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diff --git a/32068.txt b/32068.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7a7d8f --- /dev/null +++ b/32068.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3019 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of World of the Drone, by Robert Abernathy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: World of the Drone + +Author: Robert Abernathy + +Release Date: April 20, 2010 [EBook #32068] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD OF THE DRONE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy +January 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the +U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. + + + + +[Illustration] + + Dworn knew that if his machine failed him in battle he would die. + For men fought each other viciously, with no bond of brotherhood, + in this-- + + World Of The Drone + + _by_ + + _Robert Abernathy_ + + +The beetle woke from a dreamless sleep, yawned, stretched cramped limbs +and smiled to himself. In the west the sunset's last glow faded. Stars +sprang out in the clear desert sky, dimmed only by the white moon that +rose full and brilliant above the eastern horizon. + +[Illustration] + +Methodically, suppressing impatience, he went through every evening's +ritual of waking. He checked his instruments, scanned the mirrors which +gave him a broad view of moonlit desert to his left. To the right he +could see nothing, for his little armored machine lay half-buried, +burrowed deep into the sheltering flank of a great dune; all day long it +had escaped the notice of prowling diurnal machines of prey. He +listened, too, for any sound of danger which his amplifiers might pick +up from near or far. + +The motor, idling as it had all day while its master slept, responded to +testing with a smooth, almost noiseless surge of power. The instruments +were in order; there was plenty of water in the condenser, and though +his food supply was low that shouldn't matter--before tonight was done +he would be once more among his people. + +Only the fuel gauge brought an impatient frown to his face. It was +menacingly near the empty mark--which meant he would have to spend time +foraging before he could continue his journey. Well ... no help for it. +He opened the throttle. + +The beetle's name was Dworn, and he was twenty-one years old. The flesh +and blood of him, that is. The rest, the steel-armored shell, the wheels +and engine and hydraulic power-system, the electric sensory +equipment--all of which was to his mind as much part of his identity as +his own skin, muscles, eyes and ears--was only five years old. + +Dworn's face, under his sleep-tousled thatch of blond hair, was boyish. +But there were hard lines of decision there, which the last months had +left.... Tonight by the reckoning of his people, he was still a youth; +but when tomorrow dawned, the testing of his wanderyear would be behind +him, and he would be adult, a warrior of the beetle horde. + +Sand spilled from the beetle's dull-black carapace as it surged from its +hiding-place. It drifted, its motor only a murmur, along the shoulder of +the dune. Dworn eyed his offending fuel gauge darkly; he would very much +have liked to be on his way at top speed, toward the year's-end +rendezvous of the horde under the shadow of the Barrier. + +He began cruising slowly, at random, across the rolling moonlit waste of +wind-built dunes, watching for spoor. + +He spied, and swerved automatically to avoid, the cunningly concealed +pit of a sand devil, strategically placed in a hollow of the ground. +Cautiously Dworn circled back for a second look. The conical pit was +partly fallen in, unrepaired; the devil was obviously gone. + +The burrowing machine would, Dworn knew, have had fuel and other +supplies somewhere in its deep lair, buried beneath the drifted sand +where it spent its life breathing through a tube to the surface and +waiting for unwary passers-by to skid into its trap. But Dworn +regretfully concluded that it would not be worth while digging on the +chance that whatever had done away with the devil had not rifled its +stores.... He swung the beetle's nose about and accelerated again. + +On the next rise, he paused to inspect the track of a pill-bug; but to +his practiced eye it was quickly evident that the trail was too old, +blowing sand had already blurred the mark of heels, and the bug probably +was many miles away by now. + +A mile farther on, luck smiled on him at last. He crossed the fresh and +well-marked trail of a caterpillar--deeply indented tread-marks, +meandering across the dunes. + + * * * * * + +He began following the spoor, still slowly, so as not to lose it or to +run upon its maker unawares. A caterpillar was a lumbering monster of +which he had no fear, but it was much bigger than a beetle, and could be +dangerous when cornered. Dworn had no wish to corner it; the caterpillar +itself was not the object of his stalking, but one of its supply caches +which according to caterpillar custom it would have hidden at various +places within its range. + +The trail led him uphill, into a region cut by washes--dry now, since +the rainy season was past--and by ridges that rose like naked vertebrae +from the sea of sand that engulfed the valley floor. + +Several times Dworn saw places where the caterpillar had halted, backed +and filled, shoved piles of earth and rocks together or scraped patches +of ground clear with its great shovel. But the beetle knew his prey's +habits of old, and he passed by these spots without a second glance, +aware that this conspicuous activity was no more than a ruse to deceive +predators like himself. If Dworn hadn't known that trick, and many +others used by the various non-predatory machine species which +manufactured food and fuel by photosynthesis, he would have been unfit +to be a beetle--and he would never have lived through the wanderyear +which weeded out the unfit according to the beetle people's stern +immemorial custom. + +At last he came to a stop on a rocky hillside, where the tracks were +faint and indistinct. Carefully scanning the ground downslope, he saw +that his instinct had not misled him--the caterpillar had turned aside +at this place and had afterward returned to its original trail, backing +and dragging its digging-blade to obliterate the traces of its side +excursion. + +Dworn grinned, feeling the stirring of the hunter's excitement that +never failed to move him, even on such a prosaic foraging expedition as +this. He sent the beetle bumping down the slope. + +The blurred trail led into the sandy bed of a wash at the foot of the +hill, and along that easily-traveled way for a quarter mile. Then the +stream made a sharp bend, undercutting a promontory on the left and +creating a high bank of earth and soft white rock. Dworn saw that a +section of the bank had collapsed and slid into the gully. That was no +accident; the mark where a great blade had sheared into the overhang was +plain to read, even if it had not been for the scuffed over vestiges of +caterpillar tracks round about. + +Dworn halted and listened intently, his amplifier turned all the way up. +No sound broke the stillness, and the black moon-shadows within range of +his vision did not stir. + +He nosed the beetle carefully up to the heap. He had no equipment for +moving those tons of soil and rock, but that was no matter. He twisted a +knob on the control panel, a shutter in the beetle's forward cowling +snapped open and a telescoping drill thrust from its housing, chattered +briefly and took hold, while the engine's pulse strengthened to take up +the load. + +Twice Dworn abandoned fruitless borings and tried a different spot. On +the third try, at almost full extension the drill-point screeched +suddenly on metal and then as suddenly met no more resistance. Dworn +switched on the pump, and quickly turned it off again; he swung the +overhead hatch open, and--pausing to listen warily once more--clambered +out onto the cowling, in the cold night air, to open the sample tap at +the base of the drill and sniff the colorless fluid that trickled from +it. + +It gave off the potent odor of good fuel, and Dworn nodded to himself, +not regretting his caution though in this case it had not been needed. +But--clever caterpillars had been known to bury canisters of water in +their caches, poison for the unsuspecting. + + * * * * * + +The pump throbbed again; there was the satisfying gurgle of fuel flowing +into almost-empty tanks. Dworn leaned back, seizing the opportunity to +relax for a moment in preparation for the strenuous journey still +before him. + +But he didn't fail to snap alert when just as the gauge trembled near +the full mark, he heard pebbles rattling on the hillside above. +Immediately thereupon he became aware of the grind of steel on stone and +the rumbling of an imperfectly muffled engine. + +In one smooth rapid motion Dworn switched off the pump, and spun the +drill control. As the mechanism telescoped back into place, he gunned +his engine, and the beetle shot backward and spun round to face the +oncoming noise. + +A squarish black silhouette loomed high on the slope above the +overhanging bank, which rose so steeply that a stone loosened by turning +treads bounded with a clang off the beetle's armor in the wash below. +The caterpillar halted momentarily, engine grumbling to take in the +scene. + +Dworn didn't linger to learn its reaction at spying a looter. A snap +shot from his turret gun exploded directly in front of the other +machine, throwing up a cloud of dust and--he hoped--confusing its crew. +And the beetle was fleeing around the bend in the stream bed, keeping +close to the high bank. + +A score of yards past the turning, intuition of danger made Dworn swerve +sharply. An instant later, the ground blew up almost in his face--the +bend had brought him into view, under the guns of the enemy above. + +He wrenched the beetle around in a skidding turn and raced back for the +bend where the overhang afforded shelter. Another shell and another +crashed into places he had just left, and then he was safe--for the +moment. + +But it was an uncomfortable spot. The caterpillar rumbling wrathfully on +the slope above him, couldn't see him as long as he hugged the bank, +undercut by the water that flowed here in the rainy season; but, by the +same token, he couldn't make a dash for safety without running the +gauntlet of a murderous fire in the all-too-narrow way the stream bed +offered. In open country, he would not have hesitated to count on his +ability to outmaneuver and outshoot the caterpillar ... but here he was +neatly trapped. + +And it was nerve-racking to be unable to see what the enemy was about. +It seemed to have halted, judging the situation just as he had been +doing. Now, though, he heard its engine speed up again, and the grinding +of its treads came unmistakably closer. His ears strained to gauge its +advance as it came lurching down the slope, till it sounded only a few +feet away and Dworn braced himself to shoot fast and straight if it +started coming down over the bank. Then it paused again, and sat idling, +hoping no doubt that he would panic and show himself. + +He didn't. The caterpillar's engine raced up once more and began to +labor under a heavy load. There was an increasing clatter of falling +stones. Then Dworn remembered the great digging-blade it carried, and +realized what it was going to try. + +Ten feet to his right the bank began giving way. Tons of rubble +thundered into the gully. Dworn winced and moved away as far as he +dared. He heard the caterpillar back and turn, then it snarled with +effort once more and another section of the overhang caved in with a +grinding roar. + +Inside minutes at this rate, it would either have driven him from his +refuge or buried him alive. Now it came rumbling forward for the third +time; rocks showered from the rim directly above his head, and he saw +the bank begin to tremble. + + * * * * * + +Dworn braced himself. Even as the wall of earth and rock began leaning +outward above him, he gave his engine full throttle. The wheels spun for +one sickening instant, then the little machine lunged forward from +beneath the fresh landslide and was climbing, bucking and slewing, up +the slope of loose soil created by the ones before. + +The caterpillar loomed black and enormous on his left hand, so close +that it could not have brought its guns to bear even if its crew had +expected the beetle to take this daring way out. With its shovel lowered +and half-buried, it could not swing round quickly--Dworn had counted on +that. + +As the beetle's flank cleared the corner of the digging blade with +inches to spare, Dworn's gun turret passed in line with the space +between the blade and the caterpillar's treads, and he jabbed the firing +button. The explosion wreathed the monster's forward half in smoke and +dust, and into that cloud it tilted forward, teetered ponderously and +then slid headlong to the bottom of the wash as the loosened bank gave +way conclusively under its great weight. + +Dworn looked back from the hill crest to see it still floundering, +treads furiously churning sand, struggling to fight clear of the +avalanche it had carried with it. The beetle laughed full-throatedly, +without rancor. This hadn't been the first nor the tightest corner he'd +been in during the dangerous course of his wanderyear; and in that hard +school of life you learned not to worry about danger already past. + +At another time, he might have returned to the battle in hope of +capturing the additional supplies the caterpillar carried and--still +more valuable booty--the chart it would have, showing the location of +its other caches. But now he was in a hurry--this refueling foray had +cost him a couple of hours, and the moon was already high. + +So he slipped quietly away over the ridge and set his course to the +east. + +Beyond the hilly land, the terrain ironed out into level alkali flats +where a vanished lake had been in the long-gone days when the earth was +fertile. There he opened the throttle wide. The plain, white in the +moonlight, rolled under the racing wheels at ninety and a hundred miles +an hour; air whistled over the carapace.... + +Impatience surged up in Dworn once more. Eagerly he pictured his +forthcoming reunion with his native horde--and with Yold, his father, +chief of the horde. + +Countless times in the long wanderyear--in moments when death loomed +nearer than it had in the brush just past, and he despaired of surviving +his testing, or in other moments, yet harder to bear, when the immensity +of of the desert earth seemed about to swallow him up in his +loneliness--he had grasped at that vision now soon to be real: he, +Dworn, stood before the assembled horde, the year of his proving +triumphantly completed, and he received before them all the proud, +laconic commendation of the chief, his father. + +Hungrily he scanned the horizon ahead, saw with leaping heart that it +was no longer flat. Along it a black line rose, and grew ragged as it +came nearer, and became an endless line of cliffs, marching straight +north and south as far as the eye could see.... The Barrier! + +Dworn recognized familiar landmarks, and altered his direction a little +so as to be heading directly for the year's-end rendezvous. He knew, +from childhood memories even, the outline of that vast stone rampart as +it appeared by moonlight. Every year the Barrier formed the eastern +limit of the beetles' annual migration, as naturally as the shore of the +sea was its westward terminus. So it had been for a thousand years or +more, as far back as the oldest traditions reached: generation after +generation, hunting, foraging, and fighting--from the Barrier to the +ocean, from the ocean to the Barrier. + + * * * * * + +To right and left the serried cliffs stretched out of sight--the edge of +the world, so far as beetles knew. If you examined the contour of its +rim, you could see how it corresponded point by point to the +irregularities of the hilly land on its hither side. Some time, +millennia ago, a great fault in the earth's crust had given way, and the +unknown lands of the continental interior had been lifted as if on a +platform, five hundred feet above the coastal regions. Or perhaps the +coast had sunk. Legend attributed the event to the ancients' wars, when, +it was said, some unimaginable weapon had cleft the continent +asunder.... + +Dworn perforce slowed his breakneck pace as the ground grew uneven +again. He guided his machine with instinctive skill over the ascending +slopes and ridges, eyes combing the moon-shadows for the first sign of +his people. + +Then, a couple of miles ahead, he glimpsed lights. His heart bounded +up--then sank with a prescient dismay; there was something wrong-- + +The fires that winked up there--four, no, five of them, under the very +rim just before the cliffs rose sheer--didn't look like campfires. They +were unequally spaced, and they flared up and waned oddly by turns, +glowing evilly red. + +Dworn braked the beetle to a stop on a patch of high ground, and sat +straining to discern the meaning of those ominous beacons. To his +imagination, rasped raw by expectation and the tension of long travel, +they became red eyes of menace, warnings.... He tried the infrared +viewer, but it showed no more than he could see with the naked eye. Only +ghosts paraded across the screen, ghosts of the folded slopes that rose +to the abrupt wall of the Barrier. Nothing seemed moving there; the +whole sweep of broken and tumbled landscape appeared dead and lifeless +as the moon. + +But yonder burned the fires. + +Sternly Dworn reminded himself that this night he was mature, a warrior +of the proud beetle race. He thrust his fears resolutely aside; there +was nothing to do but find out. + +The beetle drifted forward, but cautiously now, at a stalking pace. +Dworn took advantage of the lie of the land, continually seeking cover +as he advanced, to shield him from whatever eyes might be watching from +the silent slopes above. + +Boulders lay ever more thickly strewn as he neared the Barrier cliffs, +and he skirted patches of gravel and loose stones that would have +crunched loudly under his wheels. Only occasionally, emerging into the +open, he glimpsed his objective, but his sense of direction kept him +bearing steadily toward the fires. + +Fifteen minutes later, the beetle's blunt nose thrusting from under a +shelf of rock that would disguise its outline if anything was watching, +its motor noiselessly idling, Dworn knew that his premonitions had not +been in vain. He looked out upon a scene that chilled his blood. + +The burning machines, scattered for two hundred yards along the talus +slope where destruction had come upon them or where they had plunged out +of control, were beetles. Or they had been. Now they were wrecks, +smashed, overturned, fitfully aflame. + +There was no sign of an enemy. But here was the havoc which some +powerful enemy had wrought, it could not have been long ago. + +He strove to find identifying marks on the blackened hulks, but in the +uncertain light could make out at first no more than the female +ornaments which had graced two or three of them. Names and faces flashed +through Dworn's mind; he could not know yet who had perished here, which +faces he would not see again.... + +It hardly occurred to him to speculate that anyone might be left alive +on the scene of the debacle. For one thing, the destruction's +thoroughness was too evident, and besides, in Dworn's mind, by all his +background 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 as +a fuel tank blew up. The flare revealed the pillar of smoke, +blood-colored by reflection, that towered into the night above the +scene. + +And it revealed more. For Dworn saw by that unholy light that one of the +nearer beetles--capsized and burned out, its carapace burst raggedly +open--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 out +aloud. Somehow it had not even crossed his mind that his father Yold +could have been among the slain in whatever disaster had fallen upon +the beetles here.... Others might die; but his father was a pillar of +strength that could not fall--the grave iron-willed chief, demanding and +rewarding, for his son impartially as for all the people.... + +Dworn's breath choked in his throat and his eyes stung. Fiercely he told +himself 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 of +whatever race had done his father to death. Until then, his father's +insatiate 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 dull +sheen of metal moving, and he froze the gesture that had been about to +send 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 hastily +twisted his sound-receptor control to maximum. The crackling of the +flames swelled to a hissing roar, but through it he heard the +unmistakable creaking sound of treads. Beyond the smoke moved an +indistinct and monstrous shape. + +Dworn's jaw muscles set rock-hard and his hand flashed to another +control. His turret gun revolved soundlessly, and the crosshairs of the +sight danced across the mirrored image of the approaching thing. His +finger poised over the firing button, he braced himself to fling his +machine into swift evasive action before the enemy's perhaps +overwhelming firepower could reply-- + +The monster lumbered slowly into the light, canted far over and +traveling with an odd sidling motion along the steep rubbly slope. Great +treads set far out on each side of the squat, ungainly body preserved it +against overturning. Its flattened forward turret swiveled nervously +from side to side, peering blackly from vision ports steel-shuttered +down to squinting slits. + +And Dworn relaxed. The red hatred that had blazed up in him subsided +into mere disgust; he watched the great machine's wary progress with a +familiar, instinctive contempt. It was a scavenger, huge but not very +formidable, drawn from afar by the fires which promised loot, +salvageable scrap, perhaps even usable parts, fuel or ammunition.... It +could not possibly have been responsible for the carnage; such cowardly +creatures gave a wide berth to the beetle horde. + +The monster ground to a halt amid the wreckage. Then its engine bellowed +with sudden power and it spun half round, one tread spraying gravel, and +backed hastily away up the slope. And Dworn was aware that the noise of +creaking treads had redoubled. He cast about, and saw, laboring upward +from below, another big machine, closely similar to the first. + +Both scavengers came to a stop, facing one another across the fading of +the fires, their unmuffled engines grumbling sullenly. Dworn watched +them narrowly, expecting the shooting to begin any moment. But the +scavengers' way of life was not one that encouraged reckless valor. +After a long minute, a hatch-cover was lifted in the first arrival's +armored back; a cautious head thrust forth, and shouted hoarsely, words +clear 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 different +voice answered: "Don't talk foolishness, brother. We've got as much +right here as you, and anyway we _saw_ it first!" + +The first voice thickened with belligerence. "We've got the advantage of +the ground on you, brother. Better back up!" + +"Oh, go smelt pebbles!" snarled the other. No doubt that was a scathing +rejoinder among the scavengers. + + * * * * * + +Dworn grimaced scornfully and brought his turret-gun to bear on an +outcropping midway between the disputants. Either of them outweighed the +little beetle twenty times over--but at this juncture a single +unexpected shot would probably send both of them scuttling for cover-- + +But he halted again on the verge of firing. For he had not stopped +listening, and now his trained ears picked out another, an unfamiliar +sound from the background of noises. + +It was a queer rattle and scurry, mingled with a high-pitched buzz that +could only come from a number of small but high-speed motors. It was not +a sound the exact like of which Dworn remembered having heard before. He +went rigid, staring, as the sound's source came into view. + +A column of little machines--lighter even than a beetle, and more +elongated--advancing in single file, multiple wheels swerving in the +leader's tracks as the column wound nearer along the mountainside. As +the firelight fell on them they gleamed with the mild sheen of aluminum. +Round vision-ports stared glassily, and turbines buzzed feverishly +shrill. + +With astonishing bravado, the flimsy little vehicles, one behind +another, came parading onto the wreck-strewn slope. + +And what was more startling still--no two of them were alike. The leader +mounted a winch in plain view; behind came another machine fitted with +oddly-shaped grappling claws, and next one bearing a mysterious device +terminating in front in a sort of flexible trunk.... Strangely, too, +they didn't seem to carry any armament--no snouting guns, no flame or +gas projectors. + +Despite that fact or perhaps because of it, something sounded an alarm +deep in Dworn's mind. + +Their diversity itself was uncanny, that was certain. In all Dworn's +experience, machines were the work of races whose traditions of +construction, handed down from forgotten antiquity, were as fixed and +unvarying as the biological heredity that made one race light-haired, +another dark.... + +A hatch-cover clanged shut, and another. The squabbling scavengers had +finally noticed the appearance of outside competition. The one upslope +raced 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 laid +hold on one of the wrecked beetles and, whining with effort, sought to +drag it to leveler ground. A second, following, spat a burst of sparks +and extended a gleaming arm tipped by the singing blue radiance of a +cutting torch. + +The first-come scavenger growled throatily and lumbered toward the +interlopers, plainly taking heart from their air of harmless stupidity. +Behind it, the other scavenger came clattering up the slope to its +fellow's aid. + +Flame bloomed thunderously from the muzzle of the first one's forward +gun. The machine with the torch was flung bodily into the air and went +rolling and bouncing down the hill, wheels futilely spinning. The gun +roared again, and the exploding shell tore open a flimsy aluminum body +from nose to tail. Motors whirred frantically as the pygmies scattered +before the charging behemoth. One of them darted witlessly right under +the huge treads, and disappeared with a brief screech of crumpling +metal. + + * * * * * + +The fight was over as quickly as it had begun. The scavenger wheeled, +snorting, and fired one more shot into the dark after its routed +opponents.... + +Dworn muttered an imprecation under his breath. No chance of frightening +the scavengers off now that their blood was up and their differences +forgotten; and a lone beetle could scarcely stand up to two of them in a +knock 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 safe +distance he began circling round, downslope. + +What he could and must do now was to locate what was left of his native +horde. It had numbered about fifty when he had departed for his +wanderyear; a dozen, perhaps more, had died on the mountain tonight. He +must seek out the survivors, and help plan retaliation against whatever +enemy had dealt them this terrible blow. + +Yet something else nagged at his mind, until he halted to gaze achingly +once more toward the glowing embers up there, where the scavengers now +clanked to and fro about their business. + +Dworn recognized that what bothered him was the puzzle of the +unidentified little machines that had turned up on the battlefield only +to be sent packing. During his yearlong solitary struggle to survive, he +had developed an extra sense or two--and in the queerly confident +behavior of those buzzing strangers he had scented danger, a trap.... + +So it happened that he was still looking on at the moment when the trap +was sprung. + +A star, it seemed, fell almost vertically from the zenith, falling and +expanding with the uncanny silence of flight faster than sound. The +scavengers had no time to act. Dworn caught one faint glimpse of a +winged shape against the sky, limned by the flashes that stabbed from it +as it leveled out of its terrific dive. + +One scavenger shuddered with the force of a heavy explosion somewhere +within it, and subsided, smoking. The other too staggered under +crippling impacts, but ground somehow into motion, spinning and sliding +crazily down the gravel slope. Then, as the first attacker's shock-wave +made the very earth tremble, a second and a third plunged from the black +heights, and as the last one rose screeching from its swoop the whole +lower face of the hillside boomed into a holocaust of flame and oily +smoke. The fleeing scavenger was gone, enveloped somewhere in an acre of +fiery hell. + +Dworn, two hundred yards away, felt a searing breath of heat, and with +a great effort controlled the impulse to whirl round and race for opener +ground. He sat still, hands cramped sweating on the beetle's controls, +while the sky whistled vindictively with the flight of things that +circled in search of further targets. + +When, after a seeming eon, their screaming died away, he released held +breath in a long sigh. He found himself trembling with reaction. Still +he didn't stir. He was ransacking his memory for something he should be +able to recall but which eluded him--a myth, perhaps, heard as a child +beside the campfires of the horde-- + +The old men would know; Yold would have known. At thought of his father, +the grief and fury rose up again in Dworn, and this time he knew the +object of his vengeful anger. There was small doubt now in his mind that +those flying machines which struck so swiftly and so murderously had +been the beetles' attackers. + +But he didn't know what they were. He knew, of course, about the +machines called hornets, which could fly and strike at fearful speeds +like that, outracing sound. But the hornets flew only in daylight, and +made no trouble for the nocturnal race of beetles. These--were something +else. + +And more--between the deadly night-fliers and the harmless-looking +aluminum crawlers he had seen, Dworn sensed some connection, some +unnatured symbiosis. He had heard vague rumors about such arrangements, +but had half-discounted them; any of the peoples whom he knew at first +hand would have scorned to enter into alliance with an alien species. + +Lastly, he realized bitterly, he didn't even know where the enemy's +lair, their base on the ground, might be.... + + * * * * * + +The moon stood high now. But the Barrier, close at hand now, rose like +an immense black wall, folded in shadows, revealing no secrets--walling +off the world the beetles knew from the unknown beyond. Involuntarily +Dworn shivered. He couldn't be sure--but it seemed to him that the +destroyers had come from over the Barrier and had flown back there. + +He set his machine in cautious motion again and stole along, making +northward and keeping close to the Barrier. It occurred to him that the +beetle horde, routed and fleeing, might well have hugged the cliffs for +protection against flying foes. + +The going here was not easy. The terrain seemed increasingly unfamiliar +though he should have known every foot of it. But--he remembered no +such tumbled crags, no such great heaps of stony detritus as blocked his +way and forced him into long detours.... + +Finally he halted to take his bearings, and, looking up, discovered what +had happened. The black rampart of the Barrier was notched and broken. +Sometime in the past year, since Dworn had left this place to begin his +wandering, a quarter-mile-wide section of the upper crags, hollowed and +loosened by the slow working of millennial erosion, had fallen and +spilled millions of tons of rock crashing and shattering onto the slopes +below. Here now water would run when the rains fell, and in ten or +twenty thousand years, perhaps, a river-course would have completed the +breach. + +Dworn wondered fleetingly whether any living thing had been here when +the cliffs fell. If so, it was buried now, crumbling bone and corroding +metal, under the mountain for all time to come. + +He set about skirting the rockfall, still searching the ground for +traces of beetle wheels. But there were very few wheel or tread marks of +any description to be seen--and that was strange in itself. + +Impulsively he halted again and listened, his amplifier turned up. He +should have heard faroff engine-mutterings, occasional explosions from +the desert to the west, where normally the predatory machines and their +victims prowled and fought all night long over the sandy tracts and the +desolate ridges.... But there was nothing. A silence, vast and +unnatural, lay upon the wastes in the shadow of the high plateau. + +He looked up again at the fallen rampart of the Barrier. The great +landship had opened, as it were, a gateway to the unknown lands in the +east--a gateway for what? + +There was a strangeness here since last year, and the strangeness crept +chillingly into Dworn's blood, made the mountain air seem thin and cold. + +As he started again, he noticed yet another curious thing. He was +crossing a sandy natural terrace, and the soft soil here was traversed +by a row of indented marks that marched in a straight line across the +open space. They were scuffed depressions, such as a ricocheting +projectile might have made--but oddly regular in shape and spacing, +almost, he thought fancifully, like giant footprints, ten feet apart.... + +Dworn was growing numbed to riddles. He shrugged impatiently and pressed +the accelerator again. + +He would push on northward for a few more miles, he determined, and if +he still found no sign of his people, he would circle back to the +south.... + +The moonlight shadow of the huge tilted boulder ahead was inky. But +Dworn was keeping to the shadows by preference, remembering the death +from above; so he cut close around the overhanging rock. + +Too late to swerve, then, he saw the gleam of something stretched across +his path. A metallic glint of deceptively slender strands which, as the +beetle rolled headlong into them, snapped taut without breaking, sprang +back and flipped the beetle clean over to fetch up against the rock with +an ear-shattering bang. + +Half-stunned by the suddenness of it and the violence with which he had +been flung about, Dworn blurrily saw other cables settling from +overhead, coiling almost like living things around his overturned +machine. Then he glimpsed something else; stalking monstrously down from +the unscalable crag above, its armor glimmering in the moonlight, a +machine such as he had never imagined--a machine without wheels or +treads, a nightmare moving on jointed steel legs that flexed and found +holds for clawed steel feet with the smooth precision of well-oiled +pistons. A machine that walked. + +Capsized, its vulnerable underside exposed, the beetle was all but +helpless. One hope remained. With wooden fingers Dworn groped for the +emergency button, found it-- + +The propellant-charge went off beneath him with a deafening roar. The +beetle was hurled upward and sidewise, in an arc that should have +brought it down on its wheels again--but the ensnaring cables tightened +and held, and Dworn's head slammed against something inside the cabin. +The world burst apart into a shower of lights and darkness.... + + * * * * * + +Dworn came awake to a pounding head and blurred light in his eyes. He +moved, and sensed that he was bound. + +His vision cleared. He saw that he was in a closed, half-darkened +chamber--and that discovery alone made him shudder, he who as a free +beetle had spent his whole life under desert skies. His feet rested on a +floor of hard-packed sand, and his back, behind which his wrists were +lashed together was propped uncomfortably against a wall ribbed with +metal girders. The room was circular and its walls converged upward, +into tangled shadows overhead; the chamber was roughly bottle-shaped. + +To one side a door stood ajar, and it was thence that the light +streamed, but from where he was Dworn couldn't see into the space +beyond. + +He tried hard to collect his thoughts. When had everything stopped +making sense? When he had first glimpsed the fires that were burning +beetles on the mountainside, or.... + +The converging lines of the wall-girders led his eyes upward. The +shadows overhead resolved themselves as he studied them, and Dworn's +heart pounded as he commenced to understand what manner of place he was +in. The roof of the bottle-shaped chamber--he was sure it must be +underground--was no roof, but was the underside of a great machine +complex with gear-housings and levers connected with the six powerful +metal legs radiating from it, their cleated feet resting on a shelf that +encircled the bottle-neck. It squatted there, motionless above him, +sealing the entrance to its burrow.... + +Trapped. For some reason he couldn't guess at, he had been taken +alive--his human body, at least; he didn't know what had become of the +rest of him, the machine that was part and parcel of him too. + +The light suddenly brightened. The door at one side was swinging open. + +Dworn blinked at the glare from the lighted room beyond. Against it a +figure stood in silhouette, and he saw that it was a woman. + +She was slender, not very tall, and her hair was jet-black, a striking +frame for a startlingly pale face. Here beneath the earth she must not +get much sun.... In that white face her lips were shockingly red, the +color of fresh blood. And the nails of her slim white fingers were +crimson claws. After a moment, he realized that both must be painted--a +strange thing to him, for there was no such practice among beetle women. + +She was clad in a coverall suit of much the same design as the green +garment Dworn wore according to beetle custom. But her garb was shiny +black, and in front, between the swelling mounds of her breasts, was an +emblem he did not understand; the shape of an hourglass, in vermilion +red. + +She stood gazing at him, smiling a little with a curve of scarlet lips +that revealed white, sharp-looking teeth. Dworn groped for his voice; +but she spoke first. + +"Patience, beetle," she said. "I'll attend to you in a moment." + +The words had the accent of a strange speech, but they were +intelligible. Dworn stared uncomprehendingly at her, mumbled, +"Who--_what_ are you?" + +She moved nearer and stood smiling down at him. "Why, beetle, don't you +know?... I'm the spider who caught you." + +"_Spi-der?_" Dworn fumbled with the unfamiliar word. "I don't--" + +Her eyes too were black, very black and intense. She said slowly, "You +don't know about spiders, beetle? Strange. It must be that till now +there were none of our kind on this side of the Rim." + + * * * * * + +Dworn's aching head was not serving him well, but a part of his +intelligence functioned to grapple with the implication of her words. +"The Rim"--that must mean the Barrier, as seen from its eastern side. +Then she, and others like her, must have come from beyond the Barrier. A +walking machine could descend by the broken path of the landslide. + +But "spider"--the word rang some bell deep in his mind, some +recollection of childhood's fairytale bogeys perhaps, but he still +hadn't succeeded in grasping the memory. + +He growled, "I don't know--but if you'd untie my hands, I'd show you +what a beetle is." + +She eyed him thoughtfully. Then she smiled, showing the sharp little +white teeth again. "Presently I'll free you. When it's quite safe. As +soon as--" Her hand dipped to a small black case secured to her belt, +and came up with a diminutive gleaming object--a slender needle +thrusting from a liquid-filled plastic cylinder fitted with a plunger. +"Do you know what _this_ is, beetle?" + +Dworn glowered silently. + +"When I've injected this fluid into your veins, you will have no will of +your own left. You'll do what I say, and only what I say--for the rest +of your life, beetle!" + +Dworn's eyes clung in unwilling fascination to the glittering needle. He +said through stiff lips, "Now I remember. Your kind is a legend among my +people. The evil women who have no men ... who kill their male children +at birth, and trap their mates from among the other races, and kill +them, too, when they no longer want them.... _Spider!_" + +His gaze collided squarely with hers, and she needed no skill to read +the loathing in it, rendered more violent by her beauty that he could +not help but see. + +Her eyes dropped first. She clutched the needle and muttered fiercely to +herself, "But when you've had the injection, it won't matter. I'll say, +'Love me!' and you'll love me, and 'Die!' and you'll die...." + +Dworn stared burningly at the slim figure in black with the scarlet +hourglass on her bosom. He was alert again, and his mind was racing. To +all appearances he was lost--but something in the spider girl's manner +gave him an unreasonable hope. + +He said abruptly, "So. Why didn't you use your poison while I was +stunned? That would have been easy." + +She looked away. "You ask foolish questions, beetle. Naturally, I had to +prepare myself according to our customs. I had to paint my face and make +myself beautiful...." + +He said inspiredly, "You _are_ beautiful." + +Her reaction was surprising. She stood gazing raptly at him, lips +slightly parted the hypodermic forgotten in her hand. Dworn sensed that +had he been unbound, he would have had no trouble overpowering her. + +She whispered, "_It's true, then!_" + +And he realized forcibly how young she was--the painted lips made her +look much older, and the shadows--which he now saw were also painted +on--beneath her eyes. Only a girl, and if she had been one of his own +people he would have looked at her twice and more than twice.... + +But above their heads the great spider-machine's underparts gleamed +dully, straddling the sunken den. And the spell lasted only a moment. + +The girl straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. "Why am I +talking to a beetle? It's time--" + + * * * * * + +There was a clang of metal from somewhere in the room beyond. The girl's +face reflected sudden fright, beneath its painted mask. She spun round +and took two steps toward the inner door, but even as she did so, the +door swung wide, and dark figures crowded through it. + +The girl cried, with terror and anger in her voice, "What do you mean, +coming into my Nest like this? You have no right--" + +The interlopers were three in number, and all of them were women, +wearing black garments like the girl's, with the red spider symbol on +the breast. The one in the lead was elderly, her hair wisped with gray, +and her face was lined by years and passions; her eyes were flinty, her +mouth thin and cruel. The other two were younger; one was a strapping +blonde wench taller than Dworn, who moved with a powerful and formidable +grace; the other was short, soft-looking, with a child's pouting mouth +and a queer, mad glint in her dark eyes. + +The older woman said, "No right? You've had your own Nest for all of +three months now, dear Qanya, and already you tell your Mother that she +has no right to enter?" + +The girl quailed. She retreated step by step until her back was against +the wall beside Dworn, and met the old woman's eyes with a look half +fright, half defiance. + +"But, of course, you have your reasons," the Spider Mother went on +bitingly. Her hard eyes stabbed at the bound and helpless Dworn. +"Somewhere you managed to catch this, and bring him in without letting +anyone know, and paint your face and prepare the needle.... You chose to +forget that in times like these there are others of the Family whose +claim to a mate has priority over yours!" + +"_That's_ true, Mother!" said the tall blonde energetically. The plump +girl licked her full lips and said nothing. + +"Quiet, Purri!" snapped the Spider Mother. Her eyes raked the girl Qanya +again. "Well, and what do you have to say for yourself?" + +Qanya's black eyes flashed. "I caught him myself," she blazed. "You've +no right--" + +"No right, no right," mocked the old woman. "Why, I believe that, if +you'd dared, you'd have blocked up the connecting tunnel so we couldn't +walk in on you. Who has rights is for _me_ to decide--and for me to +decide whether you're whipped and sent back to the young girls' +dormitory. Until I've made up my mind--" She turned and frowned +thoughtfully at her two companions, jabbed a finger at the tall one. +"You, Purri, stay here and see that nothing happens to the catch, and +make sure our little Qanya doesn't misbehave. I'm going to my Nest and +check over the Family ledger, to settle the question of who's first in +line for a mate. We've got to be strict, now that the cursed +night-fliers are everywhere and it's been so long since we trapped a +presentable male." She eyed Dworn once more, and smiled thinly. "He's a +fine youth. Who knows? I might even take him for myself." + +Dworn had no stomach for the compliment. Secretly, he was twisting his +bound hands behind him, trying to loosen the knots. Those knots had been +none too skillfully tied, and given time.... But he had to desist as the +tall Purri strode near and stood over him. She cast a glance after the +retreating backs of the Spider Mother and her other proteges, then +devoted all her attention to Dworn, surveying him in critical silence +and with a business-like eye for detail. + +Qanya huddled against the wall; her dark eyes were enormous, and tears +had streaked the make-up on her cheeks. + +Purri nodded satisfiedly. "He'll do," she said matter-of-factly to +Qanya. "The Mother should give him to me. It's a choice between me and +Marza, really--" She jerked her head toward the door through which the +dark, pouting girl had gone--"But Marza doesn't really appreciate a +mate. All she cares about is seeing how long she can take to make them +die." + +Qanya stared hotly at her. She said in a stifled voice, "You're a beast, +and Marza is a beast, and--" + +"Careful!" said Purri lazily. "If you say anything against the Mother, +I'll have to report you." Arms akimbo, she looked scornfully down at the +younger girl's tearful face. + + * * * * * + +Dworn had been right about the knots Qanya had tied. They were slipping. +He wrestled in silence, hoping for a little more time.... Then he was +sickeningly aware that Qanya was looking toward him, had seen what he +was doing. For an instant he froze. + +Qanya said hurriedly, "Anyway, _you're_ a beast, Purri. A greedy one. +You've had two mates already--why didn't you make them last? And I've +not even had one." + +"When you're older," said Purri loftily, her back still turned to the +struggling beetle, "you'll understand more. But you ought to know from +your schooling that there are some races that mate for life--and among +them, the males dominate the female. We spiders are above such degrading +practices." + +Qanya's eyes flicked momentarily to Dworn, who was wrenching at the +final knot. "Yes, yes, I know," she said. "But I still say it isn't +fair--" + +Dworn came catlike to his feet, ignoring the pain of cramped limbs. The +cord with which he had been bound was looped in his hands. With a single +stride he was upon the unwarned Purri; one hand clamped over her mouth, +cutting off outcry, and the other hand whipped the cord tight around +her. She fought with the strength of a man, but futilely. Dworn ripped a +length of fabric from her clothing and improvised a gag; when he was +done, the spider woman could do no more than kick and gurgle a little. + +During the brief struggle, Qanya had watched without making a sound, +hands pressed against the girdered wall at her back. As Dworn faced her +now, breathing hard, he saw fear written large in her face. + +She whispered, "Beetle, you won't hurt me?" + +Dworn hesitated briefly. There was no doubt she had helped him--if only +out of jealousy of the others. But at the same time she was a spider, a +natural enemy. And time was desperately vital. In a flash of +inspiration, he saw that there was one way to make sure of his escape. + +"If you're quiet," he promised, "I won't hurt you. Not much, anyway." +Then his arm was about her, pinioning her, while his free hand snaked to +her waist and plucked the hypodermic from its case. For a moment she +struggled and even tried to bite him, as she saw what he was about to +do. Then, clumsily but effectively, he had stabbed the needle into her +upper arm and pressed the plunger home. + +He felt her stiffen and then relax, shivering, as the drug coursed +through her blood. He released her and stepped back, watching her +warily. + +"How do you like your own medicine, spider?" he demanded harshly. + +The girl stood motionless. Her black eyes, fixed on him, seemed to dull +as if with sleep. + +"Do you hear me?" + +"Yes," she said tonelessly. + +"Do you obey me if I give you orders?" + +"Yes." + +Dworn grinned exultantly. It had worked--But there was no time to lose. +The Spider Mother might return any moment. + +"Where is my machine?" + +She answered without expression, "I left it where it was. I didn't want +it, I was only seeking a mate." + +Dworn sighed with heartfelt relief. He looked upward, toward the +spider-machine overhead: "All right. I command you to take me back to +the place where you left my beetle." + +Qanya turned silently toward a slender steel ladder that rose to the +belly of the crouching metal monster. Dworn followed her, his nerves +still strung close to the snapping point, but with hope leaping in +him.... On the floor, the trussed-up Purri stared up with round eyes and +made smothered noises. + + * * * * * + +They clambered into the spider through a port in its underside, past the +engines and the great drums of steel cable which served to snare the +spider's prey. The space within was cramped, barely big enough to hold +two, and its instruments and controls were bewilderingly strange to +Dworn. The tangle of switches and levers that must govern the mechanical +legs made no sense at all to him, and he felt a moment of near-panic: +if the hypnotic injection's magic should fail, he would be quite +helpless here. + +Braving it out, he snapped, "Make it go!" + +Obediently Qanya touched this and that control. The spider's engine +throbbed with power, and its legs straightened, lifting it so quickly as +to cause a sinking sensation in the stomach. From overhead came a +creaking, and a band of light appeared and widened, grew dazzling as a +circular trapdoor opened on daylight. + +Dworn caught his breath. He hadn't reckoned with its being daytime; +evidently he had been unconscious longer than he had supposed. But he +couldn't worry about that. + +"Go on!" he rasped. "Outside!" + +The machine clambered stiffly out of its burrow; sand crunched under its +steel feet. Blinking at the sun, Dworn saw that the trap opened on a +stretch of boulder-strewn wasteland; it must not be far from the foot of +the great slide. The trapdoor was coated with sand to make it appear +only a half-buried rock, and in the near distance were other, closely +similar outcroppings that were very likely the entrances to other +spiders' burrows. + +"Get us away from here! Quick!" ordered Dworn shakily. + +Still wordlessly, her face smooth and mask-like, the girl set the +walking machine in motion. It moved with a queer rolling gait which made +Dworn dizzy, though it stilted over the irregularities of the ground +with scarcely a jar. Dworn felt nakedly exposed, riding high above the +ground in broad daylight, but he gritted his teeth and tried not to +think of the probability of attack by some day-faring marauder. He +supposed the spider girl, accustomed likewise to a nocturnal life, would +have felt the same fear of the light, if she hadn't been hypnotized. + +Under the drug's influence she apparently couldn't speak unless spoken +to. However, there were questions he wanted to ask her. + +First--"What do you know about the attack on the beetles last night?" + +"I know there was a battle," said Qanya flatly, without looking up from +the controls. "I didn't see it, but the Mother and some others were +prowling at the time, and saw. It was the flying things, which have +given us too so much trouble." + +That, if true--and he judged that it _must_ be true--confirmed his prior +suspicion, and killed another suspicion he had entertained for a little +while--that the spiders themselves might have been the ambushers. He +demanded, "What do you know about those night-fliers?" + +"Very little. We do not know just what they are or where they came from. +They began appearing hereabouts only four months ago, which was three +months after the Rim collapsed and the Mother decided that we should +descend and try the hunting on this side. Since then they've grown more +and more numerous. They fly by day as well as by night, and attack +everything that moves. They've taken several of our Family, and I think +they've made heavy depredations on the peoples that inhabit this region. +We spiders would have abandoned the location before now, but we feared +to be caught migrating in the open...." + + * * * * * + +Dworn gazed apprehensively out at the glaring desert that was rolling +past the spider windows. The news that the aerial killers also operated +by day was most unwelcome. But as yet there was no sign of an enemy. + +He said, "The little ground machines--unarmored, made of aluminum. +They're allied in some way to the flying ones, aren't they?" + +"We think so. Wherever the flying machines have made a kill, the +crawlers appear before long to carry away the spoils. And if they're +attacked--the fliers come swooping down within minutes to defend or +avenge them. So most of the other inhabitants have learned to leave the +crawlers alone; it's extremely dangerous to meddle with them." + +Dworn could confirm that fact from his own observation. + +Evidently the spider folk, even though they came from beyond the Barrier +as the mysterious others apparently had too, knew little more than he +himself had already discovered. But--there was one more question. + +"Do you know," he asked tensely, "where these strangers' home base is? +Where do they fly from?" + +The girl looked doubtful. "We're sure only that it's somewhere beyond +the Rim, where we used to live." + +That much, too, he had guessed. Dworn subsided into glum silence, as +Qanya impassively guided the machine on its way, covering distance at a +surprising speed. + +Then, even by the unaccustomed daylight, Dworn recognized first one +landmark and then another, and knew they were approaching the spot where +he had been trapped last night. A weird return, riding as master in the +monstrous machine that had snared him! + +As the great tilted rock hove in view, Dworn strained for the first +glimpse of his abandoned vehicle. When he saw it, lying still overturned +in the shadow of the boulder, he sighed in relief. Its door was ajar, +where Qanya must have dragged him stunned from the machine last night +... but it appeared unscathed. The fear at the back of his mind, that +scavengers might have happened on it--in which case they would have had +it dismantled and carried away by now--was happily unrealized. For that +he perhaps had partly to thank the enemy against whom he had sworn +vengeance, the flying fiends who had decimated and terrorized the +peoples native to this land.... + +"All right," he ordered. "Stop here!" + +The walking machine crunched to a halt, standing almost over the beetle. +Dworn looked at the spider girl, then, in irresolution. + +In the pitiless daylight she was still piquantly beautiful, though her +pale face was still smudged with the remnants of her ceremonial make-up +and her eyes were veiled, withdrawn. Yes, she was even desirable.... +Dworn put that thought determinedly out of his head. After all, she was +an alien and an enemy; she had sought to make a doomed slave of him. + +But now that her usefulness to him was over, he didn't know just what to +do about her. The sensible thing would be, of course, simply to kill +her. Somehow he felt that he couldn't do that. It was one thing to kill +in the impersonal fury of machine combat, a different matter when the +victim was helpless within your reach.... And he remembered that she +_had_ helped him escape. + +He could command her to return to her people, to the tender mercies of +the Spider Mother--who would know by now of Qanya's part in Dworn's +disappearance. Damn it, that would probably be worse than killing her in +cold blood! He was wasting time. Angry at himself for his unbeetlelike +softness, Dworn postponed deciding what to do with her till he should +have inspected his machine and made sure it was in shape to travel. + +"Come along," he told the girl gruffly. "Outside." + +Once more she obeyed unprotesting. The two clambered out of the belly of +the standing spider--Qanya staring before her with sleepwalking fixity, +Dworn nervously scanning sky and horizon for hostile machines. The +sunlit waste was terrifyingly immense bright, and empty. With a physical +ache of yearning he longed for the cramped security of his own +machine's cabin. + +He brushed past the girl and ran toward the upside-down beetle--he could +easily right it with a spare emergency cartridge, and then he would be +on his way in a normal world again-- + +He stopped short with one hand on the beetle's dull-black steel flank. +The world seemed to rock around him. + + * * * * * + +The girl watched him without expression as his face went slack with +horror, as he completed his arrested movement and dived into the cabin +to confirm the dreadful discovery that first touch had disclosed to him. + +When Dworn climbed out he was white and shaking. He took a few steps +away from the beetle and sank weakly down on the sunwarmed sand. + +"What's the matter?" asked Qanya. + +He turned and looked dully at her. He had completely forgotten that she +was there. + +He said listlessly, "I'm _dead_." + +"Of course you're dead." Her brows puckered faintly as she gazed at him. +"Naturally, I drained your fuel tanks last night--" + +Dworn surged to his feet and took one step toward her, fists knotted, +blown by a gust of fury. She stared levelly back at him, +unflinching--and he halted, shoulders drooping. "Ah, what's the use?" + +He should have foreseen this--not that it would have done any good if he +had. The beetle's fuel supply had been drunk up by the spider now +towering over them; and the beetle's engine, even idling at minimum +consumption, had used up what little remained in the system, and had +stopped. And it was as if Dworn's own lifeblood had been drained and his +own heart had stopped beating. + +Qanya was still watching him blankly. She said, "Can't you start it +again?" + +Dworn was jolted by the realization that she genuinely didn't understand +that he _was_ dead--that there was no way of restarting an engine once +stopped. Until now he had supposed that all races were the same in that +respect; but evidently spiders were different. In fact, now he +remembered that, when they had entered the spider-vehicle, the girl had +pushed a button that apparently started the engine. Spiders, then, died +and came to life again every day--a startling notion. + +But the beetles--Among the thoughts that tumbled disjointedly through +Dworn's head in this awful moment was a clear vision of the night, five +years ago, when his machine-existence had begun: when, in the horde's +encampment by the sea a thousand miles from here, the beetle's last seam +had been welded, and its engine set going with the appropriate ritual of +birth.... The sixteen-year-old boy's heart had beaten high and proudly, +in tune with the heart of steel and fire that had begun to throb at that +moment. And the life expectancy of the two was measured with the same +measure, the life of flesh and that of metal indissolubly entwined.... + +He mumbled dazedly, "I'm dead, do you hear? Dead!" + +There was a sudden howling in the sky. Flashing overhead, as the two +stood momentarily petrified, went a shrieking flight of half a dozen +winged shapes--stubby vanes slanting back from vicious noses, they +hurtled low over the desert and vanished swiftly into the distance, +dust-devils dancing across the ground in the whirling wind of their +passage. + +Dworn stared after them, and his eyes narrowed. A new and desperate +resolve had begun shaping itself in his mind. + +Of the things he had meant to do in life, it was no use thinking any +more of rejoining his people. He was dead to them, for sure--not even a +beetle any more, but only what was left of one, a ghost.... But a holy +duty, stronger than death, remained to him; his father was still +unrevenged. + +What he could do against a foe so powerful as those who had just passed +over, he had no idea--but perhaps a ghost could accomplish what a living +man might well deem impossible. + +He motioned Qanya peremptorily toward the waiting spider-machine. "Come +on. We're taking your machine, and we're going to find _them_!" + +For a moment she seemed to hesitate ... then she obeyed. If her face was +paler than usual, Dworn failed to notice it. + + * * * * * + +The spider-vehicle lurched and swayed, even its marvelous system of +shock-absorbers protesting as it climbed steeply, straddling upward from +rock to rock. + +Dworn clutched at handholds inside the pitching cabin and tried to +combat the sympathetic lurching of his stomach. Qanya huddled tensely +over the controls, slim hands flashing nimbly to and fro as with +incredible deftness she guided the laboring machine. + +Dworn risked a glimpse from the turret-windows, then shut his eyes with +a rush of giddiness. They were climbing now up the steepest part of the +great slide, where the mountainside had collapsed in a chaos of +splintered rock and tumbled crags that would have been utterly +impassible for any wheeled vehicle. Below them, the sloping valley floor +they had left appeared from this height entirely flat and sickeningly +far away. And still the cliff-heads frowning above them seemed terribly +remote. + +"How ... far?" gasped Dworn. + +"It can't be very far now to the top," said Qanya, without glancing up +from her absorbed concentration. Both their lives were in her hands; a +slip, a misstep, and they might fall hundreds of feet among the jagged +rocks to their death. + +For seconds at a time, the walking machine poised motionless, one or +more of its clawed limbs groping for footholds. As it clambered +painfully upward, it was hopelessly exposed to attack if it should be +sighted from the air. + +_Dworn_, the beetle told himself savagely, _you are not only a ghost, +you are an insane ghost_. _Only a madman would have undertaken such a +journey._ + +The cabin heeled wildly as the machine grappled a ledge and, its engine +panting at full throttle, levered itself upward a few more feet. + +He had commanded the spider girl to find the route by which her people +had descended. But twice already they had missed the way and had arrived +at dead ends beyond which it was impossible to climb higher; twice they +had been forced to descend and search for an easier path. It had been +scarcely noon when they started; now the sun was already sinking low. + +Dworn could not even be sure that he would find his sworn enemies beyond +the Barrier. But the duty of vengeance was all he had left to live for, +since what was to have been his triumphal return had ended in +bereavement and catastrophe. + +_And a dead man_, thought Dworn bleakly, _needs something to live for, +even more than other people do_. + +The world came level again, for the moment. The machine sidled +precariously along a narrow ledge girdling an unscalable wall of rock, +as Qanya sought a spot to resume the ascent. Dworn winced at the thought +that the way might be blocked again. But, no--fifty yards further on, +the wall was breached, and toppled boulders formed a perilous but not +impossible stairway. + +Just as Qanya grasped the levers which would set the spider scrambling +upward once more, there was a sound--one grown hatefully familiar to +Dworn since the night before, the feverish buzzing of a number of light +high-speed engines. He opened his mouth to hiss a warning, but Qanya +too had heard. Instantly she guided the spider-machine as close as +possible to the cliff, where the hollowed rock afforded some shelter, +and twirled a knob that made it sink down, legs folding compactly. + +They waited scarcely breathing. A couple of times before they had +huddled like this, while flights of the winged enemies whistled over ... +but the wingless ones? It seemed impossible that they should be up here, +where surely nothing that ran on wheels could travel.... + + * * * * * + +The head of a column of the aluminum crawlers came into view, whirring +along the ledge with a confident air of knowing where they were going. +One by one, the little machines rolled past within a few feet of the +crouching spider, hastening on with an uncanny pre-occupation. + +Dworn saw that, like those he had seen earlier, they were of diverse +kinds; and several of them, fitted with claws and racks for transporting +booty, were heavily laden now with metal plates and girders carved from +some larger machine, a roll of caterpillar tread, a slightly bent +axle.... The last pygmy in line, whose afterbody was a bloated tank, +gurgled as it jolted by, and trailed an aroma of looted fuel. + +A few yards beyond the staring watchers, each of the little plunderers +pivoted sharply in its turn and without even slackening speed vanished +straight into the cliff-face. Dworn and Qanya looked incredulously at +one another. + +"A tunnel!" Dworn grunted in realization. + +That explained one mystery, at least--how, if the winged and wingless +strangers' home base was somewhere above the cliffs, the wheeled +machines contrived to forage at the foot of the Barrier. They must have +one or more inclined tunnels, bored through solid rock for a distance +that staggered Dworn's imagination. Emerging at this level, they had +found or constructed a passable road the rest of the way to the valley +floor.... Now he noticed that the ledge to which the spider had so +laboriously climbed showed signs of being an often-used trail, and the +cliffs it skirted exhibited in places the raw marks of recent blasting. + +"Remember this spot," he told Qanya. "If we should return this same +way--there's evidently an easier path down." + +She said nothing. Dworn wondered wrily if, in her drug beclouded mind, +she was aware of how unlikely it was that either of them would be +returning from beyond the Barrier. + +A mad enterprise indeed--a ghost and a zombie, going to seek out a foe +whose numbers and whose might grew ever more apparent. The tunnel +opening here was clear evidence of engineering resources and skill far +beyond that of any of the machine races Dworn knew. + +Its discovery was no help to them, since it was far too small to admit +the spider. + +"Go on!" Dworn ordered doggedly. "At least we know now that _their_ +dwelling can't be far!" + +Qanya glanced briefly sidelong at him, then moved the levers, and the +spider rocked upright once more and began to climb. + + * * * * * + +The sun was low, and the shadows of rocks and dunes in the valley behind +them were pointing long blue fingers eastward, when the machine +staggered up the last precipitous ascent and stood on level ground at +the summit. + +Dworn took a deep breath and looked ahead, looked for the first time in +his life upon the unknown land beyond the Barrier. + +At first glance, it differed little from any of the desert country where +he had lived all his life. The ground shelved gradually away from the +rocky rim on which they stood; far off, against the darkening eastern +sky, blue mountains rose murkily, but between here and the ranges lay a +vast shallow depression, an arid sink floored with wind-rippled sand. +Perhaps it had been a lake-bed once, before natural or unnatural +cataclysms, and the millennial drying-up of all this country, had +emptied it of water. Or perhaps--as its circular form suggested--it was +one of those other, mysterious depressions which were scattered +irregularly across the face of the earth where no lakes had ever been; +those, legend said, were scars left by the ancients' wars. + +The rich light of the declining sun fell at a shallow angle into the +miles-wide bowl and brought out with startling clarity the maze of +wheel-tracks, crossing and criss-crossing, which covered its sandy +expanse and testified to a fever of recent machine activity there. The +light gleamed, too, here and there, upon scurrying metallic shapes, that +raced by ones and twos or in trickling columns to and from the center of +the bowl, where-- + +Dworn strained his eyes and his capacity for belief in an effort to make +sense of the structures there, miles away. He was not very successful, +for the scene was too unlike anything he had ever looked on before. + +There were certain races which built stationary dwellings--Dworn knew of +the scale-makers who lived, in colonies sometimes of considerable size, +beneath individual armored, anchored domes sunk into the face of some +impregnable rock; he knew of the sand devils with their pits, and now he +had seen also how the spider people nested. But the huge buildings that +loomed yonder, lowering and windowless, and the winged things clustering +thick on the ground about them, were such as he had never seen in his +nomadic life. + +Atop a slender tower that spired above the squat structures he could +make out something which turned and turned, something like a broad net +of lacy wires, revolving steadily from east to west, from north to +south. Strange, too, the smooth-surfaced ways that radiated outward in +four directions, like an immense cross, broad paved roads that came to +abrupt dead ends a mile or more from the central buildings.... After a +moment, though, he guessed that those were runways for the aircraft +which flew from this place. + +The unknown builders were obviously a mighty people, a people who had +perfected their peculiar form of organization on a gigantic scale. And a +people who acted and thought strangely; for their behavior, as Dworn had +observed it, suggested a chilly-blooded and fanatic discipline, a +regimentation which he found monstrous and repellent. + +Dworn turned questioning eyes on Qanya. + +"I don't know what they are," she answered his unspoken query in a voice +that faltered. "I remember this valley. But a few months ago it was +uninhabited. All this has been built since then." + + * * * * * + +Dworn hesitated. He was seeing very clearly now just how hopeless this +mad expedition was. Nevertheless, he had sworn vengeance, and he could +at least perish with honor. + +But--Seeing the fear in Qanya's face, it came to him sharply that, after +all, she had no part in his blood feud. She had served him well by +bringing him this far. The vague plans he had had, of using the +spider-machine for an attack on the enemy, stood revealed as rankest +folly. Big and powerful as the spider was by ordinary standards, against +such as those it could accomplish little more than a man with his bare +hands. + +Which was what Dworn would be--He stifled further reflection, said +crisply: "You can go now. I'll remain here; I have a duty to perform. +But you can return--go make your peace with your people, or whatever you +like." + +Qanya's black eyes met his squarely. "I won't," she said. + +"Now see here--" Dworn began, and broke off, thunderstruck. + +"B-but," he gulped, "you _can't_ disobey me. The drug, the spider +poison--" + +"Doesn't work on a born spider. I must have neglected to mention that, +naturally, _we're_ all immunized against it." She smiled with a flash of +those sharp white teeth. + +"Then--then--" Dworn stumbled, feeling his preconceptions tossed +helter-skelter. "Then you must have come with me--of your own free +will!" + +"At first," murmured Qanya, "I knew you'd never trust me unless I +pretended ... and I was curious, too, to see how it was to be the one +that obeyed. And then ... well, you'd have known, if you'd ever seen how +the drug really works. You should have realized, anyway, when I laughed +at you.... But you do so love to be masterful don't you?" + +For a moment, Dworn's chief emotion was one of quick rage at the +revelation of how thoroughly she'd deceived him. Then the anger subsided +and left him feeling merely foolish, as he saw that she'd merely let him +deceive himself. And, finally--as it came home to him that this girl had +followed him of her own choice into exile and great danger--a new and +quite unaccustomed feeling flooded in on him, a queer sense of humility. + +"I'm sorry," he said confusedly. "I didn't--I don't--understand." + +She breathed in a barely audible voice, "You said I was beautiful.... +And _you_ hadn't the drug." + +From far away, from around the vast, mysterious buildings, came mournful +hooting sounds, a sighing and a sobbing as of some mythical monster in +torment. + +Dworn was rudely recalled to realization of where they were--and of the +fact that, as the spider-machine stood poised here on the cliff-edge, it +would be starkly visible from over there, seen against the setting sun. + +He gave up trying to unsnarl the tangle of his own feelings. He said +hurriedly, "But you should go back. There's no time--I _have_ to go on. +But there's no reason you should die." + +Qanya's face was drawn and determined. "No," she said flatly. + +"I don't know what you're talking about. But I won't leave you now...." + +The distant sighing rose to a whining roar. + +"Quick!" cried Dworn in desperation. "Find cover. I think we've been +seen!" + + * * * * * + +The girl reached for the controls and the spider's engine raced up. But +it was already late. Off yonder, along that one of the radiating runways +that stretched toward them, something was moving, racing swiftly and +more swiftly outward with its long shadow following it. + +All at once the moving thing left its shadow behind, and Dworn +recognized it for an aircraft taking off. + +Then he had to snatch for a handhold as the spider-machine lunged into a +dead run. At full speed on the level ground, it could make good time; +the ground outside skimmed past at fifty or sixty miles an hour. + +Qanya had spied some rocky outcroppings, which might furnish a modicum +of shelter, about a mile away and some distance from the brink of the +cliffs, and she was heading for them. But the terrain nearer at hand was +implacably flat--and the enemy was airborne, a vicious winged shape +growing at terrifying speed. Its whistling roar swelled and grew +deafening. + +Qanya shouted something inaudible and pointed. Dworn understood, and, +holding on for dear life in the pitching cabin, clawed his way within +reach of the fire-controls. Wrestling with the unfamiliar mechanism, he +fought to train the spider's guns on the hurtling attacker. + +Puffs of smoke bloomed high in air--but any hit on such a fast-moving +target, from so unstable a platform, would have been a miracle. The +enemy screeched overhead, and an instant later flame and thunder erupted +all around the running spider. The machine stumbled and for a moment +seemed going down, but it righted itself and staggered on. + +Dworn shook his ringing head and saw the flier banking steeply half a +mile away, while a second and a third were climbing against the sky, +gaining altitude to dive. + +They couldn't last another thirty seconds, couldn't even hope to reach +the doubtful cover of the rocks.... Up ahead, two hundred yards, was a +low mound, only a few feet high, the only nearby elevation of any sort. +And it was plainly artificial, though wind-piled sand had softened its +outlines; others like it were scattered around the periphery of the +great sink, and Dworn guessed their nature as he saw a column of the +aluminum crawlers beginning to emerge from the side of the one just +ahead. It must be the other end of a tunnel such as they had discovered +among the cliffs.... + +He nudged Qanya urgently, shouted, "Head for that!" + +She gave him a fleeting, wide-eyed look. The mound's low swell could +furnish no shelter for the towering spider, and the tunnel mouth was of +course much too small to enter. But she veered without slackening speed +in the direction indicated. + +Dworn abandoned the useless guns. The mound, with a gleaming line of +crawlers still parading out of it, swept closer; and at the same time +the desert echoed back the screaming onrush of the two new attackers. + +Dworn wrenched open the cabin door with one hand. His other arm circled +Qanya's waist, dragged her away from the controls. She cried in +uncomprehending shock as he swung her before him into the open doorway. +They swayed there, high above the speeding ground, wind whipping at them +as the spider pounded blindly on. + +The mound loomed immediately at hand. Dworn prayed that he had judged +the moment right, and with a mighty leap launched both of them out into +space. + +A pistoning steel leg barely missed them. Even as they fell, the air was +torn by explosions as the swooping fliers opened fire. + + * * * * * + +Dworn hit the ground with almost stunning force. His hold on the girl +was broken and he was rolled helplessly over and over by his own +momentum. But he fetched up on hands and knees, bruised and breathless +but unhurt. + +From the corner of his eye he saw Qanya sitting up dizzily, half-buried +in the drifted sand that had broken their fall. Apparently she too was +uninjured, but she was staring in horrified fascination after her +runaway machine. + +The spider careened onward, no hand at its controls. It hit the line of +crawling little machines coming from underground; it knocked one +spinning end over end, and stepped squarely on another, stamping it +flat. It recovered its balance amazingly, and loped on, even though one +leg was buckling beneath it-- + +Then it was hit dead-on by what must have been at least a hundred-pound +high explosive rocket. + +The winged killers shot low overhead with an exultant whoop of jets, +peeling off to right and left of the column of smoke that rose and +towered where the spider had been struck. Out of the cloud, metal +fragments soared glinting upward and arced back to earth, and on the +ground, amid smoke and dust, a metal limb was briefly visible, flexing +convulsively and growing still. + +Dworn heard a smothered sound beside him. A tear rolled down Qanya's +smudged cheek, and Dworn thought fuzzily, _Even spiders can cry_. +_Only_, he corrected, _she's not a spider any more she's now just a +ghost like me_. + +If he hadn't been a ghost already, if he hadn't lost his own +machine--the idea of jumping clear and saving both their human lives +while letting the spider be destroyed would never have occurred to him. + +He came to himself, hissed, "Down! Keep low and maybe they'll overlook +us!" + +They huddled together on the slope of the sandhill, while the victorious +flying enemy circled round in a miles-wide sweep and began descending +toward their base again, wing-flaps braking them for landing. + +And on the ground meanwhile, the crawlers which had come from the tunnel +were proceeding on their way, leaving two of their number behind with +strange indifference to their own casualties. + +"What'll we do?" quavered Qanya. + +Dworn had time to take stock of the situation. The tunnel-mound was, as +he had seen before, the only cover--and that a poor one--for a +considerable distance. It was all of a quarter mile to the edge beyond +which the cliffs fell away. + +He tried to sound hopeful--whether for Qanya's sake or to keep up his +own courage, he could hardly have said. "I think we'll have to stay +here, and hope we're not noticed, until it gets dark. Then, maybe--" + +Qanya caught her breath sharply and gripped his arm. "Look--there!" + +Still far away across the sloping floor of the great bowl, but rapidly +approaching from its center, moved a dust cloud. Beneath it, the +expiring sunlight glinted on the aluminum shells of at least a score of +the ground machines. + +Dworn said grimly, "Might have expected it; they'll be coming to look +over the scene of action and pick up the pieces. We've one chance; keep +out of sight behind this little hill, and maybe they won't investigate +too closely." + +Qanya nodded, biting her lip. She could reckon as well as he how much +that chance was worth. + + * * * * * + +The buzzing motors came nearer. The two cowering in the lee of the +mound, almost without daring to breathe, heard them halt, slow to idling +speed one by one a little way off, where the wrecked spider lay. From +that spot obscure sounds began rising, thuds and gratings and a shrill +hissing noise. + +But then--the whine of a single high-speed engine rose again, clear to +their hearing. One of the enemy was approaching around the flank of the +sandhill. + +They crouched motionless, frozen. No hope in either flight or fight; on +the open ground, they would be run down in no time, and they had no +weapons--even the notion of a weapon, as something apart from the +fighting machine that carried it, was alien to their thinking. + +The enemy vehicle rolled into full view and nosed slowly along the base +of the mound; its motor whining questingly, only a few yards of gentle +slope between it and the huddled pair. Its vision-ports glinted redly in +the sunset glow, and Dworn could almost feel the raking of murderous +eyes from behind them.... Like the other machines of this kind he had +seen it was small and without armor--it couldn't weigh more than a +couple of thousand pounds, and it carried no guns. From the vantage of +his armed and armored beetle, he had regarded its like as flimsy and +harmless-looking.... But now he realized for the first time how helpless +a mere human was against such a thing, and, with an irrepressible +shudder, how easily the grappling and cutting-tools this one was +equipped with might be employed for--dismantling--flesh and blood. + +The machine paused momentarily. Then its engine revved up again. It +rolled on past, giving no sign of excitement, and vanished beyond the +hillside. + +"Dworn, Dworn, it didn't see us!" Qanya was sobbing with relief. + +Dworn was staring after the enemy, brows puzzledly drawn downward. The +sounds from the other side of the mound went on uninterrupted--a clangor +of metal, the prolonged shrilling of a cutting-torch, where evidently +they were at work breaking up the smashed spider-vehicle. + +He said huskily, "Something's very queer about them.... Wait. I've _got_ +to take a look." + +Qanya glanced at him in quick alarm as he started wriggling to the crest +of the sandhill. Then she followed silently, and peered over the top +beside him. + +Twilight was descending, but they could still see easily enough what +went on out there. Not a hundred yards away, the little machines swarmed +about the spider, bringing their various wrecking equipment into play to +dismantle it rapidly under the watchers' eyes. Torches flared, winches +tugged at fragments of the shattered monster. An aluminum cylinder with +a serrated alligator snout rolled triumphantly away, bearing aloft the +shank of a great steel leg.... + +But Dworn's attention was riveted by what was happening closer at hand. +Here, near the tunnel-entrance that opened just below their observation +point, lay the two crawlers which the runaway spider had disabled. One +of these, the one which had merely been overturned and severely dented, +was already being dragged away, wheels still helplessly in the air, by a +towing-machine. The other had been smashed beyond repair. Around it +several of the new arrivals were busy, callously and efficiently +beginning to take it apart. + +Dworn watched them at it, and the dreadful suspicion that had budded in +his mind ripened into a monstrous certainty. + +Aluminum skin was swiftly stripped away; frame members of the same metal +were clipped neatly asunder by a machine armed with great shearing jaws. +The engine came loose and was hoisted aloft carried dangling away by +another specialized machine. In an incredibly short time, little but a +bare chassis remained, and that too was being attacked by the salvagers. + +And Dworn knew at last beyond all doubt, what manner of things these +were. + +Beside him he heard a sharp gasp, and turned to put a warning finger on +Qanya's lips. He drew her gently back with him, out of view of the +activities on the farther side of the mound. + +"You understand what _that_ means?" + +The girl nodded soberly. "We have the tradition. I think that must be +one tradition that all the peoples have in common." + +"Then you know what we have to do." + +She nodded again. + +Between them the word hung unspoken--a word not to be uttered lightly, +so awful was it in its connotations, freighted with memories of a terror +rooted in the youth of the world. + +_Drones._ + + * * * * * + +In the beginning--said the stories--there were the ancients, who were +great and powerful beyond the imagining of the latter-day peoples. But +the ancients were divided among themselves, for some of them were good +and some of them were evil. + +So they fought one another, with the terrific weapons of devastation +which they owned. And the good triumphed in the end, as it must--though +at terrible cost, for in those wars the earth was stripped almost +lifeless; searing flame, plague, climatic convulsions wiped out the +varied life which once populated the world, and finally there remained +only the peoples of the machine, all of whom--diverse though their ways +of existence had become, and for all that they lived in ceaseless +conflict with each other--were descended from the victors in that primal +struggle of men like gods. + +But the evil old ones, though they were vanquished and their seed +utterly annihilated, had nevertheless found a way to perpetuate their +evil upon the earth. For before the last of them died, as a final act of +vindictive atrocity, they created the drones.... + +Qanya was shivering uncontrollably. She whispered, "No one remembers +when they last came. Some thought there were none left in the world." + +"It's the same among my people," Dworn said hushedly. "There's no record +of the drones' having appeared in the time of anyone now living.... But +here they are." + +From out of sight came the rattle and clank and whine of machines at +work. And from farther away, from the direction of the great windowless +buildings, there were hootings and throbbing sounds, and from time to +time a deep rumbling that shook the earth. + +Those noises were somehow unspeakably horrible now--now that they knew +there was no one there. No one--nothing but the machines, without +feeling or thought, without life, with only the blind meaningless +activity of unliving mechanism set in motion and made self-subsisting a +thousand or two thousand years ago.... + +With infinite caution the two humans peeked once again over the summit +of the mound. Out there on the flat, the little wingless drones buzzed +to and fro with their false seeming of animation, finishing their work. + +From around the great buildings, whose interior no living eyes had ever +looked upon, lights winked oddly blue through the thickening dusk. They +caught glimpses of immense moving machinery, and heard mysterious +sounds. Once and again, it seemed that in the open space before the +structures a great door opened in the earth, and against a blue light +that streamed upward they saw a vast winged shape rise majestically from +underground and roll slowly forward into the shadows to join others +already ranked there. + +"What are they doing?" + +"I don't know...." Dworn reflected, grasping at memories of the +legends, the traditions he had heard. What he recalled was ominous. "I +think I can guess, though. I think they're getting ready to swarm." + +Her stifled exclamation was sign enough that she understood. + +If the guess was right, the danger was on the verge of being multiplied +many times over. Soon now, a swarm of queen ships would take to the air +and fly in all directions, sowing the seed of the robot plague broadcast +far and wide; one such colonizing vessel, no doubt, had founded this +great hive only a few months ago. The things worked fast.... + +And Dworn's duty, and Qanya's, became all the more clear and urgent. +Duty to spread the warning, at whatever risk to themselves. In the face +of that, Dworn's mission of personal blood vengeance became +unimportant--even if it had been possible to take such vengeance upon a +foe with no life to forfeit. + +He whispered to Qanya, "The ground machines are about to leave. When +they're gone, we'll have to make a break for it." For some reason, as he +pondered the distance they must cross to reach the Barrier cliffs, he +recalled the strange revolving thing atop the central tower off yonder, +turning constantly with its air of restless searching.... He swallowed +painfully, repeated, "_Have_ to." + +The girl nodded silently. Impulsively Dworn put his arm around her; she +pressed close against him. They huddled together like that, finding in +one another's living warmth some measure of encouragement against the +terror of the falling night in which nothing moved but the lifeless +machines. + + * * * * * + +They watched while the lights glimmered far off across the flats; while +a flight of fighter drones took off from there and howled away into the +dark on some roving patrol; while, at last, the salvaging machines +finished their work and rolled loot-laden away one by one. + +More than once while they waited, other columns of the wingless drones +entered or emerged from the tunnel mouth at the base of the mound. The +tempo of activity in the hive was, if anything, increased as night came +on. In the deepening darkness a faint blue glow streamed from the tunnel +mouth. + +As the whirring of the last salvager receded, Dworn got cautiously to +his feet. He said between his teeth, "We'd better move fast, now--" + +"Wait," said Qanya tensely. "They'll sight us in the open, and then what +chance will we have?" + +Dworn tried to make out her expression, but in the darkness her face was +only a white blur. "We've got to try. There's no other way." + +"Perhaps there is. What about the tunnel?" + +Dworn was brought up short; that idea hadn't occurred to him at all. He +said slowly, "I see what you mean, It's only big enough for one-way +traffic--and the drones evidently have some system of remote control, so +that outbound expeditions aren't using it at the same time as returning +ones...." + +"So, if we wait till some of the wingless ones enter from this end, and +hurry through the tunnel close behind them--" Qanya left the sentence +uncompleted. Dworn knew she could imagine as well as he what would +happen if they failed to time it right, and met a drone column coming +from the opposite direction. Still, the sound sense of the girl's ideas +was obvious. + +"All right," he said. "We'll try it that way." + +It was another nerve-fraying wait until a file of ground machines came +winding near and vanished one after another into the tunnel. + +The two watchers gave them a little time--not too much--to get clear of +the entrance. Then Dworn clasped Qanya's hand tightly in his own, and +together they plunged down the sliding slope of the sandhill. The tunnel +mouth yawned in its side, the bore on which it opened slanting steeply +down into the earth, inwardly lit with eery blue light. + +Hearts pounding, they raced into the tunnel. + +It was an unreal, nightmare flight. The blue shaft curved and descended +endlessly. Endlessly ahead of them echoed the snarling of drone engines. + +They ran with lungs near to bursting, through air heavy and foul with +exhaust gases--trying frantically to keep close behind that engine +noise, while it receded inexorably before them. And once and again, amid +the tricky tunnel echoes, Dworn was almost sure that other drones had +entered and were descending the narrow way behind them, and before his +eyes flashed hideous visions of the two of them overtaken and run down, +here where there was scarcely room to turn, let alone fight or hide. + +The featureless walls were pressing inward to crush them, swimming +before eyes filmed with exhaustion, in the blue shimmer which no doubt +sufficed for the perceptions of the drones but which hardly served +human vision.... + +The tunnel was in fact perhaps a thousand yards long. + +But it seemed as if they had been staggering for a lifetime through the +nightmare, through the blue glow, and it scarcely seemed real when a +patch of night sky showed through the exit before them, and when they +stumbled panting out into the clean cold air of the mountainside, and +saw the white radiance of moonrise over the Barrier cliffs above them. + +They sank down to catch their breath on a rock not far from the tunnel. +They'd made it none too soon--only a minute or two had passed when the +night once more buzzed with motor noise, and a column of foraging drones +rolled up the trail and plunged at full speed into the mouth of the +shaft. + +Qanya buried her face against Dworn's shoulder. + +"Easy, now," Dworn whispered, patting her with clumsy gentleness. "The +worst's over. We made it ... Qanya, darling, we made it!" + +She looked up at him and by the moonlight he saw her smile tremulously. +She said breathlessly, "Would ... would you mind saying that again, +please?" + + * * * * * + +The moon was already high as they trudged across the rolling desert +beyond the foot of the great landslip. + +After the tunnel, the rest of the descent had been relatively easy; +they had followed the trail used by the wingless drones, being forced +off it only once by the passage of a cavalcade of the little +marauders. And they had discovered, to their surprise, that the human +physique--inferior though it might be to machines in ruggedness, speed, +and other respects--was better equipped for traversing rough terrain +than the most ingenious vehicle ever constructed. + +But both of them, unaccustomed as they were to walking on their own +feet, were dead weary. They tramped on doggedly, searching the shadows, +hoping to come upon some living machine-creature--of what race, didn't +matter now. + +So far they had seen only abundant evidence that the drones were abroad +in force tonight, preparing perhaps for their swarming time. Drones in +the air and on the ground, and once the burnt-out shell of an +unidentifiable machine with a crew of the wingless salvagers worrying +it, and once the light of fires afar off where the winged ones had made +a kill.... + +Qanya stumbled, and Dworn caught her round the waist as she swayed. + +"Tired," she gasped in a little girl's voice, then stiffened her back +with a resolute effort. + +"We'd better rest--" + +"No," she said shakily; and then abruptly: "_Listen!_" + +Not very far away, lost somewhere among the tricky moon-shadows, there +was a stealthy crunching. It was coming nearer. + +With instinctive caution the two hugged the pool of shadow beside a +boulder. + +"Spiders!" Qanya recognized them first. + +They came prowling out of the shadows, crunching rhythmically across an +open moonlit space towards a hollow beyond. One, two, four of them, +moving with furtive caution through the perilous night. + +They had to be intercepted, the warning given. But it was a critically +dangerous moment--suspicious and on edge, they might fire at the first +movement they saw. + +"Stay here," said Dworn shortly. He thrust Qanya back into the shadows, +and walked steadfastly out into the clear moonlight, in the path of the +walking spider machines. + +He raised one hand on high, palm outward in an immemorial gesture that +he could only hope would be seen. He shouted at the top of his voice, +"Stop! Don't shoot! I come in _peace_!" + +His heart leaped. The leading spider ground to a halt, and the others +behind it. He saw a dim figure move atop the foremost towering machine; +and before he could speak again, heard the rasping voice of the Spider +Mother herself. + +"You! The one who got away--and who seduced one of _us_ from the ways of +her ancestors--? What peace can there be between you and us?" + +"I bring," cried Dworn clearly, "warning of the Drone." + +There was stunned silence. + +Dworn sensed the other spiders watching from the height of their +machines; and he guessed something of what must be going on in the mind +of the fierce old woman staring down at him. She would be wondering if +an alien, a mere beetle, would be so far without honor, so anxious to +save his own skin, as to lie in such a matter. + +Then he felt Qanya's hand in his, and heard her cry out, her voice +vibrant and assured: "It is true, Mother! I have seen them too. The +night-fliers, the raiders--they are the evil things our legends tell +of!" + +The great machine took two steps forward and knelt low to the ground. +"Come here!" rasped the Spider Mother, and when the two advanced till +she could look into their young faces--"You swear to this?" + +"We swear!" they said at the same moment. + +The Spider Mother's face was like iron. She looked from one to the other +slowly. + +"Then," she said stiffly and formally, leaning over to extend a wrinkled +hand to Dworn, "let there be peace between us ... between me and mine +and you and yours, and among all living peace ... till the evil is no +more!" + +Dworn took the hand, and answered, hurriedly recalling ancient custom: +"Till the evil is no more!" And heard Qanya echo the words. + + * * * * * + +All night the desert was stirring, with a feverish hastening of +messengers. These were at first spiders--then, members of a half dozen, +a dozen other races, as the word was passed from one people to +another--as tribe after tribe of hardbitten, suspicious warriors, +fingers, fidgeting on triggers at the open approach of their hereditary +mortal foes, heard and were electrified by the news-- + + _The Coming of the Drone!_ + +And hand gripped hand, all feuds were forgotten, the peoples mingled in +a common effort of hurried mobilization. The desert land below the +cliffs crawled with them, a mixed multitude of constantly increasing +numbers, girding themselves for war. + +Ferocious predatory machines--spiders, wheel-bugs, scorpions--formidable +in their armor and bristling with guns, lay alongside the more pacific +slugs and caterpillars and snails which in ordinary times were their +natural prey, and were freely fuelled and provisioned out of the stores +which normally their possessors would have fought to the death to +safeguard against the despoilers.... + +In the presence of the drones, there were no more natural enmities. For +the drones were the Enemy. Their coming meant that all life was kindred; +deep in the heritage of every people was the almost instinctive +knowledge that, if the drones were not checked as tradition decreed, +their blind automatic propagation would end by sweeping every living +thing from the face of the Earth. + +Toward morning, the chiefs of a score of tribes held council of war in +the very shadow of the Barrier. Their consultation was brief; there was +no arguable question of what must be done, only of how. And if the +drones were about to swarm, they must act promptly. No time to wait for +the gathering of more distant peoples; no time to send word to the wasps +or the hornets and gain aerial support. They must strike with what they +had. + + * * * * * + +Dworn started awake as a hand touched his shoulder. He sat up, angrily +flinging a coverlet from him. + +"I didn't intend to sleep!" he muttered, rubbing his eyes and realizing +where he was--below ground in the spiders' colony, whither he and Qanya +had been taken and where he had been persuaded to lie down and rest a +little while the warning was carried by others. + +The tall blonde spider, Purri, was grinning maliciously down at him. +"Hear the beetle talk! I suppose, after a day spent in what, for you was +comparative idleness, you felt like doing something really strenuous ... +say going out and demolishing the drones' hive bare handed...?" + +Dworn climbed to his feet. With a violent effort he kept from wincing at +the protest of stiffened muscles and yesterday's collection of bruises. + +"What's going on out there now? Where's Qanya?" + +"There's really nothing more _you_ can do, you know. I merely woke you +because I thought you'd want to hear that your beetle-folk have been +contacted--they'd holed up to lick their wounds about twenty miles south +of here--and have joined the fighting force that's getting ready to +attack the drones at dawn. As for dear little Qanya, she's sleeping +angelically in the next chamber...." + +"No, she isn't," said Qanya from the doorway. + +"You, too?" said Purri with irritation. "And what do you want, +scapegrace?" + +Qanya's black eyes narrowed dangerously. She moved forward to Dworn's +side and took a grip on his arm. "I might ask what you're doing here +disturbing--" + +"Both of you, you're wasting time," growled Dworn. + +He'd heard with a queer pang that his people--those who remained +alive--had been located. Not that it made any real difference, of +course. His father was dead, and he, Dworn, was dead too as far as his +own kind was concerned. Nor, in this world, was there anywhere else he +could turn. + +For the present, under the threat of the Drone, that didn't matter. All +laws of all peoples were in abeyance for the duration of the great +emergency. But once the threat was dissolved, and the old laws resumed +their force, the plight of Dworn and of Qanya also would be what it had +been--that of outcasts in a world where an outcast had no chance of +survival. + +Well, it was no use thinking of the future. Dworn said determinedly: "I +want to see the end of this business, at least." + +"And I!" declared Qanya. "We've earned that right." + +Purri eyed them sourly, shrugged. "As you like. I'm in command here +while the Mother's busy at the front. I'll see you get transportation up +there." Turning toward the door, she glanced sidelong at Dworn.... +"You'll have to go separately, since a spider will only carry two. I'm +leaving right away myself; _you_ may come with me in my machine--" + +"No, he won't," declared Qanya with finality, tightening her hold on +Dworn's arm. "He can ride with old Zimka." + +Purri stalked through the doorway before them, grumbling to herself, +"Why is it the best ones always get away?" + + * * * * * + +Earlier in the night, climbing spiders--the only machines which could +manage the ascent of the toppled Barrier--had scouted the periphery of +the drones' fortress, and discovered the sole possible approach to it. +At a single spot above the slide, a low ridge made it feasible to +surmount the rim and steal out onto the table-land beyond without coming +in direct view of the enemy's installations. + +Once that was known, the council of chiefs decided on a daring strategy. +Up the thousand-foot slope of tumbled rocks below that one vulnerable +point, a fantastic supply line was established. One by one, machines +from among those massing on the desert below toiled upward until wheels +or treads could carry them no further; then they were hoisted bodily +over the precipices by the invaluable spiders, who anchored themselves +firmly in place with the powerful steel cables they ordinarily used for +snaring prey, and used other such cables as pulleys. + +Through the remaining hours of darkness the joined forces labored with +Herculean devotion to accomplish the seemingly impossible task. There +were brushes with the enemy, for the wingless drones still came and went +about the mountainside and from time to time their winged kindred flew +overhead. But strict orders had gone out to all the allied +peoples--avoid opening fire, avoid precipitating a general engagement, +and freeze motionless whenever the fliers passed over. This last +instruction rested on the observation that the robot predators, with +whatever sensory devices they used, apparently had difficulty in +spotting anything but a moving target. + +In this wise, when dawn began to break, close to three hundred +first-line fighting machines of a dozen different species had been +raised to the summit of the Barrier. Thence they filtered cautiously out +across the plateau, in a great arc moving to enclose the hollow of the +drones. + + * * * * * + +The sky was lightening when Dworn and Qanya settled themselves to watch +from the crest of the rocky ridge which had shielded the attacking +forces' deployment not far from the brink of the cliffs. + +Behind them, the spiders which had brought them here melted stealthily +away toward the east, going to take their places in the battle line. + +The two were alone once more, looking out over the vast circular +depression infested by the enemy, just as they had yesterday at sunset. +But today, as the sun rose, the situation was very different. For miles +around the circumference of the great hive, there were furtive +stirrings, last-minute movements of preparation for the imminent +assault. From behind every outcropping and fold of the ground, grim +gun-muzzles pointed inward, ready to begin spitting fire when the zero +second came. + +From here the central buildings of the hive were plainly visible, +standing out against the sunrise. Around them moved many of the tireless +worker machines; and the parked aircraft seemed more numerous than they +had been the night before. Among them a score or more of winged shapes +loomed conspicuous for their great size; when you made proper allowance +for the distance, you realized that they were immense. + +Those would be the queens--loaded and ready to take flight on their +one-way journey to found new colonies wherever their evil destiny might +lead them. The time of swarming was near. + +Dworn scowled darkly, squinting against the light in an effort to judge +the enemy's numbers. He grunted, "I hope ..." and bit his lip. + +"What's wrong?" said Qanya tensely. + +"Nothing.... Only it would have been well if we'd had time to bring up +more reinforcements. But don't worry--we'll smash them." He was a little +surprised to note that he said "we"--and meant any and all of the +machine-peoples, united now in a common cause. + +Dworn was bitterly wishing at this moment that he had had his +beetle-machine again, and had been able to take an active part. As it +was, he didn't even know surely just where in the battle line the +beetles had taken up their position. + +A distant explosion, a single gunshot, rolled echoless across the flats. +It was a signal. Even as the shell hit the ground close to the ranked +drone aircraft, motors had begun to pulse and snarl all along the +farflung line. The desert began to spew forth attackers. A motley horde +of metal things, they darted, stalked, and lumbered from their +lurking-places, and as they advanced to the assault the firing commenced +in earnest, became a staccato thunder that blanketed but failed to drown +out the beginning alarm-wail of a huge mechanical voice from the +fortress of the drones. + +The enemy was not slow to react. Almost as the first rain of projectiles +smashed down among them, jet engines began howling into life, and some +of the fighter craft rocked into motion, wheeling out onto the runways. + +The encircling attackers well knew the peril of letting any of those +pilotless killers get into the air. Shellfire was being concentrated on +the airstrips, striving to block them, plow them up with craters. + + * * * * * + +A fighter drone came roaring out one of the runaways gathering speed and +beginning to lift. Dworn followed it with his eyes, feeling sweat spring +out on his forehead, repeating under his breath without conscious +awareness of what he was saying: "Stop him, _stop_ him--" + +Then the enemy craft spun round in the air, belching smoke, came apart +and spilled along the runway for a hundred yards. A second, coming close +behind it, plowed into the wreckage of its comrade, rolled over and over +and became a furiously burning pyre. That strip was blocked. + +All round the central hive smoke and flame were rising in innumerable +places, from the paved ways and from the open desert. On another +launching strip, just visible through the mounting inferno, one of the +big queen-craft had sought to take to the air, and had been knocked out +by heavy shellfire. Now its upended and blazing hulk tilted slowly over +and collapsed burying beneath it several of the little wingless workers. +In all the confusion these still scurried hither and yon, oblivious to +the bombardment, laboring frantically but futilely to clear away the +debris. Their efforts were useless, while the rain of explosives from +the tightening ring of assault forces continued adding to the ruin and +disorder within the hive.... + +Dworn sprang to his feet for a better view. He hugged Qanya to him till +she gasped for breath, shouted in her ear over the thunder of the +barrage, "_We've got them!_" + +Close to the ridge where they stood a line of many-wheeled monsters +rolled past--scorpions, moving along the battle front and, whenever the +thickening smoke up ahead revealed a target, halting to wheel round and +discharge their heavy-caliber tail guns. + +Dworn had never liked scorpions, but he watched these with heartfelt +approval. + +Then he stared, bewilderedly aware that something had gone wrong. The +big machines had turned and begun heading toward the ridge, clattering +along at their top speed and no longer pausing to fire. + +Within moments, Dworn perceived that all the other attackers were doing +likewise; everywhere on the blazing battlefield, they had ceased their +advance and were scattering to seek cover. + +Only then, as the firing slackened, did he realize that the sky had +begun to echo with a spiteful screaming of flying things. Against the +brightening daylight hurtled some two dozen dark winged shapes ... +fighter drones. + +Dworn realized they must have been out on patrol, and summoned back by +the drones' mysterious means of communication to defend the threatened +hive. Now the flight was splitting into groups of two or three, diving +to attack at one point and another and flitting away again so swiftly +that human reflexes could scarcely act to train a gun. + +Dworn glimpsed Qanya's horrified face beside him, and the girl threw her +weight against him and dragged him down among the sheltering rocks. +Overhead, from out of the sun, shot three of the winged drones. They +passed over before the shrieking of their flight could reach the ears, +and Dworn caught a glimpse of bombs tumbling earthward. Thunder crashed +as the scorpions hugging the ridge threw up a vicious defensive barrage, +and was drowned out as the bombs landed all around. The rocks heaved, +and dust and splinters showered down from above. + +Only a dozen yards away, a scorpion came rumbling up across the crest, +its many wheels jolting over the rocks, and halted there, its tail gun +weaving angrily as it sought vainly for targets in the sky. Along one of +its gray-painted sides was a long bright gash where something had barely +glanced from its armor. And Dworn saw, too, the black outline of a +mythological arachnid on its observation turret, which signified that +the machine belonged to a scorpion chief. + + * * * * * + +Scarcely knowing what he intended, he shook off Qanya's panic grip and +plunged recklessly toward the big machine. As he scrambled over the +rugged hilltop, he saw fleetingly what went on in the arena of +battle--the allied peoples were being driven back, forced to concentrate +their fire power on beating off aerial onslaughts. Meantime, the +wingless drones about their beleaguered citadel worked feverishly to +clear the way for their fighters that still remained undamaged on the +ground.... Within minutes, unless something happened to turn the tide, +there would be enough flying drones aloft to break the attack and +inflict terrible losses. + +Dworn found himself alongside the scorpion, just as its tail gun fired +once more. The muzzle blast almost knocked him down, but he clawed his +way up the side of the machine and began hammering on the observation +turret hatch-cover. + +"You in there!" he shouted. "Listen to me--" + +The hatch cracked open and a grizzled head peered out, blinking at him +with bewilderment and an automatic fierce suspicion. But at a time like +this anything human was an ally. + +"What's the idea?" demanded the scorpion. + +The racket of gunfire and of jets made speech almost impossible. But +Dworn pointed out across the sink, shouted: "Fire on the buildings--the +central tower! They're controlled from somewhere--" + +Luckily the scorpion leader--if that was who he was--was a man of quick +understanding. He nodded vigorously and dropped out of sight again into +the interior of his vehicle, bawling something to its driver. Dworn +dropped off the machine's side as it lurched abruptly into motion. He +watched, hardly breathing, as it slid to a halt at the bottom of the +hill beside another of its tribe, and with shouts and gestures the word +was passed on. + +Inside a minute, all the nearby scorpions had begun banging away at the +structures some three miles distant. The heavy scorpion guns were quite +capable of carrying that far, and their shells had enough punch to do +much damage to the buildings or to the central tower which still loomed +occasionally visible through the drifting smoke.... + +But it was only a hope, perhaps even a forlorn hope. Dworn was fairly +confident of his guess that the drones possessed some sort of central +communication and control system--but it would take a lucky hit to +disable that nerve center in time. + +Qanya stumbled to his side. She cried something he couldn't hear over +the continuous firing, tugged at him and pointed skyward with terror in +her eyes. + +The flying drones aloft had suddenly abandoned their scattered strafing +attacks. With deadly machine-precision they wheeled into a single +formation once more, and the whole flight came diving straight at the +scorpion battery's position. + +Dworn stood rigid, fists clenched at his sides, watching them scream +nearer. + +He ignored Qanya's pleading with him to take cover. No point to +that--the drones' full force would blast the whole ridge to rubble and +blanket it with their liquid flame. + +At least, the enemy's reaction proved his inspiration correct. He +noticed with fierce satisfaction that the scorpions were still doggedly +firing.... + +The foremost drone came on, slanting down the sky until the gaping +rocket-ports were plainly visible along its swept-back wings. But those +sports still spat no flame. And it came on. It cleared the hilltop by no +more than fifty feet, still diving faster than the speed of sound. It +hit the desert slope beyond and ricocheted like a great projectile, +bursting apart into fiery fragments that strewed themselves for a +thousand yards across the rolling plateau. + + * * * * * + +Dworn picked himself up from among the rocks where he had been flung by +the shock-wave of its near passage, and was knocked sprawling again by +the earthquake impact of a second drone that thundered headlong into the +earth a few hundred feet away, burying itself under a crater like that +of a huge bomb. + +He glimpsed a third craft going down to the west of them, just missing +the rim of the Barrier cliffs and plunging out of sight without a sign +of coming out of its dive. + +Those which remained in the air were flying aimlessly. Two of them +passed over side by side, gradually converging until, a couple of miles +away, they locked wings and went spinning down toward the horizon in a +deadly embrace. + +On the ground, a like confusion had befallen the wingless workers. Their +scurrying suddenly lost all its busy, planned efficiency. Some buzzed +round and round in drunken circles; others ran head-on into one another, +or tumbled into shell-holes to lie futilely spinning their wheels. + +A hush descended on the field of battle. After the fury of bombardment +and counterattack, the relative silence was deafening. + +Dworn got to his feet for the second time and helped Qanya up; he +grinned exultantly at her, oblivious of a trickle of blood running down +his face where a rock-splinter had hit. + +The scorpion lying nearest the foot of the slope opened its hatch-cover. +A man climbed out, clasped hands together over his head and stamped on +the gray monster's back in an awkward impromptu victory-dance. Cheers +rang faintly from far off down the silenced firing-line. + +Then--the spell of premature triumph was rudely shattered. + +From the direction of the breached and smoking buildings, there rose yet +again the soughing roar of jet engines gathering speed. Onto the runway +to the west--the only one which the workers had managed to clear before +their central control was knocked out--came waddling an enormous winged +thing. + +Its multiple engines screamed up to a frenzied pitch, and it rolled out +along the strip at increasing velocity. Its huge wheels narrowly missed +a dead fighter slewed across the way. Its tail went up. + +Naturally, the queen ships wouldn't be dependent on the nerve-center of +the hive that had spawned them; for each of them carried within itself +the full-grown robot brain, the nucleus of a new hive.... + +Shooting began again raggedly, the gunners caught unawares. Perhaps the +great machine was hit--but to stop it would take more than one or two +hits. + +It reached and passed the end of the runway, its wheels barely clearing +the ground as the paved strip ended. Black smoke belched from its +engines as it spent fuel lavishly, fighting heavy-laden for altitude. It +rocked with the concussion of shells bursting all around it, and then it +was soaring out over the Barrier, dipping and rolling perilously in the +downdrafts beyond the cliffs. But it steadied and flew on, out of range +of the guns, rising and dwindling until it was a speck, a mote vanishing +into the western sky.... + +But no more queens escaped that day. The cannonade resumed with +redoubled fury, and the guns did not fall silent until nothing was left +to stir amid the gutted and blazing wreckage that had been the citadel +of the drones. + + * * * * * + +Morning wind blew over the plateau, clearing away the reek of battle, +bringing air that was cool and clear as it must have been in the +morning of the world. + +In that breeze like the breath of a new creation, it somehow seemed not +at all strange to Dworn that he should be walking in the open under a +daylight sky, among a multitude of excited strangers, men and women of +all races, who mixed and exchanged greetings, laughed, shouted, slapped +one another on the back ... then, perhaps, drew away for a moment with +eyes of wonder at their own boldness.... + +Nor did it seem strange that Dworn strolled round the smoldering drone +fortress hand in hand with a girl of the spider (who was by that token +his hereditary foe,) and that he turned and kissed this enemy on the +mouth, and she returned the kiss. + +They stood with arms around one another, on the edge of the jubilant +crowd, and looked out across the vast litter of smoking wreckage where +scarcely a shell-holed wall stood upright now, from which the Enemy +would no longer come to threaten the life of the Earth. + +"One got away," said Qanya soberly. + +"Yes. Somewhere it will all be to do over again." Dworn glanced toward +the empty west, whither the queen flier had disappeared--where, perhaps, +by now it would have crash-landed two or three hundred miles away, to +spew forth its cargo of pygmy workers and (if the inhabitants or the +area where it descended didn't discover and scotch it in time) to +construct more workers, fighters, a hive no less formidable than the one +that had perished today. + +Dworn said, brow thoughtfully furrowed: "But maybe there's a good +reason, even for the drones. Maybe they serve a purpose...." He +faltered, unable to phrase the idea that had come to him--a thought that +was not only unaccustomed but downright heretical. According to +tradition the drones were the spawn of ancient evil and themselves +wholly evil--but, Dworn was thinking, perhaps their existence produced +good if, once in a generation or in ten generations, they came to remind +the warring peoples that fundamentally all life was one in its eonlong +conflict with no-life. + +But he sensed, too, that that idea would take a long, long time to be +worked out, to be communicated, to bear fruit.... + +Qanya's hand pressed his, and she said softly, "I think I know what you +mean." + +On one impulse they turned their backs to the ruins and gazed out across +the throng of people, milling happily about, rejoicing, among the grim +war-machines that stood open and abandoned on every hand. Near by, a +crew of pill-bugs had tapped containers of the special beverage they +brewed for their own use, and were inviting all passers-by to pause and +drink. + +"Your people are here somewhere," said Qanya. Her eyes on Dworn were +troubled. "Over there to the south, I think I saw some beetles parked. +Do you want to visit them?" + +Dworn sighed. "Your people are here too." + +"I know." + + * * * * * + +Neither of them moved. They stood silent, their thoughts the same; in a +little while now, the Peace of the Drone would be over, and all this +celebrating crowd would grow warily quiet, would climb back into their +various fighting machines, close the hatches and man the guns and creep +away in their separate directions. The world would go its way again, a +world in which there was no place left for the two of them.... + +Dworn blotted the image from his mind's eye and bent to kiss Qanya once +more, while the Peace lasted. + +A voice called, "Dworn!" A familiar voice--one that couldn't be real, +that must be a trick of his ears. + +He turned. A little way off stood a small group of people watching them, +and in the forefront was a stalwart man of fifty, in the green garment +of a beetle with a golden scarab blazoned on his chest-- + +"_Father!_" Dworn gasped unbelieving. + +They grasped one another's hands and looked into one another's eyes. +Dworn was only dimly aware of the others looking on--among them the +hard-faced Spider Mother, and the grizzled chief scorpion whose cohorts +had struck the decisive blow in the battle. + +Yold smiled with a quizzically raised eyebrow. "You thought I was dead, +no doubt? You came on the spot where we were attacked and you saw--" + +Dworn nodded and gulped. "I couldn't have been mistaken. I saw your +machine there, wrecked.... And now I've lost mine." His voice trailed +off miserably. + +His father gave him a penetrating look. "I see. You're supposing that +means everything is over." + +"Doesn't it?" + +The chief smiled again. "When you departed for your wanderyear, you were +still a boy, though you'd learned your lessons and your beetle +traditions well.... But now you're a man. We don't tell boys +everything." + +Dworn stared at his father, while understanding dawned like a glory +upon him. To live again, the life he'd thought lost-- + +"So far as I could learn, your beetle was disabled through no fault of +your own. In fact, by what these strangers tell me--" Yold nodded +towards the Spider Mother and the scorpion chief--"you've proved +yourself worthy indeed, over and above the customary testing. Of course, +there will be the formality of a rebirth ceremony--which I have to +undergo, too, so we can both do so together." + +Dworn couldn't speak. Once again he had to remind himself that a beetle +warrior didn't weep--not even tears of joy. + +Then the Spider Mother spoke up, her voice brittle and metallic. "The +girl will naturally be returned to us. After this business, I am going +to have to take pains to restore discipline in the Family." + +Dworn saw Qanya's desolate face, took one step to the girl's side and +put a shielding arm around her. He felt Qanya trembling, and glared at +the Spider Mother's implacable face. + +"I won't go back!" Qanya cried vehemently. "I'll die first! I never +wanted to be a spider, anyway!" + +"And I," growled Dworn, "won't let you take her. I won't let her go--" +his face was pale, but he went on resolutely--"even if it means I can't +return to my own people." + +The beetle chief surveyed the two young people gravely, then turned to +confront the old woman. He said, "I don't see that you have any further +claim on the girl. According to our customs, she too can be +'reborn'--this time into the beetle horde, as one of my people--and my +son's." + +The head scorpion, looking on, nodded approval and grinned encouragingly +at Dworn. + +The Spider Mother and the chief exchanged a long, stony look--on either +side, the look of a ruler used to command. + +"It would be too bad," said Yold softly, "to mar the Peace. But my +warriors are within call, and...." + +The Spider Mother turned away and spat. "Have it your way. Who wants +weaklings in the Family!" + +The chief glanced sidelong at Dworn and Qanya, and saw that they were +wholly absorbed in one another. With an open-handed gesture he invited +the Spider Mother to follow him. + +"Shall we go, then," he suggested politely, "and--while the Peace still +reigns--find out whether the pill-bugs' beverage is all they claim it +is?" + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of World of the Drone, by Robert Abernathy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORLD OF THE DRONE *** + +***** This file should be named 32068.txt or 32068.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/0/6/32068/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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