'But what is all this?' He waved a languid arm. 'This place, these queer machines—both the tall, red things and the smaller, white ones which caught us—what are they all doing? It doesn't seem to make sense.'
Del glanced at him. 'Suppose an alien form was plunged into your world of 3920,' he said. 'How much do you suppose he would understand? I doubt whether it would "make sense" to him. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that you would have very little understanding of the organisation of my world of 10,402, had your machine taken you there instead of here.'
Roy broke in, dragging the conversation back to the main issue: 'But what do you think these machines are? Slaves of greater intelligences—robots? Or have the machines indeed beaten men, as Samuel Butler, at the end of the nineteenth century, feared they might?'
'I don't yet pretend to be able to offer any explanation,' Del replied, shaking his head, 'but of one thing I am certain, and that is that they are not robots. You notice, for instance, the irregular finish of this building, both inside and outside. Indisputably, if it had been built by machines, the construction would be mathematically exact. I am convinced that somewhere at the back of all this we shall find a biologically developed intelligence.'
'And it is up to us,' remarked Hale, 'to see that whoever, or whatever, it is doesn't get things all his own way. What weapons have we?'
He and Julian Tyne produced black tubes, which Del and his companions examined with some amusement. Julian appeared nettled.
'What have you?' he asked.
Kal and Ril showed tubes similar to that which Del had lost in the river. They had come prepared with two each.
'Ten times as powerful as yours,' Del explained, 'and for all practical purposes, inexhaustible.'
Roy's revolver was inspected with much the same mirthful contempt as a catapult would have received. Del made an inventory.
'Four high-power heat tubes, two low-power tubes, one solid bullet projector. Not too bad an armoury, though I am sorry that my own heat-ray was lost.'
Chapter Four
THE 'NUMEN'
The clang of the metal door roused the whole party from sleep; though how long they had slept, they could not tell. Roy sprang suddenly to a sitting position. He could see by the dim glow that a number of white metal machines were scuttering towards them. Hale was fumbling for his ray tube.
'No,' said Del's voice. 'Your tube has not enough power to hurt them—besides, we are trapped. They may intend no harm.'
The machines advanced with tentacles extended. Roy felt one wrap firmly around his waist and lift him again into the air. It was in his mind to show fight, but Del had advised against it, and he was coming to have a respect for the dwarf's judgment. The rest of the party quietly submitted to like treatment, and were carried towards the still open door.
For a time they passed through corridors in utter blackness. Again they were aware of movement all around them: the clicking and scraping of invisible machines, orderly and unhurried, as they passed to and fro. At last an arch of daylight showed, wanly and minutely, ahead. Roy breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of leaving the oppressive gloom of their strange prison. But he was to be disappointed. Forty yards from the passage mouth, the machines stopped, and it was light enough for him to see one of them plunge a feeler into a hole in the wall. There came a familiar clatter as a metal door slid up.
The hall which they now entered was far larger than their former prison, and was lit by the soft, white rays of more than a dozen of the luminous globes. The machines evidently had sufficient knowledge of their prisoners to realise that light was necessary. A surprised exclamation broke from Del. The others, following the line of his pointing finger, observed a row of mechanisms arranged along one wall.
'Our time-traveilers!' Hale exclaimed.
Roy identified the remains of his cylinder and Del's damaged cage, but was puzzled to see that there were more than a dozen other queer-shaped constructions in company with them.
Without a pause, they were carried on towards a large machine which occupied the centre of the room. Like their bearers, its body-case was ovoid in shape, but unlike them, it possessed no legs and stood half as high again. Save for a pair of lenses and a bunch of metallic tentacles, it lay like a monstrous egg with a gleaming shell. The prisoners were drawn into a line before it. and the bearers scuttled away, closing the door behind them.
'Well,' said Roy. 'what do you suppose is the next move?'
Del was staring at the machine. Its tentacles were flourishing back and forth, weaving intricate patterns in the air. A hand suddenly grasped Roy's arm. He looked at Jessica Tree, standing beside him.
'What is it―?' he began.
She only pointed. Three shambling figures had emerged from behind the central machine. Roy looked at them amazedly. as they came forward to join the party. All three stood well over six feet, superbly muscled and completely naked. Their heads were small, and seemed even smaller above their magnificent chests and the broad spread of their shoulders. A look of bewilderment in their eyes gave way, as they caught sight of Kal and Ril, to relief, mingled with a piteous gladness. They bowed before the two dwarfs in a trustfully submissive manner, and the latter, after momentary confusion, acknowledged the salute by raising their arms in some ancient greeting. Then the three newcomers slouched back a few steps and stood waiting, while Kal and Ril hurriedly conferred.
'Tak Four A?' Kal suggested, cryptically.
'Undoubtedly, but this must have taken many centuries,' answered Ril.
'What are they?' Roy was still regarding the unclassifiable men. Kal offered explanation.
'I imagine they are the result of Tak Four A's artificial selection. He held that we were becoming too atrophied physically —you see we are dwarfs, compared with you—and he decided that a more muscular race, which he proposed to call "Numen," must be created. It looks as if he had been extremely successful.'
'Then these are the masters of the world, now?'
'I don't think so. They seem more confused and surprised than we are.'
He turned and spoke, clearly and carefully, to one of the tall creatures. For a moment the other looked puzzled, then the light of intelligence came into his eyes. He spoke excitedly, and jabbed with a finger in the direction of the derelict time-travellers by the wall.
'So they are in the same jam with us,' mused Roy. 'But surely they could not have built―'
'Certainly they could not,' Kal agreed. 'At a rough guess, I should say they were taught to work the thing and sent on an experimental trip by an inventor who valued his own life.'
Jessica, her first fright abated, looked at them with understanding.
'Poor things,' she murmured. 'For all their size, they're scared to death—frightened, like lost children.'
Del's voice suddenly brought their attention back to the central machine.
'The thing is trying to communicate with us, but we'll never be able to make anything of all that waving of feelers.'
The whole party stared blankly at the writhing tentacles, flashing in meaningless gestures. Abruptly, as though realising that this form of signalling was making no progress, all the feelers save one withdrew and coiled up. The one still extended dropped to the floor and began to scratch a series of queer characters on the earthen surface.
It stopped. The feeler pointed first to them and then to the marks it had made. Del stepped forward and inspected the scratchings more closely. He shook his head. The machine grasped the meaning of the gesture. It smoothed the ground and began again. The characters it produced on the second attempt were undeniably different forms from the first, but were no more intelligible.