‘I know that this is so. For, at the time when I awoke, there was another with me, also awakened; and this one doubted, and let them see that he doubted. ‘Mars has a light gravity,’ he told them. ‘And almost no air! And -’ Oh, he went on and on.
‘It was a mistake.’
‘They took him away.’
Hardee said reasonably: ‘But that doesn’t prove anything, Tavares. There could have been some perfectly simple reason.’
‘I heard him scream!’ Tavares plunged his face into his hands, rocking slowly. ‘And so all these years, I have said nothing, I have questioned nothing, for I did not dare. But now it is too late to be afraid. For that stranger you found, Hardee, he proved that all of this is a lie.
‘And now the liars must come out into the open - at least for us here, who know of this lie. And the liars - we have seen them.’
He flung his arm out, pointing towards the elliptical door to the pilot’s chamber - where they had seen the skitterbugs poised calmly on their metalic webs, with the bronze death’s-head riders perched on their shining carapaces.
The flying antique thumped and pounded in strong air currents. But it was not air-sickness that made them feel sick and faint.
The elliptical door opened. Griswold came back, carrying the gun. Behind him they caught another glimpse of the skitterbugs and their bronze inhuman riders.
Griswold closed the door and called: ‘Sit down, all of you. We’re coming down!’
‘Thanks,’ said Hardee shortly. ‘I didn’t expected this much consideration.’
Griswold measured him with the eyes of a man who knew demons. ‘You blame me,’ he said. ‘Of course you do. What can I do about it?’
He motioned Hardee to the tiny window. ‘Look down there,’ he ordered. ‘See that city? It’s full of skitterbugs - hundreds of thousands of them! There’s hardly a human being alive in it, though it used to be full of them. The skitterbugs have taken over!’
‘Taken over?’ Hardee echoed, puzzled. Then - are we -’
‘On Earth, yes.’ Griswold nodded. ‘But it doesn’t belong to the human race any more. You’ll find out’ He stared at Hardee with pity and fright. ‘You could have lived out your life in the colony,’ he said sombrely, ‘but you had to find that man. Now God knows what the bugs will do to you. But you’ll never see the colony again.’
‘And neither will you!’ bawled an enormous voice behind them.
Griswold spun, trying to bring the gun up, but there was no time, and the shifting footing of crawling bugs beneath them tripped him, caught him off balance. Wakulla, grinning like a maddened gorilla, caught the old man with one square hand. The gun fell one way and Griswold fell the other - out cold.
‘Come on!’ shouted Wakulla, and dived for the gun. He stumbled knee deep through the crawling little monsters up towards the elliptical door. Hardee followed, almost without thought. They burst through the door -
Twin bronze creatures turned to regard them out of black and hollow eyes. They were small by human standards, built like huge metallic frogs, golden bronze, with tiny limbs and huge faces. They rode the skitterbugs, but they were not joined to them. One of them made a harsh metallic whistling sound and flopped off its mount, towards something that glittered on the floor - a weapon, perhaps.
Whatever it was, the bronze creature never reached it. Wakulla, bellowing madly, lunged into the cabin and brought his heavy foot down on the creature. There was a screech and a thin crackling sound; and that was the end of that one.
The other was getting into motion by now. But it never had a chance. Wakulla steadied himself, took aim and fired - again and again, pumping bullets at the thing, and though his aim was none too good, enough of them connected to splatter the creature against the control panels.
The ancient plane wobbled and begun to fall off on one wing.
‘Hold on!’ bawled Wakulla, and grabbed for the control wheel.
Hardee, panting, fought his way into the seat beside him. ‘Can you fly one of these things ?’
‘I can try!’ said Wakulla, grinning. Straight ahead of them, through the glass, Hardee could see a patchwork of trees and houses, roads and open land. ‘I’ll land it there!’ Wakulla yelled, horsing the stick back.
They hit the ground hard at more than a hundred miles an hour, bounced, came down on one wheel, blew a tyre and slid crab-wise across an open meadow. If there were brakes, Wakulla didn’t know where to find them; if there was a way to stop the plane before it reached the fence at the edge of the field, he didn’t know it. It hit the brush fence, still going fast.
Hardee felt the windshield fly up and smack him in the face. The last thought he had was: Fire.
6
It was full morning; he had been unconscious for at least an hour.
Over against the trees, an enormous smoke plume showed where the tri-motor was giving up the ghost. Joan Bunnell was leaning over him, her cheek bloody, her clothing torn. ‘Hardee, you’re all right?’ she breathed.
He pushed himself up. ‘I guess so.’ He looked around. ‘Wakulla -?’
‘His neck was broken.’ The girl rocked back on her heels. Tavares was sitting on the damp grass nearby, cradling the boy in his lap. Beside him, Griswold lay face down, unmoving. ‘The rest of us are all right,’ Joan said. ‘Griswold has a bad arm. That’s all.’
Hardee shook his head and began to rub his ears. It felt like golf-tees driven into his eardrums; the old crate had come down fast and the change in pressure was bad. He could hardly hear what Joan was saying.
‘Poor Wakulla,’ she murmured. ‘Maybe he saved our lives.’
‘And maybe he killed us all,’ said Griswold, painfully turning on one side to face them. His face was perspiring, and he clutched one arm with the other hand. ‘They’ll never let this go by,’ he warned.
Hardee got up dizzily and strode over to the old man. ‘Talk!’ he said. ‘What are the bugs? Where are they from?’
Griswold said wretchedly: ‘I don’t know. The bugs don’t matter - it’s the skulls that are important. They’re smart. And they aren’t from Earth.’
He sat up, holding his twisted arm. In the hot sunlight, the field they were in was alive with skitterbugs, flashing and leaping, loosed from the wrecked plane.
Griswold said: ‘The bugs are only brainless machines. They are seeded and grow, and when they are large enough, the skulls harvest them. Sometimes they use human beings for the job of harvesting - like you.’
Hardee walked over to the burning plane. The heat kept him yards away. Wakulla was in there, probably hardly more than a cinder by now, but he couldn’t be seen. Just as well, thought Hardee. A few skitterbugs, damaged in the crash, limped brokenly around on the grass, excited by the floods of radiant energy from the sun and the fire, but unable to move very fast.
And something else metallic lay in the grass.
Hardee bent for it; his head thundered, but he kept his balance and picked it up. It was the gun Wakulla had taken from Griswold. Hardee opened it, looked inside and swore.
Only one bullet left
But it was better than nothing.
Back where the others were waiting, Tavares was relentlessly questioning Griswold. ‘These creatures, you say they came from space, in that great ship that now orbits around the Earth?’
‘Five years ago,’ said Griswold, nodding. ‘They have a ray - I don’t know how it works. But they sprayed the world with it, and every living thing went to sleep. Some are sleeping yet - those that haven’t starved to death, though metabolism is slowed considerably.’
Hardee looked at Joan Bunnell and put his arm protectingly around the boy. ‘Would that be October, 1959?’ he asked.