He repeated, "Fire," and his eyes glowed like sparks. Then he made
gestures of picking up some of the fire and taking it away, turning to
me to pose the question.
Sorenson, propped up on an elbow, said, "I'll be damned. He's asking you
to give him some of the fire."
"No," Benson said. "He knows fire, knows you can't take the flames. He's
asking for _the means to build a fire_."
I faced Joe, shook my head solemnly and said, "No!" To give meaning to
the word I sat down and turned my head away for a moment. When I looked
back Joe was looking very disappointed. It made Sue so sad that she held
out a wedge of sweet melon to him. Joe accepted the gift easily,
gracefully and with a small smile of "thank you". He turned back,
squatted as near the blaze as comfort would permit and chewed absently
at the melon.
Thereafter he ignored the animated conversation that sprang up among us.
Jane wanted to know why we didn't give him one of our lighters. "He's
just as intelligent as we are," she insisted. She got no argument on
that score, but her husband pointed out that the golden people were
unaccustomed to handling fire, and that during the present dry season
even the green foliage might take off in a holocaust if ignited in this
rich, oxygen air.
Even as he spoke, a long, slender pole, flaming at one end, toppled from
the settling fire and rolled near Joe. With scarcely a pause to debate,
he leaped to his feet, grabbed the pole by the cool end and waved it
aloft like a torch.
With a triumphant yell he plunged through us and out across the field
bearing his prize aloft trailing sparks.
I tried to shoot low, but my light caliber pellet caught him rather high
in the thigh. He dived to the ground senseless in a shower of sparks.
His fellow creatures immediately gathered around him. When we closed in
to retrieve the fire-wand and stamp out the sparks, the other natives
faded away, crinkling their noses. They made no effort to remove Joe,
but cast many admiring glances back at the fire he had stolen.
Sue came up storming at me. "You didn't have to _shoot_ him." She
started to kneel down beside him, but Dr. Bailey restrained her.
"Easy, Susan. Remember the quarantine."
"We can't let him lie there and bleed to death," I said, feeling
unaccountably ashamed for my deed, although there was scarcely an
alternative.