Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  “Naturally he cannot understand me,” Glathnor thought. “I learned English in the Archives. But in ten thousand years the language has changed entirely. Perhaps telepathy—”

  On Titan telepathic communication was seldom used, since the strain on the minds en rapport was severe. Nevertheless Glathnor projected a message at the other. There was no response. The Earthman’s brain was not fitted for telepathic understanding, apparently.

  The two stood silent for a time, each wondering and puzzling. At last Rondar pointed, and made a beckoning gesture. His meaning was plain, and Glathnor followed the Earthman through the green forest.

  THE ground rose steadily. In ten minutes they stood on a high, windswept plain, from which the black cube of the space ship could be seen below. A queer, poignant happiness was deep within the Titan as he stared around at the broad expanse of Hawk Valley, a golden, sunlit land ringed by snow-white peaks in three directions. Toward the west lay the ocean, sapphire-blue, sparkling on the horizon. From Glathnor’s feet the ground fell away to the gleaming spires and domes of a mighty city in the far distance.

  Rondar touched the Titan’s metal-sheathed arm. His face was questioning. And Glathnor, knowing the impossibility of communication as yet, swept out his hand in a wide gesture. Rondar’s gaze followed the motion; perhaps he understood something of the other’s feelings. His eyes met the Titan’s, and a curious spark of comradeship kindled between the two men.

  They went on toward the city. As they approached, Glathnor noticed great mounds, featureless save for black tunnel-mouths, growing more numerous on the plain. A flicker of movement attracted his attention. A man, astride a giant, hideous insect, was racing toward them.

  Glathnor recognized that insect. He had seen miniature replicas of it in the Archives on Titan; the tiny, chitinous creatures in which he had read the seeds of doom. A doubt came to him. The insects were subjugated, seemingly, steeds of the Earthmen. Had he been wrong?

  The rider halted before the two men. In a language unintelligible to Glathnor he questioned Rondar. There was a cryptic exchange of comment. The Titan, however, was watching the giant ant. Its passionless, glittering eyes were intent upon him; the thing stood motionless as a statue. Abruptly its mandibles quivered, snapped, and a metallic series of clickings and raspings sounded.

  A language, unquestionably—and one which the Earthmen understood. They listened, and on Rondar’s face a doubting question grew. He answered the ant in clicking consonants.

  The insect spoke again, peremptorily. Rondar’s brows came together. He pointed at the Titan, shook his head stubbornly, and, Glathnor thought, argued. But the other Earthman joined his arguments to those of the ant, and presently Rondar, shrugging wryly, turned to the Titan. Some message seemed to be in his gaze, but what it was Glathnor could not understand.

  The Earthman began to hurry toward the distant city. The ant’s rider drew his weapon and gestured to one of the nearby mounds. Glathnor obeyed the unspoken command.

  Why not? Armed, the child of a race of giants, he felt no fear. And it was necessary to learn what conditions existed on Earth. So he preceded the man and the ant toward one of the black tunnel-mouths at the foot of a towering knoll, and entered it.

  He realized that subtle thought-vibrations stirred in the air all about him. Inexplicable ideas came to him. For example, he felt oddly certain that the Earthman had intended to remove his captive’s electric gun, but that the ant had forbidden it. Suddenly Glathnor decided that the insects were telepaths.

  The tunnel slanted down sharply. There was an abrupt turn, another long descent, and then a cavern lay before the three. It was of bare rock, empty save for a dozen huge ants. From other passages more insects came hurrying, until scores of them were lined in regular rows, facing Glathnor.

  CHITINOUS mandibles clicked a command. The guarding Earthman turned and vanished into the depths of the tunnel. The Titan was alone among the great insects. A very vague glow pervaded the cavern, but to Glathnor’s alien eyes every inch of it was clearly visible. He became conscious of a thought striving to reach his mind.

  He threw open the barriers of his consciousness. Suddenly, with a breath of relief, he realized that though the ants utilized telepathy, their minds were undeveloped as compared with the Titans. No man of Titan can read another’s mind unless the subject is willing. But Glathnor read the secret thoughts of the ants—and a black and terrible rage sprang up within him.

  This was not the civilization of the insects, not this bare and chilly nest far underground. Beneath it, at a depth to which Earthmen had never penetrated, lay a vast kingdom of science. There the ants had their secret life, hiding it always from Earthmen. Thought-pictures flashed through Glathnor’s brain, unwittingly revealed by the ants.

  An insect raced forward on its multiple legs, mandibles clicking. It paused before Glathnor. Its mind sent forth a question.

  “Who are you? From what world do you come?”

  A shudder shook the serried ranks of the ants. From Glathnor’s brain a telepathic wave had leaped, battering down the insect’s defenses, probing mercilessly, questioning, tearing out the answers from the secret abysses of the monster’s consciousness. Taken by surprise, the ant had no defense. And swiftly Glathnor questioned, swiftly he demanded his answers, for he knew that he had little time.

  “What is this Day of Killing I read in the minds of all of you?” Unwillingly came the ant’s response: “The day when we shall arise and wipe out mankind.”

  “When do you plan this?”

  Of the time-period in the insects’s thoughts Glathnor could make nothing. He repeated the question more forcibly.

  “It will be soon—soon!” came the answer.

  “Does humanity know of your plan? Tell me of this!”

  The hordes of monsters surged forward, swung back on the pulse of Glathnor’s thought-command. The answer came.

  “Men know nothing. We are their servants. So they think. For ages upon ages intelligence has developed in the ants. Even when we were tiny beings that could be crushed underfoot. We planned, then, for the future. We determined to wipe out humans. There is room for but one ruling race on a planet. So we made our plan.”

  Glathnor’s thought-control was breaking. He sent the mighty vibrations of his mind smashing into the ant’s brain.

  “What was this plan? Tell me!”

  “We . . . we were small. If we had risen then, mankind would have crushed us. So we made ourselves servants. We aided humans, we bred ourselves larger and larger, slowly growing in size through the ages. To keep men from annihilating us, from seeing danger in our growth, we served them. We worked for them; we were their slaves. Their allies, they think.

  “We aided them to conquer other forms of life. And then, when man finally trusted us completely, we set out to rob humanity of its power. Their leaders were killed secretly. Their strongest weapons, their books of power and science—we took. They suspect nothing. They have grown to depend on us completely. They do not realize that we have taken all that enabled man to conquer Earth. So, when the Day of Killing comes, we shall easily destroy humanity. Some we shall save and breed for food.”

  THE thought-thread broke. The ants had at last mastered the alien vibration of the Titan’s mind, and were able to throw up mental barriers. Glathnor realized this. His hand went stealthily to the electric gun at his side.

  The insect whose brain the Titan had read stilled the rising clamor of clicking mandibles. He sent a telepathic message to Glathnor:

  “You have learned much from us. It will not help you. A little—a very little—I read in your mind, man of Titan. I know you seek to aid Earthmen. But you forget you cannot communicate with them until you learn their language—and they trust us.”

  “Already our messengers are on their way to the City. They shall tell Earthmen that you are a scout from another world, a spy sent to investigate this planet in advance of a horde of your fellows who plan to conquer Earth and enslave Earthm
en.”

  “They will not believe you,” Glathnor responded, but he was far from sure.

  “They will believe. Why should they not? They trust us, man of Titan. And Earthmen fear the unknown. To them, you are the unknown, an alien being come out of the mystery of space. To them, your shape is more strange than our own. They know us, and they trust us. So you will die, and no other Titan will ever come to Earth to menace us. That I read in your mind.”

  With a cold, sardonic inner laughter Glathnor realized that his racial heritage—the love of war and death—pulsed strongly in his veins. It was ironic that one who had mocked this heritage should welcome now the red tide of fury that blazed up within him. Glathnor drew his electric gun. “Shall I fear vermin? By the Suns! I tell you this—your Day of Killing will never come.”

  He turned, seemingly ignoring the peril of the insect swarm. He took a step into the tunnel-mouth—

  And whirled with flashing speed. The ants were flowing toward him, silently, dreadful menace in their huge mandibles. The foremost creature was not six feet away when a ravening thunderbolt blasted out from Glathnor’s gun, lighting the cavern with electric brilliance. The concussion of split air was deafening.

  Then silence, and the ant lay motionless, a seared and blackened heap, its antenna burned stubs, its eyes covered with a white glaze. The others halted momentarily, taking stock of this danger, and Glathnor whirled and raced along the passage.

  He gained a slight breathing-spell, and that was enough. When he turned again the ants were pouring into the passage after him. The Titan, smiling grimly, directed his electric blast at the roof. He had picked the spot carefully, and with a thundering crash great rocks and slabs came sliding down, completely blocking the tunnel.

  Through blinding dust Glathnor’s eyes sent out weirdly brilliant beams. On the other side of the barrier he could hear the ants already at work breaking through. Turning, he sprinted toward the open air.

  Two ants he killed, and then he was out of the tunnel. The sun was low, painting the Earthmen’s city with light. Glathnor had already made his decision, and, his giant muscles straining, he fled toward his space ship.

  O use to wait, now. One man could not destroy the multitude of ants that dwelt in their subterranean caverns, and no doubt they possessed powerful weapons that had been carefully kept hidden from Earthmen. But when Glathnor reached Titan, the administrator would keep his promise.

  A fleet of space ships would set out across space; there would be red war over Earth; and the ants would perish. For their science could not compare with that of Titan; in fifty years—perhaps much less—the last ant-monster would be slaughtered mercilessly as it fled through its burrow.

  A spasm of disgust shook Glathnor; these vermin ruling Earth! The planet he had come to think of as home, the world where soft beauty of green fields and forests, and the warm glow of firelight existed in all the Solar System . . .

  A shout sounded in the distance. Glathnor looked back, saw racing figures larger on the plain Earthmen, riding the giant ants, seeking to kill the being they now regarded as an invader threatening the peace of their world.

  Glathnor remembered the robot—his twin—within the space ship. Although a beam energy projector was necessary to control such robots over long distances and periods, they could be directed by telepathy under favorable conditions. Knowing that the ship was not far away, Glathnor sent forth a soundless summons, peremptory and urgent, as he ran.

  The Titan had no wish to kill the men of Earth. He fled faster, until even his iron muscles felt fatigue. When, at last, he reached the flat slope that went down to the forest, and saw the space ship in the distance, he knew that he would have to fight. A bulky, gleaming figure was marching effortlessly toward him—the robot—but the pursuers were too close.

  And now the two stood side by side, Titan and robot, identical superficially, the right hand of each figure gripping a gun in a metal-sheathed hand. They waited, and death rode swiftly toward them.

  One man, astride a giant ant, was in the lead. The insect swept along with a smooth, mechanical rush; its rider drew his thermal pistol. A beam of hot light flared out.

  An Earthman would have died under that deadly attack, but Glathnor’s body was curiously constructed, extremely resistant to heat and cold. Moreover, the spacesuit protected him to some extent. But, seeing the other ants with their riders inexorably drawing near, and feeling the slow increase of heat in the suit’s metal, the Titan realized that he could not escape unless he killed his enemies. Somehow he knew it would be useless to attempt to frighten them away; the high, mad courage of Earthmen was too strong for that.

  So Glathnor fired, and killed his attacker. Man and ant fused into a smoking black heap. The Titan sent forth a peremptory thought-command to the silent robot, turned, and gained twenty long strides down the slope before he glanced around.

  The robot was battling, with mechanical, deadly accuracy, holding back Earthmen and ants for a brief eternity of hissing rays, harsh breathing, and sharp clicking of mandibles. To Glathnor it was strange indeed to see his twin standing there, fighting with a ray-gun that was soon exhausted, and then warring in primitive fashion dragging down a giant ant and crushing the monster’s thorax between metal hands that were reddening and dripping in hot incandescence.

  OVER the broken, ruined figure of the robot the pursuers came surging. Glathnor was caught midway down the slope. A hot ray flamed on the spacesuit; grimly the Titan turned, his gun ready; in murderous silence the horde came thundering down upon him.

  Then it was a flaming maelstrom of scarlet battle, a gleaming, metallic figure, with inhuman rays of light blazing from its eyes, standing widelegged in the center of an inferno of raging heat, slaughtering with passionless, deadly accuracy. Glathnor lost count of those he killed. The battle-lust in his blood fought with the keen sorrow of destroying those whom he had sought to save.

  At last, it was over. Still erect, but swaying half-blindly, the Titan towered over a smoking holocaust of burned things. Very far away, close to the City, he could dimly make out a movement that told of additional enemies. But it would be long before they arrived, and by that time Glathnor would be in space.

  But much closer the Titan could make out an ant and its rider approaching. He did not wait; there had been enough of killing. Unsteadily Glathnor went down the slope and into the forest.

  The electric gun was almost exhausted. Well, that did not matter now. But through innumerable tiny leaks in the spacesuit, oxygen, deadly to the Titan, was entering. Glathnor increased the flow of chlorine vapor, and his breath came less laboriously.

  He plunged through a hedge of brush and, down a shadowed avenue of columnar trees, he saw the space ship thirty feet away. Then a voice shouted nearby, and Glathnor paused, lifting his weapon.

  An Earthman astride a giant ant rode into sight, a man Glathnor recognized at the youth he had first encountered. Rondar’s face was flushed and bleeding, but the Titan could not know of dissension in the City, of one man who stood against a race—an Earthman who had read friendship and a kindred spirit in the eyes of a Titan, and who had refused to believe the message of the ants. Rondar had set out to warn Glathnor, and to aid him if possible. The ant was his own, and Rondar’s fatal mistake was in believing he could control the creature who had obeyed him for more than twenty years.

  Rondar leaped down from the ant; he clicked a dismissal. But the creature disobeyed. It charged forward straight for the Titan, bowling over Rondar, who was in its path, like a tenpin.

  The struggle did not last long. Glathnor had defeated more than a score of his enemies already, but then the Titan had been unwearied, and his gun unexhausted. The weapon blazed out—and swiftly the flame died. The giant insect, its eyes seared white by the blast, reached Glathnor. Its great mandibles closed on the spacesuit—and clamped tight.

  One groan of abysmal agony came from Glathnor as his ribs and chest were crushed. Deadly oxygen flooded into the suit. He a
nd the ant went down together and lay still.

  BOTH were dying. The insect was nearly unable to move, but when Rondar tried to pry open the mandibles they only ground together more viciously. Glathnor stopped the Earthman’s endeavor with a weak gesture.

  He turned the stopcock of his chlorine-tank, and felt stronger, though the pain grew, too, in intensity. He lay quietly, looking up at the Earthman.

  One thought hammered at his brain: proof must reach Titan! Otherwise his journey would have been in vain, and the Day of Killing would mean the end of Earthmen. Suddenly Glathnor realized what he must do.

  Rondar was trying to ease the Titan’s twisted position, but Glathnor, with an effort, caught the other’s hand. He took the radioactive ring from his gloved finger and gave it to Rondar, who eyed it, puzzled and at a loss.

  Then Glathnor pointed to the space ship.

  His meaning was unmistakable. Perhaps Rondar thought there were other Titans within the craft; perhaps he thought there was aid waiting there. He did not know, as Glathnor did, that death lay silently in the space ship. But, half-running, he hurried along the dim forest corridor.

  A flickering veil of hazy light spun itself like a web over the open port. This died as the radioactive ring Rondar clutched affected delicate mechanisms. In the depths of the ship robot machinery began to work. Levers slid silently along lubricated grooves. Pistons hesitated before plunging down.

  The Earthman stepped over the threshold. Behind him the port closed silently. And at that moment a choking, blinding pain stiffened Rondar’s body. Powerful pumps sent chlorine hissing into the sealed space ship.

  Thirty feet distant Glathnor watched. Through the transparent substance of the port he saw the Earthman become rigid, whirl, and claw at the barrier in a frantic effort at escape. Through Glathnor’s agony a sharper pain lanced; though these men of different worlds had met but twice, a queer comradeship had grown between them. Now Glathnor had killed the Earthman, so that a message might reach Titan.