MASTER RACE
By Richard Ashby
The Invaders sent a scout to Earth to find out
what kind of life inhabited it. But what sort of a
conclusion could they draw from comic book heroes?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
September 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
One moment he was piloting a fast plane over dangerous greenjungles ... and the next Eddie was wide awake and peering throughthe gloom. Across the room Rags was whining softly and sniffing thedamp night air that rolled in through the open window. The Scotty wasexcited, Eddie saw, and it must be something out of the ordinary forRags' whimpering carried an undercurrent of perplexity and fear ... andthe dog wasn't a coward.
The boy called softly to him, but Rags, after tossing back a swiftglance of recognition, put his forefeet up on the sill and peered,muttering, out across the pastures.
Eddie slipped from his bed and padded over to the window. As hecomfortingly ruffed the fur behind the Scottie's ears, he listenedintently at the night. At first he heard only the ordinary countrysounds—roosters crowing over at the next farm, the muffled thumpingof stock shifting about in the barn and against the corral fence; theflittering and high chirping of birds in the cottonwoods and peppertrees. He took the dog in his arms and was about to go back to bedwith him when he became aware of a sound that was very much out of theordinary. A sound, Eddie decided, something like standing outside theBaptist church in Riverside when the organist was playing low, vibrantnotes inside.
Eddie wondered how he could have first missed the sound, so firmlyhad it now become established. Where could it be coming from? It was,he guessed, about an hour till dawn, and no tractors or other farmmachinery should be running. And it wasn't a radio.
A plane?
Leaning from the window he glanced upwards, then gasped inastonishment. Goose pimples of excitement tingled his skin, for therein the sky, above the oak tree on the ridge hung a pattern of sharpwhite lights. They were little lights, as if someone had strungtogether a fanciful arrangement of Christmas tree bulbs, then sent themdangling aloft beneath a kite.
Rags' mutterings became deep and angry. Finally he gave vent to a shortsharp bark.
Instantly Eddie quieted the dog. Lights or not, his mother had made itplenty clear about Rags' being in the house.
Crouching on the floor, both arms about Rags, Eddie whispered wordsof reassurance while he stared up at the strange sparklings. Theoak tree—the one with his tree house—was a scant quarter mile fromwhere he knelt, and he wondered if its being so high on the ridgehad caused it to draw some sort of lightning to itself. He'd read ofthat happening ... chain lightning. Or was it called Fox Fire? Eddiecouldn't remember. Anyway, it looked something like that, he imagined.
But no lightning, he remembered, made a noise like a machine.Unconsciously, he'd hooked sight and sound together.
Frowning, Eddie let go of the dog. If the lights had been over the barnor garage, he'd have gone to tell his father. Or over the garden, hismother. But the tree house didn't concern them. It was his, and even ifit hadn't been an hour before dawn he wouldn't have told his parents.He had things in there he shouldn't have, and it wouldn't do for eithermother or father to go snooping around, even if they couldn't find hissec