II

For a moment of startled horror we stood motionless. The floating

little flame seemed bounding now, just over the rocks. Bounding?

Abruptly I seemed to see a dark shape of solidity under it--something

almost, but not quite invisible in the blackness. A tangible thing? A

creature--burning? Thoughts are instant things. I recall that in that

second, I had the impression of a four-legged thing like a huge dog,

bounding toward us over the rocks. The flame in which it was enveloped,

had spread--it was a blob of flame, but solidity was there.

All in a second. My little electro-gun was in my hand. And then from

beside me, Torrence fired--his flash with a whining sizzle splitting

the blackness of the gully with its pencil-point of hurled electrons.

His hasty aim quite evidently was wild. I saw the little splash of

colored sparks where his charge hit the rocks. Too high.

My gun was leveled. But in that split-second, the oncoming blob of

fire abruptly had been extinguished. There was only the faint blurred

suggestion of the dog-like thing. It had stopped short, and then

suddenly was retreating. My shot, and Jan's, followed it. In another

few seconds there was no possibility of hitting it. Silently it had

vanished. There was only the black silent gully around us, with the

blurred crags standing like menacing dark ghosts.

My instinct then, I must admit, was for us to retreat at once to our

ship. In the heavy empty silence we stood blankly gazing at each other.

Torrence was grim; Jan was shaking with excitement and the fear all of

us felt.

"You heard that whistle?" I murmured.

"I heard it," Jan exclaimed. "Something--somebody--human--" There were

weird, hostile inhabitants on Vulcan--no question of that now! And

here was Roberts' body with a metal sliver of arrow in its back, mute

evidence of what we were facing. And already our presence here had been

discovered. I stared around at the rocky darkness, every blurred crag

now seeming to mask some unknown menace.

"That whistle," Torrence murmured, "calling off that flaming

thing--started at our shots. Something is around here, watching us now,

undoubtedly."

The yawning dark doorway of the wrecked spaceship was near us.

Something seemed lying just beyond its threshold.

"You two stay here," I told Torrence and Jan. "Don't let them surprise

us again. We'll have to get back to our ship--"

The port doorway led into a little pressure chamber. On its dark

sloping floor, as the wrecked ship lay askew, I stood with my

flashlight illumining so ghastly a scene that my blood chilled in my

veins. It was a bloody shambles of horror. For a moment I gazed; and

as I turned away, sickened, I found Jan at my elbow. He too, had been

staring. He clutched at me, white and shaken, and I turned away my

light.

"The rest of them," he murmured.

"Yes. Looks that way. All of them--"

The bodies were strewn, clothing and flesh ripped apart so that here

were only the bones of men, with pulpy crimson--

"No humans did that, Jan."

"No," he shuddered. "That Thing in flames that came at us--"

* * * * *

His words died in his throat. Outside there was a scream--a shrill,

eerie human cry. The high-pitched scream of a woman! Gun in hand, with

Jan close behind me, I ran outside. The dimness of the rocky gully

seemed empty. The cry had died away.

"Torrence! You Torrence--what in the devil--"

My low vehement words wafted away. There was no Torrence. Cautiously I

ran around the bow of the wrecked ship, gazed down its other side.

"Torrence--Torrence--"

The nearby rocks seemed to echo back my words, mocking me.

"Why--why--" Jan gasped, "I left him right out here. He was just

standing, looking down at Roberts' body with the arrow in it. I just

thought I'd go inside with you for a minute."

I pulled him down to the ground. We crouched, close against the side of

the ship. "That scream," I whispered, "wasn't far away. A few hundred

feet down the gully."

"It sounded like a girl. It did, didn't it? Bob, if they got Torrence

that quickly--an arrow in him--"

I peered, tense. The rock shadows were all motionless. In the heavy

blank silence there was only my startled breathing, and Jan's; and the

thumping of my own heart against my ribs. Had this weird enemy gotten

Torrence so swiftly, so silently? Something not human, that had so

quickly seized him and dragged him away? Or one of those metal arrows

in his back, so that his body was lying around here somewhere, masked

by the darkness. Jan and I had certainly not been inside the ship more

than a minute or two--

A sharp clattering ping against the alumite side of the wrecked ship

struck away my thoughts. A metal arrow! It bent against the hull-plate

and dropped almost beside me! The still-hidden sniper had seen us, that

was evident, for the arrow had whizzed only a foot or so over our heads.

"Jan--lower--"

We almost flattened ourselves against the bulge of the hull, with a

little pile of boulders in front of us. My gun was leveled, but there

was nothing to shoot at. Then from diagonally across the gully again

there came a sharp human cry! A girl's voice? It was soft this time, a

bursting little cry, half suppressed.

Thoughts are instant things. I was aware of the cry and with it there

was another whizz. Another arrow. This one was wider of the mark; it

hit far to one side of us, up near the bow of the ship.

"Jan! Wait!" His little flash gun was up in the crevice of the rocks

in front of us. In another second he would have fired. I saw his

target--two dim blobs across the gully. For just that second they were

visible as they rose up out of a hollow. A man; and the slighter

figure with him seemed that of a girl. Her hair, glistening like spun

metal in the dim light, hung over her shoulders.

The two figures were struggling. There was the sound of the girl's low

cry, and a grunt from the man.... My low admonition stopped Jan from

firing and in another second the shapes across the gully had vanished.

"That girl," I murmured. "She tried to keep him from killing us. Seemed

that way, don't you think?"

"Well--"

* * * * *

We waited. From across the gully there was no sound. I could see now

that there was a little ridge in the broken, littered gully floor,

behind which the two figures had vanished. A lateral depression was

there, with the ragged, broken cliff-wall some ten feet behind it.

"Do you suppose there's only one of them?" Jan whispered. "One man--and

that girl--"

"And that--that Thing in flames--"

There was no sign of the animal-like creature. For another moment we

crouched tense, peering, listening. A loose stone the size of my fist

was here beside us. I picked it up. It was weirdly heavy for its size.

Then I flung it out into the gully to the right of us. It fell with a

clatter.

Our enemy was there all right. An arrow whizzed in the darkness and

struck near where the stone had fallen.

Jan laughed with contempt. "Dumb enough--that fellow. Bob, listen,

we've got flash-guns. That fellow with no brains--and just with

arrows--"

True enough. "You stay here," I whispered.

"What's the idea?"

"You wait a couple of minutes. Then throw another stone off to the

right--about the same place. Understand?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, you do it, anyhow."

There seemed a line of shadow to the left of us, a shadow which

extended well out into the gully. The ground dropped down in that

area--a slope strewn with crags, broken with little crevices. Crouching

low, I crept to the bow of the ship, to the left away from Jan; sank

down, waited. There was no sound; evidently I had not been seen. I

started again, picking my way down the slope.

A minute. I was well out into the gully now, ten feet or so down, so

that I could not see the wrecked ship where Jan was crouching. From

here the opposite cliff-wall showed dark and ragged. Occasionally it

yawned with openings, like little cave-mouths. The place where the

figures had been crouching should be visible from here. The broken,

lower side of the little ridge behind which they had dropped was in

view to me now. It was dark with shadow, but there seemed nothing there.

Slowly, cautiously, I crossed the gully. Two minutes since I had left

Jan? I melted down beside a rock, almost at the edge of the cliff-wall.

And then, out in the gully, far to the right, I heard the stone clatter

as Jan threw it.

There was no answering arrow-shot this time.... One can be very

incautious, usually at just the wrong moment. I recall that I stood

up to see better, though I flattened myself against a boulder. And

suddenly, close behind me, I was aware of a padding, thudding rhythmic

sound on the rocks. I whirled. I had only a second's vision of a dark

bounding animal shape coming at me. My sizzling little flash went under

it as it rose in one of its bounding leaps.

I had no time to fire another shot. Frantically I pulled the

trigger-lever, but the gun's voltage had not yet rebuilt to firing

pressure. Futilely I flung the gun into the creature's face as it bore

down upon me.

The impact of the dark oblong body knocked me backward so that I fell

with it sprawling, snarling upon me. In the chaos of my mind there was

only the dim realization of a heavy body as big as my own; spindly

legs, like the legs of a huge dog. There seemed six or eight legs,

scrambling on me.

Wildly I fought to heave it off. There was a face--a ring of glaring

green eyes; fang-like jaws of a long pointed snout which opened,

snarling with a gibbering, gruesome cry. I shoved my left forearm into

the jaws as they came at my face. They closed upon my arm, ripping,

tearing.

* * * * *

But somehow I was aware that I had lunged to my feet. And the Thing

reared up with me. It was a Thing almost as heavy as myself. My left

arm had come loose from its jaws and as its scrambling weight pressed

me I went down again. A Thing of rubber? It seemed boneless, the shape

of it bending as I seized it. A gruesomely yielding body. My flailing

blows bounded back from it. Then I knew that I was gripping it by the

head, twisting it. The snarling, snapping jaws suddenly opened wide

with a scream--a scream that faded into a mouthing gibber, and in my

grip the Thing went limp. I cast it away and it sank to the rocks,

quivering.

For an instant I stood panting, trembling with nausea sickening me.

On my hands the flesh of the weird antagonist was sticking like

viscous, gluey rubber. Hot and clinging. Hot? I stared at my hands

in the dimness. For a second I thought it was phosphorescence. Then

yellow-green wisps of flame were rising from my hands. Frantically I

plunged them into my jacket pockets. The tiny flames were extinguished.

I stripped off my jacket, flung it away and it lay with a little smoke

rising from it where the weird stuff was trying again to burst into

flame.

The skin of my hands was seared, but the contact with the flames had

been only momentary and the burns were not severe. It had all happened

in a minute or two. I recall that I was standing trembling, staring

at the yawning mouth of a cave entrance which was nearby in the

cliff-face. A movement in there? A moving blob? Then I was aware that

there was a light behind me. Off across the gully there was a blob of

light-fire. A red-green blob, swirling, scrambling. And the sound of a

distant, gibbering snarl....

The singing whizz of an arrow past my head made me turn again. My human

adversary! I saw him now. He was coming at a run from the mouth of the

cave--a wide-shouldered, grotesquely-shaped man with a brown hairy

garment draped upon him. He swayed like a gorilla on thick bent legs.

In one hand he held what seemed an arrow-sling. In the other he carried

a long narrow segment of rock, swinging it like a club. He was no more

than ten feet from me. In the dimness I could see his huge round head

with tangled, matted blank hair. As I whirled to meet him, his voice

was a bellow of guttural roar, like an animal bellowing to intimidate

its enemy.

I turned, jumped sidewise. And abruptly from a rock-shadow another

shape rose up! Slim, small white body, brown-draped with long, gleaming

tawny hair. The girl! Her voice gasped,

"You run! He kill you! In here--this way--"

The bellowing savage had turned heavily in his rush and was charging

us. In her terror and confusion the girl gripped me, shoving me toward

the cave. As we ran I flung an arm around her, lifting her up. She

weighed hardly more than a child. Then we were in the blackness of a

tunnel-passage. I set her down.

"Lie down. Be quiet," I whispered vehemently. She understood me; she

crouched back against the side wall. There seemed a little light here,

a glow which I realized was inherent to the rocks, like a vague, faint

phosphorescence. But it was brighter outside. The charging savage had

evidently paused at the entrance. As I stared now, his bulky figure

loomed there, grotesque silhouette. Then doubtless he saw me. With

another bellow he came charging in.

I stood waiting, like a Toreador, in front of a heavily charging bull.

It was something like that, for as he rushed me, swinging his club and

plunging with lowered head of matted hair, nimbly I jumped aside. I had

seized a rock half as big as my head. He had no time to turn and poise

himself as I jumped on him, crashing the rock at the side of his broad

ugly face as he straightened and swung around.

Ghastly blow. His face smashed in as the rock seemed to go into it.

For a second his hulking body stood balanced upon the crooked legs and

broad flat bare feet. Gruesome dead thing with the face and top of the

head gone, it balanced on legs suddenly turned rigid. Then it toppled

forward and thudded against the passage wall, sliding sidewise to the

ground where it lay motionless.

* * * * *

In the phosphorescent dimness, I dropped beside the girl. She was

panting with terror, shuddering, with her hands before her face.

"It's all right," I murmured. "Or at least, maybe it isn't all right

with you, but he's dead, anyway."

Utterly incongruous, the delicately formed bronze-white girl--and that

hulking, grotesque, clumsy savage.

"Oh--yes," she murmured. "Dear--yes--"

"You speak English--strange, here on Vulcan--"

"But from your Captain Roberts--he was the fren' of mine--of all the

Senzas--"

"He's dead. An arrow in him--lying over there by his wrecked ship--the

rest of them, dead inside--"

"Yes. I know it. That was these Orgs. I was caught--just the last time

of sleep. Tahg--surely it seems it must be Tahg who sent this Org to

take me from my father's home--"

A captive! And she had fought with her savage captor to stop him from

sending an arrow into me. Then, in his absorption as he tried to stalk

me, she had broken loose from him.

"Just this one Org?" I murmured. "Is he the only one around here? He

and that--animal-thing which I killed?"

"That--a female _mime_--you--you--"

She was huddling beside me, clinging to me, still shuddering. "Two Orgs

there were," she whispered. "And another mime--a fire-male--"

The flame-creature! Queerly, it was not until that instant that I

thought of Jan. Out there across the gully, that swirling swaying blob

of light-fire! Those snarling sounds! Jan had been attacked by another

of the savages, and by the weird flaming creature! The mime fire-male,

as the girl called it.