Chapter 4

Moist heat pressed down, but the air of the meadow was sweet. There were marks of trampling as well as the swath the boat had cut--trails, places where something might have crouched. Under his breath Wright asked, “Feel all right, Paul?”

Truth was more needed than a show of courage. “Not perfect, Doc. Am I flushed? You are, a little.”

“Yes. Trace of fever; may wear off. Here’s something----”

They had not come far. Two red bodies barely three feet tall sprawled near each other face down in the grass. Paul noticed oval bulges between shoulder blades modified to accommodate them, the pathos of fingers--seven-fingered hands--holding earth in a final grasp. The male wore a loincloth of black fabric and a quiver almost full of arrows; the female had a grass skirt, and her hand was tight on a stone-headed spear longer than herself. A bow of carved wood lay some distance away; one could see how the little man had crawled in his agony after the bow was lost. Wright turned them over gently--bald skulls, no trace of body hair on skin of a rich copper color exciting to a painter’s vision, green eyes with no visible whites in human faces heavily tattooed, wide-open eyes, accusing no one. The bodies were in rigor, a shaft in the man’s neck, the woman pierced by an arrow in the side. Blood colored the grass, dry but eloquent.

“War too,” said Wright, and pulled out the arrows, showing Paul the stone heads, the intricate carving of the wood, thin-whittled wooden vanes taking the place of feathers. “Stone Age war...”

The male pygmy was the smaller of the two, and softer, his shape not feminine but rounded and smooth. Both seemed mature, so far as age could be guessed at all. The woman was rugged, with a coarser skin and the scar tissue of old wounds; her two pairs of breasts were scarcely more prominent than the ridged muscles of her midget chest.

Wright mulled it over, kneading his wrinkled throat. “Physical refinements of evolution as far along as our own. Straight thigh and neck, perfect upright posture; there was no slouch or belly sag when they were on their feet. Human jaw, big brain case. That furry giant I saw in the woods had complete upright posture too. Oh, it’s natural, Paul. You stick fins on an ocean vertebrate, turn him into a four-legged land animal, give him a few hundred million years. Almost bound to free his front limbs if they’ve stayed unspecialized.” In the gaunt face, sadness and pity struggled with a bitter sort of mirth. “The brain gets large, boy, and away you go, to--ach--to the Federation versus the Asian Empire--Lincoln, Rembrandt, the state papers of Abraham Brown. And to you and Dorothy and the baby.” Wright stood erect, brushing bony knees, calm again. “I’m almost pleased to find it this primitive. I don’t think it can have gone further anywhere on the planet, or we’d have seen cities, farms, roads, in the photographs. Unless----”

“Unless what, Doctor?”

“Oh--unless there might be forms with no Earth parallel. In the forests perhaps--even underground. Thought of that? But that’s speculations, and our little soldiers here are fact. They have a civilization--arrows say so, tattooing, garments. Rigid, tradition-bound--or maybe not, depending on how much language they’ve developed to tie ‘emselves in knots with.”

“Bow and arrow--why, suh, almost as advanced as not being afraid to end a sentence with a preposition.”

“Hell with you. Twenty thousand years ago, or whenever it was we reached our present physique, if there’d been anything external to teach men how to behave like grown-ups----. Well, we had to sweat it out--tribal wars, bigger wars, venerated fears, errors, and stupidities. But maybe here----”

“Are we big enough?”

Wright shut his eyes. His thin cheeks were too bright; there was a tremor in the rifle tip. “Wish I knew, Paul. We have to try.”

Ed Spearman yelled, “Look out!” A rifle banged, and a pistol.

A brown darkness had come swooping from the lake. Others followed--mud-brown, squealing. They had banked at the noise of the shots to circle overhead. Paul fired; a near one tumbled, screeching, thrashing a narrow wolfish head on a long neck, black teeth snapping in the death throes--but even now it was trying to hobble forward and get at them. The others wheeled lower until Wright’s rifle spoke, and Spearman’s; there was the dry slap of Dorothy’s automatic pistol. “Back to the trees!” The wounded thing on the ground set up a bubbling howl.

More were coming, with weaving of pointed red-eyed heads on mobile necks. Paul ran, Wright loping beside him, hearing the crash of their friends’ weapons. Something slammed Paul’s shoulder, flopped against his leg, tripping him. He tumbled over a shape furry and violent that smelled of fish and carrion. He fought clear of it, sobbing in animal wrath, and reached the shelter of the trees and Dorothy’s embrace. Sweat blinded him. Wright was clutching him too, getting his jacket off.

“Flesh wound. The hind foot got you----”

“I saw it.” Ann Bryan choked. “Saw it happen. Filthy claws----”

Wright had a bottle of antiseptic. “Son, you ain’t going to like this. Hang on to the lady.” But the pain was a welcome flare. Paul’s eyes cleared as Wright made him a bandage of gauze, with Dorothy’s help. He could look from the shelter of overhanging branches at a confusion of wings. The creatures had not followed as far as the lifeboat; perhaps its shining mass disturbed them.

Spearman groaned: “You would go out.”

Wright snapped at him. “Camp in the open--some disadvantages----”

“Granted. But you sure learned it the hard way.” “Eating”--Ann pointed, nauseated--”their own wounded--”

Wright stepped between her and the loud orgy in the meadow. “Wing spread, fifteen feet. Well--sky’s bad, woods maybe. What do you suggest?”

“Clear underbrush,” Spearman said, “so we can see into the woods. Pile it just beyond this overhang of branches for a barrier, leave a space so we can reach the lifeboat. We can get to the lake for water without going much in the open.”

“Good,” said Wright. A peace offering. Spearman smiled neutrally.

“If the water’s safe,” said Sears Oliphant.

Wright grinned at the fat man. “Pal, it better be.”

“Miracles?” Sears’ shoulders shot up amiably. “We can hope it is, with boiling. Gotta have it. Canteens won’t last the day, in this heat.”

Paul helped Ed unpack tools from the lifeboat. “One sickle,” Spearman noted. “No scythe. Garden gadgets. Pruning shears. One ax, one damned hatchet. No scythe, no scythe----. There were two or three on the ship.”

“Maybe the lake’s not so deep.”

“Maybe we’ll play hell trying to find out too. Those things weren’t much scared by the shooting...”