Children of Tomorrow by Arthur Leo Zagat (little readers .TXT) 📕

Breath pulled in between Dikar’s teeth and he was lunging past the oak’s enormous bole, plunging into the dark woods. Earth was cold and wet to the soles of his feet. Cold, wet-earth smell was in his nostrils and the green smell of the woods and the smell of mouldering leaves and of the pale things that overnight grew among the leaves. Faintly in his nostrils, too, was the sharp tang of smoke, and that could only be from the stick Marilee had carried off to the cave.

Even to Dikar’s eyes, keen as they were, there was no light here, but he moved swiftly, never stumbling, avoiding tree trunks and bushes with the sure deftness of the small woods creatures, no more aware than they how he did so. The ground lifted under his feet, and then there was no longer ground under his feet but rock.

Dikar stopped, sensing walls about him, a roof above him, and so knowing he was in the cave he sought. “Marilee,” he called into the sightless blackness. “Marilee. Where are you?”

No answer came. But in his nostrils the smoke-tang he’d followed was sharp, so Dikar knew that Marilee had been here. In his nostrils was the warm, sweet smell of his mate, so that Dikar knew she was still here, somewhere in this blackness-filled cave.

He started moving again, slowly, groping with his feet in the dark. And his feet found her, found her form outstretched on the cave’s rocky floor, unmoving even when his feet thudded against her.

“Marilee!” Dikar choked and went to his knees beside Marilee, gathered her into his arms.

She stirred in his arms! “Dikar.” Breath gusted from Dikar’s great chest at that uncertain murmur, breath he did not know till now had been caught in his chest, “Oh, Dikar.”

“What happened to you, Marilee? What-?”

“I—Someone sprang on me from behind, just as I reached the cave and hit me! Dikar! The fire stick! Where-?”

“Not here. Or if here, gone out. No. Not here. Even if gone out its smell would be stronger—”

“The fire, Dikar!” Sudden terror in Marilee’s voice, of life without fire, of food without fire to cook, of winter without fire to warm. She was out of his arms and on her feet. “I’ve lost the fire, Dikar.”

Dikar whirled out of the cave, was running through the woods, Marilee at his side. They burst out of the woods into the clearing and Dikar was shouting, “Get the dirt off the fire logs, everybody. Quick.”

Dikar went on without stopping, darting to the door of the Boys’ House, into it. He lifted an axe from its pegs on the wall, was out in the open again, was running toward where the Bunch were scooping earth off the piled logs on the Fire Stone.

He shoved through the Boys and Girls, made out, by the dim light of the stars, a log they had uncovered, black, lifeless. His axe swept up, smashed down.

Chunk!

The log split open. Red’ sparks flew, stinging Dikar’s legs. He did not feel them. He was staring at the redness from which they had flown, the glowing red heart of the log that still had life in it, the life of the fire, the life of the Bunch. “Dry leaves,” he commanded. “Bring dry leaves. Quick! Bring dry twigs. Billthomas! Halcross! Build up the fire. Fredalton! Take this axe and split up one of those logs into little sticks.”

Dikar watched Billthomas put dry leaves on the glowing redness, watched the leaves take flame from the log’s heart. Watched Halross feed little dry twigs to the leaves and the twigs catch flame from the leaves, and the sticks from the twigs. The fire grew again on the Fire Stone, and the light of the fire grew again in the clearing, but Dikar’s forehead was deep-lined and his eyes were no longer blue, and in the darkness of them was a red light that did not come from the fire.

Dikar’s eyes moved over the red-lit faces of the Bunch that stood about the Fire Stone watching the fire grow again; and his eyes seemed to ask a question of each face and pass on. They came to one face, and stayed on it, Dikar’s brow-lines deepening.

That face was chunk-jawed, black-stubbled, the eyes too small, too closely set, but what held Dikar’s gaze was the odd, leering grin that sat on the thick lips.

Tomball had had little to grin about since the day Dikar had returned from the far land and ended Tomball’s short time as boss, forcing him to confess to the Bunch how he had tricked his way to being boss in place of Dikar. Why, then, was he grinning now?

“Do you think it was he who hit me?” Marilee whispered in Dikar’s ear, “and ran away with the fire stick?”

“Who else of the Bunch would do a thing like that?”

“But why should he, Dikar? He’s smart enough to know that if we lost the fire it would be as bad for him as for the rest of us.”

“That’s what I don’t—Wait! I’ve got a hunch. Look. Walk along with me like we were just talking about nothing important. Laugh a little, you know, and hold on to my arm.”

Marilee’s fingers were cold on Dikar’s arm, but her laugh rippled like a little stream running over pebbles in its bed. They walked slowly away from the fire reached the shadowy edge of the woods, were closed around by the forest darkness.

“Now!” Dikar said, and he was flitting through the forest night, Marilee a silent shadow behind him. It was like her to stay close behind, like her to ask no questions as he ran through the woods to the cave again.

At the cave-mouth Dikar stopped a moment, sniffing the air. “Yes,” he said, more to himself than to Marilee. “I can still smell the smoke of the fire-stick. The wet night air holds smells a long time.” Then he was moving again, following the sharp tang of smoke in the air, following it away from the cave and away from the clearing.

The scent-trail led him downhill. Soon the laugh of a streamlet came to his ears and then Dikar pushed through tangling bushes and came out into starlight on the edge of the brook that he heard. The smoke smell was very strong here—

“Look, Marilee!” Dikar pointed to a black something at, his feet, half in, half out of the water. “Here is your fire stick.” He squatted to it.

“He brought it here to put it in the water,” Marilee said, squatting beside him.

“‘No,” Dikar answered, his voice a growl deep in his chest. “No. He slipped on a wet stone and fell, and the water outed it. See. Here are the marks of his knees on the bank. But he brought it here because this was the nearest open place in the woods, the nearest place where its light could be seen from the sky.”

“From the sky? Dikar! What do you mean?”

“I mean that I know now why the plane turned back.” Even in the dimness Marilee could see that Dikar’s face was hard and still, his lips tight and gray. “If he hadn’t slipped and dropped the stick in the water, so that they were not sure they’d seen—” Dikar stood up. “Come,” he said, grimly.

When they came again into the clearing, it was filled once more with the wavering light of the fire and everything was as it had been before Jimlane had heard the plane. Dikar paused beside the Fire Stone, stood there straddle-legged and glowering, a muscle twitching in his cheek.

Marilee laid finger tips on Dikar’s arm. “There’s Tomball,” she whispered. “Talking to Bessalton down there near the eating place.”

Dikar’s gaze moved to where she had said. Bessalton was boss of the Girls and tallest of them, her cloak of hair black as deepest night, her legs long and slender, her hips wide. Tomball was heavy-built beside her, bulging arms hanging loose almost to his knees, great chest black-matted, his belly black with matted hair. Black-haired was Tomball, and squat. He was strongest of the Bunch, and there was shrewdness in him too, a shrewdness Dikar already had learned to fear.

The little muscle twitched in Dikar’s cheek. “Marilee,” he said, low-toned. “Find Jimlane and Billthomas, and tell them to come to me first chance they can without anyone seeing them.”

She slipped away. Dikar watched her, slim and lovely, the fire’s red light caressing her, and there was pain in his arms and his chest, sweet pain of the knowing that she was his.

Tomball too watched Marilee, small eyes following her, thick lips a little parted. Seeing this Dikar felt a tightness in his neck and across the back of his shoulders. His hands closed into fists. If he wasn’t boss of the Bunch!

Dikar’s hands opened and lifted, cupping around his mouth. “Ho Bunch!” he called through his cupped hands.

The talk in the clearing stopped, and the strollers turned to him. “Bedtime, Bunch,” Dikar shouted. “A good sleep and happy dreams to you all.”

“A good sleep to you, Dikar!” they cried to him, but Tomball did not cry Dikar a good sleep as he went toward the Boys’ House with the others of the mateless Boys, while the mateless Girls went toward the Girls’ House, and the mated pairs went hand in hand past the end of the eating place and into the dark woods behind. Dikar saw Marilee waiting for him by the eating place, but he did not go to her till Steveland and Halross, pimply-faced youngsters whose turn it was to stay awake the night and watch the fire, had taken their places on the smooth bench-rock near the Fire Stone.

“Be sure that one of you stays always awake,” he told them. “Be sure to listen always for the sound of a plane in the sky. If you hear one wake the Bunch right away to out the fire.”

“Yes, Dikar,” Steveland said, his blue eyes wide. “We get you. A good sleep, Dikar.”

“A quiet night to you both,” Dikar said and went to join Marilee and go with her to the little house