_Tremendous Odds_
Like living spokes of a half-wheel, with the Earthman as the hub, the
Rogans converged toward Brand, a howling roar outside indicating that
there were hundreds more waiting to jam into the dome as soon as they
were able. There were still no shock-tubes in evidence: evidently the
worker who had gone for help had gathered the first Rogan citizens he
had encountered on the streets. But the very numbers of the mob
spelled defeat for Brand.
However, there was still the great lever behind him to yank away from
its switch-socket. The glass bell was almost off now. With a last mad
blow, he knocked loose the remaining bolt that held it. The bell
clattered to the floor.
A concerted shriek came from the crowding Rogans as they saw the
Earthman's hand close on the lever. Whatever effect the throwing of
that master-switch could have, there was no doubt that they were
extremely anxious to prevent it!
And now, in the rear of the crowding columns, appeared Rogans taller
than the others, with an authoritative air, who waved before them,
eager to unleash their power, batteries of the death-tubes.
Resigning himself to annihilation in the next instant, Brand pulled
down hard on the lever.
* * * * *
The effect wrought by the throwing of that great switch was almost
indescribable.
In a flash, as though all had been struck at once by a giant's hand,
every Rogan in the mob shot toward the floor, long thin legs caving
under him as if turned to water. Writhing feebly, they endeavored to
get up, but could not; and, still weakly ferocious, began to creep
toward the Earthman like huge-headed worms.
Brand himself had been thrown to the floor with the falling of that
switch. He had felt as though an invisible ocean had been poured on
him, weighting him down intolerably. To move arms or legs required
enormous effort; and to get up on his feet again was like rising under
a two-hundred-pound pack.
The movement of the switch, he saw, had cut off the gravity reducing
apparatus of the Rogans--whatever that might consist of. They were
now, abruptly, subjected to the full force of gravity exerted by
Jupiter's great mass. They could no more stand erect on their
tottering, lofty legs than they could fly.
But, though greatly handicapped by the gravity pull, they were still
not entirely helpless. Like huge, long insects they continued to worm
their way toward Brand, using their four arms and their boneless legs
to help urge them over the flooring. And in their rear the Rogan
guards struggled to lift their tubes and level them at the escaped
prisoner.
Prompt to avoid that, Brand went down on his hands and knees. Thus he
was shielded by the foremost crawling Rogans: the ones in the rear,
with the tubes, could not raise themselves high enough to bore down
over their fellows' heads at the Earthman.
Squatting on his knees, Brand awaited the first resolute crawlers.
And, on his knees, whirling the now thrice weighty bar at heads that
were conveniently low enough to be accessible, he began his last
stand.
* * * * *
On the Rogans came, evidently determined, at any sacrifice of life, to
get the Earthman away from that vital control board. And to right and
left, crouching low to escape the tubes of the guards slowly crawling
forward from the rear, Brand laid about him with the bar.
He got a little sick at the havoc he was wreaking on these
slow-moving, gravity-crippled things: but remembrance of their grisly
feeding habits, and the torture they must by now have inflicted on
Dex, kept him flailing down on soft heads with undiminished effort.
With the gravity pull what it was, the Earthman was immeasurably
stronger than any individual Rogan. For a time the contest was all in
his favor. It was like killing slugs in a rose garden!
Nevertheless, these slugs were, after all, twelve feet long and
possessed of intelligence, besides being hundreds in number. After a
while the tide of battle began to turn in their favor.
Brand began to feel his arms ache burningly with the sustained effort
of wielding a weapon that now weighed about twenty-five pounds. He
knew he couldn't keep up the terrific strain much longer. And, in
addition, he could see that the armed Rogans in the rear were steadily
forging ahead among the unarmed attackers, till they soon must be in a
position to blast him with their weapons.
Brand brought down his bar, with failing force but still deadly
effect, on the loathsome face of the nearest Rogan, grunting with
satisfaction as he saw it crumple into a shapeless mass. He thrust it,
spear-like, into another face, and another.
Then, abruptly, he found himself weaponless.
Raising it high to bring it down on an attacker who was almost about
to seize him, he felt the metal bar turn white hot, and dropped it
with a cry as it seared the skin from the palms of his hands. Some
Rogan guard in the rear had managed to train his tube on the bar; and
in the instant of its rising had almost melted it.
* * * * *
Weaponless and helpless, Brand crawled slowly back before the
tortuously advancing mob, keeping close enough to them to be shielded
from the tubes of the rear guards. Without his club he knew the end
was a matter of seconds.
He had an impulse to leap full into the mass of repulsive, crawling
bodies and die fighting as his fists battered at the gruesome faces.
But a second impulse, and a stronger one, was the blind instinct to
preserve his life as long as possible.
Hesitantly, almost reluctantly, acting on the primitive instinct of
self-preservation, he continued to back away from the advancing horde;
away from the switch and toward the rear of the dome.
With the instant of his withdrawal, a Rogan turned toward the lever to
push it back up into contact and release the red kingdom from the
burden of Jupiter's unendurable gravity. And now ensued a curious
struggle. The lever, placed for the convenience of creatures twelve
feet or more tall, was about five feet from the floor. And the Rogan
couldn't reach it!
* * * * *
Stubbornly he heaved and writhed in an effort to raise his
inordinately heavy body from the floor to a point where one of the
weaving arms could reach the switch. But the pipe-stem legs would not
bear its weight. Each time it nearly reached the lever, only to fall
feebly back again in a snarl of tangled limbs.
Meanwhile, Brand had flashed a quick look back over his shoulder to
see, in the wall behind him, a metal door he hadn't noticed before. He
found time for a flashing instant to wonder why there were no Rogans
entering from that doorway, too; but it was a vain wonder, and it
faded from his mind as the ever advancing, groping monsters before him
kept crowding him back.
Instinctively he changed his course a trifle, to edge toward the
metal door. Perhaps, behind it, there was sanctuary for a few moments.
Perhaps he could force it open, spring out, and bar it again in the
faces of the pursuing mob. It sounded improbable, but at least it
offered him a slim chance where before no chance had seemed possible.
He reached the door at last, fumbled behind him and felt, high over
his head, a massive sliding bolt.
* * * * *
In the spot Brand had left, the struggle to throw the gravity-lever
back into closed contact position went on. The Rogan who was
fruitlessly trying to reach up to it paused and said something to one
near him. That one halted, and began to crawl toward him.
The two of them tried to reach it, one bracing the other and helping
him pry his body up from the implacable pull of Jupiter's uninsulated
mass. The top Rogan reached a little higher. The flesh sucker-disk
that served as a hand almost grasped the lever, but failed by only a
few inches.
A third Rogan crawled up. And now, with two arching their backs to
help the other, the thing was done. The hose-like, groping arm went up
and pushed the lever back into place.
The blue streamer began to hum and crackle from coil to coil again.
The invisible weight that pressed down was released as once more the
giant planet's gravity was nullified. The Rogans got eagerly to their
feet and began to race toward Brand in their normal long bounds.
Brand, just cautiously rising, when the power went back on, found
himself leaping five feet into the air with the excess of his muscular
effort. And in that leap he saw the Rogans in the rear straighten up
and point their tubes. However, also in that leap, his fumbling hand
shot back the bolt that securely shut the metal door.
With a shout of defiance he jumped out of the door and slammed it shut
after him, feeling it grow searing hot an instant later under the
impact of the rays from the tubes that had been trained on him.
A stinging shock reached him through the metal, flinging him to the
ground. He rolled out of its range and leaped to his feet to race away
from there. Then, with a gasp, he flattened his body back against the
wall of the dome building.
He was in the enclosure that held the gigantic, lizard-like thing that
had nearly got him on his escape from the tower room.
He wheeled frantically to go back and face the Rogan death-tubes.
Anything rather than wait while that mammoth heap of tiny-brained
ferocity ran him down and tore him to shreds! But even as he turned,
he heard the bolt shoot home on the inside of the door; heard vengeful
squeals of triumph from his pursuers.
* * * * *
At the other end of the enclosure, near the foot of the tower
building, the great lizard eyed him unblinkingly, its tremendous jaws
gaping to reveal a cavernous mouth that was hideously lined with
bright orange colored membrane. Then, squatting lower with every step
it took, like a mountainous cat about to spring on its prey, it began
to stalk on its tree-like legs toward the tiny creature that had
leaped into its yard with it.
Brand whirled this way and that, mechanically seeking a way out. There
was none. The walls of the great enclosure were not like the wall of
the tower. Here were no rough hewn stones, with protruding ridges of
mortar set between. These walls were as smooth as glass, and just as
smooth was the curved wall of the dome building behind him.
The monstrous beast stalked nearer, almost on its belly now. As it
advanced, the great tail stirred up a cloud of reddish dust, and left
behind it a round deep depression in a surface already crisscrossed
with a multitude of similar depressions. A bellowing hiss came from
its gaping mouth, and it increased its pace to a thunderous, waddling
rush.