daring, Burl tasted it and it waswater, but such as he had never tasted before. It was clean, fresh,sparkling water, not fouled by drainage through mould or rust.
The rest of the tribe tasted. A child slipped on a muddy place and satdown hard on white stuff that yielded and almost splashed. The childhowled. Saya picked it up. Then she looked where it had been for spinesor small stinging things.
She stared blankly.
She went to Burl with a tiny white thing in her hand. It was a mushroom.But it was a _tiny_, clean, appetizing object. Saya had no words for it.She was amazed.
Burl smelled it carefully. He tasted it. And it was actually no more andno less than a normal mushroom, growing in a shaded place uponenormously rich soil. It had been protected from sunlight, but it hadnot the means nor the stimulus to become a monster.
Burl ate it. He carefully composed his features. Then he announced thefind to his followers.
There was food here, he told them. But in this splendid world to whichhe had led them, food was small. There would be no great enemies here,but the food would have to be sought in small objects rather than greatones. They must look at this place and seek others like it, where foodwould be found....
The tribesmen were doubtful. But they plucked mushrooms--wholeones!--instead of merely breaking off parts of their tops. In deepastonishment they recognized miniatures of what they had known only ingigantic forms. They tasted. The tiny mushrooms had the same savor, butthey were not coarse or stringy or tough like the giants. They melted inthe mouth! Life in this place to which Burl had led them was delectable!Truly the doings of Burl were astonishing!
When a child found a beetle on a leaf, and they recognized it, they wereentranced, for instead of being bigger than a man and a thing to fleefrom, it was less than an inch in size and helpless against them. Fromthat moment on, they would follow Burl anywhere and obey him in anymatter, in the happy conviction that he could do nothing that was notdesirable in all respects.
The belief, of course, was not quite accurate. Tender tiny mushrooms asa staple, instead of the tough and chewy provender they were used to, intime would cause them to have toothaches. But they could not anticipateit, and it was actually very far away in time.
They struggled after Burl through vast patches of bushes with thorns onthem. They were not used to thorns, and they deeply distrusted thebushes and even the glistening fruit on them, which eventually theywould know were blackberries. Near midday they heard noises in thedistance.
The sounds were made up of cries of varying pitch, some of which weresharp and abrupt, and others longer and less loud. The people did notunderstand them in the least. They could have been the cries of humanbeings, but they were assuredly not cries of pain. Also they were notlanguage. They seemed to convey an impression of enormous, zestfulexcitement. They had no overtone of horror. And Burl and his folk hadknown of no excitement among insects except the frenzy of ferocity. Theywere unable to imagine even the nature of the tumult.
To Burl the cries seemed to have somewhat the timbre of the yelpingsounds he had heard the night before. And he had felt instinctivelydrawn to that sound. He liked it.
He led the way boldly in the direction of the noise. And presently hecame out of breast-high weeds with Saya close behind him and the otherstrailing. He emerged upon a space of bare stone, a little upraised. Helooked down into a small and grassy amphitheater. The tumult came fromits center.
A pack of dogs were joyously attacking something that Burl could not seeclearly. They _were dogs_. They barked zestfully, and they yelped andsnarled and yapped in a dozen different voices, and they darted at theunseen something and darted away, and they were having a thoroughlyenjoyable time, though it might not be so good for the thing theyattacked.
One of them saw the humans and stopped stock-still and barked. Theothers whirled and saw the humans as they came out into view. The tumultceased entirely.
There was silence. The men for the first time saw creatures with onlyfour legs. They had never before seen any moving thing with fewer thansix--except men. Spiders had eight. The dogs did not have mandibles.They did not act like insects.
And the dogs saw men, whom they had never seen before. Much moreimportant, they smelled men. And the difference between man-smell andthat of insects was vast. Through many generations the dogs had notsmelled anything with warm blood save their own kind. The difference insmell between insect and man was so great that the dogs did not reactwith suspicion, but with curiosity. This was an unparalleled smell. Itwas even a good smell.
The dogs regarded the men with their heads on one side, sniffing them inthe deepest possible amazement--amazement so intense that they could notfeel hostility. One of them whined a little because he did notunderstand.
* * * * *
Peculiarly enough, it was a matter of topography. The plateau whichreached above the clouds rose with a steep slope from the valley inwhich Burl and the others had lived. To westward, however, the highlandwas subject to an indentation which almost severed it. No more thantwenty miles from where Burl's group had climbed to sunshine, there wasa much more gradual slope downward. There, mushroom-forests grew almostto the cloud-layer. From there, giant insects strayed up and onto theplateau itself. They could not live on the plateau, of course. There wasno food for their insatiable hunger. Especially at night, there was nowarmth to keep them active. But they did stray from their normalenvironment, and some of them reached the sunshine, and perhaps some ofthem blundered back down to their mushroom-forests again. But those thatdid not find their way back were chilled to torpor during their firstnight on the highland. They were only partly active on the second dayif, indeed, they were active at all. And few or none recovered from thesecond night of cold. Certainly none kept their full ferocity anddeadliness. And this was how the dogs survived.
Unquestionably the dogs were descended from dogs on the wreckedship--name now unknown--which had landed on this planet some forty-oddhuman generations since. The humans had no memories of that ship, andthe dogs had surely no traditions. But perhaps because those early dogshad less of intellect, they had possessed more useful instincts. Perhapsdogs were bred by the first desperate generations of humans, to warnthem against dangers. But no human civilization could survive theenvironment of the lowlands. The humans inevitably reverted to theprimitive. The environment was not one in which dogs could survive, sosomehow they took to the heights. Perhaps dogs survived their masters.Perhaps some were abandoned or driven away. But dogs had reached theheights. And they did survive because of the simple fact that giantinsects blundered up after them--and could not survive the properenvironment for dogs and men.
There was even a reason why they had not multiplied excessively. Thefood-supply was limited. When there were too many dogs, their attacks onstumbling insects were more desperate, and made earlier before ferocityof the insects was lessened. And more dogs died. So there was a specificadjustment of the dog population to the food-supply. There was also aselection of those intelligent enough not to attack foolishly, but notof those whose cowardice left them out of conflict altogether.
These dogs who regarded men with their heads cocked on one side wereexcellent dogs. Intelligent dogs. They did not attack anythingimprudently, and they knew it was not necessary to be more than wary ofinsects in general. Even spiders, unless they were very newly arrivedfrom the lowlands. So the attitude of men and dogs was that ofastonished curiosity rather than that of instant fear or rage. Burl knewthat the shaggy, bright-eyed creatures were unlike insects. Actually,they behaved strikingly like men. They were estimating these strangebeings, men. Insects never estimated. Those that were not carnivoroushad no interest in anything but food, and those that were carnivorouslumbered insanely into battle the instant any prey came to their notice.The dogs did neither. They sniffed. They considered. They were amazed.
Burl said harshly to his group:
"Stay here!"
He walked slowly down into the amphitheater. Saya, dis
regarding hisorder, followed him instantly. The dogs moved warily aside. But theyraised their noses and sniffed--long, luxurious sniffs. The smell ofhumankind was a good smell. Dogs had gone hundreds of generationswithout having it in their nostrils. But before that there werethousands of generations of dogs to whom that smell was a fulfillment.
Burl reached the object the dogs had been attacking. It lay on thegrass, throbbing painfully. It had come up from the world below. It wasthe larva of an azure-blue moth which spread ten-foot wings atnightfall. The time for its metamorphosis was near, and it had goneblindly in search of a place where it could spin its cocoon safely andchange to its winged form. It had come to another world--the world abovethe clouds. It could find no proper place. Its stores of fat hadprotected it a little from the chill. But the dogs had found it.
Burl considered. It was the custom of wasps to sting creatures like thiswithin a certain special spot--marked for them apparently by a tuft ofdark fur.
Burl thrust his lance into that particular spot. The creature