The ghastly merriment froze on the heavy jowled man. Like lightning he lifted his heavy lance, and drove it with a powerful arm squarely into the breast of the advancing brute. It sank a full foot into the blubbery flesh, and, while the stricken bear clawed vainly at the wound and sought to push himself along toward the man, Abud held the spear firmly as in a vise, so that the animal literally impaled itself. With a gush of blood, it sank motionless to the ground.
Abud plucked the spear away with a dexterous twist.
Keston was feebly groping to his feet. I was torn between joy at his deliverance and rage at the inhuman callousness of Abud.
The latter grinned at us hatefully.
“You see what poor weakling creatures you are,” he jeered. “Good for nothing but to push a lot of senseless buttons. Down there you were the bosses, the ones to look upon me as dirt. Here, on the ice, where it takes guts to get along, I am the boss. I let you live on my scraps and leavings, simply because it tickled me to see you cringe and beg. But I am growing weary of that sport. Henceforth you keep away from my camp. Don’t let me catch you prowling around, d’you hear? Let’s see how long you’ll last on the ice!”
“This animal is mine.” He prodded the carcass. “I killed it. I’ll make the prolats skin and, cut it up for me. Ho-ho, how they cringe and obey me—Abud, the dull one! Ho-ho!”
On this he strode away, still laughing thunderously.
I looked to Keston in blank dismay. What was to be our fate now, but death by cold and slow starvation!
Three-months had passed since we had escaped to the ice from the dreadful machines—a score of us. For a while it seemed that we had fled in vain. We were not fit to cope with the raw essentials of life: it was uncounted centuries since man fought nature bare handed. So we huddled together for warmth, and starved. Even Keston’s keen brain was helpless in this waste of ice, without tools, without machines.
Then it was that Abud arose to take command. He, dull brute that he was amid the complexities of our civilization, fairly reveled in this primitive combat with hunger and cold. He was an anachronism in our midst, a throwback to our early forebears.
It did not take him long to fashion cunning nooses and traps to catch the few beasts that roamed the ice. Once he pounced upon a wolf-like creature, and strangled it with bare hands. He fashioned with apt fingers spears and barbs of bone, curved knives from shin bones, and skinned the heavy fur pelts and made them into garments.
No wonder the prolats in their helplessness looked to him as their leader. Keston and I were thrust aside. But Abud did not forget. His slow witted mind harbored deadly rancor for former days, when we were in command. He remembered our contempt for his slow dull processes; for the many errors he was guilty of. By a queer quirk, the very fact that Keston had saved him from the Death Bath on several occasions but fed the flames of his hatred. Perhaps that was an ancient human trait, too.
So he set himself to twit and humiliate us. His jibes were heavy handed and gross. He refused to let us eat at the communal mess, but forced us to wait until all were through, when he tossed us a few scraps as though we were dogs.
Many times I started up in hot rage, ready to match my softened muscles against his brawn. But always Keston caught me in time and whispered patience. Some plan was taking shape in his mind, I could see, so I stopped short, and was content to bide my time.
Now we were through, discarded, as a last brutal gesture. What was there to be done now?
In utter silence I looked at Keston. To my great surprise he did not seem downcast. Quite the contrary. His eyes were sparkling, once more alive with the red fire. The weariness was gone from him; there was energy, decision stamped on his finely cut features.
“Now is our time to act,” he said. “I’ve been hesitating too long.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Abud forced my hand,” Keston explained. “You didn’t think we were going to live here in this fashion the rest of our lives? I’d rather die now than have such a future staring me in the face. No, we’re going down into the valley to fight the machines.”
I stared at him aghast. “Man, you’re crazy. They’d crush us in a minute!”
“Maybe,” he said unconcernedly. “But we have no time to lose. Abud will be back with the prolats, and we’ll have to clear out before then. Quick—cut off a few chunks of meat. We’ll need them.”
“But Abud will kill us when he finds out what’s been done.”
“And we’ll starve if we don’t.”
Which was an unanswerable argument. So with our bone knives we hacked off gobs of the still warm flesh, covered with great layers of fat.
Looking up from my task, I saw black figures coming toward us from the direction of the camp. They quickened into a run even as I noticed them—Abud and the prolats.
“Quick, Keston,” I cried, “they’re coming.”
Keston glanced around and started to run. I followed as fast as I could.
“They’ll catch us,” I panted. “Where can we hide?”
“Down in the valley.”
“But the machines will get us then.”
“Save your breath and follow me. I know a place.”
We were racing along as fast as our weakened legs could carry us, toward the edge of the Glacier. I looked back to see Abud, his brute face distorted with rage, gaining rapidly on us. The other prolats were being outdistanced.
Abud shouted threateningly for us to stop, but that only made us re-double our efforts. I knew he would kill us if he caught up with us. He had his spear and we were without ours.
The steep terminus of the great Northern Glacier hove into view. Far below was the broad fertile habitable belt, stretching as far as the eye could see. A lump rose in my throat as I ran. It was our earth, our heritage down there—and here we were, fleeing for our lives, dispossessed by bits of metal and quartz, machines that we had fashioned.
Hovering in the air, on a level with us, were scout planes, vigilant guardians of the frontier.
Once a prolat had become crazed by the eternal ice and cold, and had ventured down the side of the Glacier, to reach the warm lands his thin blood hungered for. As soon as he had painfully clambered to the bottom, within the area of the televisors, a plane had swooped and crushed him, while we, lining the edge, had witnessed the horror helplessly.
Yet Keston ran on confidently. Abud was just a little way behind, bellowing exultantly, when we came to the jumping-off place. He was sure he had us now.
Keston slid from view. It was sheer suicide to go down there, I knew; yet, to remain where I was, meant certain death. Abud’s spear was already poised to thrust. There was only one thing to do, and I did it. I threw myself over the rim, just where Keston had disappeared.
I landed with a thud on a narrow ledge of ice. The surface was glassy smooth, and I started slipping straight toward the outer edge, a sheer drop of a thousand feet to the valley below. I strove to recover my balance, but only accelerated my progress. Another moment and I would have plunged into the abyss, but a hand reached out and grabbed me just in time. It was Keston.
“Hold tight and follow me,” he whispered urgently, “we’ve no time to lose. The master machine is seeing us now in the visor screen, and will act.”
I had an impulse to turn back, but Abud’s face was leering down at us.
“I’ll get you for this!” he screamed, and let himself down heavily over the ledge.
Keston edged his way along the treacherous trail, I after him. It was ticklish work. A misstep, and there would be nothing to break our fall.
I heard a siren sound, then another; and another. I wasted a precious moment to look up. A scout plane was diving for us, on a terrific slant. The air was black with aircraft converging on us. The master machine had seen us! I sensed utter malevolence in the speed of these senseless metals, thrown at us by the thing my friend had created.
But there was no time f
or thought. In desperate haste, we inched our way along. Abud had seen the peril, too, and lost all his truculence in the face of the greater danger. He clawed after us, intent only on reaching whatever safety we were heading for.
I could hear the zoom of the great wings when the path took a sudden turn and we catapulted headlong into a black cavern thrusting into the ice.
We were not an instant too soon. For a giant shape swooped by our covert with a terrifying swoosh, inches away from Abud’s leg as he dived after us, and it was followed by a grinding crash. The machine had been directed too close to the ice and had smashed into bits.
We crouched there a moment, panting, struggling to regain our wind. Keston had regained the air of quiet power he had once possessed. Quietly he spoke to our enemy.
“Listen to me, Abud. Up there on the ice, you played the bully, relying on your brute strength. Here, however, we’re up against the machines, and your intelligence is of too low an order to compete with them. You need my brains now. If you expect to escape from them, and live, you’ll have to do exactly as I say. I’m boss, do you understand?”
I expected a roar of rage at Keston’s calm assertion, and quietly got in back of Abud ready to jump him if he made a threatening move.
But the big brute was a creature of abject terror, staring out with fear-haunted eyes. Quite humbly he replied: “You are right. You are the only one who can beat the machines. I’ll follow you in everything.”
“Very well, then. This cave leads through a series of tunnels down through the ice to the bottom of the valley. I explored it nights when you were all sleeping.”
I looked at him in amazement. I had not known anything about his midnight wanderings. He saw my glance.
“I’m sorry, Meron, but I thought it wiser to say nothing of my plans, even to you, until they had matured. Let us go.”
Outside hundreds of craft were hurtling across the opening. Escape that way was clearly impossible.
“No doubt the master machine is hurrying over high explosives to blast us out,” Keston said indifferently; “but we won’t be here.”
We started down a tortuous decline, crawling on hands and knees. We had not progressed very far when we heard a thud and a roar behind us, followed by a series of crashes.
“Just as I thought. The master machine is firing terminite into the cavern. What a high degree of intelligence that thing has! Too bad we’ll have to smash it.” He sighed. I verily believe he hated to destroy this brain child of his. Yet just how he was going to do it, I did not know.
There passed hours of weary, tortured stumblings, and slitherings, and sudden falls—down, always down, interminably. A pale glimmering showed us the way, a dim shining through the icy walls.
At last, faint with toil, bleeding and torn from glass-sharp splinters, we reached a level chamber, vaulted, surprisingly, with solid rock. It was good to see something of the earth again, something that was not that deadly, all-embracing ice. At the far end lay a blinding patch. I blinked.
“Sunlight!” I shouted joyously.
“Yes,” Keston answered quietly. “That opening leads directly into the valley on our land.”
Abud roused himself from the unreasoning dread he had been in. It was the first time he had spoken.
“Let us get out of here. I feel as though I’m in a tomb.”
“Are you mad?” Keston said sharply. “The visors would pick you up at once. You wouldn’t last very long.”
Abud stopped suddenly. There was a plaintive, helpless note to him. “But we can’t stay here forever. We’d starve, or die of cold. Isn’t there some way to get back to the top of the Glacier?”
“No—only the way we came. And that’s been blocked with terminite.”
“Then what are we going to do? You’ve led us into a slow death, you with your boasted brains!”
“That remains to be seen,” was the calm retort. “In the meantime, we’re hungry. Let us eat.”
And the amazing man drew out of his torn flapping furs the gobs of meat he had cut from the dead bear. I had quite forgotten them. With a glad cry, I too reached into my garments and brought out my supply.
Abud’s eyes glinted evilly. His hand stole stealthily to the bone knife in its skin sheath. His spear had been dropped long before.
“None of that,” Keston said sharply. “We’ll all share equally, even though you have no food. But if you try to hog it all, or use force, you’ll die as well as we. There’s only enough for a meal or two; and then what will you do?”
Abud saw that. He needed Keston’s brains. His eyes dropped, and he mumbled something about our misunderstanding his gesture. We let it go at that. We had to. He could have killed us both if he wished.
So we divided our food with painstaking fairness. How we gorged on the raw red flesh and thick greasy fat! Food that would have disgusted us when we lived and worked in the Central Station, now was ambrosia to our sharpened appetites. When not the least scrap was left, and we had slaked our thirst with chunks of ice from the cavern floor, I spoke.
“What is that plan you spoke of, Keston, for reconquering the earth from the machines?”
Abud looked up abruptly at my question, and it seemed to me that a crafty smile glinted in the small pig eyes.
Keston hesitated a moment before he spoke.
“I confess my plans have been materially impeded by this sudden predicament we find ourselves in, thanks to our good friend here.” He ironically indicated Abud.
The big prolat merely grunted.
“However,” Keston continued, “I’ll have to make the best of circumstances, without the aid of certain materials that I had expected to assemble.
“The idea is a simple one. You’ve noted no doubt how the terminus of the Glacier opposite the Central Control Station overhangs. The brow, over a thousand feet up, extends out at least a hundred feet beyond the base.”
I nodded assent, though Abud seemed startled. Many times had Keston and I speculated on the danger of an avalanche at this point, and wondered why the Station had been built in such an exposed place. Once indeed we had ventured to suggest to the aristo Council the advisability of removing the Central Control to some other point, but the cold silence that greeted our diffident advice deterred us from further pursuit of the subject.
“Now, you know as well as I,” Keston resumed, “that a glacier is merely a huge river of ice, and, though solid, partakes of some of the qualities of freely flowing water. As a matter of fact, glaciers do flow, because the tremendous pressure at the bottom lowers the melting point of ice to such a degree that the ice actually liquefies, and flows along.”
I followed him eagerly in these elementary statements, trying to glimpse what he was driving at, but Abud’s brute features were fixed in a blank stare.
“This glacier does move. We’ve measured it—a matter of an inch or two a day. If, however,”—Keston’s voice took on a deeper note—“we can manage to hasten that process, the Glacier will overwhelm the countryside.”
He paused, and that gave me a chance to interpose some objections.
“But hold on a moment. In the first place it is an absolute impossibility with the means at our command, or even with every appliance, to melt the face of the whole Northern Glacier. In the second place, even if we could, the whole world would be overwhelmed, and then where would we be?”
Keston looked at me a trifle scornfully. “Who said we were going to melt the entire glacier? Remember I spoke only of the place of the overhang. Set that in motion, and we don’t have to worry about the problem any further.”
“Why not?” I inquired incredulously. “Suppose you do wipe out all the machines in this particular vicinity, won’t there be tremendous numbers left all through the Equatorial Belt?”
“Of course,” he explained patiently, “and what if they are? What are all these machines but inanimate mechanisms, things of metal and rubber and quartz. What makes them the monster
s they have become?”
I smote my forehead in anger. “What a fool! Now I see it. It’s the master machine you’re after.”
“Exactly,” he smilingly agreed. “Overwhelm, destroy this devilish creature of mine, with its unhuman intelligence, and the machines are what they were before: merely obedient slaves.”
I pondered that a moment. “And how, may I ask, are you going to force this old Glacier to move.”
His face clouded. “That’s the trouble. Up on the ice I was working on that problem, and had managed secretly to rig up a contrivance that would have done the trick. But we can’t go back for it. That way is blocked.” He mused, half to himself. “If only we could lay our hands on a solar disintegrating machine, the difficulty would be solved.”
At the name, Abud’s face, that had been a study in blank incomprehension, lit up.
“Solar disintegrating machine?” he inquired. “Why there’s one stationed not more than a few hundred yards away from here. This area, 2-RX, was my sector, you know.”
“Of course, of course,” shouted Keston, “I’d quite forgotten. The very thing. You’re not half bad, Abud, if you’d only stop trying to rely on brute strength instead of brains,” he concluded.
Abud said nothing, but I noticed a quick flash of hatred that passed in an instant, leaving a blank countenance. I thought to myself, “You’ll bear watching, my fine fellow. I don’t trust you at all.”
Keston was speaking. “We’ll have to wait until nightfall. The master machine won’t expect us down at the base, so I’m positive the search-rays won’t be focused along the ground. We’ll sneak to the machine, smash its visor and radio units, so it won’t give the alarm, and haul it back. Then I’ll show you what’s next to be done.”
Night came at last, leaden footed, though we were burning with impatience. Very softly we crawled out of the cave, three shadows. Fortunately there was no moon. The great Glacier loomed ominously above us, dimly white. High overhead hovered the green signal lights of the machine planes, their search rays focused in blinding glares on the rim of the upper ice.
It did not take us long to find the dark bulk of the disintegrator. It was a squat cylinder, for all the world like a huge boiler. At one end there up-ended a periscope arrangement which broadened out to a funnel. In the funnel was a very powerful lens, cut to special measurements. The light of the sun, or any light, for that matter, was concentrated through the lens onto a series of photo-electric cells, composed of an alloy of selenium and the far more delicate element, illinium. A high tension current was there created, of such powerful intensity that it disintegrated the atoms of every element except osmium and indium into their constituent electrons. Consequently the interior as well as the long slit nozzle orifice at the other end, were made of these resistant metals.
Space Lawyers: A Collaborative Collection Page 18