"Yeah."
The professor tried to simplify the biology of his discovery. He
perceived that it was going to involve him in the mysteries of sex. He
knew that to unfold them to a child was considered immoral. But Danner
was far, far beyond his epoch. He put his hand on Hugo's shoulder. And
Hugo set off the process.
"Dad, how come I'm--like this?"
"I'll tell you. It's a long story and a lot for a boy your age to know.
First, what do you know about--well--about how you were born?"
Hugo reddened. "I--I guess I know quite a bit. The kids in school are
always talkin' about it. And I've read some. We're born like--well--like
the kittens were born last year."
"That's right." Banner knitted his brow. He began to explain the details
of conception as it occurs in man--the biology of ova and spermatazoa,
the differences between the anatomy of the sexes, and the reasons for
those differences. He drew, first, a botanical analogy. Hugo listened
intently. "I knew most of that. I've seen--girls."
"What?"
"Some of them--after school--let you."
Danner was surprised, and at the same time he was amused. He had
forgotten the details of his young investigation. They are blotted out
of the minds of most adults--to the great advantage of dignity. He did
not show his amusement or his surprise.
"Girls like that," he answered, "aren't very nice. They haven't much
modesty. It's rather indecent, because sex is a personal thing and
something you ought to keep for the one you're very fond of. You'll
understand that better when you're older. But what I was going to tell
you is this. When you were little more than a mass of plasm inside your
mother, I put a medicine in her blood that I had discovered. I did it
with a hypodermic needle. That medicine changed you. It altered the
structure of your bones and muscles and nerves and your blood. It made
you into a different tissue from the weak fibre of ordinary people.
Then--when you were born--you were strong. Did you ever watch an ant
carry many times its weight? Or see a grasshopper jump fifty times its
length? The insects have better muscles and nerves than we have. And I
improved your body till it was relatively that strong. Can you
understand that?"
"Sure. I'm like a man made out of iron instead of meat."
"That's it, Hugo. And, as you grow up, you've got to remember that.
You're not an ordinary human being. When people find that out,
they'll--they'll--"
"They'll hate me?"
"Because they fear you. So you see, you've got to be good and kind and
considerate--to justify all that strength. Some day you'll find a use
for it--a big, noble use--and then you can make it work and be proud of
it. Until that day, you have to be humble like all the rest of us. You
mustn't show off or do cheap tricks. Then you'd just be a clown. Wait
your time, son, and you'll be glad of it. And--another thing--train your
temper. You must never lose it. You can see what would happen if you
did? Understand?"
"I guess I do. It's hard work--doin' all that."
"The stronger, the greater, you are, the harder life is for you. And
you're the strongest of them all, Hugo."
The heart of the ten-year-old boy burned and vibrated. "And what about
God?" he asked.
Danner looked into the darkened sky. "I don't know much about Him," he
sighed.
Such was the soundest counsel that Hugo was given during his youth.
Because it came to him accompanied by unadulterated truths that he was
able to recognize, it exerted a profound effect on him. It is surprising
that his father was the one to give it. Nevertheless, Professor Danner
was the only person in all of Indian Creek who had sufficient
imagination to perceive his son's problems and to reckon with them in
any practical sense.
Hugo was eighteen before he gave any other indication of his strength
save in that fantastic and Gargantuan play which he permitted himself.
Even his play was intruded upon by the small-minded and curious world
before he had found the completeness of its pleasure. Then Hugo fell
into his coma.
Hugo went back to the deep forest to think things over and to become
acquainted with his powers. At first, under full pressure of his sinews,
he was clumsy and inaccurate. He learned deftness by trial and error.
One day he found a huge pit in the tangled wilderness. It had been an
open mine long years before. Sitting on its brink, staring into its pool
of verdure, dreaming, he conceived a manner of entertainment suitable
for his powers.
He jumped over its craggy edge and walked to its centre. There he
selected a high place, and with his hands he cleared away the growth
that covered it. Next he laid the foundations of a fort, over which he
was to watch the fastnesses for imaginary enemies. The foundations were
made of boulders. Some he carried and some he rolled from the floor of
the man-made canyon. By the end of the afternoon he had laid out a
square wall of rock some three feet in height. On the next day he added
to it until the four walls reached as high as he could stretch. He left
space for one door and he made a single window. He roofed the walls with
the trunks of trees and he erected a turret over the door.
For days the creation was his delight. After school he sped to it. Until
dark he strained and struggled with bare rocks. When it was finished, it
was an edifice that would have withstood artillery fire creditably. Then
Hugo experimented with catapults, but he found no engine that could hurl
the rocks he used for ammunition as far as his arms. He cached his
treasures in his fortress--an old axe, the scabbard of a sword, tops and
marbles, two cans of beans for emergency rations--and he made a flag of
blue and white cloth for himself.
Then he played in it. He pretended that Indians were stalking him. An
imaginary head would appear at the rim of the pit. Hugo would see it
through a chink. Swish! Crash! A puff of dust would show where rock met
rock--with the attacker's head between. At times he would be stormed on
all sides. To get the effect he would leap the canyon and hurl boulders
on his own fort. Then he would return and defend it.
It was after such a strenuous sally and while he was waiting in high
excitement for the enemy to reappear that Professors Whitaker and Smith
from the college stumbled on his stronghold. They were walking together
through the forest, bent on scaling the mountain to make certain
observations of an ancient cirque that was formed by the seventh great
glacier. As they walked, they debated matters of strata curvature.
Suddenly Whitaker gripped Smith's arm. "Look!"
They stared through the trees and over the lip of Hugo's mine. Their
eyes bulged as they observed the size and weight of the fortress.
"Moonshiners," Smith whispered.
"Rubbish. Moonshiners don't build like that. It's a second Stonehenge.
An Indian relic."
"But there's a sign of fresh work around it."
Whitaker observed the newly turned earth and the freshly bared rock.
"Perhaps--perhaps, professor, we've fallen upon something big. A lost
race of Indian engineers. A branch of the Incas--or--"
"Maybe they'll be hostile."
The men edged forward. And at the moment they reached the edge of the
pit, Hugo emerged from his fort. He saw the men with sudden fear. He
tried to hide.
"Hey!" they said. He did not move, but he heard them scrambling slowly
toward the spot where he lay.
"Dressed in civilized clothes," the first professor said in a loud voice
as his eye located Hugo in the underbrush. "Hey!"