The Micronauts

by Gordon Williams

  When they could see the sky, it was no sky he knew, so richly blue it became a purple ocean floating on top of the tall spears of grass through which they moved in awe at their own insignificance—so small they could not see the sun.

  And the smells.

  The smell of young grassblades broken down by their boots, more sweet than a thousand fields of mown hay. The bittersweet smell of soil, as pungent as the tang of oceans, the stench of organic matter decomposing under the attentions of unseen armies of bacteria.

  Something leaped up from a small patch of black soil

  among the broad plantain leaves, springing far above his head. For a moment, he had a glimpse of what looked like a small lobster. Nobody else seemed to have seen it and he decided to say nothing, in case they thought he was feverish. Hugh Robinson had been in the army for twelve years, four of those in the Special Duty branch. He had served in cities, in deserts, and in mountains. He had seen most of the ways it was possible for human beings to die. Like all professional soldiers, he had learned to maintain his sanity at the expense of his imagination. Until the moment when they stepped out of the base station tunnel into the huge jungle of grass, he would have said, truthfully, that he had lost the capacity to be surprised by anything the world had to offer.

  But this was a different world.

  Grass was hard. The short blades had longwise ribbing as tough as ship’s planking. The tall, seedbearing stems were silica-bright and polished smooth as stainless steel, the leaves so electrically lustrous they seemed to be under a vast green spotlight.

  The ceaseless buzzing and humming grew iouder, as if they were approaching a massive generator. At the head of the little file, the young American signaled for them to backtrack through another opening in the jungle of tall fescue grasses.

  ‘‘White clover—attracts bees,” he said through his gauze mask. Hugh Robinson found himself sweating, his clothes wet and sticky in the cloying humidity of a fetid underworld where no breeze penetrated. The detour led them to an even more dramatic sound, an immense clicking louder than any pneumatic drill. Professor Bruce stopped, pointing up a stalk of grass as thick and tall as a ship’s mast. Robinson looked up and saw an olive-green body slung low between the girders of what looked like the frame for a garden swing.

  ‘‘See how the grasshopper makes its noise?”

  Robinson shook his head. Bruce made a sawing motion with his hands. Looking up again, Robinson saw a long, thin girder-leg dragging a sawtooth edge across a raised rib.

  Staff-Commander Khomich raised his pistol. Corporal Carr automatically followed his example.

  Before they could fire, the young American hit the grass sapling a sharp rap with his stick.

  The grasshopper’s movements were so fast Robinson saw them only subliminally, a vague impression of girder-legs catapaulting the hard, green body off into the purplish ocean of the sky. Fine dust and hayseeds the size of small apples fell on their heads. The towering stalk twanged back and forth. Above his mask, the American gave Khomich a reproachful smile.

  "We like grasshoppers,” he said firmly.

  Khomich’s eyes narrowed. He started to say something—then the sky turned black.

  The world might have been coming to an end, so violent was the rushing storm of noise and commotion, the grass saplings shaking with earthquake ferocity, seeds pelting down through a snowstream of white dust. They cringed in fear, not knowing which way to run from the monstrous creatures screaming and squabbling above their heads.

  Corporal Carr fired one shot before Magruder the American grabbed hold of his arm. Robinson had a glimpse of great claws and scaly legs and an expanse of creamy feathers. Carr pushed Magruder away, raising his pistol for another shot.

  The little family of giant tree sparrows soared off into the unfathomable sky, their high-pitched screeches ringing in Robinson’s ears.

  They brushed themselves down and shook dust off their field hats. The young American put his arm around Corporal Carr’s shoulders. "Let’s save our fire for known enemies, huh?”

  "We must test these weapons,” Khomich said angrily.

  Magruder nodded in agreement. "But let’s wait for something worth testing them on,” said his muffled voice.

  Deep in the forest of towering grass, they came on a clearing in which grew a clump of champignons, mush-

  rooms with light brown caps tinged pink and pale buff stalks with downy bases. The colors were so heightened and the familiar nursery-book shapes so large Robinson half-expected to see a little gingerbread cottage and hear the old witch fattening up Hansel and Gretel. Corporal Carr reached up and grabbed a handful of soft white fiber from the underside gills. A smell of fresh sawdust filled the air.

  “Safe to eat, are they?’’

  “If they’re cooked,” said Lena Davidson.

  Robinson saw the angry look on Khomich’s face. He tapped Carr’s shoulder. “For God’s sake, Carr, stop playing around.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  On the other side of the mushroom clearing, they passed a snail. Its shell was as big as a bubble-car, the dark brown shadings concentrically spiralled in the pattern of an embossed Roman shield. Its two uppermost antennae, like fingers with eyes, seemed to decide they were of no interest. With the beautiful spiral shell rolling like a howdah on the back of an elephant, the crocodile- skin body slid through the grass, leaving a silken trail of mucus which, when Robinson reached down to touch it, felt like damp rubber.

  “How could you touch it?” Khomich’s blue eyes looked horror-stricken. Robinson grimaced sheepishly, finding it impossible to rub the smear of rubbery mucus off his fingers.

  “The garden snail used to be considered a great delicacy,” said Magruder, apparently enjoying the revulsion this caused Khomich.

  They came to a copse of horsetails—inconspicuous garden weeds that now looked like fir trees. Wherever he looked, Robinson saw familiar shapes—but of such gigantic proportions his eyes felt strained, as if from looking too long through a powerful magnifying glass. They passed under copses of meadow buttercups, the yellow flowers flooding their hidden underworld with a golden light that glowed on their perspiring faces. Black spiders the size of mice scuttled up the leaves of grass.

  They came face to face with daisies, the crimson tips of the white petals so brightly contrasted they might have been newly-painted, the stalks so prickly they looked dangerous to touch, daisies as big as dinner plates.

  Crossing a sheltered patch of damp earth, they were suddenly panicked by a frenzy of leaping creatures, slate-gray, lobster-like, able to spring far above their heads. They shielded their faces from these jumping jacks—Carr pulled his pistol from his waistband, but could find nothing to aim at.

  ‘‘Only springtails,” said Lena Davidson, “Collem- bola —they’re like the silverfish you find in houses. Don’t waste ammunition on them, Corporal—there’s said to be two hundred and fifty million of them to the acre.”

  ‘‘Could be a rich source of food for us,” said Ma- gruder, again smiling when he saw the look of revulsion on Khomich’s face.

  As he became used to the sensual impact of a world where all smells and noises and colors were electrically amplified and heightened, Robinson began to feel tinges of guilt. How often had his feet blackened the sky of this magic underworld, the giant feet of a god who knew only how to devastate and crush and destroy? He looked at the others, searching their faces for some sign that they were as deeply affected as himself. Stanley Magruder and Lena Davidson had the happy look of expert hobbyists who at last had a captive audience to impress. Professor Bruce wasn’t the type of man to let any emotions show. He seemed to be thinking of something else. Khomich was in a hurry to keep moving through the grass, his eyes showing a tension Robinson found surprising; in the few days he had been serving as the staff-commander’s personal aide, he had come to believe that Khomich was the least nervy man he had ever known. Carr was another surprise. Perhaps he had not realised the full implica
tions of what he was volunteering for—if it could be called volunteering when Staff-Commander Khomich made you his first choice—but if he was nervous or frightened, he certainly wasn’t showing it. The very opposite.

  Robinson was immediately behind Mrs. Richards when the shiny red snake came pouring out of a gap in the yellowing layers of dead grass underfoot. She let out a scream, her eyes white with terror, falling back against him so heavily he lost his footing and felt his boots sinking down into the stinking black humus. Both Khomich and Carr had their pistols out when Magruder pulled off his white mask; “It’s a millipede. It’s harmless, don’t shoot it!”

  Khomich tried to push him away but Magruder forced down the perforated barrel of the automatic pistol. The millipede seemed as long as a railway train, an endless segmented body as thick as steel hawser, countless small legs gliding forward in synchronized waves. “Like watching a parade go by, isn’t it?” said Lena Davidson. Carr looked excited.

  “Sure it’s harmless?”

  “They’re vegetarians—it’s centipedes that are dangerous.”

  Carr ran after it and prodded the shiny red body with his stick. Immediately came the first whiff of a smell so repulsive they had to turn away, holding their noses, covering their mouths, coughing, and spitting. As the millipede flowed off through the tangled undergrowth, Carr squatted down on his haunches, eyes closed, hand covering his mouth and nose.

  “It isn’t fatal,” Magruder said cheerfully. “It’s a stink they blast off to repel other insects and predators.”

  “Hydrocyanic acid,” Bruce said. “Somebody should tell the corporal this isn’t the pet department.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Richards said to Robinson. “It gave me a fright coming up beneath us like that.”

  “Me, too.”

  She smiled weakly. “I’m sure I’ll never get to like this place.”

  Lena Davidson was the only one to show Carr any sympathy. As he took a deep breath to clear his lungs, she gave him a pat on the back. “Better to treat everything as potentially nasty until proved otherwise.”

  Carr rubbed his lips and tongue on the back of his hand. “If that was harmless, I don’t want to meet the real nasties.”

  Lena Davidson knelt to tie up the lace of her field- boot. Robinson held back, scanning the solid walls of grass for predators. She straightened up and gave him a smile. “You finding all this interesting?”

  “I keep thinking it’s some sort of lurid dream. You don’t seriously think people could live down here, do you?”

  “Why not? You can see how much food there is.”

  “Food? We can’t eat grass.”

  “No, insects.”

  “What a revolting idea!”

  “That’s only your cultural conditioning. Entomoph- agy is common in other parts of the world.”

  “Ento—what?”

  “Entomophagy—the eating of insects. In Australia, the abos have done it for thousands of years. Ten witch- etty grubs have enough protein for an adult—one would make a nice dinner for four of us. Don’t look so horrified—Eskimos eat maggots, Africans eat termites.”

  “That’s their bad luck. We’d better keep up with the others.”

  “This isn’t any more dangerous than the world the first cavemen found themselves in—and they faced sabertooth tigers without high-powered weapons.”

  She stumbled and caught hold of his arm for support. She did not take her hand away. He kept a wary eye on the square figure of Khomich. “There’s something more frightening about bugs,” he said. “You can’t see what they’re thinking.”

  “Well, if primitive man hadn’t been willing to take on much stronger and deadlier animals, we wouldn’t be here today, would we? Strangely enough, you army blokes may be exactly the sort of people we need.”

  “You don’t like the army?”

  “I don’t like Khomich.”

  “He only carries out orders.”

  “Hugh?” Her voice was very warm and friendly. Her eyes seemed to be saying that she trusted him. “George Richards is in trouble, isn’t he?”

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  “I mean in trouble with the top brass at Geneva. He’s a very great man, Hugh. Wait till you meet him and listen to him—he’ll inspire you the same way he’s inspired all of us.” Her hand tightened its grip on his arm, sending a tingle across his scalp. “Has Khomich got orders to arrest him, Hugh?”

  His arm stiffened, forcing off her hand. He pulled up his white mask. “We’re falling behind,” he said briskly.

  They passed under another grasshopper, frozen in the act of climbing a shiny stalk of grass. Bruce stared at its fishing-rod antennae and heart-shaped head; no longer did grasshoppers seem like mindless, genetically-programmed automatons, amusing jumping beans from that endless, sunny day of childhood. He was looking at a complex creature with individual purposes of its own, with a mouth that knew what it wanted to eat, and bird-like feet that consciously chose the right place to grip the tali stalk. A fellow living creature! He felt startled at this revelation of an equality of existence never guessed at through a microscope. These were not merely specimens from a seething myriad of insignificant insects, but fellow creatures of the earth, individuals each of them as legitimate an heir to the miracle of life as himself.

  Enthused by this thought, he tapped Khomich on the shoulder and pointed up at the grasshopper. “Amazing, isn’t it?” Khomich looked up briefly and grimaced.

  “No, look at it—that’s a living miracle.”

  “Revolting.”

  “You’d like to shoot it, would you?”

  “I will feel safer once I know these weapons work.”

  “I should imagine you’ll get a chance to kill something before we get out of this garden, Khomich.”

  Khomich got his chance.

  When they came on a thick bramble shoot partially

  THE MICRONAUTS

  hidden by decaying leaves and new shoots, Magruder said they had almost reached the other side of the old lawn. They followed the bramble’s snaky route through the decomposing vegetation, carefully staying clear of the treacherous shark’s fin thorns which could have impaled them as surely as a butcher’s hook.

  They came to a place where the carpet of grass rose up in a long, neat hillock.

  Magruder prodded into the chest-high barrier. “Probably an old garden stake.”

  Carr climbed up onto the smooth hillock. “It seems all right.”

  Something moved in the darkness under the curtain of grass. Magruder yelled, jumping back from the hidden log.

  Out from the grass came a pair of huge red antlers.

  They fell back, leaving Carr stranded. “What is it?” he yelled.

  It came slowly out of the darkness, the long red antlers and then a dark-brown body that glinted in the diffused sunlight, an armor-plated monstrosity with shiny black legs and one jet eye behind each jutting antler.

  When Carr saw the size of its body he pulled his pistol. “No,” Bruce shouted, “it isn’t—”

  Carr fired. The mercury bullet hit the armor-plating of the chitinous exoskeleton, thousands of silver particles exploding in a dazzling spray. The big beetle was not even dented. Straightening its forelegs it raised its head and antlers into the air. Between the antlers they could see its mandible jaws opening and closing. Carr tried to run and tripped, falling beside the petrified Magruder. He fired again.

  “It’s only bluffing,” Bruce said—but Khomich and Robinson were already in front of him, aiming for the great jaws.

  The first nylon-bullets seemed to cause no damage—then the legs collapsed and the red antlers collapsed on the soft humus. A stench of dead beetle hit their faces. Nobody spoke. Khomich and Robinson

  Carr tried to run and tripped, falling beside the petrified Magruder. He fired again.

  calmly reloaded their pistols, throwing empty clips into the long grass. Carr’s brown face appeared over the grassy mound.

  �
�What was it?” he shouted.

  “A stag beetle,” Bruce said quietly. “Quite harmless. They put on that display to frighten off predators.”

  “It didn’t work with us,” Khomich replied. To Robinson he said, “Well, we know the nylon bullets are effective with these creatures.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bruce watched them with contempt. “Welcome to our wonderful new world—what’s that we hear? Nothing much, just the familiar human sounds of guns slaughtering the local fauna.”

  Even Magruder seemed to have forgotten which muscles were for smiling.

  Robinson waited until Khomich was well ahead. “Was that animal really harmless, sir?” he said to Bruce.

  “They use those antlers for mild wrestling matches with other males. The jaws could give you a gentle bite—if you got it into a corner and scared it badly enough.”

  “It looked pretty terrifying, sir.”

  “Don’t apologize to me, Captain. It’s the beetle that has the complaint.”

  “We’ll know the next time we meet one of them, sir. I suppose it’s lucky for us that evolution didn’t let insects grow as big as lions and tigers—they’d be quite a handful to cope with.”

  “Not lucky, Captain—design. Beetles don’t breathe like mammals, with lungs—they have air passages in their sides, tracheae. They take in oxygen by diffusion. Their system wouldn’t support thicker bodies because there is no circulatory distribution of oxygen by blood. Didn’t they teach you any of that at school, Captain?”

  “I’ve been in the army since I was fifteen, sir. I wasn’t much of a scholar anyway. Of course, the army teaches us fieldcraft—how to camouflage yourself in the open and to trap rabbits on survival courses.”

  “There are three hundred thousand different species

  of beetles, Captain. I don’t suppose one stag less will change the course of evolution. They’re probably laughing at us—in the end, our murderous instincts will only wipe out one species—ourselves. The beetles were alive millions of years before us, and they’ll be alive long after we’ve gone—famines, blights, climatic changes, increased radiation—they’ll survive.”