Phineas opened the front door and they went slowly down the porch steps, onto the cold, dark ground.
"Yes, I guess I'll be going," Shadrach said. "Good night--"
"You go on home." Phineas patted him on the arm. "You run along hot and take a good hot bath. And then go straight to bed."
"That's a good idea. Thank you, Phineas. I appreciate your kindness." Shadrach looked down at Phineas's hand on his arm. He had not been that close to Phineas for years.
Shadrach contemplated the hand. He wrinkled his brow, puzzled.
Phineas's hand was huge and rough and his arms were short. His fingers were blunt; his nails broken and cracked. Almost black, or so it seemed in the moonlight.
Shadrach looked up at Phineas. "Strange," he murmured.
"What's strange, Shadrach?"
In the moonlight, Phineas's face seemed oddly heavy and brutal. Shadrach had never noticed before how the jaw bulged, what a great protruding jaw it was. The skin was yellow and coarse, like parchment. Behind glasses, the eyes were like two stones, cold and lifeless. The ears wer immense, the hair stringy and matted.
Odd that he never noticed before. But he had never seen Phineas in the moonlight.
Shadrach stepped away, studying his old friend. From a few feet off Phineas Judd seemed unusually short and squat. His legs were slightly bowed. His feet were enormous. And there was something else--
"What is it?" Phineas demanded, beginning to grow suspicious. "Is there something wrong?"
Something was completely wrong. And he had never noticed it, not in all the years they had been friends. All around Phineas Judd was an odor, a faint, pungent stench of rot, of decaying flesh, damp and moldy.
Shadrach glanced slowly about him. "Something wrong?" he echoed. "No, I wouldn't say that."
By the side of the house was an old rain barrel, half fallen apart. Shadrach walked over to it.
"No, Phineas. I wouldn't say there's something wrong."
"What are you doing?"
"Me?" Shadrach took hold of one of the barrel staves and pulled it loose. He walked back to Phineas, carrying the barrel stave carefully. "I'm King of the Elves. Who--or what--are you?"
Phineas roared and attacked with his great murderous shovel hands.
Shadrach smashed him over the head with the barrel stave. Phineas bellowed with rage and pain.
At the shattering sound, there was a clatter and from underneath the house came a furious horde of bounding, leaping creatures, dark bent-over things, their bodies heavy and squat, their feet and heads immense. Shadrach took one look at the flood of dark creatures pouring out from Phineas's basement. He knew what they were.
"Help!" Shadrach shouted. "Trolls! Help!"
The trolls were all around him, grabbing hold of him, tugging at him, climbing up him, pummeling his face and body.
Shadrach fell to with the barrel stave, swung again and again, kicking Trolls with his feet, whacking them with the barrel stave. There seemed to be hundreds of them. More and more poured out from under Phineas's house, a surging black tide of pot-shaped creatures, their great eyes and teeth gleaming in the moonlight.
"Help!" Shadrach cried again, more feebly now. He was getting winded. His heart labored painfully. A Troll bit his wrist, clinging to his arm. Shadrach flung it away, pulling loose from the horde clutching his trouser legs, the barrel stave rising and falling.
One of the Trolls caught hold of the stave. A whole group of them helped, wrenching furiously, trying to pull it away. Shadrach hung on desperately. Trolls were all over him, on his shoulders, clinging to his coat, riding his arms, his legs, pulling his hair--
He heard a high-pitched clarion call from a long way off, the sound of some distant golden trumpet, echoing in the hills.
The Trolls suddenly stopped attacking. One of them dropped off Shadrach's neck. Another let go of his arm.
The call came again, this time more loudly.
"Elves!" a Troll rasped. He turned and moved toward the sound, grinding his teeth and spitting with fury.
"Elves!"
The Trolls swarmed forward, a growing wave of gnashing teeth and nails, pushing furiously toward the Elf columns. The Elves broke formation and joined battle, shouting with wild joy in their shrill, piping voices. The tide of Trolls rushed against them, Troll against Elf, shovel nails against golden sword, biting jaw against dagger.
"Kill the Elves!"
"Death to the Trolls!"
"Onward!"
"Forward!"
Shadrach fought desperately with the Trolls that were still clinging to him. He was exhausted, panting and gasping for breath. Blindly, he whacked on and on, kicking and jumping, throwing Trolls away from him, through the air and across the ground.
How long the battle raged, Shadrach never knew. He was lost in a sea of dark bodies, round and evil-smelling, clinging to him, tearing, biting, fastened to his nose and hair and fingers. He fought silently, grimly.
All around him, the Elf legions clashed with the Troll horde, little groups of struggling warriors on all sides.
Suddenly Shadrach stopped fighting. He raised his head, looking uncertainly around him. Nothing moved. Everything was silent. The fighting had ceased.
A few Trolls still clung to his arms and legs. Shadrach whacked one with the barrel stave. It howled and dropped to the ground. He staggered back, struggling with the last Troll, who hung tenaciously to his arm.
"Now you!" Shadrach gasped. He pried the Troll loose and flung it into the air. The Troll fell to the ground and scuttled off into the night.
There was nothing more. No Troll moved anywhere. All was silent across the bleak moon-swept fields.
Shadrach sank down on a stone. His chest rose and fell painfully. Red specks swam before his eyes. Weakly, he got out his pocket handkerchief and wiped his neck and face. He closed his eyes, shaking his head from side to side.
When he opened his eyes again, the Elves were coming toward him, gathering their legion together again. The Elves were disheveled and bruised. Their golden armor was gashed and torn. Their helmets were bent or missing. Most of their scarlet plumes were gone. Those that still remained were drooping and broken.
But the battle was over. The war was won. The Troll hordes had been put to flight.
Shadrach got slowly to his feet. The Elf warriors stood around him in a circle, gazing up at him with silent respect. One of them helped steady him as he put his handkerchief away in his pocket.
"Thank you," Shadrach murmured. "Thank you very much."
"The Trolls have been defeated," an Elf stated, still awed by what had happened.
Shadrach gazed around at the Elves. There were many of them, more than he had ever seen before. All the Elves had turned out for the battle. They were grim-faced, stern with the seriousness of the moment, weary from the terrible struggle.
"Yes, they're gone, all right," Shadrach said. He was beginning to get his breath. "That was a close call. I'm glad you fellows came when you did. I was just about finished, fighting them all by myself."
"All alone, the King of the Elves held off the entire Troll army," an Elf announced shrilly.
"Eh?" Shadrach said, taken aback. Then he smiled. "That's true, I did fight them alone for a while. I did hold off the Trolls all by myself. The whole darn Troll army."
"There is more," an Elf said.
Shadrach blinked. "More?"
"Look over here, O King, mightiest of all the Elves. This way. To the right."
The Elves led Shadrach over.
"What is it?" Shadrach murmured, seeing nothing at first. He gazed down, trying to pierce the darkness. "Could we have a torch over here?"
Some Elves brought little pine torches.
There, on the frozen ground, lay Phineas Judd, on his back. His eyes were blank and staring, his mouth half open. He did not move. His body was cold and stiff.
"He is dead," an Elf said solemnly.
Shadrach gulped in sudden alarm. Cold sweat stood out abru
ptly on his forehead. "My gosh! My old friend! What have I done?"
"You have slain the Great Troll."
Shadrach paused.
"I what?"
"You have slain the Great Troll, leader of all the Trolls."
"This has never happened before," another Elf exclaimed excitedly. "The Great Troll has lived for centuries. Nobody imagined he could die. This is our most historic moment."
All the Elves gazed down at the silent form with awe, awe mixed with more than a little fear.
"Oh, go on!" Shadrach said. "That's just Phineas Judd."
But as he spoke, a chill moved up his spine. He remembered what he had seen a little while before, as he stood close by Phineas, as the dying moonlight crossed his old friend's face.
"Look." One of the Elves bent over and unfastened Phineas's blue-serge vest. He pushed the coat and vest aside. "See?"
Shadrach bent down to look.
He gasped.
Underneath Phineas Judd's blue-serge vest was a suit of mail, an encrusted mesh of ancient, rusting iron, fastened tightly around the squat body. On the mail stood an engraved insignia, dark and time-worn, embedded with dirt and rust. A moldering half-obliterated emblem. The emblem of a crossed owl leg and toadstool.
The emblem of the Great Troll.
"Golly," Shadrach said. "And I killed him."
For a long time he gazed silently down. Then, slowly, realization began to grow in him. He straightened up, a smile forming on his face.
"What is it, O King?" an Elf piped.
"I just thought of something," Shadrach said. "I just realized that--that since the Great Troll is dead and the Troll army has been put to flight--"
He broke off. All the Elves were waiting.
"I thought maybe I--that is, maybe if you don't need me any more--"
The Elves listened respectfully. "What is it, Mighty King? Go on."
"I thought maybe now I could go back to the filling station and not be king any more." Shadrach glanced hopefully around at them. "Do you think so? With the war over and all. With him dead. What do you say?"
For a time, the Elves were silent. They gazed unhappily down at the ground. None of them said anything. At last they began moving away, collecting their banners and pennants.
"Yes, you may go back," an Elf said quietly. "The war is over. The Trolls have been defeated. You may return to your filling station, if that is what you want."
A flood of relief swept over Shadrach. He straightened up, grinning from ear to ear. "Thanks! That's fine. That's really fine. That's the best news I've heard in my life."
He moved away from the Elves, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them.
"Thanks an awful lot." He grinned around at the silent Elves. "Well, I guess I'll be running along, then. It's late. Late and cold. It's been a hard night. I'll--I'll see you around."
The Elves nodded silently.
"Fine. Well, good night." Shadrach turned and started along the path. He stopped for a moment, waving back at the Elves. "It was quite a battle, wasn't it? We really licked them." He hurried on along the path. Once again he stopped, looking back and waving. "Sure glad I could help out. Well, good night!"
One or two on the Elves waved, but none of them said anything.
Shadrach Jones walked slowly toward his place. He could see it from the rise, the highway that few cars traveled, the filling station falling to ruin, the house that might not last as long as himself, and not enough money coming it to repair them or buy a better location.
He turned around and went back.
The Elves were still gathered there in the silence of the night. They had not moved away.
"I was hoping you hadn't gone," Shadrach said, relieved.
"And we were hoping you would not leave," said a soldier.
Shadrach kicked a stone. It bounced through the tight silence stopped. The Elves were still watching him.
"Leave?" Shadrach asked. "And me King of the Elves?"
"Then you will remain our king?" an Elf cried.
"It's a hard thing for a man of my age to change. To stop selling gasoline and suddenly be a king. It scared me for a while. But it doesn't any more."
"You will? You will?"
"Sure," said Shadrach Jones.
The little circle of Elf torches closed in joyously. In their light, he saw a platform like the one that had carried the old King of the Elves. But this one was much larger, big enough to hold a man, and dozens of the soldiers waited with proud shoulders under the shafts.
A soldier gave him a happy bow. "For you, Sire."
Shadrach climbed aboard. It was less comfortable than walking, but he knew this was how they wanted to take him to the Kingdom of the Elves.
Colony
Major Lawrence Hall bent over the binocular microscope, correcting the fine adjustment.
"Interesting," he murmured.
"Isn't it? Three weeks on this planet and we've yet to find a harmful life form." Lieutenant Friendly sat down on the edge of the lab table, avoiding the culture bowls. "What kind of place is this? No disease germs, no lice, no flies, no rats, no--"
"No whiskey or red-light districts." Hall straightened up. "Quite a place. I was sure this brew would show something along the lines of Terra's eberthella typhi. Or the Martian sand rot corkscrew."
"But the whole planet's harmless. You know, I'm wondering whether this is the Garden of Eden our ancestors fell out of."
"Were pushed out of."
Hall wandered over to the window of the lab and contemplated the scene beyond. He had to admit it was an attractive sight. Rolling forests and hills, green slopes alive with flowers and endless vines; waterfalls and hanging moss; fruit trees, acres of flowers, lakes. Every effort had been made to preserve intact the surface of Planet Blue--as it had been designated by the original scout ship, six months earlier.
Hall sighed. "Quite a place. I wouldn't mind coming back here again some time."
"Makes Terra seem a little bare." Friendly took out his cigarettes, then put them away again. "You know, the place has a funny effect on me. I don't smoke any more. Guess that's because of the way it looks. It's so--so damn pure. Unsullied. I can't smoke or throw papers around. I can't bring myself to be a picnicker."
"The picnickers'll be along soon enough," Hall said. He went back to the microscope. "I'll try a few more cultures. Maybe I'll find a lethal germ yet."
"Keep trying." Lieutenant Friendly hopped off the table. "I'll see you later and find out if you've had any luck. There's a big conference going on in Room One. They're almost ready to give the go-ahead to the E.A. for the first load of colonists to be sent out."
"Picnickers!"
Friendly grinned. "Afraid so."
The door closed after him. His bootsteps echoed down the corridor. Hall was alone in the lab.
He sat for a time in thought. Presently he bent down and removed the slide from the stage of the microscope, selected a new one and held it up to the light to read the marking. The lab was warm and quiet. Sunlight streamed through the windows and across the floor. The trees outside moved a little in the wind. He began to feel sleepy.
"Yes, the picnickers," he grumbled. He adjusted the new slide into position. "And all of them ready to come in and cut down the trees, tear up the flowers, spit in the lakes, burn up the grass. With not even the common-cold virus around to--"
He stopped, his voice choked off--
Choked off because the two eyepieces of the microscope had twisted suddenly around his windpipe and were trying to strangle him. Hall tore at them, but they dug relentlessly into his throat, steel prongs closing like the claws of a trap.
Throwing the microscope onto the floor, he leaped up. The microscope crawled quickly toward him, hooking around his leg. He kicked it loose with his other foot, and drew his blast pistol.
The microscope scuttled away, rolling on its coarse adjustments. Hall fired. It disappeared in a cloud of metallic particles.
"Good God!" Ha
ll sat down weakly, mopping his face. "What the--?" He massaged his throat. "What the hell!"
The council room was packed solid. Every officer of the Planet Blue unit was there. Commander Stella Morrison tapped on the big control map with the end of a slim plastic pointer.
"This long flat area is ideal for the actual city. It's close to water, and weather conditions vary sufficiently to give the settlers something to talk about. There are large deposits of various minerals. The colonists can set up their own factories. They won't have to do any importing. Over here is the biggest forest on the planet. If they have any sense, they'll leave it. But if they want to make newspapers out of it, that's not our concern."
She looked around the room at the silent men.
"Let's be realistic. Some of you have been thinking we shouldn't send the okay to the Emigration Authority, but keep the planet our own selves, to come back to. I'd like that as much as any of the rest of you, but we'd just get into a lot of trouble. It's not our planet. We're here to do a certain job. When the job is done, we move along. And it is almost done. So let's forget it. The only thing left to do is flash the go-ahead signal and then begin packing our things."
"Has the lab report come in on bacteria?" Vice-Commander Wood asked.
"We're taking special care to look out for them, of course. But the last I heard nothing had been found. I think we can go ahead and contact the E.A. Have them send a ship to take us off and bring in the first load of settlers. There's no reason why--" She stopped.
A murmur was swelling through the room. Heads turned toward the door.
Commander Morrison frowned. "Major Hall, may I remind you that when the council is in session no one is permitted to interrupt!"
Hall swayed back and forth, supporting himself by holding on to the door knob. He gazed vacantly around the council room. Finally his glassy eyes picked out Lieutenant Friendly, sitting halfway across the room.
"Come here," he said hoarsely.
"Me?" Friendly sank farther down in his chair.
"Major, what is the meaning of this?" Vice-Commander Wood cut in angrily. "Are you drunk or are--?" He saw the blast gun in Hall's hand. "Is something wrong, Major?"
Collected Stories 1 - The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Classic Stories Page 45