Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction; Venus (Planet) -- Fiction
These two sides were covered with stiff backward-pointing bristles,
which evidently served to catch on the bushes through which the creature
passed, and thus to hold whatever gains it made. Its eyes, like those of
a crab, were located on long jointed arms, which it could raise whenever
it wanted to look around. The lower edge of the sides of the wedge were
serrated, and Myles soon learned what this was for. After wiggling its
eyes about for a while, the creature walked to the edge of the bank,
thus giving the watcher a good view of the body and legs within the
projecting wedge, and slid off into the pit, where a splashing sound
indicated that it was probably drinking.
Soon it reappeared over the top of the pit. Evidently the saw teeth on
its sides were to hold its progress up the face of the sand bank in much
the same way as its spines held its progress through the bushes.
The wedge insect, upon topping the bank, made a beeline for the edge of
the clearing, thrust its nose between two saplings, furled its eyes,
braced it feet against the ground, and started forcing its way through.
Quick as a flash, Myles Cabot darted from his hiding place and followed.
The creature, rolling its eyes to the rear, saw him and tried to back
out; for what purpose he could not tell, but probably either to attack
him or at least to prevent him from attacking its vulnerable body. But
it was already in too far, and its spines held it securely.
It tried to kick at him, whereat he followed not quite so close. Then it
stubbornly stopped moving, pulled in its eyes and its legs and lay down
within its projecting head-piece, whereat he gave it a prick in the tail
with his Vairking sword. The effect was immediate and sudden. The
creature leaped to its feet and tore its way through the trees like a
cyclone, plunging high in air like a frantic horse. This left such an
erratic and only partially spread path that the earth-man had difficulty
in following, and soon fell far behind.
But just as he was about to despair, the branches which he parted ahead
of him revealed a meadow of silver-green sward. He had reached the end
of the wood.
Beyond the field was a grove of gray-branched lichen trees, through
which he could see the steep red-tiled roofs of a village. Just short of
the grove there grazed a herd of those pale-green aphids, the size of
sheep, which the Cupians call “anks,” and which Myles was wont to call
“green cows.” Close by his right hand was a large shrub with
heart-shaped leaves, unmistakably a tartan bush.
Steep red roofs, gray lichen trees, anks and tartans! This must be
Cupia! He was home!
Myles quoted aloud:
“Breathes there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself has said
‘This is my own, my native land’?”
Cupia might not be his _native_ land, but it was his _own_, the land of
his wife and child, the land of which his son was rightful king, the
land whose armies he had twice led to victory. And now he had returned
to lead them yet again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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