THE QUEEGS (1936)

SOURCES: "Labyrinth" (Amazing Stories, April 1936)

DESCRIPTION: “Like the machine men, they walked on four legs; jointed in different places, however. They seemed to have no ankles, their lower leg bones terminating in soft, padded discs. Their upper appendages consisted of long arms like the thin, jointed legs of spiders. There must have been a dozen of these upper appendages. The body represented about the same dimensions as the body of a man, although the torso trended towards an ovoid form. The head was strangest of all, being exceedinly diminiutive. Its largest feature consisted of a loose, flabby mouth with hanging lips which gave the creature a crestfallen, wobegone expression. Nostrils were visible, though the faculty of hearing was not apparent in exterior detail. The eyes were weird, yet practical. There were four of them,each optic situated at the termination of an angular pedicel rising some seven or eight inches out of the small head. These snaky antennae twisted and turned in all directions...” (“Labyrinth” by Neil R. Jones)

NOTES: The Queegs are nomadic hunter-gatherers that live amongst the ruins left behind by the Builders, a vanished civilization. They number around five hundred only. The Queegs may be the degenerate offspring of that race though it is unlikely. They do not wear clothes. The Queegs subsist on Ohbs, which they hunt with wooden spears. The Queegs possess metal-working but know that Ohb hunting is best done without metal.

HISTORY: The Queegs strike me as what either monkeys or rats might evolve into after humans disappear. I think this may be what Jones is suggesting.