Айзек Азимов - Before The Golden Age

Convinced that I was not dreaming, I stepped out of the adjuster to the grass. Before I repaired that switch I meant to have a look around and see what this miniature world was like. I had gone only a few steps from the adjuster when a lordly buck rose from the grass and bounded away. Instinctively I threw up my rifle and fired and the buck went down kicking. Assured that my weapons were functioning properly, I set off at a brisk pace across the glade. I took careful bearings with my pocket compass and expected to have no trouble in finding my way back. During the ten minutes it took me to cross the glade, I had several more chances to shoot at deer, but I passed them up. I didn’t wish to waste ammunition or to call attention to myself until I knew what was ahead of me.

It was hot and sultry in the glade and I glanced up at the sun, expecting it to appear enormous, but it appeared no larger than usual, a matter which I could not explain at the time and cannot even yet. Before I reached the woods which fringed the glade I noticed that the horizon was walled in on all sides with enormous mountains, higher than any I had ever seen and it gave me a shock to realize that these mighty and imposing masses of rock were in reality only grains of sand, or perhaps even smaller; they might be particles of the impalpable dust which lies between the sand grains.

It took me perhaps ten minutes to reach the edge of the jungle, for such it proved to be. Most of the trees were of species unknown to me, although I recognized several trees of peculiarly tropical habit, among them the baobab or one of its relatives and the lignum vitae. The scene reminded me more of the Brazilian jungles than anything else. The ground underfoot was deep with rotting vegetation and the creepers made the going hard. I plunged into the tangle and in ten minutes I was as thoroughly lost as I have ever been in my life. The gloom under the trees prevented me from using the sun as a guide and I had not read my compass when I entered the tangle.

I set a compass course and floundered forward as best I could but half an hour of steady going convinced me that I had taken the wrong direction. The jungle was too dense to back trail, so I laid a new course by compass and plunged ahead. I kept on for perhaps ten minutes on my new course when I heard a sound that brought me up standing, hardly able to believe my ears. From ahead of me came a shout, a shout given in a human voice. I strained my ears and soon I heard it again from the same direction and somewhat closer. Some one was coming toward me and I looked for a hiding place. A tangle of baobab roots concealed me pretty well and I crouched, my rifle ready, waiting for what might appear.

In a few moments I heard a sound of running footsteps and I peered out from my cover. Imagine my surprise when a girl, a white girl, came into view, running at top speed. Not fifty yards behind her came a group of men, or beasts, for I couldn’t tell at first glance which they were. They were as black as pitch, with thick heavy lips, flat noses and almost no foreheads. They were or rather seemed to be about seven feet tall on the average, with enormously powerful chests and arms that hung below their knees. At times they dropped forward so that their knuckles rested on the ground and came ahead on all fours at a more rapid rate than their relatively short bandy legs could carry them when they were in an upright position. They were covered on the head, chest and arms with coarse black hair, although their legs, abdomens and backs were almost free from it. Their mouths were wide with the lower jaw protruding somewhat with yellow fangs showing between their lips, giving them a horribly bestial expression. They had two eyes, but they were not placed as is usual with animals of the monkey or human species. One eye was set in the middle of the forehead and the other in the back of the head. They were naked except for a G string and a belt from which hung a short heavy sword, and in their hands they carried spears about ten feet long. The average weight of a full grown male in our world would have been about four hundred pounds. Of course I didn’t see all of this at first glance, but later I saw enough of the Mena, as they were called, to get pretty familiar with their appearance.

A glance was enough to show me that the girl was tired and that these brutes were gaining on her. She was human and the sight of these savages made my next action purely instinctive. With a shout I stepped from my hiding place and threw my rifle to my shoulder. The girl saw me and altered her direction to come toward me. The blacks saw me, too, and they turned in my direction, brandishing their spears.

I am a pretty good shot and they were close and an easy target. I had four shells in my rifle and four of the blacks went down as fast as I could work my bolt. The rest paused for a moment and gave me time to ram a fresh clip of cartridges into my rifle. As I reloaded, I picked out one of them who seemed to be a leader and I dropped him on the next shot. This made them pause again but another black devil sprang forward to take the lead and I presented him with a bit of lead in the face. He went down like a thunderbolt and as none of the rest seemed to aspire to leadership, I distributed the other three bullets where I thought they would do the most good. As I lowered my rifle to reload, another one of the blacks jumped forward and charged me, and the rest followed. I had no time to load, so I jerked out my Colt .45 and when he was about twenty-five yards away I let him have a pill in the chest and then started a little miscellaneous slaughter. By the time the Colt was empty, there were fourteen of the blacks down and the rest were retreating at full speed. I first reloaded my rifle and slipped a clip into my pistol and then looked for the girl.

I didn’t see her for a moment and then I spied a lock of golden hair in the tangle at my feet. She had burrowed into the vegetation and had got pretty well covered in the few moments I was shooting. I reached down and touched her, but as soon as she found that her hiding place was discovered, she bounded up and took to her heels like a scared rabbit. I called to her and she threw a glance back over her shoulder and when she saw that I was alone she checked her speed and stood her ground. She hesitated for a moment and then came back and dropped to her knees at my feet. I lifted her up and patted her on the shoulder.

“ ‘There, little girl, don’t cry,’” I quoted inanely, partly because I didn’t know what else to say and partly because I was completely bowled over by her appearance. She was absolutely the most beautiful girl I have ever seen in my life—tall and lithe, all curves and grace, with eyes as blue as the sea around Oahu and hair where sunbeams had been imprisoned and where they struggled continuously for liberty, throwing their glints out through the meshes of their prison. Bound around her head was a golden filet with a huge square cut stone of beautiful sparkle and radiance set in it. Around her waist and confining her garments of flowing green gauze was another golden band with a gold-encrusted, gem-set pouch depending from it. On the buckle of her girdle was another of the square cut gems such as adorned her head band.

I have always been pretty much at ease in the presence of girls, principally because I never cared much for them, but to this dirty little savage, as beautiful as dawn, I didn’t know what to say. I could just gulp and stammer.

“Er, do you think these rapscallions will come back for more?” I blurted out at last.

She cast a sideways glance at me that made my head whirl, and my heart do all sorts of funny flip-flops, and then she spoke. Her speech was beautifully liquid and hauntingly familiar. I couldn’t understand her, but I was sure that I had heard that language before. Presently I caught a word and like a flash I knew. She was speaking some dialect of Hawaiian. Desperately I strove to recall the speech of Leilani, my old nurse, but the only phrase I could remember was “E nac iki ne puu wai.” It didn’t seem quite appropriate to say “Be true to me, fair one” to a girl I had just met, but it was for the moment the only phrase I could remember so I blurted it out.