by Earl
PAUL SCOTT awoke when something tugged at his ear. Then a little piping voice shrilled in it.
“It is I, Koro, of the Little Folk! I want to talk with you Big People!”
A few minutes later, joined by Helena and her father in the lighted living room, Scott set the little man on the mantel, where they could hear him better.
Koro eyed them, and for a moment thought of running away, panic-stricken, while there was yet time. But where? Back to the community, to serve out a lifetime sentence? And to realize that Elva could never be his? Those devil-thoughts had driven Koro to flee. Driven him to seek out the Big Ones. Hatred and bitterness against his people ate within his little soul.
Koro spoke with gestures.
“I wish to live with you Big People. I do not want to go back to my folk. They have sentenced me to a lifetime of degradation and humiliation. And anyway, I am sick of living like a worm, in secret, as our people always have. I wish to live in your world. You Big Ones have promised not to harm me.”
“But I’m not going to harm them,” insisted Dr. Bolton. “All I want to do is observe them in their natural habitat. With Koro’s help, we can do it. His eyes narrowed shrewdly. “You call them fairies. Perhaps they have moonlight dances, according to legend. Think of the chance of seeing that!”
Scott had already thought of it. A chance to see the Dance of the Fairies! It appealed to him, with all the appeal of things mysterious and unknown. . . .
Full moon night, Koro had told them, would be best.
THEY stared out over the glade, waiting for the first of the Little Folk to appear. They were fifty feet from the glade itself, and concealed behind thick bushes. Koro had warned them that they must make no slightest sound, for his people had sensitive ears.
Scott waited breathlessly. It had been a week since little Koro had come to them. In that week, Dr. Bolton had spent long hours conversing with the mannikin, taking notes. They had seemed to become almost intimate. Scott didn’t like it. They had too much of the air of two plotters who, though one was a giant and one a midge, were kindred souls.
“Hsst!”
It was a warning from Koro, perched on Dr. Bolton’s shoulder.
Out in the glade, the Little Folk trooped into view. Their chirping laughter and bird-like voices tinkled through the clear air. Thin flutings and the piping of tiny horns sounded weirdly, like faraway echoes. And the Little Folk danced, their tiny, sinuous bodies flashing in the spotted moonlight that slanted down through tall trees. They formed a ring at times, tripping daintily around and around in that enchanted circle. The music was wild, the dancing unrehearsed, but it was more supremely artistic than anything ever achieved in the outer world.
Scott realized that. Realized he was witnessing something few mortal eyes had ever beheld. It was a glimpse into fairyland, so exquisitely perfect in setting and execution that it stung the eyes. It was something ancient and sacred, and divinely wonderful. He could feel Helena’s hand trembling in his and knew that she, too, felt the witchery of the scene.
Scott turned his head.
Little Koro was whispering in Dr. Bolton’s ear, pointing into the glade. And suddenly the scientist jerked his hand. Scott was startled to see the glint of a long string, leading to the space over the glade. At the same time something that hung at a height of ten feet dropped in the forepart of the glade. It had been in shadow. Scott hadn’t noticed it, nor, apparently, had the Little Folk—until too late.
Scott saw a hoop of wire descend, and billowing out from it, like a parachute, was mosquito netting! The hoop dropped, encircling a group of the little dancers.
It was a trap!
Like the vanishment of a beautiful dream, the glade scene had broken up. The Little Folk melted away, like swift shadows. But those caught within the hoop were still there, struggling to escape the folds of the netting. They had been snared like little animals.
Scott grabbed Dr. Bolton’s arm as he leaped up.
“What have you done?” he demanded angrily. “How could you shatter such a wonderful thing? When did you set up the trap?”
“This afternoon,” returned the scientist. “While you and Helena were wandering somewhere. And while the Little Folk slept, as Koro informed me. Forgot to tell you. Now let me go, before they get away.”
Dr. Bolton wrenched himself away and ran to the glade, Scott and Helena following.
SOME of the Little Folk had scurried back and were already heaving up one side of the heavy wire loop, to rescue those within the netting. Some of the girls had been dragged free. But at sight of the Big People’s lumbering forms approaching, they darted away with thin pipings of fear.
Dr. Bolton stooped, upended the loop, and closed the mouth of the netting-sack. His eyes gleamed as though he had bagged prize game. He held it up before his eyes, counting the squirming forms within. Their moanings of fright were muffled by the cloth.
“Eight men and one of their girls,” he said. “They managed to rescue other girls, the little scamps. Well, these will do for the present.”
Koro had been peering down closely from his perch on the scientist’s shoulder. “And the girl is Elva! It is as I wished!”
Scott cursed. He felt like taking the little traitor in his fingers and squeezing till he shrieked. Evidently Koro had plotted this in detail with Dr. Bolton, to drop the net at the right time, and catch her.
“Poor things—” Helena murmured, but her father did not hear.
As the party tramped back to their car, parked five miles away—which was the nearest they had been able to come in this wildwood—Scott spoke bitterly.
“I still don’t think it’s right, Dr. Bolton!”
“Right!” snapped the scientist scoffingly. “I haven’t broken any law, have I?”
“You’ve broken a moral law,” retorted Scott. “As much as if you had raided a pygmy village in Africa and kidnaped some of them.”
“Scott, be reasonable,” the scientist said impatiently. “This is in the interests of science. You call them fairies, in romantic nonsense, but this is far more significant—scientifically. Go back to the so-called Missing Link, maybe a million years ago. Evolution fashioned from that progenitor all the primates—apes, monkeys, gorillas, baboons, and the various species of sub-man, like Pithecanthropus, Heidelberg, Neanderthal, and finally homo sapiens. And this pygmy offshoot!
“Or else it was a white pygmy branch whose chromosomes carried smallness as a dominant, rather than recessive, character. True man rose rapidly and killed off his intelligent rivals, back in pre-history. But this little pygmy offshoot race, perhaps because of its smallness, survived. This will make scientific history, when I announce my results, after a study of the Little Folk! And you prate of moral rights!”
Scott subsided. What could he say, against that cold, scientific attitude?
“As for Koro, my little friend,” added Dr. Bolton, “I did him a return favor. Caught his little Elva for him. Seems to be his light of love!”
CHAPTER VI
Atho Goes Forth
ATHO was mechanically peeling insect shells from its juicy meat, when the clear blast of a horn sounded. It was a loud, brazen sound that rang through the community like a wailing siren.
The alarm! Seldom used, it denoted great emergency, as when a monstrous bear happened to stumble into their community, sniffing around hopefully.
Dropping his flint implement, Atho sprang to the bark door and flung it wide, leaping out. Pandemonium reigned. The Little Folk were milling about, jabbering excitedly. Soon those who had been in the glade came flying up, yelling.
“The Big People! They have come! A trap fell! Nine of our people were captured and taken away! And Koro was with the Big People!”
Never in the memory of those now living had such a great calamity happened. Stark fear and anguish arose in all their tiny hearts. A wail quivered in the night air, from their combined throats.
Old Zutho and the other Elders hobbled forth, hearing the grav
e tidings.
“Hark!” Zutho yelled out. “Quiet yourselves and listen to me. We must not cast our wits on the ground!”
The assemblage fell silent, turning their heads to Zutho.
“My people,” he said in his cracked tones, “this is our lot in life—to ever scurry from the feet and brutality of the Big Ones. It has happened before, in our long history—many, many times. Do not think this generation is the first to be so cursed. But this generation is the first to be cursed, in a long time, with the presence of a traitor—Koro! If he ever returns, I pronounce sentence of death upon him, for traffic with the Big People, as the First Law states!”
He shook his head bleakly.
“But he may not return. Fool that I was, I should not have been so unthinking, when he fled. I did not think he would go to the Big Ones, and betray us. No, I did not think that. It is hard to believe that any of us would be a traitor . . .
His voice trailed away brokenly, and all the Little Folk felt the weight of that lost trust in one of them.
Zutho waved his emotions aside.
“There is only one thing to do now. We must move, before the Big Ones return for more of us. We must leave this place, that has been our happy home for two centuries, and seek another secret spot. We will find another grotto, for our homes, and another glade for our dancing, and we will continue life there . . .”
His voice stopped, and all knew why it ended. For this was but a repetition of what had happened countless times before. In their new home they would dwell happily—till the next time . . .
The Big Ones ruled Earth.
Old Zutho’s voice suddenly became almost a snarl. “And I forever banish from our memory the name of Koro, who betrayed us! Cursed be he, till the end of time!”
“Cursed be he, till the end of time!” chanted the crowd, giving vent to their anger.
Zutho composed his features. “Who were the victims?”
One of those who had been a witness in the glade, barely escaping the hoop himself, answered, giving the names of the captured men. “And one of the girls,” he finished. “Beauteous Elva.”
“Elva!” It was a whisper from Atho. All eyes fell on him pityingly.
“Elva!” This time it was a half-shriek. “My Elva—”
He stopped, choking, and there was not an eye there that did not have a tear in it.
Zutho patted the young man’s shoulder. “I am sorry it had to be she, my son. But we must accept fate. There can be no reprisal, or rescue, or revenge.
We cannot war on the Big People for these things. We can only scurry away from their mighty feet—”
Atho shook off the hand. His nostrils flared as he flung his head high.
“I go,” he said in a cold, deadly voice. “I go to the Big People—”
“I forbid it, Atho!” said Zutho sternly. “It is senseless. We can only flee, I tell you—”
“I am going!”
Some of the other young men tensed forward half eagerly, as though to join him, but old Zutho shook his head, waving them back. He put his arm on Atho’s shoulder.
“I understand, son. Go! But promise me one thing—that you will not attempt to kill a Big One. If that happened, they would hunt us like wolves and stamp us into the earth!”
“I promise, Father. But Koro . . .” He did not finish the threat. And with that, Atho went to the young men’s quarters, picked up his weapons, and stalked from the village.
He left behind him a scene of hasty packing of food, essential paraphernalia, and organization of the march toward a new home. It was tragic, this uprooting of an olden home. It was the exodus of a wandering people who never knew a true safety.
A THO made his way through the wild woodland at a steady, untiring lope. His strong, lithe muscles could keep up the pace for days. It would take him three days without sleep to reach the lone house of the Big People beyond Bald Mountain, where Elva lay in captivity.
His limbs were encased in leggings, he wore shoes, and head was bare. Only his spider-silk shirt and moleskin trunks covered his torso. His weapons were three. Behind his back was slung a quiver of tooth-pick-sized bone arrows, and ashwood bow beside it. In his belt hung his flint-headed axe. In his hand he balanced a long lance, whose end was one of the Big People’s steel needles, an ideal point to the wooden shaft.
In the first hour, to test his eye, Atho unslung his bow and fitted it with an arrow, when he heard the drone of a wasp. The insect appeared, as big as his head, darting over a patch of berries, looking for some unlucky caterpillar.
It was a small, swift target. Atho pivoted, bow taut, sighted for the wasp-thin thread that joined the stingered thorax to the body. He let fly and the silver of bone neatly sliced through the body-thread, sailing on to embed itself in a tree branch beyond. The severed halves of the wasp tumbled to the ground.
Atho grunted in satisfaction. Good enough. He had full control of his nerves, and needed it. He went on. His eyes, as he swung along, darted constantly on all sides and above. Many dangers lurked for the unwary.
And suddenly one of them materialized. There was a warning hiss, to his sensitive little ears, and a long sinuous form shot out of a thicket he was passing. It was a snake, python-sized to Atho with its length of three feet. The blunt head and sharp fangs aimed straight for Atho’s head.
A snake is one of the quickest of beasts. Even the swift little shrew is no match in speed of striking. But the snake’s thrust missed Atho, by the scant margin of a thistle thread. For Atho moved the quicker.
Atho’s body twisted aside like a steel spring. The snake struck again, and again Atho swerved. At the same time he leaped backward, bringing up his lance, balancing it lightly in casting position. Then he changed his mind. The snake, with its keen, lidless eyes, would dodge the cast.
Atho instead clutched the spear’s shaft with both hands, over his head. When next the snake’s great head and cavernous red mouth lunged at him, Atho stood his ground. He thrust his spear forward like a lightning bolt. The fine needle-point, ground by flint to incredible sharpness, passed between the fangs into the roof of the mouth. Up and up it pierced, under the drive of Atho’s full strength. It jarred against the upper bone of the snake’s skull.
Atho let go the shaft and scrambled back. He watched as the snake, with its brain pierced through and through, threshed wildly over the ground. Not till many minutes later did final paralysis come. Atho approached then and jerked his spear out, wiping off the pale blood on a leaf. At any other time, he would have stayed to strip the skin, useful for clothing and winter shelter, and haul it back to his people.
But he loped away, at a run, the snake already forgotten. His destination and present purpose were far grimmer than mere battles with forest killers.
ON the second day, his constant exertion demanded food. He had not wished to carry any, as a burden slowing him. He must hunt. Slowly to a walk, he began creeping from grass-patch to tree-bole, silently as the wind, seeking prey. He came upon a grasshopper, drowsing in the daytime heat. It was half as long as Atho. He crept close, within spear thrust, and jabbed it down into the thick thorax, pinning the creature to the ground.
The grasshopper spun about on this axis of impalement. Atho was careless, watching. Something suddenly struck him violently in the chest, and Atho tumbled head over heels backward. He righted himself dazedly, gasping for breath. He grinned at himself. The grasshopper’s hind leg had a kick to be respected.
When he staggered back, the grasshopper was weakening. Atho chopped off its head with his axe. The legs still struck out feebly, as though unaware it should now die.
Not wishing another encounter with those powerful legs, Atho waited. Suddenly his ears pricked. He heard leaves rustling, perhaps a dozen feet away. Then he saw it—a field mouse, nibbling and rooting among ground berries. Atho licked his lips. There was real food for his famished muscles. Red meat, instead of the blubbery, unsatisfying insect tissue.
But the mouse was not an easy creat
ure to stalk. One step toward it, and it would likely hear him and scamper away, at a scuttering pace that even Atho could not match. Slowly, quietly, the tiny hunter reached a hand behind his back and again unslung his bow. Fitting an arrow to the spider-silk string, he took careful aim, let fly.
The arrow sped straight and true. It impaled the side haunch of the mouse and buried itself completely, splicing the heart in half. The mouse ran twenty feet and then lay still, bleeding to death.
Atho dined well of raw tender flesh and arose with renewed strength surging in his veins. He resumed his steady lope.
Would he never reach his destination? The way seemed stretched by some diabolical means, because of his anxiety for Elva. Atho knew he hadn’t lost the way. Not he, to whom every bit of moss, every slant of the sun’s rays, every twist of the ground, was a signpost of direction.
But he must hurry, hurry. . . .
And then, as though fate wished to hinder him, another killer stalked him. This time a truly formidable foe. Not the great bear, for he was big and clumsy like the Big People and could be avoided as easily as a lumbering mountain. Not the deer, whose hard hoofs could be side-stepped and who took no note of flesh as food. Nor yet the weasel or badger or wolverine, for they were all kill and no brain.
It was the cunning fox, the one creature who combined a canny brain with swiftness and power.
Atho spied it first, as a glint of red fur far ahead, and stopped as though he had struck an invisible barrier. His little heart hammered, and he stepped back, hoping to sneak away. But unfortunately he was upwind from the fox. Its keen nose told it of the mannikin within range, and the red fur began to slink toward him.
No use to run. The fox was a demon of speed. No chance to climb a tree in such short time. There was nothing to do but back himself against a stump and await the great, fearsome assassin.
There were the arrows, of course. Atho unloosed three, but knew he would never strike those little, gleaming eyes which were not the target of the owl’s great saucer-eyes. And thick fur could never be pierced by his tiny shafts.
