Page 50 - Astounding Pulp V2

5() ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION
rubbish on which he lay, and a rum- tion until new outside stimuli caught
bling noise came from in front of him. his attention.
Out of the corner of his ''eye" he saw a The truck had ceased backing and
line of poles running by, and knew he was parked on a slope leading down to-
was on something that moved. Mo- ward the rear. There was a rattle of
mentarily he tapped the mind of the chains and the gate dropped down to
driver and found he was on a truck let ·the load go spinning out down the
bank into the rubbish-filled gulley.
... bound for the city dump, where all gar-
bage was disposed of. But he felt no Hermes bounced from a heavy can and
desire to use the little energy he had i~ went caroming off sidewise, then struck
mind reading, so he fell back to study- auainst a rock with force enough to send
b
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\vhite sparks of pam runnmg through
ing the small supply of liquid left in the
bottle. , him.
But the rock had changed his course
There was an irregular trickle now,
and thrown 1im clear of the other trash.
running down only a few inches from 1
, When he finally stopped, his entire head
him. He studied the situation carefully,
noting that the bottle was well anchored and one arm were· clear, and the rest
was buried under only a loose litter of
to its spot, while he was poised pre-
cariously on a little mound of rubbish. pap; rs and dirt. No. permanent dam-
One of Newton's laws of momentum age had been ,done ; his tarry cor e was
readjusting itself to the normal shape
flashed through his mind from the mass
of information he had learned through of the rubber coating, and he was in no
immediate danger.
Brugh; if the truck were to speed up, he
would · be thrown backward, directly But being left here was the equiva-
lent of a death sentence. H is only hope
under the stream trickling down from
the bottle-and with luck he might land was to contact some human mind and
establish friendly communications, and
face up. the dump heap was the last place to find
H ermes summoned his energy and di-
men. Added to that, the need for fur-
rected a wordless desire for speed to-
ward the driver. The man's foot came 'ther alcohol was a serious complication.
Again he wished for the mysterious
down slowly on the accelerator, but too
power of motion. .
slowly. Hermes tried again, and sud-
He concentrated l11s mental energy on
denly felt himself pitched backward-
moving the free arm, but there was no
to land face down ! Then · a squeal of
change; the arm taye_d at the same awk-
7
brakes reached his ears, as the driver
\vard angle. W ith little ~ope he tried
counteracted his sudden speed, and the
again, watching for the slightest move-
smallest god fow1d himself rolling over,
ment. This tim a finger bent slightly !
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directly under the stream. Feverishly he tried to move the others
There were only a few teaspoons left,
and they twisted slowly until his who!~
splashing out irregularly as ~he. bounc- hand lay stretched out flat. Then his
ing of the truck threw the hqu1d back
arm began to move sluggishly. He was
and forth in the fragment of glass, but learning.
most of t hem reached his mouth. The It was growing dark when he finally
truck braked to a halt and began . re; drew himself completely fre~ of the trash
versing, and the last drops fell agams and lay back to rest, exullmg over his
his lips. It was highly impure alcohol,
newfound ability. The alcohol was re-
filled with raw chemicals from the l~bo- sponsible, of course ; it . had softened the
ratory, bul Hermes had no c~mplamts. tar slightly more than 1t had been when
He could feel the tar inside hu11 softeh,
and he lay quietly enjoying the sensa- he made his first efforts in the labora-
THE SMALLEST GOD 51
tory, and permitted motion of a sort he had read jn Brugh's mind, he should
through a change of surface tension. have been drunk, but it didn't feel that
The answer to fw:ther motion was more way. It more nearly approximated the
alcohol.
sensation of a man who had eaten .more
There were bottles of all kinds strewn than he should and hadn't time to be
about, and he stared at those within his sorry yet.
range of vision, testing their vibrations Hermes wriggled his toes comfortably
in the hope of finding a few more drops . and nodded his approval at the ease
The nearer ones were empty, except for with which they worked. · Another idea
a few that contained brackish rain water. came to him, and he put it to the test.
But below him, a few feet away, was a Where his ear channels were, the r ub-
small-sized one whose label indicated ber was almost paper-thin; he put out
that it had contained hair tonic. The
a pseudopod of tar from the lumps in-
· cork was in tightly, and it was still half side his head and wriggled it against
full of a liquid. That liquid was largely the membrane; a squeaky sound was
ethyl alcohol. · produced like a radio speaker gone bad.
He varied the speed of the feeler, alter-
HERMES forced himself forward on his nating it until he discovered the varia-
stomach, drawing along inch by inch. tion of tones and overtones necessary,
W ithout the help of gravity, he could and tried a human word.
never have made it, but the distance "Tanya!" It wasn't perfect, but there
shortened. He gave a final labored could be no question as to what it was.
hitch, clutched the bottle in his tiny Now he could talk with men directly,
hands, and, tried to force the cork out. even with Tanya Brugh if fate was par-
It was wedged in too firmly ! ticularly kind. He conjured up an ec-
Despair clutched at him, b~t he threw static vision of her face and attempted a
it off. There must be some way. Glass conventional sighing sound. Men in
was brittle, could be broken easily, and love evidently. were supposed to sigh,
there were stones and rocks about with and Hermes was iri love!
which to strike it. The little god propped But i£ he wanted to see her, he'd have
the neck of the bottle up against one to leave the dump. It was dark now,
a_nd drew himself up to a sitting posi- but ultraviolet and infrared light were
tion, one of the stones in his hands. H e as useful to him as the so-called visible
could not strike rapidly enough to break beams, and the amount of light needed
the glass, but had to rely on raising the to set off his sight was less than that for
rock and letting it fall. a cat. With soiled hands he began pull-
Fortunately for his purpose, the bot- ing his way up the bank, burrowing
tle had been cracked by its fall, and the through the surface rubbish. Then. he
fourth stone s!1attered the neck. Her- reached the top and spied the n1ain path
mes forced it up on a broken box and leading away.
tipped it gingerly toward his mouth. His little feet twinkled brightly in the
The smell of it was sickening, but he starlight, and the evening dew washed
had no time to be choosy about his the stains from his body. A weasel,
drinks! There was room inside him to prowling for food, spied him and de-
hold a dozen teaspoonfuls, and he meant bated attack, but decided to flee when
to filJ those spaces. the little god pictured himself as a dog.
The warm sensation of softening tar Animals accepted such startling appar-
went through him gratefully as the liq- ent changes without doubting their
uid was absorbed. According to what sanity. H e chuckled at the tricks · 11e
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