Ginger had a short-barreled light-kicking Mannlicher, Harry and I
carried Springfields and Mr. Stevenson had a big Marlin Magnum .375.
We had enough firepower to stop anything the Venusian swamps offered
unless something--such as a Wompan--stopped us first.
"Let's go out there," Mr. Stevenson said, loading a clip of ammo into
the Marlin's magazine and ramming a single shell into the breech.
I led the way, followed single file by Mr. Stevenson, Ginger and Harry
in that order. We went less than a hundred yards and could no longer
see the stockade behind us. Venusian swamp jungle was like that. It
was strangely quiet, though. We noticed that at once--the usual small
jungle noises were still, as if waiting, watching....
"The Wompan," I whispered. "He's here, sir."
"How can you be sure?"
"Listen...."
"You mean the quiet?"
"The animals know he's here. Instinctively, they fear him. They won't
make a sound because if they do, he'll have them. He can mime the sound
of any life form and when he does that, he has them."
"He has them how?" Mr. Stevenson asked in a tight, anxious whisper.
"By pretending to be one of them and killing them when they don't
expect it."
"I see. And we--"
"Keep on the lookout," I said. "And don't separate. As long as we stay
together, sir, all four of us, we're safe."
We had come a couple of hundred yards from the stockade. Unless you
knew the way back, though, it could have been a couple of hundred
miles. Some of the bogs could be treacherous, too.
* * * * *
I went knee-deep in the muck and pulled my feet out. The mud made
sucking sounds against the rubber of my boots. Something touched my
shoulder and I whirled--but it was only Mr. Stevenson.
"Where are they?" he said.
Ginger and Harry were gone.
I swore. I called Harry every name in the book, but it didn't help.
Hell, he had had ample time to be alone with Ginger. Of all the fool
stunts--
"You'd better find them, Roberts, and find them now," Mr. Stevenson
said, his voice flat and cold. "That's my little girl he has out there."
I nodded grimly and we went back along the trail a slow step at a
time, trying to pierce the green twilight gloom on either side. The
jungle was very quiet--deadly quiet. Wompan quiet. The animals told us
soundlessly. The Wompan was nearby.
"Harry?" I called.
"Can you chance it?" Mr. Stevenson whispered.
"I've got to."
We went back slowly, at a crawl. We covered twenty yards. Thirty. There
was nothing.
"Harry," I called. "Harry?"
Mr. Stevenson's hand gripped my shoulder. He pointed. "What's that out
there?"
I looked where he had pointed. Creepers and lianas and thick
fern-brakes obscured my view. I couldn't see a thing.
"Out there," he said again.
I could see perhaps five yards, no more. It was utterly silent. It was
also hot and humid as it always is in the Venusian swamps. My khakis
clung to me with sweat.
"I still can't see a thing," I said. He pointed a third time. I stared
and saw nothing and was about to say so when something struck the side
of my head just above the ear.
I staggered off into the fern-brake and sat down. I was groggy and I
didn't know what had hit me. There still wasn't a sound in the jungle.
When I brought my hand up to my ear and brought it away again, it was
red and wet and glistening with blood. I turned around slowly, stiffly--
Jason Woods Stevenson stood there in the fern-brake. He looked
gigantic. He lifted the big Marlin Magnum .375 over his head and
brought it down, butt-first. I rolled over and away and the big rifle
struck half a foot from my head. Several inches of the rifle were
buried in the mud and I had time to stagger to my feet while Mr.
Stevenson pulled it clear.
"What's the matter with you?" I roared. "What's the--"
He stood five feet from me. He swung the rifle around and pointed it at
my chest.
There wasn't a sound--not a sound. It was like a nightmare....
I used my own rifle to knock his aside as it went off. The Marlin
Magnum packs a kick and he stumbled back a step. I went after him and
when he pointed his rifle at me again and looked as if he would squeeze
the trigger I had no choice. I swung my own rifle like a club and
brought it down with savage force on his shoulder.
There was a sound and the sound said his shoulder was broken. He merely
scowled and brought his rifle up again, broken shoulder and all, and
then I knew.
I shot him. I poured the whole clip into him and the rifle kept kicking
back against my shoulder, the stock slapping my cheek, and I didn't
want to think. It was not until the last bullet went _whonking_ home
that he fell. It was a sound that only a hunter or a killer knows--the
_whonk_ of lead into flesh at close range. It is a horrible sound when
what you're shooting at is a man.
Was a man.
Or looked like a man.
Because, as he fell, Jason Woods Stevenson changed. The features
melted, became indistinct. The limbs fell in on themselves. The body
grew big and round--bloated and somehow obscene. In seconds what had
been a man was a shapeless, quivering, dying mass of protoplasm. A
Wompan.
Then Harry Conger screamed.
It was a scream of sudden awareness and fear. It was worse for Harry
than it was for me. Harry was falling in love with Ginger, and now--
I went crashing through the fern-brake, seeking them. I shouted at the
top of my lungs now. "Harry! Harry!"
I found them when it was almost too late. Harry was down on his back, a
dazed look on his face. There was a smear of blood across his face from
ear to mouth. There was a strange look in his eyes.
Ginger Stevenson stood over him with the short-barrelled Mannlicher. I
shot six times with a new clip before she fell. Harry climbed to his
feet and stormed at me, raging like a mad-man. "You killed her!" he
cried. "You--"
Then I made him turn around. He saw what was there and what was there
was not and had never been Ginger. He sobbed once and I led him back to
the stockade.
* * * * *
"But I don't get it," he said later. I had given him three stiff drinks
and they had helped some, but only a little. Harry needed time to think
and time to forget. "What happened to the Stevensons? To Ginger?"
"There weren't any Stevensons. No Ginger. Don't you remember they came
right after we heard the Wompan make like a swamp-buggy?"
"Yeah--"
"And when we got back there was no spaceship in the stockade, right?"
"Yeah--"
"It was the Wompan all along. There never was a Mr. Stevenson or his
daughter."
"Yeah, but--"
"You're thinking the Wompan needs a model?"
"I guess so."
"It probably had one. The Stevensons last year at Venus Joe's. Isn't
that what it said--as Mr. Stevenson?"
Harry agreed, but he didn't really care. He had fallen in love--with a
girl who didn't exist.
"Buck up," I said.
"It's all right for you to say."
"No. Buck up, will you?"
"What for? What the hell for?"
"Because Venus on the Half Shell has a chance now. Because we killed a
Wompan. It's only the fourth one ever and we're going to get a lot of
free publicity--which ought to make this place."
"Yeah, that's true," Harry said. But his heart wasn't in it.
"We'll take pictures," I said. "We'll write it up and send in into
Spaceman's magazine and we'll have it made. Sportsmen will be flocking
here for a crack at Wompans. No wait. I have a better idea. We'll take
pictures and write it up and you'll deliver our story in person to
Spaceman's magazine on Earth."
"Me? I just want to be alone, Gil. I don't feel like going anywhere."
I smiled. "Yes, you do. You'll deliver the pictures and the story in
person--to Spaceman's outdoor editor, who the Wompan saw at Venus Joe's
last year. To Jason Woods Stevenson."
"Yeah," Harry said.
"And maybe you'll get to meet his daughter, Ginger."
"Yeah," Harry said again. But this time he was smiling.