The Best of Henry Kuttner

by Henry Kuttner

  “Into human beings!” Crockett’s eyes widened. “Where are the eggs kept?”

  “Let’s fight,” Mugza offered, and hurled himself bodily on Drook, who squeaked frantically and beat his attacker over the head with his soup bowl, which broke. Brockle Buhn added to the excitement by kicking both battlers impartially, till felled by Gru Magru. Within a few moments the room resounded with the excited screams of gnomic battle. Inevitably Crockett was sucked in…

  Of all the perverted, incredible forms of life that had ever existed, gnomes were about the oddest. It was impossible to understand their philosophy. Their minds worked along different paths from human intelligences. Self-preservation and survival of the race—these two vital human instincts were lacking in gnomes. They neither died nor propagated. They just worked and fought. Bad-tempered little monsters, Crockett thought irritably. Yet they had existed for—ages. Since the beginning, maybe. Their social organism was the result of evolution far older than man’s. It might be well suited to gnomes. Crockett might be throwing the unnecessary monkey wrench in the machinery.

  So what? He wasn’t going to spend eternity digging anthracite, even though, in retrospect, he remembered feeling a curious thrill of obscure pleasure as he worked. Digging might be fun for gnomes. Certainly it was their raison d’etre. In time Crockett himself might lose his human affiliations, and be metamorphosed completely into a gnome. What had happened to other humans who had undergone such an—alteration as he had done? All gnomes look alike. But maybe Gru Magru had once been human—or Drook—or Brockle Buhn.

  They were gnomes now, at any rate, thinking and existing completely as gnomes. And in time he himself would be exactly like them. Already he had acquired the strange tropism that attracted him to metals and repelled him from daylight. But he didn’t like to dig!

  He tried to recall the little he knew about gnomes—miners, metal-smiths, living underground. There was something about the Picts—dwarfish men who hid underground when invaders came to England, centuries ago. That seemed to tie in vaguely with the gnomes’ dread of human beings. But the gnomes themselves were certainly not descended from Picts. Very likely the two separate races and species had become identified through occupying the same habitat.

  Well, that was no help. What about the Emperor? He wasn’t, apparently, a gnome with a high I.Q., but he was a magician. Those jewels—Cockatrice Eggs—were significant. If he could get hold of the ones that transformed gnomes into men…

  But obviously he couldn’t, at present. Better wait. Till the strike had been called. The strike…

  Crockett went to sleep.

  He was roused, painfully, by Brockle Buhn, who seemed to have adopted him. Very likely it was her curiosity about the matter of a kiss. From time to time she offered to give Crockett one, but he steadfastly refused. In lieu of it, she supplied him with breakfast. At least, he thought grimly, he’d get plenty of iron in his system, even though the rusty chips rather resembled com flakes. As a special inducement Brockle Buhn sprinkled coal dust over the mess.

  Well, no doubt his digestive system had also altered. Crockett wished he could get an X-ray picture of his insides. Then he decided it would be much too disturbing. Better not to know. But he could not help wondering. Gears in his stomach? Small millstones? What would happen if he inadvertently swallowed some emery dust? Maybe he could sabotage the Emperor that way.

  Perceiving that his thoughts were beginning to veer wildly, Crockett gulped the last of his meal and followed Brockle Buhn to the anthracite tunnel.

  “How about the strike? How’s it coming?”

  “Fine, Crockett.” She smiled, and Crockett winced at the sight. “Tonight all the gnomes will meet in the Roaring Cave. Just after work.”

  There was no time for more conversation. The overseer appeared, and the gnomes snatched up their picks. Dig…dig…dig…

  It kept up at the same pace. Crockett sweated and toiled. It wouldn’t be for long. His mind slipped a cog, so that he relapsed into a waking slumber, his muscles responding automatically to the need. Dig, dig, dig. Sometimes a fight. Once a rest period. Then dig again.

  Five centuries later the day ended. It was time to sleep.

  But there was something much more important. The union meeting in the Roaring Cave. Brockle Buhn conducted Crockett there, a huge cavern hung with glittering green stalactites. Gnomes came pouring into it. Gnomes and more gnomes. The turnip heads were everywhere. A dozen fights started. Gru Magru, Mugza and Drook found places near Crockett. During a lull Brockle Buhn urged him to a platform of rock jutting from the floor.

  “Now,” she whispered. “They all know about it. Tell them what you want.”

  Crockett was looking out over the bobbing heads, the red and blue garments, all lit by that eerie silver glow. “Fellow gnomes,” he began weakly.

  “Fellow gnomes!” The words roared out, magnified by the acoustics of the cavern. That bull bellow gave Crockett courage. He plunged on.

  “Why should you work twenty hours a day? Why should you be forbidden to eat the anthracite you dig, while Podrang squats in his bath and laughs at you? Fellow gnomes, the Emperor is only one; you are many! He can’t make you work. How would you like mud soup three times a day? The Emperor can’t fight you all. If you refuse to work—all of you—he’ll have to give in! He’ll have to!”

  “Tell ’em about the non-fighting edict,” Gru Magru called.

  Crockett obeyed. That got ’em. Fighting was dear to every gnomic heart. And Crockett kept on talking.

  “Podrang will try to back down, you know. He’ll pretend he never intended to forbid fighting. That’ll show he’s afraid of you! We hold the whip hand! We’ll strike—and the Emperor can’t do a damn thing about it. When he runs out of mud for his baths, he’ll capitulate soon enough.”

  “He’ll enchant us all,” Drook muttered sadly.

  “He won’t dare! What good would that do? He knows which side his—ugh—which side his mud is buttered on. Podrang is unfair to gnomes! That’s our watchword!”

  It ended, of course, in a brawl. But Crockett was satisfied. The gnomes would not go to work tomorrow. They would, instead, meet in the Council Chamber, adjoining Podrang’s throne room—and sit down.

  That night he slept well.

  In the morning Crockett went, with Brockle Buhn, to the Council Chamber, a cavern gigantic enough to hold the thousands of gnomes who thronged it. In the silver light their red and blue garments had a curiously elfin quality. Or, perhaps, naturally enough, Crockett thought. Were gnomes, strictly speaking, elves?

  Drook came up. “I didn’t draw Podrang’s mud bath,” he confided hoarsely. “Oh, but he’ll be furious. Listen to him.”

  And, indeed, a distant crackling of profanity was coming through an archway in one wall of the cavern.

  Mugza and Gru Magru joined them. “He’ll be along directly,” the latter said. “What a fight there’ll be!”

  “Let’s fight now,” Mugza suggested. “I want to kick somebody. Hard.”

  “There’s a gnome who’s asleep,” Crockett said. “If you sneak up on him, you can land a good one right in his face.”

  Mugza, drooling slightly, departed on his errand, and simultaneously Podrang II, Emperor of the Domsef Gnomes, stumped into the cavern. It was the first time Crockett had seen the ruler without a coating of mud, and he could not help gulping at the sight. Podrang was very ugly. He combined in himself the most repulsive qualities of every gnome Crockett had previously seen. The result was perfectly indescribable.

  “Ah,” said Podrang, halting and swaying on his short bow legs. “I have guests. Drook! Where in the name of the nine steaming hells is my bath?” But Drook had ducked from sight.

  The Emperor nodded. “I see. Well, I won’t lose my temper, I won’t lose my temper! I WON’T—”

  He paused as a stalactite was dislodged from the roof and crashed down. In the momentary silence, Crockett stepped forward, cringing sligh
tly.

  “W-we’re on strike,” he announced. “It’s a sit-down strike. We won’t work till—”

  “Yaah!” screamed the infuriated Emperor. “You won’t work, eh? Why, you boggle-eyed, flap-tongued, drag-bellied offspring of unmentionable algae! You seething little leprous blotch of bat-nibbled fungus! You cringing parasite on the underside of a dwarfish and ignoble worm! Yaaah!”

  “Fight!” the irrepressible Mugza yelled, and flung himself on Podrang, only to be felled by a well-placed foul blow.

  Crockett’s throat felt dry. He raised his voice, trying to keep it steady.

  “Your Majesty! If you’ll just wait a minute—”

  “You mushroom-nosed spawn of degenerate black bats,” the enraged Emperor shrieked at the top of his voice. “I’ll enchant you all! I’ll turn you into naiads! Strike, will you! Stop me from having my mud bath, will you? By Kronos, Nid, Ymir and Loki, you’ll have cause to regret this! Yah!” he finished, inarticulate with fury.

  “Quick!” Crockett whispered to Gru and Brockle Buhn. “Get between him and the door, so he can’t get hold of the Cockatrice Eggs.”

  “They’re not in the throne room,” Gru Magru explained unhelpfully. “Podrang just grabs them out of the air.”

  “Oh!” the harassed Crockett groaned. At that strategic moment Brockle Buhn’s worst instincts overcame her. With a loud shriek of delight she knocked Crockett down, kicked him twice and sprang for the Emperor.

  She got in one good blow before Podrang hammered her atop the head with one gnarled fist, and instantly her turnip-shaped skull seemed to prolapse into her torso. The Emperor, bright purple with fury, reached out—and a yellow crystal appeared in his hand.

  It was one of the Cockatrice Eggs.

  Bellowing like a musth elephant, Podrang hurled it. A circle of twenty feet was instantly cleared among the massed gnomes. But it wasn’t vacant. Dozens of bats rose and fluttered about, adding to the confusion.

  Confusion became chaos. With yells of delighted fury, the gnomes rolled forward toward their ruler. “Fight!” the cry thundered out, reverberating from the roof. “Fight!”

  Podrang snatched another crystal from nothingness—a green one, this time. Thirty-seven gnomes were instantly transformed into earthworms, and were trampled. The Emperor went down under an avalanche of attackers, who abruptly disappeared, turned into mice by another of the Cockatrice Eggs.

  Crockett saw one of the crystals sailing toward him, and ran like hell. He found a hiding place behind a stalagmite, and from there watched the carnage. It was definitely a sight worth seeing, though it could not be recommended to a nervous man.

  The Cockatrice Eggs exploded in an incessant stream. Whenever that happened, the spell spread out for twenty feet or more before losing its efficacy. Those caught on the fringes of the circle were only partially transformed. Crockett saw one gnome with a mole’s head. Another was a worm from the waist down. Another was—ulp! Some of the spell patterns were not, apparently, drawn even from known mythology.

  The fury of noise that filled the cavern brought stalactites crashing down incessantly from the roof. Every so often Podrang’s battered head would reappear, only to go down again as more gnomes sprang to the attack—to be enchanted. Mice, moles, bats and other things filled the Council Chamber. Crockett shut his eyes and prayed.

  He opened them in time to see Podrang snatch a red crystal out of the air, pause and then deposit it gently behind him. A purple Cockatrice Egg came next. This crashed against the floor, and thirty gnomes turned into tree toads.

  Apparently only Podrang was immune to his own magic. The thousands who had filled the cavern were rapidly thinning, for the Cockatrice Eggs seemed to come from an inexhaustible source of supply. How long would it be before Crockett’s own turn came? He couldn’t hide here forever.

  His gaze riveted to the red crystal Podrang had so carefully put down. He was remembering something—the Cockatrice Egg that would transform gnomes into human beings. Of course! Podrang wouldn’t use that, since the very sight of men was so distressing to gnomes. If Crockett could get his hands on that red crystal…

  He tried it, sneaking through the confusion, sticking close to the wall of the cavern, till he neared Podrang. The Emperor was swept away by another onrush of gnomes, who abruptly changed into dormice, and Crockett got the red jewel. It felt abnormally cold.

  He almost broke it at his feet before a thought stopped and chilled him. He was far under Dornsef Mountain, in a labyrinth of caverns. No human being could find his way out. But a gnome could, with the aid of his strange tropism to daylight.

  A bat flew against Crockett’s face. He was almost certain it squeaked, “What a fight!” in a parody of Brockle Buhn’s voice, but he couldn’t be sure. He cast one glance over the cavern before turning to flee.

  It was a complete and utter chaos. Bats, moles, worms, ducks, eels and a dozen other species crawled, flew, ran, bit, shrieked, snarled, grunted, whooped and croaked all over the place. From all directions the remaining gnomes—only about a thousand now—were converging on a surging mound of gnomes that marked where the Emperor was. As Crockett stared the mound dissolved, and a number of gecko lizards ran to safety.

  “Strike, will you!” Podrang bellowed. “I’ll show you!”

  Crockett turned and fled. The throne room was deserted, and he ducked into the first tunnel. There, he concentrated on thinking of daylight. His left ear felt compressed. He sped on till he saw a side passage.

  on the left, slanting up, and turned into it at top speed. The muffled noise of combat died behind him.

  He clutched the red Cockatrice Egg tightly. What had gone wrong? Podrang should have stopped to parley. Only—only he hadn’t. A singularly bad-tempered and short-sighted gnome. He probably wouldn’t stop till he’d depopulated his entire kingdom. At the thought Crockett hurried along faster.

  The tropism guided him. Sometimes he took the wrong tunnel, but always, whenever he thought of daylight, he would feel the nearest daylight pressing against him. His short, bowed legs were surprisingly hardy.

  Then he heard someone running after him.

  He didn’t turn. The sizzling blast of profanity that curled his ears told him the identity of the pursuer. Podrang had no doubt cleared the Council Chamber, to the last gnome, and was now intending to tear Crockett apart pinch by pinch. That was only one of the things he promised.

  Crockett ran. He shot along the tunnel like a bullet. The tropism guided him, but he was terrified lest he reach a dead end. The clamor from behind grew louder. If Crockett hadn’t known better, he would have imagined that an army of gnomes pursued him.

  Faster! Faster! But now Podrang was in sight. His roars shook the very walls. Crockett sprinted, rounded a corner, and saw a wall of flaming light—a circle of it, in the distance. It was daylight, as it appeared to gnomic eyes.

  He could not reach it in time. Podrang was too close. A few more seconds, and those gnarled, terrible hands would close on Crockett’s throat.

  Then Crockett remembered the Cockatrice Egg. If he transformed himself into a man now, Podrang would not dare touch him. And he was almost at the tunnel’s mouth.

  He stopped, whirling and lifted the jewel. Simultaneously the Emperor, seeing his intention, reached out with both hands, and snatched six or seven of the crystals out of the air. He threw them directly at Crockett, a fusillade of rainbow colors.

  But Crockett had already slammed the red gem down on the rock at his feet. There was an ear-splitting crash. Jewels seemed to burst all around Crockett—but the red one had been broken first.

  The roof fell in.

  A short while later, Crockett dragged himself painfully from the debris. A glance showed him that the way to the outer world was still open. And—thank heaven!—daylight looked normal again, not that flaming blaze of eye-searing white.

  He looked toward the depths of the tunnel, and froze. Podrang was emerging, with some difficulty,
from a mound of rubble. His low curses had lost none of their fire.

  Crockett turned to run, stumbled over a rock, and fell flat. As he sprang up, he saw that Podrang had seen him.

  The gnome stood transfixed for a moment. Then he yelled, spun on his heel, and fled into the darkness. He was gone. The sound of his rapid footfalls died.

  Crockett swallowed with difficulty. Gnomes are afraid of men—whew! That had been a close squeak. But now…

  He was more relieved than he had thought. Subconsciously he must have been wondering whether the spell would work, since Podrang had flung six or seven Cockatrice Eggs at him. But he had smashed the red one first. Even the strange, silvery gnome-light was gone. The depths of the cave were utterly black—and silent.

  Crockett headed for the entrance. He pulled himself out, luxuriating in the warmth of the afternoon sun. He was near the foot of Dornsef Mountain, in a patch of brambles. A hundred feet away a farmer was plowing one terrace of a field.

  Crockett stumbled toward him. As he approached, the man turned.

  He stood transfixed for a moment. Then he yelled, spun on his heel, and fled.

  His shrieks drifted back up the mountain as Crockett, remembering the Cockatrice Eggs, forced himself to look down at his own body.

  Then he screamed too. But the sound was not one that could ever have emerged from a human throat.

  Still, that was natural enough—under the circumstances.

  The Big Night

  Chapter 1. Last of the Hyper Ships

  She came lumbering up out of the ecliptic plane of the planets like a wallowing space beast, her jet tubes scarred and stained, a molten streak across her middle where Venus’s turgid atmosphere had scarred her, and every ancient spot weld in her fat body threatened to rip apart the moment she hit stress again.

  The skipper was drunk in his cabin, his maudlin voice echoing through the compartments as he bewailed the unsympathetic harshness of the Interplanetary Trade Commission.