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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/32485-h.zip b/32485-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3ea4c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/32485-h.zip diff --git a/32485-h/32485-h.htm b/32485-h/32485-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96c1c4a --- /dev/null +++ b/32485-h/32485-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3920 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Giants From Outer Space, by By Geoff St. Reynard. + </title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; +} /* page numbers */ + +.linenum { + position: absolute; + top: auto; + left: 4%; +} /* poetry number */ + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.sidenote { + width: 20%; + padding-bottom: .5em; + padding-top: .5em; + padding-left: .5em; + padding-right: .5em; + margin-left: 1em; + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-top: 1em; + font-size: smaller; + color: black; + background: #eeeeee; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.bb {border-bottom: solid 2px;} + +.bl {border-left: solid 2px;} + +.bt {border-top: solid 2px;} + +.br {border-right: solid 2px;} + +.bbox {border: solid 2px;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.u {text-decoration: underline;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 1em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +.figright { + float: right; + clear: right; + margin-left: 1em; + margin-bottom: + 1em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-right: 0; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + +/* Footnotes */ +.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} + +.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + +.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: + none; +} + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Giants From Outer Space, by Geoff St. Reynard + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Giants From Outer Space + +Author: Geoff St. Reynard + +Release Date: May 23, 2010 [EBook #32485] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIANTS FROM OUTER SPACE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + +<h1>The Giants From Outer Space</h1> + +<h2>By Geoff St. Reynard</h2> + +<p>[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination May 1954. +Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright +on this publication was renewed.]</p> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>"Okay, make another check on the reading."</p> + +<div class="sidenote">Grim terror lurked in the void many light years from Earth. +But Pinkham and his men were unaware of it—until suddenly they +discovered—The Giants From Outer Space</div> + +<p>"I've made four checks already—"</p> + +<p>"Damn it, make another!"</p> + +<p>"It's no use, Pink. The life-scanner's never wrong."</p> + +<p>"No possibility of a monkey wrench dropped into its innards? It couldn't +be seeing things that aren't there?"</p> + +<p>"Not in a million years."</p> + +<p>"Then there's no water, no air, no gravity worth mentioning, and +still—"</p> + +<p>"That's right. There's life on that silly-looking little apple. <i>There's +somebody sitting on it!</i>"</p> + +<p>In the ninetieth star system to be explored by the insatiably curious +men of Earth, there were seven planets. Between the fourth and fifth +from the star there was a belt of asteroids: some three or four thousand +tiny planetary bodies traveling in vast ellipses around the star. At one +time they had probably constituted a single planet, but some +unimaginable explosion far back in time had scattered the great ball +broadcast, and the largest of the resulting planetoids was now no more +than 440 miles across. In the gargantuan belt of them, many were no +bigger in diameter than the spaceship <i>Elephant's Child</i> herself.</p> + +<p>When the instruments of the ship detected this belt of asteroids, +Captain Pinkham turned aside as a matter of course, to cruise through it +and let his cartographer map it, his organicus officer check it for +signs of life, and all his other crewmen turn their inquisitive eyes and +machines upon it. It was the seventh asteroid belt to be discovered by +man, if you included the one between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, +back home, incredible light-years behind....</p> + +<p>No life had ever been discovered on an asteroid, except for the +vegetable-animal space-eating bacteria on Pallas. No life—</p> + +<p>Until now.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Captain Pinkham headed for the tiny bit of planet, let his ship's +screens pick it up and relay its presence to the automatic recoil +engines, which slammed the <i>Elephant's Child</i> to a stop about twelve +feet away from the knobbly slate-gray surface. The energy testers, +having come into play simultaneously with the screens, at once flashed +the green "Not Radioactive" sign; a fairly useless gesture, since a +positive reaction would have turned the ship away at an angle before it +entered the danger zone.</p> + +<p>The senior officer; said, "Jerry, let's take a look at that critter you +think is perched on this thing."</p> + +<p>The organicus officer grinned with one corner of his mouth. He pulled +down a platinum lever, and a thirty-inch screen above his control board +sprang to life. The black of space showed the bumpy planetoid like a +ball of cold lava, and seated in the center of the screen, a man in a +spacesuit.</p> + +<p>Captain Pinkham licked his lips. "Okay," he said, "I owe you a shot of +rye. You were right." Then he blinked his gray eyes. "My God!" he +roared. "What's a human being doing out here in System Ninety?"</p> + +<p>The outburst, he felt, was quite justified; in fact, he might have gone +stark raving crazy with justification. There seemed no possibility that +his space armada could have been preceded to this star system by another +from Earth. The ancient Martians might have made it this far, but their +spacesuits were nothing like those of Terra. So he and Jerry were now +staring at a hopeless absurdity. It couldn't be there.</p> + +<p>Pinkham leaned sideways and bellowed into the intercom. "Get in here! +Everybody! On the double!"</p> + +<p>The crew came running, from the engine rooms, the astrogatium and +astrolab, from the sleeping quarters and the mess hall. The ship was +gigantic; it took twenty minutes, for the ship's complement to assemble +in the captain's control hall. There were fifty-seven men, eighteen +officers. They stood in casual formation and gaped at the life-scanner's +screen.</p> + +<p>The spacesuited figure had not moved.</p> + +<p>Captain Pinkham said, "One question. Which of you gadget-happy jokers +gimmicked up the scanner on us? Who did this?"</p> + +<p>Nobody said anything. Only one man smiled: Lieutenant Joe Silver, a very +bright, very ambitious big cub who was on his second extragalactic +expedition and obviously had visions of earning his captain's bronze +comets within the year. Joe was a rather unpleasant young piece of beef, +thought Pink; but he wouldn't pull practical jokes. He was too bloody +serious. If he smiled, it was probably because he was enjoying the +Captain's evident bewilderment.</p> + +<p>"Then it isn't a joke," said Pinkham. "Three of you outside repairmen +get into your suits and bring <i>that</i> in." He gestured at the silent +figure on the motionless little world of the scanner. "Jerry says it's +alive. Handle with care." He waved them his dismissal.</p> + +<p>Some twenty minutes later he watched the screen as the three crewmen +descended to the surface of the planetoid, pried loose the double anchor +which the unknown Earthman had sunk into the ball's crust to hold him +steady on the almost-gravityless world, lifted the bulky figure and +leaped upward, like thick but weightless panthers carrying their prey, +into the open air-lock.</p> + +<p>The spacesuited stranger had not moved in the slightest.</p> + +<p>Yet the scanner, which was never wrong, said that within the armor of +the suit was life.</p> + +<p>Pinkham sat staring at the blanked-out screen, and a queer chill began +to crawl up his neck. An old slang phrase came to his mind, and wouldn't +leave.</p> + +<p>How come? How come? <i>How come?</i></p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>Pink and Jerry and Joe Silver walked around and around the spacesuit. +Bill Calico, the astrogator, and Washington Daley, the senior +lieutenant, sat in front of it on stools covered with Venusian +joerg-hide, going through a routine of flippant gags that thinly +disguised their bafflement. Finally Pinkham said, "When were these suits +invented?"</p> + +<p>"2144," said Joe Silver.</p> + +<p>Bright kid, thought Pink with irritation. "Thirty-odd years ago. That's +my guess, too."</p> + +<p>"October 1st, 2144, is the patent date," said Joe Silver smugly.</p> + +<p>"Click, click, click," said Daley. "Your mind is a damn file room, +Silver. It gives me the jitters."</p> + +<p>Joe Silver looked at him expressionlessly.</p> + +<p>"I just read the date on the instruction plate," he said.</p> + +<p>Captain Pinkham bent down and read aloud from the nayrust plate set +into the back of the spacesuit.</p> + +<p>"'Bernard Patent Slugjet Suit, size 24-B patented' ... here it is. +'Instructions for reviving occupant. The man in this suit is alive if +the translucent face plate is tinted orange.'"</p> + +<p>"It is," said Bill Calico with eagerness.</p> + +<p>"'Unscrew the seven small x-screws around face plate. Depress lever Z on +right side of chest plate. Loosen gorget, shoulder pieces, pallettes, +brassarts, cuisses....'" They were following the instructions as he +read. He thought, these suits were terrific, they were the best. But you +had to have a billion dollars behind your expedition or you couldn't +afford 'em. Each one cost half as much as a regular-size moon rocket! +They shouldn't have stopped making them, though. They ought to have +tried bringing down the cost. One of these could save a man's life when +nothing else in God's universe could; and a man's life is surely worth +as much as half a moon rocket?</p> + +<p>The Bernard Slugjet Suit. Guaranteed to keep a guy alive for a minimum +of 250 years in free space. Guaranteed to let him emerge healthy +and—miraculously—sane, provided he was picked up within the time +limit.</p> + +<p>You were jetting toward the edge of the galaxy, say. Your ship ran into +trouble. A big meteor tore out your belly, or your fuel gave out, or any +of a million things happened to crack up the beautiful great spaceship +that was your vehicle and your pride and almost <i>you</i>, an extension of +yourself, an expression of your yearning to conquer the stars. So you +got into your slugjet suit and walked out an air-lock, if you had enough +warning, that is. And there you were in space.</p> + +<p>Your suit was actually a miniature spaceship itself; if there was land +anywhere near, you aimed for it, loosed your powerful shoulder jets, and +shot toward it. The suit had a range of about five hundred thousand +miles, which was often enough.</p> + +<p>But suppose it wasn't. Then you just stayed there in black space, and +you started to touch buttons in the big gloves, to pull levers on the +chest, and to activate other circuits by the sound of your voice. And +the suit became a world for you, a world that kept you healthy and sane +for a quarter of a millennium.</p> + +<p>Your life processes were slowed down to a pace of only a crawl and a +mumble, next door to death. Your breathing couldn't be detected. Your +heart beat six times to the hour. Drugs did it, and vapors, the +depressants of a hundred planets gathered and refined by Bernard for +his suits.</p> + +<p>You didn't sleep; you didn't need to. You were a slug, a worm in a +cocoon, awake in an ultra-slow-motion way. In 250 years, you aged about +fifteen. The suits were supposed to have a maximum efficiency of a +thousand years; you came out an old man at the end of that time, maybe, +but it was an even bet that you <i>did</i> come out.</p> + +<p>And to keep your mind whole and unwarped, there in the immensity of +brain-shattering space, you were entertained—well and constantly.</p> + +<p>Three-dimensional movies were shown on your translucent face plate, so +slow that to a person with unhampered reflexes they would look like +stills. Music played to you, a low drone and buzz that to you was jazz, +classical, anything you selected. The Minute Waltz took several hours to +play in your ear.</p> + +<p>Body wastes and carbon dioxide were eliminated, and breathable air +released, by the same principles in use in spaceships. You were fed +intravenously, vitamins, concentrates of everything you needed were +stuck into you without your knowing it, for you lived too slowly to be +capable of pain. The temperature of your suit was even. Audiotherapy was +given you at suitable intervals. You were rescued, and came out of your +suit as well-adjusted, as balanced as you'd gone in. Maybe more so.</p> + +<p>Rescued? It wasn't all left to luck. The radio in your high bulbous +crest broadcast a constant S.O.S. Your suit glowed so that it could be +spotted easily, a crimson star against the blackness. Your own life +within it called to every life-scanner within 500,000 miles.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, you were in a damn fine world of your own....</p> + +<p>Pinkham finished reading the instructions, and walked around to the +front of the bulky suit. Bill Calico lifted off the crest, Daley removed +the helmet, Jerry and Joe Silver caught the suit as it fell away in two +sections.</p> + +<p>And Captain Pinkham caught the girl.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>She was slim and full in the places where a woman ought to be so, and +her hair, close-cropped, was black-brown and shining. Her face was good, +damn good, bloody damn fine to a spaceman who'd been out on the ways for +a couple of years; but Pink had the happy thought—it was the first one +he had, before the shock really hit him that that this was a +<i>girl</i>—that she would have looked just as good to him on Earth.</p> + +<p>She wore the uniform of an organicus officer: just a bit dated, the +lapels too wide by an inch, the synthetic fabric of the jacket just a +little more clinging and revealing than the current fashion, the pants +narrow at the cuff where today's were bell-bottomed. She must have been +out here a while; not more than thirty years, though. She did not look +more than twenty-five now, and the normal life span was a hundred +and ten.... Pink snapped his queer thoughts sharply into line. What did +her age matter to him?</p> + +<p>She was limp in his arms, as relaxed as a sleeping kitten. Her eyes, +deep brown, were open but heavy-lidded. He half-knelt, cradling her +comfortably, as Jerry anticipated his question and said, "She's okay. +She'll be out of it in a few minutes. She's still living slower than we +are."</p> + +<p>Joe Silver, unaccountably across the room by the life-scanner, said, +"Hey! There's another one!"</p> + +<p>"Another what?" asked his senior lieutenant, Daley.</p> + +<p>"Another fellow—or girl—in a Slugjet. Down that direction a few +thousand miles."</p> + +<p>As all of them but Pink raced to the screen, the girl began to sing, +softly, musically, and very slowly.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>I am sick of this bucketing Lunar run</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>In this dirty old steel cocoon;</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>I'm sick of the Earth and I'm sick of the Sun</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And I'm sick to death of the Moon....</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>That was—what was the name?—the Lament of the Veteran Rocketeer, a +ballad that Pink had been singing in his grade school days. He hadn't +heard it for more than a dozen years. Probably popular when this gal +blasted off Terra.</p> + +<p>She stopped singing. "'Bout time you got here," she said drowsily. "I've +been waiting for months. Didn't Fawcett's crest radio reach you?"</p> + +<p>"Take it easy," said Pink, and told himself that was a stupid thing to +say. "Who are you? What was your expedition?"</p> + +<p>She blinked. "You aren't Commander Dyevis, are you? Who are you?"</p> + +<p>"I'm Joe Silver," said that young upstart over Pinkham's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Nobody asked you," said Daley. They had left the screen, all but Jerry, +who was making course for the second speck of life in the asteroid belt.</p> + +<p>"This is the <i>Elephant's Child</i>, flagship of Armada Seven, 843 days out +of Terra to explore star systems 87 through 93," said Pink quietly. "We +just plucked you off an asteroid in System Ninety. This is—" <i>take it +easy</i>, he said to himself this time, "this is October 18th, 2176."</p> + +<p>"Holy Holmendis," said the girl, turning a little pale. "Our ship split +up her seams in November of 2158."</p> + +<p>Daley, the oldest of the lot at thirty-six, and the coolest spacehead of +them all, said, "May I introduce Captain John Pinkham, our leader?" +Formalities eased a shock, he knew, and helped you over the rough spots. +"I'm Lt. Washington Daley and you are—"</p> + +<p>"Organicus Officer Circe Smith, of Colonel Fawcett's exploratory +armada," she said automatically.</p> + +<p>"Fawcett!" said everyone, loudly and with amazement.</p> + +<p>"So he got to System Ninety," said Pink. "Every spaceman on the ways has +wondered about Fawcett for eighteen years. He vanished with two ships—"</p> + +<p>"She knows that, Captain," said Daley.</p> + +<p>"Oh. Of course."</p> + +<p>"Our other ship was still okay when we broke up," said O. O. Smith, +brushing her short hair back from a forehead that was wide and +intelligent. "My crest radio was on the fritz, but Fawcett's was all +right and he was supposed to call Commander Dyevis, who was cruising +down by Planet Four. At least half a dozen of us got off in Slugjet +Suits before the ship died. I guess his message never got to Dyevis."</p> + +<p>"Lord knows," said Pinkham. The <i>Elephant's Child</i> shivered slightly as +her recoil engines stopped her. Jerry came over from the controls.</p> + +<p>"There's another one sitting outside," he said casually.</p> + +<p>"Maybe it's Colonel Fawcett," the girl cried eagerly.</p> + +<p>Jerry shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He looked at her a moment, then +turned to Pinkham. "This one has four arms," he said.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>They sat at dinner, the eighteen officers of the <i>Elephant's Child</i>, +eating fresh vegetables and curried lamb from the hydroponics farm and +the frozen food lockers. On either side of Captain Pinkman sat O. O. +Circe Smith, of the lamented Fawcett expedition, and First Officer Ynohp +of the extinct Martian Space Navy.</p> + +<p>"If you Terrestrians came to Mars over one hundred years ago," Ynohp was +saying, in a clear and metallic voice that came from the lingoalter on +his chest—a tiny box which could be set to change any of nine thousand +spoken languages into any one of the others—"and at that time my people +had lost the secrets of space travel for approximately four thousand +years, this means that I have been reclining on a planetoid here for at +least 4,100 years. The probability is that it has been much longer. +Unfortunately my time recorder has long since become inoperative."</p> + +<p>He extended one of his four rib appendages and picked up a piece of +carrot. "Naturally I was in a cataleptic state," he went on. "As you may +know, in my race that means that all body processes are suspended <i>in +toto</i>. There is no growth and no decay. Moth and rust do not corrupt, +you might put it."</p> + +<p>Pink frowned momentarily. There was a false note somewhere, but he +couldn't put his finger on it. He tried to remember all he could about +the dying race of Martians. What Ynohp was saying was correct, as nearly +as he could recall, but ... he shrugged. My God! he thought, this +critter's over four thousand years old!</p> + +<p>Well, Circe's about forty-five.</p> + +<p>The hell she is. She's twenty-seven, which was her age when her ship was +wrecked, plus about one actual year of life which equals the eighteen +she was lost in the Slugjet. Twenty-eight, then, really. I'm thirty-one. +Not a bad combination.</p> + +<p>Hey, boy, you're a confirmed bachelor, remember?</p> + +<p>He chuckled. Who says so? He took a look at Circe. The prettiest +spaceman who ever came my way, he said to himself happily.</p> + +<p>The dinner broke up. Space etiquette demanded that he escort the Martian +to his stateroom first, for the four-armed little gray man was senior to +a mere organicus officer; when he returned to the mess hall, he found +that Joe Silver had whisked Circe away to show her the new improvements +in space drives and other technical details.</p> + +<p>"At least," said Bill Calico, "he said he was going to."</p> + +<p>Pink went off to talk to Jerry, who was a lousy substitute for a +beautiful girl.</p> + +<p>He found his O. O. tinkering with the life-scanner.</p> + +<p>"Something wrong," Jerry said through his teeth. He was a slim young +man—Pink, who stood six-three and hefted in at two hundred, would have +made two of Jerry—and his normally joyous expression was now writhed +into a frown. "The red light's not on, but the scanner's not working."</p> + +<p>"How d'you know?"</p> + +<p>"Had a hunch. Don't ask me why—unless it's that the Martian makes me +suspicious. Anyway, I tested the scanner; turned it inside and aimed it +all over the ship. Nothing doing. No life in here, according to it. So +something's the matter with it, and I'm damned if I can figure what."</p> + +<p>Pink said, "That means what?"</p> + +<p>"Means that if Fawcett or any of his men are out there, we won't know +it. We could flash right by them, or through 'em for that matter, and +never know it."</p> + +<p>"Nothing more serious, though?"</p> + +<p>"That's bad enough, isn't it?" Jerry asked him.</p> + +<p>"Sure, sure." Pink shook himself. "I feel—I guess <i>wary</i> is the word." +Jerry looked a question. "Yeah," said Pinkham uncomfortably, "it's the +Martian. A nice guy and all, but he makes me wonder."</p> + +<p>"Four thousand years plus," nodded Jerry.</p> + +<p>"No, not that. I think that's possible. It's something else, son."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>Pink said slowly, futilely, "I don't know." He patted the O.O.'s +shoulder. "Keep at it, Jerry." He went out and walked down the long ramp +to the astrolab. Daley was there. "How's it going?" Pink asked him.</p> + +<p>"We aren't moving," said the lieutenant.</p> + +<p>"I know. I told Kinkare to put her into the same orbit as the asteroid +belt. We want to stay in the same relation to the planetoids till we +decide where to look for Fawcett."</p> + +<p>"I know you issued those orders, Pink. I meant we aren't in the orbit. +We're hanging in space, and the dang asteroids are shooting past us." +Daley flipped on his great banks of scanners. "See?" Bands of light were +tiny balls of inert matter, flashing by an obviously stationary +<i>Elephant's Child</i>.</p> + +<p>Pink jumped for the intercom. "No use," said Daley. "It's dead. I sent +Calico for Randy Kinkare." They looked at each other. "I think it's +Ynohp," said Daley.</p> + +<p>Pinkham took out a pad and pencil. Without saying anything, without +admitting to himself that he agreed with his officer, he put down a +number of figures. Then he said, "I left Ynohp just fourteen minutes ago +in his stateroom. I've put down the distances he'd have to travel to +reach all the things that have gone wrong since then. He could have done +it—if he was invisible, and could move at the rate of two hundred feet +per second."</p> + +<p>"Maybe he can."</p> + +<p>"You know Martians have the same rate of speed, roughly speaking, as +Terrestrians."</p> + +<p>"And if Ynohp isn't a Martian at all?"</p> + +<p>"Washington, did you ever see a Martian?"</p> + +<p>"Yeah."</p> + +<p>"Could anything in the universe make itself look like a four-foot-tall, +four-armed, slate-gray man with pink eyes?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said Daley. "Maybe there's something in System Ninety +that can. Hypnotism, matter transference, fluidity or a lot of other +facts could explain it."</p> + +<p>Kinkare and Bill Calico came in on the run.</p> + +<p>Their news didn't surprise Pink greatly.</p> + +<p>The space drive was out of commission.</p> + +<p>They were adrift in the void.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>The intercom, the space drive, the life-scanner. So far apart that one +man <i>couldn't</i> have put them out of whack. No one connected in any way +with the others. Ynohp snoring gently in his stateroom. Pinkham, Daley, +Silver, Kinkare, Jerry Jones, Calico, and the girl, all gathered in the +Captain's quarters, tense, baffled, and all talking at once.</p> + +<p>And out of the hubbub, one clear sweet voice saying something that +didn't make sense and yet electrified Pink as if he'd put his hand on a +lighted cigar....</p> + +<p>"Maybe it's the space giants?"</p> + +<p>"Shut up!" bawled Pinkham. The officers turned toward him, brows +lifting, mouths still open. "Now," he said quietly, "Circe—Miss +Smith—what did you say?"</p> + +<p>"Space giants," she repeated "I don't think they exist, but I certainly +saw something."</p> + +<p>"Give it to us slow," said Daley.</p> + +<p>"Well, a couple of times while I was anchored to the asteroid, watching +tri-di movies, I had the impression that something enormous was floating +just beyond my face plate, watching me. Of course I was slowed down so +far that it must have taken me an hour to register the fact, and another +hour or two to flick my eyes up away from the movies. What was a second +to me was at least that long. But just once I got a clear view of +something incredible. It vanished almost at once."</p> + +<p>"What was it?"</p> + +<p>"A very big man, naked, bald, with eyes like fires. That's the only way +I can describe him. He looked humanoid, except he was so big."</p> + +<p>"How big?"</p> + +<p>"I can't tell and hate to make a guess—but at least a thousand feet. Of +course I hadn't anything to compare him with."</p> + +<p>"Wait a minute," said Randy Kinkare, the assistant pilot, voice reeking +with unbelief. "How could you see through an opaque face plate?"</p> + +<p>"It's not opaque," said Joe Silver officiously. "It's translucent from +without and transparent from within. I took a look at it this +afternoon."</p> + +<p>"Space giants," groaned someone. "Oh, Lord!"</p> + +<p>"We can't discount it," said Pink, realizing that he was doing just +that, but refusing to disbelieve Circe. Illusion? Not a lie, surely? +"She wasn't drugged, after all. She was in full control of senses that +were merely slowed down."</p> + +<p>There was a discomfortable silence.</p> + +<p>Intercom, space drive, life-scanner. Maybe other machinery by this time. +Sabotage in such a clever way that no one of the highly skilled officers +and technicians could discover how it was done, what was wrong. Space +giants? Ah, come on, Pink!</p> + +<p>Ynohp. Something wrong with him, some flaw in his looks? No, he was +Martian in every oversize pore. Some anachronism?</p> + +<p>Hey! Anachronism. Pink's mind fished up the dictionary definition. An +error in chronology by which events are misplaced in regard to each +other....</p> + +<p>He had it.</p> + +<p>He got to his feet, motioned Jerry and Wash Daley to go with him. They +congregated outside the door, as further talk broke out inside his +quarters. He said urgently, "Remember what Ynohp said about his +cataleptic state? 'Moth and rust do not corrupt.' He said it as if it +were a quotation."</p> + +<p>"It is," said Daley. "More or less word for word it's from the King +James version of the Bible."</p> + +<p>"Dated, if I remember correctly, about 1611 A.D.?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"At which date the Martians had been without space flight for about +3,600 years. At which date, further, Ynohp claims to have been sitting +on an asteroid for about 4,000-plus years."</p> + +<p>"Coincidence?" asked Jerry.</p> + +<p>Pink asked, "Do you think so?"</p> + +<p>"Hell," said Jerry, "no."</p> + +<p>"Let's go look at his space suit," said Daley urgently. They ran down +the corridor, shoving for the lead.</p> + +<p>Ten minutes later they sat back on their heels and stared at the +interior of the suit.</p> + +<p>Rust had corrupted here, or at any rate decay; the Martian steel, +ancient and harder than any known metal, was worn to a papery shell, and +in many places tiny holes had eroded clear through the suit.</p> + +<p>"No man or Martian or anything I know except the space-eating bacteria +of Pallas could have lived in that suit, cataleptic state or not." Pink +looked around at his friends. "<i>What in the name of heaven have we +brought into the ship?</i>"</p> + +<p>Then the three were racing for the "Martian's" stateroom. They burst in, +and found that now it was empty of life.</p> + +<p>They stood, indecisive, just outside. Pinkham's gaze went to the door, +on which, as was the custom, a hastily-printed card had been placed with +the officer's name upon it. He read it. Then he blinked.</p> + +<p>"Look," he said, gesturing.</p> + +<p>"What about it?"</p> + +<p>The card blared its secret, its pun, at them.</p> + +<p>Y N O H P.</p> + +<p>"Read it backwards," said Pinkham....</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>"None of you thought to look at the Martian spacesuit when we'd removed +it?" asked Pink. The others shook their heads. They were all in his +quarters again.</p> + +<p>"Neither did you, Captain," said Joe Silver. "You were as busy looking +at the Martian as we were."</p> + +<p>"True enough," admitted Pinkham. "Well, the thing to do first is radio +the <i>Diogenes</i> and the <i>Cottabus</i> to stand by for trouble." He lit a +cigarette. "If the radio hasn't been tampered with," he said. "Silver, +go tell Sparks to start sending to them. <i>Diogenes</i> is down by Planet +Five, and <i>Cottabus</i> heading for Four. Tell them to look for us +somewhere in the planetoid orbit. They'll have to come in on the radio +beam. I don't suppose we can expect them for a day." Joe Silver gave +Circe's arm an encouraging squeeze—they'd got on together pretty damn +fast—and started out. "And instruct them not to pick up anybody, off +asteroids or planets or out of the ether. I don't care if they see their +grandmothers floating outside a spaceport."</p> + +<p>The thought of his armada joining him made Pink feel more at ease. No +sense to that, of course, but three ships are better than one, if only +for moral support. "Daley," he said then, "lower the Mutiny Gates."</p> + +<p>"You think it's wise?"</p> + +<p>"If I didn't, I wouldn't do it," he snapped. It would be the first time +that a mutiny gate had been used in more than forty years. All the large +ships were equipped with them, great plastikoid barriers which operated +from the captain's room, sealing off the officer's sector from the rest +of the ship. They had been made standard equipment in the old days, +before screenings became really effective and the danger of +psychopathic trouble in the crew grew negligible. Now they were of +theoretical use in case of boarding by alien life, or of damage to a +large segment of the hull ... but they had never actually been brought +into play in Pinkham's lifetime. "Drop 'em," he repeated.</p> + +<p>Daley pulled open a drawer, tugged at an unused switch, which creaked +protestingly; then the brief alarm clang that heralded the fall of the +forty gates sounded in the distance. "If he's beyond the gates," the +senior lieutenant said heavily, "the crew may be done for."</p> + +<p>"No more than if the gates were up," Pink told him impatiently.</p> + +<p>"You're projecting," said Daley. "How do we know the nature of the +beast? He may mop 'em up in a fit of pique at being shut out there."</p> + +<p>"The chances are he's on our side of the walls," said Bill Calico. +"Nothing out there of much importance to him. The hydroponics farm, +history room, library, and so on."</p> + +<p>"We don't know what's important to him," said Daley. "We don't know what +in blazes he wants aboard. We don't know a doggone thing!"</p> + +<p>Silver returned. "I heard the mutiny gates go," he said questioningly.</p> + +<p>"Are you all armed?" asked Pink. They nodded. "Then let's sweep the +place," he said, glancing from one grim face to another. "Pick up the +other officers as we go, and make a chain of inspection that he can't +bust through. We'll corner him sooner or later. Then we'll see if atomic +pistols will settle his hash." He looked at Circe. "You'd better stay +here," he said.</p> + +<p>"I agree," said Randy Kinkare suddenly. "And you'd best lock her +in—from the outside."</p> + +<p>"Why?" blazed the girl.</p> + +<p>"We picked you up on an asteroid too," said the assistant pilot.</p> + +<p>Pink, restraining himself from bashing Kinkare in the nose, said +reluctantly, "You're right. We can't trust any stranger till we find out +what's going on. Sorry, Circe."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you're right." She sat down, a little flushed, eyes snapping. +"Have I the right to ask for protection? I'm just as unsafe as you are, +whether you believe me or not. Please leave Lieutenant Silver to guard +me."</p> + +<p>He couldn't refuse. He nodded curtly to Joe Silver, who looked too damn +smug for words. So they'd paired off already? So much for his quick +dream of marrying a spacegirl....</p> + +<p>It had never happened to him before, though, and it was a hard dream to +give up, all the more so for its abrupt flowering in a heart that +heretofore had held nothing but love for the silence of the spaceways. +John Pinkham, rugged, handsome, all a woman could want, had been +dedicated to his profession since he was five; and many a wench had +found that out to her disappointment. Now ... oh, well. Maybe there +wasn't room for space and a girl in his heart, after all. And maybe she +wasn't what she seemed.</p> + +<p>He led them into the corridor and locked the quarters behind him.</p> + +<p>Around the first bend and up the first ramp they found Second Watch +Officer Wright. They knew him by his chubby build and his uniform. They +couldn't recognize his head, even when they found it three minutes +later.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>They gathered in Sparks' radio room. That was due to the simple fact +that, aside from themselves, only Sparks was alive on this side of the +mutiny gates. The other officers were scattered—in the most grisly +sense of the word—all over the place.</p> + +<p>"Seven of us, if Silver's still alive," said Daley. "Eight with the +girl. Why us? He could easily have attacked us in a body." Five of the +dead officers had been found in a heap, just-used pistols in their rigid +hands. Atomic force was obviously useless against the thing from the +asteroid.</p> + +<p>Pink said, fighting nausea, "All the senior officers are alive. We can +run the <i>Elephant's Child</i> without the eleven who died. Maybe that's +why. Maybe we have to be preserved to carry this monster wherever he +wants to go."</p> + +<p>"Logical," said Jerry. "He'll have to be pretty persuasive, though. I +hope he knows that."</p> + +<p>Sparks said, "The radio's working. I had an answer from the <i>Cottabus</i> +that she's heading this way. <i>Diogenes</i> hasn't replied; she must be +further off."</p> + +<p>"Evidently he doesn't care if the radio works," said Calico.</p> + +<p>"Or else he wants the whole armada assembled," added Daley.</p> + +<p>"I could use a drink," blurted Kinkare. "You got anything in this place, +Sparks?"</p> + +<p>"Gin on the shelf," said the radioman, pointing.</p> + +<p>Kinkare picked up the bottle. "You always leave the cap off?"</p> + +<p>"No! Somebody's been at it."</p> + +<p>"Where is he?" asked Pink in a whisper.</p> + +<p>"What, Captain?" Kinkare stopped the bottle halfway to his lips.</p> + +<p>"Where the devil is the brute? We combed the place. He can't have got +through the mutiny gates. He can't have slipped past our chain. Where +the hell is he?"</p> + +<p>"Maybe disguised as one of us," said Daley slowly. "He isn't a Martian, +but he imitated one to the last pore. Why couldn't he imitate us?"</p> + +<p>"Well, <i>I'm</i> me," said Kinkare, and put the bottle to his mouth. Then he +dropped it, screeching. Pinkham stared at him and saw his upper lip +turned violent, hideous scarlet. Blood began to drip to the rug. The +skin and flesh of his lip had dissolved as though sprayed with acid.</p> + +<p>Kinkare fell to his knees, covering his face with both arms. The others +sprang to help him, Sparks reaching for the medicine chest; but Pink +snatched up the gin bottle. What the hell? Acid? Or—</p> + +<p>From the square spout poured a gush of smoke, writhing sinuous in the +bright indirect light of the small room; it coalesced, clotted into a +body. Impossible, brain-boggling, an unreal fantasy amid the most +concrete achievements of man, the thing swelled into solidity before the +Captain's staring eyes.</p> + +<p>He was eight feet tall, three broad; his eyes were brilliant vermilion, +his swollen head was egg-bald, and the expression on his coarse features +was at once lecherous, evil, savage and cunning. He was stark naked, +completely humanoid. And he had come out of the bottle.</p> + +<p>A voice boomed from him like a vocalizing cannon. "I object to anyone +trying to drink me!" he roared at them.</p> + +<p>In the reeling chaos of all his beliefs gone wild, Pinkham had one sane +thought, and yelled it as fast and short as he could. "Don't shoot! For +God's sake, don't shoot!" Then, as Calico and Jerry held their pistols +partly raised, he said urgently, "We'll only blast each other. Remember +this thing's invulnerable."</p> + +<p>The pistols were holstered with reluctance. The five pale men—Kinkare +still thrashed in agony on the floor—gaped at the apparition, which +said, "I am Ynohp the Martian." Gargantuan laughter rocked him. "I am +your god, Earthmen. Bow down to me!"</p> + +<p>"Damfido," said Jerry, which was evidently all he could manage to get +out of "Damned if I do."</p> + +<p>"Drop your weapons on the floor," said the being.</p> + +<p>Pink drew his gun; casually he sighted on the great head above him, and +risked one shot, which had all the effect of a sunbeam; then he let the +pistol fall. The others discarded theirs. The naked creature reached out +a foot and herded the weapons into a corner. "You can't hurt me with +them," he said, "but you might try suicide, and I need you. Take heart, +mortals," he said, laughing, "you may get out alive!"</p> + +<p>Then he dwindled and his lines blurred into ephemera and he slid out +through the door, which was open perhaps an inch.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>"But by all that's holy," said Daley (it was an hour later, and the +eight were gathered in the control room, Kinkare now bandaged and +relieved of pain, but unable to speak), "if he's a brain-picker, and got +his lingo out of our minds, who did he get 'take heart mortals' from?" +The lieutenant glanced at Pinkham. "It may seem little, but it's +minutiae that will give us clues to his nature, and therefore how to +fight him. Take heart, mortals, after all. Who talks like that?"</p> + +<p>"You're right," said Pink wearily. "It's little things we've got to look +for. Like, evidently, gin bottles."</p> + +<p>"Item," said Jerry, who was eating a sandwich. "He's composed of +something alien to any life we know. Gas? I doubt it. Atomic shock would +disseminate gas. Are his molecules loose and do they edge aside for +obstacles, compress together when he wants to shrink, and so on? +Possible. But anyhow, he's different—and so far as we know, +invulnerable."</p> + +<p>"How did he gimmick the guns?" asked Calico, a note of desperation in +his voice. "We picked them up as soon as he'd gone, and they wouldn't +fire."</p> + +<p>"Same way he gimmicked the intercom, the life-scanner, the space drive. +Known hereafter as Unknown Method One."</p> + +<p>"Another item," went on Jerry. "He talks English without using a +lingoalter. Thus, probably, he's telepathic. 'Take heart mortals' he +might have grubbed out of somebody's subconscious."</p> + +<p>"It adds up to this," said Pink. "We're helpless against him. Granting +this, I say let's go get him."</p> + +<p>It made no sense, it was the gesture of fools in love with death or of +madmen battling their own futility; but every officer there shouted, +"Right!" Except for Joe Silver.</p> + +<p>"I say, sit tight and wait," he said. "Something will happen. There's no +use committing suicide."</p> + +<p>"If he wants us alive, and we can't fight him, I think we're better off +dead," said Jerry through his teeth.</p> + +<p>"Hell. Where there's life there's hope."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you're right," said Pink slowly. His muscles ached, his hands +grasped ceaselessly at the air; he was a man of action, his desire for +combat throttled by incapability. "Twenty-some hours before the other +ships get here. If our deductions are on the beam, he won't do anything +till then. He wants the whole armada."</p> + +<p>Then, with a snarl of static, the intercom came to life.</p> + +<p>At first they heard a jumble of voices. "What's wrong?" "Nothing +works...." "Are all the officers dead?" It was the crew, beyond the +barriers of the mutiny gates, evidently trying to get into +communication. Over and over one voice said, "Hello, Captain Pinkham. +Come in, Captain Pinkham."</p> + +<p>Pink took two strides and flipped the switch of the visiograph. Tuning +it first to one crew station and then another, he told them succinctly +what bad happened. "Don't panic, for God's sake. The mutiny gates are +for your protection. If they work, you may be able to do something +later, regardless of what happens to us."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Their somber faces looked out of the screen at him. "Let us in, +Captain," pleaded one big repairman. "We'll mob the critter."</p> + +<p>"No use, Jackson. Stand by." He turned the dial of the visiograph into +the officers' section, scanned one room after another. No alien being +appeared. "I wonder if he's in here with us?" said Pink half-aloud.</p> + +<p>Jerry came to him. "I have an idea," he said quietly. Then he whispered +at length into Pinkham's ear.</p> + +<p>"It won't work. He knows what he's doing."</p> + +<p>"How do we know that? If he needs us, he's ignorant of spaceships. Look +at the intercom—he turned it off, by some means, then turned it on when +he found out what it was. The space drive must have been easy to guess +at; likewise the life-scanner. But the intercom's a lot of complex +machinery that only adds up to a television-telephone communication +system. However he snarls the stuff, it's instantaneous and simple for +him to do. I think he just took a crack at everything that looked +important. Now he's experimenting, learning the ship, finding out what +he threw out of joint. Obviously he doesn't give a damn if we talk to +the crew!"</p> + +<p>"You could be right."</p> + +<p>"So if I do what I want to, it'll confuse hell out of him. It may give +us an advantage. And we'll certainly learn something."</p> + +<p>"It's worth a try." Pink looked at Jerry, his closest friend. "I'll +send Silver to do it," he said.</p> + +<p>Jerry shook his lean head. "This is my baby, Pink." Then he opened the +door and went out, closing it behind him.</p> + +<p>Pinkham said levelly, "Daley, come here." He whispered the plan into his +lieutenant's ear. Daley said admiringly, "Good deal. And I think that's +sense—he can't know much about the ship. I'll bet he was hiding in that +bottle, casing Sparks's equipment and learning how to operate it. The +quick look he got at the rest of us on our jobs before he started +playing hob must have given him the barest, scantiest idea of things. So +Jerry's notion could work."</p> + +<p>"Or it could blow up," said Pink dismally. "Go tell the others. Whisper +it, in case our guest is in here." He struggled briefly with his deepest +feelings. "Don't tell Circe. We can't be sure of her yet."</p> + +<p>"Roger." Daley left him alone at the intercom. Pinkham set the dial to +show the large room toward which Jerry was making his way....</p> + +<p>Somewhere beyond their ken, the incredible beast from the void made +another decision, or tried another experiment; and the life-scanner +flickered into working order again. Joe Silver saw it first. Its screen +blinked, then its alarm buttons glowed vividly. Without the ship, at a +vast distance but approaching rapidly, were an untold number of organic +entities, life-sources that reacted upon the scanner like approaching +aircraft on a radar set. They could be spaceships, slugjet suits, or +anything that contained the intangible thing called life. And the sister +ships of the <i>Elephant's Child</i> were still too far away to register.</p> + +<p>"Great Jupiter!" bellowed Joe Silver, pointing. "What now?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>O. O. Jerry Jones crept along the last ramp. Why the devil was he +skulking like this? Habit, he grinned ruefully to himself; the habit of +primitive man who crouched and slunk in the presence of danger, no +matter what kind.</p> + +<p>And the old preservation instinct was also giving him all sorts of +reasons to knock this silly business off, and go back to the protection, +however illusory, of the control room. For instance, said the sly +instinct, if this alien is telepathic, as you so neatly proved to +yourself, then doesn't he know all that you and your pals know about a +spaceship?</p> + +<p>Shut up, Jerry told himself. I was wrong. He can't be telepathic, or he +wouldn't bother to keep us alive after he's combed our brains.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't he have some physical use for you all?" said the instinct.</p> + +<p>Get thee behind me, Satan, he growled in his mind.</p> + +<p>He opened the door of the room he was seeking.</p> + +<p>Where to start? One wall was banked with books; never mind them. Another +wall was covered with strange-looking projections, tubes and spouts and +wheels and levers, behind a long table of plastikoid. There? Good +enough.</p> + +<p>He had a momentary pang as he picked up a spanner from the rack of tools +by the door....</p> + +<p>Then he was across the room and smashing wildly at levers, spouts, wall +tanks, faucets; beating metal into scrap, crushing shining aluminum to +scarred uselessness; he did not rest his arm until the whole wall was a +ruin of beaten metal and broken glass. Then he turned his attention to +the third wall.</p> + +<p>Here was a giant turntable, rack on rack of shellacked alloy discs, +mysterious-appearing charts and cabalistic signs. These he wrecked as +methodically and ruthlessly as he had the first, but now there were +tears glistening in his eyes. He ended the destruction with a moan of +sorrow.</p> + +<p>He paused to snap on the intercom. Pink's worry-lined face appeared. +"How'm I doing?" Jerry asked his captain.</p> + +<p>"Great so far. Calico is crying like a child."</p> + +<p>"I have news for you," Jerry said. "So am I." Then he turned to the last +wall. Before it spread a long array of mechanical devices: large boxes +on spindly legs, with glassed tops and brilliant colors splashed across +their surfaces; taller, narrower cases with crooked levers and +viewplates on which were small designs and words. There was a kind of +double cage with tiny cubes therein. There were great wheels with many +numbers. Almost all were attached to the wall by electric cords, though +some were entirely mechanical and others ran on self-generated power. +Jerry began at one end and passed down the line, shattering glass and +snapping wooden legs with his spanner.</p> + +<p>He had almost finished when the door burst open and the tall humanoid +form of the stranger appeared. A blast of rage almost lifted Jerry off +his feet. The being came at him, its motion a flowing tigerish pounce. +The spanner was twitched from his hand flung across the room. He backed +against the wall, bloating with fear in spite of himself. The creature +swelled above him.</p> + +<p>"Whoreson knave!" it bawled angrily. "What are you doing?"</p> + +<p>"Making d-d-damn sure you don't take the ship anywhere," said Jerry, +croaking a little. "Now t-try and run it!"</p> + +<p>He was suddenly lifted off his feet and dangled helplessly a yard off +the floor. "Fix them," snarled the alien thing into his face. He had +time to realize that its grip was extremely powerful, whatever its +molecules and atoms might be made of. "Reconstruct them, or you die."</p> + +<p>"Don't be an idiot," Jerry told it, making up his mind that he was as +good as dead and might as well go out like a man. "There isn't a single +spare part aboard for any of these devices." He managed a sick grin. "If +you're so smart, you <i>know</i> I'm telling the truth."</p> + +<p>Pinkham called from the screen of the intercom. "That's true, +whatever-you-are. Those things are useless to you now."</p> + +<p>The alien took Jerry by the chest, wrapping one hand around his back to +do it; slowly it exerted pressure, and Jerry realized that it must have +elongated the hand enormously to encompass him so. He also knew that his +rib cage would shortly collapse. He shrieked.</p> + +<p>Then Circe, the girl from the asteroid, was gazing from the screen, +horrified. "No!" she screamed at the being. "You can't kill him for only +wrecking the—"</p> + +<p>"Shut up!" squealed Jerry.</p> + +<p>"The recreation room!" she finished.</p> + +<p>Abruptly he was dropped to the floor, where he lay gasping, massaging +his bruised sides. The thing above him said, "Recreation room?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. The soda fountain, the phonograph, and the pinball machines and +games."</p> + +<p>Then Pinkham had encircled her throat with one arm, clamped his other +hand on her mouth, and dragged her back. But the damage was done.</p> + +<p>The alien gave another of those mirthless peals of bull's laughter. +"Clever," he said. "Oh, clever little man." Then he plucked Jerry off +the floor once more.</p> + +<p><i>I'm going to die now....</i></p> + +<p>The brute set him on his feet, twisted him toward the door, and gave him +a brisk, forceful pat on the backside that sent him staggering. He +gained his balance and ran into the corridor. It was more humiliating +than had he been slain.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>"It didn't work, but it taught us a few things."</p> + +<p>"You're right. It taught us that this bitch can't be trusted. Either +she's in league with <i>it</i>, a sister or brother of it, or else she's so +stupid that she's a menace to our survival."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you blithering jackass!" said Circe indignantly to her fellow +organicus officer. "How could I guess what your plan was? Nobody told +me. All I knew was that you were going to be murdered for doing a +perfectly harmless—"</p> + +<p>"She's right," said Joe Silver. "We ought to have told her."</p> + +<p>"Shut up," said Pinkham savagely. "Any more of that and I'll figure +she's corrupted you or addled your brains, and I'll toss you into the +brig, Silver."</p> + +<p>"You try it you pigsqueak," shouted Silver, who measured half an inch +over Pink's six-foot-three. "Captain or not, this is a grade A emergency +and we're all needed. I'll pull the Mars Convention on you if you try to +shut me up."</p> + +<p>"He's right," said Daley to the captain. "Mars Convention says that in a +grade A emergency any officer above Second Watch is equal to the captain +or commander, Pink." Then he turned to Silver, grinned, and lashing out +with a hand the size of a spaniel, caught his under-lieutenant on the +ear. It knocked Silver sprawling. "That's for slanging at your +superiors," he said quietly. "And the Mars Convention says I can do +<i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>Silver got up and blinked. He seemed dazed and for the first time in his +space life, uncertain of himself. He looked at the others and recognized +himself as a minority here. "Okay," he said, "okay, I'm outvoted. But I +say the girl is only suspect, by no means convicted of anything but +ignorance of the plan."</p> + +<p>Kinkare, unable to speak through his bandaged mouth, nodded strongly. +Circe glared defiance at Pinkham. "Next time, for God's sake tell me +what you have in mind," she said. "Not that I'd let you sacrifice poor +Jerry, anyway."</p> + +<p>"Women," said Jerry. "Women on a ship. Jonahs. Sentimental imbeciles."</p> + +<p>"I'll knock your teeth down your scrawny throat," began Joe Silver, and +"Quiet!" roared Pinkham. "We're quarreling like kids. What's to be done +now!"</p> + +<p>"I was saying it taught us a few things," said Daley. "Let's figure them +out. The thing's evidently not telepathic. It can't run a spaceship, or +it wouldn't have been so worked up over the ruin of the soda fountain, +which must have looked pretty vital to its inexperienced eyes. It's +definitely tangible, for it picked Jerry up."</p> + +<p>"It also murdered eleven men," said Pink. "That's tangible enough too."</p> + +<p>"It's damned intelligent, for it must have spotted Jerry on the +intercom, which means it was working it. It also speaks a very funny +breed of English. 'Whoreson knave,' for example. Nobody here ever called +anyone that."</p> + +<p>"Whoreson knave is Shakespearean," said Jerry.</p> + +<p>"And, to finish what I've deduced, the monster is as strong as a couple +of men, at least." He grinned at Jerry. "Not that you needed me to +deduce that."</p> + +<p>Randy Kinkare was staring at the life-scanner screen. Now he beat a +tattoo on the arm of his chair, pointed so that they all looked. The +flecks of light that indicated organic life had thronged in toward the +ship; not so numerous as the stars, they were still too many to count. +One object on the screen was large now, large enough to be identified. +It approached the ship at a slow but steady rate, and they gasped as +they saw it was another of the human-like figures.</p> + +<p>"His brothers," said Pinkham. "That must be their natural form, then."</p> + +<p>It grew and grew. It seemed it must now be touching the scanner's +outside cell; but no, it grew even greater. At last it could not be seen +in its entirety, then only its face showed. It was a hideous face, +twisted with sardonic malice. The face grew. When it stopped, only one +enormous eye filled the screen.</p> + +<p>Jerry cleared his throat. "Do you know what that means?" he asked. "It +means that, at a conservative estimate, the critter is—"</p> + +<p>"Go on," said Daley impatiently, when Jerry's silence had lengthened +intolerably.</p> + +<p>"It must be at least one thousand feet tall," said the O. O.</p> + +<p>There was a long, unbroken stillness, a hush of horror and disbelief in +the control room.</p> + +<p>Finally Circe said slowly, "I think I'm going to faint."</p> + +<p>And she did.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>The long-unused armaments room was half the width of the ship away. They +went toward it silently, seven men and a girl, praying that their +visitor would not meet them or spot their furtive advance on the +intercom. They slunk into the gunroom and Pink, coming last, ran the +heavy emergency bolt across the door behind him.</p> + +<p>The armaments officer was dead, of course. Pink said quietly, "Who knows +the principles of these weapons?" Daley and Joe Silver raised their +hands. "Activate the viewers, then."</p> + +<p>Two walls darkened and became the silver-flecked night of space; it was +as if they had become suddenly transparent. Half a dozen of the +void-giants showed near the <i>Elephant's Child</i>, hovering or slowly +drifting around the bow of the ship.</p> + +<p>"Now," said the captain, "if only our friend in the bottle has left us +our guns—train 'em on those monstrosities and fire every forward +battery simultaneously."</p> + +<p>The lieutenants, seated in foam-chairs behind the double banks of the +gun controls, manipulated instruments that were very like the sights on +common atom-pistols. Thin blue lines moved across the reflected picture +of the space beyond the ship's nose, steadied and centered on the +nearest giants. Silver glanced at Daley, who said, "Count o' three, +Joe."</p> + +<p>Every man leaned forward, scowling at the screens. The nearest +space-soarer squinted full in their faces, as though he could actually +see them as they were scanning him. Coincidence, but—Pink shuddered.</p> + +<p>"One," said Daley. "Two."</p> + +<p>The <i>Elephant's Child</i> rocked wildly up and back as thirty platinum +guns, the heaviest type in the known universe, fired their +hell-projectiles—great shells whose inconceivable destructive power was +released by the splitting of the curium atom. In flight, the ship would +have absorbed the tremendous recoil automatically; stationary as she +was, it bucked her over like a blown leaf.</p> + +<p>The shells, set to explode at the very closest range that safety +permitted, flashed upon the twin screens like bursting suns. Human eyes +looking directly at such a bombardment would have crisped in their +sockets; even on the screens their glare was too bright for comfort.</p> + +<p>The men blinked, peered sharply for signs of the effect on the giants.</p> + +<p>Pink felt disappointment, so biting and gut-curdling that he nearly +vomited. For at first the shells seemed to have had little effect except +to hurl the giants back a mile or so from the ship. Then, as they slowly +surged forward toward it again, he saw that they had not escaped whole.</p> + +<p>One lacked an arm; another had, half his head blown away; a third +drifted in without the lower half of his torso. The expressions of their +bronze-yellow faces were not of pain, however, but only of rage.</p> + +<p>"Hey!" bellowed Calico. "We nicked 'em up, anyway!"</p> + +<p>"Look again," said Daley morosely, standing from his foam-chair. "Look +at the head of the far left skunk."</p> + +<p>He who had lost half his cranium was slowly regenerating it, the brow +and cheek pressing outward to form new firm outlines, a missing eye +gradually emerging from the bloodless tatters of the old socket. Pink +said, "Well." He took a deep breath. "Well, that's that. Let's all get +out and plink at them with bean-shooters. It'll do as much harm." All +the giants were reconstituting their lost parts.</p> + +<p>Now one monster, floating right up to the ship, wrapped his +five-hundred-feet-long arms around it and gave it a shake. It was as if +a man had rattled a box full of beetles. The officers of the <i>Elephant's +Child</i>, who had ridden through the bucking of the tremendous explosion, +were unprepared for this movement, for they had risen from their deep +seats. They sprawled across the room, smashing up against the wall with +bone-jarring thumps. Pinkham found himself entangled with Circe Smith in +a pretzel of arms and legs that would under other circumstances have +been ridiculous but pleasurable. Fearing for her safety, he grasped her +around the waist; she yielded to him a moment, then struggled back and +stood up. Was her face flushed with indignation, fright, or—? He got to +his own feet. The giant had released the ship.</p> + +<p>"We are chastened," murmured Jerry, feeling a bruised shin.</p> + +<p>"And now what?" asked Joe Silver. "Ordinary weapons are as much use to +us as spitballs." He sat down. "Let's figure out what else to try. +Somewhere there's an answer."</p> + +<p>They all sat down, Pink said, "Remember Wolf 864?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," said Daley, who had been on that expedition with Pinkham when +they were young cubs out of jetschool. "Friendly natives, kind of +vegetable-animal life, and we murdered half of them unintentionally. We +had to get out and never go back."</p> + +<p>"How?" asked Circe. "How did you kill them?"</p> + +<p>"Germs. The common ordinary non-toxic germs we carry in our systems all +the time. It was a massacre—and of a queer, sweet kind of beast. They +had no tolerance for our microbes."</p> + +<p>"I volunteer to find the alien and breathe in his face," said Jerry. +"Somebody hand me an onion," he added.</p> + +<p>The conversation went on. It grew aimless to Pink, a bunch of boys +whistling by a graveyard, eight prisoners speculating on their escape +when they had no real knowledge of their jailer. He fiddled with the +intercom, saw that the crew had gathered by the mutiny gates and were +waiting tensely, puny weapons in their hands. He spoke a few words of +encouragement to them. 57 men—whom he hated to see die. Somehow he had +to save them.</p> + +<p>It was about half an hour afterwards that he first discovered he was +breathing too shallowly.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>"What is it?" asked Circe. Her lovely face was a trifle pallid. "I feel +odd—and you all look pale."</p> + +<p>Then it struck Pink. None of the others, even Daley, had recognized what +was happening. He did not dare waste a second in telling them. He tore +the door open and leaped into the corridor.</p> + +<p>Deliberately he tried to draw as much oxygen into his lungs as he could. +It was growing rarer every instant; but never mind trying to conserve +it—the life of everyone aboard depended on his reaching the +atmospheria. For the air in the spaceship was rapidly degenerating, +becoming unbreathable as what remained of the good stuff was inhaled and +thrown off as useless gases....</p> + +<p>Either the atmospheric system had gone on the blink by itself, he +thought, which was a hell of a long shot and too much of a coincidence, +or else the alien, experimenting, had turned it off by accident.</p> + +<p>Maybe the brute didn't need oxygen. Of course he didn't! His brothers +outside sure didn't have any. Then, if he were independent of it, but +could stand living in it, the probabilities were that he didn't breathe +at all; that his metabolism was geared to ignore the elements in which +he lived.</p> + +<p>Just possibly he was taking this way to kill them off in a particularly +fiendish fashion.</p> + +<p>Silently Pink cursed the architect who had designed the <i>Elephant's +Child</i> with the armaments room in the bow and the atmospheria back near +the crew's sector, a thousand feet of passageways off. Every door he +flung open took another bit of strength from his aching limbs. As he +passed a mirror, he had a glimpse of his face. His face was flushed now, +the grim-set lips were bluish, his eyes seemed to bulge from his head.</p> + +<p>He began breathing through his mouth. It may have been imagination, but +he thought the air had a foul taste, like a sea full of putrid fish.</p> + +<p>Pink fell to his knees. Abruptly his strength had waned to almost +nothing. He was horrified to realize how swiftly the air was going bad. +He had to get to the system! He struggled up, staggered forward like a +drunk. His heart, pounding wildly a moment before, now seemed to be +slowing, weakening.</p> + +<p>He found himself singing....</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Blast off at two, jet down at three</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>On the dead dry dusty sphere</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>What sort of a life is this for me,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>A veteran rocketeer?</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Great God, was he crazy? Singing, shouting the words to that old song +that Circe had brought back to his mind. Using up what amounted to his +last drops of energy and air. God, God, help me, he thought wildly; make +me shut up. But the maddened outer part of his brain kept him singing.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>I, who have seen the flame-dark seas,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Canals like great raw scars,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>And the claret lakes and the crimson trees</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>In the rich red soil of Mars!</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Then he fell, and this time he could not get up.</p> + +<p>He would lie here and die, horribly, gasping for breath where there was +nothing to breathe but death. The mind that had made him sing, that had +thought of Circe longingly and of what he must do to save her and all +his friends, that blacked out, fell into a pit of ebony walls and ink at +the bottom, blackness and nothing left anywhere....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Somewhere deep in his skull, some unknown cranny blazed with the light +of knowledge. He had only a few yards to go. He had to make it. This +knowledge crept out and through his body, raised cold swollen hands and +made them grasp at a wall, forced the feet of this dead man to scrabble +for purchase on the floor of the passage. Pinkham knew that he was +moving, but it was as if he were sitting on a distant planet and knowing +it; there was no realization that this was he, Captain Pinkham, clawing +upward and shoving himself on. He looked at himself curiously, rather +proud and a little contemptuous. What a fool, what a damn fool, he +thought.</p> + +<p>Here was a door. The half-blind thing that was Pink groped for the +handle, recognizing dimly that if this were not the atmospheria, then it +was all over.</p> + +<p>He opened the door and fell at full length on the carpet. Instinct +rolled him over and hauled him to his knees, and he said admiringly and +far away on that planet of death, By God, this is a man! Through a red +haze he saw that he was in the first of the two small rooms that made +up the atmospheria. He lunged forward, falling, jerked convulsively +upward, plunged down a mile and smashed his face into the carpet, felt +pain that for a moment brought him out of his stupor. He was making for +the master switch that controlled the nitrogen-oxygen-ozone-etcetra that +poured continuously through the great ship when all was well. From a +great distance he could see that the switch was shoved up; only by +breaking a steel band of superb tensility could the alien creature have +pushed that switch up, for Pink carried the key to the band on his +master ring, hanging at his belt. It looked like viciousness, either of +knowledge that this was the humans' finish, or of ignorance flaring into +anger. What a <i>beast</i>....</p> + +<p>He gathered himself like a mortally wounded lion. He launched his +perishing frame at the switch, hands clawed to drag it down to the +normal position.</p> + +<p>He could not feel whether he even touched the wall, for his senses were +obliterated. He lay on his face and knew that he would not get up again.</p> + +<p>Idly, he wondered whether he had managed to reach the switch.</p> + +<p>Then the final flame of intelligence winked out, and it was night and +unrelieved blackness, and he fell asleep.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>Jerry blinked. He opened his eyes and blinked again.</p> + +<p>Had Pink made it to the atmospheria?</p> + +<p>He must have, for the air was sweet and normal once more. So either Pink +or Joe Silver had saved them. The others had all dropped along the way; +he had passed Daley's motionless form some yards back there—now he +looked, and saw the senior lieutenant sitting up against the wall.</p> + +<p>Jerry rubbed his forehead gingerly. What a headache!</p> + +<p>By the time he managed to stand, shakily, Joe Silver had appeared in +front of him. Before Jerry could ask questions, the big man said +hoarsely, "Must have been the captain. <i>I</i> passed out before I made the +door." He shook his own head, which evidently ached too. "The blasted +door is now locked. I can't get in."</p> + +<p>The three of them went toward the atmospheria, Calico and Sparks +following slowly. Before they reached it, the door opened and the alien +thing emerged, stooping to clear the lintel. In its tree-thick arms lay +Pinkham, apparently lifeless, his head dangling.</p> + +<p>"Aside, mortals," the beast mouthed at them, and added, grotesquely, +"goddammit!" They dropped back, it passed them and turned a corner and +vanished. "Wait," said Daley urgently, "don't follow it yet." He +switched on the passage intercom screen. "We'll spy on it with this. If +Pink's alive, we mustn't anger the brute."</p> + +<p>Tense, they watched the image of the stranger as it prowled through the +ship, carrying their chief. It passed Randy Kinkare, and they saw him +shrink away, a noise of terror gurgling in his gullet. The lipless +Kinkare had reason to be afraid.</p> + +<p>The giant took Pinkham into his own quarters and laid him on a +foam-couch. Then it sat down in an angle of the wall, and its gruesomely +human-like body swelled until it occupied much of the free space in the +cabin.</p> + +<p>"To scare him if he wakes," breathed Bill Calico.</p> + +<p>"Isn't it frightful enough?" asked Jerry. "I have an idea: if the +Rabelaisian types outside are at their normal size, which seems logical, +then this one may be uncomfortable, having to go around all compressed +to eight feet."</p> + +<p>"Could be ... let's advance," said Daley. "We'll wait just outside +Pink's door. Then if it tries anything—"</p> + +<p>"Yeah?"</p> + +<p>"We'll make a protest," finished Daley. "Somehow, we'll make a strong +protest."</p> + +<p>They left the screen, a few seconds before Captain Pinkham groaned and +opened his eyes.</p> + +<p>The alien regarded him with its habitual expression of overpowering +slyness. "Why did you nearly die?" it asked. "Was it something I did?"</p> + +<p>When Pink could trust himself to speak without gibbering—it was +horrifying to see half his room filled by this bronze-yellow balloon of +evidently solid flesh—he said, "Naturally it was something you did, you +big ape. You turned off our air."</p> + +<p>"Air?" It compressed its lips. "Ah, I remember air. A substance needed +on Earth for life. We never understood it."</p> + +<p>"Don't you breathe?" asked Pink. "Don't you take any element into your +system and mix it with your blood and then—oh, you haven't any blood." +He paused. "But don't you need <i>any</i> outside element to sustain life?"</p> + +<p>"No. Nor do we eat."</p> + +<p>"But you are organic life?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. A life which you cannot understand, I see. A life impervious +to anything beyond it, indestructible and eternal."</p> + +<p><i>I think you're lying</i>, said Pink to himself. Nothing in the universe is +indestructible ... or at any rate, unalterable. Everything has its +Achilles heel, even the atom.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The monster spoke, half to itself. "That, the locked switch was the air, +then. I thought it was the air-lock." It laughed. Pink thought it had a +pretty primitive sense of humor. "Not the air-lock, but the air."</p> + +<p>"You wanted to let your friends into the ship," accused Pink. The beast +nodded. "Didn't you know that opening the air-locks without sealing off +their compression rooms would kill all the humans aboard?"</p> + +<p>"No," it said. "I want you alive. Some of you. To teach us the working +of this rocket."</p> + +<p>"Spaceship," corrected Pink without thinking. Then, "Why do you want the +ship?"</p> + +<p>Its eyes glowed fire at him. "To return to Earth," it hissed. "To return +to our own planet!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Your</i> planet!"</p> + +<p>"As much as yours, mortal." It leaned forward, obscuring practically all +the room for him. "Show me how to open the air-locks," it said.</p> + +<p>"In a swine's eye."</p> + +<p>"With safety to yourself, naturally," it said impatiently, "Come, show +me."</p> + +<p>"Find the machinery yourself. Experiment. Knock us all off. You'll be +stuck out here with a ship you can't operate."</p> + +<p>It plucked him off the foam-couch and hurled him against the wall, +jarring him in every bone. "Show me how," it roared. "Thou zed, thou +cream-faced loon—" Shakespeare? wondered Pink—"show me the controls!"</p> + +<p>Pink dived behind a stationary chair. He drew his useless pistol and +threw it at the being's face; it rebounded to the floor. He snatched up +a vase of ever-blooming Jovian lilies, sent them after the gun. The +monster reached for him, snarling. He leaped over its hand, hurdling it +as if he were a boy crossing a fence. On the far wall were many weapons.</p> + +<p>When he made Captain, and was given the <i>Elephant's Child</i> as his +flagship, he had transferred all his belongings to it, so that nowhere +in the galaxies would he ever feel at home save here. Among his +keepsakes was the collection of antique weaponry handed down to him by +his father, whose grandfather had bought them in the long ago from many +museums. Gradually he had added to the collection, souvenirs of the +planets he had explored. They were bracketed on the wall. Zulu war clubs +and Kentucky muskets. Martian spear-guns and antiquated jet-pistols; a +Derringer, a Colt .44, a blowpipe from an unknown Pacific island.</p> + +<p>The alien giant was too swollen to turn swiftly. Pink reached the wall +display. He tore down an assegai, whirled and thrust it at the +monstrous, contorted face, searching for the eyes.</p> + +<p>He was a mouse, bedeviling a cat with a broom straw. The thing batted +his spear aside, brushed him with its fingers in a powerful swat, +smashed him against his desk. A corner caught him, and he felt a rib +snap. The pain enraged him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In that desk he kept his other collection, ammunition for those weapons: +it was his boast that he had at least six rounds for every +projectile-thrower there. Some of it had been painstakingly fashioned in +modern times from the old formulae, some miraculously preserved through +the centuries. On strange planets he and Jerry used to have target +practice with the ancient toys.</p> + +<p>Now the agony and the fear forced him into a gesture. He would die in +this room, for certainly he'd never tell the giant where to find the +air-lock switches; he had to go down fighting, and if to fight this +impervious lout was the most futile of gestures, at least he would make +it a glorious one!</p> + +<p>Fumbling, he tore open a drawer and clutched a box out of it. This was +the ammunition for the Colt revolver. Gripping it in his left hand, he +jumped aside as the beast put out a hand for him. He fled across the +room, his ears cringing from the titanic yells of fury behind him. Now +he had to get the Colt .44 from the wall.</p> + +<p>It took him three horrible minutes of dodging and bounding to reach the +weapons again. He snatched at the revolver, missed, made another +desperate grab as he dropped to the rug; the second time he had it. He +crawled under a chest which stood twenty inches off the floor. Luckily +the alien was trying to catch him, not slay him, for it could long since +have smeared him into jelly with a piece of furniture for a bludgeon.</p> + +<p>Feverishly he loaded the chambers of the Colt. For a moment his +scattered wits could not recollect just how to operate this special +weapon. Then he remembered.</p> + +<p>The fingers of the monster, sausage-sized and disgusting in their parody +of humanity, came groping beneath the chest. Pinkham wormed back and +came up behind it, staring into the red eyes.</p> + +<p>With a concentration of power that he had not known he could summon, he +shot out from behind the chest and vaulted onto the top of his enormous +desk.</p> + +<p>The alien, lips curling, straightened till its head brushed the ceiling. +It reached out for him.</p> + +<p>In the last split second, Pink had a vision of himself, and instead of a +glorious gesture, it seemed to him suddenly that he was making an awful +ass of himself. Like a man before a firing squad thumbing his nose....</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he aimed the Colt full into the gargantuan face before +him, and pulled the trigger.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>The dawn-man, a thing like a wet rat, bared its teeth at the +dinosaur.... The Cro-Magnon faced a horde of hulking Neanderthals with a +grin.... The Crusader stood with a broken sword and brandished the hilt +at the charging Saracens.... The Apache drew his knife to fight a +double-troop armed with carbines.... The American flung his empty M-1 in +the faces of forty Japanese ... <i>toujours le beau geste</i>. Captain +Pinkham, standing in his cabin aboard the spaceship <i>Elephant's Child</i> +adrift in Star System Ninety, leaned forward and pulled the trigger to +the two-century-old, out-moded, laughable popgun of a Colt .44 firing +once and twice and again and again into the face of the bronze-yellow +space-dwelling giant.</p> + +<p>The being loomed over him, and a scream like the death-wail of a meteor +lanced into his eardrums and made him gasp with anguish. He pumped the +last slug into the enemy and launched himself side-long, without much +hope of landing anywhere but in a bushel-sized palm. He was actually +surprised when he found himself on the rug. He scrambled for cover, but +before he reached it, it dawned on him that he might not need it.</p> + +<p>The alien had sunk to its knees, was making a convulsive effort to rise +but obviously lacked the strength! Somehow, and God alone knew how, +Pinkham had wounded the beast!</p> + +<p>He drew back to the wall, watching. The agony of the big humanoid was +doubling it over and throwing it upright as though a volcano were +erupting in its belly. It flung out an arm, struck a foam-chair, which +shattered explosively. Pink put more feet between them. The convulsions +were like those of a harpooned whale. Yet the creature did not seem able +to move from its knees. Finally, perhaps a minute after the first +throes, it collapsed all at once, a crumpled titan. Pink cautiously +opened the door, just as Daley was reaching for the handle.</p> + +<p>"What in hell did you <i>do</i>?" shouted the lieutenant.</p> + +<p>"Shot him with a revolving-chamber pistol of the mid-19th Century," said +Pink. His rib was hurting and his flesh felt bruised all over. He +grinned. "Figure that one, boy. Atomic disintegrator doesn't work, +antique powder-using firearm does. I'm too beat to know why."</p> + +<p>"It's crazy," said Joe Silver flatly. They all stood around the alien, +which was sprawled on its back. The red eyes gleamed, but no muscle +moved in the great body. They looked for signs of the wounds, for holes +or dissolving matter, for anything different; there was nothing. "What +if—" began Silver.</p> + +<p>"This can wait." Pink took a deep breath, which hurt, and cleared his +throat. "There's plenty to be done. Jerry, check your scanner and +detectors for possible damage. Sparks, get on the radio to <i>Cottabus</i> +and <i>Diogenes</i>; tell 'em everything, and warn them to come in +cautiously. Kinkare, Daley, see what you can do with the space drive."</p> + +<p>He walked to the chest and picked up the box of Colt cartridges. He +loaded the weapon again. "This works—and for now I'm not asking why. +I'll stay with this scum of the void and try to get something out of him +that'll clear things up. Bill, you determine our position and give it to +Sparks; then start checking all the other equipment for bugs." He looked +at Joe Silver. "You collect the bodies of the dead officers and prepare +them for space burial."</p> + +<p>"Why me?" blurted Silver.</p> + +<p>Pink gave him a long look. "Because it's an officer's job. Because I +tell you to. And Silver—"</p> + +<p>"Yeah?"</p> + +<p>"I have decided that this is no longer a grade A emergency."</p> + +<p>Joe Silver said stiffly, "Yes, sir."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Pink activated the intercom screen, told the crew briefly what had +happened. Then he raised the mutiny gates, giving a sigh of relief. "Get +going," he told his officers.</p> + +<p>"What about the girl?" asked Jerry suspiciously. "She could still be one +of them."</p> + +<p>"Leave her with me. I have six bullets in this thing and forty-eight +more after that." He looked at Circe, who was pale and weary. "Sit down, +O. O. Smith," he said gently. "I think you're all right. But you realize +we can't chance anything till we have proof."</p> + +<p>"I understand," she said listlessly, and dropped into a foamseat, +staring at the fallen giant. The others trooped out.</p> + +<p>With the door shut, Pink walked to the head of the creature; it was a +swollen and hideous head, but by rights it should have been even more +hideous, should have had half a dozen wounds. The yellow hide was +unmarked. Pink said, "You're alive. Can you speak?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly." The lips barely moved. "I am but immobilized for the +moment."</p> + +<p>"What caused it?"</p> + +<p>The being sneered at him without answering. Pink said, "I can keep you +in this state for a long time, chum. And when we've shown our heels to +your brothers, I'm going to dump you out an air-lock and let you drift +around between the stars."</p> + +<p>He knelt beside it. "What did you do to the space drive?"</p> + +<p>There was a long pause. Then it evidently made up its mind. "The drive +should be in working order now. Your men will discover so when they try +it. As with the other contrivances, I merely placed a temporary stasis +on the protons of certain atoms, which rendered them futile. There +should be no damage by this time."</p> + +<p>Echoing his words, Pink heard the first throbbing murmur of the +activated piles. He looked without conscious volition at Circe, and they +exchanged smiles of vast relief.</p> + +<p>"You'll be popping out that air-lock sooner than I'd hoped," said Pink +to the giant. Then he was startled by a great peal of harsh laughter.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you pigmy!" shouted the alien. "You flea-brained besotted fool! +Your ship is out of control even now, and your hours are numbered on one +hand. You've lost, and haven't the brains to see why!"</p> + +<p>And, thought Pink, listening to the mirthless laugh while a chill sought +out his belly, the monster's words did not sound remotely like a bluff.</p> + +<p>He knew something hidden from the captain, and even in his captivity he +felt himself master of the <i>Elephant's Child</i>.</p> + +<p>Why? Why? Why?</p> + +<p>Then Pink turned and looked at Circe.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>Pink woke from a sweating nightmare. He rolled over and his bandaged +ribs creaked with a twinge. He had slept nearly a round of the clock; +the other ships must be nearing the asteroids. He got up and dressed +quickly, wondering who was watching Circe now, holding the revolver on +her, praying that if she should change form, the old-fashioned gun +would paralyze her as it had the giant.</p> + +<p>The giant. He had to check on that devil immediately. He called his +quarters on the intercom, and Lieutenant Daley's image waved at him +reassuringly. The monstrous entity had not moved; its eyes still gleamed +with malevolence.</p> + +<p>"Your hours are numbered on one hand," said Pinkham to himself. "How +many fingers on that mitt, I wonder?"</p> + +<p>And even yet he did not believe the thing had been bluffing.</p> + +<p>He ate a brisk breakfast in the mess hall, then stalked off to his own +room, trying to analyze what he now knew of the giants' nature; but +Circe's face intruded in his mind. He was in love with her. If she were +an alien, then he was in love with the remarkable illusion she had +created, of beauty and something more: of a deep integrity of soul that +shone in her eyes and touched every word she uttered. And if that <i>were</i> +an illusion, then he was a cynic and quite likely a positive misanthrope +from this day forward.</p> + +<p>"Get a slug of coffee," he told Daley. "Then hare back and we'll have +some brandy. It looks like a busy day." Daley went out, giving him the +Colt as he left.</p> + +<p>Sparks reported the <i>Cottabus</i> and <i>Diogenes</i> had joined their routes +and would be alongside within half an hour. Pink sat down and looked at +Circe, asleep on the couch. He switched his gaze after a while to the +enemy, who watched him steadily. It said, "A favor, Captain."</p> + +<p>"No," he told it.</p> + +<p>"Only a sip, a drop of brandy to wet these cold lips!"</p> + +<p>"Cold lips, cold heart: old proverb." For the first time in his life, +Pinkham wanted to torture someone. "You bastard," he said grimly, "you +murdered eleven men, eleven good officers, and spoiled Kinkare's face +for him. And you want a drink of brandy."</p> + +<p>"Rubbing alcohol, then. Only a touch on my mouth. Drop it in my eye if +you wish," said the thing pitifully.</p> + +<p>"No—hey, wait a second. You told me your breed doesn't eat or drink. +You don't need any outside element. Why the alcohol?"</p> + +<p>It heaved what was possibly a sigh. "I can absorb certain portions of +the carbon atoms of <i>al-kuhl</i>," it said. "It is the greatest pleasure +known to my race. And, save for the paltry drops of gin in that bottle +yesterday, I have not—let us say 'tasted'—it for some hundreds of +years!"</p> + +<p>"<i>Al-kuhl?</i>" repeated Pinkham.</p> + +<p>"The Arabic slips easily from my tongue after all those years," said +the thing, half to itself.</p> + +<p>Arabic! "You weren't lying," said Pink, "when you told us you came from +Earth, then."</p> + +<p>"I was not lying. Give me some alcohol, Captain."</p> + +<p>"No. How do I know it won't revive you?"</p> + +<p>"My word on it."</p> + +<p>Pink gave the hardest and briefest bark of laughter ever heard on the +spaceways. It became silent. Finally he leaned forward to stare at it. +"Your eyes have faded," he said. "By God, I think you aren't paralyzed. +I think you're dying!"</p> + +<p>After another silence it said, "Yes. I am dying."</p> + +<p>"I couldn't be happier," said Pinkham viciously. "I even hope it's +painful."</p> + +<p>"It is not. The only pain came with the passage through my molecules of +the l—" it halted abruptly.</p> + +<p>"Ah," said Pink, hefting the Colt. "Of the lead. It had to be that, of +course; but thanks for reassuring me. Your tribe's allergic to lead in a +rather high degree."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The flames leaped in its eyes. "I haven't told you anything so +valuable," it said, with a kind of weak bravado. "There are too many of +us, too few of you, and not enough lead in this whole system to conquer +us. You have found the secret, but you'll never carry it back to Earth. +My people shall go there instead, when they have sucked the methods from +your broken body."</p> + +<p>"When will you die?" he asked it. In spite of his hatred, humanity was +rising in him. It was beaten and he was too much of a man to crow for +long.</p> + +<p>"I hear remorse in your tone," said the alien. "For the love of God, +then, give me some alcohol."</p> + +<p>He remembered the headless corpse of Wright. He said, "No."</p> + +<p>Perhaps a quarter of an hour passed. It began to talk to itself in a +monotone, a sort of feverish delirium.</p> + +<p>"I never thought of it, at least not often, for I steered my mind away +from it; but once a decade or every thirty years I would remember, +perhaps one of us would say, 'Oh, to have a flagon of palm wine,' and +then the agony of desire would wrack me until I must fight my body and +tear it proton from proton so that I hurt badly and the remembrance +would leave me. <i>Al-kuhl, al-kuhl!</i> Why in all the universe must there +be this one combination of stupid elements which drags every fleck of +yearning from me like water wrung from a cloth? My race needs nothing, +nothing—we long for nothing—we are the only self-sufficient beings in +creation—why do we remember the <i>al-kuhl?</i>"</p> + +<p>"Like a <i>keef</i>-smoker," said Pinkham quietly. "You don't long for +anything else." After a little he added, "And you fear nothing save +lead."</p> + +<p>"True," said the being distractedly. "If it were not for lead and +alcohol we would be perfect gods."</p> + +<p>"Who are you?" Pink asked, conscious that his throat was constricted +with excitement. "When did you leave Earth? Why don't I recognize you, +out of history? What are you called?"</p> + +<p>He had tried too hard. The alien rolled its dimmed eyes at him. "I wish +I could smile now," it said through motionless lips. "Ah, if I could +only smile knowingly! You will die today with that curiosity unslaked."</p> + +<p>He was balefully angry at that; he leaped to his feet, thrusting out the +revolver. "If I throw another slug into you, it just might hurt some +more," he roared.</p> + +<p>"I would rather die in pain than see your questions answered. I know +well that curiosity is the worst torment to an Englishman."</p> + +<p>"I'm not English," said Pink.</p> + +<p>"It's all the same. I might as well have said 'human.'"</p> + +<p>Pink recalled that he had the Colt, and so could take a few chances. +"I'll trade you. One drop of brandy for each answer."</p> + +<p>It considered. Then, without budging, it gave the effect of a shrug. +"Why not? You'll be dead soon."</p> + +<p>"You're so sure," said Pink.</p> + +<p>"Look at your scanner."</p> + +<p>There was something in the words that sent Pink racing. He was only just +in time to see the finish of all his new-born hopes.</p> + +<p>The <i>Cottabus</i> and <i>Diogenes</i> were approaching at a slowing pace; the +<i>Elephant's Child</i> had deactivated her drive to wait for them. Whether +the captains of the sister ships saw them or not, Pink could not tell; +but a number of the space giants, so reduced in size as to be mere blots +on the screen, hovered in the area.</p> + +<p>As the ships gradually lost speed, a giant appeared atop each, growing +rapidly from eight feet to a thousand, till they straddled the great +ships like riders on Shetland ponies.</p> + +<p>The thing on the floor chuckled. "We are much more comfortable at that +size, you see, Captain. We don't like to cramp our molecular structure +into these puny dimensions. We can get into bottles—but we prefer to +expand as you see." Then it laughed. "Yes, there is one of us on your +own flagship at this instant, where he has been waiting, compressed, +till the others caught their seats. Your ships are captured as surely +as in a net. You cannot dislodge them, as you know. You must carry them +to Earth so, or capitulate and let them inside."</p> + +<p>There was no scrap of fear that he would carry these devils to Earth, +naturally. But for the moment, Pink could see no sure way to escape the +doom that now lay over him and all his men. They would have to remain in +this asteroid belt ... perhaps forever.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>The three spaceships lay together in the void.</p> + +<p>In the <i>Elephant's Child</i>, 57 men, seven officers, and Circe Smith were +seated in the demolished recreation room, which was the only place +besides the mess hall with enough chairs to accommodate them all. Radio +communication with the other ships was handled over an extension set +connected to the main radio room by a triple quancord laid down with +furious energy by Sparks.</p> + +<p>"What we need, and need fast, is this," said Pinkham. "A method by which +we can project lead, in pellets or spray or any damn form, with +accuracy, using our platinum guns. There aren't any other weapons that +will fire from within."</p> + +<p>"As you know, we've tried a few methods. One of the gunners of the +<i>Cottabus</i> went into an air-lock and tossed a lead ball at the giant on +the <i>Diogenes</i>, using a sling-gun. He found the range was too long; and +when the captain attempted to bring the <i>Cottabus</i> nearer, the thing on +<i>Diogenes</i> simply reared his ship up by shifting his weight backward. So +long as they can maneuver our ships as easily as toy boats, we can't use +that simple method.</p> + +<p>"Then <i>Diogenes</i> tried to smash our giant off his perch by simply +ramming him headlong. Take a look at the screen and you'll see that +<i>Diogenes</i> has a dented nose for her pains. Five men died in that try."</p> + +<p>"Captain," said a hydroponics engineer, "isn't it possible that, if we +keep trying to oppose these aliens, they may simply tear their way into +the ships and retaliate?"</p> + +<p>"Quite possible. Their strength is equal to picking the <i>Elephant's +Child</i> apart, I'm sure." He glared at the men. "Listen: I don't have to +pull punches with you. The chances of our getting rid of these giants +and making it to Earth are damned remote. There may be a chance, though, +so we have to keep trying for it.</p> + +<p>"The most important thing we have to do is keep this life-form of the +asteroids from going to Earth. We of the armada are a terrible danger +to mankind, through no fault of ours. We're so many Typhoid Marys, +potential carriers of something worse than any disease. Even if we're +all killed, the giants might manage to learn the control of the ships, +and take them to Terra alone.</p> + +<p>"So if we can't wipe out the enemy, our only course is to destroy +ourselves and our ships. Every officer in the armada has instructions to +blow up his ship if the giants should break into it. The thing is so +important that I've issued orders to do that even though the use of +lead-thrower weapons might conquer the invaders.</p> + +<p>"If giants seize a ship and it is not destroyed within five minutes, the +other two will turn their platinum guns on it.</p> + +<p>"Any questions?"</p> + +<p>Jackson, who was spokesman for the crew, answered promptly, "No +questions, sir."</p> + +<p>"Okay. Now let's have the technicians' report."</p> + +<p>A lean, angular man rose. "I've checked all the books, Captain. There is +no way to substitute a charge of lead for the war-head in the curium +shells."</p> + +<p>There was a stillness. "You mean we can't shoot lead at the giants +except with the few handguns in my possession," said Pink heavily.</p> + +<p>"That's right, Captain."</p> + +<p>"The giants are too alert to be caught that way," said Bill Calico. "I +have an idea—not much of a one, but it's a try."</p> + +<p>"Let's have it."</p> + +<p>Jerry waved a hand. "Please remove O. O. Smith first."</p> + +<p>Circe flared, "I think you're just afraid I'll get your job, you +incompetent—"</p> + +<p>"Take her out," said Pink to Joe Silver.</p> + +<p>Calico then outlined his plan. Pinkham said at once, "I'll relay it to +the other ships. We'll try it immediately." They all nodded agreement. +Pink bent over the radio; he gave the co-captains instructions in an +ancient language which they all knew, but which he felt sure would +baffle any eavesdropping giants—an old, old tongue known as Pig Latin.</p> + +<p>The officers and men scattered to their stations. Pink and Jerry took +Circe to the captain's quarters, where Pink took his seat for the plan's +direction, Jerry holding the Colt on Circe and the dying giant.</p> + +<p>The space drives of the three ships were activated, and in side-by-side +formation they moved slowly forward, as Pink watched keenly for +a sign of objection from the gigantic "jockeys" atop them. None so +far ... probably they thought Pink was under the instructions of their +brother inside. Five minutes went by. Eight. Fifteen.</p> + +<p>The largest asteroid in this part of the belt appeared ahead; it was +roughly fourteen miles in diameter. The ships dipped their noses as if +to pass well under it. They drew very close. Pink bent to his speaker +and bellowed, "Now!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>As one, the auxiliary jets of each ship roared into life. <i>Cottabus</i> and +<i>Diogenes</i> leaped out beside their flagship, and like three hotshot +pilots buzzing an airdrome, the captains took the enormous spacecraft +hurtling for the surface of the asteroid. Passing beneath it—or, +thought Pink irrelevantly, while every nerve and sinew concentrated on +the dangerous task, perhaps they were flying over it upside down—they +brought their years of training and experience to bear on the problem of +missing that knobbed gray surface by the smallest margin possible. +<i>Diogenes</i> actually scraped her superstructure, with a noise that made +every hair on her captain's neck stand upright; the others missed the +planetoid by no more than a foot or two. Then they were clear and again +in the void.</p> + +<p>According to orders, they slowed at a distance of four hundred miles, +and eagerly scanned one another in their viewscreens for signs of the +giants.</p> + +<p>Pink gave a loud shout of relief, and took a second to realize that his +co-captains had each groaned....</p> + +<p>The riders on <i>Cottabus</i> and <i>Diogenes</i> had vanished, and were +undoubtedly back there by the asteroid, reconstituting their bashed-up +bodies angrily. But Pink now heard, with a sinking heart, that his giant +was still with him. It had leaned backward from the knees, lying flat on +the hull which it had gripped with legs and arms. Somehow it had grasped +Pink's plan in time to prepare itself. The asteroid had flattened its +face and chest like a plane smoothing wood, and it was now forming +itself anew, with, so they told Pink, a truly malicious scowl on its +reformed lips.</p> + +<p>Jerry was standing with a hand on Pink's shoulder; he had forgotten +Circe in the tenseness of the bid for freedom. She came up on the other +side and put her own hand on the captain's other shoulder. He was +startled, and realizing that she could have killed or captured them +both, had she wished, chalked up another doubt in his mind against the +theory of her alienness.</p> + +<p>"Please come outside," she said urgently. "I want to suggest something +to you."</p> + +<p>He rose at once and followed her to the door, while Jerry frowned and +the dying giant watched him out of faded red eyes. In the hall, she +said, "You're almost licked, Captain. It's time for desperation +measures." Pink laughed, but before he could ask her what the hell they +<i>had</i> been trying, she hurried on. "Find out where the home of these +monsters is; it must be an asteroid. Then go there. Land and get out +with your guns. They will think our friend in there brought us to +them—and you'll have the advantage of surprise. You have about a dozen +firearms that will take lead bullets. That's enough for twelve of us. I +think we'd stand a chance of success."</p> + +<p>"And if they murder us all? What about the ship?"</p> + +<p>She said, "Leave orders to blow it up if we fail."</p> + +<p>Pink scratched his jaw. The girl had something, or the nucleus of +something, there. He saw other possibilities in it—it was tantamount to +suicide, but there was nothing else left to try. He said, "If we live +through this, Circe, I'll see you make lieutenant!"</p> + +<p>"I'd rather make ... well, never mind." She turned to go into the room. +He wondered if she had had Joe Silver in mind.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>He said to the alien, "Where's your home planetoid?"</p> + +<p>"Why?" it asked, mockery still in its weak voice.</p> + +<p>"I'm capitulating. I want to make a deal with your people."</p> + +<p>It said, "Ah, the human has sense after all. Our home is the largest of +the asteroids, as you call them. The one you said at supper last night +had a diameter of 440 miles. We call it Oasis—and a poor one it is, +when we remember Earth."</p> + +<p>Jerry said, astounded, "<i>What?</i>" His narrow face worked with surprise.</p> + +<p>"Shut up, Jerry." Pink still had things to find out. "Can you tell your +race, telepathically, what we're doing? I don't want them to lose +patience and tear up the hull. We have a very angry gent atop us."</p> + +<p>"It's the girl," snarled Jerry, before the alien could answer. "She's +got you fooled like a—like a—good Lord, Pink, are you so crazy about +her you can't see she's been waiting to put this idea in your head all +this time?"</p> + +<p>"Jerry," he said through his teeth, "shut your damn mouth. I'm captain +of the <i>Elephant's Child</i>."</p> + +<p>Jerry was aiming the Colt at him; accidentally, Pink hoped. Then the O. +O. said, "If I have to blow out your guts to save us, Pink, I will." His +tortured features writhed with pain. "Oh, hell, boy, wake up!"</p> + +<p>"Give me one more minute, before you fly off the handle and make an ass +of yourself—and a mess of me." Pink had to have that minute. It was so +vital he couldn't save himself from the angered Jerry with the one +phrase that would explain everything. "Jerry, one lousy minute."</p> + +<p>"Just tell me you don't mean it about giving in."</p> + +<p>He couldn't. My God, he couldn't. There was too much of a chance that +this brute on the floor was telepathic with its own kind. "I have to do +it, Jerry," he said.</p> + +<p>"Then I have to tie you up till you're sane," said Jerry. "First, +though, I've got to make sure about this girl." The muzzle of the gun +traveled toward Circe, steadily, remorselessly.</p> + +<p>Pink had no alternative; the lives of all his men hung in that teetering +balance. He jerked his right hand, and the tiny gambler's gun, the +antique Derringer he had hidden up his sleeve for emergencies, slid down +into his palm. Instinctively his forefinger caught the trigger and with +sorrow and determination he shot Jerry high in the chest, below the +clavicle and a safe distance from the lung. Jerry staggered back, a look +of amazement spreading over his face; he fired the Colt wildly, putting +a slug into the floor. Then he sat down, making hurt, uncomprehending +noises. Circe took the gun from his hand.</p> + +<p>Pink heard a babble from the intercom. He grasped that some of his +officers must have seen the occurrence. He still hadn't much more than a +minute.</p> + +<p>"Circe," he snapped, "turn off that intercom and then lock the door." To +the giant he said, "Well, can you tell your friends?"</p> + +<p>"I would have doubted you, had you not eliminated your objecting +officer," it told him. "Now I will say that I cannot communicate with my +race through thought transference; but if you head for Oasis, you will +be safe."</p> + +<p>Pink breathed a little easier. He snatched down a bottle of whisky and +twisted off the cap. There was another fact he must learn. He knelt and +presented the bottle to the inert lips. "Have a slug," he said.</p> + +<p>"You are sensible," said the being with satisfaction. "Pour it into my +mouth or my eye; I can absorb it through any orifice." Pink poured +rapidly. The liquor ran down over the yellow hide.</p> + +<p>"No, no," gurgled the monster. "Slowly! I absorb it far more slowly than +you do—"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Pink stood up. He took a drink from the bottle and handed it to Circe. +His face was radiant with success. "Toast the last slim chance, honey," +he said, voice cracking with relief. "We just found out what we needed +to know." He retrieved the bottle after she had downed a gulp, gave it +to the dazed Jerry. "Cheer up, boy," he said. "You didn't get your pink +skin plugged for nothing. Now listen." Rapidly he outlined Circe's plot, +then the additions he had concocted. "See why I had to do it?" he asked +finally.</p> + +<p>"Yeah. Yes, I see." Jerry blinked. "Would you spray a little sulfaheal +on this hole, Pink? It hurts.... Okay, I give in. I'm with you. It's a +mad notion, but I sure can't better it. I'm with you." He looked at +Circe, who was already busy with sulfaspray and bandages. "But can we +trust this wench, Captain? She could be a wonderful decoy for 'em."</p> + +<p>"She's in the clear, Jerry; if we hadn't been so blasted rattled we'd +have realized it long ago. There was a test she could have passed in two +seconds that would have eliminated all this fat-headed suspicion."</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Holy Holmendis, boy—<i>lead</i>! If she were alien, the touch of lead would +have crisped her up with pain and paralysis." Pink opened the door then, +and the first tide of officers coming to Jerry's rescue were halted at +sight of Circe tending his wound. Pink said to Jerry, and to them all, +"While I was standing in the hall, I took a cartridge out of this +Derringer, and rubbed the lead across the back of her neck. She never +winced. That vouches for her, doesn't it?"</p> + +<p>Jerry said, "It does. Heaven forgive us for a pack of drooling +imbeciles! It does indeed."</p> + +<p>Circe stood up. She came to Pink and stared him in the face. "So that +was it," she said quietly. "You were testing me. And I thought it was a +caress. Oh, you—" Then she hauled off and smacked Captain John Pinkham +square in the left eye.</p> + +<p>It hurt like sin, but Pink could hardly blame her. So he apologized, +without words. He took her in his arms and kissed her soundly.</p> + +<p>And Circe kissed him back.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>The <i>Elephant's Child</i> rested on the surface of the asteroid Oasis, a +waterless, airless, cold and gray ball as uninviting as any solid body +in the universe. At the entrance to Air-lock One, the officers stood in +a tight group listening to Pinkham; their spacesuits were fastened on, +only the helmets remaining to be donned; their gloves were the modified +digitmits which enabled the wearers to hold small objects and to operate +machinery or firearms.</p> + +<p>There were seven officers, and now three crewmen in spacesuits joined +them. Jerry, whose wound was nearly healed already, thanks to the +sulfaspray, passed out guns from the captain's collection. Each man +carried a handgun, or, in two cases a long rifle. The ammunition for all +amounted to one thousand two hundred and five rounds, in the main +handgun cartridges. Pink had decided against using the Kentucky rifle, +which was difficult for a modern man to load.</p> + +<p>At each belt hung half a dozen curious objects, shaped like bottles but +of a dull gray color and rough surface texture. These sloshed and +gurgled when the men moved.</p> + +<p>Pink concluded his instructions on the use of the weapons and the gray +bottle-things. "Remember," he said, "keep in touch by your radio, and +don't travel more than a mile from the ship if you can help it. Try the +lure first, then when the containers are full, the guns. Be sure to keep +at least one portion of lure for emergency; don't use it all." He +grinned. "And don't drink any of the lure."</p> + +<p>The men laughed, easing tension. Pink went on. "You'll have some trouble +adjusting to the gravity—our average weight will be six or seven +pounds, or, in Jerry's case, three or four." They chuckled again. +"Remember we don't know how they'll react, so keep your minds open and +use your own judgment in everything. Now let's go."</p> + +<p>As he turned and activated the sliding panel that covered the first +chamber of the air-lock, and they all settled their helmets down onto +their shoulders and fastened them, an eleventh figure joined them, its +helmet already in place. Jerry, shaking his head reprovingly, handed +this one the last weapon, a small automatic from the so-called "Gangster +Age" of America. Then they went into the air-lock and the door shut +tight behind them.</p> + +<p>In the control room, Jackson and a few others watched tensely on the +viewscreen as one by one the landing party jumped to the planetoid. He +looked at his watch. "Two hours," he said. "Oh my God, I hope they make +it!" For in precisely two hours, if they had not returned to the ship, +Jackson was to blow it to metallic dust, and all the remaining humans +with it.</p> + +<p>Forty miles above the surface of the small world, the <i>Diogenes</i> and the +<i>Cottabus</i> cruised at a good rate of speed, to keep their hulls free of +hitchhiking giants while watching the progress of the expedition.</p> + +<p>On the floor of Pinkham's quarters, the dying alien lay alone and cursed +weakly at the sly and crafty doublecross he had so stupidly fallen for. +He called upon a number of strange gods to curse these mortals; among +the names he uttered was that of a deity called Allah.</p> + +<p>In dressing room B, a technician discovered a crewman who was sitting +against a wall rubbing his skull. "Somebody bopped me," said the man +glumly. "I'm supposed to go out there and blast giants, dammit. Who +could have swiped me so hard?"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Pink took an experimental hop. It should have carried him, at Terra +gravity, about two feet. He soared over a hillock and came down gently +on a plain of rock that looked like lava; his hop had carried him some +scores of yards. He felt for an instant like a kid let loose on a +wonderful playground. Then he snapped into it and began to scan the +terrain for signs of life.</p> + +<p>To the right was the mountain they had seen from the descending ship, +with its irregular rows of gaping holes which suggested caves and +therefore possible habitations. It wouldn't take more than five minutes +to reach them at an easy amble, or a minute at a brisk walk; about a +mile away, they seemed.</p> + +<p>Then with a horrified start he remembered the giant who had been atop +his ship. Washington Daley had been delegated to deal with it—and Pink +had forgotten, had not even glanced back to see how his lieutenant was +making out! He whirled neglecting caution, and fell on his face. Luckily +he came down like a big bulky feather, and caught himself and bounced up +again, a rubber ball of a man on this alien world Oasis.</p> + +<p>He was just in time to see the giant, bending forward over the front of +the ship, begin to blur and stream downward toward the tiny figure of +the human who stood below him. In a moment he resembled a cloud of +tobacco-smoke, drawn into the gray container in Daley's hand. He +vanished entirely, Daley clapped on the sealing lid, and gave a +triumphant wave to his captain. Pink blew out a breath of gratitude and +remorse; he'd have to be on his toes from now on, really vibrant with +watchfulness. Laxity in one thing could lose this weird battle.</p> + +<p>Strung out in a straggling line of erratically progressing units, the +men of Earth headed for the caves. In a time so short as to be faintly +ridiculous, they were moving up the mountainside. The gaping holes +<i>were</i> caves, and obviously deep ones. Pink stood at the entrance of one +for a moment, checking on the number of his men; then he waved a hand +over his head, and entered the great den. Behind him came another +figure, one whose slimness told him it was probably Jerry.</p> + +<p>Their chest lamps lit up the interior, which was as gray, knobby, and +featureless as the outside world. Pink held his Colt .44 in his right +hand, one of the bottles in his left. The technicians of the <i>Elephant's +Child</i> had worked like drudges over those bottles....</p> + +<p>Every bottle of liquor aboard had been requisitioned. The liquid had +been poured into plastic containers; only a few spoonfuls had been left +in each bottle.</p> + +<p>Then lead, melted down and beaten into sheets, was wrapped around each +bottle, forming a thin and chinkless layer over all the glass but the +lip; and the lead was painted with tough plastikoid paint, which covered +it with a film one-twentieth of an inch thick. Caps of lead were made +for the bottles. At the end of a couple of hours, they had sixty-six +bottles, glass inside, lead covered, and topped off with plastikoid +which would conceal the presence of lead from any known test short of +X-ray.</p> + +<p>Each of the eleven men carried six of these bottles, then, actually lead +containers, but apparently plastikoid; the lead stoppers were concealed +in joerg-hide bags. If the giant who had been beaten in the spaceship +was a criterion, the enemy would not recognize the presence of lead +until it actually touched them—and then, thought Pink, with a quick +prayer, it would be too late for them.</p> + +<p>Beaming the radio to a distance of ten feet, he said, "Hey, Jerry, want +to lay a bet on who bags the first brute?"</p> + +<p>"Sure. Twenty bucks says I get him. And don't call me Jerry," said the +sweet, quiet, and thoroughly startling voice of organicus officer Circe +Smith.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>I didn't have to do it, Pink thought. I could have changed the orders +when I saw that no giants were in sight. We could have blasted the one +on top of the <i>Elephant's Child</i> and taken off and got out of range of +'em and gone back to Earth. We were free in that instant, when Daley +caught the alien and corked it up in the lead bottle with the liquor +that drew it. We shouldn't have come out here to the caves. We should +have left Oasis to itself.</p> + +<p>He knew that he had squelched this idea before it was born, because he +had longed for a good fight; he recognized this alien life-form as +unclean, and he'd wanted to stamp it out, or make a dent in its numbers +anyway. So he'd gone ahead with the project, and now here was Circe, +risking her life to be with him, and if anything happened to her he'd +kill himself ... well, at least he'd mop up the giants who'd drawn him +here, he'd make a pogrom, a massacre to avenge her....</p> + +<p>She isn't dead, boy, he told himself. She's just in danger. Don't get +distracted.</p> + +<p>"Stick close," he told her shortly. "I'll whale the pants off you when +we get back for this trick, but for now, stay close and keep your eyes +open."</p> + +<p>Then he tuned his radio outward. "Report," he said. His men checked in. +Nothing had been sighted thus far.</p> + +<p>So it was Captain Pinkham's luck to meet the first alien.</p> + +<p>Rounding a turn, he saw that the cavern enlarged, became a huge grotto; +seated around its walls, staring at one another in the uncanny silence +of this airless place, were many of the giant life-forms. Only one was +near him, and this monster was first to see him; it leaped at him with +the abruptness of perfect muscular control, its feet a little off the +floor of the cavern—Pink recalled that these things could levitate +themselves in space.</p> + +<p>There was no time to use the lure of the bottle. He threw up his old +revolver and fired point-blank, catching Circe by the arm and hurling +her to one side as he did so. The giant recoiled as at a wall, doubled +and thrashed in agony. Pink, rooted to the spot, waited to see the +effects. Would one slug of lead be enough? And evidently it was, for +suddenly the thing fell and writhed futilely on the ground, flinging its +arms wide with diminishing strength. In a moment it was helpless, its +only motion a slight heaving as its life retreated far within the +gigantic bulk. Its red eyes glowed at him malevolently in the glare of +his chest-lamp.</p> + +<p>Strangely enough, none of the others had seen him yet, nor had any of +them moved from the sitting posture. Swiftly he unhooked four of his six +bottles and set them in a row on the rock floor. Circe returned, having +bounced like a bit of india-rubber a dozen yards before checking +herself. "You big bully," she said over the radio, and, her tuning being +for distance, Daley in another cave said "What? Who?" in a startled +tone.</p> + +<p>Pink dragged her, five pounds of resistance on the tiny planet, and +plunked her down behind a rock. "Sit tight," he said urgently. "Keep the +gun handy. And check that you haven't spilled any alky—we'll need all +the bottles we can get." Then he turned and shone his beam full on the +traps he had set out. One of the aliens was bound to spot them soon.</p> + +<p>When one did, it came at them with a rush, snarling soundlessly as it +sought the source of the illumination. Towering over the insignificant +bottles, it halted, shuddered, stared down—Pink held his breath—and +the incredible disintegration and flow of the body happened. The giant +entered the bottle, leaving not a trace of its thousand-foot carcass +outside. Restraining a desire to leap out and cork up that bottle, Pink +waited. The movement of this alien had caught the red eyes of others; +they advanced, some hurrying and some cautious, till two more had +scented or sensed the alcohol and poured into bottles. Pink kept his +eyes on the little containers. Beside him, Circe gazed with horrified +fascination at the coming gargantuas....</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A trio of them were misting now; this was the test. One empty bottle +remained. What would happen, Pink wondered; was one giant per bottle the +maximum content? The three streaked down, like smoke sucked into a +vacuum cleaner. They jetted into the bottles, and again nothing was left +outside. Pink said "Good," in a mutter, and forced himself to wait +longer. The more the merrier. How long would it take them to soak up the +alcohol? His captive had said the process was slow. How slow? How long +did he dare wait?</p> + +<p>He caught eight more, then the next hesitated, looking around for the +source of light. Either he was capable of more resistance to the +seductive element, or the bottles were now full of churning, lapping +aliens. There were more of them approaching, but he didn't dare wait any +longer. He jumped forward, potting at the foremost.</p> + +<p>It went down thrashing, and he shot over it into the yellow of them. +Emptying the Colt, he reloaded hastily and plugged or nicked another +half dozen. By then he was standing over the bottles. Nothing had +emerged yet. He stooped to slam on the caps.</p> + +<p>With horrible speed two giants pounced for him; he saw them out of the +corner of his eye. Then they slammed full length to the rock, and he +knew that Circe's automatic was in action. He corked the last bottle and +slung it on his belt, put down the two remaining containers. Then he +turned and made a mighty jump away from them, dragging Circe with him. +The aliens came on.</p> + +<p>Some of them could withstand the pull of the liquor, and some could not. +There was a phalanx of them coming, for a good third of the growth's +population had seen the disturbance by now. Any who appeared to be +passing by the bottles, he and Circe shot; those who hesitated by them +and were drawn in exchanged their liberty for their lives, because in +two minutes Pinkham had feverishly capped them into the leaden prisons. +He hooked them onto his belt and said into the mouthpiece before his +lips, "Go for the entrance, baby. I'll cover you."</p> + +<p>"No!" she snapped back. "You are not going to sacrifice—"</p> + +<p>"Sacrifice, nuts!" he yelled. "This is part of the plan you'd have heard +if you hadn't sneaked into the landing party at the last minute. Get +going!" He was reloading as he spoke.</p> + +<p>She ran, almost flying down the cave-tunnel with great leaps that +covered many yards each. He fired three times at the giants who now +loomed above him; then he was running too, stretching his legs and +throwing every ounce of power and panic in his frame into the incredible +jumps. And apparently he had the advantage over the brutes, for he began +to outdistance them; their mass being greater, he was helped by the lack +of gravity.</p> + +<p>Then a rock crumbled under his toe, he was thrown off balance, his +momentum shot him full tilt against the wall of the passage, and his +head cracked sharply against the inside of his helmet. He knew that he +was losing consciousness, and that he had fallen and was rolling +straight into the path of the raging aliens.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>Thought came to him before feeling. Pink lay in a hazy world of shifting +ideas, of coagulating and disintegrating forms of cerebration. He was +not wholly unaware of what had happened, but his groping mind was more +concerned with piecing together certain facts and fancies, reaching +conclusions he felt were of the first importance. If his body were in +danger, it must help itself, for Pink had other fish to fry.</p> + +<p>As he sank into thick-witted stupor, then fought up to the light of +reason, feeling his mind ebb and flow with ideas and mad conjectures, it +came to him that he knew the truth of the giants, and had not stated it +to himself before in so many words. He had deliberately shied away from +it, in fact, for it stank of fantasy, of crack-brained superstition and +imbecilic fairy tales....</p> + +<p>Admit it, he told himself, giggling in the far reaches of his brain. +Admit it. You know about these critters, Pink.</p> + +<p>Yes. I know about them. They are the djinn.</p> + +<p>The djinn that Solomon ruled, conquered, and put down. The enormous +entities of Arabian Nights tales, whose habits and character and +shrewd-canny-gullible ways of thinking were all set down in the books +and marveled at by people even yet, hundreds and hundreds of years after +they had been written. Marveled, sure, but marveled only at the +imaginations that had produced them. And it wasn't imagination at all. +It was the real actual goddam solid thing.</p> + +<p>The djinn had been at once a triumph and a sad mistake of nature. They +were the ultimate in physical perfection, needing nothing, living +perfectly independently, huge and strong and yet able to assume the +tiniest proportions when needed. Wounds were nothing, for their makeup +was such that their molecules compressed away from weapons, to ooze back +into place when danger was past. They controlled the forces of the atom, +at least to the extent of ability to freeze protons, and probably they +could do many more stunts in that line.</p> + +<p>All their powers, being far in advance of man's, had been misunderstood +and misinterpreted in the old days. So when a djinni let his atoms flow +into the most convenient shape for getting into bottles for alcohol or +for passing an obstruction he didn't care to demolish, it seemed to men +that he turned into a cloud of smoke. Hadn't Pink used that simile to +himself?</p> + +<p>The fact that they could levitate, probably by control of the force of +gravity, and fly through the thin upper air, by some process Pink only +dimly understood, was certainly enough to stamp them as minor gods in +Arabia and all the other countries they had infested.</p> + +<p>Sure, they were a triumph of nature; but also a colossal failure. For +they were, despite their scientific powers, too stupid for pity, too +insensitive for compassion, and too egocentric for tolerance. Their +nature was that of the most depraved human being. Consequently they'd +been beaten. In spite of their terrific strength, they'd been beaten by +puny, unscientific, bumbling man.</p> + +<p>How?</p> + +<p>Well, Solomon had known about the lead. He'd sealed them in copper +bottles with stoppers of lead, and Pink would bet a buck those bottles +had been lead-lined, too. Solomon hadn't gone far enough, of course; +he'd thrown the bottles into the sea, and sometimes they'd washed up and +been opened. For bait, he must have used alcohol, too, since it was the +Achilles heel of the djinn.</p> + +<p>Had he nailed the entire breed of djinn in his lifetime? It seemed +likely, for the legends stopped soon afterwards, didn't they? Pink +wasn't sure. Anyway, there sure as hell weren't any djinn on Earth +today.</p> + +<p>How had they gotten out here, all the way to Star System Ninety? That +was beyond conjecture. How come the first brute he had contacted, old +Ynohp the phony Martian, spoke a kind of messed-up Shakespearian lingo? +God only knew.</p> + +<p>Now he'd discovered them, anyway, and they wanted to go back to Earth. +If they got hold of the <i>Elephant's Child</i>, they might do it. He +couldn't let them succeed ... but then the crew was going to blow up the +ship in two hours.</p> + +<p>Two hours!</p> + +<p>Pinkham's mind beat wildly at the prison of lethargy and dimmed +consciousness. How long had he lain here? Where <i>was</i> he lying? Did the +giants, the djinn, have him? And Circe?</p> + +<p>Circe. Making the most intense and painful effort of his life, Pink +dragged his eyes open and tried to sit up. He had to find Circe.</p> + +<p>He saw nothing, and there was a weight on him that held him flat on his +back. Either his lamp was broken, or he was blind.</p> + +<p>Sensibly, though it cost him untold hell to be sensible, Pink lay +quietly until he felt all his faculties under control. Then he made an +abrupt and violent attempt to sit up. Whatever it was that was holding +him down rolled off. He managed to get to his knees, one hand on the +rock beneath him, and then arms were thrown around him and a body +pressed against his.</p> + +<p>The horror of absolute blackness and the unknown predicament he was in +proved just a little too much for him. Captain Pinkham gave a loud, long +scream of fear.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>"What is it?" asked Circe, her voice wild with fright. "Pink, darling, +what is it? Are you hurt?"</p> + +<p>It was Circe who was holding him. Sobbing with relief, he said into the +radio, "No, no, baby, I'm fine, I'm wonderful."</p> + +<p>Her answering cry was a tiny sound of joy and affection. "I wish I could +kiss you," she said, "but there are two spacesuits in the way."</p> + +<p>He found her hand and squeezed it hard. "I wish I could see you, +Smitty," he said, "but either I'm blind or—"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I should have told you at once. I turned off our chest-lamps."</p> + +<p>"But where are we?"</p> + +<p>"Not far from where you fell." Her hand was a comfort in his, as much so +as a squad of Space Marines marching down to greet them would have been. +"You flew past me like a kicked football, Pink, and I veered off to see +if you were okay. When you fell and didn't move, the first thing I did +was snap off the lamps. About a second afterwards, the giants went past. +They have a weird kind of glow in the dark. I think they could have seen +us—certainly they don't exist blind in this ink-pool—but there's a +ridge of rock and we were pretty well hidden behind it. I dragged you +about forty feet and found this hole and we've been lying here ever +since."</p> + +<p>"The others," he said, remembering.</p> + +<p>"I've been in touch with Daley all the time. He and Calico ran into a +lot of trouble and Calico got a broken leg. Joe Silver took him back to +the ship. Daley and Jerry found each other and fought off a horde of +giants. Every man got all his bottles full of 'specimens' and then used +up most of his lead. Sparks—" she hesitated a moment—"Sparks is dead. +So is Randy Kinkare."</p> + +<p>Pink said quietly into the dark, "I don't think Randy would mind that. +He didn't have much of a face left."</p> + +<p>"Whatever that first one did to burn him, that's the weapon they used on +him and Sparks. Both of them were burnt to a...."</p> + +<p>"Okay," he said. "Okay, okay."</p> + +<p>"So Daley said they'd try to find us; but everyone got mixed up in the +caves, and there hasn't been a sign or sound of anyone for half an +hour."</p> + +<p>"Half an hour?" The flesh chilled down his back. "How long have I been +out?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know. A couple of hours."</p> + +<p>"My Lord! The <i>Elephant's Child</i> is to be blown up two hours from the +minute we left her!"</p> + +<p>"Daley said Silver was going to countermand that order."</p> + +<p>Pink groaned heavily. "He can't! Jackson had my absolute command on it, +and Jackson would see himself and Silver and the whole lot of them dead +before he'd fail to carry out a command of mine. That was important; we +calculated that two hours was more than enough to expend all the ammo, +and that if we weren't back by then, the hull would be crawling with +giants. Every bullet aboard came out with us. We couldn't take the +chance of the ship blasting off with giants on her, maybe in the form of +gnats or smoke or—no," he finished, "Silver, if he tried to change my +order, is either dead or unconscious or in the brig right now." He +lifted his left hand. "I've got to check the time," he said, and for an +instant switched on the dial of his glove watch.</p> + +<p>It was a hundred and two minutes after landing time.</p> + +<p>He had eighteen minutes to get back to the <i>Elephant's Child</i>.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>He beamed his radio to its fullest extent. "Daley," he said. "Daley, +come in. Jerry. Cohan. Caleskie. Kole. Come in, anyone."</p> + +<p>"Kole here, Captain. I'm on the plain. It was all fouled up in that +cave."</p> + +<p>"What can you see?"</p> + +<p>"They've got the big trap out of the ship," said the distant, tinny +voice of the crewman. "What a waste of good liquor! Beg your pardon, +Captain."</p> + +<p>"Giants?" Pink asked.</p> + +<p>"About a million of 'em, all headed for the trap. We should have tried +it first. Did you know Caleskie got his?"</p> + +<p>"No, I didn't know. We had to suck them out into the open before they +could spot the trap, Kole. Is Lieutenant Daley in sight?"</p> + +<p>"I saw him a while back, sir. He was headed out of a cave with the O. O. +But it turned out they were going the wrong way, because I—"</p> + +<p>"Thanks, Kole. Report aboard ship. Don't get mixed up with the giants."</p> + +<p>"They won't bother me, sir. It's like a bunch of big bees tearing after +a vat of nectar out here. They don't even see me."</p> + +<p>"What did he mean?" asked Circe. "A trap?"</p> + +<p>"Plastikoided lead box, twelve by twelve feet. All the alcohol in the +ship was poured into it an hour after we left, and they set it outside +as far from the ship as they could safely go. I didn't know it would +work, but it was a try. It still doesn't affect Jackson's orders. I +didn't know, I still don't know, but that some of the djinn can resist +the stuff."</p> + +<p>"The <i>what</i>?" she asked, startled.</p> + +<p>"Never mind. We've got about a quarter hour to get back. Where in blazes +is Daley?"</p> + +<p>A small, weakened voice said in his ear, "I'm here, Pink. Jerry too. But +he's out cold. I don't feel so hot myself."</p> + +<p>"Daley!" he roared. "Where are you?"</p> + +<p>"Big cave, about size of Texas. Came across it trying to find our way +out. Lot of giants here. One of them saw us and picked us up and banged +us together. I think he must be saving us for a hearty lunch. He's +sitting ten feet off watching us."</p> + +<p>"Your guns, boy!"</p> + +<p>"No good. All the slugs are gone. Pink," said the weak, worried voice, +"do you know what time it is? You better hightail it for the ship."</p> + +<p>"I'm coming after you," said Pink.</p> + +<p>"Don't be a heroic son of a space cook, Pink!"</p> + +<p>"Shut up and lie still." He switched his radio to close quarters. +"Honey, you make for the <i>Child</i>. I'll pick up the boys and be right +with you."</p> + +<p>"You're crazy," she said flatly. "I wouldn't leave you if—"</p> + +<p>He had switched on his chest lamp and drawn out a pen and paper from his +pocket kit. "I'm going to write Jackson a note countermanding the order. +Take it to him."</p> + +<p>"You're wasting your time," she said grimly. "If you're going into the +cave, I'm going too."</p> + +<p>"You fathead, you can save the ship by taking this note."</p> + +<p>"You're doing it to save me. I won't. What happens to you happens to +me."</p> + +<p>"My God the whole damn ship—"</p> + +<p>"Doesn't matter to me if you're gone, Pink." Her voice was strange, +half-hysterical and oddly loving. "I don't know why I feel this way +about you, Pink. I've never been in love before. If I hadn't been +stranded, I'd be old enough to be your mother. You're a big cold +dedicated spaceman, but I love you. Lead the way, if you're going to +make a fool of yourself."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>In that moment Pink learned wisdom, for he gave up his attempt at a note +and bounded to his feet. Some well-spring of instinct had told him that +a man could never argue a woman out of anything.</p> + +<p>"Got your automatic?"</p> + +<p>"And a full clip left."</p> + +<p>"Come on, baby."</p> + +<p>They ran down the cavernous corridor, grotesque tiny fleas making +unbelievable leaps. In seconds they had entered the grotto.</p> + +<p>Many, too many giants were still there. Some of them seemed not to have +seen anything of the hectic occurrences, others were standing in small +groups (if anything formed of thousand-foot beings could be called +small, thought Pink as he rocketed along) motioning hugely to one +another.</p> + +<p>"Stay close," he called to Circe. She was moving as fast as he, her +light frame an asset. They ran down one side of the cavern, ignoring +giants who did not at first notice them. Pink beamed out his radio and +said, "Daley! Locate yourself." "I'm in the cavern."</p> + +<p>"You ape," said Daley, "why'd you come? We're in front of an entrance +that's the middle one of three. Spot it?"</p> + +<p>"I see four sets of three," said Pink, heading for the nearest as his +heart sank.</p> + +<p>"Sorry, I can't see any more than these. Be careful, old boy." There was +a pause. "We have twelve minutes left," said the senior lieutenant +calmly.</p> + +<p>The first of the triple entrances—had they been built, or were they +natural?—was at hand. Three gigantic djinn sat near them. The ground, +uneven as a lava flow solidified, might have concealed a score of +humans. Pink gave a high leap, surveyed the terrain as he floated down. +Nobody here. But a giant saw him.</p> + +<p>Pink shot him in the ankle and dived like a skin-swimmer between his +legs. He had lost Circe. He pivoted, wide-eyed, and saw her beneath the +skyscraper torso of a bending giant. Their lamps were drawing attention +now. He saw her shoot the titan and fly off at a tangent, disappearing +behind others of the enemy.</p> + +<p>Sixth sense warning prickled his neck. He whirled again to pot at a +groping hand the size of a ten-story house; the hand contracted, +bunched, groped outward and was hidden as the body fell upon it. Pink +saved himself by a frantic backward shove that jolted him into the wall. +Circe sped by and he followed, shouting into his radio. They joined +hands and aimed for the next entrances, a mile down the hall.</p> + +<p>Four speeding djinn abruptly barred their path, express-flying down on +them.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p>"I know how a fly feels," gasped the girl. "I'll never wield another +swatter."</p> + +<p>Pink had emptied his Colt. He tried reloading on the run, or rather, he +thought wryly, on the bounce, but it was a tricky job. And he had only +about a dozen shells left.</p> + +<p>Circe shot another angry monster. If lead took just two seconds longer +to work on those immense systems, Pink realized, he and Circe would have +been squashed long since. They had fought down half the hall, past three +of the triple entrances, and now there was only one to check on. If +Daley and Jerry weren't there, they might as well give up; the ship +would go scattering into the void in about five minutes.</p> + +<p>They had to watch backwards as well as before them. The giants were +nearly all in motion now, the milling of such throngs of them having +caught the vacant stares of those who had been gaping at nothing.</p> + +<p>And suddenly there was Daley, standing before them and holding the limp +spacesuited form of Jerry Jones in his arms. "Hey, Pink," he said, "down +here."</p> + +<p>Pinkham blasted two foemen in the hands as they grasped for him. "Like +fighting giant redwoods," said Circe indistinctly, panting. They joined +the two officers, jumping and digging in their heels to halt sharply.</p> + +<p>"We have to make for that," said Pink, waving across the grotto at the +invisible hole which led to the plain. "Straight through these dam Alps +of aliens." He shot over Circe's head. "How you feeling?"</p> + +<p>"Little rocky," said Daley.</p> + +<p>"Take the Colt, then." He shoved it into the lieutenant's hand and +hoisted Jerry like a rag out of Daley's arms. "Come on," he barked. "And +don't get slapped. That's an order." He ran.</p> + +<p>Their combined chest-lamps beamed out a couple of miles as they headed +for the home stretch. Across the light passed the giant djinn, moving to +waylay them, standing mountain-steady to intercept. Circe rocketed into +the lead and led them on a zigzag course that avoided the vast parodies +of human feet which barred the way like river dams.</p> + +<p>They had had uncanny luck thus far. Why? Probably the giants were +sluggish from long inactivity. Too, Pink knew, it's hard to hit a small +darting object that's not more than one-one-hundred-and-sixty-sixth of +your size. And the lead slugs of their guns had turned many sure +captures into escapes.</p> + +<p>But now the guns were empty.</p> + +<p>"Feet," said Pink, quoting an ancient joke, "feet, do your stuff!"</p> + +<p>Circe was amazing, dodging and pirouetting and even hurdling the gross +feet when they couldn't be side-stepped. Pink gamely followed her lead, +Jerry now slung over his shoulder. There was panting in his ears—Daley +must be having tough going. Then he recognized the deep wheezing +breaths: they were his own.</p> + +<p>"Daley?" he gasped.</p> + +<p>"Right behind you, Pink."</p> + +<p>The mouth of their corridor was in sight. Then there were djinn, a row +of them standing side by side with feet firmly planted to make a +barrier. My God, he thought, this is it! Circe vanished, he did not see +where. The feet were there, and arms reaching down for him. He pitched +sideways, flipped by a questing finger; crashed on his shoulder, rolled, +still miraculously hanging onto Jerry. The brashest course was the only +one. He gathered himself and jumped onto a toe. It was as hard as the +rock. And this thing, he said irrelevantly in his mind, this massive +piece of solidity can vaporize into a gin bottle! He slid down the toe +and scuttled ratlike under the lofty legs and was in the clear. The +tunnel, itself an astoundingly high cave, appeared directly before him.</p> + +<p>There was no time now to look for Circe and Daley, vital though their +safety was to him. He carried Jerry into the tunnel and loped with +multiyarded strides for the plain. He could not see any lamp-glare but +his own. But he could not stop. Humanity in that instant overcame all +his private desires. There were fifty-eight souls who would be blotted +out if he didn't make the <i>Elephant's Child</i> in two minutes. Sixty-one, +if you counted Daley and Circe and Pink himself. In less than one of +those minutes he had traversed the tunnel and come out above the plain.</p> + +<p>The ship was still there. Some distance away from it stood the big trap, +and even yet giants were speeding toward it from all points of the +compass. Pink gasped a breath and launched himself out and down the +steep hillside. He took it all in that one jump. As he was landing, a +curiously weightless man on this tiny planetoid, Jerry came to life and +writhed suddenly in his arms, upsetting his balance. Pink fell and his +left ankle shrieked with pain as it turned under him and was smashed +into the gray rock by his dropping body and Jerry's.</p> + +<p>He sprawled full length and knew his ankle was broken or sprained. Jerry +rolled free and collapsed, sighing into his radio. Pink tried to stand +and the ankle buckled. Horrified, he looked at his glove watch.</p> + +<p>He had seventy seconds.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p>Pink bellowed, "Jerry!" He yelled it so loudly that his ears protested +at the helmet echoes. Jerry said groggily, "Wha?"</p> + +<p>"Stand up!"</p> + +<p>Jerry sat up and at once fell flat again. "Judas priest, I can't. That +you Pink?"</p> + +<p>"We've got to make the ship," he bawled, twisting with pain.</p> + +<p>"Make it what?"</p> + +<p>"If you want to live, son—stand up!"</p> + +<p>Jerry got to his knees. "I'm sick, Pink."</p> + +<p>He had used up six seconds. He had to try it on his own. Jerry was too +far gone to function properly.</p> + +<p>Pink stood up. His teeth were grinding together like millstones, but he +didn't stop. He knew pain and dread and rage that shook him. He faced +the ship, and stood on his good leg and bent his knee and gave a +tremendous hop.</p> + +<p>As he fell on his face, an unknown number of yards nearer, a great alien +passed him, the mighty sole slamming the rock a few feet from his prone +body. Pink struggled upright and balanced on the right leg and made +another hop. This time he didn't fall when he lit. Praying thankfully +for the two seconds that saved, he sprang again. And fell, painfully.</p> + +<p>It was a useless piece of bravado. It was impossible to reach the ship. +He got up and leaped. He fell. He forced himself up and sprang and +didn't fall and sprang and fell.</p> + +<p>He couldn't waste a blink of time in looking at the watch or yelling +with agony or even praying now. He went through his routine +automatically, his mind a thing of terror. Eons seemed to pass him by as +he hopped over the djinn-infested gray rock plain.</p> + +<p>A superb spring took him abreast of the big lead vat. What wild scenes +of delirium were going on there he could not even imagine. He hopped +twice more and was at the ship.</p> + +<p>At any instant, at this very second the ship would blossom into +red-white carnage of metal and flesh and death. Impossibly Pink stood on +his good leg and aimed for the scanner-port which he knew, or hoped, +connected with the screen in the control room where Jackson sat.</p> + +<p>Now the <i>Elephant's Child</i> was done, Jackson was shoving the switch +over, now it would all disintegrate in his face. He flew through space +and struck the hull flat; all the perishing strength in him glued his +body, his fingers in their thin gloves, to that curving surface. His +great helmet, with the crest insignia of comets and spears that marked +him as the captain, hung for a short time directly in front of the +scanner-port.</p> + +<p>He shook his head violently, back and forth, back and forth. <i>No</i>, he +screamed in his mind, wishing insanely that his radio were constructed +so that it could be heard in the ship. <i>No</i>, he shook, <i>no, no</i>!</p> + +<p>Then his precarious grip on the smooth side slid off, and Captain +Pinkham fell lightly but finally to the asteroid.</p> + +<p>He lay there unresisting. He had done his best, absolutely his damned +best. Let it blow. Let it blow.</p> + +<p>After a while he looked at his glove watch. It was two minutes past the +time for explosion.</p> + +<p>He had saved the <i>Elephant's Child</i>.</p> + +<p>He turned and looked across the plain and saw, beyond the great trap +into which giant-smoke was settling, two figures come running toward him +with unearthly strides. One of them halted and gathered Jerry into its +arms. The other reached Pink and knelt beside him and hugged him +tightly. Pink laughed, a passionate sound of relief. Circe said, "You +made it, darling. You made it!"</p> + +<p>The air-lock began to open.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p>The djinni on the floor said, "I concede this battle to you, Captain. I +have seen the ending on the screen. But there are others out there, on +Oasis and in the void. We'll win to Earth some day in spite of this +victory."</p> + +<p>Pink, snugly ensconced in a foam-chair with his sprained ankle propped +up, his surviving officers seated around him, and Circe on the arm of +the deep chair, took another drink of lemonade. He made a face, almost +asked for brandy, and remembered. He said, "Maybe the same way you came +to these asteroids?"</p> + +<p>"No, not that. That way went only in one direction, through the fourth +dimension, I think. The people of the continent you call Atlantis built +that way for our use, though much against our desire; and the machine +they made was so fearful that its use sank their whole land into the +sea. They were a great, scientific people, and we have not their skill."</p> + +<p>"Atlantis too," Jerry said. "Now we've heard everything, all but the +Little People and Pan."</p> + +<p>The djinni did not seem to hear him. Its eyes, like dead coals now in +the yellow face, rested on Pink. "It was clever of you to recognize us +from history."</p> + +<p>"You go into bottles, speak Arabic, fly and are humanoid in form. I +should have guessed your race hours before."</p> + +<p>"We are not humanoid. You are djinnoid. We came before you in +evolution."</p> + +<p>"How do you know?" asked Daley.</p> + +<p>"Our legends ... I cannot tell, being no more than six or seven thousand +years old myself. But we are told we predate man."</p> + +<p>"When were you relegated to this belt?" asked Jerry, who was still a +little pale. "You were around in Solomon's time."</p> + +<p>"Yes. He caught and trapped most of my race—we are not so numerous as +you cursed rabbits—by the same means you used. One great vat he +collected, after some years of the bottles, and sealed up a multitude of +my folk and cast them off a ship; somehow the currents dragged the box +to Atlantis. There my people were freed, and set about to conquer the +land. But the Atlanteans captured them after several decades and, having +constructed the terrible machine, sent them off to this forsaken hole in +space. The cataclysm the machine made—evidently they hadn't been so +clever as they thought, may Allah rot their souls!—set off volcanic +action, which eventually sank their country. It was never very large, +anyway...."</p> + +<p>"How do you know this?" asked Pink. He was a bit breathless; at any +moment the being might decide to shut up and die. He had to satisfy his +curiosity about the space-dwellers.</p> + +<p>"I was one who escaped Solomon. I made my way to England after a few +centuries of wandering, of being a minor deity here and there, and in +England in the late seventeenth century I met a brother. He had been on +Atlantis, and hovering above it had seen the exiling of our race and the +death of the land. Together we determined to find the machine, repair it +if need be, and bring back our people. We thought they were somewhere in +the bowels of the earth, or perhaps held invisible in the machine +itself.</p> + +<p>"We felt we were the last djinn at liberty. We went under the sea—"</p> + +<p>"How?" This was Bill Calico, nursing a broken leg on the couch.</p> + +<p>"We are oblivious to our surrounding elements, so long as they are not +too dense for us to penetrate. After a year or two we found the +machine. It was partially destroyed, but so simple that we easily +repaired it. We could not see how it could make our race vanish, but as +we are indestructible except by lead, and the Atlanteans did not know of +that metal, we knew that they had vanished rather than died. When we had +the machine fixed, I volunteered to try it out and see what happened. He +was to reverse it and draw me back shortly."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The monstrous thing sighed. "It was too complex for us. First I found +myself floating a mile or so off Oasis, and then my friend joined me. +His adjustments had failed. The cursed machine had relegated us both."</p> + +<p>"God bless Atlantis," murmured Circe.</p> + +<p>"I presume you are taking the bottles and the great vat of lead back to +Earth?" it queried slyly.</p> + +<p>"Not on your life," said Daley. "As soon as we're out of System Ninety, +we'll drop 'em into the void. Your damn tribe will be marooned properly +this time."</p> + +<p>"But they are alive in those prisons!" it shouted, its eyes momentarily +reddening again. "Such compression is most irksome to them, and they +must constantly shift about to keep clear of the lead in the stoppers. +It's inhuman!"</p> + +<p>"You're right," said Pink grimly. "It's djinnlike."</p> + +<p>"How did you learn English?" asked Jerry suddenly. "Modern English, I +mean."</p> + +<p>"You forget; when you brought me aboard, in the guise of a Martian, you +handed me a lingoalter. It was simple to speak the English of the 17th +century into it and listen as modern speech came out."</p> + +<p>"That's another thing. That Martian suit—how'd you get it?"</p> + +<p>"They had come this far. We found the suit, with its occupant long +turned to dust. We kept it for such emergencies. When the space ships +foundered nearby a few years ago, we refrained from molesting this +woman, thinking that she might some day be a fine decoy."</p> + +<p>"You watched me in the suit," said Circe.</p> + +<p>"We did. We had not seen a human in a long time." The djinni paused, +then said, "The Martians had space travel when Earthmen were barbarians. +They came to Terra, and we, sensing danger in them, drove them out. We +saw to it that the Martians would tell tales of the horrors of Earth +life, and never come back."</p> + +<p>"By God," said Pink, "that's why they never colonized Earth, though +they had spaceships! It's one of the biggest problems we've known."</p> + +<p>"Then I've solved it for you. Will you do me a favor in return?"</p> + +<p>"What?"</p> + +<p>"Have you any lead left?"</p> + +<p>"A little."</p> + +<p>"Then lay it on my chest, and give me a quick death."</p> + +<p>"Get it," Pink said to Daley. The lieutenant started a protest. Pink +said, "My Lord, can't we afford to be merciful now? After all that +slaughter?" And Daley went to find the lead.</p> + +<p>Circe said, "Why do you want to go to Earth so badly? What's there that +you want? You're such an independent form of life...."</p> + +<p>"Atmosphere," said the djinni.</p> + +<p>"But you don't breathe!"</p> + +<p>"We do, however, talk; and we cannot hear each other in a vacuum. We +wanted to find Earth again and know the pleasure of communication. On +Oasis we had to talk with our hands." It groaned, grotesquely human in +its agony. "Can you imagine living for centuries without the joy of +conversation?" it asked pitifully.</p> + +<p>Circe shook her head. "I don't much blame you," she said in a small +voice.</p> + +<p>Daley came back. He handed a small rough bar of lead to Pink. The +Captain's mind seethed with questions he longed to ask; but the reaction +of the battle was settling in with vengeance, and he could not see this +great paralyzed brute live on because of his own more or less idle +curiosity. He bent forward from the chair. "Sorry," he said, and dropped +the bar onto its chest.</p> + +<p>"Wait!" said Jerry. "How did you know how to spell <i>phony</i>?"</p> + +<p>The djinni made a small hissing noise that had something in it of +contentment. Its eyes turned jetty, and they knew it was dead.</p> + +<p>"It died happy," said Daley to the slim O. O. "It knew it was leaving us +a problem that we'd never solve. What a—what a malicious character it +was!"</p> + +<p>"Poor devil," said Circe. "No conversation for five hundred years!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p>Four days later Pinkham and Circe stood quietly before a scanner screen, +Pink leaning on a cane, and watched the great lead vat and then the +multitude of bottles go tumbling into space. "We are giving them a +chance of survival," mused Circe. "There's about one chance in a billion +that some day they'll be found and released again."</p> + +<p>"I wonder," said Pink, "if they did predate man in evolution? Or if they +were originally native to another planet that expelled 'em? There were +always legends of giants and ogres and djinn and demons on earth, myths +that started to die out about the time this late friend of ours left the +globe for good. Maybe the djinni developed side by side with man, but +was limited because of his flaws. There are a million life-forms in the +universe so alien to man as to be unexplainable, and a lot of them are +right home on Terra."</p> + +<p>Circe shook her dark head. "Is the whole thing real, Pink? Or is it a +fantasy we've uncovered out here in the void?"</p> + +<p>"Every damn thing about them is scientifically possible. But I know how +you feel—it seems like a fairy story. If so many good guys weren't dead +back there, I'd disbelieve it myself." He scowled a moment, then looked +at her and brightened. "Honey," he said, "remind me that I have to send +a radio message to Earth as soon as we're close enough."</p> + +<p>"Radio message? What?"</p> + +<p>"A sort of temperance warning, that's all." He grinned. "It goes like +this: <i>If you find any bottles, don't open them!</i>"</p> + + +<h3>THE END</h3> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Giants From Outer Space, by Geoff St. Reynard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIANTS FROM OUTER SPACE *** + +***** This file should be named 32485-h.htm or 32485-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/8/32485/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Giants From Outer Space + +Author: Geoff St. Reynard + +Release Date: May 23, 2010 [EBook #32485] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIANTS FROM OUTER SPACE *** + + + + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + + The Giants From Outer Space + + By Geoff St. Reynard + +[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination May 1954. +Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright +on this publication was renewed.] + + +[Sidenote: Grim terror lurked in the void many light years from Earth. +But Pinkham and his men were unaware of it--until suddenly they +discovered--The Giants From Outer Space] + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Okay, make another check on the reading." + +"I've made four checks already--" + +"Damn it, make another!" + +"It's no use, Pink. The life-scanner's never wrong." + +"No possibility of a monkey wrench dropped into its innards? It couldn't +be seeing things that aren't there?" + +"Not in a million years." + +"Then there's no water, no air, no gravity worth mentioning, and +still--" + +"That's right. There's life on that silly-looking little apple. _There's +somebody sitting on it!_" + +In the ninetieth star system to be explored by the insatiably curious +men of Earth, there were seven planets. Between the fourth and fifth +from the star there was a belt of asteroids: some three or four thousand +tiny planetary bodies traveling in vast ellipses around the star. At one +time they had probably constituted a single planet, but some +unimaginable explosion far back in time had scattered the great ball +broadcast, and the largest of the resulting planetoids was now no more +than 440 miles across. In the gargantuan belt of them, many were no +bigger in diameter than the spaceship _Elephant's Child_ herself. + +When the instruments of the ship detected this belt of asteroids, +Captain Pinkham turned aside as a matter of course, to cruise through it +and let his cartographer map it, his organicus officer check it for +signs of life, and all his other crewmen turn their inquisitive eyes and +machines upon it. It was the seventh asteroid belt to be discovered by +man, if you included the one between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, +back home, incredible light-years behind.... + +No life had ever been discovered on an asteroid, except for the +vegetable-animal space-eating bacteria on Pallas. No life-- + +Until now. + + * * * * * + +Captain Pinkham headed for the tiny bit of planet, let his ship's +screens pick it up and relay its presence to the automatic recoil +engines, which slammed the _Elephant's Child_ to a stop about twelve +feet away from the knobbly slate-gray surface. The energy testers, +having come into play simultaneously with the screens, at once flashed +the green "Not Radioactive" sign; a fairly useless gesture, since a +positive reaction would have turned the ship away at an angle before it +entered the danger zone. + +The senior officer; said, "Jerry, let's take a look at that critter you +think is perched on this thing." + +The organicus officer grinned with one corner of his mouth. He pulled +down a platinum lever, and a thirty-inch screen above his control board +sprang to life. The black of space showed the bumpy planetoid like a +ball of cold lava, and seated in the center of the screen, a man in a +spacesuit. + +Captain Pinkham licked his lips. "Okay," he said, "I owe you a shot of +rye. You were right." Then he blinked his gray eyes. "My God!" he +roared. "What's a human being doing out here in System Ninety?" + +The outburst, he felt, was quite justified; in fact, he might have gone +stark raving crazy with justification. There seemed no possibility that +his space armada could have been preceded to this star system by another +from Earth. The ancient Martians might have made it this far, but their +spacesuits were nothing like those of Terra. So he and Jerry were now +staring at a hopeless absurdity. It couldn't be there. + +Pinkham leaned sideways and bellowed into the intercom. "Get in here! +Everybody! On the double!" + +The crew came running, from the engine rooms, the astrogatium and +astrolab, from the sleeping quarters and the mess hall. The ship was +gigantic; it took twenty minutes, for the ship's complement to assemble +in the captain's control hall. There were fifty-seven men, eighteen +officers. They stood in casual formation and gaped at the life-scanner's +screen. + +The spacesuited figure had not moved. + +Captain Pinkham said, "One question. Which of you gadget-happy jokers +gimmicked up the scanner on us? Who did this?" + +Nobody said anything. Only one man smiled: Lieutenant Joe Silver, a very +bright, very ambitious big cub who was on his second extragalactic +expedition and obviously had visions of earning his captain's bronze +comets within the year. Joe was a rather unpleasant young piece of beef, +thought Pink; but he wouldn't pull practical jokes. He was too bloody +serious. If he smiled, it was probably because he was enjoying the +Captain's evident bewilderment. + +"Then it isn't a joke," said Pinkham. "Three of you outside repairmen +get into your suits and bring _that_ in." He gestured at the silent +figure on the motionless little world of the scanner. "Jerry says it's +alive. Handle with care." He waved them his dismissal. + +Some twenty minutes later he watched the screen as the three crewmen +descended to the surface of the planetoid, pried loose the double anchor +which the unknown Earthman had sunk into the ball's crust to hold him +steady on the almost-gravityless world, lifted the bulky figure and +leaped upward, like thick but weightless panthers carrying their prey, +into the open air-lock. + +The spacesuited stranger had not moved in the slightest. + +Yet the scanner, which was never wrong, said that within the armor of +the suit was life. + +Pinkham sat staring at the blanked-out screen, and a queer chill began +to crawl up his neck. An old slang phrase came to his mind, and wouldn't +leave. + +How come? How come? _How come?_ + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Pink and Jerry and Joe Silver walked around and around the spacesuit. +Bill Calico, the astrogator, and Washington Daley, the senior +lieutenant, sat in front of it on stools covered with Venusian +joerg-hide, going through a routine of flippant gags that thinly +disguised their bafflement. Finally Pinkham said, "When were these suits +invented?" + +"2144," said Joe Silver. + +Bright kid, thought Pink with irritation. "Thirty-odd years ago. That's +my guess, too." + +"October 1st, 2144, is the patent date," said Joe Silver smugly. + +"Click, click, click," said Daley. "Your mind is a damn file room, +Silver. It gives me the jitters." + +Joe Silver looked at him expressionlessly. + +"I just read the date on the instruction plate," he said. + +Captain Pinkham bent down and read aloud from the nayrust plate set +into the back of the spacesuit. + +"'Bernard Patent Slugjet Suit, size 24-B patented' ... here it is. +'Instructions for reviving occupant. The man in this suit is alive if +the translucent face plate is tinted orange.'" + +"It is," said Bill Calico with eagerness. + +"'Unscrew the seven small x-screws around face plate. Depress lever Z on +right side of chest plate. Loosen gorget, shoulder pieces, pallettes, +brassarts, cuisses....'" They were following the instructions as he +read. He thought, these suits were terrific, they were the best. But you +had to have a billion dollars behind your expedition or you couldn't +afford 'em. Each one cost half as much as a regular-size moon rocket! +They shouldn't have stopped making them, though. They ought to have +tried bringing down the cost. One of these could save a man's life when +nothing else in God's universe could; and a man's life is surely worth +as much as half a moon rocket? + +The Bernard Slugjet Suit. Guaranteed to keep a guy alive for a minimum +of 250 years in free space. Guaranteed to let him emerge healthy +and--miraculously--sane, provided he was picked up within the time +limit. + +You were jetting toward the edge of the galaxy, say. Your ship ran into +trouble. A big meteor tore out your belly, or your fuel gave out, or any +of a million things happened to crack up the beautiful great spaceship +that was your vehicle and your pride and almost _you_, an extension of +yourself, an expression of your yearning to conquer the stars. So you +got into your slugjet suit and walked out an air-lock, if you had enough +warning, that is. And there you were in space. + +Your suit was actually a miniature spaceship itself; if there was land +anywhere near, you aimed for it, loosed your powerful shoulder jets, and +shot toward it. The suit had a range of about five hundred thousand +miles, which was often enough. + +But suppose it wasn't. Then you just stayed there in black space, and +you started to touch buttons in the big gloves, to pull levers on the +chest, and to activate other circuits by the sound of your voice. And +the suit became a world for you, a world that kept you healthy and sane +for a quarter of a millennium. + +Your life processes were slowed down to a pace of only a crawl and a +mumble, next door to death. Your breathing couldn't be detected. Your +heart beat six times to the hour. Drugs did it, and vapors, the +depressants of a hundred planets gathered and refined by Bernard for +his suits. + +You didn't sleep; you didn't need to. You were a slug, a worm in a +cocoon, awake in an ultra-slow-motion way. In 250 years, you aged about +fifteen. The suits were supposed to have a maximum efficiency of a +thousand years; you came out an old man at the end of that time, maybe, +but it was an even bet that you _did_ come out. + +And to keep your mind whole and unwarped, there in the immensity of +brain-shattering space, you were entertained--well and constantly. + +Three-dimensional movies were shown on your translucent face plate, so +slow that to a person with unhampered reflexes they would look like +stills. Music played to you, a low drone and buzz that to you was jazz, +classical, anything you selected. The Minute Waltz took several hours to +play in your ear. + +Body wastes and carbon dioxide were eliminated, and breathable air +released, by the same principles in use in spaceships. You were fed +intravenously, vitamins, concentrates of everything you needed were +stuck into you without your knowing it, for you lived too slowly to be +capable of pain. The temperature of your suit was even. Audiotherapy was +given you at suitable intervals. You were rescued, and came out of your +suit as well-adjusted, as balanced as you'd gone in. Maybe more so. + +Rescued? It wasn't all left to luck. The radio in your high bulbous +crest broadcast a constant S.O.S. Your suit glowed so that it could be +spotted easily, a crimson star against the blackness. Your own life +within it called to every life-scanner within 500,000 miles. + +Meanwhile, you were in a damn fine world of your own.... + +Pinkham finished reading the instructions, and walked around to the +front of the bulky suit. Bill Calico lifted off the crest, Daley removed +the helmet, Jerry and Joe Silver caught the suit as it fell away in two +sections. + +And Captain Pinkham caught the girl. + + * * * * * + +She was slim and full in the places where a woman ought to be so, and +her hair, close-cropped, was black-brown and shining. Her face was good, +damn good, bloody damn fine to a spaceman who'd been out on the ways for +a couple of years; but Pink had the happy thought--it was the first one +he had, before the shock really hit him that that this was a +_girl_--that she would have looked just as good to him on Earth. + +She wore the uniform of an organicus officer: just a bit dated, the +lapels too wide by an inch, the synthetic fabric of the jacket just a +little more clinging and revealing than the current fashion, the pants +narrow at the cuff where today's were bell-bottomed. She must have been +out here a while; not more than thirty years, though. She did not look +more than twenty-five now, and the normal life span was a hundred +and ten.... Pink snapped his queer thoughts sharply into line. What did +her age matter to him? + +She was limp in his arms, as relaxed as a sleeping kitten. Her eyes, +deep brown, were open but heavy-lidded. He half-knelt, cradling her +comfortably, as Jerry anticipated his question and said, "She's okay. +She'll be out of it in a few minutes. She's still living slower than we +are." + +Joe Silver, unaccountably across the room by the life-scanner, said, +"Hey! There's another one!" + +"Another what?" asked his senior lieutenant, Daley. + +"Another fellow--or girl--in a Slugjet. Down that direction a few +thousand miles." + +As all of them but Pink raced to the screen, the girl began to sing, +softly, musically, and very slowly. + + "_I am sick of this bucketing Lunar run + In this dirty old steel cocoon; + I'm sick of the Earth and I'm sick of the Sun + And I'm sick to death of the Moon...._" + +That was--what was the name?--the Lament of the Veteran Rocketeer, a +ballad that Pink had been singing in his grade school days. He hadn't +heard it for more than a dozen years. Probably popular when this gal +blasted off Terra. + +She stopped singing. "'Bout time you got here," she said drowsily. "I've +been waiting for months. Didn't Fawcett's crest radio reach you?" + +"Take it easy," said Pink, and told himself that was a stupid thing to +say. "Who are you? What was your expedition?" + +She blinked. "You aren't Commander Dyevis, are you? Who are you?" + +"I'm Joe Silver," said that young upstart over Pinkham's shoulder. + +"Nobody asked you," said Daley. They had left the screen, all but Jerry, +who was making course for the second speck of life in the asteroid belt. + +"This is the _Elephant's Child_, flagship of Armada Seven, 843 days out +of Terra to explore star systems 87 through 93," said Pink quietly. "We +just plucked you off an asteroid in System Ninety. This is--" _take it +easy_, he said to himself this time, "this is October 18th, 2176." + +"Holy Holmendis," said the girl, turning a little pale. "Our ship split +up her seams in November of 2158." + +Daley, the oldest of the lot at thirty-six, and the coolest spacehead of +them all, said, "May I introduce Captain John Pinkham, our leader?" +Formalities eased a shock, he knew, and helped you over the rough spots. +"I'm Lt. Washington Daley and you are--" + +"Organicus Officer Circe Smith, of Colonel Fawcett's exploratory +armada," she said automatically. + +"Fawcett!" said everyone, loudly and with amazement. + +"So he got to System Ninety," said Pink. "Every spaceman on the ways has +wondered about Fawcett for eighteen years. He vanished with two ships--" + +"She knows that, Captain," said Daley. + +"Oh. Of course." + +"Our other ship was still okay when we broke up," said O. O. Smith, +brushing her short hair back from a forehead that was wide and +intelligent. "My crest radio was on the fritz, but Fawcett's was all +right and he was supposed to call Commander Dyevis, who was cruising +down by Planet Four. At least half a dozen of us got off in Slugjet +Suits before the ship died. I guess his message never got to Dyevis." + +"Lord knows," said Pinkham. The _Elephant's Child_ shivered slightly as +her recoil engines stopped her. Jerry came over from the controls. + +"There's another one sitting outside," he said casually. + +"Maybe it's Colonel Fawcett," the girl cried eagerly. + +Jerry shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He looked at her a moment, then +turned to Pinkham. "This one has four arms," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +They sat at dinner, the eighteen officers of the _Elephant's Child_, +eating fresh vegetables and curried lamb from the hydroponics farm and +the frozen food lockers. On either side of Captain Pinkman sat O. O. +Circe Smith, of the lamented Fawcett expedition, and First Officer Ynohp +of the extinct Martian Space Navy. + +"If you Terrestrians came to Mars over one hundred years ago," Ynohp was +saying, in a clear and metallic voice that came from the lingoalter on +his chest--a tiny box which could be set to change any of nine thousand +spoken languages into any one of the others--"and at that time my people +had lost the secrets of space travel for approximately four thousand +years, this means that I have been reclining on a planetoid here for at +least 4,100 years. The probability is that it has been much longer. +Unfortunately my time recorder has long since become inoperative." + +He extended one of his four rib appendages and picked up a piece of +carrot. "Naturally I was in a cataleptic state," he went on. "As you may +know, in my race that means that all body processes are suspended _in +toto_. There is no growth and no decay. Moth and rust do not corrupt, +you might put it." + +Pink frowned momentarily. There was a false note somewhere, but he +couldn't put his finger on it. He tried to remember all he could about +the dying race of Martians. What Ynohp was saying was correct, as nearly +as he could recall, but ... he shrugged. My God! he thought, this +critter's over four thousand years old! + +Well, Circe's about forty-five. + +The hell she is. She's twenty-seven, which was her age when her ship was +wrecked, plus about one actual year of life which equals the eighteen +she was lost in the Slugjet. Twenty-eight, then, really. I'm thirty-one. +Not a bad combination. + +Hey, boy, you're a confirmed bachelor, remember? + +He chuckled. Who says so? He took a look at Circe. The prettiest +spaceman who ever came my way, he said to himself happily. + +The dinner broke up. Space etiquette demanded that he escort the Martian +to his stateroom first, for the four-armed little gray man was senior to +a mere organicus officer; when he returned to the mess hall, he found +that Joe Silver had whisked Circe away to show her the new improvements +in space drives and other technical details. + +"At least," said Bill Calico, "he said he was going to." + +Pink went off to talk to Jerry, who was a lousy substitute for a +beautiful girl. + +He found his O. O. tinkering with the life-scanner. + +"Something wrong," Jerry said through his teeth. He was a slim young +man--Pink, who stood six-three and hefted in at two hundred, would have +made two of Jerry--and his normally joyous expression was now writhed +into a frown. "The red light's not on, but the scanner's not working." + +"How d'you know?" + +"Had a hunch. Don't ask me why--unless it's that the Martian makes me +suspicious. Anyway, I tested the scanner; turned it inside and aimed it +all over the ship. Nothing doing. No life in here, according to it. So +something's the matter with it, and I'm damned if I can figure what." + +Pink said, "That means what?" + +"Means that if Fawcett or any of his men are out there, we won't know +it. We could flash right by them, or through 'em for that matter, and +never know it." + +"Nothing more serious, though?" + +"That's bad enough, isn't it?" Jerry asked him. + +"Sure, sure." Pink shook himself. "I feel--I guess _wary_ is the word." +Jerry looked a question. "Yeah," said Pinkham uncomfortably, "it's the +Martian. A nice guy and all, but he makes me wonder." + +"Four thousand years plus," nodded Jerry. + +"No, not that. I think that's possible. It's something else, son." + +"What?" + +Pink said slowly, futilely, "I don't know." He patted the O.O.'s +shoulder. "Keep at it, Jerry." He went out and walked down the long ramp +to the astrolab. Daley was there. "How's it going?" Pink asked him. + +"We aren't moving," said the lieutenant. + +"I know. I told Kinkare to put her into the same orbit as the asteroid +belt. We want to stay in the same relation to the planetoids till we +decide where to look for Fawcett." + +"I know you issued those orders, Pink. I meant we aren't in the orbit. +We're hanging in space, and the dang asteroids are shooting past us." +Daley flipped on his great banks of scanners. "See?" Bands of light were +tiny balls of inert matter, flashing by an obviously stationary +_Elephant's Child_. + +Pink jumped for the intercom. "No use," said Daley. "It's dead. I sent +Calico for Randy Kinkare." They looked at each other. "I think it's +Ynohp," said Daley. + +Pinkham took out a pad and pencil. Without saying anything, without +admitting to himself that he agreed with his officer, he put down a +number of figures. Then he said, "I left Ynohp just fourteen minutes ago +in his stateroom. I've put down the distances he'd have to travel to +reach all the things that have gone wrong since then. He could have done +it--if he was invisible, and could move at the rate of two hundred feet +per second." + +"Maybe he can." + +"You know Martians have the same rate of speed, roughly speaking, as +Terrestrians." + +"And if Ynohp isn't a Martian at all?" + +"Washington, did you ever see a Martian?" + +"Yeah." + +"Could anything in the universe make itself look like a four-foot-tall, +four-armed, slate-gray man with pink eyes?" + +"I don't know," said Daley. "Maybe there's something in System Ninety +that can. Hypnotism, matter transference, fluidity or a lot of other +facts could explain it." + +Kinkare and Bill Calico came in on the run. + +Their news didn't surprise Pink greatly. + +The space drive was out of commission. + +They were adrift in the void. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +The intercom, the space drive, the life-scanner. So far apart that one +man _couldn't_ have put them out of whack. No one connected in any way +with the others. Ynohp snoring gently in his stateroom. Pinkham, Daley, +Silver, Kinkare, Jerry Jones, Calico, and the girl, all gathered in the +Captain's quarters, tense, baffled, and all talking at once. + +And out of the hubbub, one clear sweet voice saying something that +didn't make sense and yet electrified Pink as if he'd put his hand on a +lighted cigar.... + +"Maybe it's the space giants?" + +"Shut up!" bawled Pinkham. The officers turned toward him, brows +lifting, mouths still open. "Now," he said quietly, "Circe--Miss +Smith--what did you say?" + +"Space giants," she repeated "I don't think they exist, but I certainly +saw something." + +"Give it to us slow," said Daley. + +"Well, a couple of times while I was anchored to the asteroid, watching +tri-di movies, I had the impression that something enormous was floating +just beyond my face plate, watching me. Of course I was slowed down so +far that it must have taken me an hour to register the fact, and another +hour or two to flick my eyes up away from the movies. What was a second +to me was at least that long. But just once I got a clear view of +something incredible. It vanished almost at once." + +"What was it?" + +"A very big man, naked, bald, with eyes like fires. That's the only way +I can describe him. He looked humanoid, except he was so big." + +"How big?" + +"I can't tell and hate to make a guess--but at least a thousand feet. Of +course I hadn't anything to compare him with." + +"Wait a minute," said Randy Kinkare, the assistant pilot, voice reeking +with unbelief. "How could you see through an opaque face plate?" + +"It's not opaque," said Joe Silver officiously. "It's translucent from +without and transparent from within. I took a look at it this +afternoon." + +"Space giants," groaned someone. "Oh, Lord!" + +"We can't discount it," said Pink, realizing that he was doing just +that, but refusing to disbelieve Circe. Illusion? Not a lie, surely? +"She wasn't drugged, after all. She was in full control of senses that +were merely slowed down." + +There was a discomfortable silence. + +Intercom, space drive, life-scanner. Maybe other machinery by this time. +Sabotage in such a clever way that no one of the highly skilled officers +and technicians could discover how it was done, what was wrong. Space +giants? Ah, come on, Pink! + +Ynohp. Something wrong with him, some flaw in his looks? No, he was +Martian in every oversize pore. Some anachronism? + +Hey! Anachronism. Pink's mind fished up the dictionary definition. An +error in chronology by which events are misplaced in regard to each +other.... + +He had it. + +He got to his feet, motioned Jerry and Wash Daley to go with him. They +congregated outside the door, as further talk broke out inside his +quarters. He said urgently, "Remember what Ynohp said about his +cataleptic state? 'Moth and rust do not corrupt.' He said it as if it +were a quotation." + +"It is," said Daley. "More or less word for word it's from the King +James version of the Bible." + +"Dated, if I remember correctly, about 1611 A.D.?" + +"Yes." + +"At which date the Martians had been without space flight for about +3,600 years. At which date, further, Ynohp claims to have been sitting +on an asteroid for about 4,000-plus years." + +"Coincidence?" asked Jerry. + +Pink asked, "Do you think so?" + +"Hell," said Jerry, "no." + +"Let's go look at his space suit," said Daley urgently. They ran down +the corridor, shoving for the lead. + +Ten minutes later they sat back on their heels and stared at the +interior of the suit. + +Rust had corrupted here, or at any rate decay; the Martian steel, +ancient and harder than any known metal, was worn to a papery shell, and +in many places tiny holes had eroded clear through the suit. + +"No man or Martian or anything I know except the space-eating bacteria +of Pallas could have lived in that suit, cataleptic state or not." Pink +looked around at his friends. "_What in the name of heaven have we +brought into the ship?_" + +Then the three were racing for the "Martian's" stateroom. They burst in, +and found that now it was empty of life. + +They stood, indecisive, just outside. Pinkham's gaze went to the door, +on which, as was the custom, a hastily-printed card had been placed with +the officer's name upon it. He read it. Then he blinked. + +"Look," he said, gesturing. + +"What about it?" + +The card blared its secret, its pun, at them. + +Y N O H P. + +"Read it backwards," said Pinkham.... + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"None of you thought to look at the Martian spacesuit when we'd removed +it?" asked Pink. The others shook their heads. They were all in his +quarters again. + +"Neither did you, Captain," said Joe Silver. "You were as busy looking +at the Martian as we were." + +"True enough," admitted Pinkham. "Well, the thing to do first is radio +the _Diogenes_ and the _Cottabus_ to stand by for trouble." He lit a +cigarette. "If the radio hasn't been tampered with," he said. "Silver, +go tell Sparks to start sending to them. _Diogenes_ is down by Planet +Five, and _Cottabus_ heading for Four. Tell them to look for us +somewhere in the planetoid orbit. They'll have to come in on the radio +beam. I don't suppose we can expect them for a day." Joe Silver gave +Circe's arm an encouraging squeeze--they'd got on together pretty damn +fast--and started out. "And instruct them not to pick up anybody, off +asteroids or planets or out of the ether. I don't care if they see their +grandmothers floating outside a spaceport." + +The thought of his armada joining him made Pink feel more at ease. No +sense to that, of course, but three ships are better than one, if only +for moral support. "Daley," he said then, "lower the Mutiny Gates." + +"You think it's wise?" + +"If I didn't, I wouldn't do it," he snapped. It would be the first time +that a mutiny gate had been used in more than forty years. All the large +ships were equipped with them, great plastikoid barriers which operated +from the captain's room, sealing off the officer's sector from the rest +of the ship. They had been made standard equipment in the old days, +before screenings became really effective and the danger of +psychopathic trouble in the crew grew negligible. Now they were of +theoretical use in case of boarding by alien life, or of damage to a +large segment of the hull ... but they had never actually been brought +into play in Pinkham's lifetime. "Drop 'em," he repeated. + +Daley pulled open a drawer, tugged at an unused switch, which creaked +protestingly; then the brief alarm clang that heralded the fall of the +forty gates sounded in the distance. "If he's beyond the gates," the +senior lieutenant said heavily, "the crew may be done for." + +"No more than if the gates were up," Pink told him impatiently. + +"You're projecting," said Daley. "How do we know the nature of the +beast? He may mop 'em up in a fit of pique at being shut out there." + +"The chances are he's on our side of the walls," said Bill Calico. +"Nothing out there of much importance to him. The hydroponics farm, +history room, library, and so on." + +"We don't know what's important to him," said Daley. "We don't know what +in blazes he wants aboard. We don't know a doggone thing!" + +Silver returned. "I heard the mutiny gates go," he said questioningly. + +"Are you all armed?" asked Pink. They nodded. "Then let's sweep the +place," he said, glancing from one grim face to another. "Pick up the +other officers as we go, and make a chain of inspection that he can't +bust through. We'll corner him sooner or later. Then we'll see if atomic +pistols will settle his hash." He looked at Circe. "You'd better stay +here," he said. + +"I agree," said Randy Kinkare suddenly. "And you'd best lock her +in--from the outside." + +"Why?" blazed the girl. + +"We picked you up on an asteroid too," said the assistant pilot. + +Pink, restraining himself from bashing Kinkare in the nose, said +reluctantly, "You're right. We can't trust any stranger till we find out +what's going on. Sorry, Circe." + +"I suppose you're right." She sat down, a little flushed, eyes snapping. +"Have I the right to ask for protection? I'm just as unsafe as you are, +whether you believe me or not. Please leave Lieutenant Silver to guard +me." + +He couldn't refuse. He nodded curtly to Joe Silver, who looked too damn +smug for words. So they'd paired off already? So much for his quick +dream of marrying a spacegirl.... + +It had never happened to him before, though, and it was a hard dream to +give up, all the more so for its abrupt flowering in a heart that +heretofore had held nothing but love for the silence of the spaceways. +John Pinkham, rugged, handsome, all a woman could want, had been +dedicated to his profession since he was five; and many a wench had +found that out to her disappointment. Now ... oh, well. Maybe there +wasn't room for space and a girl in his heart, after all. And maybe she +wasn't what she seemed. + +He led them into the corridor and locked the quarters behind him. + +Around the first bend and up the first ramp they found Second Watch +Officer Wright. They knew him by his chubby build and his uniform. They +couldn't recognize his head, even when they found it three minutes +later. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +They gathered in Sparks' radio room. That was due to the simple fact +that, aside from themselves, only Sparks was alive on this side of the +mutiny gates. The other officers were scattered--in the most grisly +sense of the word--all over the place. + +"Seven of us, if Silver's still alive," said Daley. "Eight with the +girl. Why us? He could easily have attacked us in a body." Five of the +dead officers had been found in a heap, just-used pistols in their rigid +hands. Atomic force was obviously useless against the thing from the +asteroid. + +Pink said, fighting nausea, "All the senior officers are alive. We can +run the _Elephant's Child_ without the eleven who died. Maybe that's +why. Maybe we have to be preserved to carry this monster wherever he +wants to go." + +"Logical," said Jerry. "He'll have to be pretty persuasive, though. I +hope he knows that." + +Sparks said, "The radio's working. I had an answer from the _Cottabus_ +that she's heading this way. _Diogenes_ hasn't replied; she must be +further off." + +"Evidently he doesn't care if the radio works," said Calico. + +"Or else he wants the whole armada assembled," added Daley. + +"I could use a drink," blurted Kinkare. "You got anything in this place, +Sparks?" + +"Gin on the shelf," said the radioman, pointing. + +Kinkare picked up the bottle. "You always leave the cap off?" + +"No! Somebody's been at it." + +"Where is he?" asked Pink in a whisper. + +"What, Captain?" Kinkare stopped the bottle halfway to his lips. + +"Where the devil is the brute? We combed the place. He can't have got +through the mutiny gates. He can't have slipped past our chain. Where +the hell is he?" + +"Maybe disguised as one of us," said Daley slowly. "He isn't a Martian, +but he imitated one to the last pore. Why couldn't he imitate us?" + +"Well, _I'm_ me," said Kinkare, and put the bottle to his mouth. Then he +dropped it, screeching. Pinkham stared at him and saw his upper lip +turned violent, hideous scarlet. Blood began to drip to the rug. The +skin and flesh of his lip had dissolved as though sprayed with acid. + +Kinkare fell to his knees, covering his face with both arms. The others +sprang to help him, Sparks reaching for the medicine chest; but Pink +snatched up the gin bottle. What the hell? Acid? Or-- + +From the square spout poured a gush of smoke, writhing sinuous in the +bright indirect light of the small room; it coalesced, clotted into a +body. Impossible, brain-boggling, an unreal fantasy amid the most +concrete achievements of man, the thing swelled into solidity before the +Captain's staring eyes. + +He was eight feet tall, three broad; his eyes were brilliant vermilion, +his swollen head was egg-bald, and the expression on his coarse features +was at once lecherous, evil, savage and cunning. He was stark naked, +completely humanoid. And he had come out of the bottle. + +A voice boomed from him like a vocalizing cannon. "I object to anyone +trying to drink me!" he roared at them. + +In the reeling chaos of all his beliefs gone wild, Pinkham had one sane +thought, and yelled it as fast and short as he could. "Don't shoot! For +God's sake, don't shoot!" Then, as Calico and Jerry held their pistols +partly raised, he said urgently, "We'll only blast each other. Remember +this thing's invulnerable." + +The pistols were holstered with reluctance. The five pale men--Kinkare +still thrashed in agony on the floor--gaped at the apparition, which +said, "I am Ynohp the Martian." Gargantuan laughter rocked him. "I am +your god, Earthmen. Bow down to me!" + +"Damfido," said Jerry, which was evidently all he could manage to get +out of "Damned if I do." + +"Drop your weapons on the floor," said the being. + +Pink drew his gun; casually he sighted on the great head above him, and +risked one shot, which had all the effect of a sunbeam; then he let the +pistol fall. The others discarded theirs. The naked creature reached out +a foot and herded the weapons into a corner. "You can't hurt me with +them," he said, "but you might try suicide, and I need you. Take heart, +mortals," he said, laughing, "you may get out alive!" + +Then he dwindled and his lines blurred into ephemera and he slid out +through the door, which was open perhaps an inch. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +"But by all that's holy," said Daley (it was an hour later, and the +eight were gathered in the control room, Kinkare now bandaged and +relieved of pain, but unable to speak), "if he's a brain-picker, and got +his lingo out of our minds, who did he get 'take heart mortals' from?" +The lieutenant glanced at Pinkham. "It may seem little, but it's +minutiae that will give us clues to his nature, and therefore how to +fight him. Take heart, mortals, after all. Who talks like that?" + +"You're right," said Pink wearily. "It's little things we've got to look +for. Like, evidently, gin bottles." + +"Item," said Jerry, who was eating a sandwich. "He's composed of +something alien to any life we know. Gas? I doubt it. Atomic shock would +disseminate gas. Are his molecules loose and do they edge aside for +obstacles, compress together when he wants to shrink, and so on? +Possible. But anyhow, he's different--and so far as we know, +invulnerable." + +"How did he gimmick the guns?" asked Calico, a note of desperation in +his voice. "We picked them up as soon as he'd gone, and they wouldn't +fire." + +"Same way he gimmicked the intercom, the life-scanner, the space drive. +Known hereafter as Unknown Method One." + +"Another item," went on Jerry. "He talks English without using a +lingoalter. Thus, probably, he's telepathic. 'Take heart mortals' he +might have grubbed out of somebody's subconscious." + +"It adds up to this," said Pink. "We're helpless against him. Granting +this, I say let's go get him." + +It made no sense, it was the gesture of fools in love with death or of +madmen battling their own futility; but every officer there shouted, +"Right!" Except for Joe Silver. + +"I say, sit tight and wait," he said. "Something will happen. There's no +use committing suicide." + +"If he wants us alive, and we can't fight him, I think we're better off +dead," said Jerry through his teeth. + +"Hell. Where there's life there's hope." + +"I suppose you're right," said Pink slowly. His muscles ached, his hands +grasped ceaselessly at the air; he was a man of action, his desire for +combat throttled by incapability. "Twenty-some hours before the other +ships get here. If our deductions are on the beam, he won't do anything +till then. He wants the whole armada." + +Then, with a snarl of static, the intercom came to life. + +At first they heard a jumble of voices. "What's wrong?" "Nothing +works...." "Are all the officers dead?" It was the crew, beyond the +barriers of the mutiny gates, evidently trying to get into +communication. Over and over one voice said, "Hello, Captain Pinkham. +Come in, Captain Pinkham." + +Pink took two strides and flipped the switch of the visiograph. Tuning +it first to one crew station and then another, he told them succinctly +what bad happened. "Don't panic, for God's sake. The mutiny gates are +for your protection. If they work, you may be able to do something +later, regardless of what happens to us." + + * * * * * + +Their somber faces looked out of the screen at him. "Let us in, +Captain," pleaded one big repairman. "We'll mob the critter." + +"No use, Jackson. Stand by." He turned the dial of the visiograph into +the officers' section, scanned one room after another. No alien being +appeared. "I wonder if he's in here with us?" said Pink half-aloud. + +Jerry came to him. "I have an idea," he said quietly. Then he whispered +at length into Pinkham's ear. + +"It won't work. He knows what he's doing." + +"How do we know that? If he needs us, he's ignorant of spaceships. Look +at the intercom--he turned it off, by some means, then turned it on when +he found out what it was. The space drive must have been easy to guess +at; likewise the life-scanner. But the intercom's a lot of complex +machinery that only adds up to a television-telephone communication +system. However he snarls the stuff, it's instantaneous and simple for +him to do. I think he just took a crack at everything that looked +important. Now he's experimenting, learning the ship, finding out what +he threw out of joint. Obviously he doesn't give a damn if we talk to +the crew!" + +"You could be right." + +"So if I do what I want to, it'll confuse hell out of him. It may give +us an advantage. And we'll certainly learn something." + +"It's worth a try." Pink looked at Jerry, his closest friend. "I'll +send Silver to do it," he said. + +Jerry shook his lean head. "This is my baby, Pink." Then he opened the +door and went out, closing it behind him. + +Pinkham said levelly, "Daley, come here." He whispered the plan into his +lieutenant's ear. Daley said admiringly, "Good deal. And I think that's +sense--he can't know much about the ship. I'll bet he was hiding in that +bottle, casing Sparks's equipment and learning how to operate it. The +quick look he got at the rest of us on our jobs before he started +playing hob must have given him the barest, scantiest idea of things. So +Jerry's notion could work." + +"Or it could blow up," said Pink dismally. "Go tell the others. Whisper +it, in case our guest is in here." He struggled briefly with his deepest +feelings. "Don't tell Circe. We can't be sure of her yet." + +"Roger." Daley left him alone at the intercom. Pinkham set the dial to +show the large room toward which Jerry was making his way.... + +Somewhere beyond their ken, the incredible beast from the void made +another decision, or tried another experiment; and the life-scanner +flickered into working order again. Joe Silver saw it first. Its screen +blinked, then its alarm buttons glowed vividly. Without the ship, at a +vast distance but approaching rapidly, were an untold number of organic +entities, life-sources that reacted upon the scanner like approaching +aircraft on a radar set. They could be spaceships, slugjet suits, or +anything that contained the intangible thing called life. And the sister +ships of the _Elephant's Child_ were still too far away to register. + +"Great Jupiter!" bellowed Joe Silver, pointing. "What now?" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +O. O. Jerry Jones crept along the last ramp. Why the devil was he +skulking like this? Habit, he grinned ruefully to himself; the habit of +primitive man who crouched and slunk in the presence of danger, no +matter what kind. + +And the old preservation instinct was also giving him all sorts of +reasons to knock this silly business off, and go back to the protection, +however illusory, of the control room. For instance, said the sly +instinct, if this alien is telepathic, as you so neatly proved to +yourself, then doesn't he know all that you and your pals know about a +spaceship? + +Shut up, Jerry told himself. I was wrong. He can't be telepathic, or he +wouldn't bother to keep us alive after he's combed our brains. + +"Couldn't he have some physical use for you all?" said the instinct. + +Get thee behind me, Satan, he growled in his mind. + +He opened the door of the room he was seeking. + +Where to start? One wall was banked with books; never mind them. Another +wall was covered with strange-looking projections, tubes and spouts and +wheels and levers, behind a long table of plastikoid. There? Good +enough. + +He had a momentary pang as he picked up a spanner from the rack of tools +by the door.... + +Then he was across the room and smashing wildly at levers, spouts, wall +tanks, faucets; beating metal into scrap, crushing shining aluminum to +scarred uselessness; he did not rest his arm until the whole wall was a +ruin of beaten metal and broken glass. Then he turned his attention to +the third wall. + +Here was a giant turntable, rack on rack of shellacked alloy discs, +mysterious-appearing charts and cabalistic signs. These he wrecked as +methodically and ruthlessly as he had the first, but now there were +tears glistening in his eyes. He ended the destruction with a moan of +sorrow. + +He paused to snap on the intercom. Pink's worry-lined face appeared. +"How'm I doing?" Jerry asked his captain. + +"Great so far. Calico is crying like a child." + +"I have news for you," Jerry said. "So am I." Then he turned to the last +wall. Before it spread a long array of mechanical devices: large boxes +on spindly legs, with glassed tops and brilliant colors splashed across +their surfaces; taller, narrower cases with crooked levers and +viewplates on which were small designs and words. There was a kind of +double cage with tiny cubes therein. There were great wheels with many +numbers. Almost all were attached to the wall by electric cords, though +some were entirely mechanical and others ran on self-generated power. +Jerry began at one end and passed down the line, shattering glass and +snapping wooden legs with his spanner. + +He had almost finished when the door burst open and the tall humanoid +form of the stranger appeared. A blast of rage almost lifted Jerry off +his feet. The being came at him, its motion a flowing tigerish pounce. +The spanner was twitched from his hand flung across the room. He backed +against the wall, bloating with fear in spite of himself. The creature +swelled above him. + +"Whoreson knave!" it bawled angrily. "What are you doing?" + +"Making d-d-damn sure you don't take the ship anywhere," said Jerry, +croaking a little. "Now t-try and run it!" + +He was suddenly lifted off his feet and dangled helplessly a yard off +the floor. "Fix them," snarled the alien thing into his face. He had +time to realize that its grip was extremely powerful, whatever its +molecules and atoms might be made of. "Reconstruct them, or you die." + +"Don't be an idiot," Jerry told it, making up his mind that he was as +good as dead and might as well go out like a man. "There isn't a single +spare part aboard for any of these devices." He managed a sick grin. "If +you're so smart, you _know_ I'm telling the truth." + +Pinkham called from the screen of the intercom. "That's true, +whatever-you-are. Those things are useless to you now." + +The alien took Jerry by the chest, wrapping one hand around his back to +do it; slowly it exerted pressure, and Jerry realized that it must have +elongated the hand enormously to encompass him so. He also knew that his +rib cage would shortly collapse. He shrieked. + +Then Circe, the girl from the asteroid, was gazing from the screen, +horrified. "No!" she screamed at the being. "You can't kill him for only +wrecking the--" + +"Shut up!" squealed Jerry. + +"The recreation room!" she finished. + +Abruptly he was dropped to the floor, where he lay gasping, massaging +his bruised sides. The thing above him said, "Recreation room?" + +"Sure. The soda fountain, the phonograph, and the pinball machines and +games." + +Then Pinkham had encircled her throat with one arm, clamped his other +hand on her mouth, and dragged her back. But the damage was done. + +The alien gave another of those mirthless peals of bull's laughter. +"Clever," he said. "Oh, clever little man." Then he plucked Jerry off +the floor once more. + +_I'm going to die now...._ + +The brute set him on his feet, twisted him toward the door, and gave him +a brisk, forceful pat on the backside that sent him staggering. He +gained his balance and ran into the corridor. It was more humiliating +than had he been slain. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +"It didn't work, but it taught us a few things." + +"You're right. It taught us that this bitch can't be trusted. Either +she's in league with _it_, a sister or brother of it, or else she's so +stupid that she's a menace to our survival." + +"Oh, you blithering jackass!" said Circe indignantly to her fellow +organicus officer. "How could I guess what your plan was? Nobody told +me. All I knew was that you were going to be murdered for doing a +perfectly harmless--" + +"She's right," said Joe Silver. "We ought to have told her." + +"Shut up," said Pinkham savagely. "Any more of that and I'll figure +she's corrupted you or addled your brains, and I'll toss you into the +brig, Silver." + +"You try it you pigsqueak," shouted Silver, who measured half an inch +over Pink's six-foot-three. "Captain or not, this is a grade A emergency +and we're all needed. I'll pull the Mars Convention on you if you try to +shut me up." + +"He's right," said Daley to the captain. "Mars Convention says that in a +grade A emergency any officer above Second Watch is equal to the captain +or commander, Pink." Then he turned to Silver, grinned, and lashing out +with a hand the size of a spaniel, caught his under-lieutenant on the +ear. It knocked Silver sprawling. "That's for slanging at your +superiors," he said quietly. "And the Mars Convention says I can do +_that_." + +Silver got up and blinked. He seemed dazed and for the first time in his +space life, uncertain of himself. He looked at the others and recognized +himself as a minority here. "Okay," he said, "okay, I'm outvoted. But I +say the girl is only suspect, by no means convicted of anything but +ignorance of the plan." + +Kinkare, unable to speak through his bandaged mouth, nodded strongly. +Circe glared defiance at Pinkham. "Next time, for God's sake tell me +what you have in mind," she said. "Not that I'd let you sacrifice poor +Jerry, anyway." + +"Women," said Jerry. "Women on a ship. Jonahs. Sentimental imbeciles." + +"I'll knock your teeth down your scrawny throat," began Joe Silver, and +"Quiet!" roared Pinkham. "We're quarreling like kids. What's to be done +now!" + +"I was saying it taught us a few things," said Daley. "Let's figure them +out. The thing's evidently not telepathic. It can't run a spaceship, or +it wouldn't have been so worked up over the ruin of the soda fountain, +which must have looked pretty vital to its inexperienced eyes. It's +definitely tangible, for it picked Jerry up." + +"It also murdered eleven men," said Pink. "That's tangible enough too." + +"It's damned intelligent, for it must have spotted Jerry on the +intercom, which means it was working it. It also speaks a very funny +breed of English. 'Whoreson knave,' for example. Nobody here ever called +anyone that." + +"Whoreson knave is Shakespearean," said Jerry. + +"And, to finish what I've deduced, the monster is as strong as a couple +of men, at least." He grinned at Jerry. "Not that you needed me to +deduce that." + +Randy Kinkare was staring at the life-scanner screen. Now he beat a +tattoo on the arm of his chair, pointed so that they all looked. The +flecks of light that indicated organic life had thronged in toward the +ship; not so numerous as the stars, they were still too many to count. +One object on the screen was large now, large enough to be identified. +It approached the ship at a slow but steady rate, and they gasped as +they saw it was another of the human-like figures. + +"His brothers," said Pinkham. "That must be their natural form, then." + +It grew and grew. It seemed it must now be touching the scanner's +outside cell; but no, it grew even greater. At last it could not be seen +in its entirety, then only its face showed. It was a hideous face, +twisted with sardonic malice. The face grew. When it stopped, only one +enormous eye filled the screen. + +Jerry cleared his throat. "Do you know what that means?" he asked. "It +means that, at a conservative estimate, the critter is--" + +"Go on," said Daley impatiently, when Jerry's silence had lengthened +intolerably. + +"It must be at least one thousand feet tall," said the O. O. + +There was a long, unbroken stillness, a hush of horror and disbelief in +the control room. + +Finally Circe said slowly, "I think I'm going to faint." + +And she did. + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The long-unused armaments room was half the width of the ship away. They +went toward it silently, seven men and a girl, praying that their +visitor would not meet them or spot their furtive advance on the +intercom. They slunk into the gunroom and Pink, coming last, ran the +heavy emergency bolt across the door behind him. + +The armaments officer was dead, of course. Pink said quietly, "Who knows +the principles of these weapons?" Daley and Joe Silver raised their +hands. "Activate the viewers, then." + +Two walls darkened and became the silver-flecked night of space; it was +as if they had become suddenly transparent. Half a dozen of the +void-giants showed near the _Elephant's Child_, hovering or slowly +drifting around the bow of the ship. + +"Now," said the captain, "if only our friend in the bottle has left us +our guns--train 'em on those monstrosities and fire every forward +battery simultaneously." + +The lieutenants, seated in foam-chairs behind the double banks of the +gun controls, manipulated instruments that were very like the sights on +common atom-pistols. Thin blue lines moved across the reflected picture +of the space beyond the ship's nose, steadied and centered on the +nearest giants. Silver glanced at Daley, who said, "Count o' three, +Joe." + +Every man leaned forward, scowling at the screens. The nearest +space-soarer squinted full in their faces, as though he could actually +see them as they were scanning him. Coincidence, but--Pink shuddered. + +"One," said Daley. "Two." + +The _Elephant's Child_ rocked wildly up and back as thirty platinum +guns, the heaviest type in the known universe, fired their +hell-projectiles--great shells whose inconceivable destructive power was +released by the splitting of the curium atom. In flight, the ship would +have absorbed the tremendous recoil automatically; stationary as she +was, it bucked her over like a blown leaf. + +The shells, set to explode at the very closest range that safety +permitted, flashed upon the twin screens like bursting suns. Human eyes +looking directly at such a bombardment would have crisped in their +sockets; even on the screens their glare was too bright for comfort. + +The men blinked, peered sharply for signs of the effect on the giants. + +Pink felt disappointment, so biting and gut-curdling that he nearly +vomited. For at first the shells seemed to have had little effect except +to hurl the giants back a mile or so from the ship. Then, as they slowly +surged forward toward it again, he saw that they had not escaped whole. + +One lacked an arm; another had, half his head blown away; a third +drifted in without the lower half of his torso. The expressions of their +bronze-yellow faces were not of pain, however, but only of rage. + +"Hey!" bellowed Calico. "We nicked 'em up, anyway!" + +"Look again," said Daley morosely, standing from his foam-chair. "Look +at the head of the far left skunk." + +He who had lost half his cranium was slowly regenerating it, the brow +and cheek pressing outward to form new firm outlines, a missing eye +gradually emerging from the bloodless tatters of the old socket. Pink +said, "Well." He took a deep breath. "Well, that's that. Let's all get +out and plink at them with bean-shooters. It'll do as much harm." All +the giants were reconstituting their lost parts. + +Now one monster, floating right up to the ship, wrapped his +five-hundred-feet-long arms around it and gave it a shake. It was as if +a man had rattled a box full of beetles. The officers of the _Elephant's +Child_, who had ridden through the bucking of the tremendous explosion, +were unprepared for this movement, for they had risen from their deep +seats. They sprawled across the room, smashing up against the wall with +bone-jarring thumps. Pinkham found himself entangled with Circe Smith in +a pretzel of arms and legs that would under other circumstances have +been ridiculous but pleasurable. Fearing for her safety, he grasped her +around the waist; she yielded to him a moment, then struggled back and +stood up. Was her face flushed with indignation, fright, or--? He got to +his own feet. The giant had released the ship. + +"We are chastened," murmured Jerry, feeling a bruised shin. + +"And now what?" asked Joe Silver. "Ordinary weapons are as much use to +us as spitballs." He sat down. "Let's figure out what else to try. +Somewhere there's an answer." + +They all sat down, Pink said, "Remember Wolf 864?" + +"Sure," said Daley, who had been on that expedition with Pinkham when +they were young cubs out of jetschool. "Friendly natives, kind of +vegetable-animal life, and we murdered half of them unintentionally. We +had to get out and never go back." + +"How?" asked Circe. "How did you kill them?" + +"Germs. The common ordinary non-toxic germs we carry in our systems all +the time. It was a massacre--and of a queer, sweet kind of beast. They +had no tolerance for our microbes." + +"I volunteer to find the alien and breathe in his face," said Jerry. +"Somebody hand me an onion," he added. + +The conversation went on. It grew aimless to Pink, a bunch of boys +whistling by a graveyard, eight prisoners speculating on their escape +when they had no real knowledge of their jailer. He fiddled with the +intercom, saw that the crew had gathered by the mutiny gates and were +waiting tensely, puny weapons in their hands. He spoke a few words of +encouragement to them. 57 men--whom he hated to see die. Somehow he had +to save them. + +It was about half an hour afterwards that he first discovered he was +breathing too shallowly. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"What is it?" asked Circe. Her lovely face was a trifle pallid. "I feel +odd--and you all look pale." + +Then it struck Pink. None of the others, even Daley, had recognized what +was happening. He did not dare waste a second in telling them. He tore +the door open and leaped into the corridor. + +Deliberately he tried to draw as much oxygen into his lungs as he could. +It was growing rarer every instant; but never mind trying to conserve +it--the life of everyone aboard depended on his reaching the +atmospheria. For the air in the spaceship was rapidly degenerating, +becoming unbreathable as what remained of the good stuff was inhaled and +thrown off as useless gases.... + +Either the atmospheric system had gone on the blink by itself, he +thought, which was a hell of a long shot and too much of a coincidence, +or else the alien, experimenting, had turned it off by accident. + +Maybe the brute didn't need oxygen. Of course he didn't! His brothers +outside sure didn't have any. Then, if he were independent of it, but +could stand living in it, the probabilities were that he didn't breathe +at all; that his metabolism was geared to ignore the elements in which +he lived. + +Just possibly he was taking this way to kill them off in a particularly +fiendish fashion. + +Silently Pink cursed the architect who had designed the _Elephant's +Child_ with the armaments room in the bow and the atmospheria back near +the crew's sector, a thousand feet of passageways off. Every door he +flung open took another bit of strength from his aching limbs. As he +passed a mirror, he had a glimpse of his face. His face was flushed now, +the grim-set lips were bluish, his eyes seemed to bulge from his head. + +He began breathing through his mouth. It may have been imagination, but +he thought the air had a foul taste, like a sea full of putrid fish. + +Pink fell to his knees. Abruptly his strength had waned to almost +nothing. He was horrified to realize how swiftly the air was going bad. +He had to get to the system! He struggled up, staggered forward like a +drunk. His heart, pounding wildly a moment before, now seemed to be +slowing, weakening. + +He found himself singing.... + + "_Blast off at two, jet down at three + On the dead dry dusty sphere + What sort of a life is this for me, + A veteran rocketeer?_" + +Great God, was he crazy? Singing, shouting the words to that old song +that Circe had brought back to his mind. Using up what amounted to his +last drops of energy and air. God, God, help me, he thought wildly; make +me shut up. But the maddened outer part of his brain kept him singing. + + "_I, who have seen the flame-dark seas, + Canals like great raw scars, + And the claret lakes and the crimson trees + In the rich red soil of Mars!_" + +Then he fell, and this time he could not get up. + +He would lie here and die, horribly, gasping for breath where there was +nothing to breathe but death. The mind that had made him sing, that had +thought of Circe longingly and of what he must do to save her and all +his friends, that blacked out, fell into a pit of ebony walls and ink at +the bottom, blackness and nothing left anywhere.... + + * * * * * + +Somewhere deep in his skull, some unknown cranny blazed with the light +of knowledge. He had only a few yards to go. He had to make it. This +knowledge crept out and through his body, raised cold swollen hands and +made them grasp at a wall, forced the feet of this dead man to scrabble +for purchase on the floor of the passage. Pinkham knew that he was +moving, but it was as if he were sitting on a distant planet and knowing +it; there was no realization that this was he, Captain Pinkham, clawing +upward and shoving himself on. He looked at himself curiously, rather +proud and a little contemptuous. What a fool, what a damn fool, he +thought. + +Here was a door. The half-blind thing that was Pink groped for the +handle, recognizing dimly that if this were not the atmospheria, then it +was all over. + +He opened the door and fell at full length on the carpet. Instinct +rolled him over and hauled him to his knees, and he said admiringly and +far away on that planet of death, By God, this is a man! Through a red +haze he saw that he was in the first of the two small rooms that made +up the atmospheria. He lunged forward, falling, jerked convulsively +upward, plunged down a mile and smashed his face into the carpet, felt +pain that for a moment brought him out of his stupor. He was making for +the master switch that controlled the nitrogen-oxygen-ozone-etcetra that +poured continuously through the great ship when all was well. From a +great distance he could see that the switch was shoved up; only by +breaking a steel band of superb tensility could the alien creature have +pushed that switch up, for Pink carried the key to the band on his +master ring, hanging at his belt. It looked like viciousness, either of +knowledge that this was the humans' finish, or of ignorance flaring into +anger. What a _beast_.... + +He gathered himself like a mortally wounded lion. He launched his +perishing frame at the switch, hands clawed to drag it down to the +normal position. + +He could not feel whether he even touched the wall, for his senses were +obliterated. He lay on his face and knew that he would not get up again. + +Idly, he wondered whether he had managed to reach the switch. + +Then the final flame of intelligence winked out, and it was night and +unrelieved blackness, and he fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Jerry blinked. He opened his eyes and blinked again. + +Had Pink made it to the atmospheria? + +He must have, for the air was sweet and normal once more. So either Pink +or Joe Silver had saved them. The others had all dropped along the way; +he had passed Daley's motionless form some yards back there--now he +looked, and saw the senior lieutenant sitting up against the wall. + +Jerry rubbed his forehead gingerly. What a headache! + +By the time he managed to stand, shakily, Joe Silver had appeared in +front of him. Before Jerry could ask questions, the big man said +hoarsely, "Must have been the captain. _I_ passed out before I made the +door." He shook his own head, which evidently ached too. "The blasted +door is now locked. I can't get in." + +The three of them went toward the atmospheria, Calico and Sparks +following slowly. Before they reached it, the door opened and the alien +thing emerged, stooping to clear the lintel. In its tree-thick arms lay +Pinkham, apparently lifeless, his head dangling. + +"Aside, mortals," the beast mouthed at them, and added, grotesquely, +"goddammit!" They dropped back, it passed them and turned a corner and +vanished. "Wait," said Daley urgently, "don't follow it yet." He +switched on the passage intercom screen. "We'll spy on it with this. If +Pink's alive, we mustn't anger the brute." + +Tense, they watched the image of the stranger as it prowled through the +ship, carrying their chief. It passed Randy Kinkare, and they saw him +shrink away, a noise of terror gurgling in his gullet. The lipless +Kinkare had reason to be afraid. + +The giant took Pinkham into his own quarters and laid him on a +foam-couch. Then it sat down in an angle of the wall, and its gruesomely +human-like body swelled until it occupied much of the free space in the +cabin. + +"To scare him if he wakes," breathed Bill Calico. + +"Isn't it frightful enough?" asked Jerry. "I have an idea: if the +Rabelaisian types outside are at their normal size, which seems logical, +then this one may be uncomfortable, having to go around all compressed +to eight feet." + +"Could be ... let's advance," said Daley. "We'll wait just outside +Pink's door. Then if it tries anything--" + +"Yeah?" + +"We'll make a protest," finished Daley. "Somehow, we'll make a strong +protest." + +They left the screen, a few seconds before Captain Pinkham groaned and +opened his eyes. + +The alien regarded him with its habitual expression of overpowering +slyness. "Why did you nearly die?" it asked. "Was it something I did?" + +When Pink could trust himself to speak without gibbering--it was +horrifying to see half his room filled by this bronze-yellow balloon of +evidently solid flesh--he said, "Naturally it was something you did, you +big ape. You turned off our air." + +"Air?" It compressed its lips. "Ah, I remember air. A substance needed +on Earth for life. We never understood it." + +"Don't you breathe?" asked Pink. "Don't you take any element into your +system and mix it with your blood and then--oh, you haven't any blood." +He paused. "But don't you need _any_ outside element to sustain life?" + +"No. Nor do we eat." + +"But you are organic life?" + +"Of course. A life which you cannot understand, I see. A life impervious +to anything beyond it, indestructible and eternal." + +_I think you're lying_, said Pink to himself. Nothing in the universe is +indestructible ... or at any rate, unalterable. Everything has its +Achilles heel, even the atom. + + * * * * * + +The monster spoke, half to itself. "That, the locked switch was the air, +then. I thought it was the air-lock." It laughed. Pink thought it had a +pretty primitive sense of humor. "Not the air-lock, but the air." + +"You wanted to let your friends into the ship," accused Pink. The beast +nodded. "Didn't you know that opening the air-locks without sealing off +their compression rooms would kill all the humans aboard?" + +"No," it said. "I want you alive. Some of you. To teach us the working +of this rocket." + +"Spaceship," corrected Pink without thinking. Then, "Why do you want the +ship?" + +Its eyes glowed fire at him. "To return to Earth," it hissed. "To return +to our own planet!" + +"_Your_ planet!" + +"As much as yours, mortal." It leaned forward, obscuring practically all +the room for him. "Show me how to open the air-locks," it said. + +"In a swine's eye." + +"With safety to yourself, naturally," it said impatiently, "Come, show +me." + +"Find the machinery yourself. Experiment. Knock us all off. You'll be +stuck out here with a ship you can't operate." + +It plucked him off the foam-couch and hurled him against the wall, +jarring him in every bone. "Show me how," it roared. "Thou zed, thou +cream-faced loon--" Shakespeare? wondered Pink--"show me the controls!" + +Pink dived behind a stationary chair. He drew his useless pistol and +threw it at the being's face; it rebounded to the floor. He snatched up +a vase of ever-blooming Jovian lilies, sent them after the gun. The +monster reached for him, snarling. He leaped over its hand, hurdling it +as if he were a boy crossing a fence. On the far wall were many weapons. + +When he made Captain, and was given the _Elephant's Child_ as his +flagship, he had transferred all his belongings to it, so that nowhere +in the galaxies would he ever feel at home save here. Among his +keepsakes was the collection of antique weaponry handed down to him by +his father, whose grandfather had bought them in the long ago from many +museums. Gradually he had added to the collection, souvenirs of the +planets he had explored. They were bracketed on the wall. Zulu war clubs +and Kentucky muskets. Martian spear-guns and antiquated jet-pistols; a +Derringer, a Colt .44, a blowpipe from an unknown Pacific island. + +The alien giant was too swollen to turn swiftly. Pink reached the wall +display. He tore down an assegai, whirled and thrust it at the +monstrous, contorted face, searching for the eyes. + +He was a mouse, bedeviling a cat with a broom straw. The thing batted +his spear aside, brushed him with its fingers in a powerful swat, +smashed him against his desk. A corner caught him, and he felt a rib +snap. The pain enraged him. + + * * * * * + +In that desk he kept his other collection, ammunition for those weapons: +it was his boast that he had at least six rounds for every +projectile-thrower there. Some of it had been painstakingly fashioned in +modern times from the old formulae, some miraculously preserved through +the centuries. On strange planets he and Jerry used to have target +practice with the ancient toys. + +Now the agony and the fear forced him into a gesture. He would die in +this room, for certainly he'd never tell the giant where to find the +air-lock switches; he had to go down fighting, and if to fight this +impervious lout was the most futile of gestures, at least he would make +it a glorious one! + +Fumbling, he tore open a drawer and clutched a box out of it. This was +the ammunition for the Colt revolver. Gripping it in his left hand, he +jumped aside as the beast put out a hand for him. He fled across the +room, his ears cringing from the titanic yells of fury behind him. Now +he had to get the Colt .44 from the wall. + +It took him three horrible minutes of dodging and bounding to reach the +weapons again. He snatched at the revolver, missed, made another +desperate grab as he dropped to the rug; the second time he had it. He +crawled under a chest which stood twenty inches off the floor. Luckily +the alien was trying to catch him, not slay him, for it could long since +have smeared him into jelly with a piece of furniture for a bludgeon. + +Feverishly he loaded the chambers of the Colt. For a moment his +scattered wits could not recollect just how to operate this special +weapon. Then he remembered. + +The fingers of the monster, sausage-sized and disgusting in their parody +of humanity, came groping beneath the chest. Pinkham wormed back and +came up behind it, staring into the red eyes. + +With a concentration of power that he had not known he could summon, he +shot out from behind the chest and vaulted onto the top of his enormous +desk. + +The alien, lips curling, straightened till its head brushed the ceiling. +It reached out for him. + +In the last split second, Pink had a vision of himself, and instead of a +glorious gesture, it seemed to him suddenly that he was making an awful +ass of himself. Like a man before a firing squad thumbing his nose.... + +Nevertheless, he aimed the Colt full into the gargantuan face before +him, and pulled the trigger. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The dawn-man, a thing like a wet rat, bared its teeth at the +dinosaur.... The Cro-Magnon faced a horde of hulking Neanderthals with a +grin.... The Crusader stood with a broken sword and brandished the hilt +at the charging Saracens.... The Apache drew his knife to fight a +double-troop armed with carbines.... The American flung his empty M-1 in +the faces of forty Japanese ... _toujours le beau geste_. Captain +Pinkham, standing in his cabin aboard the spaceship _Elephant's Child_ +adrift in Star System Ninety, leaned forward and pulled the trigger to +the two-century-old, out-moded, laughable popgun of a Colt .44 firing +once and twice and again and again into the face of the bronze-yellow +space-dwelling giant. + +The being loomed over him, and a scream like the death-wail of a meteor +lanced into his eardrums and made him gasp with anguish. He pumped the +last slug into the enemy and launched himself side-long, without much +hope of landing anywhere but in a bushel-sized palm. He was actually +surprised when he found himself on the rug. He scrambled for cover, but +before he reached it, it dawned on him that he might not need it. + +The alien had sunk to its knees, was making a convulsive effort to rise +but obviously lacked the strength! Somehow, and God alone knew how, +Pinkham had wounded the beast! + +He drew back to the wall, watching. The agony of the big humanoid was +doubling it over and throwing it upright as though a volcano were +erupting in its belly. It flung out an arm, struck a foam-chair, which +shattered explosively. Pink put more feet between them. The convulsions +were like those of a harpooned whale. Yet the creature did not seem able +to move from its knees. Finally, perhaps a minute after the first +throes, it collapsed all at once, a crumpled titan. Pink cautiously +opened the door, just as Daley was reaching for the handle. + +"What in hell did you _do_?" shouted the lieutenant. + +"Shot him with a revolving-chamber pistol of the mid-19th Century," said +Pink. His rib was hurting and his flesh felt bruised all over. He +grinned. "Figure that one, boy. Atomic disintegrator doesn't work, +antique powder-using firearm does. I'm too beat to know why." + +"It's crazy," said Joe Silver flatly. They all stood around the alien, +which was sprawled on its back. The red eyes gleamed, but no muscle +moved in the great body. They looked for signs of the wounds, for holes +or dissolving matter, for anything different; there was nothing. "What +if--" began Silver. + +"This can wait." Pink took a deep breath, which hurt, and cleared his +throat. "There's plenty to be done. Jerry, check your scanner and +detectors for possible damage. Sparks, get on the radio to _Cottabus_ +and _Diogenes_; tell 'em everything, and warn them to come in +cautiously. Kinkare, Daley, see what you can do with the space drive." + +He walked to the chest and picked up the box of Colt cartridges. He +loaded the weapon again. "This works--and for now I'm not asking why. +I'll stay with this scum of the void and try to get something out of him +that'll clear things up. Bill, you determine our position and give it to +Sparks; then start checking all the other equipment for bugs." He looked +at Joe Silver. "You collect the bodies of the dead officers and prepare +them for space burial." + +"Why me?" blurted Silver. + +Pink gave him a long look. "Because it's an officer's job. Because I +tell you to. And Silver--" + +"Yeah?" + +"I have decided that this is no longer a grade A emergency." + +Joe Silver said stiffly, "Yes, sir." + + * * * * * + +Pink activated the intercom screen, told the crew briefly what had +happened. Then he raised the mutiny gates, giving a sigh of relief. "Get +going," he told his officers. + +"What about the girl?" asked Jerry suspiciously. "She could still be one +of them." + +"Leave her with me. I have six bullets in this thing and forty-eight +more after that." He looked at Circe, who was pale and weary. "Sit down, +O. O. Smith," he said gently. "I think you're all right. But you realize +we can't chance anything till we have proof." + +"I understand," she said listlessly, and dropped into a foamseat, +staring at the fallen giant. The others trooped out. + +With the door shut, Pink walked to the head of the creature; it was a +swollen and hideous head, but by rights it should have been even more +hideous, should have had half a dozen wounds. The yellow hide was +unmarked. Pink said, "You're alive. Can you speak?" + +"Certainly." The lips barely moved. "I am but immobilized for the +moment." + +"What caused it?" + +The being sneered at him without answering. Pink said, "I can keep you +in this state for a long time, chum. And when we've shown our heels to +your brothers, I'm going to dump you out an air-lock and let you drift +around between the stars." + +He knelt beside it. "What did you do to the space drive?" + +There was a long pause. Then it evidently made up its mind. "The drive +should be in working order now. Your men will discover so when they try +it. As with the other contrivances, I merely placed a temporary stasis +on the protons of certain atoms, which rendered them futile. There +should be no damage by this time." + +Echoing his words, Pink heard the first throbbing murmur of the +activated piles. He looked without conscious volition at Circe, and they +exchanged smiles of vast relief. + +"You'll be popping out that air-lock sooner than I'd hoped," said Pink +to the giant. Then he was startled by a great peal of harsh laughter. + +"Oh, you pigmy!" shouted the alien. "You flea-brained besotted fool! +Your ship is out of control even now, and your hours are numbered on one +hand. You've lost, and haven't the brains to see why!" + +And, thought Pink, listening to the mirthless laugh while a chill sought +out his belly, the monster's words did not sound remotely like a bluff. + +He knew something hidden from the captain, and even in his captivity he +felt himself master of the _Elephant's Child_. + +Why? Why? Why? + +Then Pink turned and looked at Circe. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Pink woke from a sweating nightmare. He rolled over and his bandaged +ribs creaked with a twinge. He had slept nearly a round of the clock; +the other ships must be nearing the asteroids. He got up and dressed +quickly, wondering who was watching Circe now, holding the revolver on +her, praying that if she should change form, the old-fashioned gun +would paralyze her as it had the giant. + +The giant. He had to check on that devil immediately. He called his +quarters on the intercom, and Lieutenant Daley's image waved at him +reassuringly. The monstrous entity had not moved; its eyes still gleamed +with malevolence. + +"Your hours are numbered on one hand," said Pinkham to himself. "How +many fingers on that mitt, I wonder?" + +And even yet he did not believe the thing had been bluffing. + +He ate a brisk breakfast in the mess hall, then stalked off to his own +room, trying to analyze what he now knew of the giants' nature; but +Circe's face intruded in his mind. He was in love with her. If she were +an alien, then he was in love with the remarkable illusion she had +created, of beauty and something more: of a deep integrity of soul that +shone in her eyes and touched every word she uttered. And if that _were_ +an illusion, then he was a cynic and quite likely a positive misanthrope +from this day forward. + +"Get a slug of coffee," he told Daley. "Then hare back and we'll have +some brandy. It looks like a busy day." Daley went out, giving him the +Colt as he left. + +Sparks reported the _Cottabus_ and _Diogenes_ had joined their routes +and would be alongside within half an hour. Pink sat down and looked at +Circe, asleep on the couch. He switched his gaze after a while to the +enemy, who watched him steadily. It said, "A favor, Captain." + +"No," he told it. + +"Only a sip, a drop of brandy to wet these cold lips!" + +"Cold lips, cold heart: old proverb." For the first time in his life, +Pinkham wanted to torture someone. "You bastard," he said grimly, "you +murdered eleven men, eleven good officers, and spoiled Kinkare's face +for him. And you want a drink of brandy." + +"Rubbing alcohol, then. Only a touch on my mouth. Drop it in my eye if +you wish," said the thing pitifully. + +"No--hey, wait a second. You told me your breed doesn't eat or drink. +You don't need any outside element. Why the alcohol?" + +It heaved what was possibly a sigh. "I can absorb certain portions of +the carbon atoms of _al-kuhl_," it said. "It is the greatest pleasure +known to my race. And, save for the paltry drops of gin in that bottle +yesterday, I have not--let us say 'tasted'--it for some hundreds of +years!" + +"_Al-kuhl?_" repeated Pinkham. + +"The Arabic slips easily from my tongue after all those years," said +the thing, half to itself. + +Arabic! "You weren't lying," said Pink, "when you told us you came from +Earth, then." + +"I was not lying. Give me some alcohol, Captain." + +"No. How do I know it won't revive you?" + +"My word on it." + +Pink gave the hardest and briefest bark of laughter ever heard on the +spaceways. It became silent. Finally he leaned forward to stare at it. +"Your eyes have faded," he said. "By God, I think you aren't paralyzed. +I think you're dying!" + +After another silence it said, "Yes. I am dying." + +"I couldn't be happier," said Pinkham viciously. "I even hope it's +painful." + +"It is not. The only pain came with the passage through my molecules of +the l--" it halted abruptly. + +"Ah," said Pink, hefting the Colt. "Of the lead. It had to be that, of +course; but thanks for reassuring me. Your tribe's allergic to lead in a +rather high degree." + + * * * * * + +The flames leaped in its eyes. "I haven't told you anything so +valuable," it said, with a kind of weak bravado. "There are too many of +us, too few of you, and not enough lead in this whole system to conquer +us. You have found the secret, but you'll never carry it back to Earth. +My people shall go there instead, when they have sucked the methods from +your broken body." + +"When will you die?" he asked it. In spite of his hatred, humanity was +rising in him. It was beaten and he was too much of a man to crow for +long. + +"I hear remorse in your tone," said the alien. "For the love of God, +then, give me some alcohol." + +He remembered the headless corpse of Wright. He said, "No." + +Perhaps a quarter of an hour passed. It began to talk to itself in a +monotone, a sort of feverish delirium. + +"I never thought of it, at least not often, for I steered my mind away +from it; but once a decade or every thirty years I would remember, +perhaps one of us would say, 'Oh, to have a flagon of palm wine,' and +then the agony of desire would wrack me until I must fight my body and +tear it proton from proton so that I hurt badly and the remembrance +would leave me. _Al-kuhl, al-kuhl!_ Why in all the universe must there +be this one combination of stupid elements which drags every fleck of +yearning from me like water wrung from a cloth? My race needs nothing, +nothing--we long for nothing--we are the only self-sufficient beings in +creation--why do we remember the _al-kuhl?_" + +"Like a _keef_-smoker," said Pinkham quietly. "You don't long for +anything else." After a little he added, "And you fear nothing save +lead." + +"True," said the being distractedly. "If it were not for lead and +alcohol we would be perfect gods." + +"Who are you?" Pink asked, conscious that his throat was constricted +with excitement. "When did you leave Earth? Why don't I recognize you, +out of history? What are you called?" + +He had tried too hard. The alien rolled its dimmed eyes at him. "I wish +I could smile now," it said through motionless lips. "Ah, if I could +only smile knowingly! You will die today with that curiosity unslaked." + +He was balefully angry at that; he leaped to his feet, thrusting out the +revolver. "If I throw another slug into you, it just might hurt some +more," he roared. + +"I would rather die in pain than see your questions answered. I know +well that curiosity is the worst torment to an Englishman." + +"I'm not English," said Pink. + +"It's all the same. I might as well have said 'human.'" + +Pink recalled that he had the Colt, and so could take a few chances. +"I'll trade you. One drop of brandy for each answer." + +It considered. Then, without budging, it gave the effect of a shrug. +"Why not? You'll be dead soon." + +"You're so sure," said Pink. + +"Look at your scanner." + +There was something in the words that sent Pink racing. He was only just +in time to see the finish of all his new-born hopes. + +The _Cottabus_ and _Diogenes_ were approaching at a slowing pace; the +_Elephant's Child_ had deactivated her drive to wait for them. Whether +the captains of the sister ships saw them or not, Pink could not tell; +but a number of the space giants, so reduced in size as to be mere blots +on the screen, hovered in the area. + +As the ships gradually lost speed, a giant appeared atop each, growing +rapidly from eight feet to a thousand, till they straddled the great +ships like riders on Shetland ponies. + +The thing on the floor chuckled. "We are much more comfortable at that +size, you see, Captain. We don't like to cramp our molecular structure +into these puny dimensions. We can get into bottles--but we prefer to +expand as you see." Then it laughed. "Yes, there is one of us on your +own flagship at this instant, where he has been waiting, compressed, +till the others caught their seats. Your ships are captured as surely +as in a net. You cannot dislodge them, as you know. You must carry them +to Earth so, or capitulate and let them inside." + +There was no scrap of fear that he would carry these devils to Earth, +naturally. But for the moment, Pink could see no sure way to escape the +doom that now lay over him and all his men. They would have to remain in +this asteroid belt ... perhaps forever. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +The three spaceships lay together in the void. + +In the _Elephant's Child_, 57 men, seven officers, and Circe Smith were +seated in the demolished recreation room, which was the only place +besides the mess hall with enough chairs to accommodate them all. Radio +communication with the other ships was handled over an extension set +connected to the main radio room by a triple quancord laid down with +furious energy by Sparks. + +"What we need, and need fast, is this," said Pinkham. "A method by which +we can project lead, in pellets or spray or any damn form, with +accuracy, using our platinum guns. There aren't any other weapons that +will fire from within." + +"As you know, we've tried a few methods. One of the gunners of the +_Cottabus_ went into an air-lock and tossed a lead ball at the giant on +the _Diogenes_, using a sling-gun. He found the range was too long; and +when the captain attempted to bring the _Cottabus_ nearer, the thing on +_Diogenes_ simply reared his ship up by shifting his weight backward. So +long as they can maneuver our ships as easily as toy boats, we can't use +that simple method. + +"Then _Diogenes_ tried to smash our giant off his perch by simply +ramming him headlong. Take a look at the screen and you'll see that +_Diogenes_ has a dented nose for her pains. Five men died in that try." + +"Captain," said a hydroponics engineer, "isn't it possible that, if we +keep trying to oppose these aliens, they may simply tear their way into +the ships and retaliate?" + +"Quite possible. Their strength is equal to picking the _Elephant's +Child_ apart, I'm sure." He glared at the men. "Listen: I don't have to +pull punches with you. The chances of our getting rid of these giants +and making it to Earth are damned remote. There may be a chance, though, +so we have to keep trying for it. + +"The most important thing we have to do is keep this life-form of the +asteroids from going to Earth. We of the armada are a terrible danger +to mankind, through no fault of ours. We're so many Typhoid Marys, +potential carriers of something worse than any disease. Even if we're +all killed, the giants might manage to learn the control of the ships, +and take them to Terra alone. + +"So if we can't wipe out the enemy, our only course is to destroy +ourselves and our ships. Every officer in the armada has instructions to +blow up his ship if the giants should break into it. The thing is so +important that I've issued orders to do that even though the use of +lead-thrower weapons might conquer the invaders. + +"If giants seize a ship and it is not destroyed within five minutes, the +other two will turn their platinum guns on it. + +"Any questions?" + +Jackson, who was spokesman for the crew, answered promptly, "No +questions, sir." + +"Okay. Now let's have the technicians' report." + +A lean, angular man rose. "I've checked all the books, Captain. There is +no way to substitute a charge of lead for the war-head in the curium +shells." + +There was a stillness. "You mean we can't shoot lead at the giants +except with the few handguns in my possession," said Pink heavily. + +"That's right, Captain." + +"The giants are too alert to be caught that way," said Bill Calico. "I +have an idea--not much of a one, but it's a try." + +"Let's have it." + +Jerry waved a hand. "Please remove O. O. Smith first." + +Circe flared, "I think you're just afraid I'll get your job, you +incompetent--" + +"Take her out," said Pink to Joe Silver. + +Calico then outlined his plan. Pinkham said at once, "I'll relay it to +the other ships. We'll try it immediately." They all nodded agreement. +Pink bent over the radio; he gave the co-captains instructions in an +ancient language which they all knew, but which he felt sure would +baffle any eavesdropping giants--an old, old tongue known as Pig Latin. + +The officers and men scattered to their stations. Pink and Jerry took +Circe to the captain's quarters, where Pink took his seat for the plan's +direction, Jerry holding the Colt on Circe and the dying giant. + +The space drives of the three ships were activated, and in side-by-side +formation they moved slowly forward, as Pink watched keenly for +a sign of objection from the gigantic "jockeys" atop them. None so +far ... probably they thought Pink was under the instructions of their +brother inside. Five minutes went by. Eight. Fifteen. + +The largest asteroid in this part of the belt appeared ahead; it was +roughly fourteen miles in diameter. The ships dipped their noses as if +to pass well under it. They drew very close. Pink bent to his speaker +and bellowed, "Now!" + + * * * * * + +As one, the auxiliary jets of each ship roared into life. _Cottabus_ and +_Diogenes_ leaped out beside their flagship, and like three hotshot +pilots buzzing an airdrome, the captains took the enormous spacecraft +hurtling for the surface of the asteroid. Passing beneath it--or, +thought Pink irrelevantly, while every nerve and sinew concentrated on +the dangerous task, perhaps they were flying over it upside down--they +brought their years of training and experience to bear on the problem of +missing that knobbed gray surface by the smallest margin possible. +_Diogenes_ actually scraped her superstructure, with a noise that made +every hair on her captain's neck stand upright; the others missed the +planetoid by no more than a foot or two. Then they were clear and again +in the void. + +According to orders, they slowed at a distance of four hundred miles, +and eagerly scanned one another in their viewscreens for signs of the +giants. + +Pink gave a loud shout of relief, and took a second to realize that his +co-captains had each groaned.... + +The riders on _Cottabus_ and _Diogenes_ had vanished, and were +undoubtedly back there by the asteroid, reconstituting their bashed-up +bodies angrily. But Pink now heard, with a sinking heart, that his giant +was still with him. It had leaned backward from the knees, lying flat on +the hull which it had gripped with legs and arms. Somehow it had grasped +Pink's plan in time to prepare itself. The asteroid had flattened its +face and chest like a plane smoothing wood, and it was now forming +itself anew, with, so they told Pink, a truly malicious scowl on its +reformed lips. + +Jerry was standing with a hand on Pink's shoulder; he had forgotten +Circe in the tenseness of the bid for freedom. She came up on the other +side and put her own hand on the captain's other shoulder. He was +startled, and realizing that she could have killed or captured them +both, had she wished, chalked up another doubt in his mind against the +theory of her alienness. + +"Please come outside," she said urgently. "I want to suggest something +to you." + +He rose at once and followed her to the door, while Jerry frowned and +the dying giant watched him out of faded red eyes. In the hall, she +said, "You're almost licked, Captain. It's time for desperation +measures." Pink laughed, but before he could ask her what the hell they +_had_ been trying, she hurried on. "Find out where the home of these +monsters is; it must be an asteroid. Then go there. Land and get out +with your guns. They will think our friend in there brought us to +them--and you'll have the advantage of surprise. You have about a dozen +firearms that will take lead bullets. That's enough for twelve of us. I +think we'd stand a chance of success." + +"And if they murder us all? What about the ship?" + +She said, "Leave orders to blow it up if we fail." + +Pink scratched his jaw. The girl had something, or the nucleus of +something, there. He saw other possibilities in it--it was tantamount to +suicide, but there was nothing else left to try. He said, "If we live +through this, Circe, I'll see you make lieutenant!" + +"I'd rather make ... well, never mind." She turned to go into the room. +He wondered if she had had Joe Silver in mind. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +He said to the alien, "Where's your home planetoid?" + +"Why?" it asked, mockery still in its weak voice. + +"I'm capitulating. I want to make a deal with your people." + +It said, "Ah, the human has sense after all. Our home is the largest of +the asteroids, as you call them. The one you said at supper last night +had a diameter of 440 miles. We call it Oasis--and a poor one it is, +when we remember Earth." + +Jerry said, astounded, "_What?_" His narrow face worked with surprise. + +"Shut up, Jerry." Pink still had things to find out. "Can you tell your +race, telepathically, what we're doing? I don't want them to lose +patience and tear up the hull. We have a very angry gent atop us." + +"It's the girl," snarled Jerry, before the alien could answer. "She's +got you fooled like a--like a--good Lord, Pink, are you so crazy about +her you can't see she's been waiting to put this idea in your head all +this time?" + +"Jerry," he said through his teeth, "shut your damn mouth. I'm captain +of the _Elephant's Child_." + +Jerry was aiming the Colt at him; accidentally, Pink hoped. Then the O. +O. said, "If I have to blow out your guts to save us, Pink, I will." His +tortured features writhed with pain. "Oh, hell, boy, wake up!" + +"Give me one more minute, before you fly off the handle and make an ass +of yourself--and a mess of me." Pink had to have that minute. It was so +vital he couldn't save himself from the angered Jerry with the one +phrase that would explain everything. "Jerry, one lousy minute." + +"Just tell me you don't mean it about giving in." + +He couldn't. My God, he couldn't. There was too much of a chance that +this brute on the floor was telepathic with its own kind. "I have to do +it, Jerry," he said. + +"Then I have to tie you up till you're sane," said Jerry. "First, +though, I've got to make sure about this girl." The muzzle of the gun +traveled toward Circe, steadily, remorselessly. + +Pink had no alternative; the lives of all his men hung in that teetering +balance. He jerked his right hand, and the tiny gambler's gun, the +antique Derringer he had hidden up his sleeve for emergencies, slid down +into his palm. Instinctively his forefinger caught the trigger and with +sorrow and determination he shot Jerry high in the chest, below the +clavicle and a safe distance from the lung. Jerry staggered back, a look +of amazement spreading over his face; he fired the Colt wildly, putting +a slug into the floor. Then he sat down, making hurt, uncomprehending +noises. Circe took the gun from his hand. + +Pink heard a babble from the intercom. He grasped that some of his +officers must have seen the occurrence. He still hadn't much more than a +minute. + +"Circe," he snapped, "turn off that intercom and then lock the door." To +the giant he said, "Well, can you tell your friends?" + +"I would have doubted you, had you not eliminated your objecting +officer," it told him. "Now I will say that I cannot communicate with my +race through thought transference; but if you head for Oasis, you will +be safe." + +Pink breathed a little easier. He snatched down a bottle of whisky and +twisted off the cap. There was another fact he must learn. He knelt and +presented the bottle to the inert lips. "Have a slug," he said. + +"You are sensible," said the being with satisfaction. "Pour it into my +mouth or my eye; I can absorb it through any orifice." Pink poured +rapidly. The liquor ran down over the yellow hide. + +"No, no," gurgled the monster. "Slowly! I absorb it far more slowly than +you do--" + + * * * * * + +Pink stood up. He took a drink from the bottle and handed it to Circe. +His face was radiant with success. "Toast the last slim chance, honey," +he said, voice cracking with relief. "We just found out what we needed +to know." He retrieved the bottle after she had downed a gulp, gave it +to the dazed Jerry. "Cheer up, boy," he said. "You didn't get your pink +skin plugged for nothing. Now listen." Rapidly he outlined Circe's plot, +then the additions he had concocted. "See why I had to do it?" he asked +finally. + +"Yeah. Yes, I see." Jerry blinked. "Would you spray a little sulfaheal +on this hole, Pink? It hurts.... Okay, I give in. I'm with you. It's a +mad notion, but I sure can't better it. I'm with you." He looked at +Circe, who was already busy with sulfaspray and bandages. "But can we +trust this wench, Captain? She could be a wonderful decoy for 'em." + +"She's in the clear, Jerry; if we hadn't been so blasted rattled we'd +have realized it long ago. There was a test she could have passed in two +seconds that would have eliminated all this fat-headed suspicion." + +"What?" + +"Holy Holmendis, boy--_lead_! If she were alien, the touch of lead would +have crisped her up with pain and paralysis." Pink opened the door then, +and the first tide of officers coming to Jerry's rescue were halted at +sight of Circe tending his wound. Pink said to Jerry, and to them all, +"While I was standing in the hall, I took a cartridge out of this +Derringer, and rubbed the lead across the back of her neck. She never +winced. That vouches for her, doesn't it?" + +Jerry said, "It does. Heaven forgive us for a pack of drooling +imbeciles! It does indeed." + +Circe stood up. She came to Pink and stared him in the face. "So that +was it," she said quietly. "You were testing me. And I thought it was a +caress. Oh, you--" Then she hauled off and smacked Captain John Pinkham +square in the left eye. + +It hurt like sin, but Pink could hardly blame her. So he apologized, +without words. He took her in his arms and kissed her soundly. + +And Circe kissed him back. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +The _Elephant's Child_ rested on the surface of the asteroid Oasis, a +waterless, airless, cold and gray ball as uninviting as any solid body +in the universe. At the entrance to Air-lock One, the officers stood in +a tight group listening to Pinkham; their spacesuits were fastened on, +only the helmets remaining to be donned; their gloves were the modified +digitmits which enabled the wearers to hold small objects and to operate +machinery or firearms. + +There were seven officers, and now three crewmen in spacesuits joined +them. Jerry, whose wound was nearly healed already, thanks to the +sulfaspray, passed out guns from the captain's collection. Each man +carried a handgun, or, in two cases a long rifle. The ammunition for all +amounted to one thousand two hundred and five rounds, in the main +handgun cartridges. Pink had decided against using the Kentucky rifle, +which was difficult for a modern man to load. + +At each belt hung half a dozen curious objects, shaped like bottles but +of a dull gray color and rough surface texture. These sloshed and +gurgled when the men moved. + +Pink concluded his instructions on the use of the weapons and the gray +bottle-things. "Remember," he said, "keep in touch by your radio, and +don't travel more than a mile from the ship if you can help it. Try the +lure first, then when the containers are full, the guns. Be sure to keep +at least one portion of lure for emergency; don't use it all." He +grinned. "And don't drink any of the lure." + +The men laughed, easing tension. Pink went on. "You'll have some trouble +adjusting to the gravity--our average weight will be six or seven +pounds, or, in Jerry's case, three or four." They chuckled again. +"Remember we don't know how they'll react, so keep your minds open and +use your own judgment in everything. Now let's go." + +As he turned and activated the sliding panel that covered the first +chamber of the air-lock, and they all settled their helmets down onto +their shoulders and fastened them, an eleventh figure joined them, its +helmet already in place. Jerry, shaking his head reprovingly, handed +this one the last weapon, a small automatic from the so-called "Gangster +Age" of America. Then they went into the air-lock and the door shut +tight behind them. + +In the control room, Jackson and a few others watched tensely on the +viewscreen as one by one the landing party jumped to the planetoid. He +looked at his watch. "Two hours," he said. "Oh my God, I hope they make +it!" For in precisely two hours, if they had not returned to the ship, +Jackson was to blow it to metallic dust, and all the remaining humans +with it. + +Forty miles above the surface of the small world, the _Diogenes_ and the +_Cottabus_ cruised at a good rate of speed, to keep their hulls free of +hitchhiking giants while watching the progress of the expedition. + +On the floor of Pinkham's quarters, the dying alien lay alone and cursed +weakly at the sly and crafty doublecross he had so stupidly fallen for. +He called upon a number of strange gods to curse these mortals; among +the names he uttered was that of a deity called Allah. + +In dressing room B, a technician discovered a crewman who was sitting +against a wall rubbing his skull. "Somebody bopped me," said the man +glumly. "I'm supposed to go out there and blast giants, dammit. Who +could have swiped me so hard?" + + * * * * * + +Pink took an experimental hop. It should have carried him, at Terra +gravity, about two feet. He soared over a hillock and came down gently +on a plain of rock that looked like lava; his hop had carried him some +scores of yards. He felt for an instant like a kid let loose on a +wonderful playground. Then he snapped into it and began to scan the +terrain for signs of life. + +To the right was the mountain they had seen from the descending ship, +with its irregular rows of gaping holes which suggested caves and +therefore possible habitations. It wouldn't take more than five minutes +to reach them at an easy amble, or a minute at a brisk walk; about a +mile away, they seemed. + +Then with a horrified start he remembered the giant who had been atop +his ship. Washington Daley had been delegated to deal with it--and Pink +had forgotten, had not even glanced back to see how his lieutenant was +making out! He whirled neglecting caution, and fell on his face. Luckily +he came down like a big bulky feather, and caught himself and bounced up +again, a rubber ball of a man on this alien world Oasis. + +He was just in time to see the giant, bending forward over the front of +the ship, begin to blur and stream downward toward the tiny figure of +the human who stood below him. In a moment he resembled a cloud of +tobacco-smoke, drawn into the gray container in Daley's hand. He +vanished entirely, Daley clapped on the sealing lid, and gave a +triumphant wave to his captain. Pink blew out a breath of gratitude and +remorse; he'd have to be on his toes from now on, really vibrant with +watchfulness. Laxity in one thing could lose this weird battle. + +Strung out in a straggling line of erratically progressing units, the +men of Earth headed for the caves. In a time so short as to be faintly +ridiculous, they were moving up the mountainside. The gaping holes +_were_ caves, and obviously deep ones. Pink stood at the entrance of one +for a moment, checking on the number of his men; then he waved a hand +over his head, and entered the great den. Behind him came another +figure, one whose slimness told him it was probably Jerry. + +Their chest lamps lit up the interior, which was as gray, knobby, and +featureless as the outside world. Pink held his Colt .44 in his right +hand, one of the bottles in his left. The technicians of the _Elephant's +Child_ had worked like drudges over those bottles.... + +Every bottle of liquor aboard had been requisitioned. The liquid had +been poured into plastic containers; only a few spoonfuls had been left +in each bottle. + +Then lead, melted down and beaten into sheets, was wrapped around each +bottle, forming a thin and chinkless layer over all the glass but the +lip; and the lead was painted with tough plastikoid paint, which covered +it with a film one-twentieth of an inch thick. Caps of lead were made +for the bottles. At the end of a couple of hours, they had sixty-six +bottles, glass inside, lead covered, and topped off with plastikoid +which would conceal the presence of lead from any known test short of +X-ray. + +Each of the eleven men carried six of these bottles, then, actually lead +containers, but apparently plastikoid; the lead stoppers were concealed +in joerg-hide bags. If the giant who had been beaten in the spaceship +was a criterion, the enemy would not recognize the presence of lead +until it actually touched them--and then, thought Pink, with a quick +prayer, it would be too late for them. + +Beaming the radio to a distance of ten feet, he said, "Hey, Jerry, want +to lay a bet on who bags the first brute?" + +"Sure. Twenty bucks says I get him. And don't call me Jerry," said the +sweet, quiet, and thoroughly startling voice of organicus officer Circe +Smith. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +I didn't have to do it, Pink thought. I could have changed the orders +when I saw that no giants were in sight. We could have blasted the one +on top of the _Elephant's Child_ and taken off and got out of range of +'em and gone back to Earth. We were free in that instant, when Daley +caught the alien and corked it up in the lead bottle with the liquor +that drew it. We shouldn't have come out here to the caves. We should +have left Oasis to itself. + +He knew that he had squelched this idea before it was born, because he +had longed for a good fight; he recognized this alien life-form as +unclean, and he'd wanted to stamp it out, or make a dent in its numbers +anyway. So he'd gone ahead with the project, and now here was Circe, +risking her life to be with him, and if anything happened to her he'd +kill himself ... well, at least he'd mop up the giants who'd drawn him +here, he'd make a pogrom, a massacre to avenge her.... + +She isn't dead, boy, he told himself. She's just in danger. Don't get +distracted. + +"Stick close," he told her shortly. "I'll whale the pants off you when +we get back for this trick, but for now, stay close and keep your eyes +open." + +Then he tuned his radio outward. "Report," he said. His men checked in. +Nothing had been sighted thus far. + +So it was Captain Pinkham's luck to meet the first alien. + +Rounding a turn, he saw that the cavern enlarged, became a huge grotto; +seated around its walls, staring at one another in the uncanny silence +of this airless place, were many of the giant life-forms. Only one was +near him, and this monster was first to see him; it leaped at him with +the abruptness of perfect muscular control, its feet a little off the +floor of the cavern--Pink recalled that these things could levitate +themselves in space. + +There was no time to use the lure of the bottle. He threw up his old +revolver and fired point-blank, catching Circe by the arm and hurling +her to one side as he did so. The giant recoiled as at a wall, doubled +and thrashed in agony. Pink, rooted to the spot, waited to see the +effects. Would one slug of lead be enough? And evidently it was, for +suddenly the thing fell and writhed futilely on the ground, flinging its +arms wide with diminishing strength. In a moment it was helpless, its +only motion a slight heaving as its life retreated far within the +gigantic bulk. Its red eyes glowed at him malevolently in the glare of +his chest-lamp. + +Strangely enough, none of the others had seen him yet, nor had any of +them moved from the sitting posture. Swiftly he unhooked four of his six +bottles and set them in a row on the rock floor. Circe returned, having +bounced like a bit of india-rubber a dozen yards before checking +herself. "You big bully," she said over the radio, and, her tuning being +for distance, Daley in another cave said "What? Who?" in a startled +tone. + +Pink dragged her, five pounds of resistance on the tiny planet, and +plunked her down behind a rock. "Sit tight," he said urgently. "Keep the +gun handy. And check that you haven't spilled any alky--we'll need all +the bottles we can get." Then he turned and shone his beam full on the +traps he had set out. One of the aliens was bound to spot them soon. + +When one did, it came at them with a rush, snarling soundlessly as it +sought the source of the illumination. Towering over the insignificant +bottles, it halted, shuddered, stared down--Pink held his breath--and +the incredible disintegration and flow of the body happened. The giant +entered the bottle, leaving not a trace of its thousand-foot carcass +outside. Restraining a desire to leap out and cork up that bottle, Pink +waited. The movement of this alien had caught the red eyes of others; +they advanced, some hurrying and some cautious, till two more had +scented or sensed the alcohol and poured into bottles. Pink kept his +eyes on the little containers. Beside him, Circe gazed with horrified +fascination at the coming gargantuas.... + + * * * * * + +A trio of them were misting now; this was the test. One empty bottle +remained. What would happen, Pink wondered; was one giant per bottle the +maximum content? The three streaked down, like smoke sucked into a +vacuum cleaner. They jetted into the bottles, and again nothing was left +outside. Pink said "Good," in a mutter, and forced himself to wait +longer. The more the merrier. How long would it take them to soak up the +alcohol? His captive had said the process was slow. How slow? How long +did he dare wait? + +He caught eight more, then the next hesitated, looking around for the +source of light. Either he was capable of more resistance to the +seductive element, or the bottles were now full of churning, lapping +aliens. There were more of them approaching, but he didn't dare wait any +longer. He jumped forward, potting at the foremost. + +It went down thrashing, and he shot over it into the yellow of them. +Emptying the Colt, he reloaded hastily and plugged or nicked another +half dozen. By then he was standing over the bottles. Nothing had +emerged yet. He stooped to slam on the caps. + +With horrible speed two giants pounced for him; he saw them out of the +corner of his eye. Then they slammed full length to the rock, and he +knew that Circe's automatic was in action. He corked the last bottle and +slung it on his belt, put down the two remaining containers. Then he +turned and made a mighty jump away from them, dragging Circe with him. +The aliens came on. + +Some of them could withstand the pull of the liquor, and some could not. +There was a phalanx of them coming, for a good third of the growth's +population had seen the disturbance by now. Any who appeared to be +passing by the bottles, he and Circe shot; those who hesitated by them +and were drawn in exchanged their liberty for their lives, because in +two minutes Pinkham had feverishly capped them into the leaden prisons. +He hooked them onto his belt and said into the mouthpiece before his +lips, "Go for the entrance, baby. I'll cover you." + +"No!" she snapped back. "You are not going to sacrifice--" + +"Sacrifice, nuts!" he yelled. "This is part of the plan you'd have heard +if you hadn't sneaked into the landing party at the last minute. Get +going!" He was reloading as he spoke. + +She ran, almost flying down the cave-tunnel with great leaps that +covered many yards each. He fired three times at the giants who now +loomed above him; then he was running too, stretching his legs and +throwing every ounce of power and panic in his frame into the incredible +jumps. And apparently he had the advantage over the brutes, for he began +to outdistance them; their mass being greater, he was helped by the lack +of gravity. + +Then a rock crumbled under his toe, he was thrown off balance, his +momentum shot him full tilt against the wall of the passage, and his +head cracked sharply against the inside of his helmet. He knew that he +was losing consciousness, and that he had fallen and was rolling +straight into the path of the raging aliens. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +Thought came to him before feeling. Pink lay in a hazy world of shifting +ideas, of coagulating and disintegrating forms of cerebration. He was +not wholly unaware of what had happened, but his groping mind was more +concerned with piecing together certain facts and fancies, reaching +conclusions he felt were of the first importance. If his body were in +danger, it must help itself, for Pink had other fish to fry. + +As he sank into thick-witted stupor, then fought up to the light of +reason, feeling his mind ebb and flow with ideas and mad conjectures, it +came to him that he knew the truth of the giants, and had not stated it +to himself before in so many words. He had deliberately shied away from +it, in fact, for it stank of fantasy, of crack-brained superstition and +imbecilic fairy tales.... + +Admit it, he told himself, giggling in the far reaches of his brain. +Admit it. You know about these critters, Pink. + +Yes. I know about them. They are the djinn. + +The djinn that Solomon ruled, conquered, and put down. The enormous +entities of Arabian Nights tales, whose habits and character and +shrewd-canny-gullible ways of thinking were all set down in the books +and marveled at by people even yet, hundreds and hundreds of years after +they had been written. Marveled, sure, but marveled only at the +imaginations that had produced them. And it wasn't imagination at all. +It was the real actual goddam solid thing. + +The djinn had been at once a triumph and a sad mistake of nature. They +were the ultimate in physical perfection, needing nothing, living +perfectly independently, huge and strong and yet able to assume the +tiniest proportions when needed. Wounds were nothing, for their makeup +was such that their molecules compressed away from weapons, to ooze back +into place when danger was past. They controlled the forces of the atom, +at least to the extent of ability to freeze protons, and probably they +could do many more stunts in that line. + +All their powers, being far in advance of man's, had been misunderstood +and misinterpreted in the old days. So when a djinni let his atoms flow +into the most convenient shape for getting into bottles for alcohol or +for passing an obstruction he didn't care to demolish, it seemed to men +that he turned into a cloud of smoke. Hadn't Pink used that simile to +himself? + +The fact that they could levitate, probably by control of the force of +gravity, and fly through the thin upper air, by some process Pink only +dimly understood, was certainly enough to stamp them as minor gods in +Arabia and all the other countries they had infested. + +Sure, they were a triumph of nature; but also a colossal failure. For +they were, despite their scientific powers, too stupid for pity, too +insensitive for compassion, and too egocentric for tolerance. Their +nature was that of the most depraved human being. Consequently they'd +been beaten. In spite of their terrific strength, they'd been beaten by +puny, unscientific, bumbling man. + +How? + +Well, Solomon had known about the lead. He'd sealed them in copper +bottles with stoppers of lead, and Pink would bet a buck those bottles +had been lead-lined, too. Solomon hadn't gone far enough, of course; +he'd thrown the bottles into the sea, and sometimes they'd washed up and +been opened. For bait, he must have used alcohol, too, since it was the +Achilles heel of the djinn. + +Had he nailed the entire breed of djinn in his lifetime? It seemed +likely, for the legends stopped soon afterwards, didn't they? Pink +wasn't sure. Anyway, there sure as hell weren't any djinn on Earth +today. + +How had they gotten out here, all the way to Star System Ninety? That +was beyond conjecture. How come the first brute he had contacted, old +Ynohp the phony Martian, spoke a kind of messed-up Shakespearian lingo? +God only knew. + +Now he'd discovered them, anyway, and they wanted to go back to Earth. +If they got hold of the _Elephant's Child_, they might do it. He +couldn't let them succeed ... but then the crew was going to blow up the +ship in two hours. + +Two hours! + +Pinkham's mind beat wildly at the prison of lethargy and dimmed +consciousness. How long had he lain here? Where _was_ he lying? Did the +giants, the djinn, have him? And Circe? + +Circe. Making the most intense and painful effort of his life, Pink +dragged his eyes open and tried to sit up. He had to find Circe. + +He saw nothing, and there was a weight on him that held him flat on his +back. Either his lamp was broken, or he was blind. + +Sensibly, though it cost him untold hell to be sensible, Pink lay +quietly until he felt all his faculties under control. Then he made an +abrupt and violent attempt to sit up. Whatever it was that was holding +him down rolled off. He managed to get to his knees, one hand on the +rock beneath him, and then arms were thrown around him and a body +pressed against his. + +The horror of absolute blackness and the unknown predicament he was in +proved just a little too much for him. Captain Pinkham gave a loud, long +scream of fear. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +"What is it?" asked Circe, her voice wild with fright. "Pink, darling, +what is it? Are you hurt?" + +It was Circe who was holding him. Sobbing with relief, he said into the +radio, "No, no, baby, I'm fine, I'm wonderful." + +Her answering cry was a tiny sound of joy and affection. "I wish I could +kiss you," she said, "but there are two spacesuits in the way." + +He found her hand and squeezed it hard. "I wish I could see you, +Smitty," he said, "but either I'm blind or--" + +"Oh, I should have told you at once. I turned off our chest-lamps." + +"But where are we?" + +"Not far from where you fell." Her hand was a comfort in his, as much so +as a squad of Space Marines marching down to greet them would have been. +"You flew past me like a kicked football, Pink, and I veered off to see +if you were okay. When you fell and didn't move, the first thing I did +was snap off the lamps. About a second afterwards, the giants went past. +They have a weird kind of glow in the dark. I think they could have seen +us--certainly they don't exist blind in this ink-pool--but there's a +ridge of rock and we were pretty well hidden behind it. I dragged you +about forty feet and found this hole and we've been lying here ever +since." + +"The others," he said, remembering. + +"I've been in touch with Daley all the time. He and Calico ran into a +lot of trouble and Calico got a broken leg. Joe Silver took him back to +the ship. Daley and Jerry found each other and fought off a horde of +giants. Every man got all his bottles full of 'specimens' and then used +up most of his lead. Sparks--" she hesitated a moment--"Sparks is dead. +So is Randy Kinkare." + +Pink said quietly into the dark, "I don't think Randy would mind that. +He didn't have much of a face left." + +"Whatever that first one did to burn him, that's the weapon they used on +him and Sparks. Both of them were burnt to a...." + +"Okay," he said. "Okay, okay." + +"So Daley said they'd try to find us; but everyone got mixed up in the +caves, and there hasn't been a sign or sound of anyone for half an +hour." + +"Half an hour?" The flesh chilled down his back. "How long have I been +out?" + +"I don't know. A couple of hours." + +"My Lord! The _Elephant's Child_ is to be blown up two hours from the +minute we left her!" + +"Daley said Silver was going to countermand that order." + +Pink groaned heavily. "He can't! Jackson had my absolute command on it, +and Jackson would see himself and Silver and the whole lot of them dead +before he'd fail to carry out a command of mine. That was important; we +calculated that two hours was more than enough to expend all the ammo, +and that if we weren't back by then, the hull would be crawling with +giants. Every bullet aboard came out with us. We couldn't take the +chance of the ship blasting off with giants on her, maybe in the form of +gnats or smoke or--no," he finished, "Silver, if he tried to change my +order, is either dead or unconscious or in the brig right now." He +lifted his left hand. "I've got to check the time," he said, and for an +instant switched on the dial of his glove watch. + +It was a hundred and two minutes after landing time. + +He had eighteen minutes to get back to the _Elephant's Child_. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +He beamed his radio to its fullest extent. "Daley," he said. "Daley, +come in. Jerry. Cohan. Caleskie. Kole. Come in, anyone." + +"Kole here, Captain. I'm on the plain. It was all fouled up in that +cave." + +"What can you see?" + +"They've got the big trap out of the ship," said the distant, tinny +voice of the crewman. "What a waste of good liquor! Beg your pardon, +Captain." + +"Giants?" Pink asked. + +"About a million of 'em, all headed for the trap. We should have tried +it first. Did you know Caleskie got his?" + +"No, I didn't know. We had to suck them out into the open before they +could spot the trap, Kole. Is Lieutenant Daley in sight?" + +"I saw him a while back, sir. He was headed out of a cave with the O. O. +But it turned out they were going the wrong way, because I--" + +"Thanks, Kole. Report aboard ship. Don't get mixed up with the giants." + +"They won't bother me, sir. It's like a bunch of big bees tearing after +a vat of nectar out here. They don't even see me." + +"What did he mean?" asked Circe. "A trap?" + +"Plastikoided lead box, twelve by twelve feet. All the alcohol in the +ship was poured into it an hour after we left, and they set it outside +as far from the ship as they could safely go. I didn't know it would +work, but it was a try. It still doesn't affect Jackson's orders. I +didn't know, I still don't know, but that some of the djinn can resist +the stuff." + +"The _what_?" she asked, startled. + +"Never mind. We've got about a quarter hour to get back. Where in blazes +is Daley?" + +A small, weakened voice said in his ear, "I'm here, Pink. Jerry too. But +he's out cold. I don't feel so hot myself." + +"Daley!" he roared. "Where are you?" + +"Big cave, about size of Texas. Came across it trying to find our way +out. Lot of giants here. One of them saw us and picked us up and banged +us together. I think he must be saving us for a hearty lunch. He's +sitting ten feet off watching us." + +"Your guns, boy!" + +"No good. All the slugs are gone. Pink," said the weak, worried voice, +"do you know what time it is? You better hightail it for the ship." + +"I'm coming after you," said Pink. + +"Don't be a heroic son of a space cook, Pink!" + +"Shut up and lie still." He switched his radio to close quarters. +"Honey, you make for the _Child_. I'll pick up the boys and be right +with you." + +"You're crazy," she said flatly. "I wouldn't leave you if--" + +He had switched on his chest lamp and drawn out a pen and paper from his +pocket kit. "I'm going to write Jackson a note countermanding the order. +Take it to him." + +"You're wasting your time," she said grimly. "If you're going into the +cave, I'm going too." + +"You fathead, you can save the ship by taking this note." + +"You're doing it to save me. I won't. What happens to you happens to +me." + +"My God the whole damn ship--" + +"Doesn't matter to me if you're gone, Pink." Her voice was strange, +half-hysterical and oddly loving. "I don't know why I feel this way +about you, Pink. I've never been in love before. If I hadn't been +stranded, I'd be old enough to be your mother. You're a big cold +dedicated spaceman, but I love you. Lead the way, if you're going to +make a fool of yourself." + + * * * * * + +In that moment Pink learned wisdom, for he gave up his attempt at a note +and bounded to his feet. Some well-spring of instinct had told him that +a man could never argue a woman out of anything. + +"Got your automatic?" + +"And a full clip left." + +"Come on, baby." + +They ran down the cavernous corridor, grotesque tiny fleas making +unbelievable leaps. In seconds they had entered the grotto. + +Many, too many giants were still there. Some of them seemed not to have +seen anything of the hectic occurrences, others were standing in small +groups (if anything formed of thousand-foot beings could be called +small, thought Pink as he rocketed along) motioning hugely to one +another. + +"Stay close," he called to Circe. She was moving as fast as he, her +light frame an asset. They ran down one side of the cavern, ignoring +giants who did not at first notice them. Pink beamed out his radio and +said, "Daley! Locate yourself." "I'm in the cavern." + +"You ape," said Daley, "why'd you come? We're in front of an entrance +that's the middle one of three. Spot it?" + +"I see four sets of three," said Pink, heading for the nearest as his +heart sank. + +"Sorry, I can't see any more than these. Be careful, old boy." There was +a pause. "We have twelve minutes left," said the senior lieutenant +calmly. + +The first of the triple entrances--had they been built, or were they +natural?--was at hand. Three gigantic djinn sat near them. The ground, +uneven as a lava flow solidified, might have concealed a score of +humans. Pink gave a high leap, surveyed the terrain as he floated down. +Nobody here. But a giant saw him. + +Pink shot him in the ankle and dived like a skin-swimmer between his +legs. He had lost Circe. He pivoted, wide-eyed, and saw her beneath the +skyscraper torso of a bending giant. Their lamps were drawing attention +now. He saw her shoot the titan and fly off at a tangent, disappearing +behind others of the enemy. + +Sixth sense warning prickled his neck. He whirled again to pot at a +groping hand the size of a ten-story house; the hand contracted, +bunched, groped outward and was hidden as the body fell upon it. Pink +saved himself by a frantic backward shove that jolted him into the wall. +Circe sped by and he followed, shouting into his radio. They joined +hands and aimed for the next entrances, a mile down the hall. + +Four speeding djinn abruptly barred their path, express-flying down on +them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +"I know how a fly feels," gasped the girl. "I'll never wield another +swatter." + +Pink had emptied his Colt. He tried reloading on the run, or rather, he +thought wryly, on the bounce, but it was a tricky job. And he had only +about a dozen shells left. + +Circe shot another angry monster. If lead took just two seconds longer +to work on those immense systems, Pink realized, he and Circe would have +been squashed long since. They had fought down half the hall, past three +of the triple entrances, and now there was only one to check on. If +Daley and Jerry weren't there, they might as well give up; the ship +would go scattering into the void in about five minutes. + +They had to watch backwards as well as before them. The giants were +nearly all in motion now, the milling of such throngs of them having +caught the vacant stares of those who had been gaping at nothing. + +And suddenly there was Daley, standing before them and holding the limp +spacesuited form of Jerry Jones in his arms. "Hey, Pink," he said, "down +here." + +Pinkham blasted two foemen in the hands as they grasped for him. "Like +fighting giant redwoods," said Circe indistinctly, panting. They joined +the two officers, jumping and digging in their heels to halt sharply. + +"We have to make for that," said Pink, waving across the grotto at the +invisible hole which led to the plain. "Straight through these dam Alps +of aliens." He shot over Circe's head. "How you feeling?" + +"Little rocky," said Daley. + +"Take the Colt, then." He shoved it into the lieutenant's hand and +hoisted Jerry like a rag out of Daley's arms. "Come on," he barked. "And +don't get slapped. That's an order." He ran. + +Their combined chest-lamps beamed out a couple of miles as they headed +for the home stretch. Across the light passed the giant djinn, moving to +waylay them, standing mountain-steady to intercept. Circe rocketed into +the lead and led them on a zigzag course that avoided the vast parodies +of human feet which barred the way like river dams. + +They had had uncanny luck thus far. Why? Probably the giants were +sluggish from long inactivity. Too, Pink knew, it's hard to hit a small +darting object that's not more than one-one-hundred-and-sixty-sixth of +your size. And the lead slugs of their guns had turned many sure +captures into escapes. + +But now the guns were empty. + +"Feet," said Pink, quoting an ancient joke, "feet, do your stuff!" + +Circe was amazing, dodging and pirouetting and even hurdling the gross +feet when they couldn't be side-stepped. Pink gamely followed her lead, +Jerry now slung over his shoulder. There was panting in his ears--Daley +must be having tough going. Then he recognized the deep wheezing +breaths: they were his own. + +"Daley?" he gasped. + +"Right behind you, Pink." + +The mouth of their corridor was in sight. Then there were djinn, a row +of them standing side by side with feet firmly planted to make a +barrier. My God, he thought, this is it! Circe vanished, he did not see +where. The feet were there, and arms reaching down for him. He pitched +sideways, flipped by a questing finger; crashed on his shoulder, rolled, +still miraculously hanging onto Jerry. The brashest course was the only +one. He gathered himself and jumped onto a toe. It was as hard as the +rock. And this thing, he said irrelevantly in his mind, this massive +piece of solidity can vaporize into a gin bottle! He slid down the toe +and scuttled ratlike under the lofty legs and was in the clear. The +tunnel, itself an astoundingly high cave, appeared directly before him. + +There was no time now to look for Circe and Daley, vital though their +safety was to him. He carried Jerry into the tunnel and loped with +multiyarded strides for the plain. He could not see any lamp-glare but +his own. But he could not stop. Humanity in that instant overcame all +his private desires. There were fifty-eight souls who would be blotted +out if he didn't make the _Elephant's Child_ in two minutes. Sixty-one, +if you counted Daley and Circe and Pink himself. In less than one of +those minutes he had traversed the tunnel and come out above the plain. + +The ship was still there. Some distance away from it stood the big trap, +and even yet giants were speeding toward it from all points of the +compass. Pink gasped a breath and launched himself out and down the +steep hillside. He took it all in that one jump. As he was landing, a +curiously weightless man on this tiny planetoid, Jerry came to life and +writhed suddenly in his arms, upsetting his balance. Pink fell and his +left ankle shrieked with pain as it turned under him and was smashed +into the gray rock by his dropping body and Jerry's. + +He sprawled full length and knew his ankle was broken or sprained. Jerry +rolled free and collapsed, sighing into his radio. Pink tried to stand +and the ankle buckled. Horrified, he looked at his glove watch. + +He had seventy seconds. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +Pink bellowed, "Jerry!" He yelled it so loudly that his ears protested +at the helmet echoes. Jerry said groggily, "Wha?" + +"Stand up!" + +Jerry sat up and at once fell flat again. "Judas priest, I can't. That +you Pink?" + +"We've got to make the ship," he bawled, twisting with pain. + +"Make it what?" + +"If you want to live, son--stand up!" + +Jerry got to his knees. "I'm sick, Pink." + +He had used up six seconds. He had to try it on his own. Jerry was too +far gone to function properly. + +Pink stood up. His teeth were grinding together like millstones, but he +didn't stop. He knew pain and dread and rage that shook him. He faced +the ship, and stood on his good leg and bent his knee and gave a +tremendous hop. + +As he fell on his face, an unknown number of yards nearer, a great alien +passed him, the mighty sole slamming the rock a few feet from his prone +body. Pink struggled upright and balanced on the right leg and made +another hop. This time he didn't fall when he lit. Praying thankfully +for the two seconds that saved, he sprang again. And fell, painfully. + +It was a useless piece of bravado. It was impossible to reach the ship. +He got up and leaped. He fell. He forced himself up and sprang and +didn't fall and sprang and fell. + +He couldn't waste a blink of time in looking at the watch or yelling +with agony or even praying now. He went through his routine +automatically, his mind a thing of terror. Eons seemed to pass him by as +he hopped over the djinn-infested gray rock plain. + +A superb spring took him abreast of the big lead vat. What wild scenes +of delirium were going on there he could not even imagine. He hopped +twice more and was at the ship. + +At any instant, at this very second the ship would blossom into +red-white carnage of metal and flesh and death. Impossibly Pink stood on +his good leg and aimed for the scanner-port which he knew, or hoped, +connected with the screen in the control room where Jackson sat. + +Now the _Elephant's Child_ was done, Jackson was shoving the switch +over, now it would all disintegrate in his face. He flew through space +and struck the hull flat; all the perishing strength in him glued his +body, his fingers in their thin gloves, to that curving surface. His +great helmet, with the crest insignia of comets and spears that marked +him as the captain, hung for a short time directly in front of the +scanner-port. + +He shook his head violently, back and forth, back and forth. _No_, he +screamed in his mind, wishing insanely that his radio were constructed +so that it could be heard in the ship. _No_, he shook, _no, no_! + +Then his precarious grip on the smooth side slid off, and Captain +Pinkham fell lightly but finally to the asteroid. + +He lay there unresisting. He had done his best, absolutely his damned +best. Let it blow. Let it blow. + +After a while he looked at his glove watch. It was two minutes past the +time for explosion. + +He had saved the _Elephant's Child_. + +He turned and looked across the plain and saw, beyond the great trap +into which giant-smoke was settling, two figures come running toward him +with unearthly strides. One of them halted and gathered Jerry into its +arms. The other reached Pink and knelt beside him and hugged him +tightly. Pink laughed, a passionate sound of relief. Circe said, "You +made it, darling. You made it!" + +The air-lock began to open. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +The djinni on the floor said, "I concede this battle to you, Captain. I +have seen the ending on the screen. But there are others out there, on +Oasis and in the void. We'll win to Earth some day in spite of this +victory." + +Pink, snugly ensconced in a foam-chair with his sprained ankle propped +up, his surviving officers seated around him, and Circe on the arm of +the deep chair, took another drink of lemonade. He made a face, almost +asked for brandy, and remembered. He said, "Maybe the same way you came +to these asteroids?" + +"No, not that. That way went only in one direction, through the fourth +dimension, I think. The people of the continent you call Atlantis built +that way for our use, though much against our desire; and the machine +they made was so fearful that its use sank their whole land into the +sea. They were a great, scientific people, and we have not their skill." + +"Atlantis too," Jerry said. "Now we've heard everything, all but the +Little People and Pan." + +The djinni did not seem to hear him. Its eyes, like dead coals now in +the yellow face, rested on Pink. "It was clever of you to recognize us +from history." + +"You go into bottles, speak Arabic, fly and are humanoid in form. I +should have guessed your race hours before." + +"We are not humanoid. You are djinnoid. We came before you in +evolution." + +"How do you know?" asked Daley. + +"Our legends ... I cannot tell, being no more than six or seven thousand +years old myself. But we are told we predate man." + +"When were you relegated to this belt?" asked Jerry, who was still a +little pale. "You were around in Solomon's time." + +"Yes. He caught and trapped most of my race--we are not so numerous as +you cursed rabbits--by the same means you used. One great vat he +collected, after some years of the bottles, and sealed up a multitude of +my folk and cast them off a ship; somehow the currents dragged the box +to Atlantis. There my people were freed, and set about to conquer the +land. But the Atlanteans captured them after several decades and, having +constructed the terrible machine, sent them off to this forsaken hole in +space. The cataclysm the machine made--evidently they hadn't been so +clever as they thought, may Allah rot their souls!--set off volcanic +action, which eventually sank their country. It was never very large, +anyway...." + +"How do you know this?" asked Pink. He was a bit breathless; at any +moment the being might decide to shut up and die. He had to satisfy his +curiosity about the space-dwellers. + +"I was one who escaped Solomon. I made my way to England after a few +centuries of wandering, of being a minor deity here and there, and in +England in the late seventeenth century I met a brother. He had been on +Atlantis, and hovering above it had seen the exiling of our race and the +death of the land. Together we determined to find the machine, repair it +if need be, and bring back our people. We thought they were somewhere in +the bowels of the earth, or perhaps held invisible in the machine +itself. + +"We felt we were the last djinn at liberty. We went under the sea--" + +"How?" This was Bill Calico, nursing a broken leg on the couch. + +"We are oblivious to our surrounding elements, so long as they are not +too dense for us to penetrate. After a year or two we found the +machine. It was partially destroyed, but so simple that we easily +repaired it. We could not see how it could make our race vanish, but as +we are indestructible except by lead, and the Atlanteans did not know of +that metal, we knew that they had vanished rather than died. When we had +the machine fixed, I volunteered to try it out and see what happened. He +was to reverse it and draw me back shortly." + + * * * * * + +The monstrous thing sighed. "It was too complex for us. First I found +myself floating a mile or so off Oasis, and then my friend joined me. +His adjustments had failed. The cursed machine had relegated us both." + +"God bless Atlantis," murmured Circe. + +"I presume you are taking the bottles and the great vat of lead back to +Earth?" it queried slyly. + +"Not on your life," said Daley. "As soon as we're out of System Ninety, +we'll drop 'em into the void. Your damn tribe will be marooned properly +this time." + +"But they are alive in those prisons!" it shouted, its eyes momentarily +reddening again. "Such compression is most irksome to them, and they +must constantly shift about to keep clear of the lead in the stoppers. +It's inhuman!" + +"You're right," said Pink grimly. "It's djinnlike." + +"How did you learn English?" asked Jerry suddenly. "Modern English, I +mean." + +"You forget; when you brought me aboard, in the guise of a Martian, you +handed me a lingoalter. It was simple to speak the English of the 17th +century into it and listen as modern speech came out." + +"That's another thing. That Martian suit--how'd you get it?" + +"They had come this far. We found the suit, with its occupant long +turned to dust. We kept it for such emergencies. When the space ships +foundered nearby a few years ago, we refrained from molesting this +woman, thinking that she might some day be a fine decoy." + +"You watched me in the suit," said Circe. + +"We did. We had not seen a human in a long time." The djinni paused, +then said, "The Martians had space travel when Earthmen were barbarians. +They came to Terra, and we, sensing danger in them, drove them out. We +saw to it that the Martians would tell tales of the horrors of Earth +life, and never come back." + +"By God," said Pink, "that's why they never colonized Earth, though +they had spaceships! It's one of the biggest problems we've known." + +"Then I've solved it for you. Will you do me a favor in return?" + +"What?" + +"Have you any lead left?" + +"A little." + +"Then lay it on my chest, and give me a quick death." + +"Get it," Pink said to Daley. The lieutenant started a protest. Pink +said, "My Lord, can't we afford to be merciful now? After all that +slaughter?" And Daley went to find the lead. + +Circe said, "Why do you want to go to Earth so badly? What's there that +you want? You're such an independent form of life...." + +"Atmosphere," said the djinni. + +"But you don't breathe!" + +"We do, however, talk; and we cannot hear each other in a vacuum. We +wanted to find Earth again and know the pleasure of communication. On +Oasis we had to talk with our hands." It groaned, grotesquely human in +its agony. "Can you imagine living for centuries without the joy of +conversation?" it asked pitifully. + +Circe shook her head. "I don't much blame you," she said in a small +voice. + +Daley came back. He handed a small rough bar of lead to Pink. The +Captain's mind seethed with questions he longed to ask; but the reaction +of the battle was settling in with vengeance, and he could not see this +great paralyzed brute live on because of his own more or less idle +curiosity. He bent forward from the chair. "Sorry," he said, and dropped +the bar onto its chest. + +"Wait!" said Jerry. "How did you know how to spell _phony_?" + +The djinni made a small hissing noise that had something in it of +contentment. Its eyes turned jetty, and they knew it was dead. + +"It died happy," said Daley to the slim O. O. "It knew it was leaving us +a problem that we'd never solve. What a--what a malicious character it +was!" + +"Poor devil," said Circe. "No conversation for five hundred years!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Four days later Pinkham and Circe stood quietly before a scanner screen, +Pink leaning on a cane, and watched the great lead vat and then the +multitude of bottles go tumbling into space. "We are giving them a +chance of survival," mused Circe. "There's about one chance in a billion +that some day they'll be found and released again." + +"I wonder," said Pink, "if they did predate man in evolution? Or if they +were originally native to another planet that expelled 'em? There were +always legends of giants and ogres and djinn and demons on earth, myths +that started to die out about the time this late friend of ours left the +globe for good. Maybe the djinni developed side by side with man, but +was limited because of his flaws. There are a million life-forms in the +universe so alien to man as to be unexplainable, and a lot of them are +right home on Terra." + +Circe shook her dark head. "Is the whole thing real, Pink? Or is it a +fantasy we've uncovered out here in the void?" + +"Every damn thing about them is scientifically possible. But I know how +you feel--it seems like a fairy story. If so many good guys weren't dead +back there, I'd disbelieve it myself." He scowled a moment, then looked +at her and brightened. "Honey," he said, "remind me that I have to send +a radio message to Earth as soon as we're close enough." + +"Radio message? What?" + +"A sort of temperance warning, that's all." He grinned. "It goes like +this: _If you find any bottles, don't open them!_" + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Giants From Outer Space, by Geoff St. Reynard + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIANTS FROM OUTER SPACE *** + +***** This file should be named 32485.txt or 32485.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/2/4/8/32485/ + +Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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