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diff --git a/31762.txt b/31762.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..28a2abb --- /dev/null +++ b/31762.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1058 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Record of Currupira, by Robert Abernathy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Record of Currupira + +Author: Robert Abernathy + +Release Date: March 24, 2010 [EBook #31762] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECORD OF CURRUPIRA *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, January 1954. + Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. + copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + + + _This story contains what is, to us, at any rate, a novel + idea--that when we of Earth finally reach Mars we may find + there records of prehistoric Earth far surpassing those of our + paleontologists. Or, in other words, that creatures of Mars + may have visited this planet tens of thousands of years ago + and returned home with specimens for their science. A nice + idea well told._ + + + + +THE RECORD OF CURRUPIRA + +_by ... Robert Abernathy_ + + + From ancient Martian records came the grim song of a creature + whose very existence was long forgotten. + + +James Dalton strode briskly through the main exhibit room of New +York's Martian Museum, hardly glancing to right or left though many +displays had been added since his last visit. The rockets were coming +home regularly now and their most valuable cargoes--at least from a +scientist's point of view--were the relics of an alien civilization +brought to light by the archeologists excavating the great dead +cities. + +One new exhibit did catch Dalton's eye. He paused to read the label +with interest-- + + MAN FROM MARS: + + _The body here preserved was found December 12, 2001, by an + exploring party from the spaceship NEVADA, in the Martian + city which we designate E-3. It rested in a case much like + this, in a building that had evidently been the municipal + museum. Around it, in other cases likewise undisturbed since a + period estimated at fifty thousand years ago, were a number of + Earthly artifacts. These finds prove beyond doubt that a + Martian scientific expedition visited Earth before the dawn of + our history._ + +On the label someone had painstakingly copied the Martian glyphs found +on the mummy's original case. Dalton's eyes traced the looping +ornamental script--he was one of the very few men who had put in the +years of work necessary to read inscriptional Martian--and he smiled +appreciation of a jest that had taken fifty thousand years to +ripen--the writing said simply, _Man From Earth_. + +The mummy lying on a sculptured catafalque beyond the glass was +amazingly well preserved--far more lifelike and immensely older than +anything Egypt had yielded. Long-dead Martian embalmers had done a +good job even on what to them was the corpse of an other-world +monster. + +He had been a small wiry man. His skin was dark though its color might +have been affected by mummification. His features suggested those of +the Forest Indian. Beside him lay his flaked-stone ax, his +bone-pointed spear and spear thrower, likewise preserved by a +marvelous chemistry. + +Looking down at that ancient nameless ancestor, Dalton was moved to +solemn thoughts. This creature had been first of all human-kind to +make the tremendous crossing to Mars--had seen its lost race in living +glory, had died there and became a museum exhibit for the multiple +eyes of wise grey spiderish aliens. + +"Interested in Oswald, sir?" + +Dalton glanced up and saw an attendant. "I was just thinking--if he +could only talk! He does have a name, then?" + +The guard grinned. "Well, we call him Oswald. Sort of inconvenient, +not having a name. When I worked at the Metropolitan we used to call +all the Pharaohs and Assyrian kings by their first names." + +Dalton mentally classified another example of the deep human need for +verbal handles to lift unwieldy chunks of environment. The +professional thought recalled him to business and he glanced at his +watch. + +"I'm supposed to meet Dr. Oliver Thwaite here this morning. Has he +come in yet?" + +"The archeologist? He's here early and late when he's on Earth. He'll +be up in the cataloguing department now. Want me to show you--" + +"I know the way," said Dalton. "Thanks all the same." He left the +elevator at the fourth floor and impatiently pushed open the main +cataloguing room's glazed door. + +Inside cabinets and broad tables bore a wilderness of strange +artifacts, many still crusted with red Martian sand. Alone in the room +a trim-mustached man in a rough open-throated shirt looked up from an +object he had been cleaning with a soft brush. + +"Dr. Thwaite? I'm Jim Dalton." + +"Glad to meet you, Professor." Thwaite carefully laid down his work, +then rose to grip the visitor's hand. "You didn't lose any time." + +"After you called last night I managed to get a seat on the +dawn-rocket out of Chicago. I hope I'm not interrupting?" + +"Not at all. I've got some assistants coming in around nine. I was +just going over some stuff I don't like to trust to their +thumb-fingered mercies." + +Dalton looked down at the thing the archeologist had been brushing. It +was a reed syrinx, the Pan's pipes of antiquity. "That's not a very +Martian-looking specimen," he commented. + +"The Martians, not having any lips, could hardly have had much use for +it," said Thwaite. "This is of Earthly manufacture--one of the +Martians' specimens from Earth, kept intact over all this time by a +preservative I wish we knew how to make. It's a nice find, man's +earliest known musical instrument--hardly as interesting as the record +though." + +Dalton's eyes brightened. "Have you listened to the record yet?" + +"No. We got the machine working last night and ran off some of the +Martian stuff. Clear as a bell. But I saved the main attraction for +when you got here." Thwaite turned to a side door, fishing a key from +his pocket. "The playback machine's in here." + +The apparatus, squatting on a sturdy table in the small room beyond, +had the slightly haywire look of an experimental model. But it was +little short of a miracle to those who knew how it had been built--on +the basis of radioed descriptions of the ruined device the excavators +had dug up on Mars. + +Even more intriguing, however, was the row of neatly labeled boxes on +a shelf. There in cushioned nests reposed little cylinders of +age-tarnished metal, on which a close observer could still trace the +faint engraved lines and whorls of Martian script. These were the +best-preserved specimens yet found of Martian record films. + +Sound and pictures were on them, impressed there by a triumphant +science so long ago that the code of Hammurabi or the hieroglyphs of +Khufu seemed by comparison like yesterday's newspaper. Men of Earth +were ready now to evoke these ancient voices--but to reproduce the +stereoscopic images was still beyond human technology. + +Dalton scrutinized one label intently. "Odd," he said. "I realize how +much the Martian archives may have to offer us when we master their +spoken language--but I still want most to hear _this_ record, the one +the Martians made right here on Earth." + +Thwaite nodded comprehendingly. "The human race is a good deal like an +amnesia patient that wakes up at the age of forty and finds himself +with a fairly prosperous business, a wife and children and a mortgage, +but no recollection of his youth or infancy--and nobody around to tell +him how he got where he is. + +"We invented writing so doggone late in the game. Now we get to Mars +and find the people there knew us before we knew ourselves--but they +died or maybe picked up and went, leaving just this behind." He used +both hands to lift the precious gray cylinder from its box. "And of +course you linguists in particular get a big charge out of this +discovery." + +"_If_ it's a record of human speech it'll be the oldest ever found. It +may do for comparative-historical linguistics what the Rosetta Stone +did for Egyptology." Dalton grinned boyishly. "Some of us even nurse +the hope it may do something for our old headache--the problem of the +origin of language. That was one of the most important, maybe _the_ +most important step in human progress--and we don't know how or when +or why!" + +"I've heard of the bowwow theory and the dingdong theory," said +Thwaite, his hands busy with the machine. + +"Pure speculations. The plain fact is we haven't even been able to +make an informed guess because the evidence, the written records, only +run back about six thousand years. That racial amnesia you spoke of. + +"Personally, I have a weakness for the magical theory--that man +invented language in the search for magic formulae, words of power. +Unlike the other theories, that one assumes as the motive force not +merely passive imitativeness but an outgoing will. + +"Even the speechless subman must have observed that he could affect +the behavior of animals of his own and other species by making +appropriate noises--a mating call or a terrifying shout, for instance. +Hence the perennial conviction you can get what you want if you just +hold your mouth right, _and_ you know the proper prayers or curses." + +"A logical conclusion from the animistic viewpoint," said Thwaite. He +frowned over the delicate task of starting the film, inquired +offhandedly, "You got the photostat of the label inscription? What did +you make of it?" + +"Not much more than Henderson did on Mars. There's the date of the +recording and the place--the longitude doesn't mean anything to us +because we still don't know where the Martians fixed their zero +meridian. But it was near the equator and, the text indicates, in a +tropical forest--probably in Africa or South America. + +"Then there's the sentence Henderson couldn't make out. It's obscure and +rather badly defaced, but it's evidently a comment--unfavorable--on +the subject-matter of the recording. In it appears twice a sort of +interjection-adverb that in other contexts implies revulsion--something +like _ugh_!" + +"Funny. Looks like the Martians saw something on Earth they didn't +like. Too bad we can't reproduce the visual record yet." + +Dalton said soberly, "The Martian's vocabulary indicates that for all +their physical difference from us they had emotions very much like +human beings'. Whatever they saw must have been something we wouldn't +have liked either." + +The reproducer hummed softly. Thwaite closed the motor switch and the +ancient film slid smoothly from its casing. Out of the speaker burst a +strange medley of whirrings, clicks, chirps, trills and modulated +drones and buzzings--a sound like the voice of grasshoppers in a +drought-stricken field of summer. + +Dalton listened raptly, as if by sheer concentration he might even now +be able to guess at connections between the sounds of spoken +Martian--heard now for the first time--and the written symbols that he +had been working over for years. But he couldn't, of course--that +would require a painstaking correlation analysis. + +"Evidently it's an introduction or commentary," said the archeologist. +"Our photocell examination showed the wave-patterns of the initial and +final portions of the film were typically Martian--but the middle part +isn't. The middle part is whatever they recorded here on Earth." + +"If only that last part is a translation...." said Dalton hopefully. +Then the alien susurration ceased coming from the reproducer and he +closed his mouth abruptly and leaned forward. + +For the space of a caught breath there was silence. Then another voice +came in, the voice of Earth hundreds of centuries dead. + +It was not human. No more than the first had been--but the Martian +sounds had been merely alien and these were horrible. + +It was like nothing so much as the croaking of some gigantic frog, +risen bellowing from a bottomless primeval swamp. It bayed of stinking +sunless pools and gurgled of black ooze. And its booming notes +descended to subsonic throbbings that gripped and wrung the nerves to +anguish. + +Dalton was involuntarily on his feet, clawing for the switch. But he +stopped, reeling. His head spun and he could not see. Through his +dizzy brain the great voice roared and the mighty tones below hearing +hammered at the inmost fortress of the man's will. + +On the heels of that deafening assault the voice began to change. The +numbing thunder rumbled back, repeating the pain and the threat--but +underneath something crooned and wheedled obscenely. It said, +"_Come ... come ... come...._" And the stunned prey came on stumbling +feet, shivering with a terror that could not break the spell. + +Where the squat black machine had been was something that was also +squat and black and huge. It crouched motionless and blind in the mud +and from its pulsing expanded throat vibrated the demonic croaking. As +the victim swayed helplessly nearer the mouth opened wide upon long +rows of frightful teeth.... + +The monstrous song stopped suddenly. Then still another voice cried +briefly, thinly in agony and despair. That voice was human. + +Each of the two men looked into a white strange face. They were +standing on opposite sides of the table and between them the playback +machine had fallen silent. Then it began to whir again in the locust +speech of the Martian commentator, explaining rapidly, unintelligibly. + +Thwaite found the switch with wooden fingers. As if with one accord +they retreated from the black machine. Neither of them even tried to +make a false show of self-possession. Each knew, from his first +glimpse of the other's dilated staring eyes, that both had experienced +and seen the same. + +Dalton sank shivering into a chair, the darkness still swirling +threateningly in his brain. Presently he said, "The expression of a +will--that much was true. But the will--was not of man." + + * * * * * + +James Dalton took a vacation. After a few days he went to a +psychiatrist, who observed the usual symptoms of overwork and worry +and recommended a change of scene--a rest in the country. + +On the first night at a friend's secluded farm Dalton awoke drenched +in cold sweat. Through the open window from not far away came a +hellish serenade, the noise of frogs--the high nervous voices of +peepers punctuating the deep leisured booming of bullfrogs. + +The linguist flung on his clothes and drove back at reckless speed to +where there were lights and the noises of men and their machines. He +spent the rest of his vacation burrowing under the clamor of the city +whose steel and pavements proclaimed man's victory over the very grass +that grew. + +After awhile he felt better and needed work again. He took up his +planned study of the Martian recordings, correlating the spoken words +with the written ones he had already arduously learned to read. + +The Martian Museum readily lent him the recordings he requested for +use in his work, including the one made on Earth. He studied the +Martian-language portion of this and succeeded in making a partial +translation--but carefully refrained from playing the middle section +of the film back again. + +Came a day, though, when it occurred to him that he had heard not a +word from Thwaite. He made inquiries through the Museum and learned +that the archeologist had applied for a leave of absence and left +before it was granted. Gone where? The Museum people didn't know--but +Thwaite had not been trying to cover his trail. A call to Global Air +Transport brought the desired information. + +A premonition ran up Dalton's spine--but he was surprised at how +calmly he thought and acted. He picked up the phone and called +Transport again--this time their booking department. + +"When's the earliest time I can get passage to Belem?" he asked. + +With no more than an hour to pack and catch the rocket he hurried to +the Museum. The place was more or less populated with sightseers, +which was annoying, because Dalton's plans now included larceny. + +He waited before the building till the coast was clear, then, with +handkerchief-wrapped knuckles, broke the glass and tripped the lever +on the fire alarm. In minutes a wail of sirens and roar of arriving +motors was satisfyingly loud in the main exhibit room. Police and fire +department helicopters buzzed overhead. A wave of mingled fright and +curiosity swept visitors and attendants alike to the doors. + +Dalton, lingering, found himself watched only by the millennially +sightless eyes of the man who lay in state in an airless glass tomb. +The stern face was inscrutable behind the silence of many thousand +years. + +"Excuse me, Oswald," murmured Dalton. "I'd like to borrow something of +yours but I'm sure you won't mind." + +The reed flute was in a long case devoted to Earthly specimens. +Unhesitatingly Dalton smashed the glass. + + * * * * * + +Brazil is a vast country, and it cost much trouble and time and +expense before Dalton caught up with Thwaite in a forlorn riverbank +town along the line where civilization hesitates on the shore of that +vast sea of vegetation called the _mato_. Night had just fallen when +Dalton arrived. He found Thwaite alone in a lighted room of the single +drab hotel--alone and very busy. + +The archeologist was shaggily unshaven. He looked up and said +something that might have been a greeting devoid of surprise. Dalton +grimaced apologetically, set down his suitcase and pried the wax plugs +out of his ears, explaining with a gesture that included the world +outside, where the tree frogs sang deafeningly in the hot stirring +darkness of the near forest. + +"How do you stand it?" he asked. + +Thwaite's lips drew back from his teeth. "I'm fighting it," he said +shortly, picking up his work again. On the bed where he sat were +scattered steel cartridge clips. He was going through them with a +small file, carefully cutting a deep cross in the soft nose of every +bullet. Nearby a heavy-caliber rifle leaned against a wardrobe. Other +things were in evidence--boots, canteens, knapsacks, the tough +clothing a man needs in the _mato_. + +"You're looking for _it_." + +Thwaite's eyes burned feverishly. "Yes. Do you think I'm crazy?" + + * * * * * + +Dalton pulled a rickety chair toward him and sat down straddling it. +"I don't know," he said slowly. "_It_ was very likely a creature of +the last interglacial period. The ice may have finished its kind." + +"The ice never touched these equatorial forests." Thwaite smiled +unpleasantly. "And the Indians and old settlers down here have +stories--about a thing that calls in the _mato_, that can paralyze a +man with fear. _Currupira_ is their name for it. + +"When I remembered those stories they fell into place alongside a lot +of others from different countries and times--the Sirens, for +instance, and the Lorelei. Those legends are ancient. But perhaps here +in the Amazon basin, in the forests that have never been cut and the +swamps that have never been drained, the _currupira_ is still real and +alive. I _hope_ so!" + +"Why?" + +"I want to meet it. I want to show it that men can destroy it with all +its unholy power." Thwaite bore down viciously on the file and the +bright flakes of lead glittered to the floor beside his feet. + +Dalton watched him with eyes of compassion. He heard the frog music +swelling outside, a harrowing reminder of ultimate blasphemous insult, +and he felt the futility of argument. + +"Remember, I heard it too," Dalton said. "And I sensed what you did. +That voice or some combination of frequencies or overtones within it, +is resonant to the essence of evil--the fundamental life-hating +self-destroying evil in man--even to have glimpsed it, to have heard +the brainless beast mocking, was an outrage to humanity that a man +must...." + +Dalton paused, got a grip on himself. "But, consider--the outrage was +wiped out, humanity won its victory over the monster a long time ago. +What if it isn't quite extinct? That record was fifty thousand years +old." + +"What did you do with the record?" Thwaite looked up sharply. + +"I obliterated that--the voice and the pictures that went with it from +the film before I returned it to the Museum." + +Thwaite sighed deeply. "Good. I was damning myself for not doing that +before I left." + +The linguist said, "I think it answered my question as much as I want +it answered. The origin of speech--lies in the will to power, the lust +to dominate other men by preying on the weakness or evil in them. + +"Those first men didn't just guess that such power existed--they +_knew_ because the beast had taught them and they tried to imitate +it--the mystagogues and tyrants through the ages, with voices, with +tomtoms and bull-roarers and trumpets. What makes the memory of that +voice so hard to live with is just knowing that what it called to is a +part of man--isn't that it?" + +Thwaite didn't answer. He had taken the heavy rifle across his knees +and was methodically testing the movement of the well-oiled breech +mechanism. + +Dalton stood up wearily and picked up his suitcase. "I'll check into +the hotel. Suppose we talk this over some more in the morning. Maybe +things'll look different by daylight." + +But in the morning Thwaite was gone--upriver with a hired boatman, +said the natives. The note he had left said only, _Sorry. But it's no +use talking about humanity--this is personal._ + +Dalton crushed the note angrily, muttering under his breath, "The +fool! Didn't he realize I'd go with him?" He hurled the crumpled paper +aside and stalked out to look for a guide. + + * * * * * + +They chugged slowly westward up the forest-walled river, an obscure +tributary that flowed somewhere into the Xingu. After four days, they +had hopes of being close on the others' track. The brown-faced guide, +Joao, who held the tiller now, was a magician. He had conjured up an +ancient outboard motor for the scow-like boat Dalton had bought from a +fisherman. + +The sun was setting murkily and the sluggish swell of the water ahead +was the color of witch's blood. Under its opaque surface _a mae +dagua_, the Mother of Water, ruled over creatures slimy and +razor-toothed. In the blackness beneath the great trees, where it was +dark even at noon, other beings had their kingdom. + +Out of the forest came the crying grunting hooting voices of its life +that woke at nightfall, fiercer and more feverish than that of the +daytime. To the man from the north there seemed something indecent in +the fertile febrile swarming of life here. Compared to a temperate +woodland the _mato_ was like a metropolis against a sleepy village. + +"What's that?" Dalton demanded sharply as a particularly hideous +squawk floated across the water. + +"_Nao e nada. A bicharia agitase._" Joao shrugged. "The menagerie +agitates itself." His manner indicated that some _bichinho_ beneath +notice had made the noise. + +But moments later the little brown man became rigid. He half rose to +his feet in the boat's stern, then stooped and shut off the popping +motor. In the relative silence the other heard what he had--far off +and indistinct, muttering deep in the black _mato_, a voice that +croaked of ravenous hunger in accents abominably known to him. + +"_Currupira_," said Joao tensely. "_Currupira sai a cacada da noite._" +He watched the foreigner with eyes that gleamed in the fading light +like polished onyx. + +"_Avante!_" snapped Dalton. "See if it comes closer to the river this +time." + +It was not the first time they had heard that voice calling since they +had ventured deep into the unpeopled swampland about which the +downriver settlements had fearful stories to whisper. + +Silently the guide spun the engine. The boat sputtered on. Dalton +strained his eyes, watching the darkening shore as he had watched +fruitlessly for so many miles. + +But now, as they rounded a gentle bend, he glimpsed a small reddish +spark near the bank. Then, by the last glimmer of the swiftly fading +twilight, he made out a boat pulled up under gnarled tree-roots. That +was all he could see but the movement of the red spark told him a man +was sitting in the boat, smoking a cigarette. + +"In there," he ordered in a low voice but Joao had seen already and +was steering toward the shore. + +The cigarette arched into the water and hissed out and they heard a +scuffling and lap of water as the other boat swayed, which meant that +the man in it had stood up. + +He sprang into visibility as a flashlight in Dalton's hand went on. A +squat, swarthy man with rugged features, a _caboclo_, of white and +Indian blood. He blinked expressionlessly at the light. + +"Where is the American scientist?" demanded Dalton in Portuguese. + +"_Quem sabe? Foi-se._" + +"Which way did he go?" + +"_Nao importa. O doutor e doido; nao ha-de-voltar_," said the man +suddenly. "It doesn't matter. The doctor is crazy--he won't come +back." + +"Answer me, damn it! Which way?" + +The _caboclo_ jerked his shoulders nervously and pointed. + +"Come on!" said Dalton and scrambled ashore even as Joao was stopping +the motor and making the boat fast beside the other. "He's gone in +after it!" + +The forest was a black labyrinth. Its tangled darkness seemed to drink +up the beam of the powerful flashlight Dalton had brought, its uneasy +rustlings and animal-noises pressed in to swallow the sound of human +movements for which he strained his ears, fearing to call out. He +pushed forward recklessly, carried on by a sort of inertia of +determination; behind him Joao followed, though he moved woodenly and +muttered prayers under his breath. + +Then somewhere very near a great voice croaked briefly and was +silent--so close that it poured a wave of faintness over the hearer, +seemed to send numbing electricity tingling along his motor nerves. + +Joao dropped to his knees and flung both arms about a tree-bole. His +brown face when the light fell on it was shiny with sweat, his eyes +dilated and blind-looking. Dalton slammed the heel of his hand against +the man's shoulder and got no response save for a tightening of the +grip on the treetrunk, and a pitiful whimper, "_Assombra-me_--it +overshadows me!" + +Dalton swung the flashlight beam ahead and saw nothing. Then all at +once, not fifty yards away, a single glowing eye sprang out of the +darkness, arched through the air and hit the ground to blaze into +searing brilliance and white smoke. The clearing in which it burned +grew bright as day, and Dalton saw a silhouetted figure clutching a +rifle and turning its head from side to side. + +He plunged headlong toward the light of the flare, shouting, "Thwaite, +you idiot! You can't--" + +And then the _currupira_ spoke. + +Its bellowing seemed to come from all around, from the ground, the +trees, the air. It smote like a blow in the stomach that drives out +wind and fight. And it roared on, lashing at the wills of those who +heard it, beating and stamping them out like sparks of a scattered +fire. + +Dalton groped with one hand for his pocket but his hand kept slipping +away into a matterless void as his vision threatened to slip into +blindness. Dimly he saw Thwaite, a stone's throw ahead of him, start +to lift his weapon and then stand frozen, swaying a little on his feet +as if buffeted by waves of sound. + +Already the second theme was coming in--the insidious obbligato of +invitation to death, wheedling that _this way ... this way ..._ was +the path from the torment and terror that the monstrous voice flooded +over them. + +Thwaite took a stiff step, then another and another, toward the black +wall of the _mato_ that rose beyond the clearing. With an +indescribable shudder Dalton realized that he too had moved an +involuntary step forward. The _currupira's_ voice rose triumphantly. + +With a mighty effort of will Dalton closed fingers he could not feel +on the object in his pocket. Like a man lifting a mountain he lifted +it to his lips. + +A high sweet note cut like a knife through the roll of nightmare +drums. With terrible concentration Dalton shifted his fingers and blew +and blew.... + +Piercing and lingering, the tones of the pipes flowed into his veins, +tingling, warring with the numbing poison of the _currupira's_ song. + +Dalton was no musician but it seemed to him then that an ancestral +instinct was with him, guiding his breath and his fingers. The powers +of the monster were darkness and cold and weariness of living, the +death-urge recoiling from life into nothingness. + +But the powers of the pipes were life and light and warmth, life +returning when the winter is gone, greenness and laughter and love. +Life was in them, life of men dead these thousand generations, life +even of the craftsmen on an alien planet who had preserved their form +and their meaning for this moment. + +Dalton advanced of his own will until he stood beside Thwaite--but the +other remained unstirring and Dalton did not dare pause for a moment, +while the monster yet bellowed in the blackness before them. The light +of the flare was reddening, dying.... + +After a seeming eternity he saw motion, saw the rifle muzzle swing up. +The shot was deafening in his ear, but it was an immeasurable relief. +As it echoed the _currupira's_ voice was abruptly silent. In the +bushes ahead there was a rending of branches, a frantic slithering +movement of a huge body. + +They followed the noises in a sort of frenzy, plunging toward them +heedless of thorns and whipping branches. The flashlight stabbed and +revealed nothing. Out of the shadows a bass croaking came again, and +Thwaite fired twice at the sound and there was silence save for a +renewed flurry of cracking twigs. + +Along the water's edge, obscured by the trees between, moved something +black and huge, that shone wetly. Thwaite dropped to one knee and +began firing at it, emptying the magazine. + +They pressed forward to the margin of the slough, feet squishing in +the deep muck. Dalton played his flashlight on the water's surface and +the still-moving ripples seemed to reflect redly. + +Thwaite was first to break the silence. He said grimly, "Damned lucky +for me you got here when you did. It--_had_ me." + +Dalton nodded without speaking. + +"But how did you know what to do?" Thwaite asked. + +"It wasn't my discovery," said the linguist soberly. "Our remote +ancestors met this threat and invented a weapon against it. Otherwise +man might not have survived. I learned the details from the Martian +records when I succeeded in translating them. Fortunately the Martians +also preserved a specimen of the weapon our ancestors invented." + +He held up the little reed flute and the archeologist's eyes widened +with recognition. + +Dalton looked out across the dark swamp-water, where the ripples were +fading out. "In the beginning there was the voice of evil--but there +was also the music of good, created to combat it. Thank God that in +mankind's makeup there's more than one fundamental note!" + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Record of Currupira, by Robert Abernathy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RECORD OF CURRUPIRA *** + +***** This file should be named 31762.txt or 31762.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/7/6/31762/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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