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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1875c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #63936 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/63936) diff --git a/old/63936-h.zip b/old/63936-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 632afb6..0000000 --- a/old/63936-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/63936-h/63936-h.htm b/old/63936-h/63936-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index f172a51..0000000 --- a/old/63936-h/63936-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1091 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=us-ascii" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Strange Exodus, by Robert Abernathy. - </title> - <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.caption p -{ - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0; - margin: 0.25em 0; -} - -div.titlepage { - text-align: center; - page-break-before: always; - page-break-after: always; -} - -div.titlepage p { - text-align: center; - text-indent: 0em; - font-weight: bold; - line-height: 1.5; - margin-top: 3em; -} - - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Strange Exodus, by Robert Abernathy - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Strange Exodus - -Author: Robert Abernathy - -Release Date: December 1, 2020 [EBook #63936] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE EXODUS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="titlepage"> - -<h1>STRANGE EXODUS</h1> - -<h2>By ROBERT ABERNATHY</h2> - -<p>Gigantic, mindless, the Monsters had come out of<br /> -interstellar space to devour Earth. They gnawed<br /> -at her soil, drank deep of her seas. Where, on<br /> -this gutted cosmic carcass, could humanity flee?</p> - -<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br /> -Planet Stories Fall 1950.<br /> -Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br /> -the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>Westover got a shock when he stumbled onto the monster, for all that he -knew one had been through here.</p> - -<p>He had been following the high ground toward the hills, alternately -splashing through waist-deep water and climbing onto comparatively dry -knolls. To right and left of him was the sullen noise of the river in -flood, and behind him, too, the rising water he had barely escaped. The -night was overcast, the moon a faint disk of glow that left river and -hills and even the mud underfoot invisible.</p> - -<p>He had not sought in his mind for the flood's cause, but had merely -taken it numbly as part of the fury and confusion of a world in ruin. -Anyway, he was dead tired out on his feet.</p> - -<p>He sensed more than saw the looming wall before him, but he thought -it the bare ledge-rock of a stripped hillside until he stepped into a -small pot-hole and lurched forward, and his outflung hands sank into -the slime that covered a surface faintly, horrifyingly resilient.</p> - -<p>He recoiled as if seared, and retreated, slithering in the muck. For -moments his mind was full of dark formless panic; then he took a firm -hold on himself and tried to comprehend the situation.</p> - -<p>Nothing was distinguishable beyond a few yards, but his mind's eye -could see the rest—the immense slug-like shape that extended in -ponderous repose across the river valley, its head and tail spilling -over the hills on either side, five miles apart. The beast was -quiescent until morning—sleeping, if such things slept.</p> - -<p>And that explained the flood; the monster's body had formed an -unbreakable dam behind which the river had been steadily piling up in -those first hours of night; if it did not move until dawn, the level -would be far higher then.</p> - -<p>Westover stood motionless in the blackness; how long, he did not know. -He was hardly aware of the water that covered his feet, crept over his -ankles, and swirled halfway to his knees. Only the emergence of the -moon through a rift of the cloud blanket brought him awake; its dim -light gleamed all around on a great sheet of water, unbroken save for -scattered black hummocks—crests of knolls like that on which he stood, -all soon to be hidden by the rising flood.</p> - -<p>For a moment he knew despair. The way back was impassable, and the way -ahead was blocked by the titanic enemy.</p> - -<p>Then the impersonal will that had driven him implacably two days and -nights without stopping came to his rescue. Westover plodded forward, -pressed his shrinking body against the slimy, faintly warm surface of -the monster's foot, and sought above him with upstretched hands—found -holds, and began to climb with a strength he had not known was left in -him.</p> - -<p>The moonlight's fading again was merciful as he climbed the sheer, -slippery face of the foot; but he could hear the wash and chuckle of -the flood below. His tired brain told him treacherously: "I'm already -asleep—this is a nightmare." Once, listening to that insidious voice, -he slipped and for instants hung dizzily by his hands, and for some -minutes after he had found a new foothold merely clung panting with -pounding heart.</p> - -<p>Some time after he had found courage to resume the climb, he dragged -himself, gasping and quivering, to comparative safety on the broad -shelf that marked the rim of the foot. Above him lay the great black -steep that rose to the summit of the monster's humped back, a mountain -to be climbed. Westover felt poignantly that his exhausted body could -not make that ascent and face the long and dangerous descent beyond, -which he had to make before dawn ... but not now ... not now....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He lay in a state between waking and dreaming, high on the monster's -side; and it seemed that the colossal body moved, swelling and -sighing—but he knew they did not breathe as backboned animals do. -Westover had been one of the men who, in the days when humanity was -still fighting, had accumulated quite a store of knowledge about the -enemy—the enemy that was brainless and toolless, but that was simply -too vast for human intelligence and weapons to defeat....</p> - -<p>Westover no longer saw the murky moonlight, the far faint glitter of -the flood or the slope of the living mountain. He saw, as he had seen -from a circling jet plane, an immense tree of smoke that rose and -expanded under the noonday sun, creamy white above and black and oily -below, and beneath the black cloud something that writhed and flowed -sluggishly in a cyclopean death agony.</p> - -<p>That picture dissolved, and was replaced by the face of a man—one who -might now be alive or dead, elsewhere in the chaos of a desolated -planet. It was an ordinary face, roundish, spectacled, but etched now -by tragedy; the voice that went with it was flat, unemotional, pedantic.</p> - -<p>"There are so many of them, and we've destroyed so few—and to kill -those few took our mightiest weapons. Examination of the ones that have -been killed discloses the reason why ordinary projectiles and bombs and -poisons are ineffective against them—apart, that is, from the chief -reason of sheer size. The creatures are so loosely organized that a -local injury hardly affects the whole. In a sense, each one of them is -a single cell—like the slime molds, the Earthly life forms that most -resemble them.</p> - -<p>"That striking resemblance, together with the fact that they chose -Earth to attack out of all the planets of the Solar System, shows they -must have originated on a world much like this. But while on Earth the -slime molds are the highest reticular organisms, and the dominant life -is all multicellular, on the monsters' home world conditions must have -favored unicellular growth. Probably as a result of this unspecialized -structure, the monsters have attained their great size and perhaps for -the same reason they have achieved what even intelligent cellular life -so far hasn't—liberation from existence bound to one world's surface, -the conquest of space. They accomplished it not by invention but by -adaptation, as brainless life once crawled out of the sea to conquer -the dry land.</p> - -<p>"The monsters who have descended on Earth must represent the end result -of a long evolution completed in space itself. They are evidently -deep-space beings, able to propel themselves from planet to planet and -from star to star in search of food, guided by instinct to suns and -worlds like ours. Descending on such a planet, they move across its -surface systematically ingesting all edible material—all life not -mobile enough to avoid their march. They are like caterpillars that -overrun a planet and strip it of its leaves, before moving on to the -next.</p> - -<p>"Man is a highly mobile species, so our direct casualties of this -invasion have been very light and will continue to be. But when the -monsters have finished with Earth, there will be no vegetation left -for man's food, no houses, no cities, none of the fixed installations -of civilization, and the end will be far more terrible than if we were -all devoured by the monsters."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Westover awoke, feeling himself bathed by the cold sweat of -nightmare—then he realized that a misty rain had wetted his face and -sogged his clothes. That, and the sleep he had had, refreshed him and -made his mind clearer than it had been for days, and he remembered that -he could not sleep but had to go on, searching with a hope that would -not die for some miraculously spared refuge where civilization and -science might yet exist, where there would be the means to realize his -idea for stopping the monsters.</p> - -<p>He sat up, eyes searching the sky for a sign to tell him how long he -had slept. Low on the western horizon he found the faint glow that told -of the moon's setting; and in the east a stronger light was already -struggling through the clouds and mist, becoming every moment less -tenuous and illusory, more the bitter reality of the breaking day.</p> - -<p>Even as Westover began frantically climbing, out of that lightening -sky the hopelessness of his effort pressed down on him. With dawn the -monster would begin to move, to crawl eastward impelled by the same dim -phototropic urge which must guide these things out of the interstellar -depths to Sun-type stars. All of them had crept endlessly eastward -around the Earth, gutting the continents and churning the sea bottoms, -and by now whatever was left of human civilization must be starving -beyond the Arctic circle, or aboard ships at sea. The hordes that -still lived and wandered over the once populous fertile lands, like -this—would not live long.</p> - -<p>For a man like Westover, who had been a scientist, it was not the -prospect of death that was most crushing, but the death blow to his -human pride, the star-storming pride of mind and will—defeated by -sheer bulk and mindless hunger.</p> - -<p>Near the crest of the monster's back, he stumbled and fell hands and -knees on the shagreen-roughness of the skin; at first he thought only -that an attack of dizziness had made him fall, then he realized that -the surface beneath him had shifted. Unmistakably even in the misty -dawn-light, the hills and valleys of the rugose back were changing -shape, as the vast protoplasmic mass below crawled, flowed beneath its -integument. In slow peristaltic motion the waves marched eastward, -toward the monster's head.</p> - -<p>He could stay where he was unharmed, of course. On the monster's back, -of all places, he had nothing to fear from it or from others of its -kind. But he knew with desperate clarity that by nightfall, when the -beast became still once more, exhaustion and growing hunger would have -made him unable to descend. As he lay where he had fallen, he felt that -weakness creeping over him, no longer held in check by the will that -had kept him doggedly plodding forward.</p> - -<p>Again he lay half conscious, in a lethargy that unchecked must grow -steadily deeper until death. Isolated thoughts floated through his -head. It occurred to him that he was now ideally located to conduct -the experiments necessary to prove his theory of how to destroy the -monsters—if only someone had had the foresight to build a biological -laboratory on the monster's back. Of course the rolling motion would -create special problems of technique.... Idiocy.... Once more he seemed -to glimpse Sutton's face, as the biologist calmly made that grisly -report to the President's Committee on Extermination.... Sutton's -prediction had been a hundred percent correct. The monsters' hunger -knew no halt until they had absorbed into themselves all the organic -material on the world which was their prey.... And men must starve, as -he was starving now....</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>With a struggle Westover roused himself, first sitting up, then swaying -to his feet, frowning with the effort to look sanely at the terrible -inspiration that had come to him. The cloud blanket was breaking up, -the sun already high, beating down on the naked moving plateau on which -the man stood. The idea born in him seemed to stand that light, even to -expand into hope.</p> - -<p>Fingers shaking, he unhitched the light ax from his belt and began to -hack with feverish industry at the monster's crusted hide.</p> - -<p>The scaly, weathered epidermis seemed immeasurably thick. But at last -he had chopped through it, reached the softer protoplasm beneath. -Clawing and hewing in the hole he had made, he tore out heavy slabs of -the monster's flesh.</p> - -<p>A ripple that did not belong to the crawling motion ran over the -thing's surface round about. Westover laughed wildly with a sudden -sense of power. He, the insignificant human mite, had made the -miles-long beast twitch like a flea-bitten dog.</p> - -<p>The analogy was pat; like a flea, he had lodged on a larger animal and -was about to nourish himself from it. The slabs of flesh he had cut off -were gray and unappetizing, but he knew from the studies he had helped -Sutton make that the monsters, extraterrestrial though they were, were -in the basic chemistry of proteins, fats and carbohydrates one with man -or the amoeba, and therefore might be—food.</p> - -<p>His matches were dry in their water-proof case; he made a smoldering -fire from the loose fibrous scale of the monster's back, and half an -hour later was replete. Either the long fast, or involuntary revulsion, -or perhaps merely the motion of the creature brought on nausea, but he -fought it sternly back and succeeded in keeping his strange meal down. -Then he was tormented by thirst. It was some time, though, before he -could bring himself to drink the colorless fluid that had collected in -the wound he had inflicted on the monster.</p> - -<p>Thus began for him a weird existence—the life of a parasite, of a flea -on a dog. The monster crawled by day and rested by night; strengthened, -the man could have left it then, but somehow night after night he did -not. It wasn't, he argued with himself sometimes in the days when he -lay torpidly drowsing, lulled by the long sway, arms over his head to -protect him from the sun's baking, merely that he was chained to the -only source of food he knew in all the world—not just that he was -developing a flea's psychology. He was a man and a scientist, and he -was conducting an experiment.... His life on the monster's back was -proving something, something of vast importance for man, the extinct -animal—but for increasingly longer periods of time he could not -remember what it was....</p> - -<p>There came a morning, though, when he remembered.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> - <img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> - <div class="caption"> - <p><i>Thus began for him a weird existence—the life of a parasite, of a flea on a dog.</i></p> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p>He woke with the sun's warmth on his body and the realization of -something amiss trickling through his head. It was a little while -before he recognized the wrongness, and when he did he sat bolt upright.</p> - -<p>The sun was already up, and the monster should have begun once more its -steady, ravenous march to the east. But there was no motion; the great -living expanse lay still around him. He wondered wildly if it was dead.</p> - -<p>Presently, though, he felt a faint shuddering and lift beneath his -feet, and heard far stifled mutterings and sighs.</p> - -<p>Westover's mind was beginning to function again; it was as though the -cessation of the rock and sway had exorcised the lethargy that had lain -upon him. He knew now that he had been almost insane for the time he -had passed here, touched by the madness that takes hermits and men lost -in deserts or oceans. And his was a stranger solitude than any of those.</p> - -<p>Now he listened strainingly to the portentous sounds of change in the -monster's vitals, and in a flash of insight knew them for what they -were. The scientists had found, in the burst bodies of the Titans -that had been killed by atomic bombs, the answer to the riddle of -these creatures' crossing of space: great vacuoles, pockets of gas -that in the living animal could be under exceedingly high pressures, -and that could be expelled to drive the monster in flight like a -reaction engine. Rocket propulsion, of course, was nothing new to -zoology; it was developed ages before man, by the squids and by those -odd degenerate relatives of the vertebrates that are called tunicates -because of their gaudy cellulose-plastic armor....</p> - -<p>The monster on which Westover had been living as a parasite was -generating gases within itself, preparing to leave the ravished Earth. -That was the meaning of its gargantuan belly rumblings. And they meant -further that he must finally leave it—now or never—or be borne aloft -to die gasping in the stratosphere.</p> - -<p>Hurriedly the man scrambled to the highest eminence of the back and -stood looking about; and what he saw brought him to the brink of -despair. For all around lay blue water, waves dancing and glinting in -the fresh breeze; and sniffing the air he recognized the salt tang -of the sea. While he slept the monster had crept beyond the coast -line, and lay now in what to it was shallow water—fifty or a hundred -fathoms. Back the way it had come, a headland was visible, mockingly, -hopelessly distant.</p> - -<p>Of course—the great beast would crawl into the sea, which would float -its bloated bulk and enable it to accelerate and take flight. It would -never have been able to lift itself into the air from the dry land.</p> - -<p>He should have foreseen that and made his escape in time. Now that -he had solved the problem of human survival.... But the bright ocean -laughed at him, sparkling away wave beyond rolling wave, and beyond -that blue headland could be only a land made desert, where men become -beasts fought crazily over the last morsels of food. He had lost track -of the days he had been on the monster's back, but the rape of Earth -must be finished now. He had no doubt that the things would depart -as they had come into the Solar System—in that close, seemingly -one-willed swarm that Earth's astronomers had at first taken for a -comet. If this one was leaving, the rest no doubt were too.</p> - -<p>Westover sat for a space with head in hands, hearing the faint -continuing murmurs from below. And he remembered the voices.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>He had been hearing them again as he awoke—the distant muffled voices -whose words he could not make out, not the small close ones that -sometimes in the hot middays had spoken clearly in his ear and even -called his name. The latter had to be, as he had vaguely accepted them -even then, illusions—but the others—with his new clarity he was -suddenly sure that they had been real.</p> - -<p>And a wild, white light of hope blazed in him, and he flung himself -flat on the rough surface, beat on it with bare fists and shouted: -"Help! Here I am! Help!"</p> - -<p>He paused to listen with fierce intentness, and heard nothing but the -faint eructations deep inside the monster.</p> - -<p>Then he sprang to his feet, gripping his hand-ax, and ran panting to -the place where he had dug for food. His excavations tended to close -and heal overnight; now he went to work with vicious strokes enlarging -the latest one, hacking and tearing it deeper and deeper.</p> - -<p>He was almost hidden in the cavity when a shadow fell across him from -behind. He whirled, for there could be no shadows on the monster's back.</p> - -<p>A man stood watching him calmly—an elderly man in rusty black -clothing, leaning on a stick. The staff, the snowy beard, and something -that smoldered behind the benign eyes, gave him the look of an ancient -prophet.</p> - -<p>"Who are you?" asked Westover, breathlessly but almost without surprise.</p> - -<p>"I am the Preacher," the old man said. "The Lord hath sent me to save -you. Arise, my son, and follow me."</p> - -<p>Westover hesitated. "I'm not just imagining you?" he appealed. -"Somebody else has really found the answer?"</p> - -<p>The Preacher's brows knitted faintly, but then his look turned to -benevolent understanding. "You have been alone too long here. Come with -me—I will take you to the Doctor."</p> - -<p>Westover was still not sure that the other was more than one of the -powerful specters of childhood—the Preacher, the Doctor, no doubt the -Teacher next—risen to rob him of his last shreds of sanity. But he -nodded in childlike obedience, and followed.</p> - -<p>When, a few hundred yards nearer the monster's head, the other halted -at a black rent in the rugose hide, the mouth of a burrow descending -into utter blackness—Westover knew that both the Preacher and his own -wild hope were real.</p> - -<p>"Down here. Into the belly of Leviathan," said the old man solemnly, -and Westover nodded this time with alacrity.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>The crawling descent through the twisting, Stygian burrow had much -that ought to belong to a journey into Hell.... More than that, no -demonologist's imagination could have conceived without experiencing -the sheer horror of the yielding beslimed walls that seemed every -moment squeezing in to trap them unspeakably. The air was warm and -rank with the familiar heavy sweetish odor of the monster's colorless -blood....</p> - -<p>Then, as he knew it must, a light glimmered ahead, the sinus widened, -and Westover climbed to his feet and stood, weak-kneed still, staring -at a chamber carved in the veritable belly of Leviathan. The floor -underfoot was firm, as was the wall his shaking fingers tested. -Dazzled, he saw tools leaning against the walls, spades, crowbars, -axes, and a half-dozen people, men and women in rough grimy clothing, -who stood watching him with lively interest.</p> - -<p>The Preacher stood beside him, breathing hard and mopping his forehead. -But he brushed aside the deferential offers of the others: "No—I will -take him to the Doctor myself. All of you must hurry now to close the -shaft."</p> - -<p>There was another tunnel to be crawled through, but that one was -firm-walled as the room they left behind. They emerged into a larger -cavern, that like the first was lit—only now did the miracle of it -obtrude itself in his dazed mind—by fluorescent tubes, and filled with -equipment that gleamed glass and metal. Over an apparatus with many -fluid-dripping trays, like an air-conditioning device, bent a lone man.</p> - -<p>"Is it working?" inquired the Preacher.</p> - -<p>"It's working," the other answered without looking up from the -adjustment he was making. Bubbles were rising in the fluid that filled -the trays, rising and bursting, rising and bursting with a curiously -fascinating monotony. The subtly tense attitudes of the two initiates -told Westover better than words that there was something hugely -important in the success of whatever magic was producing those bubbles.</p> - -<p>The thaumaturge straightened, wiping his hands on his trousers as he -turned with a satisfied grin on his round, spectacled face—then both -he and Westover froze in dumbfounded recognition.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Sutton was first to recover. He said quietly, "Welcome aboard the ark, -Bill. You're just in time—I think we're about to hoist anchor." His -quick eyes studied Westover's face, and he gestured toward a packing -box against the wall opposite his apparatus. "Sit down. You've been -through the mill."</p> - -<p>"That's right," Westover sat down dizzily. "I've been aboard your ark -for some time now, though. Only as an ectoparasite."</p> - -<p>"It's high time you joined the endoparasites. Lucky you scratched -around enough up there to create repercussions we could feel down here. -You got the same idea, then?"</p> - -<p>"I stumbled onto it," Westover admitted. "I was wandering across -country—my plane crashed on the way back from that South American -bug hunt dreamed up by somebody who'd been reading Wells' <i>War of the -Worlds</i>. I think my pilot went nuts; you could see too much of the -destruction from up there.... But I got out in one piece and started -walking—looking for some place with people and facilities that could -try out my method of killing the monsters. I thought—I still think—I -had a sure-fire way to do that—but I didn't realize then that it was -too late to think of killing them off."</p> - -<p>Sutton nodded thoughtfully. "It was too late—or too early, perhaps. -We'll have to talk that over."</p> - -<p>Westover finished the brief account of his coming to dwell on the -monster's back. The other grinned happily.</p> - -<p>"You began with the practice, where I worked out the theory first."</p> - -<p>"I haven't got so far with the theory," said Westover, "but I think -I've got the main outlines. Until the monsters came, man was a parasite -on the face of the Earth. Fundamentally, parasitism—on the green -plants and their by-products—was our way of life, as of all animals -from the beginning. But the monsters absorbed into themselves all the -plant food and even the organic material in the soil. So we have only -one way out—to transfer our parasitism to the only remaining food -source—the monsters themselves.</p> - -<p>"The monsters almost defeated us, because of their two special -adaptations of extreme size and ability to cross space. But man has -always won the battle of adaptations before, because he could improvise -new ones as the need arose. The greatest crisis humanity ever faced -called for the most radical innovation in our way of life."</p> - -<p>"Very well put," approved Sutton. "Except that you make it sound easy. -By the time I'd worked it out like that, things were already in -such a turmoil that putting it into effect was the devil's own job. -About the only ones I could find to help me were the Preacher and his -people. They have the faith that moves mountains, that has made this -self-moving mountain inhabitable."</p> - -<p>"It is inhabitable?" Westover's question reflected no doubt.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Sutton gestured at the bubbling device behind him. "That thing is -making air now, which we're going to need when the monster's in space. -It was when we were still trying to find a poison for the beasts that I -hit on the catalyst that makes their blood give up its oxygen—that's -its blood flowing through the filters. We've got an electric generator -running by tapping the monster's internal gas pressure. There are -problems left before we'll be fully self-sufficient here—but the -monster is so much like us in fundamental makeup that its body contains -all the elements human life needs too."</p> - -<p>"Then," Westover glanced appreciatively around, "it looks like the main -hazard is claustrophobia."</p> - -<p>"Don't worry about a cave-in. We're surrounded by solid cystoid -tissue. But," Sutton's voice took on a graver note, "there may be -other psychological dangers. I don't think all our people—there are -fifty-one, fifty-two of us now—realize yet that this colony isn't just -a temporary expedient. Human history hasn't had such a turning-point -since men first started chipping stone. Spengler's <i>Mensch als -Raubtier</i>—if he ever existed—has to be replaced by the <i>Mensch als -Schmarotzer</i>, and the adjustment may come hard. We've got to plan -for the rest of our lives—and our children's and our children's -children's—as parasites inside this monster and whatever others we can -manage to—infect—when they're clustered again in space."</p> - -<p>"For the future," put in the Preacher, who had watched benignly the -biologists' reunion, "the Lord will provide, even as He did unto Jonah -when he cried to Him out of the belly of the fish."</p> - -<p>"Amen," agreed Sutton. But the gaze he fixed on Westover was oddly -troubled. "Speaking of the future brings up the question of the idea -you mentioned—your monster-killing scheme."</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Westover flexed his hands involuntarily, like one who has been too -long enforcedly idle. In terse eager sentences he outlined for Sutton -the plan that had burned in him during his bitter wandering over -the face of the ruined land. It would be very easy to accomplish -from an endoparasite's point of vantage, merely by isolating from -the creature's blood over a long period enough of some potent -secretion—hormone, enzyme or the like—to kill when suddenly -reintroduced into the system. "Originally I thought we could accomplish -the same thing by synthesis—but this way will be simpler."</p> - -<p>"Beautifully simple." Sutton smiled wryly. "So much so that I wish -you'd never thought of it."</p> - -<p>Westover stared. "Why?"</p> - -<p>"Describing your plan, you sounded almost ready to put it into effect -on the spot."</p> - -<p>"No! Of course I realize—Well, I see what you mean—I think." Westover -was crestfallen.</p> - -<p>Sutton smiled faintly.</p> - -<p>"I think you do, Bill. To survive, we've got to be <i>good</i> parasites. -That means before all, for the coming generations, that we keep our -numbers down. A good parasite doesn't destroy or even overtax its host. -We don't want to follow the sorry example of such unsuccessful species -as the bugs of bubonic plague or typhoid; we'll do better to model -ourselves on the humble tapeworm.</p> - -<p>"Your idea is dangerous for the same reason. The monsters probably -spend thousands of years in interstellar space; during that time -they'll be living exclusively on their fat—the fuel they stored on -Earth, and so will we. We've got a whole new history of man ahead -of us, under such changed conditions that we can't begin to predict -what turns it may take. There's a very great danger that men will -proliferate until they kill their hosts. But imagine a struggle for -<i>Lebensraum</i> when all the living space there is is a few thousand -monsters capable of supporting a very limited number of people -each—with your method giving an easy way to destroy these little -worlds our descendants will inhabit. It's too much dynamite to have -around the house."</p> - -<p>Westover bowed his head, but he had caught a curiously expectant glint -in Sutton's eyes as he spoke. He thought, and his face lightened. -"Suppose we work out a way to record my idea, one that can't be -deciphered by anyone unintelligent enough to be likely to misuse it. A -riddle for our descendants—who should have use for it some day."</p> - -<p>At last Sutton smiled. "That's better. You've thought it through to -the end, I see.... This phase of our history won't last forever. -Eventually, the monsters will come to another planet not too unlike -Earth, because it's on such worlds they prey. A tapeworm can cross the -Sahara desert in the intestine of a camel—"</p> - -<p>His voice was drowned in a vast hissing roar. An irresistible pressure -distorted the walls of the chamber and scythed its occupants from their -feet. Sutton staggered drunkenly almost erect, fought his way across -the tilting floor to make sure of his precious apparatus. He turned -back toward the others, bracing himself and shouting something; then, -knowing his words lost in the thunder, gestured toward the Earth they -were leaving, a half-regretful, half-triumphant farewell.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Strange Exodus, by Robert Abernathy - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE EXODUS *** - -***** This file should be named 63936-h.htm or 63936-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/3/63936/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Strange Exodus - -Author: Robert Abernathy - -Release Date: December 1, 2020 [EBook #63936] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE EXODUS *** - - - - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - STRANGE EXODUS - - By ROBERT ABERNATHY - - Gigantic, mindless, the Monsters had come out of - interstellar space to devour Earth. They gnawed - at her soil, drank deep of her seas. Where, on - this gutted cosmic carcass, could humanity flee? - - [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from - Planet Stories Fall 1950. - Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that - the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] - - -Westover got a shock when he stumbled onto the monster, for all that he -knew one had been through here. - -He had been following the high ground toward the hills, alternately -splashing through waist-deep water and climbing onto comparatively dry -knolls. To right and left of him was the sullen noise of the river in -flood, and behind him, too, the rising water he had barely escaped. The -night was overcast, the moon a faint disk of glow that left river and -hills and even the mud underfoot invisible. - -He had not sought in his mind for the flood's cause, but had merely -taken it numbly as part of the fury and confusion of a world in ruin. -Anyway, he was dead tired out on his feet. - -He sensed more than saw the looming wall before him, but he thought -it the bare ledge-rock of a stripped hillside until he stepped into a -small pot-hole and lurched forward, and his outflung hands sank into -the slime that covered a surface faintly, horrifyingly resilient. - -He recoiled as if seared, and retreated, slithering in the muck. For -moments his mind was full of dark formless panic; then he took a firm -hold on himself and tried to comprehend the situation. - -Nothing was distinguishable beyond a few yards, but his mind's eye -could see the rest--the immense slug-like shape that extended in -ponderous repose across the river valley, its head and tail spilling -over the hills on either side, five miles apart. The beast was -quiescent until morning--sleeping, if such things slept. - -And that explained the flood; the monster's body had formed an -unbreakable dam behind which the river had been steadily piling up in -those first hours of night; if it did not move until dawn, the level -would be far higher then. - -Westover stood motionless in the blackness; how long, he did not know. -He was hardly aware of the water that covered his feet, crept over his -ankles, and swirled halfway to his knees. Only the emergence of the -moon through a rift of the cloud blanket brought him awake; its dim -light gleamed all around on a great sheet of water, unbroken save for -scattered black hummocks--crests of knolls like that on which he stood, -all soon to be hidden by the rising flood. - -For a moment he knew despair. The way back was impassable, and the way -ahead was blocked by the titanic enemy. - -Then the impersonal will that had driven him implacably two days and -nights without stopping came to his rescue. Westover plodded forward, -pressed his shrinking body against the slimy, faintly warm surface of -the monster's foot, and sought above him with upstretched hands--found -holds, and began to climb with a strength he had not known was left in -him. - -The moonlight's fading again was merciful as he climbed the sheer, -slippery face of the foot; but he could hear the wash and chuckle of -the flood below. His tired brain told him treacherously: "I'm already -asleep--this is a nightmare." Once, listening to that insidious voice, -he slipped and for instants hung dizzily by his hands, and for some -minutes after he had found a new foothold merely clung panting with -pounding heart. - -Some time after he had found courage to resume the climb, he dragged -himself, gasping and quivering, to comparative safety on the broad -shelf that marked the rim of the foot. Above him lay the great black -steep that rose to the summit of the monster's humped back, a mountain -to be climbed. Westover felt poignantly that his exhausted body could -not make that ascent and face the long and dangerous descent beyond, -which he had to make before dawn ... but not now ... not now.... - - * * * * * - -He lay in a state between waking and dreaming, high on the monster's -side; and it seemed that the colossal body moved, swelling and -sighing--but he knew they did not breathe as backboned animals do. -Westover had been one of the men who, in the days when humanity was -still fighting, had accumulated quite a store of knowledge about the -enemy--the enemy that was brainless and toolless, but that was simply -too vast for human intelligence and weapons to defeat.... - -Westover no longer saw the murky moonlight, the far faint glitter of -the flood or the slope of the living mountain. He saw, as he had seen -from a circling jet plane, an immense tree of smoke that rose and -expanded under the noonday sun, creamy white above and black and oily -below, and beneath the black cloud something that writhed and flowed -sluggishly in a cyclopean death agony. - -That picture dissolved, and was replaced by the face of a man--one who -might now be alive or dead, elsewhere in the chaos of a desolated -planet. It was an ordinary face, roundish, spectacled, but etched now -by tragedy; the voice that went with it was flat, unemotional, pedantic. - -"There are so many of them, and we've destroyed so few--and to kill -those few took our mightiest weapons. Examination of the ones that have -been killed discloses the reason why ordinary projectiles and bombs and -poisons are ineffective against them--apart, that is, from the chief -reason of sheer size. The creatures are so loosely organized that a -local injury hardly affects the whole. In a sense, each one of them is -a single cell--like the slime molds, the Earthly life forms that most -resemble them. - -"That striking resemblance, together with the fact that they chose -Earth to attack out of all the planets of the Solar System, shows they -must have originated on a world much like this. But while on Earth the -slime molds are the highest reticular organisms, and the dominant life -is all multicellular, on the monsters' home world conditions must have -favored unicellular growth. Probably as a result of this unspecialized -structure, the monsters have attained their great size and perhaps for -the same reason they have achieved what even intelligent cellular life -so far hasn't--liberation from existence bound to one world's surface, -the conquest of space. They accomplished it not by invention but by -adaptation, as brainless life once crawled out of the sea to conquer -the dry land. - -"The monsters who have descended on Earth must represent the end result -of a long evolution completed in space itself. They are evidently -deep-space beings, able to propel themselves from planet to planet and -from star to star in search of food, guided by instinct to suns and -worlds like ours. Descending on such a planet, they move across its -surface systematically ingesting all edible material--all life not -mobile enough to avoid their march. They are like caterpillars that -overrun a planet and strip it of its leaves, before moving on to the -next. - -"Man is a highly mobile species, so our direct casualties of this -invasion have been very light and will continue to be. But when the -monsters have finished with Earth, there will be no vegetation left -for man's food, no houses, no cities, none of the fixed installations -of civilization, and the end will be far more terrible than if we were -all devoured by the monsters." - - * * * * * - -Westover awoke, feeling himself bathed by the cold sweat of -nightmare--then he realized that a misty rain had wetted his face and -sogged his clothes. That, and the sleep he had had, refreshed him and -made his mind clearer than it had been for days, and he remembered that -he could not sleep but had to go on, searching with a hope that would -not die for some miraculously spared refuge where civilization and -science might yet exist, where there would be the means to realize his -idea for stopping the monsters. - -He sat up, eyes searching the sky for a sign to tell him how long he -had slept. Low on the western horizon he found the faint glow that told -of the moon's setting; and in the east a stronger light was already -struggling through the clouds and mist, becoming every moment less -tenuous and illusory, more the bitter reality of the breaking day. - -Even as Westover began frantically climbing, out of that lightening -sky the hopelessness of his effort pressed down on him. With dawn the -monster would begin to move, to crawl eastward impelled by the same dim -phototropic urge which must guide these things out of the interstellar -depths to Sun-type stars. All of them had crept endlessly eastward -around the Earth, gutting the continents and churning the sea bottoms, -and by now whatever was left of human civilization must be starving -beyond the Arctic circle, or aboard ships at sea. The hordes that -still lived and wandered over the once populous fertile lands, like -this--would not live long. - -For a man like Westover, who had been a scientist, it was not the -prospect of death that was most crushing, but the death blow to his -human pride, the star-storming pride of mind and will--defeated by -sheer bulk and mindless hunger. - -Near the crest of the monster's back, he stumbled and fell hands and -knees on the shagreen-roughness of the skin; at first he thought only -that an attack of dizziness had made him fall, then he realized that -the surface beneath him had shifted. Unmistakably even in the misty -dawn-light, the hills and valleys of the rugose back were changing -shape, as the vast protoplasmic mass below crawled, flowed beneath its -integument. In slow peristaltic motion the waves marched eastward, -toward the monster's head. - -He could stay where he was unharmed, of course. On the monster's back, -of all places, he had nothing to fear from it or from others of its -kind. But he knew with desperate clarity that by nightfall, when the -beast became still once more, exhaustion and growing hunger would have -made him unable to descend. As he lay where he had fallen, he felt that -weakness creeping over him, no longer held in check by the will that -had kept him doggedly plodding forward. - -Again he lay half conscious, in a lethargy that unchecked must grow -steadily deeper until death. Isolated thoughts floated through his -head. It occurred to him that he was now ideally located to conduct -the experiments necessary to prove his theory of how to destroy the -monsters--if only someone had had the foresight to build a biological -laboratory on the monster's back. Of course the rolling motion would -create special problems of technique.... Idiocy.... Once more he seemed -to glimpse Sutton's face, as the biologist calmly made that grisly -report to the President's Committee on Extermination.... Sutton's -prediction had been a hundred percent correct. The monsters' hunger -knew no halt until they had absorbed into themselves all the organic -material on the world which was their prey.... And men must starve, as -he was starving now.... - - * * * * * - -With a struggle Westover roused himself, first sitting up, then swaying -to his feet, frowning with the effort to look sanely at the terrible -inspiration that had come to him. The cloud blanket was breaking up, -the sun already high, beating down on the naked moving plateau on which -the man stood. The idea born in him seemed to stand that light, even to -expand into hope. - -Fingers shaking, he unhitched the light ax from his belt and began to -hack with feverish industry at the monster's crusted hide. - -The scaly, weathered epidermis seemed immeasurably thick. But at last -he had chopped through it, reached the softer protoplasm beneath. -Clawing and hewing in the hole he had made, he tore out heavy slabs of -the monster's flesh. - -A ripple that did not belong to the crawling motion ran over the -thing's surface round about. Westover laughed wildly with a sudden -sense of power. He, the insignificant human mite, had made the -miles-long beast twitch like a flea-bitten dog. - -The analogy was pat; like a flea, he had lodged on a larger animal and -was about to nourish himself from it. The slabs of flesh he had cut off -were gray and unappetizing, but he knew from the studies he had helped -Sutton make that the monsters, extraterrestrial though they were, were -in the basic chemistry of proteins, fats and carbohydrates one with man -or the amoeba, and therefore might be--food. - -His matches were dry in their water-proof case; he made a smoldering -fire from the loose fibrous scale of the monster's back, and half an -hour later was replete. Either the long fast, or involuntary revulsion, -or perhaps merely the motion of the creature brought on nausea, but he -fought it sternly back and succeeded in keeping his strange meal down. -Then he was tormented by thirst. It was some time, though, before he -could bring himself to drink the colorless fluid that had collected in -the wound he had inflicted on the monster. - -Thus began for him a weird existence--the life of a parasite, of a flea -on a dog. The monster crawled by day and rested by night; strengthened, -the man could have left it then, but somehow night after night he did -not. It wasn't, he argued with himself sometimes in the days when he -lay torpidly drowsing, lulled by the long sway, arms over his head to -protect him from the sun's baking, merely that he was chained to the -only source of food he knew in all the world--not just that he was -developing a flea's psychology. He was a man and a scientist, and he -was conducting an experiment.... His life on the monster's back was -proving something, something of vast importance for man, the extinct -animal--but for increasingly longer periods of time he could not -remember what it was.... - -There came a morning, though, when he remembered. - -[Illustration: _Thus began for him a weird existence--the life of a -parasite, of a flea on a dog._] - - * * * * * - -He woke with the sun's warmth on his body and the realization of -something amiss trickling through his head. It was a little while -before he recognized the wrongness, and when he did he sat bolt upright. - -The sun was already up, and the monster should have begun once more its -steady, ravenous march to the east. But there was no motion; the great -living expanse lay still around him. He wondered wildly if it was dead. - -Presently, though, he felt a faint shuddering and lift beneath his -feet, and heard far stifled mutterings and sighs. - -Westover's mind was beginning to function again; it was as though the -cessation of the rock and sway had exorcised the lethargy that had lain -upon him. He knew now that he had been almost insane for the time he -had passed here, touched by the madness that takes hermits and men lost -in deserts or oceans. And his was a stranger solitude than any of those. - -Now he listened strainingly to the portentous sounds of change in the -monster's vitals, and in a flash of insight knew them for what they -were. The scientists had found, in the burst bodies of the Titans -that had been killed by atomic bombs, the answer to the riddle of -these creatures' crossing of space: great vacuoles, pockets of gas -that in the living animal could be under exceedingly high pressures, -and that could be expelled to drive the monster in flight like a -reaction engine. Rocket propulsion, of course, was nothing new to -zoology; it was developed ages before man, by the squids and by those -odd degenerate relatives of the vertebrates that are called tunicates -because of their gaudy cellulose-plastic armor.... - -The monster on which Westover had been living as a parasite was -generating gases within itself, preparing to leave the ravished Earth. -That was the meaning of its gargantuan belly rumblings. And they meant -further that he must finally leave it--now or never--or be borne aloft -to die gasping in the stratosphere. - -Hurriedly the man scrambled to the highest eminence of the back and -stood looking about; and what he saw brought him to the brink of -despair. For all around lay blue water, waves dancing and glinting in -the fresh breeze; and sniffing the air he recognized the salt tang -of the sea. While he slept the monster had crept beyond the coast -line, and lay now in what to it was shallow water--fifty or a hundred -fathoms. Back the way it had come, a headland was visible, mockingly, -hopelessly distant. - -Of course--the great beast would crawl into the sea, which would float -its bloated bulk and enable it to accelerate and take flight. It would -never have been able to lift itself into the air from the dry land. - -He should have foreseen that and made his escape in time. Now that -he had solved the problem of human survival.... But the bright ocean -laughed at him, sparkling away wave beyond rolling wave, and beyond -that blue headland could be only a land made desert, where men become -beasts fought crazily over the last morsels of food. He had lost track -of the days he had been on the monster's back, but the rape of Earth -must be finished now. He had no doubt that the things would depart -as they had come into the Solar System--in that close, seemingly -one-willed swarm that Earth's astronomers had at first taken for a -comet. If this one was leaving, the rest no doubt were too. - -Westover sat for a space with head in hands, hearing the faint -continuing murmurs from below. And he remembered the voices. - - * * * * * - -He had been hearing them again as he awoke--the distant muffled voices -whose words he could not make out, not the small close ones that -sometimes in the hot middays had spoken clearly in his ear and even -called his name. The latter had to be, as he had vaguely accepted them -even then, illusions--but the others--with his new clarity he was -suddenly sure that they had been real. - -And a wild, white light of hope blazed in him, and he flung himself -flat on the rough surface, beat on it with bare fists and shouted: -"Help! Here I am! Help!" - -He paused to listen with fierce intentness, and heard nothing but the -faint eructations deep inside the monster. - -Then he sprang to his feet, gripping his hand-ax, and ran panting to -the place where he had dug for food. His excavations tended to close -and heal overnight; now he went to work with vicious strokes enlarging -the latest one, hacking and tearing it deeper and deeper. - -He was almost hidden in the cavity when a shadow fell across him from -behind. He whirled, for there could be no shadows on the monster's back. - -A man stood watching him calmly--an elderly man in rusty black -clothing, leaning on a stick. The staff, the snowy beard, and something -that smoldered behind the benign eyes, gave him the look of an ancient -prophet. - -"Who are you?" asked Westover, breathlessly but almost without surprise. - -"I am the Preacher," the old man said. "The Lord hath sent me to save -you. Arise, my son, and follow me." - -Westover hesitated. "I'm not just imagining you?" he appealed. -"Somebody else has really found the answer?" - -The Preacher's brows knitted faintly, but then his look turned to -benevolent understanding. "You have been alone too long here. Come with -me--I will take you to the Doctor." - -Westover was still not sure that the other was more than one of the -powerful specters of childhood--the Preacher, the Doctor, no doubt the -Teacher next--risen to rob him of his last shreds of sanity. But he -nodded in childlike obedience, and followed. - -When, a few hundred yards nearer the monster's head, the other halted -at a black rent in the rugose hide, the mouth of a burrow descending -into utter blackness--Westover knew that both the Preacher and his own -wild hope were real. - -"Down here. Into the belly of Leviathan," said the old man solemnly, -and Westover nodded this time with alacrity. - - * * * * * - -The crawling descent through the twisting, Stygian burrow had much -that ought to belong to a journey into Hell.... More than that, no -demonologist's imagination could have conceived without experiencing -the sheer horror of the yielding beslimed walls that seemed every -moment squeezing in to trap them unspeakably. The air was warm and -rank with the familiar heavy sweetish odor of the monster's colorless -blood.... - -Then, as he knew it must, a light glimmered ahead, the sinus widened, -and Westover climbed to his feet and stood, weak-kneed still, staring -at a chamber carved in the veritable belly of Leviathan. The floor -underfoot was firm, as was the wall his shaking fingers tested. -Dazzled, he saw tools leaning against the walls, spades, crowbars, -axes, and a half-dozen people, men and women in rough grimy clothing, -who stood watching him with lively interest. - -The Preacher stood beside him, breathing hard and mopping his forehead. -But he brushed aside the deferential offers of the others: "No--I will -take him to the Doctor myself. All of you must hurry now to close the -shaft." - -There was another tunnel to be crawled through, but that one was -firm-walled as the room they left behind. They emerged into a larger -cavern, that like the first was lit--only now did the miracle of it -obtrude itself in his dazed mind--by fluorescent tubes, and filled with -equipment that gleamed glass and metal. Over an apparatus with many -fluid-dripping trays, like an air-conditioning device, bent a lone man. - -"Is it working?" inquired the Preacher. - -"It's working," the other answered without looking up from the -adjustment he was making. Bubbles were rising in the fluid that filled -the trays, rising and bursting, rising and bursting with a curiously -fascinating monotony. The subtly tense attitudes of the two initiates -told Westover better than words that there was something hugely -important in the success of whatever magic was producing those bubbles. - -The thaumaturge straightened, wiping his hands on his trousers as he -turned with a satisfied grin on his round, spectacled face--then both -he and Westover froze in dumbfounded recognition. - - * * * * * - -Sutton was first to recover. He said quietly, "Welcome aboard the ark, -Bill. You're just in time--I think we're about to hoist anchor." His -quick eyes studied Westover's face, and he gestured toward a packing -box against the wall opposite his apparatus. "Sit down. You've been -through the mill." - -"That's right," Westover sat down dizzily. "I've been aboard your ark -for some time now, though. Only as an ectoparasite." - -"It's high time you joined the endoparasites. Lucky you scratched -around enough up there to create repercussions we could feel down here. -You got the same idea, then?" - -"I stumbled onto it," Westover admitted. "I was wandering across -country--my plane crashed on the way back from that South American -bug hunt dreamed up by somebody who'd been reading Wells' _War of the -Worlds_. I think my pilot went nuts; you could see too much of the -destruction from up there.... But I got out in one piece and started -walking--looking for some place with people and facilities that could -try out my method of killing the monsters. I thought--I still think--I -had a sure-fire way to do that--but I didn't realize then that it was -too late to think of killing them off." - -Sutton nodded thoughtfully. "It was too late--or too early, perhaps. -We'll have to talk that over." - -Westover finished the brief account of his coming to dwell on the -monster's back. The other grinned happily. - -"You began with the practice, where I worked out the theory first." - -"I haven't got so far with the theory," said Westover, "but I think -I've got the main outlines. Until the monsters came, man was a parasite -on the face of the Earth. Fundamentally, parasitism--on the green -plants and their by-products--was our way of life, as of all animals -from the beginning. But the monsters absorbed into themselves all the -plant food and even the organic material in the soil. So we have only -one way out--to transfer our parasitism to the only remaining food -source--the monsters themselves. - -"The monsters almost defeated us, because of their two special -adaptations of extreme size and ability to cross space. But man has -always won the battle of adaptations before, because he could improvise -new ones as the need arose. The greatest crisis humanity ever faced -called for the most radical innovation in our way of life." - -"Very well put," approved Sutton. "Except that you make it sound easy. -By the time I'd worked it out like that, things were already in -such a turmoil that putting it into effect was the devil's own job. -About the only ones I could find to help me were the Preacher and his -people. They have the faith that moves mountains, that has made this -self-moving mountain inhabitable." - -"It is inhabitable?" Westover's question reflected no doubt. - - * * * * * - -Sutton gestured at the bubbling device behind him. "That thing is -making air now, which we're going to need when the monster's in space. -It was when we were still trying to find a poison for the beasts that I -hit on the catalyst that makes their blood give up its oxygen--that's -its blood flowing through the filters. We've got an electric generator -running by tapping the monster's internal gas pressure. There are -problems left before we'll be fully self-sufficient here--but the -monster is so much like us in fundamental makeup that its body contains -all the elements human life needs too." - -"Then," Westover glanced appreciatively around, "it looks like the main -hazard is claustrophobia." - -"Don't worry about a cave-in. We're surrounded by solid cystoid -tissue. But," Sutton's voice took on a graver note, "there may be -other psychological dangers. I don't think all our people--there are -fifty-one, fifty-two of us now--realize yet that this colony isn't just -a temporary expedient. Human history hasn't had such a turning-point -since men first started chipping stone. Spengler's _Mensch als -Raubtier_--if he ever existed--has to be replaced by the _Mensch als -Schmarotzer_, and the adjustment may come hard. We've got to plan -for the rest of our lives--and our children's and our children's -children's--as parasites inside this monster and whatever others we can -manage to--infect--when they're clustered again in space." - -"For the future," put in the Preacher, who had watched benignly the -biologists' reunion, "the Lord will provide, even as He did unto Jonah -when he cried to Him out of the belly of the fish." - -"Amen," agreed Sutton. But the gaze he fixed on Westover was oddly -troubled. "Speaking of the future brings up the question of the idea -you mentioned--your monster-killing scheme." - - * * * * * - -Westover flexed his hands involuntarily, like one who has been too -long enforcedly idle. In terse eager sentences he outlined for Sutton -the plan that had burned in him during his bitter wandering over -the face of the ruined land. It would be very easy to accomplish -from an endoparasite's point of vantage, merely by isolating from -the creature's blood over a long period enough of some potent -secretion--hormone, enzyme or the like--to kill when suddenly -reintroduced into the system. "Originally I thought we could accomplish -the same thing by synthesis--but this way will be simpler." - -"Beautifully simple." Sutton smiled wryly. "So much so that I wish -you'd never thought of it." - -Westover stared. "Why?" - -"Describing your plan, you sounded almost ready to put it into effect -on the spot." - -"No! Of course I realize--Well, I see what you mean--I think." Westover -was crestfallen. - -Sutton smiled faintly. - -"I think you do, Bill. To survive, we've got to be _good_ parasites. -That means before all, for the coming generations, that we keep our -numbers down. A good parasite doesn't destroy or even overtax its host. -We don't want to follow the sorry example of such unsuccessful species -as the bugs of bubonic plague or typhoid; we'll do better to model -ourselves on the humble tapeworm. - -"Your idea is dangerous for the same reason. The monsters probably -spend thousands of years in interstellar space; during that time -they'll be living exclusively on their fat--the fuel they stored on -Earth, and so will we. We've got a whole new history of man ahead -of us, under such changed conditions that we can't begin to predict -what turns it may take. There's a very great danger that men will -proliferate until they kill their hosts. But imagine a struggle for -_Lebensraum_ when all the living space there is is a few thousand -monsters capable of supporting a very limited number of people -each--with your method giving an easy way to destroy these little -worlds our descendants will inhabit. It's too much dynamite to have -around the house." - -Westover bowed his head, but he had caught a curiously expectant glint -in Sutton's eyes as he spoke. He thought, and his face lightened. -"Suppose we work out a way to record my idea, one that can't be -deciphered by anyone unintelligent enough to be likely to misuse it. A -riddle for our descendants--who should have use for it some day." - -At last Sutton smiled. "That's better. You've thought it through to -the end, I see.... This phase of our history won't last forever. -Eventually, the monsters will come to another planet not too unlike -Earth, because it's on such worlds they prey. A tapeworm can cross the -Sahara desert in the intestine of a camel--" - -His voice was drowned in a vast hissing roar. An irresistible pressure -distorted the walls of the chamber and scythed its occupants from their -feet. Sutton staggered drunkenly almost erect, fought his way across -the tilting floor to make sure of his precious apparatus. He turned -back toward the others, bracing himself and shouting something; then, -knowing his words lost in the thunder, gestured toward the Earth they -were leaving, a half-regretful, half-triumphant farewell. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Strange Exodus, by Robert Abernathy - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK STRANGE EXODUS *** - -***** This file should be named 63936.txt or 63936.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/3/9/3/63936/ - -Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan 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 print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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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