Read Ebook: Master Race by Ashby Richard Bok Hannes Illustrator

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Ebook has 85 lines and 6978 words, and 2 pages

Minutes later he had passed the world's satellite and was in view of his parent craft.

The Commander's first action was to order the Scout flogged before his comrades as an example of what awaited those who became lax in the performance of important duties. His second was to assemble the Council of Experts. When the eight old men had taken their places about the table, the Commander saluted them in the name of Law, then summoned his aide. "Is Decontamination through?"

"It is, sir."

"Then have the findings brought in."

The officer ran from the room and returned in a moment with the Scout's bulging sack. Gently he placed it in the center of the round table before the council. After saluting he took his leave again.

So they hardly listened.

When the Commander had finished with the rites of the occasion he unsnapped the bag and after peering within it, gingerly brought out the Scout's first find. Only now did the old men appear to take much notice. A few even leaned forward slightly. All eyes centered on what their Commander held.

"A phallic object?" asked the youngest.

"No. A lever," said the eldest.

"For killing," added the next.

"But it was made by machine," put in a fourth.

For a moment they were silent. The Commander placed the "machine-made killing-lever" on the table. It described a short little half-roll, bringing the printing into view.

"A religious design," said the youngest. "Obviously pagan."

"But rather well worked."

No one found anything further to say, so the Commander brought forth from the bag the next object. A mild flurry of interest ensued when it was discovered that this soft globular thing bore the same "religious design." But the sages would not venture an opinion as to the thing's purpose, so the Commander took out the package of white cylinders.

Only the next to the eldest made any comment. He claimed that he had seen such articles in his youth, brought out from a system of three worlds that swung above a nova. The white things there, he reminisced, were units of value ... useful in bartering. They were designed to be spent quickly, lest the stuffing fall out. The other experts agreed that these were no doubt also monies.

The Commander had been listening with but half an ear. Privately, he had long considered the experts to be but a muttering pack of senile dolts ... dead weight, useless cargo on the ship. They worked not, neither did they breed. But Law demanded their presence. The Law, he mused, seemed strange at times.

He discovered the Council was waiting for him. Frowning to cover his embarrassment, he took out the last of the Scout's finds. For a moment all of them were struck by the bright colors on the flat surface. The one old man reached out a trembling hand. "Records," he murmured incredulously. "Records such as our own race is said to have once made, long, long ago before Law." Reverently, he examined the cover, then with remarkable agility for one so decrepit he jumped to his feet and flung the thing from him. His face twitched with horror.

The others shocked and disbelieving, fell to examining the rest of the new articles. In a moment, cries of alarm filled the council room. Chairs were upset, dignity forgotten. Only the eldest retained his composure, although with difficulty, for he could hardly manage to control the palsied shaking of his hands. The astonished Commander leaned over his shoulder and watched as the ancient turned the pages.

What he saw made the blood drum in his ears, made his vision swim, and only faintly did he hear the old one's croaking words. "Praise to Law, which we so carelessly accepted, for Law has saved us from the fiendish denizens of this planet. Had we attempted to exterminate them, their space armadas would have taken instant revenge. For they are obviously mightier than we." He put down the bright record of space craft vaster than the one which they occupied and took up another. On its cover was depicted a world being blasted into flaming wreckage, and within was shown the pictorial history of a space fleet, engaged in repelling an alien invasion, and who followed up their successful repulse by annihilating the entire system of the aliens.

Five more of the record books did they examine before the Commander's stunned mind at last reeled beneath the hideous concepts and he could look no more. Dumbly, he managed to reach the phones and order the ship thrown into emergency drive to some far and lost point in space and dimension.

And as he waited for the shuddering wrench that signalled interdimensional shift, he tried to forget the horrors they had so narrowly escaped: Creatures who could make themselves invisible, who had mastered space travel, who worked in magic more powerful than that of Law's, who could whiff out entire solar systems, who could survive incredible mishaps and hardships. Creatures who were no less than Gods!

A wave of fear tore at the Commander as the glittering moon faded away. Eternal nothingness of grey enclosed the ship....

The sun was up when Eddie recovered consciousness. Stiff and cold, he sat and looked around sleepily a moment before remembering. Then, as he saw Rags sitting before him, tail wagging happily, it all began to come back: Last night, sometime; humming lights above the tree house, someone moving about up there, himself sneaking up to see, then ... nothing. He must have tripped and knocked himself out, somehow. Eddie snatched up the .22 and aimed it at the tree. "Whoever's up there," he said, getting to his feet, "had better come on out!"

Nothing happened.

Eddie bent down cautiously, his eyes still fixed on the tree house, picked up a rock and hurled it through the shanty's open door. A bird fluttered from the gnarled oak, sailed across the morning meadow chirping angrily.

"This is your last chance. Come on out, or I'm comin' up and get you!" The bird's being there made him quite sure that everything was all right, so after a moment he pulled the knotted rope from its concealment in a cleft of the tree and went up hand over hand.

A strange odor lingered inside the shack. Something like ... Eddie sniffed, frowned ... something like a freshly blown fuse, but outside of that nothing seemed amiss at first. Then he discovered his softball and bat were missing. He found he didn't care too much. The season was over anyway; and besides, hunting and riding and fishing were more fun.

He looked further.

The cigarettes! He hoped the thief wouldn't snitch on him to dad. But that didn't make too much sense, he realized. The thief ... a tramp, probably, was far away by now, maybe at this very minute trying to trade the ball and bat for a meal or a drink.

And those humming lights? Even now he wasn't too sure he'd seen them. Stars, probably. The Little Dipper, or maybe fireflies, or lightning. Sure.

He turned to go. The sun told him it was almost seven o'clock. Mother would be furious if she found him out in the morning without having dressed properly, or eaten.

It was then he saw that something else was missing, but because it was so late he didn't stop to worry. "Mandrake The Magician," "The Invisible Boys," "Buck Rogers," "Bat Man" ... they were all old comic books. He'd finished with them months ago.

Eddie clambered down the rope, and seconds later he and Rags were joyfully racing along the trail that led to home.

It was a beautiful morning.

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