Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  Calmly, Thorkel picked up Bulfinch’s tiny figure. The biologist made no resistance. The others were left staring as Thorkel walked back to the mud house; then, swiftly, they fled into the cactus. There was silence.

  “He won’t hurt him,” Pedro said, without conviction.

  Stockton stepped out from the protection of the cactus. “I’ll just make sure. Wait here.” He started toward the house, gripping his scissor-blade harder than was necessary.

  It was minutes later when he reached the door, still slightly ajar. He peered through the crack, just in time to hear Bulfinch’s cry and witness the murder of the biologist.

  Thorkel was seated at his table. With one hand he gripped the tiny Bulfinch; with the other he pressed a wad of cotton down over his victim’s face.

  Then, swiftly, he dropped the limp body into a glass beaker. Stockton drew back, sick with horror, and his improvised sword made a noise against the door. Thorkel glanced down and saw the small watcher.

  “So you would spy on me?” he asked quietly, and without haste picked up a butterfly net from the table. As he rose Stockton fled.

  Thorkel got to the door just in time to see him disappear into the cactus. Nodding, he found a shovel and followed his quarry.

  It took ten minutes to clear and break down the cactus bed. And then Thorkel realized that he was looking at the outlet of a tile drain pipe that extended to and under the compound wall. He straightened, staring nearsightedly across the barrier.

  “You had better come back!” Thorkel shouted. “You cannot live an hour in the jungle—and there is a storm approaching!”

  STORM in the jungle—the greatest rain forest in the world. Bear, deer and monkey fleeing from thunderbolt and unchained devils of the lightning. The screaming of parrots clinging to their wind-buffeted perches.

  The black hell of night closed upon the jungle.

  Through that madness fled the little people. And, by sheer luck, they found a cave in which they cowered through the eternal, dragging hours of shaking fury, helpless, hopeless beings in a world of gigantic menace . . .

  It was dawn. Chilled, dispirited, and shivering, the little people emerged from their refuge. In the dawn light they examined each other. “We look like hell,” Stockton said.

  “I’m glad you include yourself,” Mary told him, trying to adjust her tangled hair. “I wish I had a few pins.”

  “They’d be as big as you are, about. What now?”

  Baker had been talking to the half-breed. Now he turned to face the others.

  “Pedro has an idea. If we can get to the river and find a boat, we can float downstream to civilization. There’ll be help there.”

  “That’s an idea,” Stockton nodded. “Which way is the water, Pedro?”

  The half-breed pointed, and without delay they set out, plodding through the rain-wet jungle. Once a monkey, larger to them than a gorilla, swung down uncomfortably close, and once the inconceivable ferocity of a bear crossed their path, luckily without seeing them. They kept to a well-trodden path, but on all sides the monolithic trees stretched up, higher than skyscrapers. The weedy grass rose above their heads. It was a world of stark fantasy and lurking menace.

  Once Stockton, lagging behind the others, saw Paco, the dog. He was frisking about an albino colt which was diligently cropping grass. For a second Stockton considered the idea of catching and riding the colt, but gave it up immediately. The beast was much too large. He shrugged and followed the rest of the band.

  The river bank did not prove an insurmountable obstacle, though it took time to descend. They went upstream to a little cove, where Pedro, he said, had moored his canoe. Picking their way around a thick patch of weeds, they reached the craft. It was gigantic. Beached on the sand, it remained immovable no matter how they strained and pushed.

  “Great idea,” Stockton grunted. “It’s like trying to move a steamship.”

  “Well, even that can be done,” the girl told him. “If you use rollers.”

  “Isn’t she smart?” Pedro said with naive admiration. “We can cut bamboo—”

  “Sure!” Baker joined in. “We can rig up a lever and windlass—it’ll take time, but that’s all right.”

  It took even more time than they had thought. With their crude tools, and the unexpected toughness of the plant-life to tiny hands, it took hours, and the morning dragged on with little accomplished.

  PEDRO lifted his head and dashed sweat from his dripping mustache. “I hear—Paco, I think,” he said doubtfully.

  “Never mind Paco,” Baker told him. “Lend a hand with this windlass.”

  “But Paco—he is a hunting dog. Dr. Thorkel knows that. If he—”

  “Time to rest,” Stockton decreed, and straightened, rubbing his aching back. Mary, who had been toiling with the rest, sank down with a groan. She tossed her red-gold hair back from her tired young face.

  Stockton made a cup out of a tiny leaf and brought the girl water from the river. She drank it gratefully.

  “No use to boil it,” the man explained. “If there’re any germs in the water, we can see ’em without a microscope.”

  Pedro and Baker flung themselves down full length on the sand and lay panting. “This is devil work,” the half-breed observed with conviction. “If I live, I shall burn twenty candles before my patron saint.”

  “If I live, I’ll kill twenty bottles,” Baker said. “But there’s one guy I’d like to kill first.” His face darkened. He was remembering Mira, the native girl, whom Thorkel had murdered so casually. And poor Bulfinch.

  “What about you, Bill?” Mary asked.

  He glanced at her. “I know what you mean. Well—I wouldn’t even make a good beachcomber now. I might go native with the field mice.” Abruptly Stockton turned to face her. “No. I didn’t mean that. This is pretty terrible, but it’s shown me something. All this—” He flung out an arm toward the towering grasses in the background. “Wonder and strangeness, which we never quite realize—until we’re small. I—I was a good mineralogist once. I could be again. Remember those checks I tore up, Mary? I’m going to pay you back every cent they cost you. That’s rather important to me now . . .” He frowned. “If we come out of this alive—”

  In the distance Paco barked again. Pedro stood up, shading his eyes with a calloused palm. “It is Dr. Thorkel,” he stated. “He carries a specimen box, and Paco leads him.”

  “Damn!” Stockton snapped. “We’ve got to hide. Take to the water, to break the trail.”

  “No,” Pedro said. “There are alligators.” He nodded toward the tall patch of grass near them. “We can hide in—” He stopped, and horror grew in his eyes.

  Mary, following his glance, gave a little gasp and recoiled.

  For something was coming out of the high grasses. Dragonlike and hideous it slid forward, cold eyes intent on the little people. The sunlight gleamed on rough, warty scales.

  Only a lizard—but to Thorkel’s victims it was like a triceratops, a dinosaur out of Earth’s ferocious past!

  Stockton barely had time to snatch up his scissor-blade sword before the reptile rushed. He was bowled over by that blind charge. Gasping, still clinging to his weapon, he scrambled to his feet.

  Mary was backed up against a tall weed-stem, her eyes abrim with fear. Before her Pedro had planted his squat form.

  He gripped a bit of wood, holding it like a cudgel—a matchstick in the hands of a mannikin!

  THE lizard came back, jaws agape, hissing. Baker had found a sharpened splinter of bamboo, and held it as a spear. He thrust, and the point glanced off the reptile’s armored flank.

  The barking of Paco was thunderously loud. A shadow fell on the group. Something seemed to swoop down out of the sky—and the vast face of Dr. Thorkel stared at them as the man crouched down.

  “So there you are!” he boomed. “What is this? A lizard? Wait—”

  In his left hand he gathered the struggling forms of Mary and Pedro.

  They struck vainly at t
he huge, imprisoning fingers. He reached toward Stockton.

  Simultaneously the lizard rushed again. Stockton drove his blade at the gaping jaws; Baker thrust at the wattled throat. The creature gave back, writhed aside. Thorkel’s hand reached out—

  The reptile’s jaws closed upon it! Thorkel screamed in pain as he jerked back, cursing with agonized fury. Mary and Pedro dropped unnoticed from the scientist’s other hand.

  Stockton fled toward them. “The bushes! Quick!”

  Habit made him say that. Actually, they darted into the concealing stems of the high grasses, thicker than a forest of bamboo. Behind them they heard Thorkel cursing; then he fell silent.

  Paco barked.

  “That damn dog of yours,” Baker growled. “He’s a hunter, all right.”

  Thorkel’s voice sounded. “Come out! I know you’re in the grass. Come out or I’ll fire it.”

  Stockton glanced at Mary’s white face, and whispered an oath. Baker’s thin lips were grim. Pedro rubbed his mustache.

  “Paco—he will follow me,” the half-breed said. “You stay here.”

  And he was gone, racing through the grass forest.

  There was a moment of silence. Then Stockton, galvanized into activity, crept forward, parting the fronds till he could see Thorkel. The scientist was holding a match-box in his fingers.

  Blood dripped from one hand to the ground.

  Paco’s bark came from further away. Thorkel hesitated, looked around, and then extracted a match.

  From downstream came Pedro’s voice.

  “Paco! Fuera! Fuera!”

  Thorkel, lighting the match, looked up.

  Abruptly he dropped it and snatched at the rifle he had laid down. He took steady aim.

  The boom of the gun was deafening thunder.

  Pedro screamed once. There was a faint splash from far away.

  Sickness tugged at Stockton’s stomach as he saw Thorkel go striding off. He went back to the others.

  “Pedro’s done for. That leaves three of us.”

  “Damn Thorkel!” Baker ground out. Mary said nothing, but there was both pity and sorrow in her eyes. They heard Paco go racing past, to leap into the river and swim out.

  Then the first coiling tendrils of smoke drifted through the grasses.

  Instantly Stockton remembered the lit match that Thorkel had dropped. He seized Mary’s hand and urged her forward.

  “Come on, Steve,” he said urgently to Baker. “He’s trying to smoke us out. We can’t stay here—”

  “Come out!” roared the bellowing voice of Thorkel. “Hear me?” His huge boots stamped through the grass patch.

  And the fire spread, remorselessly, hungrily.

  Mary was gasping with strain. “I can’t—go any further, Bill.”

  “That’s right,” Baker seconded. “If we come out in the open, he’ll see us. We’re trapped.”

  Stockton stared around. The flames were closing in upon them. Black smoke billowed up. Abruptly Stockton saw something that made his eyes widen.

  The specimen-case!

  Thorkel’s box, lying at the edge of the grasses!

  Without a word Stockton raced toward it. He still had his improvised sword, and, leaping to a rock beside the box, he used it as a lever to pry the lip open. Instantly the others saw his intention.

  Awkwardly, frantic with the need for haste, they clambered in. The lid had scarcely fallen before a jolt and a sense of swinging movement told them that Thorkel had remembered his property.

  Through the small ventilators, covered with copper-wire mesh, daylight slanted in vaguely.

  Would Thorkel open the case? They wondered.

  CHAPTER IV

  The Cyclops

  IT was night before Thorkel gave up the search. Wearily he pushed open the door of the mud house, put the shotgun on a chair, and dropped the specimen case on the table.

  “They must be dead,” he groaned. “But I must be sure. I must!”

  He polished his spectacles, peering at them vaguely. His watery eyes blinked in puzzlement. Then he went to the door of the radium room and peered through the-mica panel. Something he saw there made him turn to the mine-yard door. He flung it open, switched on a floodlight, and went out, leaving the door ajar.

  As soon as he had left the lid of the specimen case lifted. Three tiny people emerged. Fearfully they clambered out, crossed the plain of the table-top, and leaped down to the seat of Thorkel’s chair. They gained the floor, and went toward the open door.

  “He’s busy with the windlass,” Mary whispered. “Hurry!”

  Stockton halted suddenly. “Okay,” he said. “But—I’ve stopped running. You two go on. I’m going to stay and—kill Thorkel, somehow.”

  The others stared at him. “But Bill!” Mary gasped. “It’s impossible! If we reach civilization—”

  Stockton laughed bitterly.

  “We’ve just been fooling ourselves all along. We can never reach civilization. If we launched a boat, we could never get ashore. We’d starve to death, or crack up in the rapids. We’re imprisoned here, as surely as though we were in jail. We can’t get away.”

  “If we—” the girl began. Stockton cut her short.

  “It’s no use! We can’t live long in the forest. Only luck has saved us so far. If we were savages—Indians, perhaps—but we’re not. If we go out in the jungle again, it means death.”

  “And if we stay here?” Baker asked.

  Stockton’s smile was grim. “Thorkel will kill us. Unless we murder him first.”

  “All right, suppose we manage to kill Thorkel,” Mary asked quietly. “What then?”

  “Then? We live.” Stockton nodded, a queer look in his eyes. “I know. The projector only works one way. We can’t regain our normal size, ever. Even if we were large enough to operate the machine, if we could rig up some windlass or lever, it wouldn’t help. Thorkel is, I think, the only man in the world who could work out the formula for returning us to our normal size. There’s not much chance of his doing that.”

  Baker said slowly, “If we kill Thorkel, we’ll have to remain—like this—forever?”

  “Yeah. And if we don’t—he’ll get us, sooner or later. Well?”

  “It’s a—a hard choice,” Mary whispered. “But at least we’d be alive—”

  BAKER nodded, and pointed to where Thorkel’s discarded gun lay across the chair.

  It was aimed at the scientist’s cot.

  “By God!” Stockton grunted. “That’s it!”

  Having come to a decision, the three acted quickly. They climbed the chair, and using books as props and the scissor-blade as a lever, adjusted the shotgun.

  “Sight it at his pillow,” Stockton told Baker, who was looking down the gun barrel. “Up a little . . . there! Right at his left ear!”

  Mary was tying a piece of thread to the gun. “Can you cock it, Bill?”

  “Yeah.” He was straining with the lever. “Okay.” But, despite Stockton’s apparent assurance, he was feeling slightly sick. The choice was—horrible! To die at Thorkel’s hands, or else to remain in this world of littleness forever . . .

  “Thorkel’s coming back!” There was panic in Mary’s voice.

  The three scurried to cover. Stockton managed to capture the thread’s dangling end, and ran with it around a box, out of sight. Mary and Baker found shelter beside him.

  The scientist’s shadow fell across the threshold. He entered, yawning wearily.

  Carelessly he scaled his hat on a corner and sat down on the cot, unlacing his boots.

  Stockton’s hand tightened on the thread. Would the titan notice the altered position of the shotgun?

  Thorkel dropped his boots to the floor and stared to lie down. Then, struck by a thought, he rose again and went to a cupboard, taking from it a dish of smoked meat and some cassava bread.

  Placing this on the table, he drew up a chair and began to eat.

  Apparently his eyes ached. Several times he polished his glasses, and p
resently discarded them entirely, substituting another pair which he took from a tray on the table. He ate slowly, nodding with weariness. And at last he removed the new pair of spectacles and slumped down, pillowing his head in his arms.

  He slept.

  “Oh, damn!” Baker said with heartfelt fury. “We can’t use the gun now.

  We couldn’t prop it up at the right angle. It looks like the jungle, after all—unless maybe we can use a knife on him.”

  Stockton looked speculatively at the scissor-blade. “Wouldn’t be sure enough. We’ve got to kill him, not disable him.”

  “Disable him—that’s it!” Mary said suddenly.

  “Bill, he’s blind without his glasses!”

  The three stared at each other, new hope springing to life within them. “That’s it!” Stockton approved. “We can hide them, and bargain with him, perhaps—”

  “We must be quiet,” Mary warned.

  But Thorkel slept heavily. He did not stir when the little people climbed up to the table, and, one by one, handed down the spectacles till they could be thrust out of sight through a hole in the floor.

  ‘That’s the last pair,” Mary said with satisfaction, peering down into the depths. “He won’t find them in a hurry.”

  “The last but one,” Baker denied. “Bill—” He stopped. Stockton was gone.

  THEY saw him back on the table-top, tip-toeing toward the sleeping Thorkel. He skirted the specimen-box and approached the spectacles, gripped in the scientist’s huge hand.

  Gingerly he attempted to disengage them.

  Thorkel stirred. He mumbled something, and his head lifted, slow with sleep.

  Fear tightened Stockton’s throat. On impulse he jerked the spectacles from Thorkel’s hand and fled behind the specimen-box.

  Blinking, Thorkel felt around for the glasses. His pale eyes stared unseeingly.

  There was a little thud. Stockton, crouching at the table-edge, saw the spectacles hit the floor, without breaking. He did not see Thorkel rise and fumble toward the specimen-box. Mary’s voice was ice-shrill.