left aliveon the scene of the debacle. For one thing, the destruction'sthoroughness was too evident, and besides, in Dworn's mind, by all hisbackground and his teaching, human and machine were inextricably one;when one perished, so did the other....
* * * * *
There was a dull explosion, a shower of sparks and a spreading glare asa fuel tank blew up. The flare revealed the pillar of smoke,blood-colored by reflection, that towered into the night above thescene.
And it revealed more. For Dworn saw by that unholy light that one of thenearer beetles--capsized and burned out, its carapace burst raggedlyopen--it bore the golden scarab emblem which was the chief's alone.
The sight smote Dworn like a physical blow, so that he almost cried outaloud. Somehow it had not even crossed his mind that his father Yoldcould have been among the slain in whatever disaster had fallen uponthe beetles here.... Others might die; but his father was a pillar ofstrength that could not fall--the grave iron-willed chief, demanding andrewarding, for his son impartially as for all the people....
Dworn's breath choked in his throat and his eyes stung. Fiercely he toldhimself that a beetle, a chief's son, did not weep.
Not to mourn--to revenge, that was his duty. By the law of his people,the bereaved son must seek out and slay not less than three members ofwhatever race had done his father to death. Until then, his father'sinsatiate spirit would roam the deserts without rest....
But Dworn did not even know as yet who had done this night's work.
Suddenly, by the new blaze that still continued, he saw movement, a dullsheen of metal moving, and he froze the gesture that had been about tosend him forward into the arena of death.
The infrared was useless; by it the flickering firelight was blinding.Dworn bit his lip in anger at his own lack of precaution, and hastilytwisted his sound-receptor control to maximum. The crackling of theflames swelled to a hissing roar, but through it he heard theunmistakable creaking sound of treads. Beyond the smoke moved anindistinct and monstrous shape.
Dworn's jaw muscles set rock-hard and his hand flashed to anothercontrol. His turret gun revolved soundlessly, and the crosshairs of thesight danced across the mirrored image of the approaching thing. Hisfinger poised over the firing button, he braced himself to fling hismachine into swift evasive action before the enemy's perhapsoverwhelming firepower could reply--
The monster lumbered slowly into the light, canted far over andtraveling with an odd sidling motion along the steep rubbly slope. Greattreads set far out on each side of the squat, ungainly body preserved itagainst overturning. Its flattened forward turret swiveled nervouslyfrom side to side, peering blackly from vision ports steel-shuttereddown to squinting slits.
And Dworn relaxed. The red hatred that had blazed up in him subsidedinto mere disgust; he watched the great machine's wary progress with afamiliar, instinctive contempt. It was a scavenger, huge but not veryformidable, drawn from afar by the fires which promised loot,salvageable scrap, perhaps even usable parts, fuel or ammunition.... Itcould not possibly have been responsible for the carnage; such cowardlycreatures gave a wide berth to the beetle horde.
The monster ground to a halt amid the wreckage. Then its engine bellowedwith sudden power and it spun half round, one tread spraying gravel, andbacked hastily away up the slope. And Dworn was aware that the noise ofcreaking treads had redoubled. He cast about, and saw, laboring upwardfrom below, another big machine, closely similar to the first.
Both scavengers came to a stop, facing one another across the fading ofthe fires, their unmuffled engines grumbling sullenly. Dworn watchedthem narrowly, expecting the shooting to begin any moment. But thescavengers' way of life was not one that encouraged reckless valor.After a long minute, a hatch-cover was lifted in the first arrival'sarmored back; a cautious head thrust forth, and shouted hoarsely, wordsclear to Dworn's amplified hearing:
"Better go back where you came from, brother. We got here first!"
The other scavenger's turret-hatch also swung slightly open. A differentvoice answered: "Don't talk foolishness, brother. We've got as muchright here as you, and anyway we _saw_ it first!"
The first voice thickened with belligerence. "We've got the advantage ofthe ground on you, brother. Better back up!"
"Oh, go smelt pebbles!" snarled the other. No doubt that was a scathingrejoinder among the scavengers.
* * * * *
Dworn grimaced scornfully and brought his turret-gun to bear on anoutcropping midway between the disputants. Either of them outweighed thelittle beetle twenty times over--but at this juncture a singleunexpected shot would probably send both of them scuttling for cover--
But he halted again on the verge of firing. For he had not stoppedlistening, and now his trained ears picked out another, an unfamiliarsound from the background of noises.
It was a queer rattle and scurry, mingled with a high-pitched buzz thatcould only come from a number of small but high-speed motors. It was nota sound the exact like of which Dworn remembered having heard before. Hewent rigid, staring, as the sound's source came into view.
A column of little machines--lighter even than a beetle, and moreelongated--advancing in single file, multiple wheels swerving in theleader's tracks as the column wound nearer along the mountainside. Asthe firelight fell on them they gleamed with the mild sheen of aluminum.Round vision-ports stared glassily, and turbines buzzed feverishlyshrill.
With astonishing bravado, the flimsy little vehicles, one behindanother, came parading onto the wreck-strewn slope.
And what was more startling still--no two of them were alike. The leadermounted a winch in plain view; behind came another machine fitted withoddly-shaped grappling claws, and next one bearing a mysterious deviceterminating in front in a sort of flexible trunk.... Strangely, too,they didn't seem to carry any armament--no snouting guns, no flame orgas projectors.
Despite that fact or perhaps because of it, something sounded an alarmdeep in Dworn's mind.
Their diversity itself was uncanny, that was certain. In all Dworn'sexperience, machines were the work of races whose traditions ofconstruction, handed down from forgotten antiquity, were as fixed andunvarying as the biological heredity that made one race light-haired,another dark....
A hatch-cover clanged shut, and another. The squabbling scavengers hadfinally noticed the appearance of outside competition. The one upsloperaced its engine uncertainly, swung round to face the buzzing invaders,hesitated.
The newcomers, for their part, seemed oblivious to the scavengers'presence. Their column began dispersing. A grapple-armed machine laidhold on one of the wrecked beetles and, whining with effort, sought todrag it to leveler ground. A second, following, spat a burst of sparksand extended a gleaming arm tipped by the singing blue radiance of acutting torch.
The first-come scavenger growled throatily and lumbered toward theinterlopers, plainly taking heart from their air of harmless stupidity.Behind it, the other scavenger came clattering up the slope to itsfellow's aid.
Flame bloomed thunderously from the muzzle of the first one's forwardgun. The machine with the torch was flung bodily into the air and wentrolling and bouncing down the hill, wheels futilely spinning. The gunroared again, and the exploding shell tore open a flimsy aluminum bodyfrom nose to tail. Motors whirred frantically as the pygmies scatteredbefore the charging behemoth. One of them darted witlessly right underthe huge treads, and disappeared with a brief screech of crumplingmetal.
* * * * *
The fight was over as quickly as it had begun. The scavenger wheeled,snorting, and fired one more shot into the dark after its routedopponents....
Dworn muttered an imprecation under his breath. No chance of frighteningthe scavengers off now that their blood was up and their differencesforgotten; and a lone beetle could scarcely stand up to two of them in aknock down fight. To rush in now would be suicidal.
He gave up the idea of investigating the scene of
disaster more closely,and backed stealthily away, keeping to the cover of the rocks. At a safedistance he began circling round, downslope.
What he could and must do now was to locate what was left of his nativehorde. It had numbered about fifty when he had departed for hiswanderyear; a dozen, perhaps more, had died on the mountain tonight. Hemust seek out the survivors, and help plan retaliation against whateverenemy had dealt them this terrible blow.
Yet something else nagged at his mind, until he halted to gaze achinglyonce more toward the glowing embers up there, where the scavengers nowclanked to and fro about their business.
Dworn recognized that what bothered him was the puzzle of theunidentified little machines that had turned up on the battlefield onlyto be sent packing. During his yearlong solitary struggle to survive, hehad developed an extra sense or two--and in the queerly confidentbehavior of those buzzing strangers he had scented danger, a trap....
So it happened
World of the Drone Page 3