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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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