Wanderers of Time, Page 4

  Roy’s revolver came into action with a crash. The heavy bullet took Hale in the arm. The tube dropped from his hand, and he bolted into the machine. Roy, as he took aim again, saw the other, unwounded hand reach for the switch. Once more his revolver spurted, but the bullet flattened itself against the wall. The time-traveller, and with it, Hale and Betty, had vanished.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE SECRET OF THE MACHINES

  An inarticulate cry, something between a moan and a scream, brought them facing to the centre of the room. One of the Numen was clawing wildly at his body and emitting animal-like howls. Behind him lay the remains of the machine, split by Hale’s ray-stroke into two parts. From it a glistening, black tide of life was flowing in their direction. The unfortunate Numan had stood nearest, and already the black flow covered him thickly. Even as they watched in unmoving amazement, he fell writhing to the ground and his body became a mere mound in the blackness.

  ‘Ants! ’ cried Roy, as the black horde advanced. ‘Millions of ants! ’

  The affrighted group backed up the hall, the two surviving Numen gibbering with fear. Del caught up the tube which Hale had dropped.

  ‘Low power,’ he ordered. ‘Ray them all.’

  There was little need for the command. Kal and Ril were already playing their tubes back and forth across the advancing line, withering the insects by thousands. Julian Tyne, shaken into activity, first by the desertion of his friend and then by the threatening menace, joined in, sweeping his own ray with telling effect.

  At every pass they made, thousands of ants shrivelled and became no more than light ash; but still they pushed relentlessly on, marching blindly to certain death. Their centralisation had disappeared with the wreckage of their machine, and now they were left only with the old instinct to attack. There was little real danger; even Julian’s lesser ray could have wiped them all out in five minutes. But there came an interruption the familiar clatter of the metal door. Del turned to see a trio of machines scuttering in through the opening. He pushed up his ray to full power and cut away the fast-moving legs with one sweep. The metal bodies dropped, and impeded those behind.

  Del switched a withering blast of heat on the lintel of the doorway. More by luck than knowledge, he succeeded in melting away the supporting catches, and the metal sheet crashed down, bisecting two entering machines as it fell. Kal sprang to Del’s side and trained a ray on one of the stranded machines turning it incandescent; but already, from the broken halves in the doorway, more black streams of insects were flooding to the attack. Switching his ray to low power lest he should melt the door behind, Del swept a myriad of infuriated ants into eternity. Julian and Ril, behind him, continued the destruction of the first swarm.

  Kal dealt rapidly with all three of the powerless machines. Each was rendered red-hot, and its crew incinerated before it could escape. Then he joined Del in repelling the second attack. There came a pandemonium of battering against the door as the machines outside attempted to crash their way in, but the metal sheet was massive enough to defy their most strenuous efforts. The slaughter of the ants was quickly completed. The four tube-holders rayed, on low power, every corner of the great hall, to make certain that none had escaped. Only when they were satisfied that the last ant was wiped out did they have opportunity to pause and consider. ‘ ‘We’ll have to get out of this—and quick! ’ exclaimed Roy. ‘ ‘But how? There’s no way but the door.’,

  ‘Burn our way out,’ replied Del. ‘We’re not far from the open, here. You remember we were near the entrance when they turned in here. Which direction was it?’

  ‘The left wall,’ said Roy, definitely. ‘But we can’t burn through that—all the molten stuff will run back on us in here.’ Del shook his head. ‘We can get rid of that.’

  A heat-ray was rigged up, pointing directly down at the floor, and then switched on to full power. For ten or twelve seconds the circle of earth below it boiled and seethed furiously, while waves of heat rolled through the cavern. Then, abruptly, it vanished, leaving only a dark hole. Roy stared. ‘What happened?’ he inquired. Del, switching off the tube, smiled at his astonishment.

  ‘There’s no magic about it,’ he answered him. ‘You see, this place we are in is nothing more or less than a mammoth anthill. But anthills have workings extending below ground as well as above. We simply melted through the roof of the level below us, and the residue has flowed through the passages down there.’

  Approaching as closely as possible. Del began to cut a trench from the foot of the wall to the lip of the newly-drilled hole,his back was towards the door, and it was only a warning scream from Jessica which saved him from the fate of the luckless Numan. All looked where she pointed. A black carpet of ants was spreading towards them, streaming between the base of the door and the ill-fitting threshold in their hundreds of thousands.

  Del turned like a flash, and his tube, still at full power, swept them to instant annihilation. Simultaneously, a corner of the door became a ragged hole in the metal, its edges dripping molten blobs to the floor. Del set Julian to guard the vulnerable spot and turned, with renewed energy, to the drilling of the escape tunnel.

  Muffled as much as possible against the heat, he stood back on the far side and trained his ray forward. The solid wall began to liquefy. It oozed and dripped down into the trench he had prepared, flowing along until it poured to unknown depths through the hole in the floor. The operation took no more than a few minutes, but the belching waves of heat reduced them, in even so short a time, to the limit of their endurance. The hot air of the cavern became all but unbreathable. The radiation seemed to scorch them even through their clothing when, to Del’s surprise, daylight broke through at ten to a dozen yards distance.

  ‘We’ve been fortunate,’ he remarked, shutting off his tube. ‘We were nearer the outside than I suspected. I’ve drilled the shaft on a slant so that it will drain, but it will be some hours before it is passable. Now we must get to work—when we’ve made that doorway safe.’

  Narrowing his beam, he cut an overhanging piece of the roof so that it fell squarely in front of the hole in the door. Satisfied that the entrance was now completely blocked, he turned his attention to the row of derelict time-travellers.

  ‘These,’ he said, with a wave of his hand, ‘are the only means we have of regaining our own time. We cannot take them bodily with us. But we must select the more intricate and essential parts, and carry them off. We may be able to discover Material for framework, but such things as vacuum tubes, Lestrange batteries, light-impulse cells and the like, would be a great labour to construct—even if we could do so, which is doubtful.’

  Very little of Roy’s machine was worthy of salvage. When he had extracted his two undamaged Lestrange batteries, he walked over to the two Numen, who were standing helplessly by their crumpled vehicle, and directed them to unbolt such lmpulse cells as remained intact. Then he became interested in

  the other machines. Among those unclaimed by anyone present stood two dented metal cubes. Del came over to join him as he pulled on the door of one. It came grudgingly ajar, hanging askew on the twisted frame, and a breath of corruption sent the two men staggering back a pace. Holding his breath, Roy reapproached and peered inside. The shrivelled body of a man, in a far state of decomposition, lay huddled into one of the farther corners.‘Poor devil,’ he muttered. ‘At least, we’ve been luckier than he was.’

  Del, with his tube at low power, cremated the decaying body, and after waiting a moment for the air to clear, they both entered. One wall was lined with rows of tubes and resistances, while on another were control-panels attended with tortuous convolutions of wiring. Roy peered hopefully among the serried switches and dials for some clue to the machine’s date of origin, but without success. Del pondered silently over the mechanism for a while. An expression of wonder came over his face.

  ‘What is it?’

  Del answered half to himself. ‘I considered it impossible.’

  ‘What
do you mean?’

  ‘This vehicle is radically different from ours. It does not plunge instantaneously through the time-flow. Instead, it has the property of slowing down its contents, so that the world outside slips by at high speed by comparison. A slow, inefficient machine—but it worked.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I mean that both our machines, yours and mine, work similarly to the extent that they insulate us entirely from time— that is to say, ages pass by us in a flash and we are not affected. But this is not a complete insulating machine; it works with a kind of drag action. For instance, if the operator turns this main dial to indicate a speed half-way between the normal time-flow and complete insulation, events inside his chamber will take exactly twice as long to happen as they would in the outer world. During the period which seems an hour to him the events of two hours will take place outside. If he turns the dial farther, the events of a week, or a year, flash past in what appears to be an hour. See, he even has a window through, which he can watch the happenings of the world fly past.’

  Roy noticed a square of glass set in one wall.

  ‘I think I understand. But what happened?’

  ‘He must have made a mistake somewhere, just as we did but unlike us, he was travelling so slowly, even at his top speed, that before he reached this date he starved and died on the way—another martyr to experiment. It’s a pretty safe guess that we shall find the same fate overtook the man in the other cube.’

  Kal came over to summon Del with the information that the salvaged parts had been laid out, awaiting his decision as to which should be taken and which left. Under his direction, the selected fragments were divided among the party for portage. A further inspection of the passage revealed that it was still too hot for use; they must wait at least another hour. Del looked worried, and examined the joints of floors and walls carefully for any traces of the ants breaking through.

  ‘Ants,’ said Roy, musingly, as they waited. ‘Insects working those machines—ruling the world, perhaps. It’s incredible.’

  ‘It’s logical,’ Del contradicted.

  ‘I don’t get that.’

  ‘It was inevitable, sooner or later. They’ve always had a far better organisation than man, even in my century—no wasted effort, no need to struggle continually with subversive factors. The only thing which stopped them being masters of the world, from the beginning, was their size. Now, they have found a way of overcoming that disability. There’s a natural limit to the size of insects. They do not breathe as we do, but absorb the oxygen through the surface. If they became large, there would not be enough absorption area in proportion to the bulk inside, and they would die of suffocation.’

  ‘Yes, I see that. But to find them working machines—and such machines—just staggers me.’

  ‘But why? It’s the natural way out of the difficulty. After all, we did the same. Where would man have been without his machines? If you want a parallel, just think of one of the warships of your own time—twelve hundred or more men working a great floating monster, just as these insects in their thousands work their scuttering metal machines. It puzzles me that I didn’t think of it the moment we saw the style of their machines. But these things always seem so obvious afterwards.’ Roy nodded. ‘But, still, I would never have believed if I hadn’t seen,’ he added.

  A rattle of falling dirt startled the group. They looked apprehensively upward. A shining metal tentacle protruded through a small hole in the room. An increasing rain of debris pattered all about them as it moved from side to side, enlarging the aperture.

  Kal’s tube sent a shaft of heat shooting up. Either from haste or misjudgment, he had it notched at full-power. The tentacle was melted off, and fell, but the heat-beam had seared on into the roof. There came an ominous cracking, and the men, with a startled glance, took to their heels in the direction of the escape tunnel. Almost as they drew clear, the weakened spoil gave way and the machine, with an avalanche of dirt, crashed to the floor. Even as it broke open, rivers of ants came swarming out of the gaping seams. With a second crash, another machine fell through the hole, and after it, another. It seemed that the insects cared little how many machines were wrecked to secure the victory.

  ‘Into the tunnel! ’ shouted Del. ‘We must risk it, now.’

  The rest scampered to obey, holding their precious burdens in their arms. Kal charged ahead with his weapon held ready and his short legs moving with twinkling rapidity. The others followed him closely. Roy heard a howl of agony break from the two Numen as their bare feet encountered the hot surface, but their fear of the ants was greater than their discomfort; and they held on their way.

  The heat of the passage was intense; it beat at them like a furnace glare. Jessica staggered just ahead of Roy. He caught her around the waist with his free arm, and dragged her on. The two of them pitched together over the outer edge into the daylight—he had forgotten that the slant of the tunnel meant a six-foot drop at the other end. Del had remained till the last. He rayed furiously at the increasing horde of ants until he was sure that his companions were clear; then he, too, turned and ran for safety. He fell from the tunnel’s mouth, narrowly missing the prostrate Roy.

  ‘Only a dozen yards of that inferno,’ said the latter, sitting up, ‘yet it seemed like a hundred. Anyhow, it’s a sight too hot for the ants to get across it. We’re clear of them for a bit.’ Del agreed, but he wished to make sure. ‘Lift me up on your shoulders,’ he directed. Roy did so, and the dwarf played a narrow ray on the sloping passage roof till it fell, completely closing the entrance.

  ‘Any casualties?’ Roy inquired, as he lowered the other. ‘No, except these two.’ Jessica pointed to the two Numen, who were sitting down ruefully examining their scorched soles. ‘And they’re more surprised than hurt. But I should think,’ she added, ‘that the vacuum tubes have suffered.’

  A hurried inspection revealed that only one had been smashed.

  ‘And now, where do we go from here?’ Roy asked Del, who, by general consent, had become director of the party.

  ‘We get away very quickly, before they realise what has happened and start a search for us,’ Del replied.

  It took but a short time to cross the open ground and gain the cover of the forest. Roy, looking back for a final view of the rearing cliffs which formed the side of the stupendous anthill. was relieved to discern no signs of pursuit.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE DAY OF THE INSECT

  Several hours of heavy going found them a weary party. The three dwarfs had very soon given out; their small bodies were of little use for this kind of rough going. One of the Numen, noticing their distress, handed his bundle over to his fellow and, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, raised Kal and Ril to his broad shoulders. The other placed both bundles upon one shoulder and seated Del on the other.

  ‘That proves it! ’ declared Kal, as he recovered from his surprise. ‘These are the descendants of Tak Four A’s Numen. Brawn, developed to assist brains.’

  For some miles they had proceeded along the bed of a stream, with the dual purpose of losing the scent and of making slightly easier progress than was possible among the trees. On a corner, the leading Numan stopped short. Roy craned round him to ascertain the cause, and found himself staring at one of the six-legged machines. It stood motionless on the grass verge of the left bank, glistening in the sunlight.

  Del pulled out his tube, but as he levelled it, the machine became aware of them and scurried swiftly sideways. For a moment it paused, waving its tentacles slightly, as though uncertain whether to attack or not; then it flashed away into the trees and out of sight.

  ‘Damn it! ’ said Roy, as he watched the last glitter of the receding shell. ‘It will give the alarm.’ Rather bitterly, he added: ‘Why didn’t you melt the thing?’

  ‘Because I had no desire to set the whole forest on fire,’ Del replied calmly.

  Tired as they were, they pressed on with greater speed. Th
ey must, Del pointed out, reach some defensible spot. While they remained among the trees, they were liable to concealed attack from any side. Another two hours brought them to a district where open spaces were more frequent, but still Del was unsatisfied. At the edge of a sizeable clearing, Roy demurred.

  ‘Jessica’s dead beat, Julian’s very little better, and I’ve had enough, too. We’ll find nothing to beat this. If we camp in the middle, we can defend all round.’

  Julian upheld the suggestion in a tired, dispirited voice. Del opened his mouth, but before he could speak there came an interruption.

  ‘Get into the trees, you fools! ’ roared a voice. For a second nobody moved. ‘I mean it,’ called the voice, somewhere above their heads. ‘They’re coming after you. Get moving! ’

  The tone was so insistent that, this time, they obeyed with out question. As Roy, who was the last to climb, swung himself up the branches, he heard the approach of a multitudinous scuttering. Looking down, he could see the flashing surfaces of a dozen or more passing ant-machines.

  ‘Close call,’ said a voice above him.

  ‘Certainly was—and it’d have been a damn sight closer if you hadn’t been about,’ Roy answered softly.

  ‘It’s all right; you needn’t whisper. Those tin things can’ hear. I’ve tried ’em. What’s more, they’re too dumb to look for anything up above ’em. You’re safe here.’

  Roy leaned back and looked up at the speaker on his higher branch. He was a man of knotty, compact build, clad in a torn shirt and illused khaki trousers. The greater part of his face was hidden beneath an unruly growth of black beard and whiskers, but his mouth smiled, and there was a zestful twinkle in his eyes. Roy climbed higher and stretched out his hand. It was taken in a hardened, calloused grip.

  ‘You can’t guess how glad I am to see you folks, whoever you are. I reckoned I’d got the world to myself, ‘cept for the: crawlin’ tin cans down there. I’m Jim Hollis. About four days’ ago, I was somewhere near Indianapolis—the Lord knows where I am now! ’