Astounding Stories, July, 1931 Part 33

I realized that the sc.r.a.ping of the tentacles reaching for us had ceased, that the arms had all returned to the b.u.t.ton banks. Then it dawned on me that Keston's master machine was directing all the destruction I was watching, that the intelligence he had given it was being used to divert the machines from their regular tasks to--conquer the world. "You sure started something, Keston," I said.

"Yes," he gasped, white-faced, "something that I should have expected when that model machine went for me. Do you understand? I've given the machines intelligence, created a new race, and they are trying to wipe out the humans; conquer the world for themselves. The possibility flashed on me when I was half-mad with rage and disappointment at the callous cruelty of the aristo Council. I threw that switch with the thought that it would be far better for all of us to be wiped out. But now, I don't know. After all, they are men, like ourselves, and it hurts to see our own race annihilated. If only I can get to that switch."

He started to push out from under the scant shelter, but an alert tentacle hissed through the air in a swift stab at him, and he dodged back, hopelessly.

"Don't be a d.a.m.n fool," I snapped at him. "Forget that mushy sentimentality. Even if you save the aristos, we're due for extinction just the same. Better that the whole human race be wiped out together."

Then a thought struck me. "Maybe we have a chance to get out of this ourselves."

"Impossible. Where could we hide from the machines?" He waved a hand at the screens. "Look."

"The Glacier, man, the Glacier!" He started. "There are no machines out there. If we can get to the ice we are safe."

"But the aircraft will find us."

"They won't know we're there. There are no microphones or radio-eyes in the wastes."

A rough voice came from the cowering files behind us. "Hey, Keston, let's get a move on. You're the smart guy around here: get us out of this mess you've started."

It was Abud. When so many better prolats had perished, he was alive and whole.

We got out, crawling under the key-boards till we could make a dash for the door. We emerged into a world ablaze with the light of many fires, and reverberating with the far off cras.h.i.+ng of destruction. To the right we could see the tumbled remains of what a short hour before had been our barracks. Two digging machines were still ponderously moving about among the ruins, pounding down their heavy buckets methodically, reducing the concrete structure to a horrible dead level. Ten score prolats had been sleeping there when I left.

As we rushed into the open, the machines turned and made for us; but they had not been built for speed, and we easily outdistanced them.

The rest of that day will always remain a dim haze to me. I can remember running, running, Abud's broad form always in the lead. I can remember long minutes of trembling under tangled underbrush, while from above sounded the burring of an air machine searching ceaselessly for us. I can remember seeing at last the tall white ramparts of the Glacier. Then a blackness swallowed me up, hands tugged at me, and I knew no more....

The great white waste of hummocky ice dazzled under the blinding sun.

My eyes were hurting terribly. There was a great void in my stomach.

For two days I had not eaten.

Keston, tottering weakly at my side, was in an even worse state. His trembling hand could scarcely hold the primitive bone-tipped spear.

G.o.d knows I had difficulty enough with mine.

Yet, tired, hungry, s.h.i.+vering as we were, we forced our dragging feet along, searching the interminable expanse for sign of polar bear or the wild white dogs that hunted in packs. We had to find flesh--any kind--to feed our shriveled stomachs--or go under.

Keston uttered a weak shout. I looked. From behind a frozen hummock a great white bear padded. He saw us, sniffed the air a moment, then turned contemptuously away. He must have sensed our weakness.

Almost crying in his eagerness, Keston raised his spear and cast it with what strength he had at the animal that meant food and warmth for our bodies.

The weapon described a slow arc, and caught the s.h.a.ggy bear flush in the shoulder. But there had been no force behind the throw. The sharpened bone tip stuck in the flesh, quivered a bit, and dropped harmlessly to the ice.

Aroused, the creature whirled about. We caught a glimpse of small, vindictive eyes. Then, with a roar, it made for us.

"Look out!" I cried. Keston started to run, but I knew he could not match the wounded animal in speed. I threw my futile spear, but the bear shook it off as though it were a pin p.r.i.c.k, and would not be diverted from his prey.

I ran after, shouting for help. Then Keston stumbled and went down in a sprawl on the rough gray ice. The bear was almost on him and there was nothing I could do.

Then the figure of a man darted from behind a sheltering mound. It was Abud, swathed in warm white furs, brawny of body, strong, well fed, heavy jowled. He swung easily a long spear, far heavier than ours, and pointed with keen barbs.

He stopped short at the sight of us, and his brutal features contorted in merriment. The desperate plight of my friend seemed to afford him infinite amus.e.m.e.nt. Nor did he make any move to help.

I shouted to him. "Quick, kill it before it's too late!"

"So it is Abud you turn to now," he sneered heavily. "Abud, whom you thought deserving of the Death Bath not so long ago. No, my fine friends, let me see you help yourselves, you two who thought you were king pins down in the valley. Men? Bah! Weaklings, that's all you are!"

I ran blindly over the uneven ice, unarmed, some crazy notion in my mind of tackling the brute with bare fists, to drag him off my friend.

Abud shouted with laughter, leaning on his spear.

For some strange animal reason, the mocking laughter enraged the bear.

He had almost reached the motionless figure of Keston when he swerved suddenly, and made for Abud.

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 b.u.t.tons. 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 carca.s.s. "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 pa.s.sed 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 fas.h.i.+oned with apt fingers spears and barbs of bone, curved knives from s.h.i.+n 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 sc.r.a.ps as though we were dogs.