Image of the Gods
Page 4
going to have to dismantle them and rebuild them outside.The boys jammed up the launching ports for good." He spat again. "Don'tworry, Pete. This is going to be a ground fight."
"Okay." Pete held out his hand to the old man. "This may be it. And ifwe turn them back, there's bound to be more later."
"There's a lot of planet to hide on," said Tegan. "They may come back,but after a while they'll go again."
Pete nodded. "I just hope we'll still be here when they do."
They waited. It seemed like hours. Pete moved from post to post amongthe men, heavy-faced men he had known all his life, it seemed. Theywaited with whatever weapons they had available--pistols, home-maderevolvers, ortho-guns, an occasional rifle, even knives and clubs.Pete's heart sank. They were bitter men, but they were a mob with noorganization, no training for fighting. They would be facing a dozen ofSecurity's best-disciplined shock troops, armed with the latest weaponsfrom Earth's electronics laboratories. The colonists didn't stand achance.
Pete got his rifle and made his way up the rise of ground overlookingthe right flank of the village. Squinting, he could spot the cloud ofdust rising up near the glistening ship, moving toward the village. Andthen, for the first time, he realized that he hadn't seen any Dustiesall day.
It puzzled him. They had been in the village in abundance an hour beforedawn, while the plans were being laid out. He glanced around, hoping tosee one of the fuzzy brown forms at his elbow, but he saw nothing. Andthen, as he stared at the cloud of dust coming across the valley, hethought he saw the ground moving.
He blinked, and rubbed his eyes. With a gasp he dragged out hisbinoculars and peered down at the valley floor. There were thousands ofthem, hundreds of thousands, their brown bodies moving slowly out fromthe hills surrounding the village, converging into a broad, liquidcolumn between the village and the ship. Even as he watched, the columngrew thicker, like a heavy blanket being drawn across the road, amultitude of Dusties lining up.
Pete's hair prickled on the back of his neck. They knew so little aboutthe creatures, so _very_ little. As he watched the brown carpet rollingout, he tried to think. Could there be a weapon in their hands, couldthey somehow have perceived the evil that came from the ship, somehowsensed the desperation in the men's voices as they had laid their plans?Pete stared, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. They werethere in the road, thousands upon thousands of them, standing there,waiting--for what?
Three columns of dust were coming from the road now. Through the glassesPete could see the jeeps, filled with men in their gleaming grayuniforms, crash helmets tight about their heads, blasters glistening inthe pale light. They moved in deadly convoy along the rutted road,closer and closer to the crowd of Dusties overflowing the road.
The Dusties just stood there. They didn't move. They didn't shift, orturn. They just waited.
The captain's car was first in line. He pulled up before the line with ascreech of brakes, and stared at the sea of creatures before him. "Getout of there!" he shouted.
The Dusties didn't move.
The captain turned to his men. "Fire into them," he snapped. "Clear apath."
There was a blaze of fire, and a half a dozen Dusties slid to theground, convulsing. Pete felt a chill pass through him, staring indisbelief. The Dusties had a weapon, he kept telling himself, they_must_ have a weapon, something the colonists had never dreamed of. Theguns came up again, and another volley echoed across the valley, and adozen more Dusties fell to the ground. For every one that fell, anothermoved stolidly into its place.
With a curse the captain sat down in the seat, gunned the motor, andstarted forward. The jeep struck the fallen bodies, rolled over them,and plunged straight into the wall of Dusties. Still they didn't move.The car slowed and stopped, mired down. The other cars picked upmomentum and plunged into the brown river of creatures. They too groundto a stop.
The captain started roaring at his men. "Cut them down! We're going toget through here!" Blasters began roaring into the faces of the Dusties,and as they fell the jeeps moved forward a few feet until more of thecreatures blocked their path.
Pete heard a cry below him, and saw Jack Mario standing in the road, gunon the ground, hands out in front of him, staring in horror as theDusties kept moving into the fire. "Do you see what they're doing!" hescreamed. "They'll be slaughtered, every one of them!" And then he wasrunning down the road, shouting at them to stop, and so were Pete andTegan and the rest of the men.
Something hit Pete in the shoulder as he ran. He spun around and fellinto the dusty road. A dozen Dusties closed in around him, lifted him upbodily, and started back through the village with him. He tried tostruggle, but vaguely he saw that the other men were being carried backalso, while the river of brown creatures held the jeeps at bay. TheDusties were hurrying, half carrying and half dragging him back throughthe village and up a long ravine into the hills beyond. At last theyset Pete on his feet again, plucking urgently at his shirt sleeve asthey hurried him along.
He followed them willingly, then, with the rest of the colonists at hisheels. He didn't know what the Dusties were doing, but he knew they weretrying to save him. Finally they reached a cave, a great cleft in therock that Pete knew for certain had not been there when he had ledexploring parties through these hills years before. It was a hugeopening, and already a dozen of the men were there, waiting, dazed bywhat they had witnessed down in the valley, while more were stumbling upthe rocky incline, tugged along by the fuzzy brown creatures.
Inside the cavern, steps led down the side of the rock, deep into thedark coolness of the earth. Down and down they went, until they suddenlyfound themselves in a mammoth room lit by blazing torches. Pete stoppedand stared at his friends who had already arrived. Jack Mario wassitting on the floor, his face in his hands, sobbing. Tegan was sitting,too, blinking at Pete as if he were a stranger, and Dorfman wastrembling like a leaf. Pete stared about him through the dim light, andthen looked where Tegan was pointing at the end of the room.
He couldn't see it clearly, at first. Finally, he made out a raisedplatform with four steps leading up. A torch lighted either side of adais at the top, and between the torches, rising high into the gloom,stood a statue.
It was a beautifully carved thing, hewn from the heavy granite that madeup the core of this planet, with the same curious styling as othercarving the Dusties had done. The design was intricate, the linescarefully turned and polished. At first Pete thought it was a statue ofa Dustie, but when he moved forward and squinted in the dim light, hesuddenly realized that it was something else indeed. And in that momenthe realized why they were there and why the Dusties had done thisincredible thing to protect them.
The statue was weirdly beautiful, the work of a dedicated mastersculptor. It was a figure, standing with five-fingered hands on hips,head raised high. Not a portrait, but an image seen through other eyesthan human, standing high in the room with the lights burning reverentlyat its feet.
Unmistakably it was the statue of a man.
* * * * *
They heard the bombs, much later. The granite roof and floor of thecavern trembled, and the men and women stared at each other, helplessand sick as they huddled in that great hall. But presently the bombingstopped. Later, when they stumbled out of that grotto into the lateafternoon light, the ship was gone.
They knew it would be back. Possibly it would bring back search partiesto hunt down the rebels in the hills; perhaps it would just wait andagain bomb out the new village when it rose. But searching parties wouldnever find their quarry, and the village would rise again and again, ifnecessary.
And in the end, somehow, Pete knew that the colonists would find a wayto survive here and live free as they had always lived. It might be abitter struggle, but no matter how hard the fight, there would be onestrange and wonderful thing they could count on.
No matter what they had to do, he knew the Dusties would help them.
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