Futures Past (21 page)

  
"Spider webs covered in tinsel paper," MacFall said, feeling disappointed. He did not see how anything could be learned from this ship, and said so.

  
"I suppose you're right," Nolan said. "But the strength of those spider webs . . . !" He straightened up, sighed, then went on. "Let's not be defeatist about this. I'm an entomologist, not an engineer or physicist. We've got to have experts examine this, and with greater magnification than that of my pocket lens."

  
MacFall hefted the walkie-talkie transmitter in his hand and looked a question.

  
"No," the lieutenant said quickly. "We won't send for them yet. First we've got to move this ship as far away from here as possible, then camouflage it with branches. This is the first time one of these has remained whole after landing, probably because its self-destructive mechanism suffered in the collision. But I'm afraid that the Bug swarm which attacked us was not merely abandoning it, they may have been on the way to get help to destroy it and will return. If we hide it they might not be able to find and destroy it before our technicians arrive to do their stuff."

  
MacFall had not been thinking that far ahead; it sounded like a sensible idea. But as they lifted the large torpedo shape between them—it was incredibly light in weight—MacFall couldn't resist another dig at the lieutenant.

  
"How about the peace talks?" he said.

  
A mixture of emotions pulled at the lieutenant's face, but the strongest of them seemed to be disappointment. He really wanted to try that suicidal stunt, MacFall saw with amazement. Nolan was silent for several minutes while they settled the ship onto their shoulders, then he said shortly, "There isn't anyone to talk to."

  
But he was wrong, very wrong.

  
On the surface of the torpedo between them a small dark opening had appeared no larger than a postage stamp. From it crawled a Bug at least two inches long.

  
Nolan gave a warning hiss. "Let it down," he whispered. "Slowly."

  
They eased the ship gently to the ground. MacFall hastily checked his armor fastenings, then looked up to find Nolan bent over with his face not more than six inches from the still slowly moving Bug.

  
His face armor was open.

  
"What a really handsome insect," the lieutenant said in a tone of pleased wonder. It had a shiny brown back with pink spots on it and a yellow underbelly—MacFall thought it loathsome. He tried to tell the lieutenant to cover his face, but he could only mouth silently.

  
"A species similar to the Hymenoptera, you notice," Nolan went on excitedly, "and like the other Bugs we know." He paused thoughtfully, then went on, "Although the dead Bug specimens which I've examined were badly damaged by the effects of Deedee, I think I can state definitely that this one is a female of the species."

  
MacFall croaked, "Lieutenant, your face arm—"

  
"It's all right, Sergeant. It isn't wearing the gray protective membrane used by the males, and I'm positive that it isn't armed, either. We're in luck, Sergeant! Reach me the packet of plastic counters marked 'A' and a roll of tape."

  
MacFall, still unconvinced that the Bug—the biggest he had yet seen—was harmless, moved to obey.

  
"Hurry it up!" Nolan said. "And get base on the radio. Tell them to record everything I say, and to re-broadcast it if possible just in case I'm not able to finish this."

  
It took a few minutes to get the CO. on the set, then Colonel Dawson barked that they would be ready to record and retransmit in ten minutes. Nolan filled the time by taping several of the plastic counters upright onto the hull surface, nudging the Bug in front of them with a gentle forefinger and talking, mostly to himself. MacFall did get some of it, however.

  
It appeared that in certain species the female insect was little more than an egg-laying machine, and even among this intelligent insect race she would tend to be cowlike, stupid. But not too stupid, Nolan was hoping. He could not understand why the Bug swarm which had attacked them earlier had left her behind. She was equipped with wings and could have traveled with them, and a female would, he was sure, be a very important individual in their culture. Why had she stayed behind?

  
"We'll be ready for you in three minutes," the base operator's voice said in MacFall's ear. He leaned forward and held the transmitter mouthpiece above the lieutenant's face, relayed the message to him, then asked quickly, "What are those plastic things?"

  
"There are very small pictures and symbols on them," Nolan answered abstractedly. "I don't know what exactly they show." He grinned suddenly. "That's etymology, a somewhat different field. But if I present them in a certain sequence, and tap my fingers a certain way afterwards, I should get a reaction of some sort . . ." He trailed off into silence.

  
In the phones a voice said, "We're ready now, Sergeant. But Colonel Dawson says that if this thing goes bad on you for any reason, you're to get a specimen of the unrusted metal of the Bug ship. We'll have that much, at least."

  
MacFall moved the mike nearer to the lieutenant's mouth and nodded for him to go ahead.

  
It seemed like a senseless game to MacFall, but despite that he felt the tension mounting within himself as the lieutenant coaxed and edged the Bug in front of one square of plastic after another, then minutely described each movement of its six hairy legs and every twitch of its near-invisible wings. Nolan went over the same sequence seven times, sighed, and began again.

  
"If it understands the symbology printed on these counters," the lieutenant muttered aside to MacFall, "and if it understands from them that we want peace with the Bugs as a primary step before less simple concepts are attempted, and if the Bugs are peacefully inclined too . . ." He took a deep breath. ". . . then when I go tap, tap-tap, tap-tap-tap with my finger it should move a leg or wriggle quickly four times to show that it understands and is agreeable-—if it doesn't happen to be some Bug halfwit who doesn't know what's going on at all."

  
MacFall found himself grinning. "Try it again," he said. "Dees dames is all stoopid . .."

  
MacFall could have bitten his tongue out. Unthinkingly he had mimicked Calleria's Bowery accent—the one the corporal had used to tell his most outrageously funny jokes in, because Corporal Calleria had once been a radio actor. MacFall swore under his breath then, thinking of how the corporal had looked a little over half an hour ago after the lion and later the Bugs had finished with him. The two stripes on his arm had been MacFall's only means of identifying him. He felt a sudden surge of sheer hate. His fist clenched and he felt an uncontrollable urge to smash it down on the two-inch long horror crawling about among the bits of plastic, to mash out its stinking life. He didn't want to think of consequences, or weigh pros and cons like the lieutenant. He just wanted to . . .

  
MacFall's arm moved out, fist upraised. Nolan looked up at him, startled. Then they both froze.

  
A distant, high-pitched whine filtered through the trees toward them, barely perceptible as yet but growing in volume with every second which passed. Bugs!

  
Nolan pointed suddenly through a break in the foliage where the curve of the hilltop showed. A dark gray patch of mist writhed in the air above it, and as MacFall watched, began curling down the slope toward them, expanding and already resolving itself into separate gray specks.

  
"Look!" Nolan cried. "There's thousands of them!"

  
"At least," MacFall said shakily. There must have been a secret Bug colony in Madagascar—one ship could not have contained one tenth of that sky-darkening swarm. Silently he went to work.

  
"Quickly," Nolan said, his voice strained. "Get away from the ship. Get well back. They mustn't think that we intend harm to it—Sergeant! What are you doing?"

  
MacFall had one gauntleted hand gripping the edge of the hole which the meteor had made and was tugging hard. The stuff was unbelievably tough for its weight. Panting slightly, he said, "Colonel Dawson wants a metal specimen before they get a chance to rust it...."

  
At that moment a two-foot strip of the ship's skin came away with a sound like tearing canvas. Underneath was . . . "Ugh," MacFall said, hastily turning his head away.

  
"What . . . ?" began Nolan, then, "Grubs! The Bug young! That explains . . ." He broke off again. "Why had you to do that, dammit? We're trying to make peace, and now they'll think we're wrecking the ship—a ship with their young in it. If you'd half the brains God gave a louse ..."

  
The Bugs were almost on them, MacFall had never known them to sound so loud. He shouted angrily, "I was acting on orders, dammit. And cover your face!"

  
"To blazes with my face!" Nolan swore. He reached up and tore his head and face armor off and flung it to the ground. "Orders," he spat out. "You stupid, senseless robot. Give me your Deedee gun! I don't trust you. Give it to me!"

  
Mad, MacFall thought wildly. These professors were all the same. Cracked to begin with ...

  
"I can handle it better than you," MacFall protested as Nolan literally tore the sprayer and its connected high-pressure tank off his back. It was no use talking. He groped in the long grass for the lieutenant's discarded face armor, found it, then the Bug swarm was all over them.

  
He saw Nolan holding the Deedee gun high above his head. Heard him shout, "Look! You know what this is!" and hurl the sprayer away from him with all his strength. Then he saw a tiny spurt of red appear on the lieutenant's cheek, and another. Two little red explosions burst on his forehead and another on his ear. He saw Nolan shrug his shoulders desperately as high around his ears as he could, clap a hand to his eyes and try to wrap as much as possible of his other hand and arm around his head for protection. In that particularly contorted position the lieutenant rolled to the ground. He seemed to be trying to wriggle into it like a worm. Mac-Fall turned away quickly. He had troubles of his own.

  
The Bugs hung so thickly around him that he could barely see the jungle, and the outer surface of his face armor was a continual sparkle as Bug explosive bullets wore at it, pitting it deeply and making it even harder to see. Where the plastic touched his skin, the shocks of the tiny explosions were transmitted through as a succession of tiny, stinging slaps. At this rate MacFall knew that he had about five minutes before he would be in the same position as the lieutenant.

  
Desperately he lashed out at the almost solid swarm with Nolan's discarded helmet, which was still in his hand. Some of the Bugs dropped spiraling to the ground—but it was nothing, a cupful of water out of an ocean. Never had he known them to attack so viciously, so suicidally and in such numbers.

  
He felt panic rising in him, and a feeling of choking —something had happened to his air filter. He was boiling in his own sweat and he couldn't breathe! Grimly Mac-Fall fought these feelings, knowing that they were in his mind only, lies. He had to think, keep his head. He was startled to find that he was repeating a phrase over and over to himself, sometimes whispering it, sometimes shouting it. "Don't take off your face armor. Don't take off your face armor. . . ."

  
There was a burning stab in the back of his neck, they had broken through from the back. MacFall gritted his teeth as the stab was repeated. He fumbled out a field dressing, slapping it on the puncture, and pressed down on the adhesive. It wouldn't stop the Bug weapons, but it would cut down the penetrative capacity of the bullets —for a while.

  
But he had to do something. Nothing that MacFall might do would save him, he knew that now. But he did not want to curl up into a ball and let the Bugs blow little pieces out of him until there was nothing left. No matter how useless, he had to try something. But what?