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 bills 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!"