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"I say, let's get together and put Rolla wise to what Deltos and Sorplee are framing up! We can do it, if we concentrate upon the same thought at the right time!" Smith did not commit himself. "I don't care much either way," he decided. "Go ahead if you want to" meaning Van Emmon and the doctor "I don't want to butt in." "Don't need you," growled the geologist. "Two of us is enough."
As for weapons, they relied entirely upon fire. Each man carried a little wood alcohol in a flask, in case it was necessary to burn wet or green wood. Otherwise, their equipment was matches, with an emergency set of flint and steel as well. There could be no resisting them. "We'll wait here till we've seen that you've succeeded," Somat told Deltos and Sorplee. "Then we'll follow."
And they were two hundred to nine! In half a minute the first of the invaders was down, his head crushed by a mattock in the hands of a bee-tormented native. In a single minute all were gone but two; and a moment later, Deltos alone, because he had chanced to secure a long club, was alive of all that crew. For a minute he kept them off by sheer strength.
And it was not until the first of the villagers was within twenty yards that the nine suspected anything. Then they heard the buzzing. Looking closer, they saw that it was an attack! "Stop!" cried Deltos, in swift panic. "We are friends, not enemies!" It was like talking to the wind.
They were to be lookers-on, nothing more. Meanwhile the survivors of a once great civilization prepared to move in person against the bees. They did this after Deltos had pointed out the advantages of such a step. "If we rout the bees ourselves," said he, "the natives will regard us as their saviors, and we shall have no trouble with them afterward."
"And I told her," he concluded, "how we came to be here; also the reason for the condition of things. But I doubt if she understood half what I said. We have quite a problem before us," he added. "What shall we do about it?" "You mean this woman?" Deltos asked. Rolla was busy with her food. "It seems to me, brothers, that Providence has miraculously come to our aid.
Within a few minutes they had new agents; Van Emmon used Somat's eyes and ears, while Smith got in touch with the elderly bearded man at the head of the table. His name was Deltos. "A very striking confirmation of the old legends," he was saying through a big yawn, as Smith made connection. He used a colloquial type of language, quite different from the lofty, dignified speech of the Sanusians.
The next he was writhing in the death agony, and the bees were supreme once more. Supreme herself had stung Deltos. Of the four on the earth, Smith was the first to make any comment. He had considerable difficulty in throwing his thought to the others; somehow he felt slightly dazed. "This is unbelievable!" he said, and repeated it twice. "To think that those insects are still the masters!"
The feat is one that requires apelike ability. The only thing that puzzled me is why did she do it at all?" "It will have to remain a puzzle until she awakens," said Deltos, rising from the table. "Lucky for us, Somat, that you saw fit to study the root tongues. Otherwise we'd have to converse by signs." Neither Smith nor Van Emmon learned anything further that night.
As for weapons, they relied entirely upon fire. Each man carried a little wood alcohol in a flask, in case it was necessary to burn wet or green wood. Otherwise, their equipment was matches, with an emergency set of flint and steel as well. There could be no resisting them. "We'll wait here till we've seen that you've succeeded," Somat told Deltos and Sorplee. "Then we'll follow."
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