Free The Dark Side by Damon Knight (ed.) Page B

gnome certainly looked inoffensive enough, being only two feet tall.
    “What you got that’s so important to do, Big Ears?” he asked nastily.
    Greenberg hoped the gnome would be offended. He was not, since his ears, to him, were perfectly normal, just as you would not be insulted if a member of a race of atrophied beings were to call you “Big Muscles.” You might even feel flattered.
    “I really must hurry,” the gnome said, almost anxiously. “But if I have to answer your questions in order to get back my hat—we are engaged in re-stocking the Eastern waters with fish. Last year there was quite a drain. The bureau of fisheries is cooperating with us to some extent, but, of course, we cannot depend too much on them. Until the population rises to normal, every fish has instructions not to nibble.”
    Greenberg allowed himself a smile, an annoyingly skeptical smile.
    “My main work,” the gnome went on resignedly, “is control of the rainfall over the Eastern seaboard. Our fact-finding committee, which is scientifically situated in the meteorological center of the continent, co-ordinates the rainfall needs of the entire continent; and when they determine the amount of rain needed in particular spots of the East, I make it rain to that extent. Now may I have my hat, please?”
    Greenberg laughed coarsely. “The first lie was big enough—about telling the fish not to bite. You make it rain like I’m President of the United States!” He bent toward the gnome slyly. “How’s about proof?”
    “Certainly, if you insist.” The gnome raised his patient, triangular face toward a particularly clear blue spot in the sky, a trifle to one side of Greenberg. “Watch that bit of the sky.”
    Greenberg looked up humorously. Even when a small dark cloud rapidly formed in the previously clear spot, his grin remained broad. It could have been coincidental. But then large drops of undeniable rain fell over a twenty-foot circle; and Greenberg’s mocking grin shrank and grew sour.
    He glared hatred at the gnome, finally convinced. “So you’re the dirty crook who makes it rain on weekends!”
    “Usually on weekends during the summer,” the gnome admitted. “Ninety-two percent of water consumption is on weekdays. Obviously we must replace that water. The weekends, of course, are the logical time.”
    “But, you thief!” Greenberg cried hysterically. “You murderer! What do you care what you do to my concession with your rain? It ain’t bad enough business would be rotten even without rain, you got to make floods!”
    “I’m sorry,” the gnome replied, untouched by Greenberg’s rhetoric. “We do not create rainfall for the benefit of men. We are here to protect the fish.
    “Now please give me my hat. I have wasted enough time, when I should be preparing the extremely heavy rain needed for this corning weekend.”
    Greenberg jumped to his feet in the unsteady boat. “Rain this weekend—when I can maybe make a profit for a change! A lot you care if you ruin business. May you and your fish die a horrible, lingering death!”
    And he furiously ripped the green hat to pieces and hurled them at the gnome.
    “I’m really sorry you did that,” the little fellow said calmly, his huge ears treading water without the slightest increase of pace to indicate his anger. “We Little Folk have no tempers to lose. Nevertheless, occasionally we find it necessary to discipline certain of your people, in order to retain our dignity. I am not malignant; but, since you hate water and those who live in it, water and those who live in it will keep away from you.”
    With his arms still folded in great dignity, the tiny water gnome flipped his vast ears and disappeared in a neat surface dive.
    Greenberg glowered at the spreading circles of waves. He did not grasp the gnome’s final restraining order; he did not even attempt to interpret it. Instead he glared angrily out of the corner of his eye at the phenomenal circle of rain that