The skipper laughed scornfully. "What trail? We'd be committing suicide
by heading into those marshes, those hills, or those jungles. Our
only chance of survival is to stay close to the _Orestes_. Five of the
sailors bailed out, you'll remember. In safety-sleds. We've got to hope
one or more of them will reach Venus City, start a rescue party out
after us."
"But you said 'get going'?"
"To work, I meant. We're going to need protection from the sun." Again
Captain Lane glanced at the sky, this time a little anxiously. "I
know this country. After that sun gets up, it will be a bake-oven. A
seething cauldron of heat. Damp, muggy heat. Steam from the marshes
below, the raw, blinding heat blazing down from the rocks above. This
is Venus, Mallory--" He laughed shortly; but there was no mirth in his
laughter. "This isn't an air-conditioned home on Earth. Come along!"
Silently, Tim followed him. They picked their way through the tangled
wreckage of the _Orestes_, stopping from time to time to salvage such
bits of equipment as Lane felt might be of use. Flashlights, side-arms,
vacuteens of clear, cold water, packets of emergency rations. Through
chamber after shattered chamber they moved, Captain Lane leading the
way. Tim and Dorothy following mutely behind. Everywhere it was the
same. Broken walls, bent and twisted girders, great rents in what had
once been a sturdy spacecraft.
And finally Lane gave up.
"It's no use," he said. "There's no protection in this battered hulk.
Shading ourselves in one of these open cells would be like taking
refuge in a broiler."
"Then what can we do, Daddy?"
"There's only one thing to do. Break out bulgers. They're
thermostatically controlled. We'll keep cooler in space-suits than
anything else. Mallory, you remember where they were?"
"Yes, sir!" Tim went after the space-suits, grateful for a chance to
contribute in some way to their common good. The storeroom in which the
bulgers had been locked was no longer burglar-proof; one wall had been
sheared away in the crash as if cleft with a gigantic ax. He clambered
into the compartment, broke out three bulgers, gathered up spare
oxytainers for each of them.
He had just finished lugging the equipment out of the storeroom,
sweating from the exertion of lifting three heavy space-suits beneath
a sun which was now glowing brazenly in an ochre, misted sky, when a
sharp cry startled him.
"Daddy! Behind you!" It was Dorothy who screamed the warning. And then,
"Tim! _Tim!_"
"Coming!" roared Mallory. He was scarcely conscious of the weight of
the bulgers now. In a flash he was plunging toward the source of the
cry, tugging at the needle-gun in his belt. But before he had taken a
dozen steps--
"Never mind, Mallory!" roared Captain Lane. "Stay where you are! Back,
you filthy--!" There came the sharp, characteristic hiss of a flashing
needle-gun, the _plowp!_ of some unguessable, fleshy thing exploding
into atoms. "Stay where you are! We'll come to you. Quick, Dorothy!"
* * * * *
Then their footsteps pounding toward him, Dorothy rounding a bend of
the ship, white-faced and flying, Captain Lane on her heels, covering
their retreat with his gun. As Mallory sprang to join them Lane flashed
him a swift glance and tossed curt words of explanation.
"Proto-balls! Giant, filthy amoebae. Pure proteid matter. _Aaah!_
Scorched that one! Damned needle-guns won't stop 'em, though. Just
slows 'em down. Only thing'll kill 'em is an acid-spray. We've got to
get out of here!"
"But where, Daddy?"
"Got those bulgers, Mallory? Climb into 'em. And hurry. Saw caves in
the mountainside up there. They won't enter caves. Need sunlight. _Look
out!_"
Again that sharp, explosive hiss. Mallory leaped back, feeling the
brief, furtive brush of something foreign across the toe of his boot.
The attacking proto-balls were of all sizes; they ranged from huge,
oily-glistening, foul-odored spheres to tiny globules the size of a
baseball. One of the latter size had rolled swiftly toward him; for a
second, before Captain Lane's gun splashed flame upon it, it had come
in contact with Mallory's foot. Where it had touched was now a patch of
crumbling gray that had been leather!
"Eat anything!" rasped Lane. "Didn't touch you, eh, Mallory? Good.
Start backing away. And get into the bulgers. Move!"
Mallory climbed swiftly into his space-suit. Its weight disappeared
as he touched the grav control button; the heat which had begun to
oppress him fled, too, when he closed the face-port. He touched Lane's
shoulder, thrust the remaining bulger at him.
"I'll hold them while you get into it!"
And he did. It was an unequal battle, though. The proto-balls were the
next thing to imperishable. The needle-gun could not destroy them, it
only slowed them down. An occasional perfect bull's-eye shot, striking
a vulnerable spot, would burst a proto-ball into a thousand pieces--but
when that happened, each of the pieces, amoeba-like, curled instantly
into a tiny daughter proto-ball and surged forward again.
Yet there must have been some elementary nervous-system in these
creatures, for while it could not kill them, still they seemed to
fear the flaming ray of the needle-gun. And it was to this fear that
the trio of Earthlings owed their existence during those next hectic
minutes while they stumbled, ever backward and upward, giving ground
steadily, toward the cave-mouth Captain Lane had pointed out on the
hillside.
Tim did not even know the cave was near. Shoulder to shoulder with
the old space-captain, he maintained a rear-guard defense against the
proto-balls, gun flaming without cessation, his eyes aching from the
strain of constant watchfulness against an unexpected flank attack. And
then--
And then, suddenly, incredibly, a shadow fell under his stumbling feet;
at that line of division between glowing sun and somber shade the
proto-balls stopped, quivering and oozing viscous droplets of slime,
hesitated, and turned away.