THE MATCH AND THE POWDER
This is the story told us by Myles Cabot, the radio man.
You will remember that a treaty had been concluded early in the year 359 with the defeated ant empire, whereby a new pale was set up many miles to the south of the old, which had formerly served as the boundary between Cupia and Formia. Behind this new pale were crowded the remnants of the once great race of Formians. Cupia was at last free from a domination which had lasted for five hundred years.
So, for nearly two years thereafter, Cupia had prospered.
Myles Cabot, the radio genius, lived in the palace of King Kew, with the lovely princess whom he had won as a bride, Lilla, fairest of all the women of Cupia. White skinned she was, with rose-petal cheeks. Her eyes were sapphire-blue, and her short curly hair was the color of spun gold. Slim she was, and lithe as a fairy, which resemblance was enhanced by two tiny iridescent wings upon her back, and two butterfly-antennae which projected from her forehead. These wings and antennae were features common to all of her race; but the other distinguishing Cupian characteristics, namely, the extra finger on each hand (which led them to count by twelves, instead of by tens as we do), the extra toe on each foot, and the total lack of ears, you never would notice.
Her earthman husband had so perfected the radio-set (which he always carried as a means of communication with her and her people), that no one would ever suspect him of not being a veritable Cupian himself. His hair was trimmed so as to conceal his ears and the tiny earphones therein. His microphone was located between his collar bones, where it was effectively hidden by the neck-band of his toga. His batteries, bulbs, and controls were on a belt worn next to his skin. Artificial wings were fastened to his back, and artificial antennae projected from his forehead. So that only a very close examination of his hands or his bare feet would ever betray him as a creature of a race different from that now dominant on the planet.
Now that Cupia no longer had to supply slaves to Formia, the Cupians soon found that their customary four hours a day work produced much more than was needed for all the useful purposes of their empire, and accordingly Cabot persuaded King Kew to undertake a series of public works, the first of which was to be a huge stadium for the holding of games.
The new stadium had been completed shortly before Peace Day in the year three hundred and fifty-ten, and the Peace Day exercises were held there, instead of on the plaza of Kuana as heretofore. This was particularly appropriate, for the stadium had been built on the exact spot where had occurred the first clash between the Formians and the Cupians at the beginning of the War of Liberation two years before.
The golden-haired Lilla was unable to be present, for she was expecting a child. So she was safely ensconced in her castle at Lake Luno, a thousand stads to the north of Kuana.
Cabot and she hoped for a boy. They hoped this with more than the conventional fervor, for their son would be Crown Prince of Cupia, thus supplanting the renegade Prince Yuri, whose whereabouts had been unknown since the war. The birth of a son to the Princess Lilla would mean the end of the menace of the possibility of Yuri succeeding the throne on the death of King Kew, and bringing back the ants with him. It is true that the Assembly had cancelled his title as crown prince, and had awarded the succession to his younger brother, the loyal Prince Toron; but most Cupians doubted the legality of this procedure.