_10. MEN CLIMB UP TO SAVAGERY_
They had food for days. They had brought mushroom from the isolatedthicket not too far beneath the clouds. There were the ants that Dik andTet had distributed grandly, and not all of which had been used tosecure escape from the canyon of the millipede. Had they found other foodimmediately, they would have settled down comfortably in the fashionnormal to creatures whose idea of bliss is a secure hiding-place andfood on hand so they do not have to leave it. Somehow they believed thatthis high place of bright light and new colors was secure. But they hadno hiding-place. And though they did accept with the unreasoning faithof children and savages that there were no enemies here, they stillwanted one.
They found a cave. It was small, so that it would be crowded with all ofthem in it, but as it turned out, this was fortunate. At some time ithad been occupied by some other creature, but the dirt which floored ithad settled flat and showed no tracks. It retained faint traces of asmell which was unfamiliar but not unpleasing,--it held no connotationof danger. Ants stank of formic acid plus the musky odor of theirparticular city. One could identify not only the kind of ant, but itshome city, by sniffing at an ant-trail. Spiders had their ownhair-raising odor. The smell of a praying-mantis was acrid, and allbeetles reeked of decay. And of course there were those bugs whose maindefense was an effluvium which tended to strangle all but the smell'shappy possessor. This faint smell in the cave was different. The humansthought vaguely that it might possibly be another kind of man.
Actually, it was the smell of a warm-blooded animal. But Burl and hisfellows knew of no warm-blooded creature but themselves.
They had come above the clouds a bare two hours before sunset,--of whichthey knew nothing. For an hour they marveled, staying close together.They were especially astounded by the sun, since they could not bear tolook at it. But presently, being savages, they accepted itmatter-of-factly.
They could not cease to wonder at the vegetation about them. They wereaccustomed only to gigantic fungi and the few straggling plants whichtried so desperately to bear seed before they were devoured. Here theysaw many plants and no fungi,--and they did not see anything theyrecognized 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 camefrom the absence of debris upon the ground. The hunting-grounds ofspiders were marked by grisly remnants of finished meals, and wheremantises roamed there were bits of transparent beetle-wings and sharpspiny bits of armor not tasty enough to be consumed. Here, in the firsthour of their exploration, they saw no sign that an insect likethe lowland ones had ever been in this place at all. But theycould not believe the monsters never came. They correctly--andpessimistically--assumed that their coming was only rare.
The cave was a great relief. Trees did not grow close enough to givethem a feeling of safety,--though they were ludicrously amazed at theinvincible hardness of tree trunks. They had never known anything butinsect-armour and stone which was as hard as the trunks of thosegrowing things. They found nothing to eat, but they were not yethungry. They did not worry about food while they still had remnants fromtheir climb.
When the sun sank low and crimson colorings filled the west, they wereless 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 descendbehind 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 intobeing. And the folk from the lowland crowded frantically into the cavewith its faint odor of having once been occupied by something else. Theyfilled the cave tightly. But Burl had some reluctance to admit histerror. He and Saya were the last to enter.
And nothing happened. Nothing. The sounds of sunset continued. They werestrange but soothing and somehow--again ancestral memory spokecomfortingly--they were the way night-sounds ought to be. Burl and theothers could not possibly know it, but for the first time in fortygenerations on the forgotten planet, human beings were in an environmentreally suited to them. It had a rightness and a goodness which wasobvious in spite of its novelty. And because of Burl's own specialexperiences, he was a little bit better able to estimate novelties thanthe rest. He listened to the night-noises from close by the cave's smallentrance. He heard the breathing of his tribesfolk. He felt the heat oftheir bodies, keeping the crowded enclosure warm enough for all. Sayaheld fast to his hand, for the reassurance of the contact. He waswakeful, and thinking very busily and painfully, but Saya was notthinking at all. She was simply proud of Burl.
She felt, to be sure, a tumult which was fear of the unknown and relieffrom much greater fear of the familiar. She felt warm, pridefulmemories of the sight of Burl leading and commanding the others. She hadabsorbing fresh memories of the look and feel of sunshine, and mentalpictures of sky and grass and trees which she had never seen before.Confusedly she remembered that Burl had killed a spider, no less, and hehad shown how to escape a praying-mantis by flinging it at an ant, andhe had grandly led the others up a mountainside it had never occurred toanybody else to climb. And the giant millipede would have devoured themall, but that Burl gave commands and set the example, and he had marchedmagnificently up the mountainside when it seemed that all the cosmostwisted and prepared to drop them into an inverted sky....
Saya dozed. And Burl sat awake, listening, and presently withfast-beating heart he slipped out of the entrance to the cave and staredabout him in the night.
There was coolness such as he had never known before, but nightfall wasnot long past. There were smells in the air he had never beforeexperienced,--green things growing, and the peculiar clean odor of windthat has been bathed in sunshine, and the oddly satisfying smell ofresinous trees.
But Burl raised his eyes to the heavens. He saw the stars in all theirglory, and he was the first human in two thousand years and more to lookat 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 verybeautiful.
Burl stared. And then he noticed that he was breathing deeply, with anew zest. He was filling his lungs with clean, cool, fragrant air suchas men were intended to breathe from the beginning, and of which Burland many others had been deprived. It was almost intoxicating to feel sosplendidly alive and unafraid.
There was a slight sound. Saya stood beside him, trembling a little. Toleave the others had required great courage, but she had come to realizethat if Burl was in danger she wished to share it.
They heard the nightwind and the orchestra of night-singers. Theywandered aside from the cave-mouth and Saya found completely primitiveand satisfying pride in the courage of Burl, who was actually not afraidof the dark! Her own uneasiness became something which merely addedsavor to her pride in him. She followed him wherever he went, to examinethis and consider that in the nighttime. It gave her enormoussatisfaction at once to think of danger and to feel so safe because ofhis nearness.
Presently they heard a new sound in the night. It was very far away, andnot in the least like any sound they had ever heard before. It changedin pitch as insect-cries do not. It was a baying, yelping sound. Itrose, and held the higher note, and abruptly dropped in pitch before itceased. 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 ofthe infrequent thunderstorms, when wetted human bodies were exposed tothe gusty winds that otherwise never blew. But here the nights grew coldafter sundown. The heat of the ground would radiate to outer space withno
clouds to intercept it, and before dawn the temperature might dropnearly to freezing. On a planet so close to its sun, however, therewould 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 theclose packing of bodies and many breaths. Burl and Saya found places torest and dozed off, Saya's hand again trustfully in Burl's.
He still remained awake for a long time. He thought of the stars, butthey were too strange to estimate. He thought of the trees and grass.But most of his impressions of this upper world were so remote fromprevious knowledge that he could only accept them as they were and deferreflecting upon them until later. He did feel an enormous complacency athaving led his followers here, though.
But the last thing he actually thought about, before his eyes blinkedshut 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 amongthe 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 coldand pallid grayness of before-dawn. He saw trees. One side was brightlylighted by comparison, and the other side was dark. He heard the tinysinging noises of the inhabitants of this place. Presently he crawledout of the cave again.
The air was biting in its chill. It was an excellent reason why thegiant insects could not live here, but it was invigorating to Burl as hebreathed it in. Presently he looked curiously for the source of thepeculiar one-sided light.
He saw the top of the sun as it peered above the eastern cloud-bank. Thesky grew lighter. He blinked and saw it rise more fully into view. Hethought to look upward, and the stars that had bewildered him werenearly gone.
He ran to call Saya.
The rest of the tribe waked as he roused her. One by one, they followedto watch their first sunrise. The men gaped at the sun as it filled theeast with colorings, and rose and rose above the seemingly steaminglayer of clouds, and then appeared to spring free of the horizon andswim on upward.
The women stared with all their eyes. The children blinked, andshivered, and crept to their mothers for warmth. The women enclosed themin their cloaks, and they thawed and peered out once more at the gloryof sunshine and the day. Very soon, too, they realized that warmth camefrom the great shining body in the sky. The children presentlydiscovered a game. It was the first game they had ever played. Itconsisted of running into a shaded place until they shivered, and thenof running out into warm sunshine once more. Until this, dawning fearwas the motive for such playing as they did. Now they gleefully made agame of sunshine.
In this first morning of their life above the clouds, the tribesmen ateof the food they had brought from below. But there was not an indefiniteamount of food left. Burl ate, and considered darkly, and presentlysummoned his followers' attention. They were quite contented and for themoment 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 findfood."
It was a seizure of the initiative. It was the linking of what the folkmost craved with obedience to Burl. It was the device by which dictatorsseize power, and it was the instinctive action of a leader.
The eating men murmured agreement. There was a certain definite idea ofgoodness--not virtue, but of things desirable--associated with what Burldid and what he commanded. His tribe was gradually forming a habit ofobedience, 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 regardedit with amazement. There were no leeches. No greenish algae. No foamingmasses of scum. It was dear! Greatly daring, Burl tasted it. He drankthe first really potable water in a very long time for his race on thisplanet. It was not fouled by drainage through moulds or rusts.
Dor drank after him. Jak. Cori tasted, and instantly bade her childrendrink. Even old Tama drank suspiciously, and then raised her voice inshrill complaint that Burl had not led them to this place sooner. Tetand Dik became convinced that there were no deadly things lurking in it,and splashed each other. Dik slipped and sat down hard on white stuffthat yielded and almost splashed. He got up and looked fearfully at whathe thought might be a deadly slime. Then he yelped shrilly.
He sat down on and crushed part of a bed of mushrooms. But they weretiny, clean, and appetizing. They were miniatures of the ediblemushrooms the tribe fed on.
Burl smelled and finally tasted one. It was, of course, nothing more orless than a perfectly normal edible mushroom, growing to the size thatmushrooms originally grew on Earth. It grew on a shaded place inenormously rich soil. It had been protected from direct sunlight bytrees, 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 thefind to his followers. There was food here, he told them sternly, but inthis splendid world to which he had led them, food was small. Therewould be no great enemies here, but the food would have to be sought insmall objects instead of great ones. They must look at this place andseek others like it, in order to find food....
The tribesmen were doubtful. But they plucked mushrooms--wholeones!--instead of merely breaking off parts of their tops. With deepastonishment they recognized the miniature objects as familiar thingsensmalled. These mushrooms had the same savor, but they were not coarseor stringy or tough like the giants. They melted in the mouth; Life inthis place to which Burl had led them was delectable! Truly the doingsof Burl were astonishing!
When the oldest of Cori's children found a beetle on a leaf, and theyrecognized it, and instead of being bigger than a man and a thing toflee from, it was less than an inch in size and helpless against them--.They were entranced. From that moment onward they would really followBurl anywhere, in the happy conviction that he could only bring good toeverybody.
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 offamiliar food in unfamiliar sizes. They were struggling, at the time,through a vast patch of bushes with thorns on them--they were not usedto thorns--which they deeply distrusted. Eventually they would find outthat the glistening dark fruit were blackberries, and would rejoice inthem, but at this first encounter they were uneasy. In the midst of suchan untouched berry-patch they heard noises in the distance.
The sound was made up of cries of varying pitch, some of which were loudand abrupt, and others longer and less loud. The people did notunderstand them in the least. They could have been cries of humanbeings, perhaps, but they were not cries of pain. Also they were notlanguage. They seemed to express a tremendous, zestful excitement. Theyhad no overtone of horror. And Burl and his folk had known of noexcitement among insects except frenzy. They could not imagine what sortof tumult this could be.
But to Burl these sounds had something of the timbre of the yelpingnoises of the night before. He had felt drawn to that sound. He likedit. He liked this.
He led the way boldly toward the agitated noises. Presently--after amile or so--he and his people came out of breast-high weeds. Saya wasimmediately behind him. The others trailed,--Tama complaining bitterlythat there was no need to track down sounds which could only meandanger. They emerged in a space of bare stone above a small and grassyamphitheatre. The tumult came from its center.
A pack of dogs was joyously attacking something that Burl could not seeclearly. They were dogs. They barked zestfully, and they yelped andsnarled and yapped in a dozen different voices, and they were having athoroughly good time,--though it might not be so good for the thing theyattacked.
One of them sighted the humans. He stopped stock-still and barked. Theothers whirled and saw the humans as they came out into view. The tumultceased abruptly.
There was silence. The tribesme
n saw creatures with four legs only. Theyhad never before seen any living thing with fewer than six,--except men.Spiders had eight. The dogs did not have mandibles. They did not havewing-cases. They did not act like insects. It was stupifying!
And the dogs saw men, whom they had never seen before. Much moreimportant, they smelled men. And the difference between man-smell andinsect-smell was so vast--because through hundreds of generations thedogs had not smelled anything with warm blood save their own kind--thedifference in smell was so great in kind that the dogs did not reactwith suspicion, but with a fascinated curiosity. This was anunparalleled smell. It was, even in its novelty, an overwhelminglysatisfying smell.
The dogs regarded the men with their heads on one side, sniffing in thedeepest possible amazement,--amazement so intense that they could notpossibly feel hostility. One of them whined a little because he did notunderstand.
The Forgotten Planet Page 11