Mad Planet | Page 3

desperate expedients: bubbling yeasts and fouler things, occasionally the nectarless blooms of rank, giant cabbages. Burl knew the bees. They droned overhead nearly as large as he, bulging eyes gazing at him with abstracted preoccupation. And crickets, beetles, spiders--
Burl knew spiders! His grandfather had fallen prey to a hunting tarantula, which had leaped with incredible ferocity from its excavated tunnel in the earth. The vertical pit, two feet in diameter, went down 20 feet. At the bottom, the black-bellied monster waited for the tiny sounds that would warn it of approaching prey (Lycosa fasciata).
Burl's grandfather had been careless, and his terrible shrieks as the horrible monster darted from the pit and seized him had lingered vaguely in Burl's mind ever since. Burl had seen, too, the monster webs of another species of spider, and watched from afar as the huge, misshapen creature sucked juices from a three-foot cricket entangled in its trap.
Burl remembered the stripes of yellow, black, and silver crossing its abodomen (Epiera fasciata). He had been fascinated by the struggles of the imprisoned insect, coiled in a hopeless tangle of sticky, gummy ropes the thickness of Burl's finger, cast about its body before the spider attempted to approach.
Burl knew these dangers. They were part of his life. It was his and his ancestors' accustomedness to them that made his existence possible. He evaded them, and survived. A moment of carelessness, an instant's relaxation of his habitual caution, and he would be one with his forebears, forgotten meals of long-dead, inhuman monsters.
Three days before, Burl had crouched behind a bulky, shapeless fungus, watching a furious duel between two huge horned beetles. Their jaws, gaping wide, clicked and clashed on each other's armor. Their legs crashed like cymbals as their polished surfaces ground and struck each other. They fought over some particularly attractive bit of carrion.
Burl had watched until a gaping orifice appeared in the armor of the smaller beetle. It uttered a shrill cry, or seemed to. The noise was, actually, the tearing of the horny stuff beneath the jaws of its victorious adversary.
The wounded beetle's struggles weakened. At last it collapsed, and the conqueror placidly began to eat the conquered--alive.
After the meal was finished, Burl approached the scene with caution. An ant, forerunner of many, was already inspecting the carcass.
Burl usually ignored ants. They were stupid, shortsighted insects, not hunters. Save when attacked, they offered no injury. They were scavengers, seeking the dead and dying, but became dangerous, vicious opponents if their prey were questioned. They measured from three inches, for tiny black ants, to a foot for large termites.
Burl heard the tiny clickings of their limbs as they approached. He hastily seized the detached, sharp-pointed snout of the victim, and fled.
Later, he inspected his find curiosly. The victim had been a minotaur beetle, with a sharp-pointed horn like that of a rhinocerous to reinforce its offensive armament, already dangerous because of its wide jaws. A beetle's jaws work side to side, instead of up and down, making its protection complete in no less than three directions.
Burl examined the sharp, daggerlike instrument. He pricked his finger on its point, and flung it aside as he crept to the hiding-place of his tribe. They numbered only 20: four men, six women, the rest adolescents and children.
Burl had wondered at the strange feelings that came over him when he looked at one of the girls. She was younger--perhaps 18--and fleeter of foot than he. They talked, sometimes, and Burl occasionally shared with her an especially succulent find of foodstuffs.
The next morning Burl found the horn where he had thrown it, sticking in the flabby side of a toadstool. He retrieved it, and gradually, far back in his mind, an idea began to form. He sat awhile with the thing in his hand, considering it with a faraway look in his eyes. From time to time he stabbed at a toadstool, awkwardly, but with gathering skill. His imagination began to work fitfully. He visualized himself stabbing food as the larger beetle had stabbed the former owner of the weapon he now possessed.
Burl could not imagine attacking one of the fighting insects. He could only picture himself, dimly, stabbing something that was food with this death-dealing thing. It was no longer than his arm and though clumsy to the hand, an effective and terribly sharp implement.
He thought: Where was there food, food that lived, that would not fight back? Presently he rose and made his way toward the tiny river. Yellow-bellied newts swam in its waters. Aquatic larvae of a thousand insects floated about its surface or crawled along its bottom.
Death lived there, too. Giant crayfish snapped horny claws at the unwary. Mosquitos of four-inch wingspread sometimes hummed above the river. They were dying out for lack of the plant juices on