by Paul Ernst
CHAPTER VII
_"Clinging Brown Stuff"_
Bemused, appalled, the two gazed at this almost disembodied brain thatheld them captive. It continued to come steadily toward them, carried byits two faithful slaves; and the grotesque termite soldiers, that hadclosed about them in a hollow square, parted to let it through.
Such was the bewitchment of the two men as they stared at themonstrosity, that they did not hear the slight clashing of horn thataccompanied a swift movement of one of the soldiers behind them.
The first thing they knew of such a movement was when they felt theirarms pinioned to their sides with crushing force, and looked down tofind a pair of hard, jointed forelegs coiled about their bodies. Inanswer to some voiceless command, one of the termites with the conicalheads had approached behind them and wound a leg around each.
Sweat stood out on Denny's forehead at the repellent touch of thatliving bond. He turned and twisted wildly.
Jim was struggling madly in the grip of the other foreleg. Greatshoulders bulging with the effort, muscles standing in knots on hisheavy arms, he nearly succeeded in breaking free. Denny felt the tiethat bound him relax ever so little as the monster centered itsattention on the stronger man.
With a last effort, he tore his right arm free, and wriggled partlyaround in the thing's grip. He raised the spear and plunged itslantingly down into the hideous body.
This type of termite was armored more poorly than the others. Only itshead was plated with horn; chest and abdomen were soft and vulnerable asthose of any humble worker in the mound. The spear tore into it fortwo-thirds its length. There was a squeak--the first sound they hadheard--from the wounded monster. The clutching forelegs tightenedterribly, then began to loosen, quivering spasmodically as they slowlyrelinquished their grasp.
Denny bounded free and again sent the length of his spear into theloathsome body. Jim, meanwhile, had leaped toward his fallen spear. Hestooped to pick it up--and was lost!
* * * * *
Obeying another wordless order, one of the ghastly, syringe-headedmonsters had stepped out of line with the start of the short struggle.This one bounded on Jim just as he leaned over for his weapon.
Denny shouted a warning, started to run to his friend's aid. The dyingtermite, with a last burst of incredible vitality, caught his leg andheld him.
In an instant it was done. The termite with the distorted head haddrenched Jim with a brown, thick liquid that covered him from shoulderto feet--and Jim was writhing helplessly on the floor.
Denny burst loose at last from the feebly clutching foreleg. Hestraightened, poised his spear, and with a strength born of near madnessshot it at the syringe-headed thing's chest.
But this one was different, armored to the full save for its softcranium. The steel bar glanced harmlessly from the heavy hornbreastplate. In answer, the monster wheeled and drenched Dennis, too,with the loathsome liquid.
On the instant Dennis was helpless. As Jim had done, he sank to thefloor, his body constricted in a sheath that tightened as it dried andwhich bound him as securely as any straitjacket might have done.
The two rolled on the floor, trying to shed the terrible coating ofhardening fluid that contracted about them. But they were as impotent astwo flies that had rolled in the sticky slime of some super-flypaper. Atlast they gave it up.
Panting, helpless as mummies, they glared up at the stony eyes of theruler-termite. The team of workers moved, bearing their burden of almostbodiless, mushroom brain like well-oiled machines.
Their forelegs went out. The two men were shoved along the floor aheadof the monarch--and were laid in one of the lines of paralyzed insectsso patently held as the ruler's private food supply!
* * * * *
The great, stony eyes were next bent, as though in curiosity, on thespears that had done such damage to the termite with the conical head.In the true insect world there was no such phenomenon as thoseglittering steel bars; and it appeared that the over-developed brain ofthe monarch held questions concerning their nature.
The team of termites wheeled, and walked over to the nearest spear,trailing the feeble, atrophied legs of their rider as they went. Theysquatted close to the floor, and the staring eyes examined the spears atclose range. Then the owner of the eyes apparently sent out anothercommand; for one of the guards at the door left its post and drew near,scissor-mandibles opened in obedience.
The hard mandible's clashed over one of the steel bars. The jawscrunched shut, with a nerve-rasping grind. They made, naturally, noimpression on the bar. The guard retired to its post at the doorway.
The termite-ruler seemed to think this over, for a moment. Then at sometelepathic order, its two bearers picked up the spear and carried it,and their physically helpless ruler, over to one of the livingcisterns--one filled with a dark red liquid.
One of the beasts of burden reached up and thrust an end of the spearinto the hugely distended abdomen filled with the unknown red liquid.The spear was withdrawn, with about a foot of its blunt end reddened bythe fluid. The termite laid it down; the staring, dull eyes watchedit....
Slowly the end of the bar dulled with swift oxidation; slowly itturned brownish and flaked away, almost entirely consumed. The acid--ifthat was what the red stuff was--was awesomely powerful, at least withinorganic substances.
The termite team turned away from the bar, as if it were now a matter ofindifference to the bloated brain borne on their backs. It approachedthe men again.
"I suppose," groaned Jim, "that our turn is next. The thing willprobably have us dipped into the red stuff, to see if we're consumed,too."
* * * * *
But here His Majesty's curiosity was interrupted while he partook ofnourishment.
The clashing jaws of the two termite soldiers at the door stopped for amoment. Jim and Dennis struggled to turn their heads--all of them theycould move--to see what the cessation of jaw-clashing might mean.
Three worker termites squeezed past. They approached one of the line ofparalyzed insect hulks, and sank their mandibles into a garden slug.They tugged at this until they had it under the live cistern of redliquid into which the spear had been thrust.
One of the three flicked drops of the reddish stuff onto the inert slug,till it was well sprinkled. Then they dragged the carcass back to thetermite-ruler.
They got it there barely in time. In a matter of seconds after they haddropped it before the monarch, the slug had collapsed into a half-liquidpuddle of decomposed protoplasm on the floor. One of the mainfunctions--if not _the_ main function--of the red acid, it seemed, wasto act as a powerful digestive juice for His Majesty's food,predigesting it before it was taken into the feeble body fornourishment.
The termite team settled down over the semi-liquid mess that had beenthe slug, and tilted back. Now, under the huge globe of the brain, Jimand Denny saw exposed a small, soft mouth fringed by the tiny rudimentsof atrophied mandibles. The repulsive little mouth touched theacid-softened mass....
The withered abdomen filled out. The whitish-gray lump of brain-mattergrew slightly darker. It looked as though the mass of the dead slugwere as large as the total bulk of the termite ruler; but not until themeal was nearly gone did the voracious feeding stop.
The three workers that had spread the banquet before their monarch, leftthe chamber. The guards resumed their interrupted jaw-clashing, whichseemed senseless now: the captives, though not paralyzed as were theother captives there, were held so helpless by the dried and hardenedfluid that escape was out of the question.
* * * * *
The misshapen burden of the termite team seemed to relax a little,lethargically, as though so gorged with food as to render almostinactive the grotesquely exaggerated brain. The stony eyes becameduller. Plainly the captives were to have a brief respite while the hugemeal was assimilated.
"If I could get loose for just one minute," J
im took the opportunity towhisper to Denny, "and get at my spear--I think there would be onetermite-ruler less in the world!"
Denny nodded. He had been thinking along the same lines as Jim: thatbloated, swollen brain seemed a very vulnerable thing. Soft and bonelessand formless, contained only by the dirty-white, membranous skin, it didappear a tempting target for a spear thrust. And now, sluggish with itsmeal, it seemed less alert and on guard.
Jim went on with his thought.
"I think you scientists are wrong about _all_ the termites havingintelligence," he whispered. "I believe that thing has the onlyreasoning mind in the mound. Look at those two guards at the door, forinstance. There's no earthly need for them to keep guard as eternally asthey do. We can't even move, let alone try to escape. They're utterlybrainless, commanded to guard the entrance with their mandibles, andcontinuing to guard it accordingly although the need for it is past."
Jim worked almost unthinkingly at his bonds. "If we could kill thewizened, little, big-headed thing, we might have a chance. There'd benothing left to guide the tribe, no ruling power to direct them againstus. We might even ... escape!"
"Through the entire city--with untold thousands of these horrible thingson our trail?" objected Denny gloomily.
"But if the untold thousands were dummies, used to being directed inevery move by this master brain," urged Jim, "they might just blunderaround while we slipped through the lines...."
His words trailed into silence. Escape seemed so improbable as to behardly worth talking about. Quiet reigned for a long time.
* * * * *
It was broken finally by Dennis.
"Jim," he breathed suddenly, "can you see my legs?"
With difficulty Jim turned his head. "Yes," he said. "Why?"
"It seems to me I can move my left knee--just a little!"
Jim looked more closely. "By heaven!" he exclaimed. "Denny, _I think thebrown stuff is cracking_! Maybe it was never intended to be more than atemporary bond, to hold an enemy helpless just long enough for it to bekilled! Maybe it hardens as it dries so that it loses all resiliency!Maybe--"
He stopped. A faint quivering of the ruler's withered little legsheralded its reawakening consciousness.
"Act helpless!" whispered Denny excitedly, as he too saw that faint stirof awakening. "Don't let the thing get an idea of what we're thinking.Because ... we _might_ get our moment of freedom...."
Both lay relaxed on the floor, eyes half closed. And in the hardeningsubstance that covered them all over like a shell of cloudy brownbakelite, appeared more minute seams as it dried unevenly on theflexible human flesh beneath it. Whether Jim's guess that it was only atemporary bond was correct, or whether it had been developed to hardenrelentlessly only over unyielding surfaces of horn such as the termites'deadliest enemy, the ants, wear for armor, will never be known. But in amatter of moments it became apparent that it was going to prove toobrittle to continue clamping flesh as elastic as that of the two humans!
* * * * *
By now the termite-ruler seemed to have recovered fully from itsgargantuan meal. And while, of course, there was no expression of anykind to be read in the stony, dull eyes, its actions seemed once more toindicate curiosity about these queer, two-legged bugs that wandered inhere where they had no business to be.
The team of workers bore it close again, lowered the great head close toDenny. One of the team began chipping at the brown shell where itencased and held immovably to his body Denny's left hand.
A bit of the shell dropped away, exposing the fingers. Delicately,accurately, the worker's normal-sized but powerful mandibles edged thelittle finger away from the rest--and closed down over it....
"Denny!" burst out Jim, who could just see, out of the corners of hiseyes, what was being done. "My God ... Denny...."
Dennis himself said nothing. His face went white as chalk, and greatdrops of perspiration stood out on his forehead. But no sound came fromhis tortured lips.
The finger was lifted to the terrible little mouth under the gigantichead. The mouth received it; the worker nuzzled with its mandibles foranother finger. The monarch, having tried the taste of this latestaddition to his larder, had found it good.
Jim writhed and twisted in his weakening bonds. There was a softsnapping as several now thoroughly dried sections of the brown substancecracked loose. The termite team whirled around; the ruler stared, asthough in sudden realization of danger.
* * * * *
More furiously Jim fought his bonds. Dennis was still, recovering slowlyfrom the nauseating weakness that had followed the pain of his mutilatedhand. There was less blood flow than might have been expected, due,perhaps, to the fact that the nipping mandibles had pinched some of theencasing shell tight over the wound.
With a dull crack, a square foot of the brown stuff burst from Jim'sstraining chest. But now the monarch moved to correct the situation.
The two giant soldiers at the doorway started across the great roomtoward them. Simultaneously, a second of the syringe-headed termitesmoved to renew the bonds that were being broken.
But the move had come a shade too late. Jim kicked his legs free with alast wild jerk, and staggered to his feet. His arms were still held, ina measure, in spite of his utmost efforts to free them of the clingingbrown stuff. But he could, and did, run away from the body of soldierssurrounding the monarch just before the deadly syringe of the firstattacking termite could function against him.
The great, flabby head hurtled his way. But he knew what to expect, now.As the slimy brown stream, directed by the agitated termite-ruler,squirted toward him, he leaped alertly aside--leaped again as the headswung around--and saw with savage hope that the monster had exhaustedits discharge!
The two soldiers from the doorway closed in on him now. With theirapparent command of the situation, the monstrosities with the bung- andsyringe-heads closed in more tightly around their monarch. Theirs,evidently to protect that vulnerable big brain, and leave the attackingto others.
Jim fled down between the rows of paralyzed insects. The two greatguards from the doorway, mandibles reaching fiercely toward thefugitive, followed. And there commenced, there in that deep-buriedinsect hell, a chase for life.