14
We were unarmed. I had flung my weapon at the thing in the forest; andSnap had exhausted all his bolts firing at the multitude of greeneyes. Molo and Wyk came with a dive through the air. Two tiny flashesleaped from them to the rocks behind them, and flung them forward.
Snap and I seized Venza and Anita. It was a second of confusion; thenI saw we would not be able to rise in time. The driving, oncomingfigures were no more than twenty feet away.
"Protect Venza, Snap! Get her behind you!"
Snap shoved Venza behind him; I got myself in front of Anita. We hadalmost gained our feet. I tried to thrust Anita and myself violentlyupward. We rose, but only a few feet. And then we were struck by theoncoming body of Wyk, like a huge, light-shelled, three-pound insectlunging in mid-air against us. The two longest tentacle arms wrappedaround us. Anita twisted and kicked. The gruesome, goggling face ofWyk thrust itself almost into mine. The hollow voice panted, "I haveyou fast."
One of my arms was free and I struck with my fist at the gaping,upended mouth. There was a crack. My fist sank through the shell; acold, sticky ooze spurted out.
Wyk screamed. His encircling arms fell away. The grisly smashed facewas white with ooze and pulp where my fist had gone in.
We had sunk back to the rocks. I kicked the dead body of Wyk away.
"Anita! Swim up!"
"No!"
Sinking beside us were the flailing bodies of Molo, Snap and Venzawere drifting down. They seemed intermingled. Snap was shouting: "Noyou don't! Drop that!"
I leaped for them. Something long and thin and glowing was danglingfrom Molo's hand. He broke loose from the struggling Snap and Venza;his feet struck the rocks and he shoved himself backward. My leap hadcarried me too high. I saw that in his hand was a six-foot length ofglowing wire. He whirled it. The weight on its end described an arc,and then he flung the handle. The weighted wire struck Venza and Snapjust as their repulsive ray shot down against the rocks and shovedthem upward. The whirling wire wrapped itself around them, bound themtogether. Its glow vanished. Snap had been shouting, "Gregg, come up."But it died in his throat.
All this while, in those few seconds, I was vaulting over Molo, tryingto get back to the ground to leap again. I saw that Anita was crawlingon the rocks. My gravity cylinder was at my belt. I had jammed itthere to leave my hands free just as Wyk struck me.
I saw that Snap and Venza, wrapped together by the wire, had droppedtheir gravity projector. Their entwined figures went up some fiftyfeet and stopped; then began drifting down.
Molo was shouting, "You, Gregg Haljan! Now for you!"
I struck the rocks and fell twenty feet beyond him. I jerked out mygravity projector, but I did not know what I wanted to do with it. Andin that second I saw that the standing Molo was aiming at me. Directlyover my head the inert bound bodies of Venza and Snap were falling.
A flash leaped over the dark rocks from Molo. There was a split-secondwhen I thought it was the end of me. But I was still alive. The bodiesof Venza and Snap struck my head and shoulders; knocked me down. Ifelt Molo's ray upon me. Not death, but only his gravity ray, like agiant hand pulling me. Apparently he wanted us alive. I was scramblingon the rocks, entangled with Venza and Snap. Molo's radiance clung.All three of us went tumbling forward toward him. I flashed my ownray, but I was rolling end over end, and it went wild.
I dropped it, saw Molo's beam vanish, saw his upright standing figuretowering above me. Snap, Venza and I were in a heap at his feet. Heleaned down and seized me. "Now, Gregg Haljan, I will teach you not totry escaping like this!"
With the huge, muscular Martian gripping me, his fist striking for myface but missing and hitting my shoulder, this was a semblance ofnormality. I could understand fighting like this. I wrapped my legsaround him; my fingers reached for his brawny throat as he kicked usinto the air free of the entangling bodies of Snap and Venza.
We rose a few feet and sank back, gripping each other, lunging andstriking. He was very powerful, this Martian. I caught the roundpillar of his throat with my hands. For an instant I shut off hiswind, but I could not hold the grip. He struck me a glancing blow inthe face, then the heel of his hand was under my chin. It forced backmy head, broke my hold on his throat. With returning breath, he gaspedan inhalation. And I heard his exulting words: "You are not strongenough!"
We rolled and bumped over the rocks. I caught a blow from his fistsfull in my face. It was almost the end; I felt my strength going. Helaughed as he struck away my answering swing. I was on my back againstthe rocks, with his body on top of me. Then beyond and behind hishulking shoulder, silhouetted against the sky, I saw Anita rise up.She was lifting a jagged gray mass of stone, full four feet indiameter. She poised it, then crashed it down on Molo's head. He sankaway from me; his arms relaxed. The boulder rolled beside him.
It was over now. Wyk was dead; his gruesome body with its smashed facelay near us. Molo was unconscious, breathing heavily, lyingmotionless, with a wound on the back of his head, the blood wellingout, matting his hair.
Anita and I were uninjured, victorious--but what a hollow victory. Onthe rocks here, bound together by that strange wire, Snap and Venzalay inert. We bent over them. The wire was cold to the touch now. Itresisted our efforts to untwine it. We pulled frantically as wepleaded: "Snap, speak to us! Venza, can't you speak?"
Their eyes were open. I was aware that there was no starlight aboveus, but instead, a lurid sky of flying clouds, shot with a greenishcast. The darkness here was green. The glow of it struck upon thewide-open staring eyes of Venza and Snap. It seemed that there wasintelligence in those eyes.
"Snap, can't you hear us?"
His eyelids came down and up again, slowly, as though by a horribleeffort. "Can you move, Snap?"
His right eyelid moved. Was his answer, no?
Anita and I had never felt so horrible a sense of aloneness as thatwhich swept us in those succeeding minutes. A breeze was springing upin the lurid green night. It came from the mountains. It wafted acrossthe nearby river, rippling the surface which was now green and sullen.We did not know where to go, what to do.
We found at last that we could untwist the stiffly clinging wire. Welaid Venza and Snap on the rocks side-by-side, about thirty feet backfrom the river. The glowing wire had burned their clothes only alittle, as the current was absorbed by the contact with their bodies.
"Snap, are you in pain?"
His eyes seemed to be trying to talk to me. Anita rose from Venza:"Oh, Gregg, what shall we do? Can't we carry them?"
But where? To what purpose? Wild thoughts thronged me: Wandl's controlstation, bringing chaos and death upon Earth. Mars and Venus. What wasthat now to me? I thought of Molo's ship.
"Anita, if we can get to the _Star-Streak_, seize it and escape fromthis world...."
"Carry Snap and Venza there now? But we don't know where it is. Can wemake Molo lead us?"
But Molo lay unconscious. I could not rouse him.
Anita and I were so alone! We clung together.
"Gregg, look at that sky!"
The mounting wind was tugging at us. It whined through the darkmountain defiles, surged out over the river where the water now wasbeginning to toss with waves crossing the swift current. The sky wasshot with green shafts of radiance. Over us, the lowering, leadenclouds were scudding, riding the wind.
It burst now upon us; I found suddenly that Anita and I were bracingagainst it. A puff dislodged us, so that we were blown a dozen feet,bringing up against a crag, as though we were balloons.
"Anita--this wind--we can't maintain ourselves here. We...."
Horror checked me at the thought of Venza and Snap, lying there on therocks. We saw the body of Wyk, like a great dried insect, lifted bythe wind, whirled like a brown leaf over and over, and carried away.
A little pebble came hurtling and struck me. Then a rain of pebbles,like hailstones was pelting at us.
The storm was probably caused by the axial rotation of Wandl. Thelight-beam upon Earth
had been attacked by the Wandl control stationwithout axial rotation. But to attack the beam from Mars, amanipulation of Wandl was necessary. The planet's rotation wasstarted; and suddenly checked. It remained night now, here in thishemisphere. Perhaps there were natural storm tendencies here; perhapsthe operators of the control station were unduly eager, manipulatingthe rotation too suddenly.
At all events, it was frightening. I shouted above its whine and theclatter of the pebbles: "Hold onto me! We'll get to Venza and Snap."
We reached the two inert forms, where they had blown into a nichebetween two boulders. "Can't stay here, Anita."
"No! If it begins again!"
"Over there! A cave!"
We got Venza and Snap into it, just as another gust came, with a rainof dirt and loose stones pelting past outside.
Suddenly I thought of Molo. "Anita, stay here! Must get to Molo."
"Gregg, no!"
"I must. If we can bring him to consciousness, make him tell us wherethe _Star-Streak_ is...."
I flung off her restraining hold. The wind had eased up. I leaped outinto it, swimming. The rocks slid by close under me in a swiftsidewise drift. In a moment I would be carried out over the river. Itwas a chaos of green, windswept darkness. But there was bursting lightnow overhead and rumbling claps, like thunder.
I saw Molo's body where the wind held him pinned against the side of aflat, ten-foot rock butte, and dove for him, swimming down franticallyuntil I struck against the rock with a blow that almost knocked thebreath from me. Molo was still obviously unconscious.
How long it took me to get back to Anita, floundering with Molo'sbody, I do not know. I managed to keep against the ground; was blownback, and struggled forward again. The wind came with strange puffs.In one of the lulls, I hauled Molo through the air and into the cave.
"Gregg!" Anita held to me, her arms around me. "Gregg dear, you weregone so long!"
I was battered and bruised and breathless. The cave's mouth was like aten-foot tunnel leading downward into blackness.
"Gregg, I put Venza and Snap here."
They lay side by side, like two dead bodies, here in the greenishdarkness. We placed Molo with them. Together Anita and I crouchedbeside them, clinging to each other, listening to the wild sweep ofthe wind outside. The storm had burst into full fury now. It wouldwhirl us away like feathers, outside there now. The lightning andthunder hissed and crashed. Stones and boulders were being flung likehailstones.
This flimsy, weightless world! It seemed as though the rocks here onwhich we were crouching would be shifted and carried away.
"Gregg! Gregg, is this the end?"
A mass of rocks fell at the opening, closing it, so that we wereburied here in the darkness. "Anita, my darling, I will never stoploving you."
Darkness, with her arms around me and a shuddering world outside. Buthere, only Anita and her soft arms.
"Gregg!"
Horror was in her voice. Then I saw what she was seeing. It was notjust Anita and I buried here in the darkness with the bodies of Snapand Venza and Molo. Something else was here.
From the blackness of the cave, two green, glowing eyes were staring.Their radiance showed me the outlines of a distended head. An insanething? But it was not another of the forest insects. This seemed to bean animal. The glow of its distended head disclosed a lythe,horizontal body, seemingly solid and muscled. A chattering, insaneanimal, here in the dark with us! We heard mouthing, mumbling words,and an eerie, cackling laugh as it came padding toward us.
The thing in the cave stared at us as we clung together in thedarkness, transfixed for a moment by horror. The distended head,ghastly of face with its green glowing eyes, wobbled upon a long,spindly neck. The eyes seemed luminous of their own internal light.The radiance from them faintly lighted the black cave so we were ableto see its tawny, hairy body. It was long sleek, the size of an Earthleopard. A muscled body, with ponderable weight, it was moving towardus, padding on the rocks.
I recovered my wits and shoved Anita behind me. I crouched on oneknee. There was no escape, nowhere to run. This tunnel was blocked bya fallen rock mass behind us, with the wild storm raging outside. Thething was some twenty feet away, where the tunnel broadened into ablack cave of unknown size. Beside me Snap and Venza lay inert, thestill-unconscious Molo with them.
There was nothing to do but crouch here and protect Anita. I waved myarms, shouted above the outside surge of the storm; my voicereverberated with a muffled roar in this subterranean darkness.
"Get back! Back! Back, away from me!"
It stopped. Round ears stood up from the bloated head. Then it laughedagain. I felt Anita shoving a rock at my hand, a chunk of rock thesize of my head. "Its face, Gregg! Aim for its face!"
The rock felt like a ball of cork. I flung it and hit the thing on thebody. Its laughter checked abruptly; it crouched, as though gatheringfor a spring.
And then I thought of my gravity projector. I flashed on the repulsiveray to its full intensity.
The tawny body leaped. It came hurtling, but my beam met it inmid-air. For a second I thought that I had been too late. The thingwas clawing the air; its momentum carried it against the push of myray. For an instant it hung, snarling, and then laughed that wildlaugh.
The ray forced it back. It receded through the air, back across theblackness of the cave, gathering speed until, in a moment it broughtup against the opposite wall some forty feet away. There it hung,pinned as I held the ray upon it. The body had struck the rocky wallbut the head was uninjured. It was writhing and twisting: the cave wasfilled with the reverberations of its screams.
Over the screams, I heard another voice: "Oh Gregg, where are you?"
Snap! Behind me, Anita was moving sidewise toward where Snap and Venzawere lying. The thing pinned in my light stopped its screaming, withcuriosity perhaps at this new sound.
"Snap! We're here, Snap!"
Then Venza's voice: "It's letting me talk. We're better now."
They were recovering, Anita was bending over them. "Gregg, they're allright. The shock is wearing off, thank God."
But I did not dare move to them. My light on the snarling thing acrossthe cave held it, but I did not dare to relax my attention.
I called, "Stay with them, Anita." I moved slowly forward, holding thebeam steady. The cave floor was littered with loose stones andboulders. Ten feet from the pinned animal I selected a great chunk ofrock. It towered in my hand, but the weight of it was only a fewpounds.
The gravity held the animal as though I had pinned it by a pole. Fromthe distance of a few feet I heaved the boulder. The palpitating headmashed against the wall. The body and the pulp of the head and theboulder sank to the floor when I removed the beam.
"Snap, thank God you've recovered! And you, Venza!"
Anita and I sat with them. They had been fully conscious all thewhile, but they were out of it now.
An hour passed while we sat crouched, listening to the storm.
"It's letting up," Venza said out of a silence.
Anita was sitting over the prone form of Molo. He had stirred andmumbled several times.
"Let's see if we can get out of here," Snap suggested.
Rocks had fallen and blocked the only exit from the cave. But to ourstrength, even the hugest of the rocks was movable.
"Shall we try it now, Gregg?"
As though we were elephants, heaving and pushing, we struggled withthe litter choking the passage. There was a danger that the wholething would cave in on us; but we were careful of that. We tossed thesmall rocks aside like pebbles. There was one main mass. Together wepulled and tugged and shifted it. A small opening was disclosed, largeenough for our bodies. The wind puffed in through it.
The girls called us. Molo had regained consciousness. The blow fromthe rock had only stunned him. We bound his wrists with a portion ofhis belt which we cut into strips.
"What is it you do with me? Is Wyk dead?"
"Yes."
He lay silent and
sullen. "Look here, Molo, we're going to get out ofthis, and you're going to help us. If you don't...." The knife whichwe had taken from him to cut his belt was in my hand. I drew its bladelightly across his throat. "Will you talk freely and truthfully?"
"Yes, I will talk the truth."
"Do you know where the control station is located?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
"Not far."
"The hell with that!" Snap burst out. "Get it meshed in your mind,Molo, that we're in no mood for talk like that. How far is it?"
"On Earth you would call it ten miles."
"In these mountains?"
"He told us it was," said Anita. "Underground."
"Do you know where your ship is?" I persisted.
He told us that it was some thirty miles in another direction, not inthe mountains, but in the outskirts of a city like Wor. It wasequipped and ready for flight, all but the assembling of its crew.
And now we had weapons! Molo was carrying several of the gravityprojectors; two small searchlight beams, little hand torches; andthree electronic ray-guns of short-range size.
Hope filled us. The storm was abating. We could creep upon the singlesmall control room of the gravity station, where usually but twooperators were stationed. The delicate mechanisms there could bewrecked.
And then we would seize the _Star-Streak_. No one would be on thelookout for us. The fact that Molo's prisoners had escaped was as yetunknown; he and Wyk had not dared tell it. Meka was back therewaiting. Our absence from the globe dwelling might have beendiscovered; but Meka would say that we were with Molo. She was waitingthere, hoping that her brother and Wyk would recapture us. All this wedragged piecemeal from Molo.
Snap and I shared the gravity projectors and the small electronicguns. "Let's get started, Gregg. The storm seems over."
It was. We found the purple-red starry night again outside. The riverwas lashed white with waves, but they were spent. There was only amild warm breeze remaining.
Molo's legs were free, but his wrists were lashed behind him. I hookedan arm under his, holding him like a huge, but light, oblong bundle.Snap called, "Ready, Gregg?"
"Yes."
Snap flashed on his gravity ray and mounted, with the girls clingingto his ankles. Then I followed with Molo. By great arching swoops, weswung up into the frowning, tumbled mountains.