Argosy, Vol. 122, No. 1 — page 55: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MAD PLANET, Burl, marching on over the broad plain that seemed stricken with some erupting disease. from the number of red pimples making their appearance, did net know what passed below, but observed the wasp emerge again and busily scratch dirt and stones into the shaft until it was full. The wasp had paralyzed a caterpillar, taken it to the already prepared burrow, laid an egg upen it, and filled up the en- trance. In course of time the egg would hatch into a grub barely as long as Burl’s _ forefinger, which would then feed upon the torpid caterpillar until it had waxed large and fat. Then it would weave itself a chrysalis and sleep a leng sleep, only to wake as a wasp and dig its way to the open air. | Burl reached the farther side of the plain and found himself threading the aisles of one of the fungus forests in which the growths were hideous, misshapen traves- ties upon the trees they had supplanted. Bloated, yellow limbs branched off from rounded, swollen trunks. Here and there a pear-shaped puff-ball, Burl’s height and half as much again, waited craftily until a chance touch should cause it to shoot up- ward a curling puff of infinitely fine dust. Burl went cautiously. There were dan- gers here, but he moved forward steadily, none the less. A great mass of edible mushroom was slung under one of his arms, and from time to time he broke off .a frag- ment and ate of it, while his large eyes searched this way and that for threats of harm. Behind him, a high, shrill roaring had _ grown slightly in volume and nearness, but was still too far away to impress Burl. The army ants were working havoc in the distance. By thousands and millions, myriads upon myriads, they were foraging the country, clambering upon every emi- nence, descending into every depression, their antennae waving restlessly and their mandibles forever threateningly extended. The ground was black with them, and each was ten inches and more in length. A single such creature would be formid- able to an unarmed and naked man like Burl, whose wisest move would be flight, but in their thousands and millions they 45 presented a menace from which no escape seemed possible. They were advancing steadily and rapidly, shrill stridulations and a multitude of clickings marking their movements. The great, helpless caterpillars upen the giant cabbages heard the sound of their coming, but were too stupid to flee. The black multitudes covered the rank vege- tables, and tiny but voracious jaws began to tear at the flaccid masses of flesh. Each creature had some futile means of struggling. The caterpillars strove to throw off their innumerable assailants by writhings and contortions, wholly ineffec- tive. The bees fought their entrance to the gigantic hives with stings and wing- beats. The moths took to the air in help- less blindness when discovered by the re- lentless throngs of small black insects which reeked of fromic acid and left the ground behind them denuded in every living thing. Before the oncoming horde was a werld of teeming life, where mushrooms and fungi feught with thinning numbers ef giant cab- bages for foothold. Behind the black mul- titude was—nothing. Mushrooms, cab- bages, bees, wasps, crickets. Every creep- ing and crawling thing that did not get aloft before the black tide reached it was lost, torn to bits by tiny mandibles. Even the hunting spiders and tarantulas fell be- fore the host of insects, having killed many in their final struggles, but overwhelmed by sheer numbers. And the wounded and dying army ants made food for their sound comrades. There is no mercy among insects. Only the web-spiders sat unmoved and immov- able in their colossal snares, secure in the knowledge that their gummy webs would discourage attempts at invasion along the slender supporting cables. Surging onward, flowing like a monstrous, murky tide over the yellow, steaming earth, the army ants advanced. Their vanguard reached the river, and recoiled. Burl was perhaps five miles distant when they changed their course, communicating the altered line of march to those behind them in some mysterious fashion of transmiting intelligence. Thirty thousand years before, scientists cComiclbooks.com