Page:Amazing Stories Volume 10 Number 13.djvu/114

112 bon was stretched across the barrier.

The syringe termites, their work accomplished, retreated, and we perceived a second insect army marching as though to intercept them. There was a brief colloquy among the leaders, after which the termites drew aside in serried ranks while the new-comers—true warrior ants—poured over the ribbon.

Our guards could not hold them back, even long enough to permit moving the Womanland livestock to a place of safety—if, indeed, such a place still exists. We were forced to witness the horrible spectacle of death creeping across the ground in a slow wave. Birds rose screaming from the grass as the insects invaded their nests, snuffing out the lives of the countless fledgelings and the lesser field animals that had crowded into this protected area. The livestock fled bellowing. A few were herded inside the new, hastily lighted fire, but the majority had no place of refuge. We ourselves barely escaped. What a chorus of agony rang in our retreating ears as the ants, entering through a dozen breaches at once, ate the animals alive!

Today there is nothing left of the domestic beasts but white skeletons. The circumference of the flame has shrunk to ten miles. Farmers and other country-folk have fled to the shelter of the capital, and the problem of food must be reckoned with soon.

Suicides are epidemic. Even the guards go suddenly mad, and bound through the low flames to die among the ant hills outside. Religious ecstasy has become prevalent on the streets.

The women were slow to recognize the imminence of death; but apparently they do not intend to pretend stoicism now that the imminence is avowed.

My Lords:

What, I wonder, were the characteristics of the civilizations that preceded ours in the moon? We have small trace of them, save for the five incomprehensible and fragmentary volumes on mechanical science which exist still in the great Colla Museum, and the immense caverns that our forebears hollowed in their insatiable search for metals. Presumably those were eras of great scientific achievement; our translations of the five volumes indicate that flights to the steaming, tremor-shaken mass of Terra were a commonplace.

Whatever the cause, metal has been a rarity since the beginning of recorded history. Where our ancestors feasted we have subsisted on scraps. For lack of ore, mechanical contraptions of all sorts have been confined to blueprints. Such metals as we possess have been reserved for the use of the medical profession, and we have carried biology alone to the triumphant fulfilment that every science deserves.

I mention this for two reasons. First, if metals were available we should be less handicapped in our losing fight against the termite horde; and second, the construction of space ships according to the formulae available might enable some of you to reach our primary, thus escaping the extinction that impends for your fellows.

I suggest that my lords gather all brass, iron, tin, etc., however infinitesimal the unit, utilizing even the