Killdozer! (story) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

An eight-man construction crew is building an airstrip and related facilities on a small pacific island during the course of World War II. They uncover and break open an ancient stone "temple."

This releases an ancient being composed of pure energy, leftover from a war involving sentient machines in a long-lost civilization, which "possesses" a bulldozer being used by the construction crew. The being's purpose was to take over the "enemy's" machines and attack them. When released from the ancient stone temple that contained it, it believes that the bulldozer (called "Daisy Etta" by the workers in the island, a mispronunciation of De-Siete (D7, in Spanish) is important to its intentions, possesses it, and it begins killing the workers. Ultimately, two of the three surviving workers—one goes insane—manage to destroy the bulldozer and (presumably) the creature.

While trying to write a report on what happened, the two sane workers are despairing of anyone believing them. Then, bombs fall from the sky, blasting the whole area below them, including the places the killdozer damaged and the graves of their fellow workers. One worker tears up the report he was writing and throws it in the air, thrilled that an explanation is now available -- enemy action in wartime.