would have to change. - -It was a long time before he reached the neighborhood of the -hiding-place of which he had not been told the night before. He sniffed -and listened. Presently he heard faint, murmurous noises. He traced -them, hearing clearly the sound of hushed weeping and excited, timid -chattering. He heard old Tama shrilly bewailing fate and the stupidity -of Burl in getting himself killed. - -He pushed boldly through the toadstool-growth and found his tribe all -gathered together and trembling. They were shaken. They chattered -together--not discussing or planning, but nervously recalling the -terrifying experience they had gone through. - -Burl stepped through the screen of fungi and men gaped at him. Then they -leaped up to flee, thinking he might be pursued. Tet and Dik babbled -shrilly. Burl cuffed them. It was an excellent thing for him to do. No -man had struck another man in Burl's memory. Cuffings were reserved for -children. But Burl cuffed the men who had fled from the cliff-edge. And -because they had not been through Burl's experiences, they took the -cuffings like children. - -He took Jon and Jak by the ear and heaved them out of the hiding-place. -He followed them, and then drove them to where they could see the base -of the cliff from whose top they had tumbled stones--and then run away. -He showed them the carcass of the spider, now being carted away -piecemeal by ants. He told them angrily how it had been killed. - -They looked at him fearfully. - -He was exasperated. He scowled at them. And then he saw them shifting -uneasily. There were clickings. A single, foraging black ant--rather -large, quite sixteen inches long--moved into view. It seemed to be -wandering purposelessly, but was actually seeking carrion to take back -to its fellows. It moved toward the men. They were alive, therefore, it -did not think of them as food--though it could regard them as enemies. - -Burl moved forward and struck with his club. It was butchery. It was -unprecedented. When the creature lay still he commanded one of his typo -for followers to take it up. Inside its armored legs there would be -meat. He mentioned the fact, pungently. Their faces expressed amazed -wonderment. - -There was another clicking. Another solitary ant. Burl handed his club -to Dor, pushing him forward. Dor hesitated. Though he was not afraid of -one wandering ant, he held back uneasily. Burl barked at him. - -Dor struck clumsily and botched the job. Burl had to use his spear to -finish it. But a second bit of prey lay before the men. - -Then, quite suddenly, this completely unprecedented form of foraging -became understandable to Burl's followers. Jak giggled nervously. - -An hour later Burl led them back to the tribe's hiding-place. The others -had been terror-stricken, not knowing where the men had gone. But their -terror changed to mute amazement when the men carried huge quantities of -meat and edible mushroom into the hiding-place. The tribe held what -amounted to a banquet. - -Dik and Tet swaggered under a burden of ant-carcass. This was not, of -course, in any way revolting. Back on Earth, even thousands of years -before, Arabs had eaten locusts cooked in butter and salted. All men had -eaten crabs and other crustaceans, whose feeding habits were similar to -those of ants. If Burl and his tribesmen had thought to be fastidious, -ants on the forgotten planet would still have been considered edible, -since they had not lost the habits of extreme cleanliness which made -them notable on Earth. - -This feast of all the tribe, in which men had brought back not only -mushroom to be eaten, but actual prey--small prey--of their hunting, was -very probably the first such occasion in at least thirty generations of -the forty-odd since the planet's unintended colonization. Like the other -events, which began with Burl trying to spear a fish with a -rhinoceros-beetle's horn, it was not only novel, on that world, but -would in time have almost incredibly far-reaching consequences. Perhaps -the most significant thing about it was its timing. It came at very -nearly the latest instant at which it could have done any good. - -There was a reason which nobody in the tribe would ever remember to -associate with the significance of this banquet. A long time -before--months in terms of Earth-time--there had been a strong breeze -that blew for three days and nights. It was an extremely unusual -windstorm. It had seemed the stranger, then, because during all its -duration everyone in the tribe had been sick, suffering continuously. -When the windstorm had ended, the suffering ceased. A long time passed -and nobody remembered it any longer. - -There was no reason why they should. Yet, since that time there had been -a new kind of thing growing among the innumerable moulds and rusts and -toadstools of the lowlands. Burl had seen them on his travels, and the -expeditionary force against the clotho spider had seen them on the -journey up to the cliff-edge. Red puffballs, developing first -underground, were now pushing the soil aside to expose taut, crimson -parchment spheres to the open air. The tribesmen left them alone because -they were strange; and strange things were always dangerous. Puffballs -they were familiar with--big, misshapen things which shot at a touch a -powder into the air. The particles of powder were spores--the seed from -which they grew. Spores had remained infinitely small even on the -forgotten planet where fungi grew huge. Only their capacity for growth -had increased. The red growths were puffballs, but of a new and -different kind. - -As the tribe ate and admired, the hunters boasting of their courage, one -of the new red mushrooms reached maturity. - -This particular growing thing was perhaps two feet across, its main part -spherical. Almost eighteen inches of the thing rose above-ground. A -tawny and menacing red, the sphere was contained in a parchment-like -skin that was pulled taut. There was internal tension. But the skin was -tough and would not yield, yet the inexorable pressure of life within -demanded that it stretch. It was growing within, but the skin without -had ceased to grow. - -This one happened to be on a low hillside a good half-mile from the -place where Burl and his fellows banqueted. Its tough, red parchment -skin was tensed unendurably. Suddenly it ripped apart with an explosive -tearing noise. The dry spores within billowed out and up like the smoke -of a shell-explosion, spurting skyward for twenty feet and more. At the -top of their ascent they spread out and eddied like a cloud of reddish -smoke. They hung in the air. They drifted in the sluggish breeze. They -spread as they floated, forming a gradually extending, descending -dust-cloud in the humid air. - -A bee, flying back toward its hive, droned into the thin mass of dust. -It was preoccupied. The dust-cloud was not opaque, but only a thick -haze. The bee flew into it. - -For half a dozen wing-beats nothing happened. Then the bee veered -sharply. Its deep-toned humming rose in pitch. It made convulsive -movements in mid-air. It lost balance and crashed heavily to the ground. -There its legs kicked and heaved violently but without purpose. The -wings beat furiously but without rhythm or effect. Its body bent in -paroxysmic flexings. It stung blindly at nothing. - -After a little while the bee died. Like all insects, bees breathe -through spiracles--breathing-holes in their abdomens. This bee had flown -into the cloud of red dust which was the spore-cloud of the new -mushrooms. - -The cloud drifted slowly along over the surface of yeasts and moulds, -over toadstools and variegated fungus monstrosities. It moved steadily -over a group of ants at work upon some bit of edible stuff. They were -seized with an affliction like that of the bee. They writhed, moved -convulsively. Their legs thrashed about. They died. - -The cloud of red dust settled as it moved. By the time it had travelled -a quarter-mile, it had almost all settled to the ground. - -But a half-mile away there was another skyward-spurting uprush of red -dust which spread slowly with the breeze. A quarter-mile away another -plumed into the air. Farther on, two of them spouted their spores toward -the clouds almost together. - -Living things that breathed the red dust writhed and died. And the -red-dust puffballs were scattered everywhere. - -Burl and his tribesmen feasted, chattering in hushed tones of the -remarkable fact that men ate meat of their own killing. - - - - -_6. RED DUST_ - - -It was very fortunate indeed that the feast took place when it did. Two -days later it would probably have been impossible, and three days later -it would have been too late to do any good. But coming when it did, it -made the difference which was all the difference in the world. - -Only thirty hours after the feasting which followed the death of the -clotho spider, Burl's fellows--from Jon to Dor to Tet and Dik and -Saya--had come to know a numb despair which the other creatures of his -world were simply a bit too stupid to achieve. - -It was night. There was darkness over all the lowlands, and over all the -area of perhaps a hundred square miles which the humans of Burl's -acquaintance really knew. He, alone of his tribe, had been as much as -forty miles from the foraging-ground over which they wandered. At any -given time the tribe clung together for comfort, venturing only as far -as was necessary to find food. Although the planet possessed continents, -they knew less than a good-sized county of it. The planet owned oceans, -and they knew only small brooks and one river which, where they knew it, -was assuredly less than two hundred yards across. And they faced stark -disaster that was not strictly a local one, but beyond their experience -and hopelessly beyond their ability to face. - -They were superior to the insects about them only in the fact they -realized what was threatening them. - -The disaster was the red puffballs. - -But it was night. The soft, blanketing darkness of a cloud-wrapped world -lay all about. Burl sat awake, wrapped in his magnificent velvet cloak, -his spear beside him and the yard-long golden plumes of a moth's -antennae bound to his forehead for a headdress. About him and his -tribesmen were the swollen shapes of fungi, hiding the few things that -could be seen in darkness. From the low-hanging clouds the nightly rain -dripped down. Now a drop and then another drop; slowly, deliberately, -persistently moisture fell from the skies. - -There was other sounds. Things flew through the blackness -overhead--moths with mighty wing-beats that sometimes sent rhythmic -wind-stirrings down to the tribe in its hiding-place. There were the -deep pulsations of sound made by night-beetles aloft. There were the -harsh noises of grasshoppers--they were rare--senselessly advertising -their existence to nearby predators. Not too far from where Burl brooded -came bright chirrupings where relatively small beetles roamed among the -mushroom-forests, singing cheerfully in deep bass voices. They were -searching for the underground tidbits which took the place of truffles -their ancestors had lived on back on Earth. - -All seemed to be as it had been since the first humans were cast away -upon this planet. And at night, indeed, the new danger subsided. The red -puffballs did not burst after sunset. Burl sat awake, brooding in a new -sort of frustration. He and all his tribe were plainly doomed--yet Burl -had experienced too many satisfying sensations lately to be willing to -accept the fact. - -The new red growths were everywhere. Months ago a storm-wind blew while -somewhere, not too far distant, other red puffballs were bursting and -sending their spores into the air. Since it was only a windstorm, there -was no rain to wash the air clean of the lethal dust. The new kind of -puffball--but perhaps it was not new: it could have thriven for -thousands of years where it was first thrown as a sport from a -genetically unstable parent--the new kind of puffball would not normally -be spread in this fashion. By chance it had. - -There were dozens of the things within a quarter-mile, hundreds within a -mile, and thousands upon thousands within the area the tribe normally -foraged in. Burl had seen them even forty miles away, as yet immature. -They would be deadly at one period alone--the time of their bursting. -But there were limitations even to the deadliness of the red puffballs, -though Burl had not yet discovered the fact. But as of now, they doomed -the tribe. - -One woman panted and moaned in her exhausted sleep, a little way from -where Burl tried to solve the problem presented by the tribe. Nobody -else attempted to think it out. The others accepted doom with fatalistic -hopelessness. Burl's leadership might mean extra food, but nothing could -counter the doom awaiting them--so their thoughts seemed to run. - -But Burl doggedly reviewed the facts in the darkness, while the humans -about him slept the sleep of those without hope and even without -rebellion. There had been many burstings of the crimson puffballs. As -many as four and five of the deadly dust-clouds had been seen spouting -into the air at the same time. A small boy of the tribe had breathlessly -told of seeing a hunting-spider killed by the red dust. Lana, the -half-grown girl, had come upon one of the gigantic rhinoceros-beetles -belly-up on the ground, already the prey of ants. She had snatched a -huge, meat-filled joint and run away, faster than the ants could follow. -A far-ranging man had seen a butterfly, with wings ten yards across, die -in a dust-cloud. Another woman--Cori--had been nearby when a red cloud -settled slowly over long, solid lines of black worker-ants bound on some -unknown mission. Later she saw other workers carrying the dead bodies -back to the ant-city to be used for food. - -Burl still sat wakeful and frustrated and enraged as the slow rain fell -upon the toadstools that formed the tribe's lurking-place. He doggedly -went over and over the problem. There were innumerable red puffballs. -Some had burst. The others undoubtedly would burst. Anything that -breathed the red dust died. With thousands of the puffballs around them -it was unthinkable that any human in this place could escape breathing -the red dust and dying. But it had not always been so. There had been a -time when there were no red puffballs here. - -Burl's eyes moved restlessly over the sleeping forms limned by a patch -of fox-fire. The feathery plumes rising from his head were outlined -softly by the phosphorescence. His face was lined with a frown as he -tried to think his own and his fellows' way out of the predicament. -Without realizing it, Burl had taken it upon himself to think for his -tribe. He had no reason to. It was simply a natural thing for him to do -so, now that he had learned to think--even though his efforts were crude -and painful as yet. - -Saya woke with a start and stared about. There had been no -alarm,--merely the usual noises of distant murders and the songs of -singers in the night. Burl moved restlessly. Saya stood up quietly, her -long hair flowing about her. Sleepy-eyed, she moved to be near Burl. She -sank to the ground beside him, sitting up--because the hiding-place was -crowded and small--and dozed fitfully. Presently her head drooped to one -side. It rested against his shoulder. She slept again. - -This simple act may have been the catalyst which gave Burl the solution -to the problem. Some few days before, Burl had been in a far-away place -where there was much food. At the time he'd thought vaguely of finding -Saya and bringing her to that place. He remembered now that the red -puffballs flourished there as well as here--but there had been other -dangers in between, so the only half-formed purpose had been abandoned. -Now, though, with Saya's head resting against his shoulder, he -remembered the plan. And then the stroke of genius took place. - -He formed the idea of a journey which was not a going-after-food. This -present dwelling-place of the tribe had been free of red puffballs until -only recently. There must be other places where there were no red -puffballs. He would take Saya and his tribesmen to such a place. - -It was really genius. The people of Burl's tribe had no purposes, only -needs--for food and the like. Burl had achieved abstract thought--which -previously had not been useful on the forgotten planet and, therefore, -not practised. But it was time for humankind to take a more fitting -place in the unbalanced ecological system of this nightmare world, time -to change that unbalance in favor of humans. - -When dawn came, Burl had not slept at all. He was all authority and -decision. He had made plans. - -He spoke sternly, loudly--which frightened people conditioned to be -furtive--holding up his spear as he issued commands. His timid -tribesfolk obeyed him meekly. They felt no loyalty to him or confidence -in his decisions yet, but they were beginning to associate obedience to -him with good things. Food, for one. - -Before the day fully came, they made loads of the remaining edible -mushroom and uneaten meat. It was remarkable for humans to leave their -hiding-place while they still had food to eat, but Burl was implacable -and scowling. Three men bore spears at Burl's urging. He brandished his -long shaft confidently as he persuaded the other three to carry clubs. -They did so reluctantly, even though previously they had killed ants -with clubs. Spears, they felt, would have been better. They wouldn't be -so close to the prey then. - -The sky became gray over all its expanse. The indefinite bright area -which marked the position of the sun became established. It was part-way -toward the center of the sky when the journey began. Burl had, of -course, no determined course, only a destination--safety. He had been -carried south, in his misadventure on the river. There were red -puffballs to southward, therefore he ruled out that direction. He could -have chosen the east and come upon an ocean, but no safety from the red -spore-dust. Or he could have chosen the north. It was pure chance that -he headed west. - -He walked confidently through the gruesome world of the lowlands, -holding his spear in a semblance of readiness. Clad as he was, he made a -figure at once valiant and rather pathetic. It was not too sensible for -one young man--even one who had killed two spiders--to essay leading a -tiny tribe of fearful folk across a land of monstrous ferocity and -incredible malignance, armed only with a spear from a dead insect's -armor. It was absurd to dress up for the enterprise in a velvety cloak -made of a moth's wing, blue moth-fur for a loin-cloth, and merely -beautiful golden plumes bobbing above his forehead. - -Probably, though, that gorgeousness had a good effect upon his -followers. They surely could not reassure each other by their numbers! -There was a woman with a baby in her arms--Cori. Three children of nine -or ten, unable to resist the instinct to play even on so perilous a -journey, ate almost constantly of the lumps of foodstuff they had been -ordered to carry. After them came Dik, a long-legged adolescent boy with -eyes that roved anxiously about. Behind him were two men. Dor with a -short spear and Jak hefting a club, both of them badly frightened at the -idea of fleeing from dangers they knew and were terrified by, to other -dangers unknown and, consequently, more to be feared. The others trailed -after them. Tet was rear-guard. Burl had separated the pair of boys to -make them useful. Together they were worthless. - -It was a pathetic caravan, in a way. In all the rest of the Galaxy, man -was the dominant creature. There was no other planet from one rim to the -other where men did not build their cities or settlements with -unconscious arrogance--completely disregarding the wishes of lesser -things. Only on this planet did men hide from danger rather than destroy -it. Only here could men be driven from their place by lower life-forms. -And only here would a migration be made on foot, with men's eyes -fearful, their bodies poised to flee at sight of something stronger and -more deadly than themselves. - -They marched, straggling a little, with many waverings aside from a -fixed line. Once Dik saw the trap-door of a trapdoor-spider's lair. They -halted, trembling, and went a long way out of their intended path to -avoid it. Once they saw a great praying-mantis a good half-mile off, and -again they deviated from their proper route. - -Near midday their way was blocked. As they moved onward, a great, -high-pitched sound could be heard ahead of them. Burl stopped; his face -grew pinched. But it was only a stridulation, not the cries of creatures -being devoured. It was a horde of ants by the thousands and hundreds of -thousands, and nothing else. - -Burl went ahead to scout. And he did it because he did not trust anybody -else to have the courage or intelligence to return with a report, -instead of simply running away if the news were bad. But it happened to -be a sort of action which would help to establish his position as leader -of his tribe. - -Burl moved forward cautiously and presently came to an elevation from -which he could see the cause of the tremendous waves of sound that -spread out in all directions from the level plain before him. He waved -to his followers to join him, and stood looking down at the -extraordinary sight. - -When they reached his side--and Saya was first--the spectacle had not -diminished. For quite half a mile in either direction the earth was -black with ants. It was a battle of opposing armies from rival -ant-cities. They snapped and bit at each other. Locked in vise-like -embraces, they rolled over and over upon the ground, trampled underfoot -by hordes of their fellows who surged over them to engage in equally -suicidal combat. There was, of course, no thought of surrender or of -quarter. They fought by thousands of pairs, their jaws seeking to crush -each other's armor, snapping at each other's antennae, biting at each -other's eyes.... - -The noise was not like that of army-ants. This was the agonizing sound -of ants being dismembered while still alive. Some of the creatures had -only one or two or three legs left, yet struggled fiercely to entangle -another enemy before they died. There were mad cripples, fighting -insanely with head and thorax only, their abdomens sheared away. The -whining battle-cry of the multitude made a deafening uproar. - -From either side of the battleground a wide path led back toward -separate ant-cities which were invisible from Burl's position. These -highways were marked by hurrying groups of ants--reinforcements rushing -to the fight. Compared to the other creatures of this world the ants -were small, but no lumbering beetle dared to march insolently in their -way, nor did any carnivores try to prey upon them. They were dangerous. -Burl and his tribesfolk were the only living things remaining near the -battle-field--with one single exception. - -That exception was itself a tribe of ants, vastly less in number than -the fighting creatures, and greatly smaller in size as well. Where the -combatants were from a foot to fourteen inches long, these guerilla-ants -were no more than the third of a foot in length. They hovered -industriously at the edge of the fighting, not as allies to either -nation, but strictly on their own account. Scurrying among the larger, -fighting ants with marvelous agility, they carried off piecemeal the -bodies of the dead and valiantly slew the more gravely wounded for the -same purpose. - -They swarmed over the fighting-ground whenever the tide of battle -receded. Caring nothing for the origin of the quarrel and espousing -neither side, these opportunists busily salvaged the dead and -still-living debris of the battle for their own purposes. - -Burl and his followers were forced to make a two-mile detour to avoid -the battle. The passage between bodies of scurrying reinforcements was a -matter of some difficulty. Burl hurried the others past a route to the -front, reeking of formic acid, over which endless regiments and -companies of ants moved frantically to join in the fight. They were -intensely excited. Antennae waving wildly, they rushed to the front and -instantly flung themselves into the fray, becoming lost and -indistinguishable in the black mass of fighting creatures. - -The humans passed precariously between two hurrying battalions--Dik and -Tet pausing briefly to burden themselves with prey--and hurried on to -leave as many miles as possible behind them before nightfall. They never -knew any more about the battle. It could have started over anything at -all--two ants from the different cities may have disputed some tiny bit -of carrion and soon been reinforced by companions until the military -might of both cities was engaged. Once it had started, of course, the -fighters knew whom to fight if not why they did so. The inhabitants of -the two cities had different smells, which served them as uniforms. - -But the outcome of the war would hardly matter. Not to the fighters, -certainly. There were many red mushrooms in this area. If either of the -cities survived at all, it would be because its nursery-workers lived -upon stored food as they tended the grubs until the time of the spouting -red dust had ended. - -Burl's folk saw many of the red puffballs burst during the day. More -than once they came upon empty, flaccid parchment sacs. More often still -they came upon red puffballs not yet quite ready to emit their murderous -seed. - -That first night the tribe hid among the bases of giant puffballs of a -more familiar sort. When touched they would shoot out a puff of white -powder resembling smoke. The powder was harmless fortunately and the -tribe knew that fact. Although not toxic, the white powder was identical -in every other way to the terrible red dust from which the tribe fled. - -That night Burl slept soundly. He had been without rest for two days and -a night. And he was experienced in journeying to remote places. He knew -that they were no more dangerous than familiar ones. But the rest of the -tribe, and even Saya, were fearful and terrified. They waited timorously -all through the dark hours for menacing sounds to crash suddenly through -the steady dripping of the nightly rain around them. - -The second day's journey was not unlike the first. The following day, -they came upon a full ten-acre patch of giant cabbages bigger than a -family dwelling. Something in the soil, perhaps, favored vegetation over -fungi. The dozens of monstrous vegetables were the setting for riotous -life: great slugs ate endlessly of the huge green leaves--and things -preyed on them; bees came droning to gather the pollen of the flowers. -And other things came to prey on the predators in their turn. - -There was one great cabbage somewhat separate from the rest. After a -long examination of the scene, Burl daringly led quaking Jon and Jak to -the attack. Dor splendidly attacked elsewhere, alone. When the tribe -moved on, there was much meat, and everyone--even the children--wore -loin-cloths of incredibly luxurious fur. - -There were perils, too. On the fifth day of the tribe's journey Burl -suddenly froze into stillness. One of the hairy tarantulas which lived -in burrows with a concealed trap-door at ground-level, had fallen upon a -scarabeus beetle and was devouring it only a hundred yards ahead. The -tribesfolk trembled as Burl led them silently back and around by a safe -detour. - -But all these experiences were beginning to have an effect. It was -becoming a matter of course that Burl should give orders which others -should obey. It was even becoming matter-of-fact that the possession of -food was not a beautiful excuse to hide from all danger, eating and -dozing until all the food was gone. Very gradually the tribe was -developing the notion that the purpose of existence was not solely to -escape awareness of peril, but to foresee and avoid it. They had no -clear-cut notion of purpose as yet. They were simply outgrowing -purposelessness. After a time they even looked about them with, dim -stirrings of an attitude other than a desperate alertness for danger. - -Humans from any other planet, surely, would have been astounded at the -vistas of golden mushrooms stretching out in forests on either hand and -the plains with flaking surfaces given every imaginable color by the -moulds and rusts and tiny flowering yeasts growing upon them. They would -have been amazed by the turgid pools the journeying tribe came upon, -where the water was concealed by a thick layer of slime through which -enormous bubbles of foul-smelling gas rose to enlarge to preposterous -size before bursting abruptly. - -Had they been as ill-armed as Burl's folk, though, visitors from other -planets would have been at least as timorous. Lacking highly specialized -knowledge of the ways of insects on this world even well-armed visitors -would have been in greater danger. - -But the tribe went on without a single casualty. They had fleeting -glimpses of the white spokes of symmetrical spider-webs whose least -thread no member of the tribe could break. - -Their immunity from disaster--though in the midst of danger--gave them a -certain all-too-human concentration upon discomfort. Lacking calamities, -they noticed their discomforts and grew weary of continual traveling. A -few of the men complained to Burl. - -For answer, he pointed back along the way they had come. To the right a -reddish dust-cloud was just settling, and to the rear rose another as -they looked. - -And on this day a thing happened which at once gave the complainers the -rest they asked for, and proved the fatality of remaining where they -were. A child ran aside from the path its elders were following. The -ground here had taken on a brownish hue. As the child stirred up the -surface mould with his feet, dust that had settled was raised up again. -It was far too thin to have any visible color. But the child suddenly -screamed, strangling. The mother ran frantically to snatch him up. - -The red dust was no less deadly merely because it had settled to the -ground. If a storm-wind came now--but they were infrequent under the -forgotten planet's heavy bank of clouds--the fallen red dust could be -raised up again and scattered about until there would be no living thing -anywhere which would not gasp and writhe--and die. - -But the child would not die. He would suffer terribly and be weak for -days. In the morning he could be carried. - -When night began to darken the sky, the tribe searched for a -hiding-place. They came upon a shelf-like cliff, perhaps twenty or -thirty feet high, slanting toward the line of the tribesmen's travel. -Burl saw black spots in it--openings. Burrows. He watched them as the -tribe drew near. No bees or wasps went in or out. He watched long enough -to be sure. - -When they were close, he was certain. Ordering the others to wait, he -went forward to make doubly sure. The appearance of the holes reassured -him. Dug months before by mining-bees, gone or dead now, the entrances -to the burrows were weathered and bedraggled. Burl explored, first -sniffing carefully at each opening. They were empty. This would be -shelter for the night. He called his followers, and they crawled into -the three-foot tunnels to hide. - -Burl stationed himself near the outer edge of one of them to watch for -signs of danger. Night had not quite fallen. Jon and Dor, hungry, went -off to forage a little way beyond the cliff. They would be cautious and -timid, taking no risks whatever. - -Burl waited for the return of his explorers. Meanwhile he fretted over -the meaning of the stricken child. Stirred-up red dust was dangerous. -The only time when there would be no peril from it would be at night, -when the dripping rainfall of the dark hours turned the surface of this -world into thin shine. It occurred to Burl that it would be safe to -travel at night, so far as the red dust was concerned. He rejected the -idea instantly. It was unthinkable to travel at night for innumerable -other reasons. - -Frowning, he poked his spear idly at a tumbled mass of tiny parchment -cup-like things near the entrance of a cave. And instantly movement -became visible. Fifty, sixty, a hundred infinitesimal creatures, no more -than half an inch in length, made haste to hide themselves among the -thimble-sized paperlike cups. They moved with extraordinary clumsiness -and immense effort, seemingly only by contortions of their -greenish-black bodies. Burl had never seen any creature progress in such -a slow and ineffective fashion. He drew one of the small creatures back -with the point of his spear and examined it from a safe distance. - -He picked it up on his spear and brought it close to his eyes. The thing -redoubled its frenzied movements. It slipped off the spear and plopped -upon the soft moth-fur he wore about his middle. Instantly, as if it -were a conjuring-trick, the insect vanished. Burl searched for minutes -before he found it hidden deep in the long, soft hairs of his garment, -resting motionless and seemingly at ease. - -It was the larval form of a beetle, fragments of whose armor could be -seen near the base of the clayey cliffside. Hidden in the remnants of -its egg-casings, the brood of minute things had waited near the opening -of the mining-bee tunnel. It was their gamble with destiny when -mining-bee grubs had slept through metamorphosis and come uncertainly -out of the tunnel for the first time, that some or many of the larvae -might snatch the instant's chance to fasten to the bees' legs and writhe -upward to an anchorage in their fur. It happened that this particular -batch of eggs had been laid after the emergence of the grubs. They had -no possible chance of fulfilling their intended role as parasites on -insects of the order hymenoptera. They were simply and matter-of-factly -doomed by the blindness of instinct, which had caused them to be placed -where they could not possibly survive. - -On the other hand, if one or many of them had found a lurking-place, the -offspring of their host would have been doomed. The place filled by -oil-beetle larvae in the scheme of things is the place--or one of the -places--reserved for creatures that limit the number of mining-bees. -When a bee-louse-infested mining-bee has made a new tunnel, stocked it -with honey for its young, and then laid one egg to float on that pool of -nourishment and hatch and feed and ultimately grow to be another -mining-bee--at that moment of egg-laying, one small bee-louse detaches -itself. It remains zestfully in the provisioned cell to devour the egg -for which the provisions were accumulated. It happily consumes those -provisions and, in time, an oil-beetle crawls out of the tunnel a -mining-bee so laboriously prepared. - -Burl had no difficulty in detaching the small insect and casting it -away, but in doing so he discovered that others had hidden themselves in -his fur without his knowledge. He plucked them away and found more. -While savages can be highly tolerant of vermin too small to be seen, -they feel a peculiar revolt against serving as host to creatures of -sensible size. Burl reacted violently--as once he had reacted to the -discovery of a leech clinging to his heel. He jerked off his loin-cloth -and beat it savagely with his spear. - -When it was clean, he still felt a wholly unreasonable sense of -humiliation. It was not clearly thought out, of course. Burl feared huge -insects too much to hate them. But that small creatures should fasten -upon him produced a completely irrational feeling of outrage. For the -first time in very many years or centuries a human being upon the -forgotten planet felt that he had been insulted. His dignity had been -assailed. Burl raged. - -But as he raged, a triumphant shout came from nearby. Jon and Dor were -returning from their foraging, loaded down with edible mushroom. They, -also, had taken a step upward toward the natural dignity of men. They -had so far forgotten their terror as to shout in exultation at their -find of food. Up to now, Burl had been the only man daring to shout. Now -there were two others. - -In his overwrought state this was also enraging. The result of hurt -vanity on two counts was jealousy, and the result of jealousy was a -crazy foolhardiness. Burl ground his teeth and insanely resolved to do -something so magnificent, so tremendous, so utterly breathtaking that -there could be no possible imitation by anybody else. His thinking was -not especially clear. Part of his motivation had been provided by the -oil-beetle larvae. He glared about him at the deepening dusk, seeking -some exploit, some glamorous feat, to perform immediately, even in the -night. - -He found one. - - - - -_7. JOURNEY THROUGH DEATH_ - - -It was late dusk and the reddened clouds overhead were deepening -steadily toward black. Dark shadows hung everywhere. The clay cliff cut -off all vision to one side, but elsewhere Burl could see outward until -the graying haze blotted out the horizon. Here and there, bees droned -homeward to hive or burrow. Sometimes a slender, graceful wasp passed -overhead, its wings invisible by the swiftness of their vibration. - -A few butterflies lingered hungrily in the distance, seeking the few -things they could still feast upon. No moth had wakened yet to the -night. The cloud-bank grew more sombre. The haze seemed to close in and -shrink the world that Burl could see. - -He watched, raging, for the sight that would provide him with the -triumph to end all triumphs among his followers. The soft, down-reaching -fingers of the night touched here and there and the day ended at those -spots. Then, from the heart of the deep redness to the west a flying -creature came. It was a beautiful thing--a yellow emperor -butterfly--flapping eastward with great sail-like velvet wings that -seemed black against the sunset. Burl saw it sweep across the incredible -sky, alight delicately, and disappear behind a mass of toadstools -clustered so thickly they seemed nearly a hillock and not a mass of -growing things. - -Then darkness closed in completely, but Burl still stared where the -yellow emperor had landed. There was that temporary, utter quiet when -day-things were hidden and night-things had not yet ventured out. -Fox-fire glowed. Patches of pale phosphorescence--luminous -mushrooms--shone faintly in the dark. - -Presently Burl moved through the night. He could imagine the yellow -emperor in its hiding-place, delicately preening slender limbs before it -settled down to rest until the new day dawned. He had noted landmarks, -to guide himself. A week earlier and his blood would have run cold at -the bare thought of doing what he did now. In mere cool-headed -detachment he would have known that what he did was close to madness. -But he was neither cool-headed nor detached. - -He crossed the clear ground before the low cliff. But for the fox-fire -beacons he would have been lost instantly. The slow drippings of rain -began. The sky was dead black. Now was the time for night-things to fly, -and male tarantulas to go seeking mates and prey. It was definitely no -time for adventuring. - -Burl moved on. He found the close-packed toadstools by the process of -running into them in the total obscurity. He fumbled, trying to force -his way between them. It could not be done; they grew too close and too -low. He raged at this impediment. He climbed. - -This was insanity. Burl stood on spongy mushroom-stuff that quivered and -yielded under his weight. Somewhere something boomed upward, rising on -fast-beating wings into blackness. He heard the pulsing drone of -four-inch mosquitos close by. He moved forward, the fungus support -swaying, so that he did not so much walk as stagger over the -close-packed mushroom heads. He groped before him with spear and panted -a little. There was a part of him which was bitterly afraid, but he -raged the more furiously because if once he gave way even to caution, it -would turn to panic. - -Burl would have made a strange spectacle in daylight gaudily clothed as -he was in soft blue fur and velvet cloak, staggering over swaying -insecurity, coddling ferocity in himself against the threat of fear. - -Then his spear told him there was emptiness ahead. Something moved, -below. He heard and felt it stirring the toadstool-stalks on which he -stood. - -Burl raised his spear, grasping it in both hands. He plunged down with -it, stabbing fiercely. - -The spear struck something vastly more resistant than any mushroom could -be. It penetrated. Then the stabbed thing moved as Burl landed upon it, -flinging him off his feet, but he clung to the firmly imbedded weapon. -And if his mouth had opened for a yell of victory as he plunged down, -the nature of the surface on which he found himself, and the kind of -movement he felt, turned that yell into a gasp of horror. - -It wasn't the furry body of a butterfly he had landed on; his spear -hadn't pierced such a creature's soft flesh. He had leaped upon the -broad, hard back of a huge, meat-eating, nocturnal beetle. His spear had -pierced not the armor, but the leathery joint-tissue between head and -thorax. - -The giant creature rocketed upward with Burl clinging to his spear. He -held fast with an agonized strength. His mount rose from the blackness -of the ground into the many times more terrifying blackness of the air. -It rose up and up. If Burl could have screamed, he would have done so, -but he could not cry out. He could only hold fast, glassy-eyed. - -Then he dropped. Wind roared past him. The great insect was clumsy at -flying. All beetles are. Burl's weight and the pain it felt made its -flying clumsier still. There was a semi-liquid crashing and an impact. -Burl was torn loose and hurled away. He crashed into the spongy top of a -mushroom and came to rest with his naked shoulder hanging halfway over -some invisible drop. He struggled. - -He heard the whining drone of his attempted prey. It rocketed aloft -again. But there was something wrong with it. With his weight applied to -the spear as he was torn free, Burl had twisted the weapon in the wound. -It had driven deeper, multiplying the damage of the first stab. - -The beetle crashed to earth again, nearby. As Burl struggled again, the -mushroom-stalk split and let him gently to the ground. - -He heard the flounderings of the great beetle in the darkness. It -mounted skyward once more, its wing-beats no longer making a sustained -note. It thrashed the air irregularly and wildly. - -Then it crashed again. - -There was seeming silence, save for the steady drip-drip of the rain. -And Burl came out of his half-mad fear: he suddenly realized that he -had slain a victim even more magnificent than a spider, because this -creature was meat. - -He found himself astonishedly running toward the spot where the beetle -had last fallen. - -But he heard it struggle aloft once more. It was wounded to death. Burl -felt certain of it this time. It floundered in mid-air and crashed -again. - -He was within yards of it before he checked himself. Now he was -weaponless, and the gigantic insect flung itself about madly on the -ground, striking out with colossal wings and limbs, fighting it knew not -what. It struggled to fly, crashed, and fought its way off the -ground--ever more weakly--then smashed again into mushrooms. There it -floundered horribly in the darkness. - -Burl drew near and waited. It was still, but pain again drove it to a -senseless spasm of activity. - -Then it struck against something. There was a ripping noise and -instantly the close, peppery, burning smell of the red dust was in the -air. The beetle had floundered into one of the close-packed red -puffballs, tightly filled with the deadly red spores. The red dust would -not normally have been released at night. With the nightly rain, it -would not travel so far or spread so widely. - -Burl fled, panting. - -Behind him he heard his victim rise one last time, spurred to -impossible, final struggle by the anguish caused by the breathed-in red -dust. It rose clumsily into the darkness in its death-throes and crashed -to the ground again for the last time. - -In time to come, Burl and his followers might learn to use the red-dust -puffballs as weapons--but not how to spread them beyond their normal -range. But now, Burl was frightened. He moved hastily sidewise. The dust -would travel down-wind. He got out of its possible path. - -There could be no exultation where the red dust was. Burl suddenly -realized what had happened to him. He had been carried aloft an unknown -though not-great distance, in an unknown direction. He was separated -from his tribe, with no faintest idea how to find them in the darkness. -And it was night. - -He crouched under the nearest huge toadstool and waited for the dawn, -listening dry-throated for the sound of death coming toward him through -the night. - -But only the wind-beats of night-fliers came to his ears, and the -discordant notes of gray-bellied truffle-beetles as they roamed the -mushroom thickets, seeking the places beneath which--so their adapted -instincts told them--fungoid dainties, not too much unlike the truffles -of Earth, awaited the industrious miner. And, of course, there was that -eternal, monotonous dripping of the raindrops, falling at irregular -intervals from the sky. - -Red puffballs did not burst at night. They would not burst anyhow, -except at one certain season of their growth. But Burl and his folk had -so far encountered the over-hasty ones, bursting earlier than most. The -time of ripeness was very nearly here, though. When day came again, and -the chill dampness of the night was succeeded by the warmth of the -morning, almost the first thing Burl saw in the gray light was a tall -spouting of brownish-red stuff leaping abruptly into the air from a -burst red parchment-like sphere. - -He stood up and looked anxiously all around. Here and there, all over -the landscape, slowly and at intervals, the plumes of fatal red sprang -into the air. There was nothing quite like it anywhere else. An ancient -man, inhabiting Earth, might have likened the appearance to that of a -scattered and leisurely bombardment. But Burl had no analogy for them. - -He saw something hardly a hundred yards from where he had hidden during -the night. The dead beetle lay there, crumpled and limp. Burl eyed it -speculatively. Then he saw something that filled him with elation. The -last crash of the beetle to the ground had driven his spear deeply -between the joints of the corselet and neck. Even if the red dust had -not finished the creature, the spear-point would have ended its life. - -He was thrilled once more by his superlative greatness. He made due note -that he was a mighty slayer. He took the antennae as proof of his valor -and hacked off a great barb-edged leg for meat. And then he remembered -that he did not know how to find his fellow-tribesmen. He had no idea -which way to go. - -Even a civilized man would have been at a loss, though he would have -hunted for an elevation from which to look for the cliff hiding-place of -the tribe. But Burl had not yet progressed so far. His wild ride of the -night before had been at random, and the chase after the wounded beetle -no less dictated by chance. There was no answer. - -He set off anxiously, searching everywhere. But he had to be alert for -all the dangers of an inimical world while keeping, at the same time, an -extremely sharp eye out for bursting red puffballs. - -At the end of an hour he thought he saw familiar things. Then he -recognized the spot. He had come back to the dead beetle. It was already -the center of a mass of small black bodies which pulled and hacked at -the tough armor, gnawing out great lumps of flesh to be carried to the -nearest ant-city. - -Burl set off again, very carefully avoiding any place that he recognized -as having been seen that morning. Sometimes he walked through -mushroom-thickets--dangerous places to be in--and sometimes over -relatively clear ground colored exotically with varicolored fungi. More -than once he saw the clouds of red stuff spurting in the distance. Deep -anxiety filled him. He had no idea that there were such things as points -of the compass. He knew only that he needed desperately to find his -tribesfolk again. - -They, of course, had given him up for dead. He had vanished in the -night. Old Tama complained of him shrilly. The night, to them, meant -death. Jon quaked watchfully all through it. When Burl did not come to -the feast of mushroom that Jon and Dor had brought back, they sought -him. They even called timidly into the darkness. They heard the -throbbing of huge wings as a great creature rose desperately into the -sky, but they did not associate that sound with Burl. If they had, they -would have been instantly certain of his fate. - -As it was, the tribe's uneasiness grew into terror which rapidly turned -to despair. They began to tremble, wondering what they would do with no -bold chieftain to guide them. He was the first man to command allegiance -from others in much too long a period, on the forgotten planet, but the -submission of his followers had been the more complete for its novelty. -His loss was the more appalling. Burl had mistaken the triumphant shout -of the foragers. He'd thought it independence of him--rivalry. Actually, -the men dared to shout only because they felt secure under his -leadership. When they accepted the fact that he had vanished--and to -disappear in the night had always meant death--their old fears and -timidity returned. To them it was added despair. - -They huddled together and whispered to one another of their fright. They -waited in trembling silence through all the long night. Had a -hunting-spider appeared, they would have fled in as many directions as -there were people, and undoubtedly all would have perished. But day came -again, and they looked into each other's eyes and saw the self-same -fear. Saya was probably the most pitiful of the group. Her face was -white and drawn beyond that of any one else. - -They did not move when day brightened. They remained about the -bee-tunnels, speaking in hushed tones, huddled together, searching all -the horizon for enemies. Saya would not eat, but sat still, staring -before her in numbed grief. Burl was dead. - -Atop the low cliff a red puffball glistened in the morning light. Its -tough skin was taut and bulging, resisting the pressure of the spores -within. Slowly, as the morning wore on, some of the moisture that kept -the skin stretchable dried. The parchment-like stuff contracted. The -tautness of the spore-packed envelope grew greater. It became -insupportable. - -With a ripping sound, the tough skin split across and a rush of the -compressed spores shot skyward. - -The tribesmen saw and cried out and fled. The red stuff drifted down -past the cliff-edge. It drifted toward the humans. They ran from it. Jon -and Tama ran fastest. Jak and Cori and the other were not far behind. -Saya trailed, in her despair. - -Had Burl been there, matters would have been different. He had already -such an ascendancy over the minds of the others that even in panic they -would have looked to see what he did. And he would have dodged the -slowly drifting death-cloud by day, as he had during the night. But his -followers ran blindly. - -As Saya fled after the others she heard shrieks of fright to the left -and ran faster. She passed by a thick mass of distorted fungi in which -there was a sudden stirring and panic lent wings to her feet. She -fled blindly, panting. Ahead was a great mass of stuff--red -puffballs--showing here and there among great fanlike growths, some -twelve feet high, that looked like sponges. - -She fled past them and swerved to hide herself from anything that might -be pursuing by sight. Her foot slipped on the slimy body of a shell-less -snail and she fell heavily, her head striking a stone. She lay still. - -Almost as if at a signal a red puffball burst among the fanlike growths. -A thick, dirty-red cloud of dust shot upward, spread and billowed and -began to settle slowly toward the ground again. It moved as it settled -flowing over the inequalities of die ground as a monstrous snail or -leach might have done, sucking from all breathing creatures the life -they had within them. It was a hundred yards away, then fifty, then -thirty.... - -Had any member of the tribe watched it, the red dust might have seemed -malevolently intelligent. But when the edges of the dust-cloud were no -more than twenty yards from Saya's limp body, an opposing breeze sprang -up. It was a vagrant, fitful little breeze that halted the red cloud and -threw it into some confusion, sending it in a new direction. It passed -Saya without hurting her, though one of its misty tendrils reached out -as if to snatch at her in slow-motion. But it passed her by. - -Saya lay motionless on the ground. Only her breast rose and fell -shallowly. A tiny pool of red gathered near her head. - -Some thirty feet from where she lay, there were three miniature -toadstools in a clump, bases so close together that they seemed but one. -From between two of them, however, two tufts of reddish thread appeared. -They twinkled back and forth and in and out. As if reassured, two -slender antennae followed, then bulging eyes and a small, black body -with bright-red scalloped markings upon it. - -It was a tiny beetle no more than eight inches long--a sexton or -burying-beetle. Drawing near Saya's body it scurried onto her flesh. It -went from end to end of her figure in a sort of feverish haste. Then it -dived into the ground beneath her shoulder, casting back a little shower -of hastily-dug dirt as it disappeared. - -Ten minutes later, another small creature appeared, precisely like the -first. Upon the heels of the second came a third. Each made the same -hasty examination and dived under her unmoving form. - -Presently the ground seemed to billow at a spot along Saya's side and -then at another. Ten minutes after the arrival of the third beetle, a -little rampart had reared itself all about Saya's body, following her -outlines precisely. Then her body moved slightly, in little jerks, -seeming to settle perhaps half an inch into the ground. - -The burying-beetles were of that class of creatures which exploited the -bodies of the fallen. Working from below, they excavated the earth. When -there was a hollow space below they turned on their backs and thrust up -with their legs, jerking at the body until it sank into the space they -had made ready. The process would be repeated until at last all their -dead treasures had settled down below the level of the surrounding -ground. The loosened dirt then fell in at the sides, completing the -inhumation. Then, in the underground darkness, it was the custom for the -beetles to feast magnificently, gorging themselves upon the food they -had hidden from other scavengers--and of course rearing their young also -upon its substance. - -Ants and flies were rivals of these beetles and not infrequently the -sexton-beetles came upon carrion after ants had taken their toll, and -when it already swarmed with maggots. But in this case Saya was not -dead. The fact that she still lived, though unconscious, was the factor -that had given the sexton-beetles this splendid opportunity. - -She breathed gently and irregularly, her face drawn with the sorrow of -the night before, while the desperately hurrying beetles swarmed about -beneath her body, channelling away the soil so she would sink lower and -lower into it. She descended slowly, a half-inch by a half-inch. The -bright-red tufts of thread appeared again and a beetle made its way to -the open air. It moved hastily about, inspecting the progress of the -work. - -It dived below again. Another inch and, after a long time, another, were -excavated. - -Matters still progressed when Burl stepped out from a group of -overshadowing toadstools and halted. He cast his eyes over the landscape -and was struck by its familiarity. He was, in fact, very near the spot -he had left the night before in that maniacal ride on the back of a -flying beetle. He moved back and forth, trying to account for the -feeling of recognition. - -He saw the low cliff, then, and moved eagerly toward it, passing within -fifty feet of Saya's body, now more than half-buried in the ground. The -loose dirt around the outline of her figure was beginning to topple in -little rivulets upon her. One of her shoulders was already half-screened -from view. Burl passed on, unseeing. - -He hurried a little. In a moment he recognized his location exactly. -There were the mining-bee burrows. There was a thrown-away lump of -edible mushroom, cast aside as the tribesfolk fled. - -His feet stirred up a fine dust, and he stopped short. A red puffball -had burst here. It fully accounted for the absence of the tribe, and -Burl sweated in sudden fear. He thought instantly of Saya. He went -carefully to make sure. This was, absolutely, the hiding place of the -tribe. There was another mushroom-fragment. There was a spear, thrown -down by one of the men in his flight. Red dust had settled upon the -spear and the mushroom-fragments. - -Burl turned back, hurrying again, but taking care to disturb the dust no -more than he could possibly help. - -The little excavation into which Saya was sinking inch by inch was not -in his path. Her body no longer lay above the ground, but in it. Burl -went by, frantic with anxiety about the tribe, but about Saya most of -all. - -Her body quivered and sank a fraction into the ground. Half a dozen -small streams of earth were tumbling upon her. In minutes she would be -wholly hidden from view. - -Burl went to beat among the mushroom-thickets, in quest of the bodies of -his tribesfolk. They could have staggered out of the red dust and -collapsed beyond. He would have shouted, but the deep sense of -loneliness silenced him. His throat ached with grief. He searched on.... - -There was a noise. From a huge clump of toadstools--perhaps the very one -he had climbed over in the night--there came the sound of crashings and -the breaking of the spongy stuff. Twin tapering antennae appeared, and -then a monster beetle lurched into the open space, its ghastly mandibles -gaping sidewise. - -It was all of eight feet long and supported by six crooked, saw-toothed -legs. Huge, multiple eyes stared with preoccupation at the world. It -advanced deliberately with clankings and clashings as of a hideous -machine. Burl fled on the instant, running directly away from it. - -A little depression lay in the ground before him. He did not swerve, but -made to jump over it. As he leaped he saw the color of bare flesh, Saya, -limp and helpless, sinking slowly into the ground with tricklings of -dirt falling down to cover her. It seemed to Burl that she quivered a -little. - -Instantly there was a terrific struggle within Burl. Behind him was the -giant meat-eating beetle; beneath him was Saya whom he loved. There was -certain death lurching toward him on evilly crooked legs--and the life -he had hoped for lay in a shallow pit. Of course he thought Saya dead. - -Perhaps it was rage, or despair, or a simple human madness which made -him act otherwise than rationally. The things which raise humans above -brute creation, however, are only partly reasonable. Most human -emotions--especially the creditable ones--cannot be justified by reason, -and very few heroic actions are based upon logical thought. - -Burl whirled as he landed, his puny spear held ready. In his left hand -he held the haunch of a creature much like the one which clanked and -rattled toward him. With a yell of insane defiance--completely beyond -justification by reason--Burl flung that meat-filled leg at the monster. - -It hit. Undoubtedly, it hurt. The beetle seized it ferociously. It -crushed it. There was meat in it, sweet and juicy. - -The beetle devoured it. It forgot the man standing there, waiting for -death. It crunched the leg-joint of a cousin or brother, confusing the -blow with the missile that had delivered it. When the tidbit was -finished it turned and lumbered off to investigate another mushroom -thicket. It seemed to consider then an enemy had been conquered and -devoured and that normal life could go on. - -Then Burl stopped quickly, and dragged Saya from the grave the -sexton-beetles had labored so feverishly to provide for her. Crumbled -soil fell from her shoulders, from her face, and from her body. Three -little eight-inch beetles with black and red markings scurried for cover -in terrified haste. Burl carried Saya to a resting-place of soft mould -to mourn over her. - -He was a completely ignorant savage, save that he knew more of the ways -of insects than anybody anywhere else--the Ecological Service, which had -stocked this planet, not being excepted. To Burl the unconsciousness of -Saya was as death itself. Dumb misery smote him, and he laid her down -gently and quite literally wept. He had been beautifully pleased with -himself for having slain one flying beetle. But for Saya's seeming -death, he would have been almost unbearable with pride over having put -another to flight. But now he was merely a broken-hearted, very human -young man. - -But a long time later Saya opened her eyes and looked about -bewilderedly. - -They were in considerable danger for some time after that, because they -were oblivious to everything but each other. Saya rested in -half-incredulous happiness against Burl's shoulder as he told her -jerkily of his attempt on a night-bound butterfly, which turned out to -be a flying beetle that took him aloft. He told of his search for the -tribe and then his discovery of her apparently lifeless body. When he -spoke of the monster which had lurched from the mushroom thicket, and of -the desperation with which he had faced it, Saya looked at him with -warm, proud eyes. But Burl was abruptly struck with the remarkable -convenience of that discovery. If his tribesmen could secure an ample -supply of meat, they might defend themselves against attack by throwing -it to their attackers. In fact, insects were so stupid that almost any -object thrown quickly enough and fast enough, might be made to serve as -sacrifices instead of themselves. - -A timid, frightened whisper roused them from their absorption. They -looked up. The boy Dik stood some distance away, staring at them -wide-eyed, almost convinced that he looked upon the living dead. A -sudden movement on the part of either of them would have sent him -bolting away. Two or three other bobbing heads gazed affrightedly from -nearby hiding-places. Jon was poised for flight. - -The tribe had come back to its former hiding-place simply as a way to -reassemble. They had believed both Burl and Saya dead, and they accepted -Burl's death as their own doom. But now they stared. - -Burl spoke--fortunately without arrogance--and Dik and Tet came -timorously from their hiding-places. The others followed, the tribe -forming a frightened half-circle about the seated pair. Burl spoke again -and presently one of the bravest--Cori--dared to approach and touch him. -Instantly a babble of the crude labial language of the tribe broke out. -Awed exclamations and questions filled the air. - -But Burl, for once, showed some common sense. Instead of a vainglorious -recital, he merely cast down the long tapering antennae of the -flying-beetle. They looked, and recognized their origin. - -Then Burl curtly ordered Dor and Jak to make a chair of their hands for -Saya. She was weak from her fall and the loss of blood. The two men -humbly advanced and obeyed. Then Burl curtly ordered the march resumed. - -They went on, more slowly than on previous days, but none-the-less -steadily. Burl led them across-country, marching in advance with a -matter-of-fact alertness for signs of danger. He felt more confidence -than ever before. It was not fully justified, of course. Jon now -retrieved the spear he had discarded. The small party fairly bristled -with weapons. But Burl knew that they were liable to be cast away as -impediments if flight seemed necessary. - -As he led the way Burl began to think busily in the manner that only -leaders find necessary. He had taught his followers to kill ants for -food, though they were still uneasy about such adventures. He had led -them to attack great yellow grubs upon giant cabbages. But they had not -yet faced any actual danger, as he had done. He must drive them to face -something.... - -The opportunity came that same day, in late afternoon. To westward the -cloud-bank was barely beginning to show the colors that presage -nightfall, when a bumble-bee droned heavily overhead, making for its -home burrow. The little, straggling group of marching people looked up -and saw the scanty load of pollen packed in the stiff bristles of the -bee's hind-legs. It sped onward heavily, its almost transparent wings -mere blurs in the air. - -It was barely fifty feet above the ground. Burl dropped his glance and -tensed. A slender-waisted wasp was shooting upward from an ambush among -the noisome fungi of this plain. - -The bee swerved and tried to escape. The wasp over-hauled it. The bee -dodged frantically. It was a good four feet in length,--as large as the -wasp, certainly--but it was more heavily built and could not make the -speed of which the wasp was capable. It dodged with less agility. Twice, -in desperation, it did manage to evade the plunging dives of the wasp, -but the third time the two insects grappled in mid-air almost over the -heads of the humans. - -They tumbled downward in a clawing, biting, tangle of bodies and legs. -They hit the ground and rolled over and over. The bee struggled to -insert her barbed sting in the more supple body of her adversary. She -writhed and twisted desperately. - -But there came an instant of infinite confusion and the bee lay on her -back. The wasp suddenly moved with that ghastly skilled precision of a -creature performing an incredible feat instinctively, apparently unaware -that it is doing so. The dazed bee was swung upright in a peculiarly -artificial pose. The wasp's body curved, and its deadly, rapier-sharp -sting struck.... - -The bee was dead. Instantly. As if struck dead by lightning. The wasp -had stung in a certain place in the neck-parts where all the nerve-cords -pass. To sting there, the wasp had to bring its victim to a particular -pose. It was precisely the trick of a _desnucador_, the butcher who -kills cattle by severing the spinal cord. For the wasp's purposes the -bee had to be killed in this fashion and no other. - -Burl began to give low-toned commands to his followers. He knew what was -coming next, and so did they. When the sequel of the murder began he -moved forward, his tribesmen wavering after him. This venture was -actually one of the least dangerous they could attempt, but merely to -attack a wasp was a hair-raising idea. Only Burl's prestige plus their -knowledge made them capable of it. - -The second act of the murder-drama was gruesomeness itself. The -pirate-wasp was a carnivore, but this was the season when the wasps -raised young. Inevitably there was sweet honey in the half-filled crop -of the bee. Had she arrived safely at the hive, the sweet and sticky -liquid would have been disgorged for the benefit of bee-grubs. The wasp -avidly set to work to secure that honey. The bee-carcass itself was -destined for the pirate-wasp's own offspring, and that squirming -monstrosity is even more violently carnivorous than its mother. The -parent wasp set about abstracting the dead bee's honey, before taking -the carcass to its young one, because honey is poisonous to the -pirate-wasp's grub. Yet insects cannot act from solicitude or anything -but instinct. And instinct must be maintained by lavish rewards. - -So the pirate-wasp sought its reward--an insane, insatiable, gluttonous -satisfaction in the honey that was poison to its young. The wasp foiled -its murdered victim upon its back again and feverishly pressed on the -limp body to force out the honey. And this was the reason for its -precise manner of murder. Only when killed by the destruction of all -nerve-currents would the bee's body be left limp like this. Only a bee -killed in this exact fashion would yield its honey to manipulation. - -The honey appeared, flowing from the dead bee's mouth. The wasp, in -trembling, ghoulish ecstasy, devoured it as it appeared. It was lost to -all other sights or sensations but its feast. - -And this was the moment when Burl signalled for the attack. The -tribesmen's prey was deaf and blind and raptured. It was aware of -nothing but the delight it savored. But the men wavered, nevertheless, -when they drew near. Burl was first to thrust his spear powerfully into -the trembling body. - -When he was not instantly destroyed the others took courage. Dor's spear -penetrated the very vitals of the ghoul. Jak's club fell with terrific -force upon the wasp's slender waist. There was a crackling, and the -long, spidery limbs quivered and writhed. Then Burl struck again and the -creature fell into two writhing halves. - -They butchered it rather messily, but Burl noticed that even as it died, -sundered and pierced with spears, its long tongue licked out in one last -rapturous taste of the honey that had been its undoing. - -Some time later, burdened with the pollen laden legs of the great bee, -the tribe resumed its journey. - -Now Burl had men behind him. They were still timid and prone to flee at -the least alarm, but they were vastly more dependable than they had -been. They had attacked and slain a wasp whose sting would have killed -any of them. They had done battle under the leadership of Burl, whose -spear had struck the first blow. They were sharers of his glory and, -therefore, much more nearly like the followers of a chieftain ought to -be. - -Their new spirit was badly needed. The red puffballs were certainly no -less numerous in the new territory the tribe traversed than in the -territory they had left. And the season of their ripening' was further -advanced. More and more of the ground showed the deadly rime of settled -death-dust. To stay alive was increasingly difficult. When the full -spore-casting season arrived, it would be impossible. And that season -could not be far away. - -The very next day after the killing of the wasp, survival despite the -red dust had begun to seem unimaginable. Where, earlier, one saw a -red-dust cloud bursting here and there at intervals, on this day there -was always a billowing mass of lethal vapor in the air. At no time was -the landscape free of a moving mist of death. Usually there were three -or four in sight at once. Often there were half a dozen. Once there were -eight. It could be guessed that in one day more they would ripen in such -monstrous numbers that anything which walked or flew or crawled must -breathe in the spores and perish. - -And that day, just at sunset, the tribe came to the top of a small rise -in the ground. For an hour they had been marching and countermarching to -avoid the suddenly-billowing clouds of dust. Once they had been nearly -hemmed in when three of the dull-red mists seemed to flow together, -enclosing the three sides of a circle. They escaped then only by the -most desperate of sprinting. - -But now they came to the little hillock and halted. Before them -stretched a plain, all of four miles wide, colored a brownish brick-red -by the red puffballs. The tribe had seen mushroom forests--they had -lived in them--and knew of the dangers that lurked there. But the plain -before them was not simply dangerous; it was fatal. To right and left it -stretched as far as the eye could see, but away on its farther edge Burl -caught a glimpse of flowing water. - -Over the plain itself a thin red haze seemed to float. It was simply a -cloud of the deadly spores, dispersed and indefinite, but constantly -replenished by the freshly bursting puffballs. While the tribesfolk -stood and watched, thick columns of dust rose here and there and at the -other place, too many to count. They settled again but left behind -enough of the fine powder to keep a thin red haze over all the plain. -This was a mass of literally millions of the deadly growths. Here was -one place where no carnivorous beetles roamed and where no spiders -lurked. There were nothing here but the sullen columns of dust and the -haze that they left behind. - -And of course it would be nothing less than suicide to try to go back. - - - - -_8. A FLIGHT CONTINUES_ - - -Burl kept his people alive until darkness fell. He had assigned watchers -for each direction and when flight was necessary the adults helped the -children to avoid the red dust. Four times they changed direction after -shrill-voiced warnings. When night settled over the plain they were -forced to come to a halt. - -But the puffballs were designed to burst by day. Stumbled into, they -could split at any time, and the humans did hear some few of the tearing -noises that denoted a spore-spout in the darkness. But after slow -nightly rain began they heard no more. - -Burl led his people into the plain of red puffballs as soon as the rain -had lasted long enough to wash down the red haze still hanging in the -air and turn the fallen spores to mud. - -It was an enterprise of such absolute desperation that very likely no -civilized man would have tried it. There were no stars, for guidance, -nor compasses to show the way. There were no lights to enable them to -dodge the deadly things they strove to escape, and there was no -possibility of their keeping a straight course in the darkness. They had -to trust to luck in perhaps the longest long-shot that humans every -accepted as a gamble. - -Quaintly, they used the long antennae of a dead flying-beetle as -sense-organs for themselves. They entered the red plain in a long single -file, Burl leading the way with one of the two feathery whips extended -before him. Saya helped him check on what lay in the darkness ahead, but -made sure not to leave his side. Others trailed behind, hand in hand. - -Progress was slow. The sky was utter blackness, of course, but nowhere -in the lowlands is there an absolute black. Where fox-fire doesn't burn -without consuming, there are mushrooms with glows of their own. Rusts -sometimes shone faintly. Naturally there were no fireflies or glow-worms -of any sort; but neither were there any living things to hunt the tiny -tribe as it moved half-blindly in single file through the plain of red -puffballs. Within half an hour even Burl did not believe he had kept to -his original line. An hour later they realized despairingly that they -were marching helpless through puffballs which would make the air -unbreathable at dawn. But they marched on. - -Once they smelled the rank odor of cabbages. They followed the scent and -came upon them, glowing palely with parasitic moulds on their leaves. -And there were living things here: huge caterpillars eating and eating, -even in the dark, against the time of metamorphosis. Burl could have -cried out infuriatedly at them because they were--so he assumed--immune -to the death of the red dust. But the red dust was all about, and the -smell of cabbages was not the smell of life. - -It could have been, of course. Caterpillars breathe like all insects at -every stage of their development. But furry caterpillars breathe through -openings which are covered over with matted fur. Here, that matted fur -acted to filter the air. The eggs of the caterpillars had been laid -before the puffballs were ready to burst. The time of spore-bearing -would be over before the grubs were butterflies or moths. These -creatures were safe against all enemies--even men. But men groped and -blundered in the darkness simply because they did not think to take the -fur garments they wore and hold them to their noses to serve as -gas-masks or air-filters. The time for that would come, but not yet. - -With the docility of despair, Burl's tribe followed him through all the -night. When the sky began to pale in the east, they numbly resigned -themselves to death. But still they followed. - -And in the very early gray light--when only the very ripest of the red -puffballs spouted toward a still-dark sky--Burl looked harassedly about -him and could have groaned. He was in a little circular clearing, the -deadly red things all about him. There was not yet light enough for -colors to appear. There was merely a vast stillness everywhere, and a -mocking hint of the hot and peppery scent of death-dust--now turned to -mud--all about him. - -Burl dropped in bitter discouragement. Soon the misty dust-clouds would -begin to move about; the reddish haze would form above all this -space.... - -Then, quite suddenly, he lifted his head and whooped. He had heard the -sound of running water. - -His followers looked at him with dawning hope. Without a word to them, -Burl began to run. They followed hastily and quickened their pace when -his voice came back in a shout of triumph. In a moment they had emerged -from the tangle of fungus growths to stand upon the banks of a wide -river--the same river whose gleam Burl had seen the day before, from the -farther side of the red puffball plain. - -Once before, Burl had floated down a river upon a mushroom raft. That -journey had been involuntary. He had been carried far from his tribe and -Saya, his heart filled with desolation. But now he viewed the -swiftly-running current with delight. - -He cast his eyes up and down the bank. Here and there it rose in a low -bluff and thick shelf-fungi stretched out above the water. They were -adaptations of the fungi that once had grown on trees and now fed upon -the incredibly nourishing earth-banks formed of dead growing things. -Burl was busy in an instant, stabbing the relatively hard growths with -his spear and striving to wrench them free. The tribesmen stared -blankly, but at a snapped order they imitated him. - -Soon two dozen masses of firm, light fungus lay upon the shore. Burl -began to explain what they were for, but Dor remonstrated. They were -afraid to part from him. If they might embark on the same fungus-raft, -it would be a different matter. Old Tama scolded him shrilly at the -thought of separation. Jon trembled at the mere idea. - -Burl cast an apprehensive glance at the sky. Day was rapidly -approaching. Soon the red puffballs would burst and shoot their -dust-clouds into the air. This was no time to make stipulations. Then -Saya spoke softly. - -Burl made the suggested great sacrifice. He took the gorgeous velvet -cloak of moth-wing from his shoulder and tore it into a dozen long, -irregular pieces along the lines of the sinews reinforcing it. He -planted his spear upright in the largest raft, fastening the other -cranky craft to it with the improvised lines. - -In a matter of minutes the small flotilla of rafts bobbed in the stream. -One by one, Burl settled the folk upon them with stern commands about -movement. Then he shoved them out from the bank. The collection of -uneasy, floating things moved slowly out from shore to where the current -caught them. Burl and Saya sat on the same section of fungus, the other -trustful but frightened tribes-people clustered timorously about. - -As they began to move between the mushroom-lined banks of the river, -and as the mist of nighttime lifted from its surface, columns of red -dust spurted sullenly upward on the plain. In the light of dawn the -deadly red haze was forming once more over the puffball plain. - -By that time, however, the unstable rafts were speeding down the river, -bobbing and whirling in the stream, with wide-eyed people as their -passengers gazing in wonderment at the shores. - -Five miles downstream, the red growths became less numerous and other -forms of fungus took their places. Moulds and rusts covered the ground -as grass did on more favored planets. Toadstools showed their creamy, -rounded heads, and there were malformed things with swollen trunks and -branches mocking the trees that were never seen in these lowlands. Once -the tribesmen saw the grisly bulk of a hunting-spider outlined on the -river-bank. - -All through the long day they rode the current, while the insect life -that had been absent in the neighborhood of the death-plain became -abundant again. Bees once more droned overhead, and wasps and -dragonflies. Four-inch mosquitoes appeared, to be driven off with blows. -Glittering beetles made droning or booming noises as they flew. Flies of -every imaginable metallic hue flew about. Huge butterflies danced above -the steaming land and running river in seeming ecstasy at simply being -alive. - -All the thousand-and-one forms of insect life flew and crawled and swam -and dived where the people of the rafts could see them. Water-beetles -came lazily to the surface to snap at other insects on the surface. The -shell-covered boats of caddis-flies floated in the eddies and -backwaters. - -The day wore on and the shores flowed by. The tribesmen ate of their -food and drank of the river. When afternoon came the banks fell away and -the current slackened. The shores became indefinite. The river merged -itself into a vast swamp from which came a continual muttering. - -The water seemed to grow dark when black mud took the place of the clay -that had formed its bed. Then there appeared floating green things which -did not move with the flowing water. They were the leaves of the -water-lilies that managed to survive along with cabbages and a very few -other plants in the midst of a fungus world. Twelve feet across, any one -of the green leaves might have supported the whole of Burl's tribe. - -They became so numerous that only a relatively narrow, uncovered stream -flowed between tens of acres of the flat, floating leaves. Here and -there colossal waxen blossoms could be seen. Three men could hide in -those enormous flowers. They exhaled an almost overpowering fragrance -into the air. - -And presently the muttering sound that had been heard far away grew in -volume to an intermittent deep-bass roar. It seemed to come from the -banks on either side. It was the discordant croaking of frogs, eight -feet in length, which lived and throve in this swamp. Presently the -tribesfolk saw them: green giants sitting immobile upon the banks, only -opening their huge mouths to croak. - -Here in the swamps there was such luxuriance of insect life that a -normal tribal hunting-ground--in which tribesmen were not yet accustomed -to hunt--would seem like a desert by comparison. Myriads of little -midges, no more than three or four inches across their wings, danced -above the water. Butterflies flew low, seemingly enamoured of their -reflections in the glassy water. - -The people watched as if their eyes would become engorged by the strange -new things they saw. Where the river split and split and divided again, -there was nothing with which they were familiar. Mushrooms did not grow -here. Moulds, yes. But there were cattails, with stalks like trees, -towering thirty feet above the waterways. - -After a long, long time though, the streams began to rejoin each other. -Then low hills loomed through the thicker haze that filled the air here. -The river flowed toward and through them. And here a wall of high -mountains rose toward the sky, but their height could not be guessed. -They vanished in the mist even before the cloud-bank swallowed them. - -The river flowed through a river-gate, a water-gap in the mountains. -While day still held fully bright, the bobbing rafts went whirling -through a narrow pass with sheer walls that rose beyond all seeing in -the mist. Here there was even some white water. Above it, spanning a -chasm five hundred feet across, a banded spider had flung its web. The -rafts floated close enough to see the spider, a monster even of its -kind, its belly swollen to a diameter of yards. It hung motionless in -the center of the snare as the humans swept beneath it. - -Then the mountains drew back and the tribe was in a valley where, look -as they might, there was no single tawny-red puffball from whose -spreading range the tribesmen were refugees. The rafts grounded and they -waded ashore while still the day held. And there was food here in -plenty. - -But darkness fell before they could explore. As a matter of precaution -Burl and his folk found a hiding-place in a mushroom-thicket and hid -until morning. The night-sounds were wholly familiar to them. The noise -of katydids was louder than usual--the feminine sound of that name gives -no hint of the sonorous, deep-toned notes the enlarged creatures -uttered--and that implied more vegetation as compared with straight -fungoid flora. A great many fireflies glowed in the darkness shrouding -the hiding-place, indicating that the huge snails they fed on were -plentiful. The snails would make very suitable prey for the tribesmen -also. But men were not yet established in their own minds as predators. - -They were, though, definitely no longer the furtive vermin they had -been. They knew there were such things as weapons. They had killed ants -for food and a pirate-wasp as an exercise in courage. To some degree -they were acquiring Burl's own qualities. But they were still behind -him--and he still had some way to go. - -The next day they explored their new territory with a boldness which -would have been unthinkable a few weeks before. The new haven was a -valley, spreading out to a second swamp at its lower end. They could not -know it, but beyond the swamp lay the sea. Exploring, because of -strictly practical purposes and not for the sake of knowledge, they -found a great trap-door in the earth, sure sign of the lair of a spider. -Burl considered that before many days the monster would have to be dealt -with. But he did not yet know how it could be done. - -His people were rapidly becoming a tribe of men, but they still needed -Burl to think for them. What he could not think out, so far, could not -be done. But a part of the proof that they needed Burl to think for them -lay in the fact that they did not realize it. They gathered facts about -their environment. The nearest ant-city was miles away. That meant that -they would encounter its scouting foragers rather than working-parties. -The ant-city would be a source of small prey--a notion that would have -been inconceivable a little while ago. There were numerous giant -cabbages in the valley and that meant there were big, defenseless slugs -to spear whenever necessary. - -They saw praying-mantises--the adults were eighteen feet tall and as big -as giraffes, but much less desirable neighbors--and knew that they would -have to be avoided. But there were edible mushrooms on every hand. If -one avoided spiders and praying-mantises and the meat-eating beetles; if -one were safely hidden at night against the amorous male spiders who -took time off from courtship to devour anything living that came their -way; and if one lived at high-tension alertness, interpreting every -sound as possible danger and every unknown thing as certain peril--then -one could live quite comfortably in this valley. - -For three days the tribesmen felt that they had found a sort of -paradise. Jon had his belly full to bursting all day long. Tet and Dik -became skilled ant-hunters. Dor found a better spear and practiced -thoughtfully with it. - -There were no red puffballs here. There was food. Burl's folk could -imagine no greater happiness. Even old Tama scolded only rarely. They -surely could not conceive of any place where a man might walk calmly -about with no danger at all of being devoured. This was paradise! - -And it was a deplorable state of affairs. It is not good for human -beings to feel secure and experience contentment. Men achieve only by -their wants or through their fears. Back at their former -foraging-ground, the tribe would never have emulated Burl with any -passion so long as they could survive by traditional behavior. Before -the menace of the red puffballs developed, he had brought them to the -point of killing ants, with him present and ready to assist. They would -have stayed at about that level. The red dust had forced their flight. -During that flight they had achieved what was--compared to their former -timidity--prodigies of valor. - -But now they arrived at paradise. There was food. They could survive -here in the fashion of the good old days before they learned the courage -of desperation. They did not need Burl to keep them alive or to feed -them. They tended to disregard him. But they did not disperse. Social -grouping is an instinct in human beings as it is in cattle or in schools -of fish. Also, when Burl was available there was a sense of pleasant -confidence. He had gotten them out of trouble before. If more trouble -came, he would get them out of it again. But why look for trouble? - -Burl's tribesmen sank back into a contented lethargy. They found food -and hid themselves until it was all consumed. A part of the valley was -found where they were far enough from visible dangers to feel blissfully -safe. When they did move, though still with elaborate caution, it was -only to forage for food. And they did not need to go far because there -was plenty of food. They slipped back. Happier than they had ever been, -the foragers finally began to forget to take their new spears or clubs -with them. They were furtive vermin in a particularly favorable -environment. - -And Burl was infuriated. He had known adulation. He was cherished, to be -sure, but adulation no longer came his way. Even Saya.... - -An ironically natural change took place in Saya. When Burl was a -chieftain, she looked at him with worshipful eyes. Now that he was as -other men, she displayed coquetry. And Burl was of that peculiarly -direct-thinking sort of human being who is capable of leadership but not -of intrigue. He was vain, of course. But he could not engage in -elaborate maneuvers to build up a romantic situation. When Saya archly -remained with the women of the tribe, he considered that she avoided -him. When she coyly avoided speech with him, he angrily believed that -she did not want his company. - -When they had been in the valley for a week Burl went off on a bitter -journey by himself. Part of his motivation, probably, was a childish -resentment. He had been the great man of the tribe. He was no longer so -great because his particular qualities were not needed. And--perhaps -with some unconscious intent to punish them for their lessened -appreciation--he went off in a pet. - -He still carried spear and club, but the grandeur of his costume had -deteriorated. His cloak was gone. The moth-antennae he had worn bound to -his forehead were now so draggled that they were ridiculous. He went off -angrily to be rid of his fellows' indifference. - -He found the upward slopes which were the valley's literal boundaries. -They promised nothing. He found a minor valley in which a labyrinth -spider had built its shining snare. Burl almost scorned the creature. He -could kill it if he chose, merely by stabbing it though the walls of -its silken nest as it waited for unlucky insects to blunder into the -intricate web. He saw praying-mantises. Once he came upon that -extraordinary egg-container of the mantis tribe: a gigantic leaf-shaped -mass of solidified foam, whipped out of some special plastic compound -which the mantis secretes, and in which the eggs are laid. - -He found a caterpillar wrapped in its thick cocoon and, because he was -not foraging and not particularly hungry, he inspected it with care. -With great difficulty he even broke the strand of silk that formed it, -unreeling several feet in curiosity. Had he meditated, Burl would have -seen that this was cord which could be used to build snares as spiders -did. It could also be used to make defenses in which--if built strongly -and well--even hunting-spiders might be tangled and dispatched. - -But again he was not knowingly looking for things to be of use. He -coddled his sense of injury against the tribe. He punished them by -leaving them. - -He encountered a four-foot praying-mantis that raised its saw-toothed -forelimbs and waited immobile for him to come within reach. He had -trouble getting away without a fight. His spear would have been a clumsy -weapon against so slender a target and the club certainly not quick -enough to counter the insect's lightning-like movements. - -He was bothered. That day he hunted ants. The difficulty was mainly that -of finding individual ants, alone, who could be slaughtered without -drawing hordes of others into the fight. Before nightfall he had three -of them--foot-long carcasses--slung at his belt. Near sunset he came -upon another fairly recent praying-mantis hatchling. It was almost an -ambush. The young monster stood completely immobile and waited for him -to walk into its reach. - -Burl performed a deliberate experiment--something that had not been done -for a very long time on the forgotten planet. The small, grisly creature -stood as high as Burl's shoulders. It would be a deadly antagonist. -Burl tossed it a dead ant. - -It struck so swiftly that the motion of its horrible forearms could not -be seen. Then it ignored Burl, devouring the tidbit. - -It was a discovery that was immediately and urgently useful. - -On the second day of his aimless journey Burl saw something that would -be even more deadly and appalling than the red dust had been for his -kind. It was a female black hunting-spider, the so-called American -tarantula. When he glimpsed the thing the blood drained from Burl's -face. - -As the monster moved out of sight Burl, abandoning any other project he -might have intended, headed for the place his tribe had more or less -settled in. He had news which offered the satisfaction of making him -much-needed again, but he would have traded that pleasure ten hundred -times over for the simple absence of that one creature from this valley. -That female tarantula meant simply and specifically that the tribe must -flee or die. This place was not paradise! - -The entry of the spider into the region had preceded the arrival of the -people. A giant, even of its kind, it had come across some pass among -the mountains for reasons only it could know. But it was deadliness -beyond compare. Its legs spanned yards. The fangs were needle-sharp and -feet in length--and poisoned. Its eyes glittered with insatiable, insane -blood-lust. Its coming was ten times more deadly to the humans--as to -the other living creatures of the valley--than a Bengal tiger loosed in -a human city would have been. It was bad enough in itself, but it -brought more deadly disaster still behind it. - -Bumping and bouncing behind its abdomen as it moved, fastened to its -body by dirtied silken ropes, this creature dragged a burden which was -its own ferocity many times multiplied. It was dragging an egg-bag -larger than its body--which was feet in diameter. The female spider -would carry this ghastly burden--cherishing it--until the eggs hatched. -And then there would be four to five hundred small devils loose in the -valley. From the instant of their hatching they would be as deadly as -their parent. Though the offspring would be small--with legs spanning no -more than a foot--their bodies would be the size of a man's fist and -able to leap two yards. Their tiny fangs would be no less envenomed than -their mother's. In stark, maniacal hatred of all other life they would -at least equal the huge gray horror which had begot them. - -Burl told his tribesmen. They listened, eyes large with fright but not -quite afraid. The thing had not yet happened. When Burl insistently -commanded that they follow him on a new journey, they nodded uneasily -but slipped away. He could not gather the tribe together. Always there -were members who hid from him--and when he went in search of them, the -ones he had gathered vanished before he could return. - -There were days of bright light and murder, and nights of slow rain and -death in the valley. The great creatures under the cloud-bank committed -atrocities upon each other and blandly dined upon their victims. -Unthinkingly solicitous parents paralyzed creatures to be left living -and helpless for their young to feed on. There were enormities of -cruelty done in the matter-of-fact fashion of the insect world. To these -things the humans were indifferent. They were uneasy, but like other -humans everywhere they would not believe the worst until the worst -arrived. - -Two weeks after their coming to the valley, the worst was there. When -that day came the first gray light of dawn found the humans in a -shivering, terrified group in a completely suicidal position. They were -out in the open--not hidden but in plain view. They dared not hide any -more. The furry gray monster's brood had hatched. The valley seemed to -swarm with small gray demons which killed and killed, even when they -could not devour. When they encountered each other they fought in -slavering fury and the victors in such duels dined upon their brethren. -But always they hunted for more things to kill. They were literally -maniacs--and they were too small and too quick to fight with spears or -clubs. - -So now, at daybreak, the humans looked about despairingly for death to -come to them. They had spent the night in the open lest they be trapped -in the very thickets that had formerly been their protection. They were -in clear sight of the large gray murderer, if it should pass that way. -And they did not dare hide because of that ogreish creature's brood. - -The monster appeared. A young girl saw it and cried out chokingly. It -had not seen them. They watched it leap upon and murder a -vividly-colored caterpillar near the limit of vision in the -morning-mist. It was in the tribe's part of the valley. Its young -swarmed everywhere. The valley could have been a paradise, but it was -doomed to become a charnel-house. - -And then Burl shook himself. He had been angry when he left his tribe. -He had been more angry when he returned and they would not obey him. He -had remained with them, petulantly silent, displaying the offended -dignity he felt and elaborately refusing to acknowledge any overtures, -even from Saya. Burl had acted rather childishly. But his tribesmen were -like children. It was the best way for him to act. - -They shivered, too hopeless even to run away while the shaggy monster -feasted a half-mile away. There were six men and seven women besides -himself, and the rest were children, from gangling adolescents to one -babe in arms. They whimpered a little. Then Saya looked imploringly at -Burl--coquetry forgotten now. The other whimpered more loudly. They had -reached that stage of despair, now, when they could draw the monster to -them by blubbering in terror. - -This was the psychological moment. Burl said dourly: - -"Come!" - -He took Saya's hand and started away. There was but one direction in -which any human being could think to move in this valley, at this -moment. It was the direction away from the grisly mother of horrors. It -happened to be the way up the valley wall. Burl started up that slope. -Saya went with him. - -Before they had gone ten yards Dor spoke to his wife. They followed -Burl, with their three children. Five yards more, and Jak agitatedly -began to bustle his family into movement. Old Jon, wheezing, frantically -scuttled after Burl, and Cori competently set out with the youngest of -her children in her arms and the others marching before her. Within -seconds more, all the tribe was in motion. - -Burl moved on, aware of his following, but ignoring it. The procession -continued in his wake simply because it had begun to do so. Dik, his -adolescent brashness beaten down by terror, nevertheless regarded Burl's -stained weapon with the inevitable envy of the half-grown for -achievement. He saw something half-buried in the soil and--after a -fearful glance behind--he moved aside to tug at it. It was part of the -armor of a former rhinoceros beetle. Tet joined him. They made an act of -great daring of lingering to find themselves weapons as near as possible -to Burl's. - -A quarter-mile on, the fugitives passed a struggling milkweed plant, no -more than twenty feet high and already scabrous with scale and rusts -upon its lower parts. Ants marched up and down its stalk in a steady -single file, placing aphids from their nearby ant-city on suitable spots -to feed,--and to multiply as only parthenogenic aphids can do. But -already, on the far side of the milkweed, an ant-lion climbed up to do -murder among them. The ant-lion, of course, was the larval form of a -lace-wing fly. The aphids were its predestined prey. - -Burl continued to march, holding Saya's hand. The reek of formic acid -came to his nostrils. He ignored it. Ants were as much prey to his -tribesmen, now, as crabs and crayfish to other, shore-dwelling tribesmen -on long-forgotten Earth. But Burl was not concerned with food, now. He -stalked on toward the mountain-slopes. - -Dik and Tet brandished their new weapons. They looked fearfully behind -them. The monster from whom they fled was lost in its gruesome -feasting,--and they were a long way from it, now. There was a steady, -single-file procession of ants, with occasional gaps in the line. The -procession passed the line through one of those gaps. - -Beyond it, Tet and Dik conferred. They dared each other. They went -scrambling back to the line of ants. Their weapons smote. The -slaughtered ants died instantly and were quickly dragged from the -formic-acid-scented path. The remaining ants went placidly on their way. -The weapons struck again. - -The two adolescents had to outdo each other. But they had as much food -as they could carry. Gloating--each claiming to have been most daring -and to have the largest bag of game--they ran panting after the tribe. -They grandly distributed their take of game. It was a form of boasting. -But the tribesfolk accepted the gifts automatically. It was, after all, -food. - -The two gangling boys, jabbering at each other, raced back once more. -Again they returned with dangling masses of foodstuff,--half-scores of -foot-long creatures whose limbs, at least, contained firm meat. - -Behind, the ant-lion made his onslaught into the stupidly feasting -aphids, and warrior-ants took alarm and thrust forward to offer battle. -Tumult arose upon the milkweed. - -But Burl led his followers toward the mountainside. He reached a minor -eminence and looked about him. Caution was the price of existence on -this world. - -Two hundred feet away, a small scurrying horror raged and searched among -the rough-edged layers of what on other worlds was called paper-mould or -rock-tripe. Here it was thick as quilting, and infinitesimal creatures -denned under it. The sixteen-inch spider devoured them, making -gluttonous sounds. But it was busy, and all spiders are relatively -short-sighted. - -Burl turned to Saya, and realized that all his tribe had followed him -fearfully even to this small height he'd climbed only to look around -from. Dor had taken advantage of Burl's pause. There was an empty -cricket-shell partly overwhelmed by the fungoid soil. He tore free a -now-hollow, sickle-shaped jaw. It was curved and sharp and deadly if -properly wielded. Dor had seen Burl kill things. He had even helped. -Now, very grimly, he tried to imagine killing something all alone. Jak -saw him working on the sickle-shaped weapon. He tugged at the cricket's -ransacked carcass for another weapon. Dik and Tet vaingloriously -pretended to fight between themselves with their recently acquired -instruments for killing. Jon wheezed and panted. Old Tama complained to -herself in whispers, not daring to make sounds in the daylight. The rest -waited until Burl should lead them further. - -When Burl turned angry eyes upon them--he was beginning to do such -things deliberately, now--they all regarded him humbly. Now they -remembered that they had been hungry and he had gotten food for them, -and they had been paralyzed by terror, and he dared to move. They -definitely had a feeling of dependence upon him, for the present moment -only. Later, their feeling of humbleness would diminish. In proportion -as he met their needs for leadership, they would tend to try to become -independent of him. His leadership would be successful in proportion as -he taught them to lead themselves. But Burl perceived this only dimly. -At the moment it was pleasing to have all his tribe regard him so -worshipfully, even if not in quite the same fashion as Saya. He was -suddenly aware that now--at any rate while they were so frightened--they -would obey him. So he invented an order for them to obey. - -"I carry sharp things," he said sternly. "Some of you have gotten sharp -things. Now everybody must carry sharp things, to fight with." - -Humbly, they scattered to obey. Saya would have gone with them, but Burl -held her back. He did not quite know why. It could have been that the -absolute equality of the sexes in cravenness was due to end, and for his -own vanity Burl would undertake the defense of Saya. He did not analyze -so far. He did not want her to leave him, so he prevented it. - -The tribesfolk scattered. Dor went with his wife, to help her arm -herself. Jak uneasily followed his. Jon went timorously where the -picked-over remnant of the cricket's carcass might still yield an -instrument of defense. Cori laid her youngest child at Burl's feet while -she went fearfully to find some toothed instrument meeting Burl's -specification of sharpness. - -There was a stifled scream. A ten-year-old boy--he was Dik's younger -brother--stood paralyzed. He stared in an agony of horror at something -that had stepped from behind a misshapen fungoid object fifty yards from -Burl, but less than ten yards from him. - -It was a pallidly greenish creature with a small head and enormous eyes. -It stood upright, like a man,--and it was a few inches taller than a -man. Its abdomen swelled gracefully into a leaflike form. The boy faced -it, paralyzed by horror, and it stood stock-still. Its great, hideously -spined arms were spread out in a pose of hypocritical benediction. - -It was a partly-grown praying mantis, not too long hatched. It stood -rigid, waiting benignly for the boy to come closer or try to flee. If -he had fled, it would fling itself after him with a ferocity beside -which the fury of a tiger would be kittenish. If he approached, its -fanged arms would flash down, pierce his body, and hold him terribly -fast by the needle-sharp hooks that were so much worse than trap-claws. -And of course it would not wait for him to die before it began its meal. - -All the small party of humans stood frozen. It may be questioned whether -they were filled with horror for the boy, or cast into a deeper abyss of -despair by the sight of a half-grown mantis. Only Burl, so far, had any -notion of actually leaving the valley. To the rest, the discovery of one -partly mature praying mantis meant that there would be hundreds of -others. It would be impossible to evade the tiny, slavering demons which -were the brood of the great spider. It would be impossibility multiplied -to live where a horde of small--yet vastly larger--fiends lived, raising -their arms in a semblance of blessing before they did murder. - -Only Burl was capable of thought, and this was because vanity filled -him. He had commanded and had been obeyed. Now obedience was forgotten -because there was this young mantis. If the men had dreamed of fighting -it, it could have destroyed any number of them by sheer ferocity and its -arsenal of knives and daggers. But Burl was at once furious and -experienced. He had encountered such a middle-sized monster, when alone, -and deliberately had experimented with it. In consequence he could dare -to rage. He ran toward the mantis. He swung the small corpse of an -ant--killed by Tet only minutes since--and hurled it past the -terror-fascinated boy. He had hurled it at the mantis. - -It struck. And insects simply do not think. Something hurtled at the -ghastly young creature. Its arms struck ferociously to defend itself. -The ant was heavy. Poised upright in its spectral attitude, the mantis -was literally flung backward. But it rolled over, fighting the dead ant -with that frenzy which is not so much ferocity as mania. - -The small boy fled, hysterically, once the insect's attention was -diverted. - -The human tribe gathered around Burl many hundreds of yards away,--again -uphill. He was their rendezvous because of the example set by Cori. She -had left her baby with Burl. When Burl dashed from the spot, Saya had -quite automatically followed the instinct of any female for the young of -its kind. She'd snatched up the baby before she fled. And--of -course--she'd joined Burl when the immediate danger was over. - -The floor of the valley seemed a trifle indistinct, from here. The mist -that hung always in the air partly veiled the details of its horrors. It -was less actual, not quite as deadly as it once had seemed. - -Burl said fiercely to his followers: - -"Where are the sharp things?" - -The tribesfolk looked at one another, numbly. Then Jon muttered -rebelliously, and old Tama raised her voice in shrill complaint. Burl -had led them to this! There had been only the red dust in the place from -which they had come, but here was a hunting-spider and its young and -also a new hatching of mantises! They could dodge the red dust, but how -could they escape the deaths that waited them here? Ai! Ai! Burl had -persuaded them to leave their home and brought them here to die.... - -Burl glared about him. It was neither courage nor resolution, but he had -come to realize that to be admired by one's fellows was a splendid -sensation. The more one was admired, the better. He was enraged that -anyone dared to despair instead of thinking admiringly about his -remarkableness. - -"I," said Burl haughtily, "am not going to stay here. I go to a place -where there are neither spiders nor mantises. Come!" - -He held out his hand to Saya. She gave the child to Cori and confidently -moved to follow him. Burl stalked grandly away and she went with him. He -went uphill. Naturally! There were spiders and mantises in the -valley,--so many that to stay there meant death. So he moved to go -somewhere else. - -And this was the climactic event that changed the whole history of -humanity upon the forgotten planet. Up to this point, there may have -been other individuals who had accomplished somewhat of Burl's kind of -leadership. A few may have learned courage. It is possible that some -even led their tribesfolk upon migrations in search of safer lands to -live in. But until Burl led his people out of a valley filled with food, -up a mountainside toward the unknown, it was simply impossible for -humans to rise permanently above the status of hunted vermin; at the -mercy of monstrous mindless creatures; whose forbears had most -ironically been brought to this planet to prepare it for humans to live -on. - -Burl was the first man to lead his fellows toward the heights. - - - - -_9. THERE IS SUCH A THING AS SUNSHINE_ - - -The sun that shone upon the forgotten planet was actually very near. It -shone on the top of the cloud-bank, and the clouds glowed with dazzling -whiteness. It shone on the mountain-peaks where they penetrated the -mist, and the peaks were warmed, and there was no snow anywhere despite -the height. There were winds, here where the sun yielded sensible heat. -The sky was very blue. At the edge of the plateau--from which the -cloud-banks were down instead of up--the mountainsides seemed to descend -into a sea of milk. Great undulations in the mist had the semblance of -waves, which moved with great deliberation toward the shores. They -seemed sometimes to break in slow-motion against the mountain-walls -where they were cliff-like, and sometimes they seemed to flow up gentler -inclinations like water flowing up a beach. But all of this was very -deliberate indeed, because the cloud-waves were sometimes twenty miles -from crest to crest. - -The look of things was different on the highlands. This part of the -unnamed world, no less than the lowlands, had been seeded with life on -two separate occasions. Once the seedings was with bacteria and moulds -and lichens to break up the rocks and make soil of them, and once with -seeds and insect-eggs and such living things as might sustain themselves -immediately they were hatched. But here on the highlands the different -climatic conditions had allowed other seedlings and creatures to survive -together. - -Here moulds and yeasts and rusts were stunted by the sunlight. Grasses -and weeds and trees survived, instead. This was an ideal environment for -plants that needed sunlight to form chlorophyl, with which to make use -of the soil that had been formed. So on the highlands the vegetation was -almost earthlike. And there was a remarkable side-effect on the fauna -which had been introduced in the same manner and at the same time as the -creatures down below. In coolness which amounted to a temperate climate, -there developed no such frenzy of life as made the nightmare jungles -under the clouds. Plants grow at a slower rate than fungi, and less -luxuriantly. There was no vast supply of food for large-sized -plant-eaters. Insects which were to survive, here, could not grow to be -monsters. Moreover, the nights here were chill. Very many insects grow -torpid in the cool of a temperate-zone night, but warm up to activity -soon after sunrise. But a large creature, made torpid by cold, will not -revive so quickly. If large enough, it will not become fully active -until close to dark. On the plateau, the lowland monsters would starve -in any case. But more;--they would have only a fraction of each day of -full activity. - -So there was a necessary limit to the size of the creatures that lived -above the clouds. To humans from other planets, the life on the plateau -would not have seemed horrifying at all. Save for the absence of birds -to sing, and a lack of small mammals to hunt or merely to enjoy, the -untouched, sunlit plateau with its warm days and briskly chill nights -would have impressed most civilized men as an ideal habitation. - -But Burl and his followers were hardly prepared to see it that way at -first glance. If told about it in advance, they would have thought of it -with despair. - -But they did not know beforehand. They toiled upward, their leader moved -by such ridiculous motives of pride and vanity as have caused men to -achieve greatness throughout all history. Two great continents were -discovered back on Earth by a man trying to get spices to hide the gamey -flavor of half-spoiled meat, and the power that drives mile-long -space-craft was first discovered and tamed by men making bombs to -destroy their fellows. There were precedents for foolish motives -producing results far from foolishness. - -The trudging, climbing folk crawled up the hillside. They reached a -place high above the valley Burl had led them to. That valley grew misty -in appearance. Presently it could no longer be seen at all. The mist -they had taken for granted, all their lives, hid from them everything -but the slanting stony wall up which they climbed. The stone was mostly -covered by bluish-green rock-tripe in partly overlapping sheets. Such -stuff is always close behind the bacteria which first attack a -rock-face. On a slope, it clings while soil is washed downward as fast -as it is formed. The people never ate rock-tripe, of course. It produces -frightening cramps. In time they might learn that when thoroughly dried -it can be cooked to pliability again and eaten with some satisfaction. -But so far they neither knew dryness nor fire. - -Nor had they ever known such surroundings as presently enveloped them. A -slanting rocky mountainside, which stretched up frighteningly to the -very sky. Grayness overhead. Grayness also to one side,--the side away -from the mountain. And equal grayness below. The valley from which they -had come could no longer be seen even as a different shading of the -mist. And as they scrambled and trudged after Burl, his followers -gradually became aware of the utter strangeness of all about them. For -one result, they grew sick and dizzy. To them it seemed that all -solidity was slowly tilting. Had they been superstitious, they might -have thought of demons preparing to punish them for daring to come to -such a place. But--quaintly enough--Burl's followers had developed no -demonology. Your typical savage is resolved not to think, but he does -have leisure to want. He makes gods and devils out of his nightmares, -and gambles on his own speculations to the extent of offering blackmail -to demons if they will only let him alone or--preferably--give him more -of the things he wants. - -But the superstitions of savages involve the payment of blackmail in -exact proportion to their prosperity. The Eskimos of Earth lived always -on the brink of starvation. They could not afford the luxury of tabus -and totem animals whose flesh must not be eaten, and forbidden areas -which might contain food. - -Religion there was, among Burl's people, but superstition was not. No -humans, anywhere, can live without religion, but on Earth Eskimos did -with a minimum of superstitions,--they could afford no more--and the -humans of the forgotten planet could not afford any at all. - -Therefore they climbed desperately despite the unparalleled state of -things about them. There was no horizon, but they had never seen a -horizon. Their feeling was that what had been "down" was now partly -"behind" and they feared lest a toppling universe ultimately let them -fall toward that grayness they considered the sky. - -But all kept on. To lag behind would be to be abandoned in this place -where all known sensations were turned topsy-turvy. None of them could -imagine turning back. Even old Tama, whimpering in a whisper as she -struggled to keep up, merely complained bitterly of her fate. She did -not even think of revolt. If Burl had stopped, all his followers would -have squatted down miserably to wait for death. They had no thought of -adventure or any hope of safety. The only goodnesses they could imagine -were food and the nearness of other humans. They had food--nobody had -abandoned any of the dangling ant-bodies Tet and Dik had distributed -before the climb began. They would not be separated from their fellows. - -Burl's motivation was hardly more distinct. He had started uphill in a -judicious mixture of fear and injured vanity and desperation. There was -nothing to be gained by going back. The terrors at hand were no greater -than those behind, so there was no reason not to go ahead. - -They came to a place where the mountain-flank sank inward. There was a -flat space, and behind it a winding cañon of sorts like a vast crack in -the mountain's substance. Burl breasted the curving edge and found -flatness beyond it. He stopped short. - -The mouth of the cañon was perhaps fifty yards from the lip of the -downward slope. So much space was practically level, and on it were -toadstools and milkweed--two of them--and there was food. It was a -small, isolated asylum for life such as they were used to. They -could--it was possible that they could--have found a place of safety -here. - -But the possibility was not the fact. They saw the spider-web at once. -It was slung between the opposite cañon-walls by cables all of two -hundred feet long. The radiating cables reached down to anchorages on -stone. The snare-threads, winding out and out in that logarithmic spiral -whose properties men were so astonished to discover, were fully a yard -apart. The web was for giant game. It was empty now, but Burl saw the -telegraph-cord which ran from the very center of the web to the -web-maker's lurking-place. There was a rocky shelf on the cañon-wall. On -it rested the spider, almost invisible against the stone, with one furry -leg touching the cable. The slightest touch on any part of the web would -warn it instantly. - -Burl's followers accumulated behind him. Old Jon's wheezing was audible. -Tama ceased her complaints to survey this spot. It might be--it could -be--a haven, and she would have to find new and different things to -complain about in consequence. The spider-web itself, of course, was no -reason for them to be alarmed. Web-spiders do not hunt. Their males do, -but they are rarely in the neighborhood of a web save at mating-time. -The web itself was no reason not to settle here. But there was a reason. - -The ground before the web,--between the web and themselves--was a -charnel-house of murdered creatures. Half-inch-thick wing-cases of dead -beetles and the cleaned-out carapaces of other giants. The ovipositor of -an ichneumon-fly,--see feet of springy, slender, deadly-pointed -tube--and the abdomen-plates of bees and the draggled antennae of moths -and butterflies. - -Something very terrible lived in this small place. The mountainsides -were barren of food for big flying things. Anything which did fly this -high for any reason would never land on sloping foodless stone. -It would land here. And very obviously it would die. Because -something--Something--killed things as they came. It denned back in the -cañon where they could not see it. It dined here. - -The humans looked and shivered, all but Burl. He cast his eyes about for -better weapons than he possessed. He chose for himself a magnificent -lance grown by some dead thing for its own defense. He pulled it out of -the ground. - -It was utterly silent, here on the heights. No sounds from the valley -rose so high. There was no noise except the small creakings made as Burl -strove to free the new, splendid weapon for himself. - -That was why he heard the gasp which somebody uttered in default of a -scream that would not be uttered. It was a choked, a strangled, an -inarticulate sobbing noise. - -He saw its cause. - -There was a thing moving toward the folk from the recesses of the cañon. -It moved very swiftly. It moved upon stilt-like, impossibly attenuated -legs of impossible length and inconceivable number. Its body was the -thickness of Burl's own. And from it came a smell of such monstrous -foetor that any man, smelling it, would gag and flee even without fear -to urge him on. The creature was a monstrous millipede, forty feet in -length, with features of purest, unadulterated horror. - -It did not appear to plan to spring. Its speed of movement did not -increase as it neared the tribesfolk. It was not rushing, like the -furious charge of the murderers Burl's tribe knew. It simply flowed -sinuously toward them with no appearance of haste, but at a rate of -speed they could not conceivably outrun. - -Sticklike legs twitched upward and caught the spinning body of an ant. -The creature stopped, and turned its head about and seized the object -its side-legs had grasped. It devoured it. Burl shouted again and again. - -There was a rain of missiles upon the creature. But they were not to -hurt it, but to divert its incredibly automaton-like attention. Its legs -seized the things flung to it. It was not possible to miss. Ten, -fifteen,--twenty of the items of small-game were grasped in mid-air, as -if they were creatures in flight. - -Burl's shoutings took effect. His people fled to the side of the level -lip of ground. They climbed frantically past the opening of the valley. -They fled toward the heights. - -Burl was the last to retreat. The monstrous millipede stood immobile, -trapped for the moment by the gratification of all its desires. It was -absorbed by the multitude of tiny tidbits with which it had been -provided. - -It was a fact to Burl's honor that he debated a frantic attack upon the -monster in its insane absorption. But the strangling stench was -deterrent enough. He fled,--the last of his band of fugitives to leave -the place where the monstrous creature lived and preyed. As he left it, -it was still crunching the small meals, one by one, with which the folk -had supplied it. - -They went on up the mountain-flank. It was not to be supposed, of -course, that the creature could not move above the slanting -rock-surface. Unquestionably it roamed far and wide, upon occasion. But -its own foetid reek would make impossible any idea of trailing the -humans by scent. And, climbing desperately as the humans did, it would -be unable to see them when they were past the first protuberance of the -mountain. - -In twenty minutes they slackened their pace. Exhaustion prompted it. -Caution ordered it. Because here they saw another small island of -flatness in the slanting universe which was all they could see save -mist. It was simply a place where boulders had piled up, and soil had -formed, and there was a miniature haven for life other than moulds which -could grow on naked stone. - -Actually, there was a space a hundred feet by fifty on which wholly -familiar mushrooms grew. It was a thicket like a detached section of the -valley itself. Well-known edible fungi grew here. There were gray -puffballs. And from it came the cheerful loud chirping of some small -beetle, arrived at this spot nobody could possibly know how, but happily -ensconsed in a separate bit of mushroom-jungle remote from the dangers -of the valley. If it was small enough, it would even be safe from the -reeking horror of the cañon just below it. - -They broke off edible mushrooms here and ate. And this could have been -safety for them--save for the giant millipede no more than half a mile -below. Old Jon wheezed querulously that here was food and there was no -need for them to go further, just now. Here was food.... - -Burl regarded him with knitted brows. Jon's reaction was natural enough. -The tribesfolk had never tended to think for the future because it was -impossible to make use of such planning. Even Burl could easily enough -have accepted the fact that this was safety for the moment and food for -the moment. But it happened that to settle down here until driven out -would--and at this moment--have deprived him of the authority he had so -recently learned to enjoy. - -"You stay," he said haughtily, to Jon. "I go on, to a better place where -nothing is to be feared at all!" - -He held out his hand to Saya. He assailed the slope again, heading -upward in the mist. - -His tribe followed him. Dik and Tet, of course, because they were boys -and Burl led on to high adventures in which so far nobody had been -killed. Dor followed because--he being the strongest man in the -tribe--he had thoughtfully realized that his strength was not as useful -as Burl's brains and other qualities. Cori followed because she had -children, and they were safer where Burl led than anywhere else. The -others followed to avoid being left alone. - -The procession toiled on and up. Presently Burl noticed that the air -seemed clearer, here. It was not the misty, only half transparent stuff -of the valley. He could see for miles to right and left. He realized the -curvature of the mountain-face. But he could not see the valley. The -mist hid that. - -Suddenly he realized that he saw the cloud-bank overhead as an object. -He had never thought of it specifically before. To him it had been -simply the sky. Now he saw an indefinite lower surface which yet -definitely hid the heights toward which he moved. He and his followers -were less than a thousand feet below it. It appeared to Burl that -presently he would run into an obstacle which would simply keep him from -going any further. The idea was disheartening. But until it happened he -obstinately climbed on. - -He observed that the thing which was the sky did not stay still. It -moved, though slowly. A little higher, he could see that there were -parts of it which were actually lower than he was. They moved also, but -they moved away from him as often as they moved toward him. He had no -experience of any dangerous thing which did not leap at its victims. -Therefore he was not afraid. - -In fact, presently he noticed that the whiteness which was the -cloud-layer seemed to retreat before him. He was pleased. Weak things -like humans fled from enemies. Here was something which fled at his -approach! His followers undoubtedly saw the same thing. Burl had killed -spiders. He was a remarkable person. This unknown white stuff was afraid -of him. Therefore it was wise to stay close to Burl. Burl found his -vanity inflamed by the fact that always--even at its thickest--the white -cloud-stuff never came nearer than some dozens of feet. He swaggered as -he led his people up. - -And presently there was brightness about them. It was a greater -brightness than the tribesfolk had ever known. They knew daylight as a -grayness in which one could see. Here was a brightness that shone. They -were not accustomed to brightness. - -They were not accustomed to silence, either. The noises of the valley -were like all the noises of the lowlands. They had been in the ears of -every one of the human beings since they could hear at all. They had -gradually diminished as the valley dropped behind them. Now, in the -radiant white mist which was the cloud-layer, there were no sounds at -all, and the fact was suddenly startling. - -They blinked in the brightness. When they spoke to each other, they -spoke in whispers. The stone underfoot was not even lichen-covered, -here. It was bare and bright and glistened with wetness. The light they -experienced took on a golden tint. All of these things were utterly -unparalleled, but the stillness was a hush instead of a menacing -silence. The golden light could not possibly be associated with fear. -The people of the forgotten planet felt, most likely, the sort of -promise in this shining tranquility which before they had known only in -dreams. But this was no dream. - -They came up through the surface of a sea of mist, and they saw before -them a shore of sunshine. They saw blue and sky and sunlight for the -first time. The light smote their shins and brilliantly colored furry -garments. It glittered in changing, ever-more-colorful flashes upon -cloaks made of butterfly wings. It sparkled on the great lance carried -by Burl in the lead, and the quite preposterous weapons borne by his -followers. - -The little party of twenty humans waded ashore through the last of the -thinning white stuff which was cloud. They gazed about them with -wondering, astonished eyes. The sky was blue. There was green grass. And -again there was sound. It was the sound of wind blowing among trees, and -of things living in the sunshine. - -They heard insects, but they did not know what they heard. The shrill -small musical whirrings; the high-pitched small cries which made an -elfin melody everywhere,--these were totally strange. All things were -new to their eyes, and an enormous exultation filled them. From -deep-buried ancestral memories they somehow knew that what they saw was -right, was normal, was appropriate and proper, and that this was the -kind of world in which humans belonged, rather than the seething horror -of the lowlands. They breathed clean air for the first time in many -generations. - -Burl shouted in his triumph, and his voice echoed among trees and -hillsides. - -It was time for the plateau to ring with the shouting of a man in -triumph! - - - - -_10. MEN CLIMB UP TO SAVAGERY_ - - -They had food for days. They had brought mushroom from the isolated -thicket not too far beneath the clouds. There were the ants that Dik and -Tet had distributed grandly, and not all of which had been used to -secure escape from the cañon of the millipede. Had they found other food -immediately, they would have settled down comfortably in the fashion -normal to creatures whose idea of bliss is a secure hiding-place and -food on hand so they do not have to leave it. Somehow they believed that -this high place of bright light and new colors was secure. But they had -no hiding-place. And though they did accept with the unreasoning faith -of children and savages that there were no enemies here, they still -wanted one. - -They found a cave. It was small, so that it would be crowded with all of -them in it, but as it turned out, this was fortunate. At some time it -had been occupied by some other creature, but the dirt which floored it -had settled flat and showed no tracks. It retained faint traces of a -smell which was unfamiliar but not unpleasing,--it held no connotation -of danger. Ants stank of formic acid plus the musky odor of their -particular city. One could identify not only the kind of ant, but its -home city, by sniffing at an ant-trail. Spiders had their own -hair-raising odor. The smell of a praying-mantis was acrid, and all -beetles reeked of decay. And of course there were those bugs whose main -defense was an effluvium which tended to strangle all but the smell's -happy possessor. This faint smell in the cave was different. The humans -thought vaguely that it might possibly be another kind of man. - -Actually, it was the smell of a warm-blooded animal. But Burl and his -fellows knew of no warm-blooded creature but themselves. - -They had come above the clouds a bare two hours before sunset,--of which -they knew nothing. For an hour they marveled, staying close together. -They were especially astounded by the sun, since they could not bear to -look at it. But presently, being savages, they accepted it -matter-of-factly. - -They could not cease to wonder at the vegetation about them. They were -accustomed only to gigantic fungi and the few straggling plants which -tried so desperately to bear seed before they were devoured. Here they -saw many plants and no fungi,--and they did not see anything they -recognized as insects. They looked only for large things. - -They were astounded by the slenderness and toughness of the plants. -Grass fascinated them, and weeds. A large part of their courage came -from the absence of debris upon the ground. The hunting-grounds of -spiders were marked by grisly remnants of finished meals, and where -mantises roamed there were bits of transparent beetle-wings and sharp -spiny bits of armor not tasty enough to be consumed. Here, in the first -hour of their exploration, they saw no sign that an insect like -the lowland ones had ever been in this place at all. But they -could not believe the monsters never came. They correctly--and -pessimistically--assumed that their coming was only rare. - -The cave was a great relief. Trees did not grow close enough to give -them a feeling of safety,--though they were ludicrously amazed at the -invincible hardness of tree trunks. They had never known anything but -insect-armour and stone which was as hard as the trunks of those -growing things. They found nothing to eat, but they were not yet -hungry. They did not worry about food while they still had remnants from -their climb. - -When the sun sank low and crimson colorings filled the west, they were -less happy. They watched the glory of their first sunset with scared, -incredulous eyes. Yellows and reds and purples reared toward the zenith. -It became possible to look at the sun directly. They saw it descend -behind something they could not guess at. Then there was darkness. - -The fact stunned them. So night came like this! - -Then they saw the stars for the first time, as they came singly into -being. And the folk from the lowland crowded frantically into the cave -with its faint odor of having once been occupied by something else. They -filled the cave tightly. But Burl had some reluctance to admit his -terror. He and Saya were the last to enter. - -And nothing happened. Nothing. The sounds of sunset continued. They were -strange but soothing and somehow--again ancestral memory spoke -comfortingly--they were the way night-sounds ought to be. Burl and the -others could not possibly know it, but for the first time in forty -generations on the forgotten planet, human beings were in an environment -really suited to them. It had a rightness and a goodness which was -obvious in spite of its novelty. And because of Burl's own special -experiences, he was a little bit better able to estimate novelties than -the rest. He listened to the night-noises from close by the cave's small -entrance. He heard the breathing of his tribesfolk. He felt the heat of -their bodies, keeping the crowded enclosure warm enough for all. Saya -held fast to his hand, for the reassurance of the contact. He was -wakeful, and thinking very busily and painfully, but Saya was not -thinking at all. She was simply proud of Burl. - -She felt, to be sure, a tumult which was fear of the unknown and relief -from much greater fear of the familiar. She felt warm, prideful -memories of the sight of Burl leading and commanding the others. She had -absorbing fresh memories of the look and feel of sunshine, and mental -pictures of sky and grass and trees which she had never seen before. -Confusedly she remembered that Burl had killed a spider, no less, and he -had shown how to escape a praying-mantis by flinging it at an ant, and -he had grandly led the others up a mountainside it had never occurred to -anybody else to climb. And the giant millipede would have devoured them -all, but that Burl gave commands and set the example, and he had marched -magnificently up the mountainside when it seemed that all the cosmos -twisted and prepared to drop them into an inverted sky.... - -Saya dozed. And Burl sat awake, listening, and presently with -fast-beating heart he slipped out of the entrance to the cave and stared -about him in the night. - -There was coolness such as he had never known before, but nightfall was -not long past. There were smells in the air he had never before -experienced,--green things growing, and the peculiar clean odor of wind -that has been bathed in sunshine, and the oddly satisfying smell of -resinous trees. - -But Burl raised his eyes to the heavens. He saw the stars in all their -glory, and he was the first human in two thousand years and more to look -at them from this planet. There were myriads upon myriads of them, -varying in brightness from stabbing lights to infinitesimal twinklings. -They were of every possible color. They hung in the sky above him, -immobile and unthreatening. They had not descended. They were very -beautiful. - -Burl stared. And then he noticed that he was breathing deeply, with a -new zest. He was filling his lungs with clean, cool, fragrant air such -as men were intended to breathe from the beginning, and of which Burl -and many others had been deprived. It was almost intoxicating to feel so -splendidly alive and unafraid. - -There was a slight sound. Saya stood beside him, trembling a little. To -leave the others had required great courage, but she had come to realize -that if Burl was in danger she wished to share it. - -They heard the nightwind and the orchestra of night-singers. They -wandered aside from the cave-mouth and Saya found completely primitive -and satisfying pride in the courage of Burl, who was actually not afraid -of the dark! Her own uneasiness became something which merely added -savor to her pride in him. She followed him wherever he went, to examine -this and consider that in the nighttime. It gave her enormous -satisfaction at once to think of danger and to feel so safe because of -his nearness. - -Presently they heard a new sound in the night. It was very far away, and -not in the least like any sound they had ever heard before. It changed -in pitch as insect-cries do not. It was a baying, yelping sound. It -rose, and held the higher note, and abruptly dropped in pitch before it -ceased. Minutes later it came again. - -Saya shivered, but Burl said thoughtfully: - -"That is a good sound." - -He didn't know why. Saya shivered again. She said reluctantly: - -"I am cold." - -It had been a rare sensation in the lowlands. It came only after one of -the infrequent thunderstorms, when wetted human bodies were exposed to -the gusty winds that otherwise never blew. But here the nights grew cold -after sundown. The heat of the ground would radiate to outer space with -no clouds to intercept it, and before dawn the temperature might drop -nearly to freezing. On a planet so close to its sun, however, there -would hardly be more than light hoar-frost at any time. - -The two of them went back to the cave. It was warm there, because of the -close packing of bodies and many breaths. Burl and Saya found places to -rest and dozed off, Saya's hand again trustfully in Burl's. - -He still remained awake for a long time. He thought of the stars, but -they were too strange to estimate. He thought of the trees and grass. -But most of his impressions of this upper world were so remote from -previous knowledge that he could only accept them as they were and defer -reflecting upon them until later. He did feel an enormous complacency at -having led his followers here, though. - -But the last thing he actually thought about, before his eyes blinked -shut in sleep, was that distant howling noise he had heard in the night. -It was totally novel in kind, and yet there was something buried among -the items of his racial heritage that told him it was good. - -He was first awake of all the tribesmen and he looked out into the cold -and pallid grayness of before-dawn. He saw trees. One side was brightly -lighted by comparison, and the other side was dark. He heard the tiny -singing noises of the inhabitants of this place. Presently he crawled -out of the cave again. - -The air was biting in its chill. It was an excellent reason why the -giant insects could not live here, but it was invigorating to Burl as he -breathed it in. Presently he looked curiously for the source of the -peculiar one-sided light. - -He saw the top of the sun as it peered above the eastern cloud-bank. The -sky grew lighter. He blinked and saw it rise more fully into view. He -thought to look upward, and the stars that had bewildered him were -nearly gone. - -He ran to call Saya. - -The rest of the tribe waked as he roused her. One by one, they followed -to watch their first sunrise. The men gaped at the sun as it filled the -east with colorings, and rose and rose above the seemingly steaming -layer of clouds, and then appeared to spring free of the horizon and -swim on upward. - -The women stared with all their eyes. The children blinked, and -shivered, and crept to their mothers for warmth. The women enclosed them -in their cloaks, and they thawed and peered out once more at the glory -of sunshine and the day. Very soon, too, they realized that warmth came -from the great shining body in the sky. The children presently -discovered a game. It was the first game they had ever played. It -consisted of running into a shaded place until they shivered, and then -of running out into warm sunshine once more. Until this, dawning fear -was the motive for such playing as they did. Now they gleefully made a -game of sunshine. - -In this first morning of their life above the clouds, the tribesmen ate -of the food they had brought from below. But there was not an indefinite -amount of food left. Burl ate, and considered darkly, and presently -summoned his followers' attention. They were quite contented and for the -moment felt no need of his guidance. But he felt need of admiration. - -He spoke abruptly: - -"We do not want to go back to the place we came from," he said sternly. -"We must look for food here, so we can stay for always. Today we find -food." - -It was a seizure of the initiative. It was the linking of what the folk -most craved with obedience to Burl. It was the device by which dictators -seize power, and it was the instinctive action of a leader. - -The eating men murmured agreement. There was a certain definite idea of -goodness--not virtue, but of things desirable--associated with what Burl -did and what he commanded. His tribe was gradually forming a habit of -obedience, though it was a very fragile habit up to now. - -He led them exploring as soon as they had eaten. All of them, of course. -They straggled irregularly behind him. They came to a brook and regarded -it with amazement. There were no leeches. No greenish algae. No foaming -masses of scum. It was dear! Greatly daring, Burl tasted it. He drank -the first really potable water in a very long time for his race on this -planet. It was not fouled by drainage through moulds or rusts. - -Dor drank after him. Jak. Cori tasted, and instantly bade her children -drink. Even old Tama drank suspiciously, and then raised her voice in -shrill complaint that Burl had not led them to this place sooner. Tet -and Dik became convinced that there were no deadly things lurking in it, -and splashed each other. Dik slipped and sat down hard on white stuff -that yielded and almost splashed. He got up and looked fearfully at what -he thought might be a deadly slime. Then he yelped shrilly. - -He sat down on and crushed part of a bed of mushrooms. But they were -tiny, clean, and appetizing. They were miniatures of the edible -mushrooms the tribe fed on. - -Burl smelled and finally tasted one. It was, of course, nothing more or -less than a perfectly normal edible mushroom, growing to the size that -mushrooms originally grew on Earth. It grew on a shaded place in -enormously rich soil. It had been protected from direct sunlight by -trees, but it had not had the means or the stimulus to become a monster. - -Burl ate it. He carefully composed his features. Then he announced the -find to his followers. There was food here, he told them sternly, but in -this splendid world to which he had led them, food was small. There -would be no great enemies here, but the food would have to be sought in -small objects instead of great ones. They must look at this place and -seek others like it, in order to find food.... - -The tribesmen were doubtful. But they plucked mushrooms--whole -ones!--instead of merely breaking off parts of their tops. With deep -astonishment they recognized the miniature objects as familiar things -ensmalled. These mushrooms had the same savor, but they were not coarse -or stringy or tough like the giants. They melted in the mouth; Life in -this place to which Burl had led them was delectable! Truly the doings -of Burl were astonishing! - -When the oldest of Cori's children found a beetle on a leaf, and they -recognized it, and instead of being bigger than a man and a thing to -flee from, it was less than an inch in size and helpless against them--. -They were entranced. From that moment onward they would really follow -Burl anywhere, in the happy conviction that he could only bring good to -everybody. - -The opinion could have drawbacks, and it need not be always even true, -but Burl did nothing to discourage it. - -And then, near midday, they made a discovery even greater than that of -familiar food in unfamiliar sizes. They were struggling, at the time, -through a vast patch of bushes with thorns on them--they were not used -to thorns--which they deeply distrusted. Eventually they would find out -that the glistening dark fruit were blackberries, and would rejoice in -them, but at this first encounter they were uneasy. In the midst of such -an untouched berry-patch they heard noises in the distance. - -The sound was made up of cries of varying pitch, some of which were loud -and abrupt, and others longer and less loud. The people did not -understand them in the least. They could have been cries of human -beings, perhaps, but they were not cries of pain. Also they were not -language. They seemed to express a tremendous, zestful excitement. They -had no overtone of horror. And Burl and his folk had known of no -excitement among insects except frenzy. They could not imagine what sort -of tumult this could be. - -But to Burl these sounds had something of the timbre of the yelping -noises of the night before. He had felt drawn to that sound. He liked -it. He liked this. - -He led the way boldly toward the agitated noises. Presently--after a -mile or so--he and his people came out of breast-high weeds. Saya was -immediately behind him. The others trailed,--Tama complaining bitterly -that there was no need to track down sounds which could only mean -danger. They emerged in a space of bare stone above a small and grassy -amphitheatre. The tumult came from its center. - -A pack of dogs was joyously attacking something that Burl could not see -clearly. They were dogs. They barked zestfully, and they yelped and -snarled and yapped in a dozen different voices, and they were having a -thoroughly good time,--though it might not be so good for the thing they -attacked. - -One of them sighted the humans. He stopped stock-still and barked. The -others whirled and saw the humans as they came out into view. The tumult -ceased abruptly. - -There was silence. The tribesmen saw creatures with four legs only. They -had never before seen any living thing with fewer than six,--except men. -Spiders had eight. The dogs did not have mandibles. They did not have -wing-cases. They did not act like insects. It was stupifying! - -And the dogs saw men, whom they had never seen before. Much more -important, they smelled men. And the difference between man-smell and -insect-smell was so vast--because through hundreds of generations the -dogs had not smelled anything with warm blood save their own kind--the -difference in smell was so great in kind that the dogs did not react -with suspicion, but with a fascinated curiosity. This was an -unparalleled smell. It was, even in its novelty, an overwhelmingly -satisfying smell. - -The dogs regarded the men with their heads on one side, sniffing in the -deepest possible amazement,--amazement so intense that they could not -possibly feel hostility. One of them whined a little because he did not -understand. - - - - -_11. WARM BLOOD IS A BOND_ - - -Peculiarly enough, it was a matter of topography. The plateau which -reached above the clouds rose with a steep slope from the valley from -which a hunting-spider's brood had driven the men. This was on the -eastern edge of the plateau. On the west, however, the highland was -subject to an indentation which almost severed it. No more than twenty -miles from where Burl's group had climbed to sunshine, there was a much -more gradual slope downward. There, mushroom-forests grew almost to the -cloud-layer. From there, giant insects strayed up and onto the plateau -itself. - -They could not live above the clouds, of course. There was not food -enough for their insatiable hunger. Especially at night, it was too cold -to allow them to stay active. But they did stray from their normal -environment, and some of them did reach the sunshine, and perhaps some -of them blundered back down to their mushroom-forests again. But those -which did not stumble back were chilled to torpor during their first -night underneath the stars. They were only partly active on the second -day,--if, indeed, they were active at all. Few or none recovered from -their second nights' coldness. None at all kept their full ferocity and -deadliness. - -And this was how the dogs survived. They were certainly descended from -dogs on the wrecked space-ship--the _Icarus_--whose crew had landed on -this planet some forty-odd human generations since. The humans of today -had no memories of the ship, and the dogs surely had no traditions. But -just because those early dogs had less intelligence, they had more -useful instincts. Perhaps the first generations of castaways bred dogs -in their first few desperate centuries, hoping that dogs could help them -survive. But no human civilization could survive in the lowlands. The -humans went back to the primitive state of their race and lived as -furtive vermin among monsters. Dogs could not survive there, though -humans did linger on, so somehow the dogs took to the heights. Perhaps -dogs survived their masters. Perhaps some were abandoned or driven away. -But dogs had reached the highlands. And they did survive because giant -insects blundered up after them,--and could not survive in a proper -environment for dogs and men. - -There was even reason for the dogs remaining limited in number, and -keenly intelligent. The food-supply was limited. When there were too -many dogs, their attacks on stumbling insect giants were more desperate -and made earlier, before the monsters' ferocity was lessened. So more -dogs died. Then there was an adjustment of the number of dogs to the -food-supply. There was also a selection of those too intelligent to -attack rashly. Yet those who had insufficient courage would not eat. - -In short, the dogs who now regarded men with bright, interested eyes -were very sound dogs. They had the intelligence needed for survival. -They did not attack anything imprudently, but they also knew that it was -not necessary to be more than reasonably wary of insects in -general,--not even spiders unless they were very newly arrived from the -steaming lowlands. So the dogs regarded men with very much the same -astonished interest with which the men regarded the dogs. - -Burl saw immediately that the dogs did not act with the blind ferocity -of insects, but with an interested, estimative intelligence strikingly -like that of men. Insects never examined anything. They fled or they -fought. Those who were not carnivorous had no interest in anything but -food, and those who were meat-eaters lumbered insanely into battle at -the bare sight of possible prey. The dogs did neither. They sniffed and -they considered. - -Burl said sharply to his followers: - -"Stay here!" - -He walked slowly down into the amphitheatre. Saya followed him -instantly. Dogs moved warily aside. But they raised their noses and -sniffed. They were long, luxurious sniffs. The smell of human kind was a -good smell. Dogs had lived hundreds of their generations without having -it in their nostrils, but before that there were thousands of -generations to whom that smell was a necessity. - -Burl reached the object the dogs had been attacking. It lay on the -grass, throbbing painfully. It was the larva of an azure-blue moth which -spread ten-foot wings at nightfall. The time for its metamorphosis was -near, and it had traveled blindly in search of a place where it could -spin its cocoon safely and change to its winged form. It had come to -another world,--the world above the clouds. It could find no proper -place. Its stores of fat had protected it somewhat from the chill. But -the dogs had found it as it crawled blindly--. - -Burl considered. It was the custom of wasps to sting creatures like this -at a certain special spot,--apparently marked for them by a tuft of dark -fur. - -Burl thrust home with his lance. The point pierced that particular spot. -The creature died quickly and without agony. The thought to kill was an -inspiration. Then instinct followed. Burl cut off meat for his -tribesmen. The dogs offered no objection. They were well-fed enough. -Burl and Saya, together, carried the meat back to the other tribesfolk. -On the way Burl passed within two yards of a dog which regarded him with -extreme intentness and almost a wistful expression. Burl's smell did not -mean game. It meant--something the dog struggled helplessly to remember. -But it was good. - -"I have killed the thing," said Burl to the dog, in the tone of one -addressing an equal. "You can go and eat it now. I took only part of -it." - -Burl and his people ate of what he had brought back. Many of the -dogs--most of them--went to the feast Burl had left. Presently they were -back. They had no reason to be hostile. They were fed. The humans -offered them no injury, and the humans smelled of something that -appealed to the deepest well-springs of canine nature. - -Presently the dogs were close about the humans. They were fascinated. -And the humans were fascinated in return. Each of the people had a -little of the feeling that Burl had experienced as the tribal leader. In -the intent, absorbed and wholly unhostile regard of the dogs, even -children felt flattered and friendly. And surely in a place where -everything else was so novel and so satisfactory, it was possible to -imagine friendliness with creatures which were not human, since -assuredly they were not insects. - -A similar state of mind existed among the dogs. - -Saya had more meat than she desired. She glanced among the members of -the tribe. All were supplied. She tossed it to a dog. He jerked away -alertly, and then sniffed at it where it had dropped. A dog can always -eat. He ate it. - -"I wish you would talk to us," said Saya hopefully. - -The dog wagged his tail. - -"You do not look like us," said Saya interestedly, "but you act like we -do. Not like the--Monsters." - -The dog looked significantly at meat in Burl's hand. Burl tossed it. The -dog caught it with a quick snap, swallowed it, wagged his tail briefly -and came closer. It was a completely incredible action, but dogs and men -were blood-kin on this planet. Besides, there was racial-memory -rightness in friendship between men and dogs. It was not hindered by any -past experience of either. They were the only warm-blooded creatures on -this world. It was a kinship felt by both. - -Presently Burl stood up and spoke politely to the dog. He addressed him -with the same respect he would have given to another man. In all his -life he had never felt equal to an insect, but he felt no arrogance -toward this dog. He felt superior only to other men. - -"We are going back to our cave," he said politely. "Maybe we will meet -again." - -He led his tribe back to the cave in which they had spent the previous -night. The dogs followed, ranging on either side. They were well-fed, -with no memory of hostility to any creature which smelled of warm blood. -They had an instinct without experience to dull it. The latter part of -the journey back to the tribal cave was--if anybody had been qualified -to notice it--remarkably like a group of dogs taking a walk with a group -of people. It was companionable. It felt right. - -That night Burl left the cave, as before, to look at the stars. This -time Saya went with him matter-of-factly. But as they came out of the -cave-entrance there was a stirring. A dog rose and stretched himself -elaborately, yawning the while. When Burl and Saya moved away, he -trotted amiably with them. - -They talked to it, and the dog seemed pleased. It wagged its tail. - -When morning came, the dogs were still waiting hopefully for the humans -to come out. They appeared to expect the people to take another nice -long walk, on which they would accompany them. It was a brand-new -satisfaction they did not want to miss. After all, from a dog's -standpoint, humans are made to take long walks with, among other things. -The dogs greeted the people with tail-waggings and cordiality. - -The dogs made a great difference in the adjustment of the tribe to life -upon the plateau. Their friendship assured the new status of human life. -Burl and his fellows had ceased to be fugitive game for any insect -murderer. They had hoped to become unpursued foragers,--because they -could hardly imagine anything else. But when the dogs joined them, they -were immediately raised to the estate of hunters. The men did not -domesticate the dogs. They made friends with them. The dogs did not -subjugate themselves to the men. They joined them,--at first -tentatively, and then with worshipful enthusiasm. And the partnership -was so inevitably a right one that within a month it was as if it had -always been. - -Actually, save for a mere two thousand years, it had been. - -At the end of a month the tribe had a permanent encampment. There were -caves at a suitable distance from the slope up which most wanderers from -the lowlands came. Cori's oldest child found the chrysalis of a giant -butterfly, whose caterpillar form had so offensive an odor that the dogs -had not attacked it. But when it emerged from the chrysalis, men and -dogs together assailed it before it could take flight. They ended the -enterprise with warm mutual approval. The humans had acquired great -wings with which to make warm cloaks,--very useful against the evening -chill. Dogs and men, alike, had feasted. - -Then, one dawning, the dogs made a vast outcry which awoke the -tribesmen. Burl led the rush to the spot. They did battle with a monster -nocturnal beetle, less chilled than most such invaders. In the gray -dawnlight Burl realized that the darting, yapping dogs kept the -creature's full attention. He crippled, and then killed it with his -spear. The feat appeared to earn him warm admiration from the dogs. Burl -wore a moth's feathery antenna again, bound to his forehead like a -knight's plumes. He looked very splendid. - -The entire pattern of human life changed swiftly, as if an entire -revelation had been granted to men. The ground was often thorny. One man -pierced his foot. Old Tama, scolding him for his carelessness, bound a -strip of wing-fabric about it so he could walk. The injured foot was -more comfortable than the one still unhurt. Within a week the women -were busily contriving diverse forms of footgear to achieve greater -comfort for everybody. One day Saya admired glistening red berries and -tried to pluck one, and they stained her fingers. She licked her fingers -to clean them,--and berries were added to the tribe's menu. A veritable -orgy of experiment began, which is a state of things which is extremely -rare in human affairs. A race with an established culture and tradition -does not abandon old ways of doing things without profound reason. But -men who have abandoned their old ways can discover astonishingly useful -new ones. - -Already the dogs were established as sentries and watchmen, and as -friends to every member of the tribe. By now mothers did not feel -alarmed if a child wandered out of sight. There would be dogs along. No -danger could approach a child without vociferous warning from the dogs. -Men went hunting, now, with zestful tail-wagging dogs as companions in -the chase. Dor killed a torpid minotaur-beetle alone, save for assisting -dogs, and Burl felt a twinge of jealousy. But then Burl, himself, -battled a black male spider in a lone duel,--with dogs to help. By the -time a stray monster from the lowlands reached this area, it was dazed -and half-numbed by one night of continuous chill. Even the black spider -could not find the energy to leap. It fought like a fiend, yet -sluggishly. Burl killed this one while the dogs kept it busy,--and the -dogs were reproachful because he carried it back to the tribal -headquarters before dividing it among his assistants. Afterward, he -realized that though he could have avoided the fight he would have been -ashamed to do so, while the dogs barked and snapped at its furry legs. - -It was while things were in this state that the way of life for human -beings on the forgotten planet was settled for all time. Burl and Saya -went out early one morning with the dogs, to hunt for meat for the -village. Hunting was easiest in the early hours, while creatures that -strayed up the night before were still sluggish with cold. Often, -hunting was merely butchery of an enfeebled monster to whom any effort -at all was terribly difficult. - -This morning they strode away briskly. The dogs roved exuberantly -through the brush before them. They were some five miles from the -village when the dogs bayed game. And Burl and Saya ran to the spot with -ready spears,--which was something of a change from their former actions -on notice of a carnivore abroad. They found the dogs dancing and barking -around one of the most ferocious of the meat-eating beetles. It was not -unduly large, to be sure. Its body might have been four feet long, or -thereabouts. But its horrible gaping mandibles added a good three feet -more. - -Those scythelike weapons gaped wide--opening sidewise as insects' jaws -do--as the beetle snapped hideously at its attackers, swinging about as -the dogs dashed at it. Its legs were spurred and spiked and armed with -dagger-like spines. Burl plunged into the fight. - -The great mandibles clicked and clashed. They were capable of -disemboweling a man or snapping a dog's body in half without effort. -There were whistling noises as the beetle breathed through its abdominal -spiracles. It fought furiously, making ferocious charges at the dogs who -tormented and bewildered it. But they created the most zestfully excited -of tumults. - -Burl and Saya were, of course, at least as absorbed and excited as the -dogs, or they would have noticed the thing that was to make so much -difference to every human being, not only on the plateau but still down -in the lowlands. This unnoticed thing was beyond their imagining. There -had been nothing else like it on this world in many hundreds of years. -It was half a dozen miles away and perhaps a thousand feet high when -Burl and Saya prepared to intervene professionally on behalf of the -dogs. It was a silvery needle, floating unsupported in the air. As they -entered the battle, it swerved and moved swiftly in their direction. - -It was silent, and they did not notice. They knew of no reason to scan -the sky in daytime. And there was business on hand, anyhow. - -Burl leaped in toward the beetle with a lance-thrust at the tough -integument where an armored leg joined the creature's body. He missed, -and the beetle whirled. Saya flashed her cloak before the monster so -that it seemed a larger and a nearer antagonist. As the creature whirled -again, Burl stabbed and a hind-leg crumpled. - -Instantly the thing was limping. A beetle does not use its legs like -four-legged creatures. A beetle moving shifts the two end legs on one -side and the central leg on the other, so that it always stands on an -adjustable tripod of limbs. It cannot adjust readily to crippling. A dog -snatched at a spiny lower leg and crunched,--and darted away. The -machine-like monster uttered a formless, deep-bass cry and was spurred -to unbelievable fierceness. The fight became a thing of furious movement -and joyous uproar, with Burl striking once at a multiple eye so the pain -would deflect it from a charge at Saya, and Saya again deflecting it -with her cloak and once breathlessly trying to strike it with her -shorter spear. - -They struck it again, and a third time, and it sank horribly to the -ground, all three legs on one side crippled. The remaining three thrust -and thrust and struggled senselessly,--and suddenly it was on its back, -still striking its gigantic jaws frantically in the hope of murder. But -then Burl struck home between two armor-plates where a ganglion was -almost exposed. The blow killed it instantly. - -Burl and Saya were smiling at each other when there was a monstrous -sound of crashing trees. They whirled. The dogs pricked up their ears. -One of them barked defiantly. - -Something huge--truly huge!--had settled to the ground a bare two -hundred yards away. It was metal, and there were ports in its sides, and -it was quite beyond imagining. Because, of course, no space-ship had -landed on this planet in forty-odd human generations. - -A port opened as they stared at it. Men came out. Burl and Saya were -barbarically attired, but they had been fighting some sort of local -monster--the men on the space-ship could not quite grasp what they had -seen--and they had been helped by dogs. Human beings and dogs, together, -always mean some sort of civilization. - -The dogs gave an impression of a very high level indeed. They trotted -confidently over to the ship, and they sniffed cautiously at the men who -had landed. Then their behavior was admirable. They greeted the new-come -men with the self-confident cordiality of dogs who are on the best -possible terms with human beings,--and there was no question of any -suspicion by anybody. The attitude of a man toward a dog is a perfectly -valid indication of his character, if not of his technical education. -And the newcomers knew how to treat dogs. - -So Burl and Saya went forward, with the confident pleasure with which -well-raised children and other persons of innate dignity greet -strangers. - -The ship was the _Wapiti_, a private cruiser doing incidental -exploration for the Biological Survey in the course of a trip after good -hunting. It had touched on the forgotten planet, and it would never be -forgotten again. - - - - -_EPILOGUE_ - - -The survey-ship _Tethys_ made the first landing on the forgotten planet, -and the _Orana_ followed, and some centuries later the _Ludred_. Then -the planet was forgotten until the _Wapiti_ arrived. The arrival of the -_Wapiti_ was as much an accident as the loss of the punched card which -caused the planet to be overlooked for some thousands of years. -Somebody had noticed that the sun around which it circled was of a type -which usually has useful planets, but there was no record that it had -ever been visited. So a request to the sportsmen on the _Wapiti_ had -caused them to turn aside. They considered, anyhow, that it would be -interesting to land on a brand-new world or two. They considered it -fascinating to find human beings there before them. But they could not -understand the use of such primitive weapons or garments of such -barbaric splendor. They had trouble, too, because in forty-odd -generations the speech of the universe had changed, while Burl and Saya -spoke a very archaic language indeed. - -But there was an educator on the _Wapiti_. It was quite standard -apparatus,--simply basic-education for a human child, so that one's -school-years could be begun with a backlog of correct speech, and -reading, with the practical facts of mathematics, sanitation, and the -general information that any human being anywhere needs to know. -Children use it before they start school, and they absorb its -information quite painlessly. It is rare that an adult needs it. But -Burl and Saya did. - -Burl was politely invited to wear the head-set, and he politely obliged. -He found himself equipped with a new language and what seemed to him an -astonishing amount of information. Among the information was the item -that he was going to have--as an adult--a severe headache. Which he did. -Also included was the fact that the making of records for such educators -was so laborious a process that it took generations to compile one -master-record for the instruments. - -Burl, with a splitting headache, nevertheless urged Saya to join him in -getting an education. And she did. And thereafter they were able to -converse with the sportsmen on the _Wapiti_ comfortably enough,--except -for their headaches. - -And all this led to extremely satisfactory arrangements. Sportsmen -could not but be enthusiastic about the hunting of giant insects with -dogs and spears. The sportsmen on the _Wapiti_ wanted some of that kind -of sport. Burl's fellow-tribesmen were delighted to oblige,--though they -had not quite the zest of Burl. They had to acquire educations in their -turn, so they could talk to their new hunting-companions. But the -hunting was magnificent. The _Wapiti_ abandoned its original plans and -settled down for a stay. - -Presently Burl's casual talk of the lowlands produced results. An -atmosphere-flier came out of the ship's storage-compartments. And -through the educator Burl was now a civilized man. He had not the -specialized later information of his guests, but he had knowledge they -could not dream of, and which it would take much of a century to put in -recordable form for an educator. - -So an atmosphere-flier went down into the lowlands through the -cloud-banks. There were three men on board. They had good hunting. -Magnificent hunting. Even more importantly, they found another cluster -of human beings who lived as fugitives among the insect giants. They -brought them to the plateau, a few at a time. Sportsmen stayed in the -lowlands with modern weapons, hunting enthusiastically, while the -transfer took place. - -In all, the _Wapiti_ stayed for two months Earth-time. When it left, its -sportsmen had such trophies as would make them envied of all other -hunters in three star-clusters. They left behind weapons and -atmosphere-fliers and their library and tools. But they took with them -enthusiasm for the sport on the once-forgotten planet, and rather warm -feelings of friendship for Burl. - -They sent their friends back. The next ship to come in found a small -city on the plateau, with a population of three hundred souls,--all -civilized by educator. Naturally, they'd had no trouble building -civilized dwellings or practising sanitation, or developing a neatly -adapted culture-pattern for their particular environment. This second -ship brought more weapons and fliers and news from the first party -about commercial demand for the incredibly luxurious moth-fur, to be -found on only one planet in all the galaxy. - -The fourth ship to land on the plateau was a trading-ship anxious to -load such furs for recklessly bidding merchants in a dozen -interplanetary marts. There were then nearly a thousand people living on -the plateau. They had a natural monopoly,--not of moth-fur and -butterfly-wing fabric, and panels of irridescent chitin for luxurious -decoration, but--of the strictly practical and detailed knowledge of -insect-habits which made it possible to obtain them. Off-planet visitors -who tried to hunt without local knowledge did not come back from the -lowlands. In time, Burl firmly enacted a planetary law which forbade the -inexperienced to go below the cloud-layer. - -Because, of course, a government had to be formed for the planet. But -men with the basic education of citizens everywhere did not fumble it. -They had a job to do which was more important than anybody's vanity. It -was a job which gave deep and abiding satisfaction. When naked, -trembling folk were found in the mushroom-jungles and brought to the -plateau, they had one instant, feverish desire as soon as they got over -the headache from the educator. - -They wanted to go back to the lowlands. It was profitable, to be sure. -But it was even more of a satisfaction to hunt and kill the monsters -that had hunted and killed men for so long. It felt good, too, to find -other humans and bring them out to sunshine. - -So nowadays the forgotten planet has ceased to be forgotten. It is -hardly necessary to name it, because its name is known through all the -Galaxy. Its population is not large, so far, but it is an interesting -place to live in. In the popular mind, it is the most glamorous of all -possible worlds,--and for easily understandable reasons. The inhabitants -of its capital city wear moth-fur garments and butterfly-wing cloaks for -the benefit of their fellows in the lowlands. There is no day but -fliers take off and dive down into the mists. When human hunters are in -the lowlands, they dress as the lowlanders they used to be, so that -lowlanders who may spy them will be sure that they are men, and friends, -and come to them to be raised to proper dignity above the insects. It is -not unusual for a man to be brought up to sunshine, and have his session -with the educator, and be flying his own assigned atmosphere-flier -within a week, diving back above what used to be the place where he was -hunted, but where he has become the hunter. - -It is a very pleasant arrangement. The search for more humans in the -lowlands is a prosperous business, even when it is unsuccessful. The -wings of white Morpho butterflies bring the highest prices, but even a -common swallow-tail is riches, and the fur of caterpillars--duly -processed--goes into the holds of the planet-owned space-line ships with -the care given elsewhere to platinum and diamonds. - -And also it is good sport. The planet is a sportsman's paradise. There -are not too many visitors. Nobody may go hunting without an experienced -host. And off-planet sportsmen tend to feel somewhat queasy after a -session as guest of the folk who have made Burl their planet-president. -Visitors are not so much alarmed at fighting flying beetles in mid-air, -even though the beetles may compare with the hunters' craft in size and -are terrifically tenacious of life. The thing that appalls strangers is -the insistence of Burl's fellow-citizens--no longer only tribesmen--upon -fighting spiders on the ground. With their memories, they like it that -way. It's more satisfactory. - -Not long ago the Planet President of Sumor XI was Burl's guest for a -hunt. Sumor XI is a highly civilized planet, and life there has become -tame. Its president is an ardent hunter. He liked Burl, who is still all -hard muscle despite his graying hair. He and Saya have a very -comfortable dwelling, and now that their children are grown they have -room in it even for a planet president, if he comes as a sportsman -guest. The Planet President of Sumor XI even liked the informal -atmosphere of a house where pleasantly self-possessed dogs curl up -comfortably on rugs of emperor-moth down that elsewhere are beyond -price. - -But the President of Sumor XI was embarrassed on his visit. He and Burl -are both hunters, and they are highly congenial. But the President of -Sumor XI was upset on his last flight to the lowlands. Burl got out of -the atmosphere-flier alone, and for pure deep personal satisfaction he -fought a mastodon-sized wolf spider with nothing but a spear. - -He killed the creature, of course. But the President of Sumor XI was -embarrassed. He wouldn't have dared try it. He felt that, however -sporting it might be, it was too risky a thing for a Planet President to -do. - -But Saya took it for granted. - - * * * * * - -_You're missing the big thrills in science-fiction if you miss any of -the_ - -_ACE SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS_ - - -For instance, here's what the _New York Herald-Tribune_ (just one of the -many applauding reviewers) said about Ace Book D-103: - -SOLAR LOTTERY by Philip K. 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