Second Variety and Other Stories (28 page)

Fashold nodded. "It was only two centuries ago, during the war that ravaged the surface of the
planet. Most of us were working down in the big underground laboratories and factories under the
different mountain ranges -- the Urals, the Alps, and the Rockies. We were down underground, under
miles of rock and dirt and clay. And on the surface homo sapiens slugged it out with the weapons we
designed."

"I'm beginning to understand. We designed the weapons for them to fight the war. They used our
weapons without realizing --"

"We designed them and the saps used them to destroy themselves," Fashold interjected. "It was
Nature's crucible, the elimination of one species and the emergence of another. We gave them the
weapons and they destroyed themselves. When the war ended the surface was fused, and nothing but
ash and hydroglass and radioactive clouds remained.

"We sent out scouting parties from our underground labs and found nothing but a silent, barren
waste. It had been accomplished. They were gone, wiped out. And we had come to take their place."

"Not all of them could have been wiped out," Harl pointed out. "There are still a lot of them up
there on the surface."

there on the surface."

"So nothing exists now but males and females without homes."

"There are a few villages here and there -- wherever they've managed to clear the surface. But
they've descended to utter savagery, and live like animals, wearing skins and hunting with rocks and
spears. They've become almost bestial remnants who offer no organized resistance when we go up to
raid a few of their villages for our factories."

"Then we --" Harl broke off abruptly as a faint bell sounded. He turned in startled apprehension,
snapping on the vidphone.

His father's face formed on the screen, hard and stern. "Okay, Harl," he said. "We're ready."

"So soon? But --"

"We set the time ahead. Come down to my office." The image on the screen dimmed and
vanished.

Harl did not move.

"They must have got worried," Fashold said, grinning. "They were apparently afraid you'd pass
the information along."

"I'm all ready," Harl said. He picked up his blast gun from the table. "How do I look?"

In his silver communications uniform Harl looked splendid and impressive. He had put on heavy
military boots and gloves. In one hand he gripped his blast gun. Around his waist was his screen
control-belt.

"What's that?" Fashold asked, as Harl lowered black goggles over his eyes.

"These? Oh, they're for the sun."

"Of course -- the sun. I forgot."

Harl cradled his gun, balancing it expertly. "The sun would blind me. The goggles protect my
eyes. I'll be safe up there, with my screen and gun, and these goggles."

"I hope so." Still grinning, Fashold thumped him on the back as he moved toward the door.
"Bring back a lot of saps. Do a good job -- and don't forget to include a female!"

The mother ship moved slowly from the warehouse, and out onto the lift stage, a rotund black
teardrop emerging from storage. Its port locks slid back, and ramps climbed to meet the locks.
Immediately supplies and equipment were on their way up, rising into the bowels of the ship.

"Almost ready," Turner said, his face twitching with nervousness as he gazed through the
observation windows at the loading ramps outside. "I hope nothing goes wrong. If the Directorate should
find out --"

"Quit worrying!" Ed Boynton ordered. "You picked the wrong time to let your thalamic impulses
take over control."

"Sorry." Turner tightened his lips and moved away from the windows. The lift stage was ready to
rise.

"Let's get started," Boynton urged. "Have you men from the department at each level?"

"Nobody but department members will be near the stage," Turner replied.

"Where is the balance of the crew?" Boynton demanded.

"At the first level. I sent them up during the day."

"Very well." Boynton gave the signal, and the stage under the ship began slowly to rise, lifting
them steadily toward the level above.

Harl peered out the observation windows, watching the fifth level drop below and the fourth
level, the vast commercial center of the under-surface system, come into view.

"Won't be long," Ed Boynton said, as the fourth level glided past. "So far so good."

"Where will we finally emerge?" Harl asked.

"In the latter stages of the war our various underground structures were connected by tunnels.
That original network formed the basis of our present system. We'll emerge at one of the original
entrances, located in the mountain range called 'The Alps'."

"In the latter stages of the war our various underground structures were connected by tunnels.
That original network formed the basis of our present system. We'll emerge at one of the original
entrances, located in the mountain range called 'The Alps'."

"Yes, in Europe. We have maps of the surface, showing locations of sap villages in that region. A
whole cluster of villages lie to the North and North East in what used to be Denmark and Germany.
We've never raided there before. The saps have managed to clear the slag away from several thousand
acres in that region, and seem gradually to be reclaiming most of Europe."

"But why, Dad?" Harl asked.

Ed Boynton shrugged. "I don't know. They don't seem to have set themselves any organized
objective. They show no signs at all, in fact, of emerging from their savage state. All their traditions were
lost -- books and records, inventions, and techniques. If you ask me --" He broke off abruptly. "Here
comes the third level. We're almost there."

The huge mother ship roared slowly along, gliding above the surface of the planet. Harl peered
out, awed by what he saw below.

Across the surface of the earth lay a crust of slag, an endless coating of blackened rock. The
mineral deposit was unbroken except for occasional hills sharply jutting up, ash-covered, and with a few
sparse bushes growing near their tops. Great sheets of sun-darkening ash drifted across the sky, but
nothing living stirred. The surface of the earth was dead and barren, without sign of life.

"Is it all like that?" Harl asked.

Ed Boynton shook his head. "Not all. The saps have reclaimed some of the land." He gripped his
son's arm and pointed. "See off that way? They've done quite a bit of clearing up there."

"Just how do they clear the slag?" Harl asked.

"It's hard," his father replied. "Fused, like volcanic glass -- hydroglass -- from the hydrogen
bombs. They pick it away bit by bit, year after year. With their hands, with rocks, and with the axes
made from the glass itself."

"Why don't they develop better tools?"

Ed Boynton grinned wryly. "You know the answer to that. We made most of their tools for them,
their tools and weapons and inventions, for hundreds of years."

"Here we go," Turner said. "We're landing."

The ship settled down, coming to rest on the surface of the slag. For a moment the blackened
rock rumbled under them. Then there was silence.

"We're down," Turner said.

Ed Boynton studied the surface map, sending it darting through the scanner. "We'll send out ten
eggs as a starter. If we don't have much luck here we'll take the ship farther North. But we should do
well. This area has never been raided before."

"How will the eggs cover?" Turner asked.

"The eggs will fan out in a spectrum, giving each egg a separate area. Our egg will move over
toward the right. If we have any success, we'll return to the ship at once. Otherwise, we'll stay out until
nightfall."

"Nightfall?" Harl asked.

Ed Boynton smiled. "Until dark. Until this side of the planet is turned away from the sun."

"Let's go," Turner said impatiently.

The port locks opened. The first eggs scooted out onto the slag, their treads digging into the
slippery surface. One by one they emerged from the black hull of the mother ship, tiny spheres with their
backs tapering into jet tubes, and their noses blunted into control turrets. They roared off across the slag
and disappeared.

"Ours, next," Ed Boynton said.

Harl nodded and gripped his blast rifle tightly. He lowered his protection goggles over his eyes,
and Turner and Boynton did the same. They entered their egg, Boynton seating himself behind the
controls.

A moment later they shot out of the ship onto the smooth surface of the planet.

A moment later they shot out of the ship onto the smooth surface of the planet.

"It's dismal," he murmured. "Even with the goggles the sun burns my eyes."

"Don't look at it then," Ed Boynton cautioned. "Look away from it."

"I can't help it. It's so -- so strange."

Ed Boynton grunted and increased the egg's speed. Far ahead of them something was coming
into view. He headed the egg toward it.

"What's that?" Turner asked, alarmed.

"Trees," Boynton said, reassuringly. "Trees growing up in a clump. It marks the end of the slag.
Then there's ash for a while, and finally fields the saps have planted."

Boynton drove the egg to the edge of the slag area. He stopped it where the slag ended and the
clump of trees began, snapping off the jets and locking the treads. He and Harl and Turner got out
cautiously, their guns ready.

Nothing stirred. There was only silence, and the endless surface of slag. Between drifting clouds
of ash the sky was a pale robin's-egg blue, and a few moisture clouds drifted with the ash. The air
smelled good. It was thin and crisp, and the sun shed a friendly warmth.

"Put your screens on," Ed Boynton warned. As he spoke he snapped the switch at his belt and
his own screen hummed, flashing on around him. Swiftly, Boynton's figure dimmed, wavering and fading.
It winked out -- and was gone.

Turner quickly followed suit. "Okay," his voice came, from a glimmering oval to Harl's right. "You
next."

Harl turned on his screen. For an instant a strange cold fire enveloped him from head to foot,
bathing him in sparks. Then his body too dimmed and vanished. The screens were functioning perfectly.

In Harl's ears a faint clicking sounded, warning him of the presence of the two others. "I can hear
you," Harl said. "Your screens are in my earphones."

"Don't wander off," Ed Boynton cautioned. "Keep by us and listen for the clicks. It's dangerous
to be separated, up here on the surface."

Harl advanced carefully. The other two were on his right, a few yards off. They were crossing a
dry yellow field overgrown with some kind of plant. The plants had long stalks that broke and crunched
underfoot. Behind Harl was a trail of broken vegetation. He could clearly see the similar trails which
Turner and his father were leaving.

But now it became necessary for him to separate from Turner and his father. Ahead of Harl the
outline of a sap village rose up, its huts fashioned from some kind of plant fiber piled in heaps on top of
wooden frames. He could see the shadowy outlines of animals tied to the huts. Trees and plants encircled
the village, and he could distinguish the moving forms of people, and hear their voices.

People -- saps. His heart beat quickly. With luck he might capture and bring back three or four
for the Youth League. He felt suddenly confident and unafraid. Surely it would not be difficult. Planted
fields, tied-up animals, rickety huts leaning and tilting -

The smell of dung commingling with the heat of the late afternoon became almost intolerable as
Harl advanced. Cries, and other sounds of feverish human activity, drifted to him. The ground was flat
and dry, weeds and plants grew up everywhere. He left the yellow field and came onto a narrow
footpath, littered with human refuse and animal dung.

And just beyond the road was the village.

The clicks had diminished in his earphones. Now they died out completely. Harl grinned to
himself. He had moved away from Turner and Boynton, and was no longer in contact with them. They
had no idea where he was.

He turned to the left, circling cautiously around the edge of the village. He passed by a hut, then
several in a cluster. Around him green trees and plants grew in great clumps, and directly ahead of him
gleamed a narrow stream with sloping, moss-covered banks.

A dozen people were washing at the edge of the stream, the children leaping into the water and
scrambling up on the bank.

Harl halted, gazing at them in astonishment. Their skins were dark, almost black. A shiny,
coppery black it was -- a rich bronze mixed in with the dirt-color. Was it dirt?

Harl halted, gazing at them in astonishment. Their skins were dark, almost black. A shiny,
coppery black it was -- a rich bronze mixed in with the dirt-color. Was it dirt?

But the bathers were incredibly dark, a rich reddish-black color. And they had nothing on at all.
They were leaping and jumping eagerly about, splashing through the water and sunning themselves on the
bank.

Harl watched them for a time. Children and three or four scrawny, elderly females. Would they
do? He shook his head, and warily encircled the stream.

He continued on back among the huts, walking slowly and carefully, gazing alertly around with his
gun held ready.

A faint breeze blew against him, rustling through the trees to his right. The sounds of the bathing
children mixed with the dung smell, the wind, and the swaying of the trees.

Harl advanced cautiously. He was invisible, but he knew that he might at any moment be
discovered and tracked down by his footprints or the sounds he might make. And if someone ran against
him -