More of the Essential John Wyndham, page 41
“It doesn’t look decaying to me.” Jim gazed out at the gently swaying trees.
“But we found ourselves in a desert when we stopped. Miles of it, overlaying what once was fruitful country— how far did that desert stretch? For all we know, this may be an oasis of forest in a world of deserts. And have you noticed the sun—how much larger and more fiery red it is than our accustomed sun?—Signs of the coming end, both of them.”
He was silent for a moment before he added: “Then there was the ant machine which questioned us. Its knowledge of the past must have been profound, yet it tried us with a series of symbols utterly unknown to any of us. One wonders what strange creatures used those symbols, sometime between the end of man and the rise of the insect. Yes, we are far past the age of homo sapiens.”
No one spoke for a while. It was Roy who broke the spell. “This is morbid,” he declared. “Our present concern is to regain the age of homo sapiens —and our immediate need is metal.”
Jessica, sitting beside him, drew a breath as though to speak, and then changed her mind.
“Yes?” he encouraged.
“I hardly like to suggest it—I mean, it’s dangerous.”
“What is it?”
“Well, the ants’ white machines-”
“Yes?”
“Well, they must be made of a very hard metal.”
Roy brought his hand down on his knee with a slap of approval. “Good girl, you’ve hit it. We’ve got to grab one of those machines somehow or other.”
The expeditionary force eventually comprised only three men, Roy, Jim Hollis and Julian. The two “Numen” would have been useful, but, since it was considered un¬ wise to trust them with heat rays, they would have been defenceless in case of an attack. They would, therefore, be summoned later to help with the portage, if necessary. Moreover, it was important that some weapons should be left with the rest of the party in case of trouble. Both Roy and Jim, before they left, were handed high power rays and instructed in the use of them. Julian retained his own, low power weapon.
“What puzzles me, is how we are going to attract the things,” Roy said.
“Forget it. There’s no attracting needed. All we’ve got to do is get up a tree near a clearing and wait. They’ll come along soon enough. It’s dollars to doughnuts we spot some within a couple of hours. Them tin things are for ever snoopin’ around—the Lord knows what for.”
They progressed cautiously with Jim in the lead, scanning the surrounding growths for tire slightest sign of a metallic flash, and ready to jump for the branches. The chosen clearing, a mile or so distant, was reached without alarms. There, they climbed one of the loftiest trees and settled themselves among the boughs to wait.
After an hour of patience, Roy caught the sound of activity on the far side of the open space. As it approached, it resolved itself into a crackling of branches accompanied by a faint clanking. He moved into an attitude of readiness and slipped the ray tube out of his pocket. Jim put out a restraining hand.
“It’s not the tin things. It’s the big, red brutes. I know the sound of ’em.”
The next minute proved him right. Five of the twenty-foot machines left the trees and stalked stiffly on their trellised legs across the other end of the clearing.
“Five again,” Roy murmured.
“Always five together—never more, never less. And if I know anything about it, it means that some of the ant machines are around these parts,” Jim replied.
Less than ten minutes after the red stalkers had disappeared, there came a flash of reflected sunlight among the trees. A moment later, no less than ten of the six-legged machines emerged. They paused in a bunch and there was a great waving of silver tentacles. Roy wondered why it was that the machines were not rendered less conspicuous with a coating of neutral shaded paint— it was merely one of many puzzling points about them.
As a result of the conference, the party broke up. Eight scurried away in the wake of the red monsters, another doubled back the way they had come while the remaining one retreated to the shadow of the trees and stood motionless. Jim nudged Roy.
“There’s our meat,” he said.
With stealth and care they wriggled back along the branches and slid to the ground. Keeping twenty or so yards back from the edge of the clearing, they began to work round into position. The fact that their progress was accompanied by a considerable crackling of twigs underfoot, did not worry them, but it was essential that no waving of bushes, carelessly brushed aside, should attract the attention of the sharp lenses. Moreover, a look out must be kept for other roving machines. At fifty yards range, Jim suggested that they take to the trees again.
Roy, through a leafy gap, trained his ray on the motionless sentry, and pressed the catch. His aim was good. A quick switch of the wrist from left to right, and the narrow blade of heat scythed the legs from beneath it. It fell with a thud. The tentacles writhed for a few seconds and then dropped to lie listlessly on the ground. As they sank, the ant army came surging from its fallen craft. Roy swiftly adjusted his tube to lower power and wide aperture and joined Jim and Julian who were already fanning their beams at the black flood. In a few moments the insects had withered from sight, and the damaged machine was theirs.
Roy swung down from the tree and advanced with his tube cautiously levelled against the possibility of another rush of ants. He tapped experimentally on the metal casing, but none emerged. Again he set his ray to a small aperture, preparatory to slicing the metal into portable sections. Barely had he raised the tube when there came a cry from Jim who pointed wildly across the clearing.
Roy spun round to see two more white machines headed in a scuttering dash towards him. He swung his ray without hesitation and brought down the leader. Its own momentum sent it sliding a dozen yards on its shining belly. As it fell, he turned his attention to the other. But the second attacker was not destined to fall such as easy victim.
He was raising his hand when a metal tentacle from behind him snapped around his body, knocking his weapon spinning towards the trees. He realized as the arm gripped him that he had been fooled. Some of the ants remained in the first machine and had successfully played ’possum until this moment. He cursed himself for not having the foresight to put its lenses out of action.
The trees behind him literally exploded into flame as the tube fell among them. Jim and Julian leaped from their perches with lightning agility and came pounding to Roy’s defence with ready weapons. The last, unharmed machine, dashing on with tentacles extended, was almost upon him. Their line of fire was masked by Roy’s body.
He tugged frenziedly at his metal bond, but it had frozen into inflexibility, holding him as prey for the other. Jim decided to take a desperate chance. He steadied and aimed. The searing heat beam passed within inches of the helpless Roy and the hot air scorched his face, but the blast passed on to shear the legs from one side of the rushing monster. The unsupported side fell with a crash and the machine swiveled wildly to one side. It rolled over and over till it came to a final rest within a yard of Roy’s feet.
But the danger was far from over. Jim bounded towards him, fused the restraining tentacle at its base and dragged him free just as the swarming ants broke from their wrecked craft. Only then did the three men become aware of the great flames licking out from the blazing trees towards them.
“We’ve got to get out of this, and quick. We’ve sure started something this trip,” said Jim, as Roy unwrapped the severed tentacle. “The Lord knows what that tube will do now it’s on the loose. Anyway, all the animated tin cans in this crazy world are likely to happen along, just to see who’s been jokin’ around here.”
“But the metal –”
“Damn the metal. There’s plenty more—we can’t move fast and carry the stuff. Till this blows over, we go home and lie quiet for a bit.”
The three crossed the clearing at top speed. In the shelter of the opposite trees they paused to look back. A vast funnel of flame was belching into the heavens and, above it, thick gouts of smoke broadened, mushroom-like. Jim shook a rueful head.
“Ain’t that just our darned luck?” he growled.
The Wrong Machine
There followed several weeks, uneventful to the castaways. Roy and Jim had returned to the scene of their fight on the following day and made encouraging discoveries. The first was that the fire started by Roy’s lost tube had spread only a very little distance beyond its raging center. With no wind to fan them, the flames had dwindled away and finally snuffed out. The tube itself was irretrievably lost somewhere in a crater of its own making. It had melted the ground and the rocks beneath it and sunk out of sight into the molten pool. Whether it had destroyed itself, or whether it was still digging deeper and deeper into the earth, neither of the men knew—nor cared to any great extent They were far too elated at finding that the machines they had vanquished still lay where they had fallen.
“Wonder why they haven’t taken them away?” Roy had said.
Jim snorted. “You’re always wondering about the things. What’s the use of tryin’ to get inside an insect’s mind, anyway? You couldn’t do it in a lifetime. Probably they never repair—only build new machines. The thing that counts now is that here is the metal just waiting for us to carry it off.”
With the help of most of the party, the transport had been successfully accomplished. Though more than once on the journey it was necessary to drop their burdens and take to the trees to avoid wandering machines. A growing acquaintance with the dangers of the world about them and with the limited capabilities of their enemies began to have a tonic effect on the party. Jim Hollis had never shown anything more than contempt for what he called “animated tinware,” and the rest were fast adopting his point of view.
Del, with Kal for an assistant, had gone to work right away on the construction of a new time traveler once he had assured himself that the metals were suitable. Ril, whose offers of assistance had been refused on the ground that more than one helper would lead to confusion, busied himself in experimenting with the least damaged of the captured machines, a pursuit in which he was joined by Julian. Jim Hollis was appointed head of the foraging staff and, with the help of the two “Numen,” saw that a plentiful supply of fruit and water was maintained.
Jessica and Roy found themselves much together. Since the ant machines were seldom to be seen in the immediate vicinity of the cliffs, they had formed the habit of taking their strolls in the neighbourhood. Roy, after a month or more of this existence, had come to accept their way of life as a commonplace rather than an adventure. He discovered with a sense of surprise that Jessica did not share this view.
“How long,” she asked him one morning, “how long will it be before Del completes his machine?”
Roy looked at her doubtfully. There was something in her tone that he could not place. It was not exactly an eagerness for release from this strange world, and yet “Not more than a day or two, now, I believe, but he is not sure that some further adjustments won’t be necessary. You’re feeling homesick?”
Jessica failed to reply for a moment. She held her gaze fixed straight ahead and there was a slight petulance in the line of her mouth. At length she answered in a dull voice: “I suppose I am. After all, one could hardly wish to "stay here forever. Sometimes, at nights, it comes over me in a perfect wave of longing. I look out and see nothing but die dimness of the stars and hear nothing but the stirring of the trees, then I long for our bustling twenty-third century. I want to see the sky split by the green fire at the tail of an Asia-bound rocket, or the red gush from the Europe express.
“Sometimes, on clear nights, we could see from our house the pure white flames streaming from the Mars spaceship as it spurted from its cradle. And then, too, there was never this terrible quiet. Even when one was shut away, there was always a sense of movement, of a world where men and their machines all worked to some purpose—a rustling sense of life even in the quietest places. I feel a horrible sense of futility that it has all come only to this—to the insects.”
“I’m sure you are wrong there. If we had found men still existing at this date, I should feel that it did seem futile. It would mean that man must die when the world dies. But, since there is no sign of him, I am convinced that he achieved his true end—whatever that may have been—and gone on his way, leaving the world to other forms of life so that they may achieve their ends.”
“I think you are an optimist, Roy, but I hope you are right. I confess I don’t feel very cheerful about anything just now.”
“While I seem to feel happier them I ever remember— I could almost hope that Del’s machine should turn out a failure. I wish…” He stopped a trifle abruptly. A light crept into Jessica’s eyes. The corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly.
“Yes?” she prompted gently. But Roy was not looking, he did not see the change that had come over her.
“I don’t know. It seems so unnecessary that we should go back to our own centuries—and yet, we must.”
“Must?”
“Well, imagine what a misfit I should be in Del’s century.”
Jessica sighed to herself over the obtuseness of men. “I can’t imagine you in Del’s century,” she said.
But Roy missed the emphasis which was laid upon the word “Del,” and took the statement at its face value. Jessica let the subject drop. She had learned what she wanted to know, the rest was a matter of careful handling —she might even have to propose herself in the end.
Half an hour later, as they were returning to the cave, Roy announced that there was a surprise awaiting her. Ril and Julian in their experiments with the captured ant machine, had succeeded in making it workable. The machinery cased in the lower part of the ovoid body and partitioned off, had been found to be intact. It had not been a great labor with the help of the heat rays to braise on salvaged legs in place of those shorn away.
Then, more to give themselves employment than for any other reason, the two men had set about adapting the controls for human use. They had given themselves to the solution of a number of ingenious problems which turned out, in most cases, less difficult than they had expected. Much of the work consisted merely of clearing away many of the stages necessary for insect manipulation.
“What I mean is,” said Roy, explaining, “a man might need a block and tackle to lift a heavy log which an elephant would lift direct. This time, Ril and Julian were in the position of the elephant—they could dispense with much of the intermediate mechanical aid. They’re as pleased with the thing as a child with a new toy. It’s going to be ready to show off its tricks when we get back.”
“But what’s the good of it?”
“None, I think. They merely felt an interest in the thing, and it gave them something to do. They solved it as one might solve any other puzzle. You’ll see it soon.”
His words were borne out a few hundred yards from home. They saw the glittering machine approach, slowly scrabbling over the ground towards them. It stopped as they came into view and stood still, its tentacles waving in the usual manner of the ant-operated craft. Roy gave a chuckling laugh.
“A pretty good imitation. If I hadn’t been expecting it, I’d have rayed the thing right off—and that would have been remarkably uncomfortable for Ril and Julian.”
As if at the thought, his hand went to his belt. It encountered the butt of his revolver, but the ray tube was missing. He cursed his carelessness in not bringing it. Such an omission might well have had tragic results. He and Jessica advanced together. “Now, Ril, put it through its paces,” he called.
But the machine merely continued to stand, swaying its tentacles. A sudden misgiving shot through Roy’s mind. To reassure himself he called: “What are you trying to do? Scare us?”
Jessica drew closer to his side. She was aware of an uncomfortable sense that all was not well. “Suppose it isn’t –?” she began. She got no further, because at that moment the machine snapped into action. It came scuttering full at them, tentacles outstretched.
“Run,” cried Roy, but instead, she shrank towards him.
He jerked out his revolver and spat a burst of ineffective shots. The machine charged down on them. A feeler wrapped about Jessica’s waist and snatched her from his side, another looped about his wrist, dragging him along. With a violent twist of his arm he broke its grip and fell to the ground. Jessica screamed as the metal legs thudded past within inches of his head. The machine did not wait to recapture him; holding the girl clear of the ground, it made straight for the trees. Roy grabbed for his fallen revolver, jumped to his feet and raced vainly after it. The danger of hitting Jessica was too great for him to risk a shot, and the machine, looking like some great, shining beetle, was traveling twice his speed. The girl gave one final, despairing cry, then captor and captive disappeared among the branches.
For a few dazed seconds Roy continued to run, before his senses reasserted themselves and sent him shouting in the direction of the cave. Consternation reigned in the group as he panted out his news. “Give me a ray tube,” he demanded. “I’ll wreck that machine and bring Jessica back, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Del caught his arm. “You could never catch it before it reached the anthill, and it’s no good trying single-handed to –”
Ril broke in. He had exchanged a hurried whisper with Julian which sent the other running towards the cave. “We’ll take the machine,” he said, “Julian and I have finished it and tested it.”
Roy, without hesitation, dashed to the spot where the renovated craft lay and started hurling aside the branches which masked it. Ril clambered up a rough ladder set against the side and slid into the interior through a hole in the top.
“Tubes—we must have them,” Roy called.
Del handed over two high power tubes and one low one. The only remaining tube he retained in case of attack.
