The monsters returned.
* * * * *
A soundless deluge of them, pouring over the rubbled horizon, swarming
in malevolent anticipation about the two men.
"This way, Irish. They come from this way! There's a focal point, a
sending station for these telepathic brutes. Come on!"
Hathaway sludged into the pressing tide of color, mouths, contorted
faces, silvery fat bodies misting as he plowed through them.
Marnagan was making good progress ahead of Hathaway. But he stopped and
raised his gun and made quick moves with it. "Click! This one here!
It's real!" He fell back and something struck him down. His immense
frame slammed against rock, noiselessly.
Hathaway darted forward, flung his body over Marnagan's, covered the
helmet glass with his hands, shouting:
"Marnagan! Get a grip, dammit! It's not real--don't let it force into
your mind! It's not real, I tell you!"
"Click--" Marnagan's face was a bitter, tortured movement behind glass.
"Click--" He was fighting hard. "I--I--sure now. Sure--" He smiled.
"It--it's only a shanty fake!"
"Keep saying it, Irish. Keep it up."
Marnagan's thick lips opened. "It's only a fake," he said. And then,
irritated, "Get the hell off me, Hathaway. Let me up to my feet!"
Hathaway got up, shakily. The air in his helmet smelled stale, and
little bubbles danced in his eyes. "Irish, _you_ forget the monsters.
Let me handle them, I know how. They might fool you again, you might
forget."
Marnagan showed his teeth. "Gah! Let a flea have all the fun? And
besides, Click, I like to look at them. They're pretty."
The outpour of animals came from a low lying mound a mile farther on.
Evidently the telepathic source lay there. They approached it warily.
"We'll be taking our chances on guard," hissed Irish. "I'll go ahead,
draw their attention, maybe get captured. Then, _you_ show up with
_your_ gun...."
"I haven't got one."
"We'll chance it, then. You stick here until I see what's ahead. They
probably got scanners out. Let them see me--"
And before Hathaway could object, Marnagan walked off. He walked about
five hundred yards, bent down, applied his fingers to something, heaved
up, and there was a door opening in the rock.
His voice came back across the distance, into Click's earphones. "A
door, an air-lock, Click. A tunnel leading down inside!"
Then, Marnagan dropped into the tunnel, disappearing. Click heard the
thud of his feet hitting the metal flooring.
Click sucked in his breath, hard and fast.
"All right, put 'em up!" a new harsh voice cried over a different
radio. One of Gunther's guards.
Three shots sizzled out, and Marnagan bellowed.
The strange harsh voice said, "That's better. Don't try and pick that
gun up now. Oh, so it's you. I thought Gunther had finished you off.
How'd you get past the animals?"
Click started running. He switched off his _sending_ audio, kept his
_receiving_ on. Marnagan, weaponless. _One_ guard. Click gasped. Things
were getting dark. Had to have air. Air. Air. He ran and kept running
and listening to Marnagan's lying voice:
"I tied them pink elephants of Gunther's in neat alphabetical bundles
and stacked them up to dry, ya louse!" Marnagan said. "But, damn you,
they killed my partner before he had a chance!"
The guard laughed.
* * * * *
The air-lock door was still wide open when Click reached it, his head
swimming darkly, his lungs crammed with pain-fire and hell-rockets. He
let himself down in, quiet and soft. He didn't have a weapon. He didn't
have a weapon. Oh, damn, damn!
A tunnel curved, ending in light, and two men silhouetted in that
yellow glare. Marnagan, backed against a wall, his helmet cracked,
air hissing slowly out of it, his face turning blue. And the guard, a
proton gun extended stiffly before him, also in a vac-suit. The guard
had his profile toward Hathaway, his lips twisting: "I think I'll let
you stand right there and die," he said quietly. "That what Gunther
wanted, anway. A nice sordid death."
Hathaway took three strides, his hands out in front of him.
"Don't move!" he snapped. "I've got a weapon stronger than yours. One
twitch and I'll blast you and the whole damned wall out from behind
you! Freeze!"
The guard whirled. He widened his sharp eyes, and reluctantly, dropped
his gun to the floor.
"Get his gun, Irish."
Marnagan made as if to move, crumpled clumsily forward.
Hathaway ran in, snatched up the gun, smirked at the guard. "Thanks for
posing," he said. "That shot will go down in film history for candid
acting."
"What!"
"Ah: ah! Keep your place. I've got a real gun now. Where's the door
leading into the Base?"
The guard moved his head sullenly over his left shoulder.
Click was afraid he would show his weak dizziness. He needed air.
"Okay. Drag Marnagan with you, open the door and we'll have air. Double
time! Double!"
Ten minutes later, Marnagan and Hathaway, fresh tanks of oxygen on
their backs, Marnagan in a fresh bulger and helmet, trussed the guard,
hid him in a huge trash receptacle. "Where he belongs," observed Irish
tersely.
They found themselves in a complete inner world; an asteroid nothing
more than a honey-comb fortress sliding through the void unchallenged.
Perfect front for a raider who had little equipment and was
short-handed of men. Gunther simply waited for specific cargo ships to
rocket by, pulled them or knocked them down and swarmed over them for
cargo. The animals served simply to insure against suspicion and the
swarms of tourists that filled the void these days. Small fry weren't
wanted. They were scared off.
The telepathic sending station for the animals was a great bank of
intricate, glittering machine, through which strips of colored film
with images slid into slots and machine mouths that translated them
into thought-emanations. A damned neat piece of genius.
"So here we are, still not much better off than we were," growled
Irish. "We haven't a ship or a space-radio, and more guards'll turn
up any moment. You think we could refocus this doohingey, project the
monsters inside the asteroid to fool the pirates themselves?"
"What good would that do?" Hathaway gnawed his lip. "They wouldn't fool
the engineers who created them, you nut."
Marnagan exhaled disgustedly. "Ah, if only the U.S. Cavalry would come
riding over the hill--"
* * * * *
"Irish!" Hathaway snapped that, his face lighting up. "Irish. The U.S.
Cavalry it is!" His eyes darted over the machines. "Here. Help me.
We'll stage everything on the most colossal raid of the century."