Transcriber's note:
This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and FantasyJanuary 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that theU.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Dworn knew that if his machine failed him in battle he would die.For men fought each other viciously, with no bond of brotherhood,in this—
World Of The Drone
by
Robert Abernathy
The beetle woke from a dreamless sleep, yawned, stretched cramped limbsand smiled to himself. In the west the sunset's last glow faded. Starssprang out in the clear desert sky, dimmed only by the white moon thatrose full and brilliant above the eastern horizon.
Methodically, suppressing impatience, he went through every evening's[Pg 8]ritual of waking. He checked his instruments, scanned the mirrors whichgave him a broad view of moonlit desert to his left. To the right hecould see nothing, for his little armored machine lay half-buried,burrowed deep into the sheltering flank of a great dune; all day long ithad escaped the notice of prowling diurnal machines of prey. Helistened, too, for any sound of danger which his amplifiers might pickup from near or far.
The motor, idling as it had all day while its master slept, responded totesting with a smooth, almost noiseless surge of power. The instrumentswere in order; there was plenty of water in the condenser, and thoughhis food supply was low that shouldn't matter—before tonight was donehe would be once more among his people.
Only the fuel gauge brought an impatient frown to his face. It wasmenacingly near the empty mark—which meant he would have to spend timeforaging before he could continue his journey. Well ... no help for it.He opened the throttle.
The beetle's name was Dworn, and he was twenty-one years old. The fleshand blood of him, that is. The rest, the steel-armored shell, the wheelsand engine and hydraulic power-system, the electric sensoryequipment—all of which was to his mind as much part of his identity ashis own skin, muscles, eyes and ears—was only five years old.
Dworn's face, under his sleep-tousled thatch of blond hair, was boyish.But there were hard lines of decision there, which the last months hadleft.... Tonight by the reckoning of his people, he was still a youth;but when tomorrow dawned, the testing of his wanderyear would be behindhim, and he would be adult, a warrior of the beetle horde.
Sand spilled from the beetle's dull-black carapace as it surged from itshiding-place. It drifted, its motor only a murmur, along the shoulder ofthe dune. Dworn eyed his offending fuel gauge darkly; he would very muchhave liked to be on his way at top speed, toward the year's-endrendezvous of the horde under the shadow of the Barrier.
He began cruising slowly, at random, across the rolling moonlit waste ofwind-built dunes, watching for spoor.
He spied, and swerved automatically to avoid, the cunningly concealedpit of a sand devil, strategically placed in a hollow of the ground.Cautiously Dworn circled back for