26
A Gamble with Death
The success or failure of Kem’s plan—or at least his life and the opportunity to attempt to carry the plan out—hung upon one thing. It was a question that had often exercised the minds of all six human beings who had arrived on Mars, and they had frequently discussed it; but none had ever been able to produce any evidence one way or the other. He was now about to settle that unsolved question, and it was the quite simple one—could or could not the bee-beetles sting?
If they could, it was a foregone conclusion that the contents of the poison sac of an insect a hundred times the bulk of an ordinary bee would bring instant death. It was this latent if unproved menace that, from the beginning, had restrained their captives from ever making the least gesture that the insects might construe as an intention to use physical violence against them; while, for their part, if they possessed such deadly striking power, they must have realised that their captives once killed would be useless to them; so, although they had many times been made angry, the fact that they had not used it proved nothing.
The complete lack of evidence on this all-important point arose from the extreme simplicity to which the bee-beetles had reduced life on Mars. They no longer had either enemies to fight or other species to kill for food; neither had they ever been seen to quarrel among themselves. The giants were the only other living creatures on the planet, and they were so completely dominated by the insects that they never showed the least sign of resisting an order. That might be from the knowledge that the insects had the power to sting them to death; but it might have another cause, and it was in that possibility that Kem’s one hope lay.
He thought it certain that at one time the bee-beetles had had stings, as otherwise he did not see how they could have succeeded in dominating all other life on the planet, and eliminating every species on it except the giants; but there seemed good reason to suppose that their great battles for supremacy must have taken place thousands upon thousands of years ago.
It is common knowledge that in evolution Nature makes biological adjustments to all species according to the changes in their circumstances. Some creatures had rudimentary wings which have since been absorbed into their structure, others had gills that have shrunk and atrophied, because climatic changes in the localities they inhabited made it essential for them to hunt their food by different methods. Human noses are losing their keenness of smell because it is no longer necessary to use them for scenting danger, and with every generation human teeth are growing a little weaker because the age has passed in which they had to be strong enough to tear raw meat from freshly-killed carcasses. It was, therefore, possible that if the bee-beetles had had no occasion to use their stings for several hundred generations their poison sacs had dried up, and that the giants, being creatures of very low mentality, continued their blind obedience only out of habit, and a race memory of the very terror that had once been wielded over them.
With these mingled fears and hopes seething in his mind, Kem took a trolley and drove himself down to the bean-fields. As autumn had advanced the tall plants had gradually dried out, and for the past week numbers of the giants had been employed in harvesting the stalks to make their baskets. Halting his trolley on the road near the largest group of giants in sight, Kem jumped off it and went towards them. They stopped work for a moment to stare at him with their usual vague curiosity. One of the overseer bee-beetles at once flew up with the evident intention of finding out why he had come there, and settled on a bean-stalk within a foot of him.
Nerving himself to take the plunge, he gave a loud shout to rivet the giant’s attention, then stretched out his hand and grasped the insect.
He felt a sharp stab of pain in the cushion of the middle finger. For a second he went as white as a sheet, expecting a fiery poison to streak up through the veins in his arm; but the pain remained local. He realised then that the creature had only nipped him with one of its pincers. With a gasp of relief he held the struggling bee-beetle up for the giants to see, then proceeded to put his plan into execution.
The four-inch long insect was more bulky than a card, but no larger than many other objects with which in the past he had practised sleight of hand. Loudly declaiming the conjuror’s old patter, he made several mystic passes and cried, ‘Hey presto!’
Before the eyes of the astonished giants the insect apparently vanished into thin air, while actually he had passed it swiftly through a slit in his bean-fibre cloak and dropped it into Carmen’s work-bag, which he had taken and tied to his waist for that purpose.
He was still only just completing the operation when a second bee-beetle flew up. Sensing that his comrade had been attacked, it hurled itself straight in his face. Had he ducked or given back he would have failed in his object, which was to impress the giants with his power over the insects; so he took the blow of the body squarely, then caught it as it fell, half stunned by the impact. Again, he went through his magical patter, and made the insect vanish.
Next moment he was face to face with the second terrifying ordeal that he must survive if his plan was to succeed. From afar a score of the bee-beetles had seen that something was wrong in that part of the field. They came zooming down upon him from all directions.
He knew now that they could not sting; but everything hung upon how many would attack him at one time. If they called up reserves they might overwhelm him by sheer weight of numbers. Planting his feet firmly apart he braced himself and gave battle.
His transparent duststorm visor protected his eyes; so he was able to use his left hand to guard his mouth, while with his right he seized some of the insects that came within easy clutch. Those he caught, he gave a swift squeeze, firm enough to frighten but not to kill, then tossed them as high as he could into the air. In half a minute he had dealt with a dozen in that way, and each of his victims, on finding itself free again, had flown off at high speed in evident terror.
But there were still a score of them buzzing furiously round his head and diving in at his face whenever they saw a chance to evade his darting hand. Both his ears were being fiercely nipped and his hands had been lacerated in half a dozen places; yet he knew that it was all or nothing. If he once faltered and ran the game would be up. In spite of the pain of his hurts and the terror inspired by the thought that they might yet succeed in tearing his face to ribbons, only by remaining there and fighting to a finish could he now hope to emerge victorious, or even save himself. Again and again he beat the insects off, or caught and flung them from him.
The end came quite unexpectedly. As though, seized by mass panic, the remainder of the swarm suddenly abandoned the attack, rose high in the air and flew off towards the hive.
Two of their number were left, either dazed or slightly injured, on the ground. Stooping, Kem whipped them up, one in either hand, juggled with them for a moment as though they were a couple of black snooker balls, then caused them one after the other to vanish.
Meanwhile the giants were cackling like a flock of geese and jumping up and down with wild excitement. The original group had been joined by scores of others, who had come running from all parts of the field; so that there were now the best part of a hundred of the great bald, naked monsters gathered in a circle round the amazing human who had defied their age-long masters, and possessed the extraordinary power of causing them apparently to disintegrate at a touch.
Panting from his exertions though he was, Kem lost not a second in putting the next stage of his plan into execution, for to have done so would have been to risk the ebbing of the wave of hysteria that had seized upon the plantation slaves before he could use it for his purpose. Pulling a basket nearly as big as himself, that was half filled with lengths of bean-stalk, from a young female giant, he tipped its contents out on the ground and kicked it away from him. Next, knowing that the monsters were always desperately eager for their rations, he made the motions of drinking and, tearing off a piece of bean-stalk, began to chew it. Then, pointing towards
the barracks, he jumped upon his trolley.
Waving and clucking, the giants ran to the trolleys they had been loading and flung their loads to the ground. Kem pushed over the lever of his trolley and, as it ran forward yelled, ‘Up the Rebels!’ The monsters could not understand his words, but it was abundantly clear that they grasped his meaning. Crowding on to a dozen trolleys, they came screeching along the road behind him, like groups of hideous demons just freed from hell. The mutiny, which he had scarcely dared to hope he would succeed in fermenting, had well and truly started.
On entering the tunnel through the barracks Kem kept his trolley well to its cliff-face side, so that when he reached the cell where the others were waiting he could pull up, leaving ample room for the trolleys behind him to pass. Jumping off he ran into the cell and cried:
‘Our luck’s in, so far! I took a chance on capturing one of the bee-beetles to see if they can sting, and they can’t. Now that the giants have tumbled to that they’re in revolt; so there’s a packet of trouble brewing. But we haven’t a moment to waste. The Saucer crew won’t have had time to provision it yet, so we must take with us to the oasis enough water and beans to see us through the trip.’
‘You’re hurt!’ exclaimed Carmen, taking a quick step towards him. ‘Your face and hands are covered with blood.’
‘It’s nothing,’ he waved her back; ‘only a few tears where the little devils managed to get at me with their pincers. You and Anna had better stay here for the moment. It may be dangerous along at the store-pits. Be getting your things together, and the mats, so that we’ll have some bedding for the voyage. Come on, Harsbach!’
The two men ran out and hopped on the trolley, then Kem drove it to the big chamber where, three months before, he and Carmen had seen the bee-beetles busily counting out the day’s ration of beans. It was now like a scene from one of the colder hells in Dante’s inferno. The revolted giants had caught a company of the insects at an early stage in their daily task, and had promptly set upon them.
The massacre, for that was what it amounted to, had been in progress only a few minutes. The insects stood no chance except in flight; it was extremely difficult for them to escape being caught, and they could not hide, as in such deep gloom their luminosity was sufficient to give away their positions. In frantic panic they darted this way and that, while the huge shadowy hands struck at them. Every few seconds one was seized and squeezed to death, or knocked down and trampled upon. Meanwhile many of the monsters were raiding the big store-pits and gorging handfuls of beans, or gulping down flask after flask of water.
It called for considerable courage on the part of two humans to mingle with the scores of monsters now engaged in an orgy of greed and slaughter, and they were still in the entrance of the chamber, endeavouring to nerve themselves for the ordeal, when they were temporarily reprieved from the necessity of facing it. The morning duststorm arose outside, and in a minute drained away the dim light that percolated to the chamber. For a few moments eight or ten surviving bee-beetles, now glowing in their full glory as Thinking Lights, flitted wildly about, casting an unearthly radiance on the grotesque faces of the monsters; then they were killed and the great hall of rock was plunged in total darkness.
Nearly half an hour elapsed before the blackness became grey, but soon afterwards Kem and Harsbach could again make out the forms of the mutineers. Just as the noise they made had gradually lessened, so had their activity. During the period of darkness they had continued to grope blindly for beans and water flasks, and now the majority of them lay or squatted round the chamber, gorged to repletion, their stomachs already swelling from their never previously experienced indulgence.
None of them made any hostile move as Kem drove the trolley cautiously in amongst them; neither did they interfere while he and Harsbach collected a quantity of empty baskets and filled them with supplies. When they had loaded the trolley with nearly as much as they thought it would carry, they picked up the two girls and their belongings from the cell and drove out of the tunnel.
As they emerged into the open, they saw to their consternation that a dozen or more Flying Saucers were circling in the sky over the oasis. If the Saucer into which they had fitted the bombs was one of them, it looked as if their hopes of getting away in it were already doomed; but as the others exclaimed in dismay Kem said:
‘If ours is one of those, its having taken off is a pretty nasty setback. Still, we may make it yet. The insects on the ground must have means of signalling to their pals in the air. If my plan comes off we’ll make them bring it down for us.’
Harsbach grunted, then said a trifle stiffly: ‘Anyhow, congratulations on this extraordinary situation you have succeeded in creating. This is the first chance I have had to discuss it with you. Please tell us your intentions.’
Kem turned to grin at him. ‘That’s simple. By exploiting the bee-beetles’ panic I hope to presuade them to let us form the crew of the Saucer.’
‘Persuade them!’ echoed the German. ‘Surely it would be more correct to say “coerce them” into giving us possession of it?’
‘No, it wouldn’t. The Saucer is no earthly use to us unless we can get it with bee-beetle pilots who are willing to fly it under our orders.’
‘That is true. But how, having led a revolt against the insects, can you hope to bring them to this complacent state of mind?’
‘That will be up to you,’ Kem replied with a laugh. ‘And when I’ve given you the layout I hope you will agree that it should not prove beyond your powers. Under my cloak, in Carmen’s work-bag, I still have the bee-beetles that I captured. They are certainly alive, as I can feel them moving about; and, as far as I know, they are uninjured. I intend to produce them with profound apologies. You must convey the idea that I intended them no harm and was only having a game. In fact, that the whole affair was entirely unpremeditated; so I was both astonished and distressed when the giants misconstrued my little act and began this mutiny.’
Harsbach’s quick mind had already grasped the logical outcome of this distortion of the facts. ‘I see,’ he said; ‘and we are to offer ourselves as the allies of the insects in suppressing the revolt?’
‘Exactly. Nothing like this can have happened within bee-beetle memory. They will be at their wits’ end. By this time the whole oasis will be in a ferment at the news of the mutiny, and the insects are probably on the point of taking refuge in their hive. But they must know that such a step can afford them only temporary safety. They are sunk for good unless they can find a new way of terrifying the giants into submission.’
‘And we have it in our bombs.’
‘That’s the idea. The apparatus for releasing those bombs was made on the assumption that we should release them. It is far too cumbersome for them to operate. The giants could manage it, but are no longer available. We will volunteer to go up and drop an Atom bomb on the barracks. Once we are in the air we proceed in accordance with our original plant.’
‘Excellent,’ agreed Harsbach; ‘except for one point. If we leave Mars without provisions we shall be dead from the lack of them long before we could reach Earth. But to start loading all this stuff we have brought with us into the Saucer would at once give away our intention to escape.’
‘I realised that. We must drive a bargain with them. They must provide us with pilots to take us back to Earth in return for our promise to use the bombs to quell the revolt.’
‘If we can succeed in making such a bargain, I trust you do not suggest that we should really use the bombs in that way?’
Kem shook his head. ‘Certainly not! These insects brought us here against our will. They threatened to starve us to death unless we helped them to produce a terrible weapon for use against our own kind. They deliberately tricked us into completing the work by converting the Saucer to our requirements and promising that we should form its crew. We owe them nothing, and must give the people of our own Earth all the protection we can by any means succeed in affording them. If we can
once get up in that Saucer it would be an unforgivable crime for us to fail to launch at least one bomb on the oasis, and so destroy every trace of the work you have carried out there.’
The others agreed wholeheartedly with all he said. Then they fell silent, for by this time they were anxiously scanning the road ahead of them. There were no longer any giants to be seen in the bean-fields and not more than half the groups that had been working in that locality had gone back to the barracks; so it looked as if the remainder had taken the opposite direction and carried the revolt into the oasis. Five minutes later, as the trolley switch-backed over the first canal bridge, they saw that their surmise was correct.
All work had ceased in the first and second yards; the bee-beetles had disappeared from them and seventy or eighty giants were revenging themselves on the insects who had enslaved them for so long by indulging in much senseless destruction. Whether they possessed any sense of humour at all had always remained doubtful, but with a curiously high-pitched cackle, that was possibly their form of laughter, many of them were smashing the moulds, breaking open the great bins of chemicals and pulling down the pillars that supported the wind machines; while some of the younger males were chasing and throwing down females, who squeaked with mingled fear and animal pleasure.
In the third yard several flights of bee-beetles were still making futile efforts to protect their plant. Here they did not suffer the same disadvantage as had those who had been massacred in the vaulted tunnel chamber, as they could fly up out of reach; but they were clearly getting the worst of it. Again and again irregular formations of the insects launched themselves at the giants’ faces, but the monsters were no longer frightened of them, beat them off with ease, and, now and then, caught and crushed one.
As the trolley rolled over the curve of the next bridge, all four of its passengers gave exclamations of relief. The Flying Saucer that had been brought into the fourth yard for conversion to carry the bombs was still there. Scores of bee-beetles were grouped about it and several of them were flying in and out of its entry port. As they had sent up the other Saucers, evidently to save them from being sabotaged, it seemed, at first sight, illogical that this one should still be grounded. But Kem was quick to see a possible explanation.
Star of Ill-Omen Page 32
