Chapter IX

They came of peoples which had no history, only legend and tradition. And they learned--

That there was such a thing as history, recorded in books; Relez showed them such a book, which they could not read, because neither of them could understand more than the code markings on mechanical parts.

That the storied ancients, whose powers were marvelous and whose end was terrible, had really existed and had left their record in writing.

How after the great wars that had almost seared his life from the Earth's surface, when man's weapons--and his medical science--had wiped out every creature save the indestructible destroyer himself, the machine races had risen from the shreds of technical knowledge hoarded by the scattered groups of survivors and crystallized by their descendants in the rigid mold of tradition. And how that last war had never ended, but had passed into the nature of things in the unending war of the predatory machines against the feeders on sunlight, and of the races of land and air and sea for mastery of their habitats.

"But no matter who wins, no man is master; the machine is the ruler, and man is its slave. It is against that we have begun to fight, now, after all the long dark ages...."

For one place on all the harried Earth had provided the relative security and permanence needed to keep alive a spark of the ancients' culture. That was aboard the great ships at sea, that had been built and armed to resist every hellish technique of destruction known to the dead age of their building, and were wholly invulnerable to today's weapons. Those were floating cities in truth, with atomic power plants, machine shops, dwellings, hospitals, storehouses, recreation space, libraries--and in the later times, when their first purpose as warships had been almost forgotten, classrooms and laboratories where the knowledge of the past was dredged up from the memories of men and from the books, and even added to in some ways.

"We have built up the nucleus of a new civilization on the sea," said Relez solemnly. "Now the time has come for it to take root on the dry land. But first the continents must be pacified. The world must be taken from the warring machines and given back to man.

"We possess some of the old ones' weapons, and we could try to use them to enforce our will, as they did. And I think our end would be like theirs. But we have invented some new devices to serve the cause of peace. The anti-ionization field is chief among those. I myself had some share in developing it--my title of 'captain' means leader of a group of scientists, not master of a ship."

"Is there no defense against the field?" asked Torcred shrewdly.

* * * * *

Relez eyed him thoughtfully. "There are ways of avoiding the effect," he admitted, "but they are not likely to occur to these custom-bound people. And once they are liberated from the tyranny of the machine--"

"Your method of liberation," said Torcred, "is to reduce everyone to an equal helplessness, and let them fight it out among themselves?"

"You might put it that way. I'm afraid there will be some bloodshed. The predatory peoples, naturally, will have the hardest time at first. But--Suppose _you_ tell _me_ what you think will happen, for example, when the terrapins come in contact, under the new conditions, with their old enemies and prey, the trailer people."

"Why--at first they will be afraid to venture out of the camp. Then, when the food supply runs low, they will begin to think of attacking the stalled trailer herd on foot. A quick raid, by determined men with knives and clubs, might work once or twice, but not after that, because the trailer people are much more numerous, and, once recovered from the first confusion and organized, they could defend themselves...."

"But if you were chief of the terrapins, what would you do?"

Torcred thought hard, intrigued in spite of himself. "I think--I would try to get some of the sun-machines the trailers use. In order to have an independent supply of food and power, you understand. That lightning raid, perhaps--but it would be hard to dismantle the screens and escape with them. No, I think I would try to bargain with the trailers. They have no radar scanners; if their suspicions could be allayed, they'd be willing to trade a few of their sun-screens for some terrapin sighting devices."

"Not realizing that those have lost their value, now that all aircraft are grounded," said Relez with a smile. "It might work. And overcoming the suspicions may prove easier than you think, when men begin to meet each other under the open sky, and realize that their hates never belonged to them, but to the machines they served...."

"I don't know about the buzzards," murmured Ladna dubiously.

Relez disregarded that. "What we need now is helpers. The anti-ionization field is the catalyst of peace, but if it is to work quickly, the confused peoples must have guidance.

"We've done a little advance missionary work among the more civilized and approachable tribes, both in the flesh, and by teleprojection, as Dunu appeared to you in the wilderness. The televiewer, incidentally, is another of our new developments; the old machines of that type used both a transmitter and receiver, but this one works on the principle you can see once in a while in nature, when atmospheric refraction is just right to reassemble the light from a distant object and project its picture in the air. Only very recently we perfected the reverse application of the effect, so that under good conditions we can project a three-dimensional image--mirage--over large distances.

"But those methods are inadequate for working directly on the minds of the peoples. Few as we are, we can't appear openly as authors of the change; for the time being, let them think it a natural phenomenon. However," his eyes met Torcred's and held them in a challenging gaze, "very much could be done to smooth a people's way toward civilization by an agent who belongs by birth to it...."

"I was a terrapin once," said Torcred steadily. "Now I am a man of the race of man. And in the eyes of the terrapins I am an outcast, accursed."

"I know. But your very return, when they think you dead, may help the break-down of the old habits and customs.... I don't say it will be easy. But I believe the desert has sharpened your wits."

* * * * *

Torcred considered. The mark on his forehead burned, but he remembered how there had been compassion in Vazcled's face even as he wielded the knife, and that his worst enemy was discreditably dead in the desert. "Perhaps," he muttered.

"If you go back," said Ladna quietly, "I go too."

Relez stroked his beard. "That might make trouble."

The girl turned on him, electric fire in her look. "None of your business!"

Relez smiled. "On the other hand, maybe it will be for the best--a step forward in contact between the peoples."

Torcred felt a new strength and confidence born of Ladna's loyalty. He said, "Your scheme is good, if it will work. I will--_we_ will help you make it work."

The older man's face lit. "Good!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "You already have some sound ideas. I suggest--"

"Captain!" broke in a low, taut voice. "What do you make of this?"

Relez wheeled. The young technician who had been operating the controls of the televiewer was pointing at the screen in horror.

The scene was a sweep of desert, silvered by the risen moon. There were indistinct dark shapes that might be a tribe of dragons, stalled, of course. But around and among them red flashes leaped and black towers of smoke sprang up to drift down the quiet night wind.

It was a scene of death and destruction whose silence made it unreal. But as the five people in the rock chamber held their breath, they heard and felt, telegraphed from far away through the ground, the dull heavy concussions of exploding bombs.

"Scan the sky, Rhenu," gulped the captain.

The view shifted as Rhenu's trembling fingers made adjustments, and they glimpsed a black squadron drifting across the moonlit sky. Cruising with a leisurely consciousness of invulnerability, in the knowledge that the victims were helpless to maneuver, sitting ducks to be blasted at will.

"Keep on scanning!" snapped Relez, but his face was ashen as he saw his dreams crumbling.

Dunu was incredulously checking the anti-ionization generator. "There's nothing wrong here," he reported. But the screen showed scene after scene of a carnival of destruction. The night sky was full of buzzards, flying low, playing their search-lights on the desert and raining gas and explosives on everything that lived. It was the buzzards' moment to strike for dominance and they were making the most of it.

Dunu said frozenly, "They must have been warned by their kin on the coast, and have managed to develop an engine with a hotpoint ignition system."

Relez muttered, looking suddenly old and weary, "It's too bad. The people with the highest technical ingenuity--but their motivation seems to be insane hate of everything unlike them."

"I told you so," Ladna said bitterly.

Torcred had no ears for philosophy; he had seen enough of the murder going on out there. He bounded to his feet and his knife flashed in his hand.

"One side!" he snarled at the recoiling Dunu. "I'm going to smash that machine and give the rest of us a chance!"

* * * * *

But Relez had stepped between him and the generator. The color returned to his bearded features as he faced the threatening blade.

"Wait!" he cried. "Don't wreck all your chances for peace--"

"I'll give you peace," said Torcred, "if you don't get out of the way."

Ladna was behind him, he knew, knife drawn, holding the thunderstruck assistants at bay.

Relez did not move. "I told you we possess some of the ancients' weapons. The decision to use them belongs properly to the High Command of the Fleet--but in this case I will take it on myself."

"You have such weapons here?"

"Yes. A bomb, which in case we were discovered here could have exploded to wipe out this place and protect our secrets. You and the girl can take one of the grounded aeros outside and carry the bomb over Buzzard Base. I'll switch off the anti-ionization field for half an hour, long enough for you to go and return...."

"One bomb?" exclaimed Ladna scornfully. "_They_ have thousands!"

"No more will be needed."

Torcred's black gaze searched Relez' face for long moments. He read utter sincerity there, and lowered the knife.