The Thing in the Attic Read online

the basalt pillars in a smooth, almost solid-looking tube,arching at least six feet before beginning to break into the fan ofspray and rainbows which poured down into the gorge. Once the chimneyhad been climbed, it should be possible to climb out from under thefalls without passing through the water again.

  And after that--?

  Abruptly, Honath grinned. He felt weak all through with reaction, andthe face of the demon would probably be grinning in his dreams for along time to come. But at the same time he could not repress a surge ofirrational confidence. He gestured upward jauntily, shook himself, andloped forward into the throat of the chimney.

  Hardly more than an hour later they were all standing on a ledgeoverlooking the gorge, with the waterfall creaming over the brink nextto them, only a few yards away. From here, it was evident that the gorgeitself was only the bottom of a far greater cleft, a split in thepink-and-grey cliffs as sharp as though it had been riven in the rock bya bolt of sheet lightning. Beyond the basalt pillars from which the fallissued, however, the stream foamed over a long ladder of rock shelveswhich seemed to lead straight up into the sky.

  "That way?" Mathild said.

  "Yes, and as fast as possible," Alaskon said, shading his eyes. "It mustbe late. I don't think the light will last much longer."

  "We'll have to go single file," Honath added. "And we'd better keep holdof each other's hands. One slip on those wet steps and--it's a long waydown again."

  Mathild shuddered and took Honath's hand convulsively. To hisastonishment, the next instant she was tugging him toward the basaltpillars.

  The irregular patch of deepening violet sky grew slowly as they climbed.They paused often, clinging to the jagged escarpments until their breathcame back, and snatching icy water in cupped palms from the stream thatfell down the ladder beside them. There was no way to tell how far upinto the dusk the way had taken them, but Honath suspected that theywere already somewhat above the level of their own vine-web world. Theair smelled colder and sharper than it ever had above the jungle.

  The final cut in the cliffs through which the stream fell was anotherchimney. It was steeper and more smooth-walled than the one which hadtaken them out of the gorge under the waterfall, but narrow enough to beclimbed by bracing one's back against one side, and one's hands and feetagainst the other. The column of air inside the chimney was filled withspray, but in Hell that was too minor a discomfort to bother about.

  At long last Honath heaved himself over the edge of the chimney ontoflat rock, drenched and exhausted, but filled with an elation he couldnot suppress and did not want to. They were above the attic jungle; theyhad beaten Hell itself. He looked around to make sure that Mathild wassafe, and then reached a hand down to Alaskon. The navigator's bad leghad been giving him trouble. Honath heaved mightily and Alaskon cameheavily over the edge and lit sprawling on the high mesa.

  The stars were out. For a while they simply sat and gasped for breath.Then they turned, one by one, to see where they were.

  There was not a great deal to see. There was the mesa, domed with starson all sides and a shining, finned spindle, like a gigantic minnow,pointing skyward in the center of the rocky plateau. And around thespindle, indistinct in the starlight....

  ... Around the shining minnow, tending it, were Giants.

  * * * * *

  This, then, was the end of the battle to do what was right, whatever theodds. All the show of courage against superstition, all the blackbattles against Hell itself, came down to this: _The Giants were real!_

  They were unarguably real. Though they were twice as tall as men, stoodstraighter, had broader shoulders, were heavier across the seat and hadno visible tails, their fellowship with men was clear. Even theirvoices, as they shouted to each other around their towering metalminnow, were the voices of men made into gods, voices as remote fromthose of men as the voices of men were remote from those of monkeys, yetjust as clearly of the same family.

  These were the Giants of the Book of Laws. They were not only real, butthey had come back to Tellura as they had promised to do.

  And they would know what to do with unbelievers, and with fugitives fromHell. It had all been for nothing--not only the physical struggle, butthe fight to be allowed to think for oneself as well. The gods existed,literally, actually. This belief was the real hell from which Honath hadbeen trying to fight free all his life--but now it was no longer just abelief. It was a fact, a fact that he was seeing with his own eyes.

  The Giants had returned to judge their handiwork. And the first of thepeople they would meet would be three outcasts, three condemned anddegraded criminals, three jail-breakers--the worst possible detritus ofthe attic world.

  All this went searing through Honath's mind in less than a second, butnevertheless Alaskon's mind evidently had worked still faster. Alwaysthe most outspoken unbeliever of the entire little group of rebels, theone among them whose whole world was founded upon the existence ofrational explanations for everything, his was the point of view mostcompletely challenged by the sight before them now. With a deep, sharplyindrawn breath, he turned abruptly and walked away from them.

  Mathild uttered a cry of protest, which she choked off in the middle;but it was already too late. A round eye on the great silver minnow camealight, bathing them all in an oval patch of brilliance.

  Honath darted after the navigator. Without looking back, Alaskonsuddenly was running. For an instant longer Honath saw his figure,poised delicately against the black sky. Then he dropped silently out ofsight, as suddenly and completely as if he had never been.

  Alaskon had borne every hardship and every terror of the ascent fromHell with courage and even with cheerfulness but he had been unable toface being told that it had all been meaningless.

  Sick at heart, Honath turned back, shielding his eyes from themiraculous light. There was a clear call in some unknown language fromnear the spindle.

  Then there were footsteps, several pairs of them, coming closer.

  It was time for the Second Judgment.

  After a long moment, a big voice from the darkness said: "Don't beafraid. We mean you no harm. We're men, just as you are."

  The language had the archaic flavor of the Book of Laws, but it wasotherwise perfectly understandable. A second voice said: "What are youcalled?"

  Honath's tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of his mouth. While hewas struggling with it, Mathild's voice came clearly from beside him:

  "He is Honath the Pursemaker, and I am Mathild the Forager."

  "You are a long distance from the place we left your people," the firstGiant said. "Don't you still live in the vine-webs above the jungles?"

  "Lord--"

  "My name is Jarl Eleven. This man is Gerhardt Adler."

  This seemed to stop Mathild completely. Honath could understand why. Thevery notion of addressing Giants by name was nearly paralyzing. Butsince they were already as good as cast down into Hell again, nothingcould be lost by it.

  "Jarl Eleven," he said, "the people still live among the vines. Thefloor of the jungle is forbidden. Only criminals are sent there. We arecriminals."

  "Oh?" Jarl Eleven said. "And you've come all the way from the surface tothis mesa? Gerhardt, this is prodigious. You have no idea what thesurface of this planet is like--it's a place where evolution has nevermanaged to leave the tooth-and-nail stage. Dinosaurs from every periodof the Mesozoic, primitive mammals all the way up the scale to theancient cats the works. That's why the original seeding team put thesepeople in the treetops instead."

  "Honath, what was your crime?" Gerhardt Adler said.

  Honath was almost relieved to have the questioning come so quickly tothis point. Jarl Eleven's aside, with its many terms he could notunderstand, had been frightening in its very meaninglessness.

  "There were five of us," Honath said in a low voice. "We said we--thatwe did not believe in the Giants."

  There was a brief silence. Then, shockingly, both Jarl Eleven andGerhardt Adler burst into e
normous laughter.

  Mathild cowered, her hands over her ears. Even Honath flinched and tooka step backward. Instantly, the laughter stopped, and the Giant calledJarl Eleven stepped into the oval of light and sat down beside them. Inthe light, it could be seen that his face and hands were hairless,although there was hair on his crown; the rest of his body was coveredby a kind of cloth. Seated, he was no taller than Honath, and did notseem quite so fearsome.

  "I beg your pardon," he said. "It was unkind of us to laugh, but whatyou said was highly unexpected. Gerhardt, come over here and squat down,so that you don't look so much like a statue of some general. Tell me,Honath, in what way did you not believe in the Giants?"

  Honath could hardly believe his ears. A Giant had begged his pardon! Wasthis still some joke even more cruel? But whatever the reason, JarlEleven