receding inch by inch. Then by chemical action on the coral beds and on
the rocks, he created a dense cloud and caused it to form over the lake,
thus in a measure protecting it from the sun's rays. But day by day,
despite the sheltering cloud, the water receded. Day after day Omega
moved his gauges hoping against hope that somehow and somewhere nature
would again awaken and bring water upon the earth.
During all these days and months the monster did not raise its head
above the surface of the lake--Omega was certain of this, for had the
water been disturbed ever so little his water seismograph, as well as
his cameras, would have recorded it. The monster was dead at last and
they were profoundly thankful. They were the undisputed masters of the
earth's last water! Now Alpha could play about the shore and swim in the
shallow water in peace and safety. So the dangerous fence was removed.
* * * * *
Omega knew that in the beginning the Creator had made man master of his
own destiny. He had endowed him with reason and given the earth into his
keeping. Omega thoroughly understood the Ruling Power of the universe.
He read aright His commands, blazoned across the breasts of billions of
worlds, and by the same token he knew that humanity on earth was doomed.
Yet he was urged on by that unconquerable spirit which had made man king
of all. He set up his rain-making machinery with the smile of a
fatalist. For hundreds of miles its sinuous beams sprang into the sky,
writhed about like great, hungry serpents with their tremendous sucking
and receiving maws, then coiled back to earth bringing not a drop. But
one day the Mirror again showed small, faint clouds upon its surface.
They were scattered over various parts of the world and their presence
made Omega wonder. There appeared to be no reason for them.
"I do not understand those clouds," he said to Thalma as he sat with her
and Alpha in the shade of the coral tree. "Perhaps there are hidden
places of moisture, that have escaped the receiving rays of this
mirror."
"Let us go and see," exclaimed Thalma, her eyes agleam with a new hope.
"Let us make another voyage around the world. Alpha has never been far
from home."
"That is so," he agreed. "We will go at once."
So they entered the silver ship and sailed away over the hot, dry
wastes, on and on over the cities of antiquity. The ruins of New York,
London, Paris and other marts of the ancients were visited in their
melancholy quest for life. But even the sites of these cities were hard
to find. Only the tops of the tallest structures, such as the tip of the
Washington monument and the towers of office buildings stood above the
ashes and sands of centuries. But not even the shadow of a cloud was
seen. Still they sailed on--even skirted the dark wastes of the poles
and stopped in deep valleys to test for water. Twice around the
equatorial regions they voyaged in search of a new and better haven, but
in vain. The insistent cry for water burned in their souls and led them
back to the little lake--the last sop nature had to offer the remnant of
her children.
* * * * *
Although the days were still hot and blistering, the nights were cold,
ice often forming on the lake near the shore and lingering until touched
by the advancing sun. Omega understood, and again a cold fear clutched
his heart. Unless by some miracle of the heavens sufficient moisture
should come back to the earth, no human soul could long endure the heat
of the day and the freezing temperature of night.
To still further conserve the precious water of the lake, Omega now
extended the folds of the cloud curtain down to its shores thus
completely enclosing it. And as this further reduced the evaporation to
a remarkable extent the hopes of Omega and Thalma took on new life. Here
they visioned Alpha and his children living and dying in peace, now that
the monster was no more. With the help of additional safeguards Omega
reckoned that the water might be made to last many more years, and,
before it could become wholly exhausted, some whim of nature might again
shower the earth with rain.
Now to pass the time--for there was nothing to do except to direct the
appliances about them--this last trio of mortals loved to leave the
shelter of the cottage, now that they had nothing further to fear from
the sea-monster, when the westering sun was low, and ramble among the
shadows of the cliffs and commune with the past, until the chill of
night drove them indoors. Sometimes sitting there in the dusk Thalma and
Alpha would listen to Omega's rich voice as he recounted an epic story
in the life of long ago. So to-day seated together on a cliff above the
airship, they watched the sun descend. Thalma and Alpha had asked for a
story, but Omega refused. For some time he had sat silent, his great,
brilliant eyes on the flaming sun as it sank toward the rim of the
earth. A great loneliness had suddenly seized him. He recognized it as a
presentiment of disaster. It was beyond the analysis of reason, but for
the first time in his life he longed to hold back that sun. Somehow he
feared the advent of the night. It seemed to him that before the morning
light would again flood the earth a dire calamity would befall them.
"Why so sad?" asked Thalma fearfully, and Alpha, at his father's knees,
looked up in wonder.
"It is nothing," replied Omega with forced composure as he caressed the
boy. "Some foolish thoughts of mine. Now as it is getting chilly I think
we had better go down. Oh, how I dread this awful cold which is creeping
steadily and mercilessly over the world!" he added softly, his eyes
lingering on the sun.
With her usual sweet smile Thalma agreed. So they rose and floated down.
When they reached the floor of the valley they paused and regarded the
cloud that screened the lake.
"It does well," remarked Omega. "It will make the water last into the
years."
"Yes, and all for our boy," said Thalma proudly. Alpha had left them and
was playing along the shore.
"It is now time that a mate for him be on the way," went on Omega
wistfully. "He must have a sister, you know."
"It is true," she agreed with a glad smile.
Omega had spoken truly. Without a mate Alpha could not perpetuate the
race. And so it was arranged that before the rising of the morrow's sun
a new life should begin.
Science had steadily advanced the span of life. When Alpha was born
Omega was two hundred years old, but that was only middle age. Thalma
was twenty-five years his junior. The human birth-rate had decreased
with the passing of the centuries and nature now demanded the most
exacting conditions for the propagation of the human species. Thalma at
her age could not afford to wait longer. Alpha's mate must be provided
forthwith.
"Alpha wants to play a while before going in," Thalma continued
presently. "I will remain with him."
"Very well, dear," said Omega. "I will go on and prepare dinner."
So saying he set his face toward the cottage, but before he had taken a
dozen steps he was startled by a piercing scream from Thalma. He turned
swiftly, then stood paralyzed with terror and amazement. Out of the
cloud curtain surrounding the lake protruded the ugly scale-covered head
and neck of the monster he had believed dead! And the horrible, swaying
head was darting down toward the playing boy! The monster's jaws were
spread wide, its black tongue was leaping out and in like lightning, the
sickening saliva was dripping upon the sand, and its awful eyes were
blazing like coals. And then in a twinkling the huge jaws seized the
child, the head reared back, the jaws closed, stifling the lad's
screams, and it started to draw back into the cloud.
* * * * *
But, after the first onrush of horror, life came again to Omega's numbed
senses. He darted forward with a mad cry, and as he swung through the
air rather than ran, he seized a stone and hurled it at the brute's
head. His aim was true and the stone struck the great brute on the bony
hood above the right eye. It did not harm, but it maddened the monster.
Hissing horribly it swung Alpha high in the air and with a fling dashed
him down upon the rocks. Then with a hoarse bellow it turned upon Omega.
With its first forward lunge it seemed about to crush Thalma, who was
between it and its intended victim. But the sight of her mangled child
and the danger to her lord roused all the latent fury and courage in her
soul and made of her a fighting demon. Like Omega she grabbed the first
weapon at hand--a stone the size of a man's fist--and with the hot
breath of the monster in her face she hurled the stone with all her
strength straight into the red, gaping mouth.
With a blood-curdling scream the brute halted, reared backward, then ran
its head back and forth over the rocks. Its loathsome body threshed
about in the lake, throwing water far up on the beach. Then in its
contortions it wallowed up out of the lake as it swung its terrible head
about in agony, all the while hissing its challenge.
Terror-stricken, unable to move, Omega and Thalma watched it and could
not understand its writhings. But as it continued to writhe and groan
they understood at last--the stone had lodged firmly in its throat and
was choking it to death.
Then they sprang to Alpha's side. Omega gathered him up in his arms, but
he saw with one agonized glance that he was dead. His skull was crushed
and it appeared that every bone in his body was broken.
Omega's heart was bursting, but he did not cry out. Holding the crushed
body of his son, he raised his eyes to that God who throughout the ages
had hidden His face from man, and smiled a brave smile of humility and
resignation. While Thalma, understanding all, looked on dumb and
dry-eyed.
Leaving the monster floundering about in its death agony, they took
their beloved son to the cottage and there injected those chemicals
which would forever arrest decay. Then they placed him on his cot that
he might be with them to the end of life. It was then that Thalma,
broken in spirit, found refuge and relief in tears which have always
been woman's solace and savior.
And Omega, gazing out toward the lake, saw that the monster lay still.
They had won their long battle, but at an awful cost. Omega realized
that the gigantic creature, probably deep in a water cavern, had been
only stunned by the electric charges.
* * * * *
Thalma refused to be comforted. Day after day she wept above the
lifeless form of her boy. All Omega's words of consolation, all his
reasoning and faith in the wisdom and justice of all things, failed to
soothe her torn heart. Nor did the promise of another child, rouse her
from her sorrow. She steadfastly refused to consider another child. Life
had lost its last hold on her soul, and now she was ready to surrender
to that cruel fate which had given them mirages of promise and mocked
their misery. In vain Omega explained that it was their duty to fight
on; that they, the last of a once noble race, must not show the white
feather of cowardice. He mentioned the great consolation they had of
having their beloved son ever near them, though lifeless. But Thalma
longed for the presence of the soul, for those words of endearment and
love that had thrilled her mother heart.
Before the embalmment it would have been possible for Omega to restore
life to his boy. Man had mastered all the secrets of biology and life.
He could have mended the broken bones and tissues, revitalized the heart
and lungs and cleared the brain. Alpha would have walked with them
again. But his personality would not have been there. That mysterious
something, men call the soul, had fled forever, and so far mankind had
not been able to create its counterpart. To have brought life again to
Alpha would have been a travesty on the brilliant mind they had known.
Omega recalled many pathetic examples of such resuscitation where the
living had walked in death.
Omega foresaw the end, but he smiled in the face of it all. He was the
same kind and loving companion Thalma had always known, her every want
his command and law. But no more she realized its inspiration and love.
He seldom left her side any more, but sometimes overcome with sorrow he
would soar up above the peaks and commune alone with the past.
So to-day he had risen higher than usual. The red sun beat upon his body
as he hovered in the hot air, his eyes fixed on the distant sky line. He
gazed like a famished animal, for it seemed to him that at last a cloud
must appear above that hopeless shore of land and sky and bring renewed
life to him and his. Yet he fully realized the impossibility of such a
thing. Slowly his great, dark eyes roved around the horizon. He loathed
its dreary monotony, and still it fascinated him. Beyond that dead line
of land and sky lay nothing but ghastly death. His many voyages in the
airship and the reflecting Mirror told him that, but still he hoped on.
When at last he glided down to the cottage the sun was low. Having
registered the time in his mind when he left Thalma--for countless
generations man had dispensed with time-keeping devices--he realized
that he had been gone just three hours. Reproaching himself for his
negligence he entered the doorway, then stared aghast.
Upon Thalma's wide couch facing a painting of the ancient, green world,
she had placed the body of Alpha, then lain down by his side. Her glazed
eyes were fixed upon the picture, and for the first time in many weeks
there was a smile about her lips.
Omega knelt by her side, took her cold hands in his and feverishly
kissed her brow. With a grief too deep for tears he smiled at death,
thankful for the love she had borne him. Nor did he censure the Plan of
the Creator, the Plan that had led him, Omega, scion of the world's
great, up to the zenith of life and now left him alone, the sole
representative of its power. Thalma had passed on, and in the first
crushing moments of his agony Omega was tempted to join her. Without
effort and without fear or pain, his was the power to check the
machinery of life.
* * * * *
Crushed and broken, Omega sat by his dead, while the shadows of night
entered the valley and wrapped all in their soft embrace. When would his
own hour strike? He might retard or hasten that time, but the real
answer lay in that little lake out there under the stars, daily
shrinking despite the cloud curtain. There was nothing more to live for,
yet he determined to live, to go down fighting like a valiant knight of
old, to set an example for the sons of other worlds.
But despite his brave resolution his grief for a while seemed likely to
master him. Heart-broken he finally went out into the cold dusk and
gazed up at the heavens appealingly.
"Alone!" he whispered as an overwhelming sense of his isolation tore his
spirit. "Alone in a dead world--the sole survivor of its vanished life!"
He slumped to the ground and buried his face in the cold dust. His
thoughts were jumbled in a maze of pain and sorrow. He could neither
pray nor think. Gasping, dying a thousand deaths, he lay there groveling
in the dust. But at last he rose, dashed the dust from his eyes and
again faced the sky. He would accept the cruel mandate of nature. He
would live on and try to conquer all--even death.
He cast his eyes along the shore of the lake, and there in the starlight
loomed the form of the dead monster which, but for Thalma's unerring
aim, would have been the last of earth's creatures. Omega sighed and
turned back to his dead.
But despite his resolution to live the loneliness was sapping Omega's
spirit. During the following weeks in a mood of recklessness and despair
he allowed the cloud curtain to dissolve above the lake. Once more the
sun's hot rays poured down unhindered and the lake receded rapidly.
As time went on Omega grew more restless. Only by taking many voyages
around the world was he able to endure the appalling silence. He was the
last traveler to visit the ancient marts of man, he was the last hope
and despair of life. Sometimes he talked aloud to himself, but his words
sounded hollow and ghostly in that deep silence, which only added to his
misery.
And then one day in a fit of desperation he rebelled. He cursed the fate
that had selected him to drink the last bitter dregs of life. In this
desperate frame of mind he evolved a daring plan. He would not drink
those dregs alone!
* * * * *
In the chemical laboratory of the ship were all the elements of creative
force and life known to man. From the four corners of the earth they had
been garnered, and some had come from sister planets. Here were the
ingredients of creation. For thousands of years man had been able to
create various forms of life. He had evolved many pulsing, squirming
things. He had even made man-like apes possessing the instinct of
obedience, and which he used for servants, and much of his animal food
also had been created in this manner.
Being skilled in all branches of biology and chemistry Omega would
create a comrade to share his long wait for death. So he set to work and
the task eased the pain in his heart. He placed his chemicals in the
test tube and watched the cell evolve until it pulsated with life.
Carefully nursing the frail embryo he added other plasms, then
fertilized the whole with warm spermatozoa and placed it in the
incubator over which glowed a violet, radio-active light.
The young life developed quickly and soon began to take form within the
glass walls. In a month it half-filled the incubator, and at the end of
six weeks he released it, but it still grew amazingly.
At first Omega was appalled by the monstrosity he had created, for it
was a loathsome, repulsive creature. Its head was flat and broad and sat
upon its sloping shoulders without a connecting neck. Its legs were
short, but its arms were long, and when standing erect it carried them
well in front of an enormous torso. Its short hands and feet were webbed
like those of a duck. It had no visible ears, and its nostrils were mere
holes above a wide, grinning, thin-lipped mouth, which was always spread
in a grin. Its large, round, red eyes had no gleam of intelligence, and
its hairless skin, covered with minute, sucker-like scales, lay in
loose, ugly folds across its great chest. Most of its movements were
slow and uncertain, and it hopped about over the floor like a giant
toad, uttering guttural sounds deep within its chest. Omega had set out
to create an ape-man, but this thing was neither man nor beast, bird or
reptile, but a travesty on all--an unspeakable horror from the dead womb
of the past.
Yet hideous as this creature was Omega looked upon it with a certain
degree of gratitude. It was a companion at least, and it seemed to
reciprocate the respect of its creator by fawning upon him and licking
his hand. Its red tongue always hung from its slavering mouth like that
of a panting dog. Omega named it The Grinner, because of its habitual
and ghastly smile. He took it to the cottage that it might wait on him
through the long hours of solitude. That night it slept by his side,
content and motionless. But the next morning after this first night of
incongruous companionship Omega was awakened by its stertorous
breathing and the touch of a cold, clammy sweat which was oozing from
its pores and dropping upon the floor.
* * * * *
Throughout the day Omega marveled at this phenomenon. He noticed that
the weird thing went often to the drinking fountain and wrapped its
tongue about the water jet. That night he awakened at midnight to find
The Grinner gone. He did not bother to look for him and mid-forenoon he
returned. His rotund form seemed to have grown even larger, and as he
ambled about on all fours the sweat trickled from his repulsive skin and
trailed across the floor. It was a strange thing and Omega was at a loss
to account for it, but his wonder was eclipsed by his appreciation of
The Grinner's companionship. The Grinner was often absent for hours at a
time, but he always returned of his own free will. Omega often saw him
ambling among the rocks or stretched out in the sun on the beach. He
formed the habit of letting him have his way, which was that of extreme
laziness. But during all this time he was growing prodigiously. In three
months he had become a monster weighing well over half a ton, but he
still retained his amiable nature and affection for his master.
* * * * *
Omega seldom left the cottage. Determined to live as long as
possible--for the age-old urge of life still persisted--to do nothing to
hasten his end, he, nevertheless, was doing nothing to defer it. His
soul in the past, he desired only to be near his dear ones. For hours he
would sit gazing on their peaceful features, pouring into their heedless
ears the love songs of his heart. Living for them, patiently awaiting
the day when he, too, could enter into rest, he paid less and less
attention to The Grinner, only noticing that he grew more horrible and
repulsive as his size increased.
Lonely and despondent Omega at last left the cottage only to go to the
airship for supplies. He seldom even looked toward the lake. It was a
long time since he had walked about its shores, but one afternoon the
impulse came to wander that way again. He was amazed that the water was
disappearing so rapidly. The body of the monster now lay more than
fifteen rods from the water's edge, though it had been killed on the
edge of the lake.
With an indifferent and melancholy gaze Omega looked across the lake.
Suddenly his stare became fixed and wild, like that of one stricken
dumb. About twenty rods out the water was suddenly agitated as though by
the movement of some great bulk along its bottom, and then for a
fleeting instant he glimpsed a dark, shining form heave above the
surface, then sink out of sight before he could grasp its details.
"My God," he exclaimed hoarsely, "there is another sea-monster! Likely
it is the mate of the one Thalma killed. I might have known there would
be a mate. We were dealing with two of the beasts all that time. And now
this thing disputes my right to the water!"
Omega's face grew grim and stern as he glared out over the water and his
heart-beats quickened. The latent combativeness of humanity was once
more aroused in him. He had considered himself the last representative
of life on earth. He should remain the last. No beast should claim that
honor. He would kill it.
Then for two weeks he waited and watched for it to reappear, waited with
all the terrible atomic weapons at hand, but he saw it no more. The
Grinner sleeping in the sand was the only form of life to be seen, and
at last he became weary of the hunt. He figured that some day he would
charge the lake, but there was no hurry.
At last Omega lost all interest in the things about him. The Grinner
came and went unhindered and almost unnoticed. He continued to grow, but
Omega gave him little thought. Even the treasures in the airship had
lost their lure for him. Disconsolate and hopeless, yet clinging grimly
to life, he passed his time in the company of his dead.
He had not left the cottage for several weeks, when one cold morning
after a sleepless night, something impelled him to go in search of The
Grinner who had been absent all night. As this had become a frequent
occurrence during the past two months Omega's curiosity was aroused. As
he glided toward the lake he wondered why his interest in his
surroundings had been aroused by thoughts of The Grinner, and once more
he thought of killing that other sea-monster in the lake. The lake! He
stopped and stared and stared. The lake was gone! Only a pool of an acre
or two remained, and in its center, disporting himself in glee was--not
the monster he was looking for--but The Grinner! The bloated creature
was rolling about in the water with all the abandonment of a
mud-wallowing hog.
* * * * *
Omega gazed in astonishment, then a shrill laugh escaped him. He had
mistaken The Grinner for another monster of the deep. It was the last
joke of life, and it was on him.