Mad Planet | Page 6

became an irregular, cone-shaped mound. Burl watched them
apathetically.
Presently, he ate again of the oily fish. The taste pleased Burl, a rare
break from his diet of insipid mushrooms. He stuffed himself, though
the size of his prey left most uneaten.
He kept his spear, despite the trouble it had caused. Burl, unusually
stubborn for his tribe, still associated the weapon with the food it had
secured rather than with his current difficulties. He examined it again;
its sharpness was unimpaired.
He next stripped a sinew from the garment about his middle and hung
the fish from his neck with it. That left him both hands free. Then he
sat cross-legged on the soggily floating fungus, like a pink-skinned
Buddha, and watched the shores go by.
Time passed, and sunset drew near. Burl, never having seen the sun,
did not think of this as "sunset". To him it was the letting down of
darkness from the sky.
Far to the west, the thick mist turned gold, while the thicker clouds

above became blurred masses of dull red. Their shadows seemed
lavender, from the contrast of shades. The river's still surface reflected
faithfully the myriad tints and shadings, and the shining tops of giant
mushrooms aside the river glowed faintly pink.
Dragonflies buzzed overhead in swift, angular flight, bodies glistening
with metallic luster in the rosy light. Great yellow butterflies flew
lightly above the stream. Here, there, everywhere on the water appeared
the shell-formed boats of a thousand caddis flies.
Burl could have thrust his hand down into their cavities and seized the
white worms inhabiting the strange craft. The huge bulk of a tardy bee
droned heavily overhead. He glanced upward and saw the long
proboscis and hairy hinder legs with their scanty load of pollen, the
compound eyes with their expression of stupid preoccupation, and the
sting that would mean death alike for him and the giant insect, were it
used.
The crimson radiance at the edge of the world dimmed. The purple hills
had long been left behind. Now the slender stalks of 10,000
round-domed mushrooms lined the riverbank and beneath them spread
fungi of all colors, from rawest red to palest blue, fading slowly to a
monochromatic background in the glowing dusk.
The buzzing, fluttering, and flapping of diurnal insects died slowly
down, while from a million hiding places there crept soft and furry
bodies of great moths, who preened themselves and smoothed their
feathery antennae before taking to the air. Strong-limbed crickets set up
their thunderous noise--grown gravely bass with the increasing size of
their sound organs--and there began to gather on the water those
slender spirals of tenuous mist that would presently blanket the stream
in a mantle of fog.
Night fell. The clouds above seemed to lower and grow dark. Gradually,
now a drop and then a drop, the languid fall of large, warm raindrops
that would drip from the moisture-laden skies all night began.
Great disks of coolly glowing flame appeared along the stream's edge.

The mushrooms there were faintly phosphorescent (Pleurotus
phosphoreus) and shone coldly on the "rusts" and fake-fungi beneath.
Here and there a ball of lambent flame appeared, drifting idly above the
steaming, festering earth.
30,000 years before, men called them "will-o'-the-wisps" but Burl
simply accepted them as he accepted all that passed. Only a man
attempting to advance in the scale of civilization tries to explain
everything. A savage or child is content to observe without comment,
unless he repeats legends from wise folk possessed by the itch of
knowledge.
Burl watched a long time. The beacons of fireflies as long as his spear
flashed intermittently, illuminating the stream for yards around. Softly
fluttering wings, in great beats that poured torrents of air onto him,
passed above.
The sky was full of winged creatures. Their anguished cries, mating
calls, and wing beats broke the night. Above and all around the intense
life of the insect world went on ceaselessly, but Burl only rocked sadly
back and forth on his frail mushroom boat because he was being carried
from his tribe, and from Saya--Saya of swift feet and white teeth, of shy
smile. This, after he had dared so greatly to bring her a gift of fresh
meat, captured as never before!
Homesick, he lay on his floating atom all night. At last the mushroom
raft struck gently and remained grounded on a shallow in the stream.
At daybreak, Burl gazed keenly about. He was 20 yards from shore,
and the greenish scum surrounded his now disintegrating vessel. The
river had widened until the other bank was barely visible through the
haze above the surface, but the nearer shore seemed firm and no more
dangerous than the territory his tribe inhabited. He tested the water's
depth with his spear, then was