“Oh, I know it’s a horse. But it’s enormous. I thought…”
“Well, I can’t blame you, though wait until you see an elephant.
Charlemagne is probably the largest horse alive today. He’s a Percheron, and weighs over a ton. His ancestors used to carry knights in full armor.
Like to meet him?”
Duncan wanted to say “Not really,” but it was too late. Washington brought the car to a halt, and the gigantic creature ambled toward them.
Until this moment, the limousine had been closed and they had been traveling in air-conditioned comfort. Now the windows slid down-and
Primeval Earth hit Duncan full in the nostrils.
“What’s the matter?” asked Washington anxiously. “Are you all right?”
Duncan gulped, and took a cautious sniff.
“I think so,” he said, without much conviction. “IVS just that-the air is rather—2’ He struggled for words as well as breath, and had almost selected “ripe’ when he gratefully switched to “rich” in the nick of time.
“I’m so sorry,” apologized Washington, genuinely contrite. “I’d quite forgotten how strange this must be -to you. Let me close the window. Go away, Charlie -sorry, some other time.”
The monster now completely dwarfed the car, and a huge head, half as big as a man, was trying to insert itself through the partially open window on
Duncan’s side. The air became even thicker, and redolent of more animal secretions than he cared to identify. Two huge, slobbering lips drew back, to disclose a perfectly terrifying set of teeth…. “Oh, very well,” said Professor Washington in a resigned voice. He leaned across his cowering guest, holding out an open palm on which two lumps of sugar had magically appeared. Gently as any maiden’s kiss, the lips nuzzled
Washington’s hand, and the gift 118 vanished as if inhaled. A mild, gentle eye, which from this distance seemed about as large as a fist, looked straight at Duncan, who started to laugh a little hysterically as the apparition withdrew.
“What’s so funny?” asked Washington.
“Look at it from my point of view. I’ve just met my first Monster from
Outer Space. Thank God it was friendly.”
THE TASTE OF HONEY
I do hope you slept well,” said George Washington, as they walked out into the bright summer morning.
“Quite well, thank you,” Duncan answered, stifling a yawn. He only wished that the statement were true.
It had been almost as bad as his first night aboard Sirius. Then, the noises had all been mechanical. This time, they were made by-things.
Leaving the window open had been a big mistake, but who could have guessed?
“We don’t need air conditioning this time of year,” George had explained.
“Which is just as well, because we haven’t got it. The Regents weren’t too happy even about electric light in a four-hundred-year-old house. If you do get too cold, here are some extra blankets. Primitive, but very effective.”
Duncan did not get too cold; the night was pleasantly mild. It was also extremely busy.
There had been distant thumpings which, he eventually decided, must have been Charlie moving his thousand kilos of muscle around the fields. There had been strange squeakings and rustlings apparently just outside his window, and one high-pitched squeal, suddenly
terminated, which could only have been caused by some unfortunate small beast meeting an untimely end.
But at last he dozed off-only to be wakened, quite suddenly, by the most horrible of all the sensations that can be experienced by a man in the utter darkness of an unfamiliar bedchamber. Something was moving around the room.
It was moving almost silently, yet with amazing speed. There was a kind of whispering rush and, occasionally, a ghostly squeaking so high-pitched that at first Duncan wondered if he was imagining the entire phenomenon. After some minutes he decided, reluctantly, that it was real enough. Whatever the thing might be, it was obviously airborne. But what could possibly move at such speed, in total darkness, without colliding with the fittings and furniture of the bedroom?
While he considered this problem, Duncan did what any sensible man would do. He burrowed under the bedclothes, and presently, to his vast relief, the whispering phantom, with a few more shrill gibberings, swooped out into the night. When his nerves had fully recovered, Duncan hopped out of bed and closed the window; but it seemed hours before his nervous system settled down again.
In the bright light of morning, his fears seemed as foolish as they doubtless were, and he decided not to ask George any questions about his nocturnal visitor; presumably it was some night bird or large insect. Everyone knew that there were no dangerous animals left on Earth, except in well-guarded reservations…. Yet the creatures that George now seemed bent on introducing to him looked distinctly menacing. Unlike Charlemagne, they had built-in weapons.
“I suppose,” said George, only half doubtfully, “that you recognize these?”
“Of course-I do know some Terran zoology. If it has a leg at each corner, and horns, it’s not a horse, but a cow.”
“I’ll only give you half marks. Not all cows have horns. And for that matter, there used to be homed horses. But they became extinct when
there were no more virgins to bridle them.” Duncan was still trying to decide if this was a joke, and if so what was the point of it, when he had a slight mishap.
“Sorry!” exclaimed George, “I should have warned you to mind your step.
Just rub it off on that tuft of grass.”
“Well, at least it doesn’t smell quite as bad as it looks,” said Duncan resignedly, determined to make the best of a bad job.
“That’s because cows are herbivores. Though they’re not very bright, they’re sweet, clean animals. No wonder they used to worship them in India.
Hello, Daisy-morning, Ruby-now, Clemence, that was naughty-Tv
It seemed to Duncan that these bovine endearments were rather one-sided, for their recipients gave no detectable reaction. Then his attention was suddenly diverted; something quite incredible was flying toward them.
It was small-its wingspan could not have been more than ten centimeters-and it traced wavering, zigzag patterns through the air, often seeming about to land on a low bush or patch of grass, then changing its mind at the last moment. Like a living jewel, it blazed with all the colors of the rainbow; its beauty struck Duncan like a sudden revelation. Yet at the same time he found himself asking what purpose such exuberant-no, arrogant-loveliness could possibly serve.
“What is it?” he whispered to his companion, as the creature swept aimlessly back and forth a couple of meters above the grass.
“Sorry,” said George. “I can’t identify it. I don’t think it’s indigenous, though I may be wrong. We get a lot of migrants nowadays, and sometimes they escape from collectors-breeding them’s been a popular hobby for years.” Then he stopped. He had suddenly understood the real thrust of
Duncan’s question. There was something close to pity in his eyes when he continued, in quite a different tone of voice:
“I should, have explained-it’s a butterfly.”
But Duncan scarcely heard him. That iridescent creature, drifting so
effortlessly through the air, made him forget the ferocious gravitational field of which he was now a captive.
He started to ran toward it with the inevitable result.
Luckily, he landed on a clean patch of grass.
Half an hour later, feeling quite comfortable but rather foolish, Duncan was sitting in the centuries old farmhouse with his bandaged ankle stretched out on a footstool, while Mrs. Washington and her two young daughters prepared lunch. He had been carried back like a wounded warrior from the battlefield by a couple of tough farm workers who handled his weight with contemptuous ease, and also, he could not help noticing, radiated a distinct aroma of Charlemagne…. It must be strange, he thought, to live in what was virtually a museum, even as a kind of part-time hobby; he would have been continually afraid of d aging some priceless artifact—such as the spinning wheel that Mrs.