The Ugly Little Boy

by Isaac Asimov

  “A special sacrifice.”

  What was left of Goddess Woman’s patience was rapidly wearing thin. “Special how, She Who Knows? Special in what way? I have no time for riddles now.”

  “The sacrifice of a child,” said She Who Knows.

  Goddess Woman would not have been more startled if She Who Knows had thrown a handful of snow in her face.

  “What? Who says such a thing?”

  “I heard the men talking. We’ll give a child to the Goddess at the Place of Three Rivers so that She will make the Other Ones keep away from us. Silver Cloud has already decided it. Presumably after discussing it with you. Is that true, Goddess Woman?”

  Goddess Woman felt a pounding in her breast and heard a sound like thunder drumming in her ears. She felt weak and dizzy and she had to force herself with difficulty to remain upright and to keep her eyes level with those of She Who Knows. She drew her breath in deeply, filling her lungs, again, again, again, until some semblance of poise returned to her.

  Icily she said, “This is madness, She Who Knows. The Goddess gives children. She doesn’t want them back.”

  “Sometimes She takes them back.”

  “Yes. Yes, I know,” said Goddess Woman, her tone softening a little. “The Goddess moves in ways beyond our understanding. But we don’t kill children and offer them to Her. Animals, yes. Never a child. Never. Such a thing has never been done.”

  “The Other Ones have never been a serious danger to us before, either.”

  “Sacrificing children isn’t going to protect us from the Other Ones.”

  “They say that you and Silver Cloud have decided that it will.”

  “They’re lying, whoever they are,” Goddess Woman said hotly. “I don’t know anything about this plan. Nothing!—All this is nonsense, She Who Knows. It won’t happen. I promise you that. There’ll be no sacrifices of children around here. You can be completely sure of that.”

  “Swear it. Swear by the Goddess.—No.” She Who Knows reached out and took Skyfire Face by one hand and Sweet Flower by the other. “Swear by the souls of this little boy and this little girl.”

  “My word should be enough,” Goddess Woman said.

  “You won’t swear?”

  “My word is sufficient,” said Goddess Woman. “I don’t owe you any oaths. Not by the Goddess, not by Sweet Flower’s little backside, not by anything. We’re civilized people, She Who Knows. We don’t kill children. That should be good enough for you.”

  She Who Knows looked skeptical. But she gave ground and went away.

  Goddess Woman stood by herself, thinking.

  Sacrifice a child? Were they serious? Did they actually think it would serve any purpose? Could it possibly serve any purpose?

  Would the Goddess countenance such a thing? She tried to think it through. To yield up a little life, to return to the Goddess that which the Goddess had given—was that any way of convincing Her that She must help the People in this time of need?

  No. No. No. No. However Goddess Woman looked at it, she saw no sense in it.

  Where was Silver Cloud? Ah, over there, looking through Mammoth Rider’s new batch of arrow points. Goddess Woman went over to him and drew him aside. In a low voice she said, “Tell me something, and tell me honestly. Are you planning to sacrifice a child when we get to the Place of Three Rivers?”

  “Have you lost your mind, Goddess Woman?”

  “She Who Knows says that some of the men are talking about it. That you’ve already decided on it and that I’ve given my agreement.”

  “And have you given your agreement?” Silver Cloud asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, the rest of the story is just as true. Sacrifice a child, Goddess Woman? You couldn’t possibly have believed that I would ever—”

  “I wasn’t certain.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “You canceled the Summer Festival, didn’t you?”

  “What’s wrong with you, Goddess Woman? You don’t see any difference between putting off a festival and killing a child?”

  “There are those who’d say that one is just as wrong as the other.”

  “Well, anyone who says something like that is crazy,” Silver Cloud retorted. “I have no such intentions, and you can tell She Who Knows that I—” He paused. His expression altered strangely.—“You don’t think that it could possibly do us any good, do you? You aren’t suggesting—”

  “No,” said Goddess Woman. “Of course I don’t. Now you sound like you’ve lost your mind. But don’t be ridiculous. I’m not suggesting it in the slightest. I came over here to find out whether there was any truth to the rumor, that’s all.”

  “And now you know. None. None whatever.”

  But there was an odd look in his eyes, still. Silver Cloud’s outrage seemed to have softened and he had turned inward upon himself, somehow. Goddess Woman wasn’t sure how to interpret that inward look. What could he be thinking of?

  Goddess above, he couldn’t seriously be considering the idea of sacrificing a child all of a sudden, could he? Did I put something monstrous into his mind just now?

  No, she decided. No. That couldn’t be it. She knew Silver Cloud well. He was tough, he was unswerving, he could be brutal—but not this. Not a child.

  “I want you to understand my position very clearly,” Goddess Woman said with all the force she could muster. “There may very well be some men in this tribe who think it could be useful to offer a child to the Goddess, and for all I know, Silver Cloud, they might be able to succeed in talking you into it before we reach the Place of Three Rivers. But I won’t allow it. I’m prepared to bring the heaviest curse of the Goddess down on any man who even proposes such a thing. It’ll be the bear-curse, the darkest one of all. I’ll cut him off from every shred of Her mercy without any hesitation. I’ll—”

  “Easy, Goddess Woman. You’re getting all worked up over nothing. Nobody’s talking about sacrificing children. Nobody. When we get to the Place of Three Rivers we’ll catch ourselves an ibex or a chamois or a good red elk, and we’ll give its meat to the Goddess as we always do, and that will be that. So calm yourself. Calm yourself. You’re kicking up a tremendous fuss about something that you know I’d never permit to be done. You know it, Goddess Woman.”

  “All right,” she said. “An ibex. A chamois.”

  “Absolutely,” said Silver Cloud.

  He grinned at her and reached out to squeeze her shoulder fondly. She felt very foolish. How could she ever have imagined that Silver Cloud would entertain such a barbaric notion?

  She went off by herself to kneel by a little stream and throw cold water against her aching forehead.

  Later in the morning, when the tribe had resumed its march, Goddess Woman came up alongside She Who Knows and said, “I had a talk with Silver Cloud. He knew no more about this child-sacrifice scheme than I did. And he feels the same way about it that I do. That you do. He wouldn’t ever allow it.”

  “There are those here who think otherwise.”

  “Who, for instance?”

  She Who Knows shook her head vaguely. “I won’t name names. But they think the Goddess won’t be satisfied unless we give Her one of our children.”

  “If they think that, they don’t understand the Goddess at all. Forget all of this, will you, She Who Knows? It’s just so much empty talk. The talk of fools.”

  “Let’s hope so,” said She Who Knows, her voice dark with foreboding.

  They marched onward. Gradually Goddess Woman put the matter from her mind. She Who Knows’ refusal to name names had aroused her suspicions. Very probably there was nothing to the story at all, and never had been. Perhaps the woman had invented the whole thing; perhaps she was sick in the mind; perhaps it might be a good idea to send She Who Knows off on a little pilgrimage of her own to clear her troubled soul of such disturbed imaginings. Child sacrifice! It was unthinkable.

  She forgot about it. And the weeks went by; and the People
marched westward, back through the thinning warmth of summer toward the Place of Three Rivers.

  And now at last they were on a sloping hillside overlooking the Three Rivers themselves. The long rearward march was almost over. The trail wound gradually downward through one level of hillside after another, and down below, in the misty valley, they could see the shining glint that the water of the Three Rivers made.

  It was late in the day, and the People were starting to consider making camp for the evening. And then a strange thing happened.

  Goddess Woman was near the front of the file, with Tree Of Wolves on one side of her and Blazing Eye on the other, to help her carry the packets of Goddess-things. Suddenly the air turned intensely bright just beside the path. There was a sparkling. Goddess Woman saw brilliant red and green flashes, glossy loops, a fiery whiteness at the core. The white light moved. It went up and down in the air, whirling as it traveled.

  Looking at it was painful. She flung up one hand to shield her eyes. People were crying out in fear all around her.

  Then it vanished—as abruptly as it had come. The air beside the path seemed empty. Goddess Woman stood blinking, her eyes aching, her mind aswirl with confusions.

  “What was it?” someone asked.

  “What will happen next?”

  “Save us. Silver Cloud!”

  “Goddess Woman? Goddess Woman, tell us what that thing was!”

  Goddess Woman moistened her lips. “It was—the Goddess passing by,” she improvised desperately. “The edge of Her robe; that was what it was.”

  “Yes,” they said. “The Goddess. The Goddess, it was. It must have been.”

  Everyone was quiet for a time, wary, motionless, waiting to see if She intended to return. But nothing out of the ordinary happened.

  Then She Who Knows cried out, “It was the Goddess, yes, and She has taken Skyfire Face!”

  “What?”

  “He was right here, just behind me, when the light appeared. Now he’s gone.”

  “Gone? Where? How?”

  “Look for him!” someone screamed. “Find him! Skyfire Face! Skyfire Face!”

  There was a tremendous hubbub. People were scrabbling about, moving without purpose in every direction, movement just for the sake of movement. Goddess Woman heard Silver Cloud calling out for quiet, for calmness. The Mothers were the most excited: their shrill cries rose above everything else, and they ran about weeping and flailing their arms in the air.

  For a moment Goddess Woman wasn’t able to remember who the actual mother of Skyfire Face was; then she recalled that it was Red Smoke At Sunrise who had given birth to the little boy with the jagged lightning-bolt birthmark, four summers back. But the Mothers raised all the children of the tribe in common, and it made very little difference to them which one of them had brought a particular child into the world; Milky Fountain and Beautiful Snow and Lake Of Green Ice were just as troubled by his bewildering disappearance as was Red Smoke At Sunrise.

  “He must have wandered off the path,” Broken Mountain said. “I’ll go look for him.”

  “He was right here,” said She Who Knows acidly. “That light swallowed him up.”

  “You saw it, did you?”

  “He was behind me when it happened. But not so far behind that he could have strayed. It was the light that took him. It was the light.”

  All the same, Broken Mountain insisted on going back to look for him. But it was useless. There was no sign of the boy anywhere. An hour’s search produced nothing, not even a footprint; and now it was growing very dark.

  “We have to move on,” Silver Cloud said. “There’s no place here for camping.”

  “But Skyfire Face—”

  “Gone,” Silver Cloud said inexorably. “Vanished into the Goddess-light.”

  “The Goddess-light! The Goddess-light!”

  They moved along. Goddess Woman felt numb. She had looked right into the shimmering light, and there was still an ache behind her eyes, and when she closed them she saw patterns of floating purple spots. But had it been the Goddess? She couldn’t say. She had never seen anything like that light before. She hoped she never saw it again.

  “So the Goddess wanted one of our children after all,” She Who Knows said. “Well, well, well.”

  “You know nothing about these matters!” Goddess Woman told her furiously. “Nothing!”

  But what if she was right? Goddess Woman wondered. It was altogether possible that she was. Likely, even. So powerful a light could only have been a manifestation of the Goddess.

  The Goddess had claimed a child? Why? What sense did that make?

  We can never understand Her, Goddess Woman decided, after wrestling with the strange event far into the night. She is the Goddess, and we are only Her creatures. And Skyfire Face is gone. It is beyond all comprehension, but so be it. She remembered now the rumor there had been that Silver Cloud had been planning to sacrifice a child when they reached the Place of the Three Rivers. Well, at least there would be no more talk of such things. They were almost at their destination, and the Goddess had claimed a child without their having had to give it to her. Goddess Woman hoped that She would be content with that. There were not so many children in the tribe that they could afford to let Her have another one just now.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Discovering

  [12]

  A NEANDERTHAL? A sub-human Neanderthal? Miss Fellowes thought in disbelief and bewilderment, with anger and a keen sense of betrayal rising right afterward. Was that really what the child was? If what Deveney had said was true, her worst fear had been confirmed.

  She turned on Hoskins, glaring at him with a kind of controlled ferocity.

  “You might have told me, doctor.”

  “Why? What difference does it make?”

  “You said a child, not an animal.”

  “This is a child, Miss Fellowes. Don’t you think so?”

  “A Neanderthal child.”

  Hoskins looked puzzled. “Yes, yes, of course. You know what sort of experimentation Stasis Technologies has been involved in. Certainly you aren’t going to tell me that you didn’t realize the child would be drawn from a prehistoric era. We discussed all that with you.”

  “Prehistoric, yes. But Neanderthal? I expected to be looking after a human child.”

  “Neanderthals were human,” Hoskins said, showing some signs of annoyance now. “More or less.”

  “Were they? Is that true?”

  She looked toward Candide Deveney in appeal.

  Deveney said, “Well, according to the thinking of most paleoanthropologists over the past sixty or seventy years, the Neanderthals certainly must be considered to be a form of Homo sapiens, Miss Fellowes—an archaic branch of the species, perhaps, or a subspecies, a kind of backwoods cousin, so to speak, but definitely close kin, definitely to be considered human—”

  Impatiently Hoskins cut in. “Let that point go for a moment, Deveney. There’s another issue to address here.—Miss Fellowes, have you ever had a puppy or a kitten?”

  “When I was a young girl, yes. But what does that have to do with—”

  “Back when you had this puppy of yours, this kitten, did you care for it? Did you love it?”

  “Of course. But—”

  “Was it human, Miss Fellowes?”

  “It was a pet, doctor. We’re not talking about pets now. This is a professional matter. You’re asking a highly trained nurse with a considerable background in advanced pediatric medicine to take care of—of—”

  “Suppose this child here were a baby chimpanzee,” Hoskins asked. “Would you be repelled? If I asked you to care for it, would you do so or would you turn away in disgust? And this isn’t a chimpanzee. It isn’t any sort of anthropoid ape. It’s a young human being.”

  “A Neanderthal child.”

  “Just as I said. A young human being. Strange-looking and wild, precisely as I told you it would be. A difficult case. You’re an experienced nurse, Miss Fellow
es, with a superb record of achievement. Do you shy away from difficult cases? Have you ever refused to take care of a deformed infant?”

  Miss Fellowes felt her argument slipping away. She said, with much less vehemence, “You might have told me.”

  “And you would have refused the position, is that it?”

  “Well—”

  “You knew we were dealing with a range of thousands of years here.”

  “‘Thousands’ could mean three thousand. It wasn’t until this evening, when you and Mr. Deveney were discussing the project and the phrase ‘forty thousand years’ suddenly entered it, that I began to realize what was really going on here. And even then I didn’t fully understand that a Neanderthal would be involved. I’m no expert in—in—What was it you said, paleoanthropology, Mr. Deveney? I’m not familiar with the time-scale of human evolution the way you people are.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” said Hoskins. “If you had known all the data ahead of time, would you have refused the position or wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Do you want to refuse it now? There were other qualified candidates, you know. Is this a resignation?”

  Hoskins gazed at her coolly, while Deveney watched from the other side of the room, and the Neanderthal child, having finished the milk and licked the plate dry, looked up at her with a wet face and wide longing eyes.

  She stared at the boy. The ugly little boy. She heard her own voice saying, But Neanderthal? I expected to be looking after a human child.

  The boy pointed to the milk, and to the plate. And suddenly he burst out in a short series of brusque, harsh sounds repeated over and over: sounds made up of weirdly strangled gutturals and elaborate tongue-clickings.

  Miss Fellowes said in surprise, “Why, he talks!”

  “Apparently he does,” said Hoskins. “Or at least he can make A feed me again sound.—Which any cat is capable of doing, of course.”

  “No—no, he was talking,” said Miss Fellowes.

  “That’s yet to be determined. There’s plenty of controversy over whether Neanderthals were capable of true speech. That’s one of the things we hope we’re going to be able to settle during the span of this experiment.”