Part 4 (1/2)
He was thinking of small boys torturing frogs; of Roman emperors at the circus; of sportsmen exterminating game; of the mob watching the guillotine on the streets of Paris. It was Zarathustra who said that when gazing at tragedies, bull fights and crucifixions, man has felt his happiest; and when man invented h.e.l.l, he made h.e.l.l his heaven on earth. Couldn't this be a characteristic of all life? Couldn't the spheres be cruel and ruthless, too?
Man, the mighty hunter, had become the prey.
A sphere detached itself from the group and circled toward the car.
”I guess you're right, Masters,” Taylor decided as he watched the spheres. ”We'd better move.”
CHAPTER IV
PREY
Masters unlocked the handcuffs of the two men in the car. He disposed of his short-wave set in a ditch, for it, too, had batteries which might attract the spheres.
”Get out of the car, Orkins,” he ordered.
”Watch him, Masters,” Taylor warned. ”If he starts yelling, choke him.”
”But not too hard,” Masters added. ”If we're going to be rabbits, human values will change. Men who run into holes will live to eat turnips, those who bare their teeth won't. Orkins might be the forefather of a new race--a h.e.l.luva race. Come on, Orkins. Get out. Hurry up, Father Abraham, or I'll drag you out.”
Orkins, cringing, emerged.
Taylor took charge of Norden, who followed Orkins out of the machine.
”I hate your guts, Norden,” he said. ”You're a dirty, lousy rat and you ought to be shot. But after all, you're a man. You've courage and I admire it, as much as I hate the way you use it.
Overseas there's a war between countries. Here there's another war between humanity and a species of alien monsters. Whether we like it or not, we're allies.”
Norden's undershot jaw moved in a grin.
”I know about the spheres, Captain,” Norden replied. ”I overheard your remarks to Mr. Masters. I've listened to Orkins' babble.”
”Will you help us?”
”I will bargain with you.”
”For your life? You know I can't do anything about that. I'll do my best--I'll speak a good word at your trial, try to save you from the firing squad, but I'm only a captain. That's all I can do. I haven't the power to do anything more.”
”Then I will not help.”
”Do you know what we're up against?”
”It looks pretty bad, doesn't it, Captain? But consider my hopeless case.”
”We have a chance, Norden. I know, more than any other living man perhaps, what those spheres are. I've seen them close at hand.
Any hope of defeating them rests in us, using the meager knowledge I've gained from contact. What happens to your fatherland after the spheres finish on this side of the ocean depends on whether we conquer them, or they exterminate us.”
Norden stopped smiling.
”When you put it that way, Captain, how could I refuse?” he asked. ”I'll cooperate, not to help you, but to help the fatherland.”