being--acraggy sphere of rock for a head, set directly atop the deeply rivenshoulders--a face like the horrible mask of an embryonic gargoyle--amouth that was simply a lipless chasm that opened and closed with thesound of rocks grinding together in a slow-moving glacier--the wholeveiled thinly by trailing lengths of snapped vines, great shattered treeboughs, bushes, all uprooted in its stumping march through the forest!Harley closed his eyes to shut out the sight. But in spite of himselfthey flashed open again and stared on, as though hypnotized by thespectacle they witnessed.
* * * * *
The grey of dawn lightened to the first rose tint of the rising sun. Asthough stung to action by the breaking of day, the thing hastened itsground-shaking pace. With one last stride, it came to Harley's side andloomed far above, the unwinking eyes glaring down at him.
The three arms, hinged at equidistant points at the base of the horriblehead, slowly lowered toward his prostrate form. There was a gratingnoise as the creature hinged in the middle and bent low, bringing itsenormous, staring eyes within two yards of his face.
One of its hands closed over his leg, tentatively, experimentally, asthough to ascertain of what substance he was made. He cried aloud as therock vise, like a gigantic lobster claw, squeezed tight. The thing drewback abruptly. Then the chasm of its mouth opened a little, for all theworld as though giving vent to soundless, demoniac laughter. All threeof the vise-like hands clamped over him--lightly enough, consideringtheir vast size, and intimating that the colossus did not mean to killhim for a moment or two--but so cruelly that his senses swam with thepain of it.
He felt the grip relax. The vast stone pincers were lifted from him;slithered to the ground beside him.
The first blinding rays of the sun were beating straight on the colossalfigure, which glittered fantastically, like a huge splintered opal, intheir brilliance.
It glared down at Harley. The abyss of a mouth opened as though againgiving vent to silent, infernal laughter. Then, with the noise of alandslide, the giant form settled slowly to the ground. The rockhalf-moons of curtains dropped over the expressionless, dull eyes. Thewhole great figure quivered, and grew still. It lay without movement,stretched along the ground like a craggy, opalescent hill.
* * * * *
Dazed, stunned by such fantastic behavior, Harley struggled wearily tohis feet. He had been a dead man as surely as though shot with aray-gun. One twitch of those terrible rock pincers would have broken himin two pieces. It had seemed as though that deadly twitch were surelyforthcoming. And then the thing had released him--and had lain down togo to sleep! Or was it asleep?
He took a few slow steps away from it, expecting to see the three greattentacles flash out to capture him as a cat claws at a mouse that thinksit is escaping. The arms didn't move. Astounding as it was, Harley wasfree to run away if he chose. Why was that?
A hint of a clue to the creature's action began to unfold in his mind.When he had first laid eyes on it, in daylight, it was asleep. It hadnot pursued him during the preceding day, which argued that again it wasasleep. And now, with the first touch of dawn, it was once more quiet,immobile.
The answer seemed to be that it was entirely nocturnal; that for someobscure, unguessable reason sunlight induced in it a state of suspendedanimation. It seemed an insane theory, but no other surmise was remotelyreasonable.
But if it were invariably sunk in a coma during daylight, why had itdelayed killing him just a moment ago? Its every act indicated that itpossessed intelligence of a high order. It was more than probable thatit realized its limitation--why hadn't it acted in accordance with thatrealization?
On thinking it over, he believed he had the answer to that, too. Heremembered the way the gaping mouth had seemed to express devilishmirth. The thing was playing with him. That was all. It had saved himfor another night of hopeless flight and infallible trailing through theforests of Z-40.
He gazed at the monster in a frenzy of impotent rage and fear. If onlyhe could kill it somehow in its sleep! But he couldn't. In no way couldhe harm it. Secure in its silicate covering, it was impervious to hiswildest attempts at destruction. And it knew it, too; hadn't it laughedjust before sinking down to slumber through the asteroidal day?
With his Sco drill he might have pierced that silicon dioxide armor tillhe reached the creature's gritty flesh. Then he could have used hisray-pistol, possibly disintegrating all its vitals and leaving only anempty rock shell sprawling hugely there in the trampled underbrush.
But he had neither drill nor pistol. The one had been wrecked by themonster; the other he had dropped in his madness of fright, aftercompletely exhausting its power chamber.
Half crazed by the hopelessness of his plight, he paced up and downbeside the great length of animated stone. Trapped on anasteroid--utterly unarmed--alone with the most pitiless, invulnerablecreation Nature had placed in a varied universe! Could Hell itself havedevised a more terrible fate?
Shuddering, he turned away. He had some two and a half hours of grace,before the sun should set again and darkness release the colossus fromits torpor. There was only one thing he could do: place the diameter ofthe sphere between the thing and himself, and try to exist throughanother night of terror.
His hands went to his belt to adjust the gravity regulator strappedabout his waist. By reducing his weight to an ounce or two, he couldmake the long journey possible for his fatigue-numbed muscles--
His hands clenched into fists, and his breath whistled between his setteeth as a wild hope came to him. The touch of the regulator had broughtinspiration. A way to defeat the gigantic creature stretched on theground beside him! A way to banish it forever from the surface of thislovely little world where all was perfect but the monstrous thing withwhich it was cursed!
* * * * *
Trembling with the reaction wrought in him by the faint glow of hope, hebegan to race toward the lake and his wrecked Blinco Dart. It wasn'thard to find the way; the rock giant had left a trail as broad as aroad; trees broken off like celery stalks, bushes smashed flat, tracksthat looked like shallow wells sunk into the firm ground. Fifty yards toa step, he leaped along this path, praying that one object, just one bitof machinery in the Dart had escaped the general wreckage.
Arrived at the little shell at last, he was forced to pause a moment andcompose himself before he could step into the battered interior.Everything hinged on this one final chance!
Drawing a long breath, he entered the cabin and made his way to thestern repellor. A groan escaped his lips. It was ruined. Evidently thething had reached in the man-hole opening with one of its three mightytentacles, and, with sure instinct, had fastened its stone claws on therepellor housing. At any rate, it was ground to bits. But--there was thebow repellor.
He went to that, and the flame of hope came back to his eyes. It wasuntouched! He threw back the housing to make sure. Yes, theinter-sliding series of plates, that reversed or neutralizedgravitational attraction at a touch, were in alignment.
He bent to the task of disconnecting it from the heavy bed-plate towhich it was bolted, his fingers flying frenziedly. Then back to thetorpid colossus he hurried, clutching the precious repellor tight in hisarms lest he should drop it, walking carefully lest he should fall withit.
There he was faced by a new difficulty that at first seemedinsurmountable. How could he fasten the repellor to that great,impenetrable, opalescent bulk?
A second time he bounded back toward the Dart, to return with the heavybow and stern bed-plates from its hull.
* * * * *
Once more the orange ball of the sun was sinking low. The terriblebrevity of those three-hour days! He had less than ten minutes, Earthtime, in which to work.
One of the thing's arms, or tentacles, was pointing out away from theparent mass. It was twice the diameter of his body, and was ponderouslyheavy; but by rigging a fulcrum and lever device, with a stone as thefulcrum
and a tough log as the lever, he managed to raise it high enoughto thrust one of the bed-plates under it. The other massive metal sheethe laid across the top.
The lower rim of the sun touched the horizon. A tremor ran through thecolossus. In frantic haste, racing against the flying seconds, Harleyclamped the two plates tight against the columnar tentacle with fourlong hull-bolts from the Dart. He set the repellor in position on thetop bed-plate, and began to fasten it down.
He felt another tremor run through the stone column on which he wassquatting. With a rasping sound, one of the half-moon rock-curtains thething had for eyelids blinked open and shut. He shot the last bolt intoplace and tightened it.
The stone claws, just behind which he had fastened the repellor, groundsavagely shut. The great tentacle began to lift, and carried him withit--toward the chasm of a mouth. That chasm opened wide....
Harley straightened up and jumped for the ground. As he jumped, hekicked the repellor control bar hard over.
There was a shrieking of wind as though all the hurricanes in