It will be remembered that Billie wanted to get in touch with a
creature having the characteristic which she had said she admired:
supremacy--"A worker who is the boss!" Bearing this in mind, her
experience will explain itself, dumfounding though it was.
Her first sight of the Sanusian world was from the front of a large
building. The former architect was not able to inspect it minutely;
but she afterwards said that it impressed her as being entirely
plain, and almost a perfect cube. Its walls were white and quite
without ornament; there was only one entrance, an extremely low and
broad, flat archway, extending across one whole side. The structure
was about a hundred yards each way. In front was a terrace,
seemingly paved with enormous slabs of stone; it covered a good many
acres.
Presumably Billie's agent had just brought her machine from the
building, for, within a few seconds, she took flight in the same
abrupt fashion which had so badly upset Smith and Van Emmon. When
Billie was able to look closely, she found herself gazing down upon
a Sanusian city.
It was a tremendous affair. As the flying-machine mounted higher,
Billie continually revised her guesses; finally she concluded that
London itself was not as large. Nevertheless her astonishment was
mainly directed at the character, not the number of the buildings.
They were all alike! Every one was a duplicate of that she had first
seen: cube-shaped, plain finished, flat of wall and roof. Even in
color they were alike; in time the four came to call the place the
"White City." However, the buildings were arranged quite without any
visible system. And they were vastly puzzled, later on in their
studies, to find every other Sanusian city precisely the same as
this one.
However, there was one thing which distinguished each building from
the rest. It was located on the roof; a large black hieroglyphic,
set in a square black border, which Billie first thought to be all
alike. Whether it meant a name or a number, there was no way to
tell.[Footnote: Since writing the above, further investigations have
proved that these Sanusian house-labels are all numbers.]
Billie turned her attention to her agent. She seemed to belong to
the same type as Smith's and Van Emmon's; otherwise she was
certainly much more active, much more interested in her
surroundings, and possessed of a far more powerful machine. She was
continually changing her direction; and Billie soon congratulated
herself upon her luck. Beyond a doubt, this party was no mere slave
to orders; it was she who gave the orders.
Before one minute had passed she was approached by a Sanusian in a
big, clumsy looking machine. Although built on the bee plan, it
possessed an observation tower right on top of its "head." (The four
afterward established that this was the sort of a machine that
Smith's agent had operated.) The occupant approached to within a
respectful distance from Billie's borrowed eyes, and proceeded to
hum the following through his antennae:
"Supreme, I have been ordered to report for Number Four."
"Proceed."
"The case of insubordinancy which occurred in Section Eighty-five
has been disposed of."
"Number Four made an example of her?"
"Yes, Supreme."
Whereupon the operator flew away, having not only kept his body
totally out of sight all the while, but having failed by the
slightest token to indicate, by his manner of communicating that he
had the slightest particle of personal interest in his report. For
that matter, neither did Supreme.
Scarcely had this colloquy ended than another subordinate
approached. This one used a large and very fine machine. She
reported:
"If Supreme will come with me to the spot, it will be easier to
decide upon this case."
Immediately the two set off without another word; and after perhaps
four minutes of the speediest travel Billie had known outside the
doctor's sky-car, they descended to within a somewhat short distance
from the ground. Here they hovered, and Billie saw that they were
stopped above some hills at the foot of a low mountain range.
Next moment she made out the figures of four humans on top of a
knoll just below. A little nearer, and the architect was looking,
from the air, down upon the same scene which the doctor was then
witnessing through the eyes of Rolla, the older of the two Sanusian
women. Billie could make out the powerful physique of Corrus, the
slighter figure of Dulnop, the small but vigorous form of Cunora,
and Rolla's slender, graceful, capable body. But at that moment the
other flier began to say to Supreme:
"The big man is a tender of cattle, Supreme; and he owes his
peculiar aptitude to the fact that his parents, for twenty
generations back, were engaged in similar work. The same may be said
for the younger of the two women; she is small, but we owe much of
the excellence of our crops to her energy and skill.
"As for the other woman," indicating Rolla, "she is a soil-tester,
and very expert. Her studies and experiments have greatly improved
our product. The same may be said in lesser degree of the youth, who
is engaged in similar work."
"Then," coolly commented the Sanusian whose eyes and ears Billie
enjoyed; "then your line of action is clear enough. You will see to
it that the big man marries the sturdy young girl, of course; their
offspring should give us a generation of rare outdoor ability.
Similarly the young man and the older woman, despite their
difference in ages, shall marry for the sake of improving the breed
of soil-testers."
"Quite so, Supreme. There is one slight difficulty, however, such as
caused me to summon you."
"Name the difficulty."
The Sanusian hesitated only a trifle with her reply: "It is,
Supreme, that the big man and the older woman have seen fit to fall
in love with one another, while the same is true of the youth and
the girl."
"This should not have been allowed!"
"I admit it, Supreme; my force has somehow overlooked their case,
heretofore. What is your will?"
The commandant answered instantly: "Put an immediate end to their
desires!"
"It shall be done!"
At that moment there was a stir on the ground. In fact, this was the
instant when Corrus began his vehement outcry against the tyranny of
"They." The two in the air came closer; whereupon Billie discovered
that Supreme did not understand the language of the humans below.
[Footnote: The humans did not realize this fact, however; they
assumed that "They" always understood.] Yet the herdsman's tones
were unmistakably angry.
"You will descend," commented Supreme evenly, "and warn the big man
not to repeat such outbreaks."
Immediately Supreme's lieutenant darted down, and was lost to view.
The commandant glanced interestedly here and there about the
landscape, returning her gaze to Corrus just as the man stopped in
mid-speech. Billie was no less astonished than the doctor to see the
herdsman's expression change as it did; one second it was that of
righteous indignation, the next, of the most abject subservience.
Nevertheless, Billie could see no cause whatever for it; neither did
she hear anything. The other flier remained out of sight. All that
the architect could guess was that the operator had "got the drop"
on Corrus in some manner which was clear only to those involved.
Badly puzzled, Billie watched the four humans hurry away, their
manner all but slinking.
A moment later still another aircraft came up, and its operator
reported. As before, Billie could make out not a single detail of
the occupant herself. She, too, wanted the commandant's personal
attention; and shortly Billie was looking down upon a scene which
she had good reason to remember all the rest of her life.
In the middle of a large field, where some light green plant was
just beginning to sprout, a group of about a dozen humans was at
work cultivating. Billie had time to note that they were doing the
work in the most primitive fashion, employing the rudest of tools,
all quite in keeping with their bare heads and limbs and their
skin-clad bodies. About half were women.
Slightly at one side, however, stood a man who was not so busy. To
put it plainly, he was loafing, with the handle of his improvised
mattock supporting his weight. Clearly the two up in the air were
concerned only with him.
"He has been warned three times, Supreme," said the one who had
reported the case.
"Three? Then make an example of him!"
"It shall be done, Supreme!"
The lieutenant disappeared. Again the commandant glanced at this,
that, and the other thing before concentrating upon what happened
below. Then Billie saw the man straighten up suddenly in his tracks,
and with remarkable speed, considering his former laziness, he
whirled about, dodged, and clapped a hand upon his thigh.
Next second he raised an exultant cry. Billie could not understand
what he said; but she noted that the others in the group echoed the
man's exultation, and started to crowd toward him, shouting and
gesticulating in savage delight. Then something else happened so
sudden and so dreadful that the woman who was watching from the
earth was turned almost sick.
Like a flash Supreme dropped, headlong, toward the group of humans.
In two seconds the distance was covered, and in the last fifth of a
second Billie saw the key to the whole mystery.
In that last instant the man who before had seemed of ordinary size,
was magnified to the dimensions of a colossus. Instead of being
under six feet, he appeared to be near a hundred yards in height;
but Billie scarcely realized this till later, it all happened so
quickly. There was an outcry from the group, and then the
commandant's aircraft crashed into the man's HAND; a hand so huge
that the very wrinkles in its skin were like so many gulleys; even
in that final flash Billie saw all this.
Simultaneously with the landing there was a loud pop, while Billie's
senses reeled with the stunning suddenness of the impact. Next
second the machine had darted to a safe distance, and Billie could
see the man gnawing frantically at the back of his hand. Too late;
his hand went stiff, and his arm twitched spasmodically. The fellow
made a step or two forward, then swayed where he stood, his whole
body rigid and strained. An expression of the utmost terror was upon
his face; he could not utter a sound, although his companions
shrieked in horror. Another second and the man fell flat, twitching
convulsively; and in a moment or two it was all over. He was dead!
And then the truth burst upon the watcher. In fact, it seemed to
come to all four at the same time, probably by reason of their
mental connections. Neither of them could claim that he or she had
previously guessed a tenth of its whole, ghastly nature.
The "cane" which Smith had seen had not been cane at all; it had
been grass. The "beetle" in the stream had not been the giant thing
he had visualized it; neither had that fish been the size he had
thought.
Van Emmon's "gold mine" had not been a pit in any sense of the word;
it had been the inside of the blossom of a very simple, poppy-like
flower. The "nuggets" had been not mineral, but pollen. As for the
incredible thing which Van Emmon had seen on the ground; that living
statue; that head without a body--the body had been buried out of
sight beneath the soil; and the man had been an ordinary human,
being punished in this manner for misconduct.
Instead of being aircraft built in imitation of insects, the
machines had been constructed by nature herself, and there had been
nothing unusual in their size. No; they were the real thing,
differing only slightly from what might have been found anywhere
upon the earth.
In short, it had all been simply a matter of view-point. The supreme
creature of Sanus was, not the human, but the bee. A poisonous bee,
superior to every other form of Sanusian life! What was more--
"The damned things are not only supreme; THE HUMANS ARE THEIR
SLAVES!"