The Collection (49 page)

But the
kifs
served a purpose for him. They kept him
sane, by giving him something tangible, something inferior, to hate.

Oh, it wasn't hatred, at first. Mere annoyance. He killed
them in a routine sort of way at first. But they kept coming back. Always there
were
kifs
. In his larder, wherever he did it. In his bed. He sat the
legs of the cot in dishes of gasoline, but the
kifs
still got in.
Perhaps they dropped from the ceiling, although he never caught them doing it.

They bothered his sleep. He'd feel them running over him,
even when he'd spent an hour picking the bed clean of them by the light of the
carbide lantern. They scurried with tickling little feet and he could not
sleep.

He grew to hate them, and the very misery of his nights made
his days more tolerable by giving them an increasing purpose. A pogrom against
the
kifs
. He sought out their holes by patiently following one bearing a
bit of food, and he poured gasoline into the hole and the earth around it,
taking satisfaction in the thought of the writhings in agony below. He went
about hunting
kifs
, to step on them. To stamp them out. He must have
killed millions of
kifs
.

But always there were as many left. Never did their number
seem to diminish in the slightest. Like the Martians—but unlike the Martians,
they did not fight back.

Theirs was the passive resistance of a vast productivity
that bred
kifs
ceaselessly, overwhelmingly, billions to replace
millions. Individual
kifs
could be killed, and he took savage
satisfaction in their killing, but he knew his methods were useless save for
the pleasure and the purpose they gave him. Sometimes the pleasure would pall
in the shadow of its futility, and he would dream of mechanized means of
killing them.

He read carefully what little material there was in his tiny
library about the
kif
. They were astonishingly like the ants of Terra.
So much that there had been speculation about their relationship—that didn't
interest him. How could they be killed,
en masse
? Once a year, for a
brief period, they took on the characteristics of the army ants of Terra. They
came from their holes in endless numbers and swept everything before them in their
devouring march. He wet his lips when he read that. Perhaps the opportunity
would come then to destroy, to destroy,
and destroy
.

Almost, Mr. Smith forgot people and the solar system and
what had been. Here in this new world, there was only he and the
kifs
.
The
baroons
and the
marigees
didn't count. They had no order and
no system. The
kifs
—

In the intensity of his hatred there slowly filtered through
a grudging admiration. The
kifs
were true totalitarians. They practiced
what he had preached to a mightier race, practiced it with a thoroughness
beyond the kind of man to comprehend.

Theirs the complete submergence of the individual to the
state, theirs the complete ruthlessness of the true conqueror, the perfect
selfless bravery of the true soldier.

But they got into his bed, into his clothes, into his food.

They crawled with intolerable tickling feet.

Nights he walked the beach, and that night was one of the
noisy nights. There were high-flying, high-whining jet-craft up there in the
moonlight sky and their shadows dappled the black water of the sea. The planes,
the rockets, the jet-craft, they were what had ravaged his cities, had turned
his railroads into twisted steel, had dropped their H-Bombs on his most vital
factories.

He shook his fist at them and shrieked imprecations at the
sky.

And when he had ceased shouting, there were voices on the
beach. Conrad's voice in his ear, as it had sounded that day when Conrad had
walked into the palace, white-faced, and forgotten the salute. "There is a
breakthrough at Denver, Number One! Toronto and Monterey are in danger. And in
the other hemispheres—" His voice cracked. "—the damned Martians and
the traitors from Luna are driving over the Argentine. Others have landed near
New Petrograd. It is a rout. All is lost!"

Voices crying, "Number One,
hail
! Number One,
hail
!"

A sea of hysterical voices. "Number One,
hail
!
Number One—"

A voice that was louder, higher, more frenetic than any of
the others. His memory of his own voice, calculated but inspired, as he'd heard
it on play-backs of his own speeches.

The voices of children chanting, "To thee, O Number
One—" He couldn't remember the rest of the words, but they had been
beautiful words. That had been at the public school meet in the New Los
Angeles. How strange that he should remember, here and now, the very tone of
his voice and inflection, the shining wonder in their children's eyes. Children
only, but they were willing to kill and die,
for him
, convinced that all
that was needed to cure the ills of the race was a suitable leader to follow.

"
All is lost!
"

And suddenly the monster jet-craft were swooping downward
and starkly he realized what a clear target he presented, here against the
white moonlit beach. They must see him.

The crescendo of motors as he ran, sobbing now in fear, for
the cover of the jungle. Into the screening shadow of the giant trees, and the
sheltering blackness.

He stumbled and fell, was up and running again. And now his
eyes could see in the dimmer moonlight that filtered through the branches
overhead. Stirrings there, in the branches. Stirrings and voices in the night.
Voices in and of the night. Whispers and shrieks of pain. Yes, he'd shown them
pain, and now their tortured voices ran with him through the knee-deep,
night-wet grass among the trees.

The night was hideous with noise. Red noises, an almost
tangible
din that he could nearly
feel
as well as he could see and hear it. And
after a while his breath came raspingly, and there was a thumping sound that
was the beating of his heart and the beating of the night.

And then, he could run no longer, and he clutched a tree to
keep from falling, his arms trembling about it, and his face pressed against
the impersonal roughness of the bark. There was no wind, but the tree swayed
back and forth and his body with it.

Then, as abruptly as light goes on when a switch is thrown,
the noise vanished. Utter silence, and at last he was strong enough to let go
his grip on the tree and stand erect again, to look about to get his bearings.

One tree was like another, and for a moment he thought he'd
have to stay here until daylight. Then he remembered that the sound of the surf
would give him his directions. He listened hard and heard it, faint and far
away.

And another sound—one that he had never heard before—faint,
also, but seeming to come from his right and quite near.

He looked that way, and there was a patch of opening in the
trees above. The grass was waving strangely in that area of moonlight. It
moved, although there was no breeze to move it. And there was an almost sudden
edge
,
beyond which the blades thinned out quickly to barrenness.

And the sound—it was like the sound of the surf, but it was
continuous. It was more like the rustle of dry leaves, but there were no dry
leaves to rustle.

Mr. Smith took a step toward the sound and looked down. More
grass bent, and fell, and vanished, even as he looked. Beyond the moving edge
of devastation was a brown floor of the moving bodies of
kifs
.

Row after row, orderly rank after orderly rank, marching
resistlessly onward. Billions of
kifs
, an army of
kifs
, eating
their way across the night.

Fascinated, he stared down at them. There was no danger, for
their progress was slow. He retreated a step to keep beyond their front rank.
The sound, then, was the sound of chewing.

He could see one edge of the column, and it was a neat,
orderly edge. And there was discipline, for the ones on the outside were larger
than those in the center.

He retreated another step—and then, quite suddenly, his body
was afire in several spreading places. The vanguard. Ahead of the rank that ate
away the grass.

His boots were brown with
kifs
.

Screaming with pain, he whirled about and ran, beating with
his hands at the burning spots on his body. He ran head-on into a tree,
bruising his face horribly, and the night was scarlet with pain and shooting
fire.

But he staggered on, almost blindly, running, writhing,
tearing off his clothes as he ran.

This, then, was
pain
. There was a shrill screaming in
his ears that must have been the sound of his own voice.

When he could no longer run, he crawled. Naked, now, and
with only a few
kifs
still clinging to him. And the blind tangent of his
flight had taken him well out of the path of the advancing army.

But stark fear and the memory of unendurable pain drove him
on. His knees raw now, he could no longer crawl. But he got himself erect again
on trembling legs, and staggered on. Catching hold of a tree and pushing himself
away from it to catch the next.

Falling, rising, falling again. His throat raw from the
screaming invective of his hate. Bushes and the rough bark of trees tore his
flesh.

Into the village compound just before dawn, staggered a man,
a naked terrestrial. He looked about with dull eyes that seemed to see nothing
and understand nothing.

The females and young ran before him, even the males
retreated.

He stood there, swaying, and the incredulous eyes of the
natives widened as they saw the condition of his body, and the blankness of his
eyes.

When he made no hostile move, they came closer again, formed
a wondering, chattering circle about him, these Venusian humanoids. Some ran to
bring the chief and the chief's son, who knew everything.

The mad, naked human opened his lips as though he were going
to speak, but instead, he fell. He fell, as a dead man falls. But when they
turned him over in the dust, they saw that his chest still rose and fell in
labored breathing.

And then came Alwa, the aged chieftain, and Nrana, his son.
Alwa gave quick, excited orders. Two of the men carried Mr. Smith into the
chief's hut, and the wives of the chief and the chief's son took over the
Earthling's care, and rubbed him with a soothing and healing salve.

But for days and nights he lay without moving and without
speaking or opening his eyes, and they did not know whether he would live or
die.

Then, at last, he opened his eyes. And he talked, although
they could make out nothing of the things he said.

Nrana came and listened, for Nrana of all of them spoke and
understood best the Earthling's language, for he had been the special protege
of the Terran missionary who had lived with them for a while.

Nrana listened, but he shook his head. "The
words," he said, "the words are of the Terran tongue, but I make
nothing of them. His mind is not well."

The aged Alwa said, "Aie. Stay beside him. Perhaps as
his body heals, his words will be beautiful words as were the words of the
Father-of-Us who, in the Terran tongue, taught us of the gods and their
good."

So they cared for him well, and his wounds healed, and the
day came when he opened his eyes and saw the handsome blue-complexioned face of
Nrana sitting there beside him, and Nrana said softly, "Good day, Mr. Man
of Earth. You feel better, no?"

There was no answer, and the deep-sunken eyes of the man on
the sleeping mat stared, glared at him. Nrana could see that those eyes were
not yet sane, but he saw, too, that the madness in them was not the same that
it had been. Nrana did not know the words for delirium and paranoia, but he
could distinguish between them.

No longer was the Earthling a raving maniac, and Nrana made
a very common error, an error more civilized beings than he have often made. He
thought the paranoia was an improvement over the wider madness. He talked on,
hoping the Earthling would talk too, and he did not recognize the danger of his
silence.

"We welcome you, Earthling," he said, "and
hope that you will live among us, as did the Father-of-Us, Mr. Gerhardt. He
taught us to worship the true gods of the high heavens. Jehovah, and Jesus and
their prophets the men from the skies. He taught us to pray and to love our
enemies."

And Nrana shook his head sadly, "But many of our tribe
have gone back to the older gods, the cruel gods. They say there has been great
strife among the outsiders, and no more remain upon all of Venus. My father,
Alwa, and I are glad another one has come. You will be able to help those of us
who have gone back. You can teach us love and kindliness."

The eyes of the dictator closed. Nrana did not know whether
or not he slept, but Nrana stood up quietly to leave the hut. In the doorway,
he turned and said, "We pray for you."

And then, joyously, he ran out of the village to seek the
others, who were gathering bela-berries for the feast of the fourth event.

When, with several of them, he returned to the village, the
Earthling was gone. The hut was empty.

Outside the compound they found, at last, the trail of his
passing. They followed and it led to a stream and along the stream until they
came to the tabu of the green pool, and could go no farther.

"He went downstream," said Alwa gravely. "He
sought the sea and the beach. He was well then, in his mind, for he knew that
all streams go to the sea."

"Perhaps he had a ship-of-the-sky there at the
beach," Nrana said worriedly. "All Earthlings come from the sky. The
Father-of-Us told us that."