‘Well, isn’t he?’
‘May be, but the point is that for the moment, at least, he isn’t sane. I’ve been watching him these last few weeks perhaps it is my fault in a way that this has happened: I ought to have warned you all that he was on the edge. But I counted on our arrival here having a normalising effect; I was wrong. He isn’t responsible, and in his present state you couldn’t help doing more harm than good: he’d kill her rather than let any of us get near, of that I’m certain. In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t shoot us as we stood.’
‘So am I,’ Froud agreed. ‘And I had a nasty, clammy idea that he might hit on the idea of letting out our oxygen supply By the way, Dale, how long is it good for?’
‘With careful use, at the present rate, it might last twenty hours, I think.’
‘Of which two have gone already.’
‘And you mean we’re to do nothing?’ Dugan repeated, still incredulous.
‘The only person who can do anything is that girl,’ the doctor said. ‘And, if I know Joan, she will. I’ve got faith in her, and she knows how the situation stands, all right.’
‘But suppose we were to cut quickly through the bushes parallel with him and ambush him at the other end?’
‘What! With those leaves making a noise like a whole brown paper factory? Have some sense,’ Froud said. ‘No, Doc’s is the idea. She’s got a pistol, and she’ll get a chance to use it sooner or later.’
‘And if she doesn’t?’
‘Then it’s a poor look out for us. I suppose Burns will just sit comfortably in the G.M. and watch us pass out from suffocation.’
‘But what good’s that going to do him? He can’t take the G.M. back alone.’
‘Can’t you get it into your nut that the man isn’t sane any longer? All he wants at the moment is the girl, and revenge on us because he supposes we left him out he isn’t thinking of himself beyond that.’
Dugan frowned worriedly. ‘Yes I see that now, but do you really think she does? I mean, suppose she lets it go until too late, expecting us to take a hand?’
‘She won’t.’
But though Froud sounded definite, he was by no means convinced in his own mind. If Joan could shoot Burns, all would be well. But could she? A second’s hesitation at the critical moment might give him the chance to disarm her. A trembling of her hand or any slight misjudgement might only result in an infuriating flesh wound. It was not an easy thing to shoot down even a madman in cold blood. Did she, after all, fully realise what was going to happen to her and to all of them if she were to let an opportunity slip?
Conversation languished. Each of the four sat silently considering unpleasant possibilities.
‘How long are you giving him, Dale?’ the doctor asked, at last.
‘I thought an hour. It’s difficult to tell. For all we know, he may still be waiting for us round the first corner.’
The other nodded. An hour, he thought, should give them a good margin, provided they went cautiously. He doubted whether a man in Burns’ state of mind would have the patience to lie long in ambush.
Dale rose when the time was up.
‘Now, remember, go as quietly as you can. And we’re not going to hurry. Caution’s a damn sight more important than speed just now. Our game is to be near when something happens, but we don’t want to make it happen.’
They had covered perhaps a third of the distance to the rocket when there came the sharp, unmistakable sound of a rifle shot ahead. Dale, in the lead, stopped dead, listening. There was a second shot, followed by several more in rapid succession. Dale broke into a clumsy run, keeping his feet with difficulty against the low gravity which threw him into a series of striding leaps. The rest followed as well as they were able. If it did cross Dale’s mind that this might be a trap cunningly contrived for them, he took no notice of the idea. Undoubtedly there had been things other than themselves moving in the bushes. It looked as if Burns had discovered what those things were.
They found him no great way from the edge of the desert. His body lay in the centre of the track, face to the sky. It was nasty. Of the girl there was no sign.
The four stopped abruptly. The sight was sickening.
‘Good God,’ said Froud. ‘What can have done that?’
He looked nervously about him. There was no hint of anything lurking in the bushes, no sound but the fretting together of the dried stems and whispering rustle of the leaves. Yet a short while ago something had been here something big and dangerous. The doctor knelt down without a word. He raised the trampled and broken body, slipped the rifle slings from the shoulders and handed the weapons back to their owners. There were six among the four of them. Dugan took two. Dale bent down and eased his second out of the dead hands. Its magazine was empty. He reloaded before he spoke. The rest waited for him with their eyes restlessly searching the thickets and the rifles ready in their hands.
‘She may have run on to the ship,’ he said. ‘We’d better look. Later, when we know what we are up against, we’ll come back for poor Burns.’
They went on. Slowly this time. Doing their best to minimise the crackling of each step. They explored the meshed bushes around them with apprehensive glances, fearful of seeing an unexpected movement. But still nothing showed and no suspicious sound came to their ears.
The vegetation became shorter and sparser, and they knew with relief that they were nearing the desert once more. Once on the open sand they would be safe from a surprise attack. In the tall scrub the advantage lay overwhelmingly with the attacker. A hundred yards more and they had reached the edge. The taller growths gave way quite abruptly to the little, knee high withered shrubs. Beyond lay the rolling dunes of reddish sand and occasional outcrops of rock, and across them they could see the Gloria Mundi a glitter with slanting rays of the sun. An audible sigh of relief rose from all four of the men.
‘I don’t know what I’ve been waiting for, but thank God it hasn’t happened,’ said Froud.
‘There are rare times when we are in complete agreement,’ the doctor admitted.
‘What was that?’ Dugan said sharply.
‘What was what?’
‘I saw something flash, close to the G.M.’
‘Probably Joan showing she’s seen us,’ Froud suggested. ‘I expect she’s – yes, there it is again.’
‘Damn. I must have left my glasses by the water,’ Dale said.
‘Well, we’re certainly not going back to fetch them, so let’s get on.’
They had covered half the distance when Dale called another halt.
‘It seems to me I can see things moving just by her,’ he said.
‘You’re right,’ Dugan agreed. ‘But I can’t make out what they are. Do you think…?’
‘Look!’ cried the doctor. His voice held a panicky sound which made them spin round.
Emerging from the bushes they had just left was a procession which left them speechless.
Dale alone kept his presence of mind. Close beside them was a small hillock of broken rocks and drifted sand. He gave the order to run for it.
‘And hold your fire till I give the word,’ he added; as they flung themselves flat upon the top.
Chapter 16. Joan Starts a Journey
Joan, who was in front, had been the first to see the thing. They were in a hurry-at least, Burns was, and, in the circumstances, that meant that she was, too. He had waited just long enough to fire the single warning shot which had sent Dugan back to the rest before urging her swiftly on their way. His manner had changed. With the others safely out of sight, his confidence became displaced by a nervous anxiety to put the stout hull of the Gloria Mundi between himself and dangers known or unknown as soon as possible. She noticed, moreover, that he had put his pistol back in his pocket, and was holding one of the rifles ready for an emergency. The altered attitude increased her nervousness of the surroundings, but it made him seem more normal. And his eyes no longer held that cruel gleam which had made her feel weak almost t
o the point of panic.
As they hurried on, her thoughts ran ahead. She had nothing to fear from him now, until they reached the rocket. But once inside it, with the outer door closed…? They would take off their oxygen masks. Then the padded overalls. She would have a chance to reach the pistol in her pocket– That was it. While he was struggling out of his protective suit, her chance would come. It would put him at her mercy for a few necessary moments. And there must be no mistake. For the sake of the rest as well as for herself she could risk no mistake….
The bushes around them were drier now; the ground underfoot, sandier. Quite soon they would reach the open desert. It would not take long to reach. Then she had seen it. A glimpse of something glittering bluely which moved in the bushes to the right. She swerved wildly away from it. A kind of jointed rod swept out from it, barely missing her arm, and a sudden terror seemed to stab her in the chest. She sprang forward, running and leaping without daring to look behind. She heard Burns’ cry of surprise. There was the sound of a shot and then of a fusillade as the automatic rifle emptied itself. The noise drove her on faster. There was a cry, like a thin scream behind her, and terror seemed to give her wings so that she flew through the bushes. She never looked back.
Then the bushes abruptly finished and she stumbled out among the little wizened shrubs. But she did not check her headlong flight. She had no intention of stopping before the Gloria Mundi’s door was safely shut between her and whatever had been in the bushes. Not until she was half-way across the sand did she catch sight of the things which were moving around the rocket. Then, in dismay, she checked herself. She could not risk going on to meet them, but she dared not face the bushes again. There was nothing for it, but to wait where she was. Dale and the rest must have heard the shots; they would be here soon. She looked round, searching for a hollow where she could lie hidden until they should come.
A sudden glitter on top of one of the rocky ridges away to her right caught her eye. She started, looking more attentively. It flashed again, without any doubt the reflection from a swiftly moving metal object. She stood rigidly watching it as it approached rapidly. Each time it breasted a ridge or a sandy hummock she could distinguish more details. Soon there could be no doubt that it was the counterpart of the machine in her photographs-with the difference that it scurried along on six legs instead of eight. Joan stood, waiting for it.
At twenty yards’ distance it stopped and turned its lenses on her. A series of sounds in metallic timbre came from one of the openings in its casing. In the thin air they sounded harsh and attenuated. Joan, after a moment’s hesitation, advanced to a smooth patch of sand and wrote there a few characters with her forefinger. Then she stood back and waited.
The machine approached with no sound but the thudding of its six feet on the sand. It stopped close to the scratched characters, examining them carefully. Joan had written that she came from Earth, and peacefully.
Again the metallic tones issued from its speaker. She smoothed the sand and began to write again.
‘Write. I cannot understand speech.’
One of the machine’s four tentacles whipped forward. it scrawled swiftly:
‘How do you know our writing?’
Laboriously, compared with the machine’s swift action, Joan drew her reply.
‘A machine came to Earth.’
‘Did it bring you? Where is it?’ scribbled the machine.
‘No, it was’ – she hesitated – ’broken,’ she finished.
She watched it as it began to write again. Suddenly, with no more than three characters completed, it stopped. Before she could guess its intention it had dashed forward. Two of the metal tentacles wrapped round her and lifted her. A third flashed out, striking at something behind her, and meeting it with a clang. Held as she was, she could not see what threatened. She was only aware of a jointed metal arm which whipped past her head and fell with a harmless clatter on the case of the machine which held her. The surprise was so complete; the action so unexpected as utterly to bewilder her. The next thing she knew was that she was travelling across the desert in the grasp of a machine which sped at a prodigious pace towards the south.
Chapter 17. Making Acquaintances
The four men lying prone on the top of the sand hill watched the string of metal machines which had emerged from the scrub. The creation which Joan’s photographs had shown them had seemed weird, but these newcomers were a nightmare. They all felt a hysterical disbelief of their own senses: the things they saw must be a hallucination. Dugan, with an attempt at light-heartedness, said:
‘I know what it is. Someone’s been putting alcohol in my air supply.’ But his intended nonchalance was belied by the tremor in his voice.
Froud blinked at the mechanical cavalcade. He shook his head decidedly.
‘I’m sorry, but I just don’t believe it,’ he said.
No two of the machines were alike. They differed in shape, size and form both of their main casings and of their appendages. Some were spherical bodied, some cubical, some pyramidal, some rectangular and a few of the roughly coffin shape that Joan had described to them. The only point which they all held in common was that each moved upon struts of one kind or another; not a wheel was to be seen. Froud stared particularly at one egg-shaped monstrosity. It was supported on one side by two long jointed stilts which were splayed out widely to compensate for the three scurrying, but far shorter legs on the other side. Another, a torpedo-like contrivance, had only one leg on either side at the rear and upheld its forepart on a kind of skid, One of the spheres managed to get along on a tripod of unequal struts, clanking and clattering as it lurched about. Many of the cases were discoloured by smears of a kind of rust and patched in places with plates of non-matching metals; here and there one could see parts which had been painted, but not one of the machines was the same colour all over.
‘Crazy, crazy, crazy. It can’t be real,’ Froud repeated.
‘If I read of this, I should throw the book away,’ said the doctor. ‘But it exists; it’s real. There must be some kind of reason for it somewhere.’
The ungainly machines spread out into a crescent formation and continued to approach, the faster reducing their speeds to the lumbering pace of the slower.
‘When I give the word,’ Dale said. ‘Aim for their lenses-and go easy on the bullets, we’ve got none to waste.’
‘I suppose they are hostile,’ Froud put in; ‘but you remember what Joan said–’
‘These aren’t the things she talked about. Besides, I’m remembering what Burns looked like, and not taking any chances,’ Dale said.
He waited patiently. They were within sixty yards when he gave the order to fire.
The result of the first volley was unexpectedly gratifying. The advance stopped dead. One machine dropped to the ground with its metal legs splayed out around it. Another burst into fragments with a surprising concussion. A third ran amuck. It staggered, turned half round, then with tentacles flailing wildly and a great clanking proceeding from its loosely articulated parts, it set off drunkenly over the desert as fast as five ill-matched legs could carry it. Dale gave the order for a second round.
One more machine fell. The legs of a second jammed so that it ploughed round in a circle. The undamaged machines began to retire, dragging the injured with them. Frond dropped his rifle and seized a camera.
‘Study of a flock of ‘what-have-yous’ in full retreat,’ he murmured.
‘She was right about one thing – they can think,’ the doctor said. ‘They’re not just remote control mechanisms – they’re intelligent, self-contained machines.’
‘Maybe,’ Froud grunted, ‘but it seems to me precious like the kind of intelligence you find in mental homes. And I feel a bit that way myself. Damn it all, it can’t be real – even here. It’s – it’s a kind of dream made of Lewis Carroll and Karel Capek rolled together. There’s no sense in machines like this. Just look at ‘em. What the hell’s the good of ‘em?’
> ‘Yes, but remember the one in Joan’s photographs. It was all right. Queer as it looked to us, it was at least logically designed and all of a piece. Something’s gone wrong with these. They aren’t reasonable – sort of crazy bad jokes. Look at that square chap.’
He pointed at one of the cubes. From its lower corners sprang two well-paired metal legs and one entirely dissimilar leg, while the fourth was upheld by a flexible tentacle. It was busily engaged in dragging away one of the broken machines by means of other tentacles protruding from three of its upper corners.
‘I’ve got an idea about that. Keep your eye on it for a bit,’ advised Dale.
When it had reached what it evidently considered a safe distance, the cube stopped; a lens set in one of its sides was brought to bear, and it probed inquisitively about in the wreckage. Apparently satisfied, it lowered its own casing to the ground and began industriously to dismember the other machine. Five minutes later it stood erect again, but with a difference. It rested now upon four legs and four tentacles waved from its top corners. By taking a leg from its wrecked companion, it had been enabled to shift the jury-leg tentacle back to its rightful position. Now, apart from minor discrepancies in the length of the legs, it was complete and ready for anything.
‘Well, that settles it. We’re all quite mad,’ said Froud. ‘Queer,’ muttered the doctor, ‘indecent, too, somehow. A kind of mechanical cannibalism.’
He watched another machine with ludicrously ill assorted members approach the casualty and exchange a badly damaged tentacle for one in better condition.
‘Do you suppose that the ultimate is a kind of super monster built entirely of spare parts?’
‘Don’t ask me anything,’ Froud told him. ‘I’m still feeling as if my middle name were Alice.’
The surviving machines having stripped the fallen of all useful parts reformed their ranks and began to advance again.
‘Same as before,’ Dale ordered.