Robert W. Krepps

“ Skagarach and Bill Cuff grinned. The other two seemed without humor. "Go ahead, tell us what you remember," said my cousin.
"I don't—but suppose I say, I remember hunting a mammoth...."
"You would be lying. You'd recall other things—mating with human women, being stalked to your death, fighting the upstart Man. You would have flashes of other centuries, of being named werewolf, vampire, hobgoblin, ogre, bugbear and demon. Always the violence, the antagonism to man, the slaying and being slain. Not the common everyday life, but the high and savage points." ”

“ Despite the dark blood I knew ran in my body too, I could not feel that I was Neanderthal; and I could not tackle the two toughest Neanderthals at the outset of the private war I had begun. I was—well, I must face it, I was scared.
As the blower vents started to pour a hurricane of air into the chambers of the great wheel, I leaped past them, flicked on the intercom switch, and bellowed, "Hit the bunks! Lie down and strap yourselves in! Fast!"
Skagarach had time for one approving look in my direction. "Good Companion!" he said. "You will do!" ”

“ The atom cannons, the weapons that were meant to repel any hypothetical enemy attack when the station is freewheeling in space. There are gun ports on every curve, Ray." He sighed. "Two hours ago I was a peaceable man, I was here because I loved peace above everything else. Now I want to keep on killing people."
"They aren't people, they're cave beasts. They admit to being non-human." ”

“ Bill Cuff laughed suddenly.
"Ray, I'm not mad, as you were just thinking. I offer you that as proof: we are to a degree telepathic. All of us. Yet men are not.
"It's true. We are the Neanderthals. We are not human. And we have returned to take back our inheritance, which is the world!" ”

“ I feel a terrible, inchoate anger against almost everything. I think it must be what you call the primal rage. And I also feel a hell of a strong kinship with you, if not with Bill Cuff. I lied to you. My brother and the space station aren't on Pompey. They're on Odo Island."
"Well," he said easily, "well, I thought you might have been trying to outwit us. I thought we might have to flay your woman an inch at a time to make you talk. But by God, that knock on the cranium fixed you! Congratulations—and welcome to the Old Companions." ”

“ From attack on Pompey to blast-off from Terra should take from one to three hours."
"You are insane," said Nessa in a shocked voice.
"No," said Skagarach seriously, "we are sane. But we have fought for the existence of our race through too many thousands of years, in too many lands and too many ages, to have mercy now that our hour is at hand."
I felt as though I'd been dropped into icy water. Skagarach wasn't kidding. And Bill Cuff was worse than he. ”

“ He was sterilized and given a farm all for himself—an extremely well-guarded farm, for even when they were gone the Old Companions left an aura of unease and fear on the land.
It's over now. It can't happen again; we'll be on the watch for the primal rage, the wakening dawn memory in those who may remain as carriers of the dark blood. The man-made moon rides high in space by day and night, watching the world with unfailing vigilance.
My brother Howard is up there as I write.
And Nessa is in the nursery putting our infant son to bed. I hope that one day he'll join many other men in space. ”

“ I would have faced five giant Bill Cuffs rather than this yellow-haired creature.
"My name is Skagarach," he said to me, bringing my eyes back to him involuntarily. "I am third leader in our muster of the Old Companions. You have met the second leader, Old One. That is the truth of our folk. In time, in generations, we shall all look so, and the effete refinements of Homo sapiens will be gone." He glanced at Bill Cuff, who towered beside him, watching me. "Bill is first leader. ”

“ For half an hour we worked through the space station, Howard pointing out in an emotionless voice the personnel quarters, control room, the gauge panels, fuel storage tanks (for the small rocket clamped to the center spoke of the wheel and reserved for emergency flight back to Terra) , the space suits and the many instrument panels. We saw television cameras so powerful that from the 1,000-mile altitude they could pick up movements as small as those made by a single man on a prairie. We saw the astrodome, the oxygen supplies, the air blower pump, the air locks and moon-to-earth radios ”

“ Everything that would support life in space.
Last of all we saw the weapons: the levers that would release the hell-bombs and guided missiles, the aiming mechanisms, the terrible arsenal that was to threaten the world and keep it under control, at the benevolent mercy of the men who lived within the wheel.
Bill Cuff exulted. "In five days," he said, and then stopped. I knew what he meant. In five days all the Neanderthals on earth would be congregated in specified sanctuaries, and mankind would die. ”

“ Some of them were carrying things—submachine guns, handguns, even hand grenades—from broken crates to the six big boats that lined the water's edge. Others were giving orders in voices that were almost without exception gruff and barking. And everywhere I looked I caught the stare of gray eyes: eyes that took the blue glow of the searchlights and threw it back condensed and changed, so that from many dark faces there gleamed at me thin ovals of orange and crimson and green luminescence. ”

“ If you're telling me the truth, if you play ball, you'll be the first member of the Old Companions accepted in spite of lack of dawn memory. A proud thing," he said, drawing himself up to his impressive full height, "a very proud thing, Ray." The flame of a fanatic shone in the gray eyes, and then he had turned and was gone and I was staring at the dead tv set and licking my lips that were dry as tomb-dust.
When I was sure they had both gone, I crossed to the French windows and secured them with a chair, and then I went to the phone. ”

“ The Old Companions had to be ferreted out, dug from their holes, sought in cities and swamps and villages and caves. In that work we had unexpected help: there are traitors to every cause, good and bad, those who'll turn coat when the going gets rough, and even the boasting Neanderthals were no exception. Our turncoat was the captive Trutch. He had a prodigious memory and he had been high in the councils of the Cuff muster. ”

“ He forgot that dark blood runs stronger than light, that the bestial is stronger than the civilized, that a drop of wolf-blood will often make a dog a ravening brute, that one small dilution of Neanderthal carries down through years and centuries to crop up again, full-fledged and vigorous, time after time in an otherwise placid strain. ”

“ In two years he has become so. He killed nineteen of us to gain that leadership." Skagarach smiled, cunningly and drily. I gathered that he was not fond of my cousin. And that was my first piece of real hope.
"The man at the wheel," he went on, "is called Trutch. As far as I know he has no other name. The fourth is Vance." This last was a young fellow, about as wide as he was high, with the usual gray eyes.
"Are the eyes a distinguishing characteristic?" I asked.
"Some ninety per cent of us have them. You do yourself. But every gray-eyed man is not Homo-Neanderthal by any means." ”

“ Old Companions....
Great God! What a horde swarmed in that hidden hole, across that rock-canopied beach! There were about two hundred of them. The majority were duplicates, in breadth of frame and depth of chest, of Trutch and Vance. The faces were handsome or ugly, grotesque or plain, yet all held the concentrated savagery of my four escorts. Many had arms longer than normal. Some were so deformed that their gait as they crossed the sand on various errands was almost that of an ape that swings along on its knuckles. Again, several were tall and personable, like Bill Cuff. ”

“ Dealing with rockets and space stations, and doing it with submachine guns, after all. It's race suicide."
"You're thinking on the wrong tack. We are the primeval beings, yes; and we're facing, and prepared to use, the farthest reaches of scientific achievement. But look, Ray: if an intelligent caveman came among a group of moderns, and saw a gun lying there, and was taught how to use it, which would be the bright thing to do—snatch it and use it on them, or wade in with his fists?
"We intend to blot out Homo sapiens and we shall do it. ”

“ We who always fought Man, unknowing what we were or why we fought, we formed the basis of every legend that told of horrible alien things lying in wait beside every path and in every fen and bog and desolute place. ”

“ Then in later ages we discovered ourselves as different, but never could make of ourselves a dominant race: so we were hunted in ones and twos, and when our ancient blood cried for vengeance on Man, we slew him and died alone. ”

“ Howard had reached the switch of the solar mirrors, and gradually they were pushing out from the underside, pressing the ground, raising the wheel into the air. I wondered how long it would take them to reach their full extent or to break off. I prayed it would be a few minutes at least....
At the first sensation of movement, the titans had frozen, Skagarach in the act of drawing back a fist, Cuff with his hands twined in the long oily hair of the fox-faced Neanderthal. In a split second they were on their feet and leaning over the control panels.
"The viewers are dark!" yelled Skagarach. ”

“ Bill Cuff and Skagarach and Trutch and I were sitting on the top of the bow ramp in the lead boat, straining our eyes toward the small forested bit of earth ahead. Starshine showed us a broken coastline of rock that didn't look passable, not for a monkey. I said so. Bill Cuff muttered, "We can make it."
Behind us crowded the cave beasts, each of them equipped with at least one weapon; some had grenades slung in belts over their shoulders, others carried .45 revolvers, tommyguns, and rifles. Skagarach had apologized for not giving me a gun. ”

“ Why didn't you cut loose with your wonder weapons during the fight?"
"Ray, this wheel is soundproof. It was only by chance that I happened to glance out, by way of a viewer, as you came up the ramp. And of course then I wasn't fully aware of the extent of the killing, or I might have used the guns instead of trying to talk to them." Howard sighed again. "I'm not the violent sort. I guess I wouldn't have thought of the guns anyhow." He looked thoughtfully at me. "I wonder why the Marines didn't radio to us when it began?"
"The Old Companions are hand-jamming the island." ”

“ The air whined just over my head and I knew I hadn't hit dirt an instant too soon.
I hoped that Bill Cuff, that magnificent target, had been chopped in half....
Cuff's grenaders got into action then. There was the crump-crump and the screeching as grenades tore holes in earth and sandbags and metal and men. A Neanderthal stood up just in front of me and peered forward against the lights' glare to check on the damage, and as I looked up at him I saw the entire top of his skull explode as a dozen slugs hit it. There were more grenades and then a tommygun opened up. I crawled forward. ”

“ They glanced at one another, Cuff's brows drew into a scowl, and then Skagarach, the best brain of the lot, cried, "Don't harm this man!" and leaped forward, stood with his body against the door so that it could not be closed. "He's necessary to the operation—he's vital." The Old Companions muttered and the weapons lowered. Skagarach said to Howard, "You think we've come to destroy the satellite. You believe we're aroused citizens, or religious fanatics, bent on halting the experiment. You're wrong." ”

“ They haven't the faintest notion that we exist, an army of manlike non-men.
"It's the broad conception that stumps you, Ray. So picture each operation by itself. The storming of the rocket ports—by quite adequate troops of ours, well-armed and savage. Then the towing of the rockets, by VTO tugs, to Pompey Island—this done by technicians and scientists who are not men, but Neanderthals. Then the locking of the space station to the rockets, and the takeoff for outer space. Sixty of us in these boats, plus twenty waiting with other musters at the rocket stations will man that moon. ”

“ I was consumed with impatience to see Nessa, but the sheer incredibility of this plot had to be coped with now. These men were stark crazy.... "If I dared to write up a yarn in which three-stage rockets were flown to an island and from there into the sky with a 237-foot-broad space station, my publisher would slit my throat with a rolled-up contract! Vampires are easier to believe than a wacked thing like that."
"Ray," said Bill Cuff, and suddenly from the growl in his voice I realized that I had been taking liberties with a savage cave-brute, "Ray, do we seem like fumblers to you?" ”

“ How knuckleheaded do they think an enemy'd be? Climb up and jump over." He looked at Nessa. "I think we'll leave you here," he said slowly. "Ray cherishes your safety—and I might want a check on his loyalty. Trutch, keep her safe." The big-eared, lank-haired brute folded a paw over her wrist and dragged her to one side. I said sharply, "Treat her easily, you damn orangutan!" and started after them, till someone's open hand caught me on the chest and shoved me rudely on my tail. I got up and Nessa was gone. ”