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diff --git a/35879.txt b/35879.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c57f709..0000000 --- a/35879.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1056 +0,0 @@ - THE ROTIFERS - - -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 http://www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Title: The Rotifers - -Author: Robert Abernathy - -Release Date: April 16, 2011 [EBook #35879] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: US-ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROTIFERS *** - - - - -Produced by Frank van Drogen, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net. - - - - - - THE ROTIFERS - - BY Robert Abernathy - - _Beneath the stagnant water shadowed by water lilies Harry found - the fascinating world of the rotifers--but it was their world, - and they resented intrusion._ - - _Illustrated by Virgil Finlay_ - -Henry Chatham knelt by the brink of his garden pond, a glass fish bowl -cupped in his thin, nervous hands. Carefully he dipped the bowl into the -green-scummed water and, moving it gently, let trailing streamers of -submerged water weeds drift into it. Then he picked up the old scissors -he had laid on the bank, and clipped the stems of the floating plants, -getting as much of them as he could in the container. - -When he righted the bowl and got stiffly to his feet, it contained, he -thought hopefully, a fair cross-section of fresh-water plankton. He was -pleased with himself for remembering that term from the book he had -studied assiduously for the last few nights in order to be able to cope -with Harry's inevitable questions. - -There was even a shiny black water beetle doing insane circles on the -surface of the water in the fish bowl. At sight of the insect, the eyes -of the twelve-year-old boy, who had been standing by in silent -expectation, widened with interest. - -"What's that thing, Dad?" he asked excitedly. "What's that crazy bug?" - -"I don't know its scientific name, I'm afraid," said Henry Chatham. "But -when I was a boy we used to call them whirligig beetles." - -"He doesn't seem to think he has enough room in the bowl," said Harry -thoughtfully. "Maybe we better put him back in the pond, Dad." - -"I thought you might want to look at him through the microscope," the -father said in some surprise. - -"I think we ought to put him back," insisted Harry. Mr. Chatham held the -dripping bowl obligingly. Harry's hand, a thin boy's hand with narrow -sensitive fingers, hovered over the water, and when the beetle paused -for a moment in its gyrations, made a dive for it. - -But the whirligig beetle saw the hand coming, and, quicker than a wink, -plunged under the water and scooted rapidly to the very bottom of the -bowl. - -Harry's young face was rueful; he wiped his wet hand on his trousers. "I -guess he wants to stay," he supposed. - -The two went up the garden path together and into the house, Mr. Chatham -bearing the fish bowl before him like a votive offering. Harry's mother -met them at the door, brandishing an old towel. - -"Here," she said firmly, "you wipe that thing off before you bring it in -the house. And don't drip any of that dirty pond water on my good -carpet." - -"It's not dirty," said Henry Chatham. "It's just full of life, plants -and animals too small for the eye to see. But Harry's going to see them -with his microscope." He accepted the towel and wiped the water and -slime from the outside of the bowl; then, in the living-room, he set it -beside an open window, where the life-giving summer sun slanted in and -fell on the green plants. - - ---- - -The brand-new microscope stood nearby, in a good light. It was an -expensive microscope, no toy for a child, and it magnified four hundred -diameters. Henry Chatham had bought it because he believed that his only -son showed a desire to peer into the mysteries of smallness, and so far -Harry had not disappointed him; he had been ecstatic over the -instrument. Together they had compared hairs from their two heads, had -seen the point of a fine sewing needle made to look like the tip of a -crowbar by the lowest power of the microscope, had made grains of salt -look like discarded chunks of glass brick, had captured a house-fly and -marvelled at its clawed hairy feet, its great red faceted eyes, and the -delicate veining and fringing of its wings. - -Harry was staring at the bowl of pond water in a sort of fascination. -"Are there germs in the water, Dad? Mother says pond water is full of -germs." - -"I suppose so," answered Mr. Chatham, somewhat embarrassed. The book on -microscopic fresh-water fauna had been explicit about _Paramecium_ and -_Euglena_, diatomes and rhizopods, but it had failed to mention anything -so vulgar as germs. But he supposed that which the book called Protozoa, -the one-celled animalcules, were the same as germs. - -He said, "To look at things in water like this, you want to use a -well-slide. It tells how to fix one in the instruction book." - -He let Harry find the glass slide with a cup ground into it, and another -smooth slip of glass to cover it. Then he half-showed, half-told him how -to scrape gently along the bottom sides of the drifting leaves, to -capture the teeming life that dwelt there in the slime. When the boy -understood, his young hands were quickly more skillful than his -father's; they filled the well with a few drops of water that was -promisingly green and murky. - -Already Harry knew how to adjust the lighting mirror under the stage of -the microscope and turn the focusing screws. He did so, bent intently -over the eyepiece, squinting down the polished barrel in the happy -expectation of wonders. - -Henry Chatham's eyes wandered to the fish bowl, where the whirligig -beetle had come to the top again and was describing intricate patterns -among the water plants. He looked back to his son, and saw that Harry -had ceased to turn the screws and instead was just looking--looking with -a rapt, delicious fixity. His hands lay loosely clenched on the table -top, and he hardly seemed to breathe. Only once or twice his lips moved -as if to shape an exclamation that was snatched away by some new vision. - -"Have you got it, Harry?" asked his father after two or three minutes -during which the boy did not move. - -Harry took a last long look, then glanced up, blinking slightly. - -"You look, Dad!" he exclaimed warmly. "It's--it's like a garden in the -water, full of funny little people!" - -Mr. Chatham, not reluctantly, bent to gaze into the eyepiece. This was -new to him too, and instantly he saw the aptness of Harry's simile. -There was a garden there, of weird, green, transparent stalks composed -of plainly visible cells fastened end to end, with globules and bladders -like fruits or seed-pods attached to them, floating among them; and in -the garden the strange little people swam to and fro, or clung with odd -appendages to the stalks and branches. Their bodies were transparent -like the plants, and in them were pulsing hearts and other organs -plainly visible. They looked a little like sea horses with pointed -tails, but their heads were different, small and rounded, with big, -dark, glistening eyes. - -All at once Mr. Chatham realized that Harry was speaking to him, still -in high excitement. - -"What are they, Dad?" he begged to know. - -His father straightened up and shook his head puzzledly. "I don't know, -Harry," he answered slowly, casting about in his memory. He seemed to -remember a microphotograph of a creature like those in the book he had -studied, but the name that had gone with it eluded him. He had worked as -an accountant for so many years that his memory was all for figures now. - -He bent over once more to immerse his eyes and mind in the green -water-garden on the slide. The little creatures swam to and fro as -before, growing hazy and dwindling or swelling as they swam out of the -narrow focus of the lens; he gazed at those who paused in sharp -definition, and saw that, although he had at first seen no visible means -of propulsion, each creature bore about its head a halo of thread-like, -flickering cilia that lashed the water and drew it forward, for all the -world like an airplane propeller or a rapidly turning wheel. - -"I know what they are!" exclaimed Henry Chatham, turning to his son with -an almost boyish excitement. "They're rotifers! That means -'wheel-bearers', and they were called that because to the first -scientists who saw them it looked like they swam with wheels." - -Harry had got down the book and was leafing through the pages. He looked -up seriously. "Here they are," he said. "Here's a picture that looks -almost like the ones in our pond water." - -"Let's see," said his father. They looked at the pictures and -descriptions of the Rotifera; there was a good deal of concrete -information on the habits and physiology of these odd and complex little -animals who live their swarming lives in the shallow, stagnant waters of -the Earth. It said that they were much more highly organized than -Protozoa, having a discernible heart, brain, digestive system, and -nervous system, and that their reproduction was by means of two sexes -like that of the higher orders. Beyond that, they were a mystery; their -relationship to other life-forms remained shrouded in doubt. - -"You've got something interesting there," said Henry Chatham with -satisfaction. "Maybe you'll find out something about them that nobody -knows yet." - -He was pleased when Harry spent all the rest of that Sunday afternoon -peering into the microscope, watching the rotifers, and even more -pleased when the boy found a pencil and paper and tried, in an -amateurish way, to draw and describe what he saw in the green -water-garden. - -Beyond a doubt, Henry thought, here was a hobby that had captured Harry -as nothing else ever had. - - ---- - -Mrs. Chatham was not so pleased. When her husband laid down his evening -paper and went into the kitchen for a drink of water, she cornered him -and hissed at him: "I told you you had no business buying Harry a thing -like that! If he keeps on at this rate, he'll wear his eyes out in no -time." - -Henry Chatham set down his water glass and looked straight at his wife. -"Sally, Harry's eyes are young and he's using them to learn with. You've -never been much worried over me, using my eyes up eight hours a day, -five days a week, over a blind-alley bookkeeping job." - -He left her angrily silent and went back to his paper. He would lower -the paper every now and then to watch Harry, in his corner of the -living-room, bowed obliviously over the microscope and the secret life -of the rotifers. - -Once the boy glanced up from his periodic drawing and asked, with the -air of one who proposes a pondered question: "Dad, if you look through a -microscope the wrong way is it a telescope?" - -Mr. Chatham lowered his paper and bit his underlip. "I don't think -so--no, I don't know. When you look through a microscope, it makes -things seem closer--one way, that is; if you looked the other way, it -would probably make them seem farther off. What did you want to know -for?" - -"Oh--nothing," Harry turned back to his work. As if on after-thought, he -explained, "I was wondering if the rotifers could see me when I'm -looking at them." - -Mr. Chatham laughed, a little nervously, because the strange fancies -which his son sometimes voiced upset his ordered mind. Remembering the -dark glistening eyes of the rotifers he had seen, however, he could -recognize whence this question had stemmed. - -At dusk, Harry insisted on setting up the substage lamp which had been -bought with the microscope, and by whose light he could go on looking -until his bedtime, when his father helped him arrange a wick to feed the -little glass-covered well in the slide so it would not dry up before -morning. It was unwillingly, and only after his mother's strenuous -complaints, that the boy went to bed at ten o'clock. - -In the following days his interest became more and more intense. He -spent long hours, almost without moving, watching the rotifers. For the -little animals had become the sole object which he desired to study -under the microscope, and even his father found it difficult to -understand such an enthusiasm. - -During the long hours at the office to which he commuted, Henry Chatham -often found the vision of his son, absorbed with the invisible world -that the microscope had opened to him, coming between him and the -columns in the ledgers. And sometimes, too, he envisioned the dim green -water-garden where the little things swam to and fro, and a strangeness -filled his thoughts. - -On Wednesday evening, he glanced at the fish bowl and noticed that the -water beetle, the whirligig beetle, was missing. Casually, he asked his -son about it. - -"I had to get rid of him," said the boy with a trace of uneasiness in -his manner. "I took him out and squashed him." - -"Why did you have to do that?" - -"He was eating the rotifers and their eggs," said Harry, with what -seemed to be a touch of remembered anger at the beetle. He glanced -toward his work-table, where three or four well-slides with small green -pools under their glass covers now rested in addition to the one that -was under the microscope. - -"How did you find out he was eating them?" inquired Mr. Chatham, feeling -a warmth of pride at the thought that Harry had discovered such a -scientific fact for himself. - -The boy hesitated oddly. "I--I looked it up in the book," he answered. - -His father masked his faint disappointment. "That's fine," he said. "I -guess you find out more about them all the time." - -"Uh-huh," admitted Harry, turning back to his table. - -There was undoubtedly something a little strange about Harry's manner; -and now Mr. Chatham realized that it had been two days since Harry had -asked him to "Quick, take a look!" at the newest wonder he had -discovered. With this thought teasing at his mind, the father walked -casually over to the table where his son sat hunched and, looking down -at the litter of slides and papers--some of which were covered with -figures and scribblings of which he could make nothing. He said -diffidently, "How about a look?" - -Harry glanced up as if startled. He was silent a moment; then he slid -reluctantly from his chair and said, "All right." - -Mr. Chatham sat down and bent over the microscope. Puzzled and a little -hurt, he twirled the focusing vernier and peered into the eyepiece, -looking down once more into the green water world of the rotifers. - - ---- - -There was a swarm of them under the lens, and they swam lazily to and -fro, their cilia beating like miniature propellers. Their dark eyes -stared, wet and glistening; they drifted in the motionless water, and -clung with sucker-like pseudo-feet to the tangled plant stems. - -Then, as he almost looked away, one of them detached itself from the -group and swam upward, toward him, growing larger and blurring as it -rose out of the focus of the microscope. The last thing that remained -defined, before it became a shapeless gray blob and vanished, was the -dark blotches of the great cold eyes, seeming to stare full at -him--cold, motionless, but alive. - -It was a curious experience. Henry Chatham drew suddenly back from the -eyepiece, with an involuntary shudder that he could not explain to -himself. He said haltingly, "They look interesting." - -"Sure, Dad," said Harry. He moved to occupy the chair again, and his -dark young head bowed once more over the microscope. His father walked -back across the room and sank gratefully into his arm-chair--after all, -it had been a hard day at the office. He watched Harry work the focusing -screws as if trying to find something, then take his pencil and begin to -write quickly and impatiently. - -It was with a guilty feeling of prying that, after Harry had been sent -reluctantly to bed, Henry Chatham took a tentative look at those papers -which lay in apparent disorder on his son's work table. He frowned -uncomprehendingly at the things that were written there; it was neither -mathematics nor language, but many of the scribblings were jumbles of -letters and figures. It looked like code, and he remembered that less -than a year ago, Harry had been passionately interested in cryptography, -and had shown what his father, at least, believed to be a considerable -aptitude for such things.... But what did cryptography have to do with -microscopy, or codes with--rotifers? - -Nowhere did there seem to be a key, but there were occasional words and -phrases jotted into the margins of some of the sheets. Mr. Chatham read -these, and learned nothing. "Can't dry up, but they can," said one. -"Beds of germs," said another. And in the corner of one sheet, "1--Yes. -2--No." The only thing that looked like a translation was the note: -"rty34pr is the pond." - -Mr. Chatham shook his head bewilderedly, replacing the sheets carefully -as they had been. Why should Harry want to keep notes on his scientific -hobby in code? he wondered, rationalizing even as he wondered. He went -to bed still puzzling, but it did not keep him from sleeping, for he was -tired. - -Then, only the next evening, his wife maneuvered to get him alone with -her and burst out passionately: - -"Henry, I told you that microscope was going to ruin Harry's eyesight! I -was watching him today when he didn't know I was watching him, and I saw -him winking and blinking right while he kept on looking into the thing. -I was minded to stop him then and there, but I want you to assert _your_ -authority with him and tell him he can't go on." - -Henry Chatham passed one nervous hand over his own aching eyes. He asked -mildly, "Are you sure it wasn't just your imagination, Sally? After all, -a person blinks quite normally, you know." - -"It was not my imagination!" snapped Mrs. Chatham. "I know the symptoms -of eyestrain when I see them, I guess. You'll have to stop Harry using -that thing so much, or else be prepared to buy him glasses." - -"All right, Sally," said Mr. Chatham wearily. "I'll see if I can't -persuade him to be a little more moderate." - -He went slowly into the living-room. At the moment, Harry was not using -the microscope; instead, he seemed to be studying one of his cryptic -pages of notes. As his father entered, he looked up sharply and swiftly -laid the sheet down--face down. - -Perhaps it wasn't all Sally's imagination; the boy did look nervous, and -there was a drawn, white look to his thin young face. His father said -gently, "Harry, Mother tells me she saw you blinking, as if your eyes -were tired, when you were looking into the microscope today. You know if -you look too much, it can be a strain on your sight." - -Harry nodded quickly, too quickly, perhaps. "Yes, Dad," he said. "I read -that in the book. It says there that if you close the eye you're looking -with for a little while, it rests you and your eyes don't get tired. So -I was practising that this afternoon. Mother must have been watching me -then, and got the wrong idea." - -"Oh," said Henry Chatham. "Well, it's good that you're trying to be -careful. But you've got your mother worried, and that's not so good. I -wish, myself, that you wouldn't spend all your time with the microscope. -Don't you ever play baseball with the fellows any more?" - -"I haven't got time," said the boy, with a curious stubborn twist to his -mouth. "I can't right now, Dad." He glanced toward the microscope. - -"Your rotifers won't die if you leave them alone for a while. And if -they do, there'll always be a new crop." - -"But I'd lose track of them," said Harry strangely. "Their lives are so -short--they live so awfully fast. You don't know how fast they live." - -"I've seen them," answered his father. "I guess they're fast, all -right." He did not know quite what to make of it all, so he settled -himself in his chair with his paper. - -But that night, after Harry had gone later than usual to bed, he stirred -himself to take down the book that dealt with life in pond-water. There -was a memory pricking at his mind; the memory of the water beetle, which -Harry had killed because, he said, he was eating the rotifers and their -eggs. And the boy had said he had found that fact in the book. - -Mr. Chatham turned through the book; he read, with aching eyes, all that -it said about rotifers. He searched for information on the beetle, and -found there was a whole family of whirligig beetles. There was some -material here on the characteristics and habits of the Gyrinidae, but -nowhere did it mention the devouring of rotifers or their eggs among -their customs. - -He tried the topical index, but there was no help there. - -Harry must have lied, thought his father with a whirling head. But why, -why in God's name should he say he'd looked a thing up in the book when -he must have found it out for himself, the hard way? There was no sense -in it. He went back to the book, convinced that, sleepy as he was, he -must have missed a point. The information simply wasn't there. - -He got to his feet and crossed the room to Harry's work table; he -switched on the light over it and stood looking down at the pages of -mystic notations. There were more pages now, quite a few. But none of -them seemed to mean anything. The earlier pictures of rotifers which -Harry had drawn had given way entirely to mysterious figures. - -Then the simple explanation occurred to him, and he switched off the -light with a deep feeling of relief. Harry hadn't really _known_ that -the water beetle ate rotifers; he had just suspected it. And, with his -boy's respect for fair play, he had hesitated to admit that he had -executed the beetle merely on suspicion. - -That didn't take the lie away, but it removed the mystery at least. - - ---- - -Henry Chatham slept badly that night and dreamed distorted dreams. But -when the alarm clock shrilled in the gray of morning, jarring him awake, -the dream in which he had been immersed skittered away to the back of -his mind, out of knowing, and sat there leering at him with strange, -dark, glistening eyes. - -He dressed, washed the flat morning taste out of his mouth with coffee, -and took his way to his train and the ten-minute ride into the city. On -the way there, instead of snatching a look at the morning paper, he sat -still in his seat, head bowed, trying to recapture the dream whose -vanishing made him uneasy. He was superstitious about dreams in an -up-to-date way, believing them not warnings from some Beyond outside -himself, but from a subsconscious more knowing than the waking conscious -mind. - -During the morning his work went slowly, for he kept pausing, sometimes -in the midst of totalling a column of figures, to grasp at some mocking -half-memory of that dream. At last, elbows on his desk, staring -unseeingly at the clock on the wall, in the midst of the subdued murmur -of the office, his mind went back to Harry, dark head bowed motionless -over the barrel of his microscope, looking, always looking into the pale -green water-gardens and the unseen lives of the beings that.... - -All at once it came to him, the dream he had dreamed. _He_ had been -bending over the microscope, _he_ had been looking into the unseen -world, and the horror of what he had seen gripped him now and brought -out the chill sweat on his body. - -For he had seen his son there in the clouded water, among the twisted -glassy plants, his face turned upward and eyes wide in the agonized -appeal of the drowning; and bubbles rising, fading. But around him had -been a swarm of the weird creatures, and they had been dragging him -down, down, blurring out of focus, and their great dark eyes glistening -wetly, coldly.... - -He was sitting rigid at his desk, his work forgotten; all at once he saw -the clock and noticed with a start that it was already eleven a.m. A -fear he could not define seized on him, and his hand reached -spasmodically for the telephone on his desk. - -But before he touched it, it began ringing. - -After a moment's paralysis, he picked up the receiver. It was his wife's -voice that came shrilly over the wires. - -"Henry!" she cried. "Is that you?" - -"Hello, Sally," he said with stiff lips. Her voice as she answered -seemed to come nearer and go farther away, and he realized that his hand -holding the instrument was shaking. - -"Henry, you've got to come home right now. Harry's sick. He's got a high -fever, and he's been asking for you." - -He moistened his lips and said, "I'll be right home. I'll take a taxi." - -"Hurry!" she exclaimed. "He's been saying queer things. I think he's -delirious." She paused, and added, "And it's all the fault of that -microscope _you_ bought him!" - -"I'll be right home," he repeated dully. - - ---- - -His wife was not at the door to meet him; she must be upstairs, in -Harry's bedroom. He paused in the living room and glanced toward the -table that bore the microscope; the black, gleaming thing still stood -there, but he did not see any of the slides, and the papers were piled -neatly together to one side. His eyes fell on the fish bowl; it was -empty, clean and shining. He knew Harry hadn't done those things; that -was Sally's neatness. - -Abruptly, instead of going straight up the stairs, he moved to the table -and looked down at the pile of papers. The one on top was almost blank; -on it was written several times: rty34pr ... rty34pr.... His memory for -figure combinations served him; he remembered what had been written on -another page: "rty34pr is the pond." - -That made him think of the pond, lying quiescent under its green scum -and trailing plants at the end of the garden. A step on the stair jerked -him around. - -It was his wife, of course. She said in a voice sharp-edged with -apprehension: "What are you doing down here? Harry wants you. The doctor -hasn't come; I phoned him just before I called you, but he hasn't come." - -He did not answer. Instead he gestured at the pile of papers, the empty -fish bowl, an imperative question in his face. - -"I threw that dirty water back in the pond. It's probably what he caught -something from. And he was breaking himself down, humping over that -thing. It's _your_ fault, for getting it for him. Are you coming?" She -glared coldly at him, turning back to the stairway. - -"I'm coming," he said heavily, and followed her upstairs. - -Harry lay back in his bed, a low mound under the covers. His head was -propped against a single pillow, and his eyes were half-closed, the lids -swollen-looking, his face hotly flushed. He was breathing slowly as if -asleep. - -But as his father entered the room, he opened his eyes as if with an -effort, fixed them on him, said, "Dad ... I've got to tell you." - -Mr. Chatham took the chair by the bedside, quietly, leaving his wife to -stand. He asked, "About what, Harry?" - -"About--things." The boy's eyes shifted to his mother, at the foot of -his bed. "I don't want to talk to her. _She_ thinks it's just fever. But -you'll understand." - -Henry Chatham lifted his gaze to meet his wife's. "Maybe you'd better go -downstairs and wait for the doctor, Sally." - -She looked hard at him, then turned abruptly to go out. "All right," she -said in a thin voice, and closed the door softly behind her. - -"Now what did you want to tell me, Harry?" - -"About _them_ ... the rotifers," the boy said. His eyes had drifted -half-shut again but his voice was clear. "They did it to me ... on -purpose." - -"Did _what_?" - -"I don't know.... They used one of their cultures. They've got all -kinds: beds of germs, under the leaves in the water. They've been -growing new kinds, that will be worse than anything that ever was -before.... They live so fast, they work so fast." - -Henry Chatham was silent, leaning forward beside the bed. - -"It was only a little while, before I found out they knew about me. I -could see them through my microscope, but they could see me too.... And -they kept signaling, swimming and turning.... I won't tell you how to -talk to them, because nobody ought to talk to them ever again. Because -they find out more than they tell.... They know about us, now, and they -hate us. They never knew before--that there was anybody but them.... So -they want to kill us all." - -"But why should they want to do that?" asked the father, as gently as he -could. He kept telling himself, "He's delirious. It's like Sally says, -he's been wearing himself out, thinking too much about--the rotifers. -But the doctor will be here pretty soon, the doctor will know what to -do." - -"They don't like knowing that they aren't the only ones on Earth that -can think. I expect people would be the same way." - -"But they're such little things, Harry. They can't hurt us at all." - -The boy's eyes opened wide, shadowed with terror and fever. "I told you, -Dad--They're growing germs, millions and billions of them, _new_ -ones.... And they kept telling me to take them back to the pond, so they -could tell all the rest, and they could all start getting ready--for -war." - -He remembered the shapes that swam and crept in the green water gardens, -with whirling cilia and great, cold, glistening eyes. And he remembered -the clean, empty fish bowl in the window downstairs. - -"Don't let them, Dad," said Harry convulsively. "You've got to kill them -all. The ones here and the ones in the pond. You've got to kill them -good--because they don't mind being killed, and they lay lots of eggs, -and their eggs can stand almost anything, even drying up. _And the eggs -remember what the old ones knew._" - -"Don't worry," said Henry Chatham quickly. He grasped his son's hand, a -hot limp hand that had slipped from under the coverlet. "We'll stop -them. We'll drain the pond." - -"That's swell," whispered the boy, his energy fading again. "I ought to -have told you before, Dad--but first I was afraid you'd laugh, and -then--I was just ... afraid...." - -His voice drifted away. And his father, looking down at the flushed -face, saw that he seemed asleep. Well, that was better than the sick -delirium--saying such strange, wild things-- - -Downstairs the doctor was saying harshly, "All right. All right. But -let's have a look at the patient." - -Henry Chatham came quietly downstairs; he greeted the doctor briefly, -and did not follow him to Harry's bedroom. - -When he was left alone in the room, he went to the window and stood -looking down at the microscope. He could not rid his head of -strangeness: A window between two worlds, our world and that of the -infinitely small, a window that looks both ways. - -After a time, he went through the kitchen and let himself out the back -door, into the noonday sunlight. - -He followed the garden path, between the weed-grown beds of vegetables, -until he came to the edge of the little pond. It lay there quiet in the -sunlight, green-scummed and walled with stiff rank grass, a lone -dragonfly swooping and wheeling above it. The image of all the stagnant -waters, the fertile breeding-places of strange life, with which it was -joined in the end by the tortuous hidden channels, the oozing pores of -the Earth. - -And it seemed to him then that he glimpsed something, a hitherto unseen -miasma, rising above the pool and darkening the sunlight ever so little. -A dream, a shadow--the shadow of the alien dream of things hidden in -smallness, the dark dream of the rotifers. - -The dragonfly, having seized a bright-winged fly that was sporting over -the pond, descended heavily through the sunlit air and came to rest on a -broad lily pad. Henry Chatham was suddenly afraid. He turned and walked -slowly, wearily, up the path toward the house. - - - *END* - - - - _Transcribers note_: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science -Fiction March 1953. 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