Gow whispered, "Don't shoot. Don't anybody shoot." I don't think he
knew then, that there wasn't anybody left to shoot but himself and
Jarin.
The _cansins_ were huge and solid, behemoths carved from the night.
They towered over us, and the green light pulsed. My jaw hung open and
I couldn't breathe, and I'd have run only my joints were all water.
Quern went into his act.
He began to show color. Out of nothing his body started to glow,
from inside. You could see the round blurred shape of him, and the
phosphorescence of his guts, showing through. First red, savage as a
punch in the face, and then all the rest of the spectrum, sometimes one
color, sometimes a swirl of them.
His body changed shape. I could feel the queer rubbery movement of it
on my hands. I remembered the rubes I'd seen standing around Quern's
platform, their eyes drawn half out of their heads by the shifting
lines and colors. It worked with them. But not here.
The _cansins_ came on. The green light flared a little brighter, and
that was all. Habit and control were so strong that not even the
females paid much attention to Quern. I could see the rain smoking off
their huge black shoulders. They were right on top of us.
Quern gasped, "I can't do it!" His glow deadened. I shook him. I yelled,
"I knew you were a phony! You two-bit yentzer! Jarin, slow 'em down,
can't you?"
Quern began to shimmer again. Jarin faded in, hardly visible in the
darkness. I heard his tentacles whiplashing across hard flesh.
One of the _cansins_ screamed. The green light did a sharp dip and
swirl. And I yelled,
"Gow! Speak to Gertrude!"
The terrifying forward march slowed a little. Quern was churning colors
out of his guts as though his life depended on it--which it did. Gow
stepped forward a little.
"Gertrude," he said. "Gertrude, you ugly, slab-sided, left-handed--"
He cursed her, affectionately. I never heard anything like his voice. I
wanted to cry. In Quern's faint hypnotic glow I saw the green eyes of
the nearest female watching, looking wide and queer.
The male was angry, now. Angry and scared. You could tell by the
vicious brightness of him. We decided afterward that his light was the
same kind a glow-worm carries around, only stronger. He was fighting.
Fighting to hold those four minds against the attraction of Quern's
shifting glow.
He'd have done it, too, if it hadn't been for Gow. Gow, standing in the
hot rain and cursing Gertrude with tears in his voice.
Gertrude screamed. Suddenly, for no reason, a strange uncertain cry.
She moved. A sort of shudder ran through the other three. It was a
little like a wall cracking. The male burned savagely.
The females were watching Quern, now. Gertrude had made the breach.
Now the community mind was fastened on the hypnotic little Martian. I
could see their green eyes, wide and glassy, their snaky heads nodding
a little, trying to follow the flowing outlines.
The male began to dim. He shivered, and lurched a couple of times,
still trying to fight. Gow's voice went on, hoarsely, and Gertrude
whimpered. The male floated a little closer. I could see, suddenly,
what kept him up. Wings, like a hummingbird's, blurred with motion.
They slowed, and the green light dimmed. He began to bob a little in
the hot rain, watching Quern.