The Micronauts by Gordon Williams

Author:Gordon Williams [Williams, Gordon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 0553111396
Publisher: New York : Bantam Books
Published: 1977-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

‘‘Raven now on the main rockery east of Station Three,” said the voice on the radio. ‘‘We’ll zap him the moment he gets up in the air.”

‘‘It isn’t a raven, it’s a hooded crow,” said another voice.

That was when they saw a big black bird come swooping low across the garden, landing in a rush of beating wings and then hopping toward them.

In their panic, they thought it was the crow. Carr fired off a shot before he scrambled down with the others at the bottom of the trench. Only Bruce remained standing.

‘‘It’s a blackbird,” he said, looking down at the frightened faces, ‘‘crows don’t have yellow beaks. It’s after the worm.”

A shower of earth and grit rattled down on them. They cowered in fear. Bruce dusted his face, blinking to clear his eyes. ‘‘Don’t be frightened,” he drawled, “you’re missing all the action.”

First Robinson then Carr looked nervously over the rim of the trench.

Only a few feet away, towering over them like the wing of a plane, were the jet-black feathers of the cock blackbird’s tail. Its yellow claws and legs were scrabbling for a grip on the loose earth as it tried to drag the big worm from its hole.

With its tipped head twisting frantically against the cruel vice of the yellow beak, the rest of the worm’s long body was as taut as stretched elastic, at least half of its bristled segments still fighting to keep a grip on the sides of its hole. The blackbird was playing it like a fisherman with a salmon too heavy for his line, giving a little and then jerking back quickly, trying to tug the whole worm out of the hole without tearing it in half. The clawed feet sent another shower of earth into the trench.

When they looked up again, blinking away the dust, the blackbird seemed to be winning the inch-by-inch battle.

“He’s coming up—stand by,” said the voice on the radio.

An avalanche of sound came at them in one gigantic boom.

Seconds later, they felt a tremor under their feet and heard the alarmed clacking of the blackbird as it fled for the bushes.

“Okay, Magruder,” said the radio voice, “we killed your crow. You can come out now.”

Carr was the first to scramble out of the trench.

“What’s he doing?” Robinson asked, trying to get a toehold in the crumbling wall of loose earth. Then his eyes opened wide. “My God!”

Carr had his boot on the worm’s front end, pinning it to the ground while he dragged the length of pink nylon rope from his pack. They watched him in amazement. He double-looped the rope and then dangled the loop in front of the worm’s twisting front end, yelling triumphantly as he dragged the loop under the ringed body.

“Carr!” Robinson yelled, “stop that at once!”

“We’ll have him with fried onions,” Carr shouted gleefully, leaning back on his heels. “Grub up, folks!”

The worm telescoped its deep-red frontal segments in a frantic effort to reverse into its tunnel. Carr’s boots dragged on soil.

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