But in five hours it was night and Burl was very indignant with his tribesfolk. They had shifted the location of the hiding–place for the night, and nobody had thought to tell him. And if Saya wished to come for Burl, to lead him to that place, she did not dare for the simple reason that it was night.
For a long time after he found a hiding–place, Burl fumed bitterly to himself. He was very much of a human being, differing from his fellows—so far—mainly because he had been through experiences not shared by them. He had resolved a subjective dilemma of sorts by determining to return to his tribe. He had discovered a weapon which, at first, had promised—and secured—foodstuff, and later had saved him from a tarantula. His discovery that fish–oil was useful when applied to spider–snares and things sticking to the feet was of vast importance to the tribe. Most remarkable of all, he had deliberately killed a spider. And he had experienced triumph. Temporarily he had even experienced admiration.
The adulation was a thing which could never be forgotten. Human appetites are formed by human experiences. One never had an appetite for a thing one has not known in some fashion. But no human being who has known triumph is ever quite the same again, and anybody who has once been admired by his fellows is practically ruined for life—at least so far as being independent of admiration is concerned.
So during the dark hours, while the slow rain dipped in separate, heavy drops from the sky, Burl first coddled his anger—which was a very good thing for a member of a race grown timorous and furtive—and then began to make indignant plans to force his tribesmen to yield him more of the delectable sensations he alone had begun to know.
He was not especially comfortable during the night. The hiding–place he had chosen was not water–tight. Water trickled over him for several hours before he discovered that his cloak, though it would not keep him dry—which it would have done if properly disposed—would still keep the same water next to his skin where his body could warm it. Then he slept. When morning came he felt singularly refreshed. For a savage, he was unusually clean, too.
He woke before dawn with vainglorious schemes in his head. The sky grew gray and then almost white. The overhanging cloud bank seemed almost to touch the earth, but gradually withdrew. The mist among the mushroom–forests grew thinner, and the slow rain ceased reluctantly. When he peered from his hiding–place, the mad world he knew was, as far as he could see, quite mad, as usual. The last of the night–insects had vanished. The day–creatures began to venture out.
Not too far from the crevice where he'd hidden was an ant–hill, monstrous by standards on other planets. It was piled up not of sand but gravel and small boulders. Burl saw a stirring. At a certain spot the smooth, outer surface crumbled and fell into an invisible opening. A spot of darkness appeared. Two slender, thread–like antennae popped out. They withdrew and popped out again. The spot enlarged until there was a sizeable opening. An ant appeared, one of the warrior–ants of this particular breed. It stood fiercely over the opening, waving its antennae agitatedly as if striving to sense some danger to its metropolis.
He was fourteen inches long, this warrior, and his mandibles were fierce and strong. After a moment, two other warriors thrust past him. They ran about the whole extent of the ant–hill, their legs clicking, antennae waving restlessly.
They returned, seeming to confer with the first, then went back down into the city with every appearance of satisfaction. As if they made a properly reassuring report, within minutes afterward, a flood of black, ill–smelling workers poured out of the opening and dispersed about their duties.
The city of the ants had begun its daily toil. There were deep galleries underground here: graineries, storage–vaults, refectories, and nurseries, and even a royal apartment in which the queen–ant reposed. She was waited upon by assiduous courtiers, fed by royal stewards, and combed and caressed by the hands of her subjects and children. A dozen times larger than her loyal servants, she was no less industrious than they in her highly specialized fashion. From the time of waking to the time of rest she was queen–mother in the most literal imaginable sense. At intervals, to be measured only in minutes, she brought forth an egg, perhaps three inches in length, which was whisked away to the municipal nursery. And this constant, insensate increase in the population of the city made all its frantic industry at once possible and necessary.
Burl came out and spread his cloak on the ground. In a little while he felt a tugging at it. An ant was tearing off a bit of the hem. Burl slew the ant angrily and retreated. Twice within the next half–hour he had to move swiftly to avoid foragers who would not directly attack him because he was alive—unless he seemed to threaten danger—but who lusted after the fabric of his garments.
This annoyance—and Burl would merely have taken it as a thing to be accepted a mere two days before—this annoyance added to Burl's indignation with the world about him. He was in a very bad temper indeed when he found old Jon, wheezing as he checked on the possibility of there being edible mushrooms in a thicket of poisonous, pink–and–yellow amanitas.
Burl haughtily commanded Jon to follow him. Jon's untidy whiskers parted as his mouth dropped open in astonishment. Burl's tribe was so far from being really a tribe that for anybody to give a command was astonishing. There was no social organization, absolutely no tradition of command. As a rule life was too uncertain for anybody to establish authority.
But Jon followed Burl as he stamped on through the morning mist. He saw a small movement and shouted imperatively. This was appalling! Men did not call attention to themselves! He gathered up Dor, the strongest of the men. Later, he found Jak who some day would wear an expression of monkey–like wisdom. Then Tet and Dik, the half–grown boys, came trooping to see what was happening.
Burl led onward. A quarter of a mile and they came upon a great, gutted shell which had been a rhinoceros beetle the day before. Today it was a disassembled mass of chitinous armor. Burl stopped, frowning portentously. He showed his quaking followers how to arm themselves. Dor picked up the horn hesitantly, Burl showing him how to use it. He stabbed out awkwardly with the sharp fragment of armor. Burl showed others how to use the leg–sections for clubs. They tested them without conviction. In any sort of danger, they would trust to their legs and a frantically effective gift for hiding.
Burl snarled at his tribesmen and led them on. It was unprecedented. But because of that fact there was no precedent for rebellion. Burl led them in a curve. They glanced all about apprehensively.
When they came to an unusually large and attractive clump of golden edible mushrooms, there were murmurings. Old Jon was inclined to go and load himself and retire to some hiding–place for as long as the food lasted. But Burl snarled again.
Numbly they followed on—Dor and Jon and Jak and the two youngsters. The ground inclined upward. They came upon puffballs. There was a new kind visible, colored a lurid red, that did not grow like the others. It seemed to begin and expand underground, then thrust away the soil above in its development. Its taut, angry–red parchment envelope seemed to swell from a reservoir of subterranean material. Burl and the others had never seen anything like it.