When Cities Implode: Golden Age Space Opera Tales

IN HIS IMAGE-1

IN HIS IMAGE

BY BRYCE WALTON

Towering and invulnerable, they stood on the hills, patiently awaiting their master. Meanwhile, they slew the vermin crawling below....

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JON RAN DOWN THE LONG corridor and into the Old Man’s room. He was breathless as he threw himself on his face beneath the Old Man’s chair made from gypsum. A kind of savage eagerness lighted his face, but the Old Man’s face, a frozen pallid ball crinkled into a million lines, was sad and hopelessly resigned.

“I seen ‘em,” Jon cried. “I seen ‘em.” His unhealthily pallid body, though big and rawboned, was slender and writhed with a leathery strength that comes with constant effort and exercise rather than diet and sun.

The Old Man shrugged. His voice was a hoarse whisper in that one cavern among the hundred and fifty miles of corridors, interlocking levels and rivers that made up the underground hideaway.

“So you seen ‘em, Jon. Many have seen the Mechs. The Mechs might have seen you too. If they ever find us here—well, they’d probe us out, like we were grubs. And they’d burn us with those red-ray eyes. Why’d you go up on top? You know it’s against the rules.”

Jon got up. His chest heaved. His eyes were polished beads in a thick nest of reddish beard.

“‘Cause I don’t like livin’ in this cave like a grub. I been up twice, and now I can’t stay down here anymore. Nobody else’s got guts enough to go up. So let ‘em stay down here and rot! But I’m going back up on top, Chief. And I’m staying up there.”

The Old Man leaned back. He couldn’t hide the gleam of gruff respect in his eyes. “Go ahead, Jon, but don’t come back down. Once they get on your tail, you can’t shake ‘em and you’d lead ‘em right back here, and then they’d get the rest of us. As far as I know, Jon, we’re the only humans left.”

Jon’s hands clenched. “And so might all of us be dead too. Livin’ down here in this cave where they ain’t never no sun, eatin’ lizards and snakes, and dyin’ off one by one anyway. We’re all gonna be dead in another year. What’s so great about spendin’ that year crawlin’ and grubbin’ down here? Scared to even take one last look at the sun? It’s not for me, Chief. I’m leavin’.”

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