Atta (1953) by Francis Rufus Bellamy

by Atta (pdf)

  Atta grumbled at this, but when I offered to let him

  do the investigating while I stood watch, his sense of

  fairness got the better of him and he consented.

  Beside the huge rock behind which the Formicans had

  disappeared there was another smaller one, some five feet

  high and flat on top. Toward it I crept on tiptoe, mounted

  it without too much difficulty, and wriggled to the farther side where I could overlook the entrance to the Formicans’ underground camp. This was merely a circular hole four feet or so across, about which were heaped the stones and debris that had been carried out from below, I suppose to enlarge the space underground. There was no sign of life about, although I knew from what

  Atta had told me that there would be one or more sentinels on guard inside the entrance. I lay down with nothing but the top of my head visible and notched an arrow to the string to be ready for whatever might happen.

  After a time, however, as nothing did happen, my curiosity got the better of my caution, and, being convinced that our enemies were busily engaged on underground

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  affairs of their own, I did a very foolish thing: I crawled

  back over the flat rock to see what my companion was

  doing about the aphids. He had climbed up on the

  smooth green trunk of the creeper and was standing beside one of tire creatures, leaning over. Before I could make out what he was doing I heard a slight noise behind me; and, turning, I saw one of the hostile Formicans standing not five feet away, regarding me with a vicious

  mixture of fear and anger.

  With a shout to Atta I sprang at him, whirling my ax

  over my head. But he was too quick for me. He turned

  and half scrambled, half fell down the declivity between

  the two rocks; and before I could reach him he dived

  down the slope toward the camp entrance to give the

  alarm.

  There was but one chance for us, of course: to stop

  him before he reached the gateway. For if he could once

  get inside and warn his companions, we should soon be

  surrounded and overcome. Recovering my ax, I leaped

  after him and stumbled down toward the mound of dirt

  and debris at the gate, with Atta close on my heels. But

  I was not quick enough. As I reached the mound the

  black head of another Formican appeared above the surface, and behind him I could see the shining armor of many others. The tunnel-like entrance was veritably

  swarming with angry soldiery.

  Fortunately my first quarry had only one idea: to reach

  the gateway. In this he succeeded, but at the cost of colliding with an emerging comrade, a confusion of which I was quick to take advantage. Without even thinking I

  swung up my ax and brought it down with a dull crash

  on his armored head, then turned and struck with all my

  might at my new enemy. I hit him squarely on the forehead, too, and with a shriek he fell back on to his pushing fellows below. They, undaunted by the suddenness of my attack, dragged him back and with angry cries

  pressed on to the surface.

  I had the position of vantage, now, however, and for

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  five long minutes my weapon rose and fell as regularly as

  the ax of a woodcutter felling a tree. Every blow went

  home on a half upright struggling Formican, crushing

  black armor and sheering through legs and feelers, as

  savage after savage tried to get out and at me.

  Once one of them got past me, but as he went by I

  fetched him a blow with the side of the ax that sent him

  spinning toward Atta, and there was not much left of

  him when Atta had finished. It was hot work while it

  lasted, and yet I had no fear of what might happen

  should I fail to hold the gate. I was conscious only of

  the fierce exultation of feeling the ax bite home and of

  seeing my enemies fall back crushed and maimed after

  each onslaught. It was the lust of battle, I suppose, such

  as I have since heard veteran soldiers admit after certain

  campaigns against bloodthirsty enemies; but it was the

  first time I had ever experienced it. Indeed, when finally

  the Formicans gave back and the gateway was clear

  except for corpses, I leaned on my ax almost like some

  exultant Hercules who had at last finished an allotted

  task.

  I experienced none of the queasiness of my former experience.

  “How many do you suppose there are?” I asked my

  companion, who had stood hack for the most part during

  the fight, since there had not been room for two of us

  at the gate when my ax was swinging.

  He answered rather coldly that he supposed there

  might be fifty or a hundred more of them, and even in

  my exultation I could see that he felt that I had taken

  more than my fair share of the fighting. I paid no attention to his tone, for I was thinking hard now, trying to devise some plan that would enable us to keep the

  Formicans bottled up in their camp until we could make

  good our escape. Indeed, it was obvious that unless we

  could hit upon something new we should be obliged to

  stay at the gate until we had killed or disabled all of

  them, a procedure that began to seem to me very dubi­

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  ous. What was needed was something that would delay

  any pursuit of us until we could cross the valley and

  climb up on the plateau again; for Atta, even when unburdened by me, could not travel so fast as these lighter and more active savages.

  “Couldn’t we block this gate?” I exclaimed. “Isn’t there

  some way we can bottle them up for a while?”

  I asked this question as much of myself as of Atta. But

  I had underrated him, it soon appeared. Immediately,

  without answering, he turned from me and began dragging out the largest stones from the heaps about us.

  These he rolled and dragged toward me, and I stood

  back, ax poised, eye on the dark gateway. There was

  still a faint rustling in the tunnel and occasionally the

  flicker of reflected light on black armor. Once a head

  with cautious feelers came tentatively up, only to duck

  back again as its owner caught sight of my ax. But no

  rush of enemies came, and Atta worked like a beaver.

  Soon he had a pile of rocks four feet high, none of them

  large enough to stop the entrance, but the whole sufficient to block the passage.

  He was about to start throwing them down when I

  stopped him. "Wait,” I said. “This won’t do. They can

  carry rocks off as fast as we roll them down. We shall

  have to find a single big one first—one large enough to

  cover the tunnel. Then we can pile all these small ones

  on top of it. If it’s heavy enough, they’ll have to dig

  around it if they want to get out.”

  “I’ll get one,” said Atta briefly. “A big one.”

  He turned and hurried away and was back presently,

  dragging a huge flat rock nearly five feet across. This he

  flung down, tilted it on one side with no apparent effort,

  although it looked heavy enough to require a dozen

  men’s strength, and then let it fall directly across the

  mouth of the tunnel, instantly blocking all egress from it.

  In another second he was at work piling the smaller

&
nbsp; stones upon it, and in a few minutes he had heaped the

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  stones so high and heavy on its flat surface that it was

  beyond anyone’s power to raise it from beneath.

  “There,” he said, standing back and surveying his work.

  “Now we can do what we please. They won’t bother us

  again today.”

  “Unless,” I suggested, “they have another exit somewhere.”

  Atta thought not. These were mere savages, accustomed to using but one gate, and habit was so strong among them that they were unlikely to have dug a second entrance. Also, it would not occur to them to try to dig another way out until each one had become perfectly

  sure of his own inability to use the old way.

  “Well, then,” said I, “how about getting ourselves a

  couple of aphids and taking them along?—if they are

  aphids,” I added.

  They were aphids, Atta admitted, he had already tasted

  their milk. He would show me if I liked. Together, without a glance at the dead Formicans lying around us, we went back to the creeper, and he showed me a semitransparent amber-colored substance dripping on the green trunk. It was rather sticky to the touch, but when

  I tasted it I gave an exclamation of surprise.

  “Why,” I said, “it’s like honey! Milk and honey! Nectar!

  These creatures must be something like bees.”

  “Bees?” he looked at me doubtfully.

  “Of course,” I said, “you’ve never seen them. But it’s

  too long to explain at present. By George! Nectar! Who

  would have supposed such a thing? We must certainly

  take two or three of these fellows home with us.”

  I had found what I had come for, and now I was

  anxious to get home again before dark, as we could easily

  do if we started at once. But Atta had decided that he

  wanted to explore the approach to the green uplands,

  and since he gave as his reason the possibility that, once

  on the uplands, we could follow the top of the cliff

  around the rim of the valley to where we had entered, I

  did not object. I insisted, however, that we must take

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  three of the aphids with us, and upon Atta’s agreeing I

  lifted three of them from their creeper, tied their feet

  with the strands of rope that I always carried in my

  pockets, and slung them across my shoulder. They manifested not the slightest surprise or alarm at what must have seemed to them an extraordinary procedure; indeed, I always found them as mild and docile as the cows they so weirdly resembled in purpose if not in appearance. They were very light, too, being slenderly built, and I had no difficulty in carrying them, though I

  will admit to a slight uneasiness regarding their long

  bills, which were of necessity in rather uncomfortably

  close proximity to my unprotected body. But evidently

  they did not regard me as likely to furnish a very succulent repast, for they tucked their bills under their bodies.

  And a few minutes later, when Atta had carried all of us

  to the edge of the uplands, I forgot all about them in my

  wonder at the stupendous green jungle that greeted our

  gaze.

  For the foliage on the uplands, although of the same

  character as the bamboolike jungle that surrounded our

  house, grew here in great tangled masses like giant tufts,

  and the ground was so encumbered with dead trunks

  and twisted fibers that to penetrate it was like nothing so

  much as crawling through a hurricane forest or the ruins

  of a thousand wooden buildings twisted by a cyclone.

  “We might as well go back,” I said at once. “I couldn’t

  get through that stuff, and you couldn’t carry me. As it

  is, we shan’t be home before dark.”

  Atta was about to reply when a movement behind one

  of the giant tufts caught my eye, and, peering into the

  gloom beneath some dead foliage, I made out two eyes

  regarding me intently. With a low word of warning to

  my companion I fitted an arrow swifty to the string and

  let fly. But for once I missed. I sprang back just in time

  as some yellow creature pounced out, slashing viciously

  at me with his hooked jaws.

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  “Look out!” called Atta. “Watch his jaws. He rips from

  below.”

  It was an urgent warning, and I obeyed it. But as I

  crouched and drew my dagger my heel caught on a loose

  stone, and I fell on one knee. Before I could recover my

  balance the beast was upon me, and I gave myself up

  for lost. But to my surprise the yellow creature paid no

  attention at all to me. Instead he seized one of the

  aphids, and he had all but torn the unfortunate animal

  to pieces before Atta rushed up and put an end to everything with one slash of his powerful beak.

  “An aphid killer,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, looking down at the beast as I rose and brushed the dust from my clothes. “He wasn’t interested in you. They seldom

  attack anything but aphids. But they’re dangerous if you

  let them get under you.”

  “Well, he’s done for one aphid,” I said grimly. “I suppose we can’t risk going down into the valley for another one.”

  “No,” said Atta, “but we’re up level with the cliff now,

  and there are plenty of creepers along it. We shall probably see more aphids on our way around,”

  With this I had to be content. We started home, and

  eventually Atta was as good as his word. I recovered my

  arrow from its thicket before we went. Soon we struck

  the narrow open plateau, where Atta carried all of us at

  a speed that put travel in the valley below to shame. At

  one point the cliff made an almost right-angle turn. Here

  there were dozens of giant creepers on the stone hills,

  and on one of these Atta found another group of aphids,

  from which he selected a young juicy one. So our loss

  was made good before we reached my ancient rusting

  shelter and plunged once more into our own familiar

  jungle.

  Then it was only a matter of three hours to home. We

  reached it without further adventure than an occasional

  glimpse of prowling forest beasts and, once, a solitary

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  red-armored Formican, whom I saw far ahead as he

  crossed our path and disappeared behind a clump of

  trees.

  So w e lived for many days in our gnarled, secluded

  house in the jungle while I learned to milk our new

  aphids. Nectar graced our table in small wooden jars

  which I hollowed out, and Atta went foraging for the

  green creepers on which the animals fed in safety behind our rapidly growing thistle hedge. In different circumstances it might almost have been an idyllic existence, and it is with regret that I approach the day when it all

  ended; the day of which for many long years thereafter

  I could not bear to think.

  Yet first I feel that I must say more of the strange

  friendship that had grown up between Atta and myself

  during the course of the adventures I have been relating: a friendship based at first on our common necessities, but becoming deeper and stronger as the summer grew along, until finally the bond between us had become more like the attachment between two favorite brothers than
the surface feeling that usually masquerades under the name of friendship.

  I have never known, in the course of a normally long

  life, a character more admirable when considered in its

  larger aspect than that of this strange person. (I cannot

  bring myself to call him creature.) Certain characteristics, indeed, when considered from our narrow human standpoint, might fairly be censured; but his other quali­

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  ties of mind and heart so far outweighed them that when

  fair allowance was made for his utterly foreign upbringing and mode of life I was only too glad to admit that here was a person whom anyone might well be proud to

  call his friend.

  I do not know what it was that made him different

  from others of his race, or what it was that attracted

  him to me at first. But I gathered afterwards that I was

  the first person to come into his life who had ever

  released the emotions of his heart or his desire for a

  companionship of the mind. His relatives and associates

  —though he rarely spoke of them except by way of illustration-had been trained from early youth, after the manner of the wellnigh universal Formican education, in

  the rigid pattern of absolute subservience to a racial

  ideal. In the communities of his people—as I afterwards

  saw proved—this ideal had long ago taken the form of a

  caste-dominated, highly efficient society, to the simple

  objective aims of which all else was subordinated in a

  truly incredible manner.

  This conception, of which I shall have occasion to

  speak graphically later in connection with my own subsequent adventures, had never allowed Atta even to admit to any of the instincts of sympathy, kindness, or consideration of others that seem natural to the human heart. On the contrary, from childhood these instincts

  had been stifled in him whenever they appeared. When

  he first encountered me, therefore, he was almost unaware that he even possessed the simple emotions and feelings that in mankind have been the delight of friends

  and adventurers for ages.

  In their place was a settled dour habit of work without play, plus a veritable distaste for thought, so marked at first that it was only with the greatest difficulty that