"We sent out scouting parties from our underground labs and found nothing but a silent, barren waste. It had been accomplished. They were gone, wiped out. And we had come to take their place."
"Not all of them could have been wiped out," Harl pointed out. "There are still a lot of them up there on the surface."
"True," Fashold admitted. "Some survived. Scattered remnants here and there. Gradually, as the surface cooled, they began to reform again, getting together and building little villages and huts. Yes, and even clearing some of the land - planting and growing things. But they're still remnants of a dying race now almost extinct, as the Neanderthal is extinct."
"So nothing exists now but males and females without homes."
"There are a few villages here and there - wherever they've managed to clear the surface. But they've descended to utter savagery, and live like animals, wearing skins and hunting with rocks and spears. They've become almost bestial remnants who offer no organized resistance when we go up to raid a few of their villages for our factories."
"Then we -" Harl broke off abruptly as a faint bell sounded. He turned in startled apprehension, snapping on the vidphone.
His father's face formed on the screen, hard and stern. "Okay, Harl," he said. "We're ready."
"So soon? But -"
"We set the time ahead. Come down to my office." The image on the screen dimmed and vanished.
Harl did not move.
"They must have got worried," Fashold said, grinning. "They were apparently afraid you'd pass the information along."
"I'm all ready," Harl said. He picked up his blast gun from the table. "How do I look?"
In his silver communications uniform Harl looked splendid and impressive. He had put on heavy military boots and gloves. In one hand he gripped his blast gun. Around his waist was his screen control-belt.
"What's that?" Fashold asked, as Harl lowered black goggles over his eyes.
"These? Oh, they're for the sun."
"Of course - the sun. I forgot."
Harl cradled his gun, balancing it expertly. "The sun would blind me. The goggles protect my eyes. I'll be safe up there, with my screen and gun, and these goggles."
"I hope so." Still grinning, Fashold thumped him on the back as he moved toward the door. "Bring back a lot of saps. Do a good job - and don't forget to include a female!"
The mother ship moved slowly from the warehouse, and out onto the lift stage, a rotund black teardrop emerging from storage. Its port locks slid back, and ramps climbed to meet the locks. Immediately supplies and equipment were on their way up, rising into the bowels of the ship.
"Almost ready," Turner said, his face twitching with nervousness as he gazed through the observation windows at the loading ramps outside. "I hope nothing goes wrong. If the Directorate should find out -"
"Quit worrying!" Ed Boynton ordered. "You picked the wrong time to let your thalamic impulses take over control."
"Sorry." Turner tightened his lips and moved away from the windows. The lift stage was ready to rise.
"Let's get started," Boynton urged. "Have you men from the department at each level?"
"Nobody but department members will be near the stage," Turner replied.
"Where is the balance of the crew?" Boynton demanded.
"At the first level. I sent them up during the day."
"Very well." Boynton gave the signal, and the stage under the ship began slowly to rise, lifting them steadily toward the level above.
Harl peered out the observation windows, watching the fifth level drop below and the fourth level, the vast commercial center of the under-surface system, come into view.
"Won't be long," Ed Boynton said, as the fourth level glided past. "So far so good."
"Where will we finally emerge?" Harl asked.
"In the latter stages of the war our various underground structures were connected by tunnels. That original network formed the basis of our present system. We'll emerge at one of the original entrances, located in the mountain range called 'The Alps'."
"The Alps," Harl murmured.
"Yes, in Europe. We have maps of the surface, showing locations of sap villages in that region. A whole cluster of villages lie to the North and North East in what used to be Denmark and Germany. We've never raided there before. The saps have managed to clear the slag away from several thousand acres in that region, and seem gradually to be reclaiming most of Europe."
"But why, Dad?" Harl asked.
Ed Boynton shrugged. "I don't know. They don't seem to have set themselves any organized objective. They show no signs at all, in fact, of emerging from their savage state. All their traditions were lost - books and records, inventions, and techniques. If you ask me -" He broke off abruptly. "Here comes the third level. We're almost there."
The huge mother ship roared slowly along, gliding above the surface of the planet. Harl peered out, awed by what he saw below.
Across the surface of the earth lay a crust of slag, an endless coating of blackened rock. The mineral deposit was unbroken except for occasional hills sharply jutting up, ash-covered, and with a few sparse bushes growing near their tops. Great sheets of sun-darkening ash drifted across the sky, but nothing living stirred. The surface of the earth was dead and barren, without sign of life.
"Is it all like that?" Harl asked.
Ed Boynton shook his head. "Not all. The saps have reclaimed some of the land." He gripped his son's arm and pointed. "See off that way? They've done quite a bit of clearing up there."
"Just how do they clear the slag?" Harl asked.
"It's hard," his father replied. "Fused, like volcanic glass - hydroglass - from the hydrogen bombs. They pick it away bit by bit, year after year. With their hands, with rocks, and with the axes made from the glass itself."
"Why don't they develop better tools?"
Ed Boynton grinned wryly. "You know the answer to that. We made most of their tools for them, their tools and weapons and inventions, for hundreds of years."
"Here we go," Turner said. "We're landing."
The ship settled down, coming to rest on the surface of the slag. For a moment the blackened rock rumbled under them. Then there was silence.
"We're down," Turner said.
Ed Boynton studied the surface map, sending it darting through the scanner. "We'll send out ten eggs as a starter. If we don't have much luck here we'll take the ship farther North. But we should do well. This area has never been raided before."
"How will the eggs cover?" Turner asked.
"The eggs will fan out in a spectrum, giving each egg a separate area. Our egg will move over toward the right. If we have any success, we'll return to the ship at once. Otherwise, we'll stay out until nightfall."
"Nightfall?" Harl asked.
Ed Boynton smiled. "Until dark. Until this side of the planet is turned away from the sun."
"Let's go," Turner said impatiently.
The port locks opened. The first eggs scooted out onto the slag, their treads digging into the slippery surface. One by one they emerged from the black hull of the mother ship, tiny spheres with their backs tapering into jet tubes, and their noses blunted into control turrets. They roared off across the slag and disappeared.
"Ours, next," Ed Boynton said.
Harl nodded and gripped his blast rifle tightly. He lowered his protection goggles over his eyes, and Turner and Boynton did the same. They entered their egg, Boynton seating himself behind the controls.
A moment later they shot out of the ship onto the smooth surface of the planet.
Harl peered out. He could see nothing but slag on all sides. Slag and drifting clouds of ash.
"It's dismal," he murmured. "Even with the goggles the sun burns my eyes."
"Don't look at it then," Ed Boynton cautioned. "Look away from it."
"I can't help it. It's so - so strange."
Ed Boynton grunted and increased the egg's speed. Far ahead of them something was coming into view. He
headed the egg toward it.
"What's that?" Turner asked, alarmed.
"Trees," Boynton said, reassuringly. "Trees growing up in a clump. It marks the end of the slag. Then there's ash for a while, and finally fields the saps have planted."
Boynton drove the egg to the edge of the slag area. He stopped it where the slag ended and the clump of trees began, snapping off the jets and locking the treads. He and Harl and Turner got out cautiously, their guns ready.
Nothing stirred. There was only silence, and the endless surface of slag. Between drifting clouds of ash the sky was a pale robin's-egg blue, and a few moisture clouds drifted with the ash. The air smelled good. It was thin and crisp, and the sun shed a friendly warmth.
"Put your screens on," Ed Boynton warned. As he spoke he snapped the switch at his belt and his own screen hummed, flashing on around him. Swiftly, Boynton's figure dimmed, wavering and fading. It winked out - and was gone.
Turner quickly followed suit. "Okay," his voice came, from a glimmering oval to Harl's right. "You next."
Harl turned on his screen. For an instant a strange cold fire enveloped him from head to foot, bathing him in sparks. Then his body too dimmed and vanished. The screens were functioning perfectly.
In Harl's ears a faint clicking sounded, warning him of the presence of the two others. "I can hear you," Harl said. "Your screens are in my earphones."
"Don't wander off," Ed Boynton cautioned. "Keep by us and listen for the clicks. It's dangerous to be separated, up here on the surface."
Harl advanced carefully. The other two were on his right, a few yards off. They were crossing a dry yellow field overgrown with some kind of plant. The plants had long stalks that broke and crunched underfoot. Behind Harl was a trail of broken vegetation. He could clearly see the similar trails which Turner and his father were leaving.
But now it became necessary for him to separate from Turner and his father. Ahead of Harl the outline of a sap village rose up, its huts fashioned from some kind of plant fiber piled in heaps on top of wooden frames. He could see the shadowy outlines of animals tied to the huts. Trees and plants encircled the village, and he could distinguish the moving forms of people, and hear their voices.
People - saps. His heart beat quickly. With luck he might capture and bring back three or four for the Youth League. He felt suddenly confident and unafraid. Surely it would not be difficult. Planted fields, tied-up animals, rickety huts leaning and tilting -
The smell of dung commingling with the heat of the late afternoon became almost intolerable as Harl advanced. Cries, and other sounds of feverish human activity, drifted to him. The ground was flat and dry, weeds and plants grew up everywhere. He left the yellow field and came onto a narrow footpath, littered with human refuse and animal dung.
And just beyond the road was the village.
The clicks had diminished in his earphones. Now they died out completely. Harl grinned to himself. He had moved away from Turner and Boynton, and was no longer in contact with them. They had no idea where he was.
He turned to the left, circling cautiously around the edge of the village. He passed by a hut, then several in a cluster. Around him green trees and plants grew in great clumps, and directly ahead of him gleamed a narrow stream with sloping, moss-covered banks.
A dozen people were washing at the edge of the stream, the children leaping into the water and scrambling up on the bank.
Harl halted, gazing at them in astonishment. Their skins were dark, almost black. A shiny, coppery black it was - a rich bronze mixed in with the dirt-color. Was it dirt?
He suddenly realized that the bathers had been burned black by the constant sun. The hydrogen explosions had thinned the atmosphere, searing off most of the layer of moisture clouds and for two hundred years the sun had beat mercilessly down on them - in sharp contrast to his own race. Under-surface, there was no ultraviolet light to burn the skin, or to raise the pigment level. He and the other technos had lost their skin color. There was no need for it in their subterranean world.
But the bathers were incredibly dark, a rich reddish-black color. And they had nothing on at all. They were leaping and jumping eagerly about, splashing through the water and sunning themselves on the bank.
Harl watched them for a time. Children and three or four scrawny, elderly females. Would they do? He shook his head, and warily encircled the stream.
He continued on back among the huts, walking slowly and carefully, gazing alertly around with his gun held ready.
A faint breeze blew against him, rustling through the trees to his right. The sounds of the bathing children mixed with the dung smell, the wind, and the swaying of the trees.
Harl advanced cautiously. He was invisible, but he knew that he might at any moment be discovered and tracked down by his footprints or the sounds he might make. And if someone ran against him -
He stealthily darted past a hut, and emerged into an open place, a flat area of beaten earth. In the shade of the hut a dog lay sleeping with flies crawling over its lean flanks. An old woman was sitting on the porch of the rude dwelling, combing her long gray hair with a bone comb.
Harl passed by her cautiously. In the center of the open place a group of young men were standing. They were gesturing and talking together. Some were cleaning their weapons, long spears and knives of an inconceivable primitiveness. On the ground lay a dead animal, a huge beast with long, gleaming tusks and a thick hide. Blood oozed from its mouth - thick, dark blood. One of the young men turned suddenly - and kicked it with his foot.
Harl came up to the young men, and stopped. They were dressed in cloth clothing, long leg garments and shirts. Their feet were bare on top, for they wore loosely-woven vegetable-fiber sandals instead of shoes. They were clean-shaven, but their skin gleamed almost ebony black. Their sleeves were rolled up, exposing bulging, glistening muscles, dripping with sweat in the hot sun.
Harl could not understand what they were saying, but he was sure they were speaking one of the archaic traditional tongues.
He passed on. At the other side of the open place a group of old men was sitting cross-legged in a circle, weaving rough cloth on crude frames. Harl watched them in silence for a time. Their chatter drifted noisily up to him. Each old man was bent intently over his frame, his eyes glued on his work.
Beyond the row of huts some younger men and women were plowing a field, dragging the plow by ropes securely attached to their waists and shoulders.
Harl wandered on, fascinated. Everyone was engaged in some kind of activity - except the dog asleep under the hut. The young men with their spears, the old woman in front of the hut combing her hair, and weaving.
In one corner a huge woman was teaching a child what appeared to be an adding and subtracting game, using small sticks in lieu of figures. Two men were removing the hide from a small furred animal, stripping the pelt off carefully.
Harl passed a wall of hides, all hung up carefully to dry. The dull stench irritated his nostrils, making him want to sneeze. He passed a group of children pounding grain in a hollowed-out stone, beating the grain into meal. None of them looked up as he passed.
Some animals were tied together in a bunch. Some lay in the shade, big beasts with huge udders. They watched him silently.
Harl came to the edge of the village and stopped. From that point onward deserted fields stretched out. For perhaps a mile beyond the fields were trees and bushes, and beyond that the endless miles of slag.
He turned and walked back. Off to one side, sitting in the shade, a young man was chipping away at a block of hydroslag, cutting it carefully with a few rough tools. He seemed to be fashioning a weapon. Harl watched him, watched the endless, solemn blows descending again and again. The slag was hard. It was a long tedious job.
He walked on. A group of women were mending broken arrows. Their chatter followed him for a time, and he found himself wishing he could understand it. Everyone was busy, working rapidly. Dark, shiny arms rose and fell, and the
chattering murmur of voices drifted back and forth.
Activity. Laughter. A child's laughter echoed suddenly through the village, and a few heads turned. Harl bent down, intently studying a man's head at close range.
A strong face he had. His twisted knotted hair was short, and his teeth were even and white. On his arms were copper bracelets, almost matching the rich bronze hue of his skin. His bare chest was marked with tattoos, etched into his flesh with brightly colored pigments.
Harl wandered back the way he had come. He passed the old woman on the porch, and paused again to observe her. She had stopped combing her hair. Now she was fixing a child's hair, braiding it skillfully back into an elaborate pattern. Harl watched her, fascinated. The pattern was intricate, complex, and the task took a long time. The old woman's faded eyes were intent on the child's hair, on the detailed work. Her withered hands flew.
Harl walked on, moving toward the stream. He passed the bathing children again. They had all climbed out on the bank and were drying themselves in the sun. So these were the saps. The race that was dying out - the dying race, soon to be extinct. Remnants.
But they did not appear to be a dying race. They were working hard, tirelessly chipping at the hydroslag, fixing their arrows, hunting, plowing, pounding grain, weaving, combing -
He stopped suddenly, rigid, his blast gun at his shoulder. Ahead of him, through the trees by the stream, something moved. Then he heard two voices - a man's voice and a woman's voice, raised in excited conversation.
Harl advanced cautiously. He pushed past a flowering bush, and peered into the gloom between the trees.
A man and woman were sitting at the edge of the water, in the dark shadow of the tree. The man was making bowls, shaping them out of wet clay scooped up from the water. His fingers flew, expertly, rapidly. He spun the bowls, turning them on a revolving platform between his knees.
As the man finished the bowls the woman took them and painted them with deft, vigorous strokes of a crude brush gleaming with red pigment.