The Complete Short Stories: The 1960s (Part 3) by Brian Aldiss

Author:Brian Aldiss [Aldiss, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-07-26T21:00:00+00:00

Scarfe’s World

I

Young Dyak and Utliff with the panting breath stood on the seamed brow of the hill. It was a fine hot day, with a million cicadas thrilling about them like the heat itself. Under the heat haze, the far mountains were scarcely visible, so that the river that wound its way down from them held a leaden grayness until it got close to the foot of their

hill.

At the foot of the hill, it flattened out into swamps, particularly on the far side where marshy land faded eventually into mist. The iguanodons were croaking and quacking by the water’s edge, their familiar lumpy shapes visible. They would not trouble the men.

‘How is it with you, Utliff? Are you coming down the hill with me?’ Dyak asked.

He saw by Utliff’s face that there was something wrong with him. The lie of his features had altered. His expression was distorted, changed in a way Dyak did not like; even his bushy beard hung differently this morning. Utliff shrugged his thick shoulders.

‘I will not let you hunt alone, friend,’ he said.

Determined to show his imperviousness to suffering, he started first down the sandy slope, sliding among the bushes as they had often done. He was pretending to be indifferent to an illness to which no man could be indifferent. With a flash of compassion, Dyak saw that Utliff was not long for this life.

Glancing back, Utliff saw his friend’s expression.

‘One more runner for the pot, Dyak, before I go,’ he said, and he turned his eyes away from his friend.

Living things scuttled out of the bush as they headed toward the river, the furred things that were too fast to catch, and a couple of the reptiles they called runners – little fleet lizards, waist high, which sped along on their hind legs.

Utliff had a crude pouch full of stones at his side. He threw hard at the runners as they went, hitting one but not stopping it. Both men laughed. They were in no desperate need for food. There was always plenty; and besides, hunting runners was done more easily from the bottom of the hill, as they knew from experience.

They pulled up in a cloud of dust at the bottom, still laughing. At this time of day, high noon, there was nothing to fear. In fact there were only the crunchers to fear at any time, and crunchers stayed supine in the shade at this period of heat. The quackers over in the swamp hurt nobody unless they were molested. It was a good life.

True, there came silent moments of fear, moments – as when one looked at Utliff’s distorted face – when unease crawled like a little animal inside one’s skull. But then one could generally run off and hunt something, and do a little killing and feel good again.

Dyak disliked thinking. The things that came from the head were bad, those from the body mainly good. With a whoop, he ran through the long grass and hurled himself in a dive over the steep bank and into the river.

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