Short Fiction · Little Men of Space (3/3)

Melvin picked up the magazine almost automatically. Solely to bolster his sagging self-esteem⁠—even the innocent and falsely accused can feel guilty at times⁠—he stared at his own photograph and the somewhat baroque caption which surmounted it.

Can genius be inherited? The distinguished accomplishments in nuclear physics and spaceflight theory by the father of the boy who has won the most coveted annual award available to American youth for all-around scientific achievement strengthens the arguments of those who believe that the bright mysterious torch of genius can be passed on from father to son. But when interviewed the youthful winner of the Seabury Medal modestly disclaimed.⁠ ⁠…

“If I saw a little man do you know what I’d do?” came in bitter reproach from the original holder of Melvin’s inherited torch.

And then, in rhetorical response, “I’d make it my fight⁠—a fight forced upon me against my will. I’d consult a good psychiatrist immediately.”

“I throw myself on your mercy!” a tiny voice said. “I am unarmed, I am alone⁠—and I am the last of my kind remaining alive on your planet.”

Melvin stopped reading abruptly, flushing guiltily to the roots of his hair. He had been wishing that his father could see a little man and now he was being punished for his thoughts in the cruelest possible way.

The winner of the Seabury Medal knew that insanity was rare in childhood but to hear imaginary voices.⁠ ⁠…

“Hilili thought he had extinguished me,” the voice went on, “but by exerting my will to the utmost I managed to waver back. I beg you to be merciful!”

The voice became almost pathetic in its tragic pleading. “You need no longer fear me for I will soon die. Injured and weakened as I am the disease organisms so fatal to my race are certain to kill me very quickly now.”

Melvin looked up then⁠—and so did Mary Anne.

The little man stood on a bright mahogany sideboard, gleaming with all the primitive appurtenances of a Class C-type breakfast. A tray of buttered toast, crisply brown, rose like the Great Pyramid of Cheops at his back, and he was leaning for support against the coffee percolator that mirrored his wan and tormented face in wavy and distorted lines.

It was easy to see that death was already beckoning to Rujit with a solemn and pontificial bow.

“Pop!” Melvin gasped, leaping to his feet.

John Elwood did not answer his son. However much he may have wanted to communicate there are few satisfactory avenues of communication that remain open to a man lying flat on his stomach on the floor in a dead faint.