A Touch of Infinity by Howard Fast Read Free Book Online Page A

But what makes man? Is it not above all things the possession of a soul?”
    â€œThat’s debatable,” said Abby.
    â€œIs it, my dear? We know man in two ways, as he is and as he is divinely revealed to us. Those two aspects add up to man. All else is of the animal and vegetable kingdom. We know man as a creature of our size. Divinely revealed, he is still a creature of our size.”
    â€œNot from outer space,” Abby said.
    â€œWhat does that mean?” her husband demanded.
    â€œIt means that from one of those wretched spaceships, the earth is the size of an orange, and that doesn’t make man very big, does it?”
    â€œFor heaven’s sake,” Herbert said, “you are really blowing things out of proportion. You’re talking about perspective, point of view. A man remains the same size no matter how far out into space you get.”
    â€œHow do you know?” she asked with the reasonable unreasonableness of an intelligent woman.
    â€œMy dear, my dear,” Somers said, “you are upset, we all are upset, and probably we shall be a good deal more upset before this matter is done with. But I do think you must keep a sense of proportion. Man is what God made him to be and what we know him to be. I am not an insensitive person. You know I have never wavered in my views of this wretched war in Vietnam—in spite of the difficulties in holding my congregation together. I speak to you, not as some Bible Belt fundamentalist, but as a person who believes in God in an indefinable sense.”
    â€œIf He’s indefinable, He’s still rather large, isn’t He? If He goes out into space a million light-years, how big are we to Him?”
    â€œAbby, you’re being contentious for no reason at all.”
    â€œAm I?” She unfolded a piece of paper and held it out to Somers with a magnifying glass. He peered at it through the glass and said words to the effect that the sliver of wood it contained looked like an arrow.
    â€œIt is an arrow. I took it out of Billy’s toe. No, he didn’t see what shot at him, but how long before he does? How long before he steps on one?”
    â€œSurely there’s some explanation for this—some new insect that appears remarkably manlike. Monkeys do, apes do, but one doesn’t leap to the conclusion that they are men.”
    â€œInsects with blond hair and white skin and two arms and two legs who shoot arrows—really, Reverend Somers.”
    â€œWhatever it is, Abby, it is a part of the natural world, and we must accept it as such. If some of them are killed, well, that too is a part of our existence and their existence, not more or less than the natural calamities that overtake man—floods, earthquakes, the death of cities like ancient Pompeii.”
    â€œYou mean that since they are very small, a flyswatter becomes a natural calamity.”
    â€œIf you choose to put it that way—yes, yes, indeed.”
    Aside from a small squib in The New York Times about the strange behavior of some of the citizens of upper Fair-field County, the matter of the little people was not taken very seriously, and most of the local residents tended to dismiss the stories as the understandable result of a very hot summer. The Cookes did not sell their house, but Abigail Cooke gave up her habit of walking in the woods, and even high grass gave her pause. She found that she was looking at the ground more and more frequently and sleeping less well. Herbert Cooke picked up a field mouse that fairly bristled with the tiny arrows. He did not tell his wife.
    Judge Billings telephoned him. “Drop by about four, Herb,” he said. “A few people in my chambers. You’ll be interested.”
    Billings had already indicated to Herbert Cooke that he considered him an excellent candidate for Congress when the present incumbent—in his middle seventies—stepped aside. It pleased Cooke that Billings called