Vinetta’s mind had wandered to consider what he had said about living mainly on fruit, which sounded to her like too much of a good thing, if no worse than that.
“The dogs,” she said doubtfully, “eat the conies. I wonder what they would be like if we get tired of the grapes.”
“They have a filthy taste,” Wyndham assured her. “I gnawed a strip of flesh which the puppies tore, while I was confined to the cave. It made me sick. You would not like it at all.”
“It seems to suit the dogs.”
“We should not like killing them.”
“But the dogs would do that for us. They will do anything they can. They like praise.”
“Well, so they would. We might try burning the flesh. We know that is what the barbarians did. I have that burning glass from the museum which will make a fire on a sunny day. We must find something to burn.”
“So we could. There are still trees on the steeper cliffs.”
So they forgot the automata for the time, as they talked of their own concerns.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
It was a few days later that Wyndham went out alone, as he was beginning sometimes to do, to watch more closely the operations of the automata, and to decide how nearly the crops of oranges and citrons which had grown, but not ripened, in the warm mist of the winter months, would be fit to pick. The problems of how, or whether, they could be stored, or how far they might continue to mature as the seasons changed, had still to be faced.
He went without fear, for he knew that the killers were trained to aversion from human flesh, nor would he have been without hope that his intelligence would be sufficient to foil them, even had they started to hunt him down. He thought rather to observe them at their work, and to consider how, if in any way, they could be safely destroyed. With his new vision of life, he hated these automata whose whole occupation was destruction of the sentient life that they were unable to share. He was even repelled by the coney-killing habits of the dogs, and more by Vinetta’s suggestion that they should learn to live by the same means.
He had a mind more given to abstractions than hers. It was the immediate practical issue at which she looked. They had to live, as she meant they should, and the lives of a thousand conies were of no account by the side of that. Yet his reflections, wandering into abstractions of vaguer shape, must end at the same gate. To destroy life is to create. Destroy death, and life will go out by the same door. Even individual immortality would have the unavoidable result that generations which would have followed would never be. He saw that which baffled; but nothing to excuse the sin by which mankind had ended so much of the rich life of the earth, and so nearly ended itself. There had been deaths from which had risen no further life. Deaths abortive, blaspheming the creation of God, such as those which the killers were dealing now.
Or, at least, which they would have dealt, had the opportunity been theirs. But he saw them smell with their delicate proboscides around tree-trunks where no insects crawled. He saw them burrow into soil which no earth-worms lifted, which was stirred only by the stretched arms of the agricultural automata, the metal fingers of which raised and crumbled it round the roots of the grateful trees.
He looked at the hungry, restless killers, wondering how they could be destroyed or disabled, so that whatever remained of sentient life might endure in the emptied soil. He did not think that it would be easy to do.
The covering of their black bodies was a metal alloy which was smooth, supple, and very strong. It was not formed of loose plates or the links of mail. It was a glove-like skin. All was metal, even to the cloven, hog-like hooves. Their mouths, which, when the proboscides were drawn back, showed rows of razor-sharp metal teeth, were to be avoided with care.
Behind them there were apertures from which vapour would issue at times, being from the combustion that went on within. Perhaps some weapon driven in at those openings might cause damage sufficient to end their activities? He considered that they must ultimately depend for their strength upon consumption of the creatures they caught. Getting no more than an occasional insect, their enduring vigour could not be much! Perhaps there might be hope in that.
He would do nothing rashly. It was a matter for careful thought, where error could not be risked. His lifelong inhibition against interfering with the machines made it easy to be cautious now.
But he walked past them, seeing that they took no notice of him, and observed again how hungrily they pursued their hunting, and with what meagre results.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The killer walked on the edge of the concrete path, which it preferred to the softer soil over which its proboscis hovered restlessly, stretching for a scent that was not there. At the place where Wyndham passed it and its companion, and walked ahead without troubling to give a backward glance, its proboscis swayed restlessly towards the path, and then jerked away. It could scarcely have been more irresolute, more confused, had it been capable of a conscious thought.
Very strongly it smelled man, which it had been taught to avoid. Faintly, but unmistakably, it smelled dog. Large dog, which it was fiercely eager to reach. More, in fact, than one dog, for its perceptions were so keen, so delicate, that it could distinguish the two animals that had been rubbed against human legs, and even the puppies that had been fondled by Wyndham’s hands.
But for that smell of man it would have been already trotting hard, its six legs moving with clumsy speed on the tempting track. As it was, it moved slowly, uncertainly, as though conscious of wrongdoing, and being drawn forward against its will.
Its comrade, working twenty yards behind on the other side of the path, came to the same spot, and behaved in the same way.
Ten minutes later, though still with slow, uncertain movements, they had left the plantations, and, side by side, were climbing the mountain-side.
So they went on, but at a decreasing pace, with longer pauses, and may have been on the point of abandoning a scent which did not strengthen, and was so repellently blended with that which they were forbidden to follow, when they came to the place where the dog which descended with Vinetta had recognized her danger and fled.
At that, their demeanour changed. Here was scent, separate, strong, and rich. It was confused neither with that of Wyndham nor Vinetta, for the she dog, in her abject flight, had taken her own path. The two killers no longer moved like hounds on a doubtful scent. They galloped up the rocks, steep though they were jostling each other in their eager advance.
Soon they came to a place where they were confused by the very plenitude of that alluring odour. They went slightly separate ways, but it was to the same goal from that moment there could be only one end. The dogs might avoid them by constant flight for a week, even a month, but in the end an implacable, unswerving phase would run down a panting, exhausted, or possibly sleeping prey. There would be a moment of futile writhing in the grip of the cruel jaws, or snapping against smooth, tooth-breaking sides, and the two automata would settle down to tear at a common meal. So, at least, it would have been if the last of mankind had left the earth in the grip of the evils they themselves had bred.
Wyndham was at the cave-mouth when he looked back, and might not have done so then had he not heard one of the dogs cry out in fear with a wail like a beaten child.
It may have been that cry which guided Vinetta’s mind to the right track. She had come out of the cave, and saw the automata at the same moment as Wyndham. She said, “They’re not after us. It’s the dogs.”
The two animals, which had moved a few steps right and left, and then stood as though paralysed by a sense of unescapable doom, drew at last in shivering fear behind their human friends, as to the sole hope that remained. It was a plea it would not have been easy to refuse, even had their fear of the killers been greater, or their hate less than it was.
Vinetta looked questioningly at Wyndham, as though seeking a decision from him which she felt unequal to make. She said, “You won’t find that sword any good.”
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“No, but we might this.”
He walked to where a great stone stood by the mouth of the cave. He bent to it, using all his strength.
Seeing his intention, and that it did not move, Vinetta gave her aid. The two dogs stood watching intently, their drooping tails having lifted slightly, and began to sway in gratitude for a championship which they already instinctively understood. The automata were scrambling rapidly upward, but still some distance below.
Pulled by four straining arms, the great boulder lifted and rolled over into the centre of the sloping path. Wyndham paused, waiting his time.
“Now,” he said, “let it go.” Their arms strained again, and the stone bounded down the slope. The dogs barked sharply for joy of that which they could not themselves have tried.
The four who watched saw the boulder leap straight downward upon the advancing automata. It seemed inevitable that one at least must be crushed, or tumbled backward the way it came. And then, when the stone was almost upon them, it bounded upon a rib of projecting rock, and leaped clear over.
Unperturbed, as conscious climbers could not have been, the automata continued their clambering upward way.
Wyndham bent to another stone. It was smaller than the first. But it was more tightly wedged. By the time they had it in position, the nearer of the automata was not more than thirty yards away, and they were advancing fast with the strong scent of the dogs’ lair drawing them on. The stone struck the first squarely upon the head, bounced upon it, and turned somewhat sideways as it leaped downward, leaving its victim sprawling upon the slope. They saw that its proboscis was crushed and limp, but beyond that they had not time to regard or care what its injuries might be, for the second automaton came on in blind oblivion of its comrade’s fate, and there was no time for poising another stone.
“Back!” Wyndham said. “Back quickly! Into the cave.”
“Into the cave?”
“Yes. It’s the best chance.” Through his mind, as he said it, there passed a doubt. What if he were directing them to nothing better than a cornered death? But it was the plan he had formed against such an emergency in a cooler hour, and his judgment was too settled to change it now.
They ran back into the cave, but not in too blind a haste to catch up the puppies and bear them with them, as they passed through the inner chamber, and felt their way down the steps to that deadly gap, in a gloom which was the greater because they had allowed no time for their eyes to adjust themselves from the bright sunlight without.
Vinetta went first, with a puppy under one arm, and Wyndham’s hand reaching to hers.
“You cannot go wrong,” he said, “It you press close to the wall. I have seen how the steps are cut.”
When she said she was safe, he followed, with the other two puppies.
The dogs, with these examples before, and the fear behind, needed no coaxing to follow.
Very cautiously they descended the remaining steps into the grain-pit, timorous of a second trap, but there was no more occasion to fear.
“Keep the dogs to one side,” Wyndham said, as they entered the rounded hollow of the pit. “If the killer gets here, he will follow the scent, and may chase them round so that we can all escape by the way we came. Remember the trick Munzo played upon us.”
As he spoke, he turned to re-ascend the steps. Vinetta made a movement to follow.
“No, you don’t,” he said, in a voice she had only heard from him once before. “You stay here. Do as I say. Will you never learn? You would be in the way. You will do your part if you keep them to one side of the pit.”
Protest rose to her lips, and died as she remembered how she had brought everything to the edge of disaster when she had interfered at a moment of crisis before.
He went back up the steps, and was none too soon.
Looking upward to the light, he had a clear view of the killer already commencing to descend the steps. With the strong scent drawing it on, it had the eagerness of a living thing.
Wyndham looked at the gap. Was it wide enough to engulf a creature of such length? Would it blunder blindly into the trap, or would it remain there, waiting, perhaps for months, blocking the only exit while they would starve? It was a possibility he had not previously considered. His mind had concerned itself only with the hope that the pursuer would fall into the pit, and with the danger that it might cross the gap. But now, with the quickness of thought, he saw himself labouring with his bare nails to enlarge the hole in the wall through which he had first looked into the pit—toiling at that impossible task while Vinetta starved and the killer waited above the steps.
There was another risk that it might keep close to the wall, and descend, as they had done, on the narrow fragments of the steps which had been allowed to remain. But he had not regard this as a great risk. The killer’s legs were set much farther apart than his own, or those of the dogs. He doubted that it would be possible. Besides, what reason was there for it to hug the wall?
Unfortunately, there was a simple answer for that. It followed the scent of the dogs, and where they had gone close to the wall, its proboscis went the same way. Its left side rubbing the walls, a left foot came down firmly upon the jutting fragment of step. A second later, its right forefoot was pawing the air. The black, supple, hog-like body lurched forward, but did not fall; neither could it easily recover itself. The instinct to draw back may have been lacking. However cunningly these automata may have been constructed, however many contingencies they may have been adapted to deal with, there must always have been some events which would find them lacking, some which they would face as fallibly as a man may do, when an unprecedented problem bewilders his mind.
The reactions of the automaton may have been confused by the fact that its left forefoot was firmly planted, and that it could not move to that side, which the wall forbade, when footing failed on its right.
Wyndham saw it with its right foot and its proboscis feeling the air. The proboscis touched him, and shrank back from the human scent. He struck twice with his sword at the smooth shining head, as it hung over the void. There was no use in that. The blade slipped along a surface so hard and smooth he could expect to do no more than damage his weapon’s edge.
He saw that the event was in a critical doubt. The killer might hang suspended there; it might draw back and remain a waiting menace, which was perhaps most of all to be feared; or it might even lurch itself successfully over the gap. Thinking to turn a doubtful scale, he caught hold of that outstretched proboscis, and strove to pull it downward with all his weight.
He succeeded almost too well. The beast-like form shot into the pit so abruptly that for one perilous instant it seemed that he was destined for the same depth. It was the backward push of the descending body rather than his own adroitness which enabled him to retain his place on the lower step.
For a long minute he gazed into the obscure depth. Like a dying beast, the automaton struggled and kicked. But those who built that pit, with its smooth, narrowing walls, had done their work well in their distant day. It might struggle or lie still as it would, but it was there that it must remain while the earth endured.
Wyndham went down to where Vinetta waited beside the dogs. “There is nothing more to fear,” he said. “You can come, up when you will.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The months passed. The automata worked in the orchard groves, indifferent to the fact that their human masters had ceased to need the food which they were diligent to provide. Every week a train of automatic vans had arrived, and departed after loading themselves with the gathered fruit, which, as Wyndham had been glad to observe, did not ripen in a single crop, but, with the partial exception of the grapes, gradually throughout the year.
The summer had been hot and dry, but at the time when the two hundred gardeners were due to leave there came heavy storms from the northwest.
Wyndham, venturing out alone in a windy interval of the rain when the skies were bright, saw, far off, the grea
t causeway hidden in the white foam of the up-flung waves. He had seen it beaten and submerged more than once before by tempestuous seas, and had wondered, with hope rather than fear, whether it might not be breached and finally swept away. He had explored most of the island, more or less, by this time, mainly with Vinetta.
He regarded it now as a secure home, or rather as one which would become secure if that road to the mainland were swept away. For there was ever a doubt of what might come from the larger spaces beyond. But though it might show marks of the buffetings it received from the angry waves, the great mole endured.
Now he saw the long train of the automata moving over the shoreward road, indifferent to the raging wind, with the round pot-like control in the rear. He wondered, with an increasing interest, what they would do when they came to meet the fury of those sweeping waves.
He watched an event which showed that they had no wisdom implanted in them to meet a condition which had been so long unknown to a tamed world. They went on. Had he been endowed with Vinetta’s sight he would have taken back to her a more vivid report than he was able to do.
“I have little doubt,” he said, “that they have been swept away. They went blindly on to the mole. I watched till the control tank in the rear of all went into the waves. It kept on for some time, though it was entirely covered as often as not. But it went at last.”
“Then,” she said, well content, “there is hope that we shall not see them again.”
It was a hope that grew in the next week, for there was wreckage upon the shore.
They had come at this time to hate all that reminded them of those empty days before life came to its natural flower. They had many hardships now, many difficulties, many doubts, hope and fear alternating as the dawns and sunsets came, but existence itself had become a joy such as they could never have conceived it to be in the painless days.
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