Issue 02 # Apr 1951 by Fantasy; Science Fiction

Author:Fantasy; Science Fiction
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-05-16T05:42:50+00:00

The stories and poems of George Paul Elliott have appeared chiefly in ” little magazines,” of high prestige but limited circulation. We hope, however, that this story, reprinted from ” Pacific,” will be the first of many Elliott ventures before the wider reading public of science fiction; he possesses, as you’ll see, an unusual ability to project thought in fiction, and to assume convincingly an alien mentality with no false anthropomorphic overtones. Our thanks to him for a stimulating item which may be read as allegory, as an intellectual tour de force, or as a pure exercise in imagination.

The Hill

by GEORGE PAUL ELLIOTT

The blades and their shafts were found by a group of Fighters some distance from the Hill. It seems impossible that they had been there long without having been discovered, yet it is equally impossible to explain their sudden appearance, and as unimportant as inexplicable. They may have been there all the time. I have reason to suspect this now. The blades were quite large, although varying considerably in size, were round, flat, harder than any previously observed substance, and they possessed sharp jagged teeth all around their circumferences. Through the center of each was a small cylindrical shaft. The Great Head ordered these blades transported, no mean feat, to the Hill, and stored. There was no apparent use for them, yet one might be developed.

That Great Head pondered for half his lifetime over these blades and the purpose to which they could be put. Then in a moment of pure intelligence he realized that they could be rotated. It was four generations before the problems of installation and power-transmission were solved, but once these mechanical matters were adjusted it was immediately evident to what use the blades were to be put: arranged at the entrances to our Hill they provided a nearly impregnable defence, the best yet devised. It was a generation later that the concept of inserting the shafts in retractable grooves was developed, so that the blades could be withdrawn for daily use, and protruded into the entrance in case of danger. Indeed, by my time, some 80 generations later, all the engineering problems concerning their maneuvering were effectively solved.

My own contribution, the disastrous one, resulted from a deduction based

upon an observation of my own together with the memory of an odd event, which has been left in our heritage of knowledge because of its very eccentricity.

I observed that the blades had an unsuspected effect upon the Workers and Fighters. The Workers seemed fascinated by the blades and yet suspicious; they would investigate the entire apparatus time and again, yet when they went through the outlets where the blades were ready to be projected at the smallest sign of danger they always hurried and eyed the dark slot askance. The Fighters, who of course operated the mechanism, liked the thing very much. Yet they showed signs of an odd restlessness now that the Hill was as nearly safe as it could be made. Their function

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