The machine came to a decision. Getting no reply from the man, it came gingerly around the rock and approached the edge of the crevasse through which the river ran. Experimentally, it sent a blast of heat across to the opposite cliff, followed by a brief hail of armored pellets.
“Balank?” it called.
Balank did not reply, but the trundler was convinced it had not killed the man. It had somehow to get across the brink
Balank had jumped. It considered radioing for aid, but the nearest city, Zagrad, was a great distance away.
It stretched out its legs, extending them as far as possible. Its clawed feet could just reach the other side, but there the edge crumbled slightly and would not support its full weight. It shuffled slowly along the crevasse, seeking out the ideal place.
From shelter, Balank watched it glinting with a murderous dullness in the moonlight. He clutched a great shard of rock, knowing what he had to do. He had presented to him here the best—probably the only—chance he would get to destroy the machine. When it was hanging across the ravine, he would rush forward. The trundler would be momentarily too preoccupied to burn him down. He would hurl the boulder at it, knock the vile thing down into the river.
The machine was quick and clever. He would have only a split second in which to act. Already his muscles bulged over the rock, already he gritted his teeth in effort, already his eyes glared ahead at the hated enemy. His time would come at any second now. It was him or it… .
Gondalug alertly stared down at the scene, involved with it and yet detached. He saw what was in the man’s mind, knew that he looked a scant second ahead to the encounter.
His own kind, man’s Dark Brother, worked differently. They looked farther ahead, just as they had always done, in a fashion unimaginable to Homo sapiens. To Gondalug, the outcome of this particular little struggle was immaterial. He knew that his kind had already won their battle against mankind. He knew that they still had to enter into their real battle against the machines.
But that time would come. And then they would defeat the machines. In the long days when the sun shone always over the blessed Earth like a full moon—in those days, his kind would finish their age of waiting and enter into their own savage kingdom.
THE SILENT COLONY
Robert Silverberg
If explorers from a distant planet were to visit Earth, our world would seem terribly strange to them, full of strange colors and smells and feelings. And even if they found something familiar, that too could pose a sudden deadly danger.
Robert Silverberg is one of the premier writers of modern science fiction. His most recent novel is The Stochastic Man.
Skid, Emerak, and Ullowa drifted through the dark night of space, searching the worlds that passed below them for some sign of their own kind. The urge to wander had come over them, as it does inevitably to all inhabitants of the Ninth World. They had been drifting through space for eons; but time is no barrier to immortals, and they were patient searchers.
“I think I feel something,” said Emerak; “the Third World is giving off signs of life.”
They had visited the thriving cities of the Eighth World, and the struggling colonies of the Seventh, and the experienced Skid had led them to the little-known settlements on the moons of the giant Fifth World. But now they were far from home.
“You’re mistaken, youngster,” said Skrid. “There can’t be any life on a planet so close to the sun as the Third World—think of how warm it is!”
Emerak turned bright white with rage. “Can’t you feel the life down there? It’s not much, bat it’s there. Maybe you’re too old, Skrid.”
Skrid ignored the insult. “I think we should turn back; we’re putting ourselves in danger by going so dose to the sun. We’ve seen enough.”
“No, Skrid, I detect life below.” Emerak blazed angrily. “And just because you’re leader of this triad doesn’t mean that you know everything. It’s just that your form is more complex than ours, and it’ll only be a matter of time until—”
“Quiet, Emerak.” It was the calm voice of Ullowa. “Skrid, I think the hothead’s right. I’m picking up weak impressions from the Third World myself; there may be some primitive life-forms evolving there. We’ll never forgive ourselves if we turn back now.”
“But the sun, Ullowa, the sun! If we go too close—” Skrid was silent, and the three drifted on through the void. After a while he said, “All right, let’s investigate.”
The three accordingly changed their direction and began to head for the Third World. They spiraled slowly down through space until the planet hung before them, a mottled bowl spinning endlessly.
Invisibly they slipped down and into its atmosphere, gently drifting toward the planet below. They strained to pick up signs of life, and as they approached the life-impulses grew stronger. Emerak cried out vindictively that Skrid should listen to him more often. They knew now, without doubt, that their kind of life inhabited the planet.
“Hear that, Skrid? Listen to it, old one.”
“All right, Emerak,” the elder being said, “you’ve proved your point. I never claimed to be infallible.”
“These are pretty strange thought-impressions coming up, Skrid. Listen to them, they have no minds down there,” said Ullowa. “They don’t think.”
“Fine,” exulted Skrid. ‘We can teach them the ways of civilization and raise them to our level. It shouldn’t be hard, when time is ours.”
“Yes,” Ullowa agreed, “they’re so mindless that they’ll be putty in our hands. Skrid’s Colony, we’ll call the planet. I can just see the way the Council will go for this. A new colony, discovered by the noted adventurer Skrid and two fearless companions—”
“Skrid’s Colony, I like the sound of that,” said Skrid. “Look, there’s a drifting colony of them now, falling to earth. Let’s join them and make contact; here’s our chance to begin.”
They entered the colony and drifted slowly to the ground among them. Skrid selected a place where a heap of them lay massed together, and made a skilled landing, touching all six of his delicately constructed limbs to the ground and sinking almost thankfully into a position of repose. Ullowa and Emerak followed and landed nearby.
“I can’t detect any minds among them,” complained Emerak, frantically searching through the beings near him. “They look just like us—that is, as close a resemblance as is possible for one of us to have to another. But they don’t think.”
Skrid sent a prying beam of thought into the heap on which he was lying. He entered first one, then another, of the inhabitants.
“Very strange,” he reported. “I think they’ve just been born; many of them have vague memories of the liquid state, and some can recall as far back as the vapor state. I think we’ve stumbled over something important, thanks to Emerak.”
“This is wonderful!” Ullowa said. “Here’s our opportunity to study newborn entities firsthand.”
“It’s a relief to find some people younger than yourself,” Emerak said sardonically. “I’m so used to being the baby of the group that it feels peculiar to have all these infants around.”
“It’s quite glorious,” Ullowa said, as he propelled himself over the ground to where Skrid was examining one of the beings. “It hasn’t been for a million ten-years that a newborn has appeared on our world, and here we are with billions of them all around.”
“Two million ten-years, Ullowa,” Skrid corrected. “Emerak here is of the last generation. And no need for any more, either, not while the mature entities live forever, barring accidents. But this is a big chance for us—we can make a careful study of these newborn ones, and perhaps set up a rudimentary culture here, and report to the Council once these babies have learned to govern themselves. We can start completely from scratch on the Third Planet. This discovery will rank with Kodranik’s vapor theory!”