Arthur Clarke - Imperial Earth

“Oh, very well,” said Professor Washington in a resigned voice. He leaned across his cowering guest, holding out an open palm on which two lumps of sugar had magically appeared. Gently as any maiden’s kiss, the lips nuzzled Washington’s hand, and the gift vanished as if inhaled. A mild, gentle eye, which from this distance seemed about as large as a fist, looked straight at Duncan, who started to laugh a little hysterically as the apparition withdrew.

“What’s so funny,” asked Washington.

“Look at it from my point of view. I’ve just met my first Monster from Outer Space. Thank God it was friendly.”

“I do hope you slept well,” said George Washington, as they walked out into the bright summer morning.

“Quite well, thank you,” Duncan answered, stifling a yawn. He only wished that statement were true.

It had been almost as bad as his first night aboard Sirius . Then, the noises had all been mechanical. This time, they were made by— things .

Leaving the window open had been a big mistake, but who could have guessed? “We don’t need air conditioning this time of year,” George had explained. “Which is just as well, because we haven’t got it. The Regents weren’t too happen even about electric light in at four-hundred-year-old house. If you do get too cold, there are some extra blankets. Primitive, but effective.”

Duncan did not get too cold; the night was pleasantly mild. It was also extremely busy.

There had been distant thumpings which, he eventually decided, must have been Charlie moving his thousand kilos of muscle around the fields. There had been strange squeakings and rustlings apparently just outside his window, and one high-pitched squeal, suddenly terminated, which could only have been caused by some unfortunate small beast meeting an untimely end.

But at last he dozed off—only to be wakened, quite suddenly, by the most horrible of all sensations that can be experienced by a man in the utter darkness of an unfamiliar bedchamber. Something was moving around the room.

It was moving almost silently, yet with amazing speed. There was a kind of whispering rush and, occasionally, a ghostly squeaking so high-pitched that at first Duncan wondered if he was imagining the entire phenomenon. After some minutes he decided, reluctantly, that it was real enough. Whatever the thing might be, it was obviously airborne. But what could possibly move at such speed, in total darkness, without colliding with the fittings and furniture of the bedroom?

While he considered this problem, Duncan did what any sensible man would do. He burrowed under the bedclothes, and presently, to his vast relief, the whispering phantom, with a few more shrill gibberings, swooped out into the night. When his nerves had fully recovered, Duncan hopped out of bed and closed the window; but it seemed hours before his nervous system settled down again.

In the bright light of morning, his fears seemed as foolish as they doubtless were, and he decided not to ask George any questions about his nocturnal visitor; presumably it was some night bird or large insect. Everyone knew that there were no dangerous animals left on Earth, except in well-guarded reservations...

Yet the creatures that George now seemed bent on introducing to him looked distinctly menacing. Unlike Charlemagne, they had built-in weapons.

“I suppose,” said George, only half doubtfully, “that you recognize these?”

“Of course—I do know some Terran zoology. If it has a leg at each corner, and horns, it’s not a horse, but a cow.”

“I’ll only give you half marks. Not all cows have horns. And for that matter, there used to be horned horses. But they became extinct when there were no more virgins to bridle them.”

Duncan was still trying to decide if this was a joke, and if so what was the point of it, when he had a slight mishap.

“Sorry!” exclaimed George, “I should have warned you to mind your step. Just rub it off on that tuft of grass.”

“Well, at least it doesn’t smell quite as bad as it looks,” said Duncan resignedly, determined to make the best of a bad job.

“That’s because cows are herbivores. Though they’re not very bright, they’re sweet, clean animals. No wonder they used to worship them in India. Hello, Daisy—morning, Ruby—now, Clemence, that was naughty—”

It seems to Duncan that these bovine endearments were rather one-sided, for their recipients gave no detectable reaction. Then his attention was suddenly diverted; something quite incredible was flying toward them.

It was small—its wingspan could not have been more than ten centimeters—and it traced wavering, zigzag patterns through the air, often seeming about to land on a low bush or patch of grass, then changing its mind at the last moment. Like a living jewel, it blazed with all the colors of the rainbow; its beauty struck Duncan like a sudden revelation. Yet at the same time he found himself asking what purpose such exuberant—no, arrogant —loveliness could possibly serve.

“What is it?” he whispered to his companion, as the creature swept aimlessly back and forth a couple of meters above the grass.

“Sorry,” said George. “I can’t identify it. I don’t think it’s indigenous, though I may be wrong. We get a lot of migrants nowadays, and sometimes they escape from collectors—breeding them’s been a popular hobby for years.” Then he stopped. He had suddenly understood the real thrust of Duncan’s question. There was something close to pity in his eyes when he continued, in quite a different tone of voice: “I should have explained—it’s a butterfly.”

But Duncan scarcely heard him. That iridescent creature, drifting so effortlessly though the air, made him forget the ferocious gravitational field of which he was now a captive. He started to run toward it—with the inevitable result.

Luckily, he landed on a clean patch of grass.

Half an hour later, feeling quite comfortable but rather foolish, Duncan was sitting in the centuries-old farmhouse with his bandaged ankle stretched out on a footstool, while Mrs. Washington and her two young daughters prepared lunch. He had been carried back like a wounded warrior from the battlefield by a couple of tough farm workers who handled his weight with contemptuous ease, and also, he could not help noticing, radiated a distinct aroma of Charlemagne...

It must be strange, he thought, to live in what was virtually a museum, even as a kind of part-time hobby; he would have been continually afraid of damaging some priceless artifact—such as the spinning wheel that Mrs. Washington had demonstrated to him. At the same time, he could appreciate that all this activity made a good deal of sense. There was no other way in which you could really get to understand the past, and there were still many people on Earth who found this an attractive way of life. The twenty or so farm workers, for example, were here permanently, summer and winter. Indeed, he found it rather hard to imagine some of them in any other environment—even after they had been thoroughly scrubbed...

But the kitchen was spotless, and a most attractive smell was floating from it. Duncan could recognize very few of its ingredients, but one was unmistakable, even though he had met it today for the first time in his life. It was the mouth-watering fragrance of newly baked bread.

It would be all right, he assured his still slightly queasy stomach. He had to ignore the undeniable fact that everything on that table was grown from dirt and dung, and not synthesized from nice, clean chemicals in a spotless factory. This was how the human race had lived for almost the whole of its history; only in the last few seconds of time had there been any alternative.