The alien intelligence

by Jack Williamson

For several minutes I crouched behind the boulder, expecting the terrible being to come striding around after me at any instant; but it did not come, so presently I began to think. Perhaps the things were not so powerful, or so extremely intelligent after all. I had killed one, even if it was just by a chance shot in the dark. This one had seemed surprised and alarmed when the rifle went off, and I supposed that a being so intelligent as I had at first thought it to be might have inferred the nature and use of the weapon from its appearance. And I thought that it must be afraid of me, after my pistol bullet had knocked its own weapon out of its grip, or it would have followed me around the boulder. Then I began to wonder what it was going to do.

It evidently intended to strike me with the ray weapon. And not only did it respect me, but it knew that I stood in deathly fear of it. It knew that I was trying to escape, so it might reasonably expect me to leave the unscalable cliff and attempt a break against the open country. And if I were to do that, I would naturally keep in the shelter of my own boulder as long as possible. If the monster thought in that way, the logical thing for it to do would be to creep out of the upper side of its rock, where I would inevitably come into its sight by whatever direction I left my breastwork.

Of course there was a frightful risk in taking any action on such a hypothesis—a greater risk than I realized at the time. If the monster were less intelligent than I supposed, I might blunder on it; if it were more intelligent, it might have anticipated my plan—might be waiting to trap me.

But I crawled out along the upper side of my boulder and peered over a smaller rock which would serve me as a breastwork, my automatic ready. I expected to see the creature in my range, and itself intent upon my other lines of retreat. But it was not there. For a moment I thought I was doomed, but the orange ray did not strike, and I was forced to the conclusion that the monster was not in a position for action at all.

For a moment I was tempted to precipitate flight across the clearing, but I knew that such a move would put me at the mercy of the ray, and I thought that it might not yet be too late to carry out my original plan. I lay flat, with the gun trained on the spot where I expected it to appear. For perhaps fifteen minutes nothing happened; then it proved that my hypothesis was justified. The weird being suddenly sprang into view, with the strange weapon grasped in its glittering arm. It seemed to be looking beyond my boulder. I was lying ready, with the automatic leveled. It was a matter of the merest instant to aim at the green sphere and pull the trigger.

The globe was shattered as if it had been made of glass. The glittering fragments showered off the metal box, while the whole mechanical body suddenly became very rigid, and fell heavily to the side. A puff of coruscating green mist floated out of the globe as it broke, and swiftly dissipated, and the sparkling lights were about the thing no more. The monster was evidently dead.

For a few moments I hesitated, but I was sure the thing had been killed, and my curiosity got the better of my fear. I cautiously approached it. For a moment I marveled at the wonderful workmanship of the machine and at the cleverness of its design; then I saw something that made me forget all else. Something beside the crystal shell had fallen.

The tissue of it was very delicate, and it had been broken by the fall, so that the body juices were running from it. The brain cavity of it was very large—perhaps larger than that of a man—covered only with a thin chitinous shell. The limbs were but thin tentacles, almost altogether atrophied. In fact, the brain seemed three-fourths of the total bulk. The body was so badly smashed that I could tell little about it, but the tiny limbs were covered with chitin, and there were the rudimentary stumps of fine, tissue-like wings. There were no visible traces of digestive organs, or of mandibles.

The thing was plainly an insect. From just what species it had sprung in the long process of evolution in the crater it would be difficult to say. For several reasons, I believe it was an ant. At any rate, it had reached about the ultimate stage of evolution. Machines had altogether replaced bodies of flesh and blood. I believe the thing had been nourished by the sparkling green vapor, which must have circulated like blood through the protecting crystal sphere.

It seems incredible to find great intelligence in any form of life other than human; but science thinks that life and intelligence must rise and fall in recurring cycles, and that the earth has probably been ruled by many different forms of life, each of which has been blotted out by some cataclysm. The Krimlu were a surviving remnant of archaic ages.