The Prowler skidded to a stop, his metal hooves leaving scratches on
the solid rock.
For a moment the three of them stood stock still, Stiffy's jaw hanging
in astonishment.
Meek reached out a hand and patted the Prowler's massive shoulder.
"Good boy," he said. "Good boy."
"Come away from there!" Stiffy yelled in sudden terror. "Just one good
gulp and that guy would have you."
"Ah, shucks," said Meek, "he won't hurt anybody. He's only hungry,
that's all."
"That," declared Stiffy, "is just what I'm afraid of."
"You don't understand," insisted Meek. "He isn't hungry for us. He's
starved for energy. Give him another shot from the gun."
Stiffy stared at the gun hanging in his hand.
"You're sure it wouldn't make him sore?" he asked.
"Gosh, no," said Meek. "That's what he wants. He soaks it up. Didn't
you notice how the beam went right into him, without spattering or
anything. And the way he sucked that power cable. He drained your ship
of every drop of energy it had."
"He did what?" yelped Stiffy.
"He drained the ship of energy. That's what he lives on. That's why he
chased you. He wanted you to keep on shooting."
Stiffy clapped a hand to his forehead.
"We're sunk for certain, now," he declared. "There might have been a
chance to get back with just a few plates ripped off the ship. But with
all the energy gone...."
"Hey, Stiffy," yelled Meek, "take a look at this."
Stiffy moved nearer, cautiously.
"What you got now?" he demanded irritably.
"These marks on his shoulder," said Meek. His gloved finger shook
excitedly as he pointed. "They're the same kind of marks as were on
those stones I read about in the book. Marks no one could read. Fellow
who wrote the book figured they were made by some other race that had
visited Juno. Maybe a race from outside the Solar System, even."
"Good gravy," said Stiffy, in awe, "you don't think...."
"Sure, I do," Meek declared with the air of a man who is sure of his
knowledge. "A race came here one time and they had the Prowler along.
For some reason they left him. Maybe he was just a robot and they
didn't have room for him, or maybe something happened to them...."
"Say," said Stiffy, "I bet you that's just what he is. A robot. Attuned
to thought waves. That's why he minds you."
"That's what I figured," Meek agreed. "Thought waves would be the
same, no matter who thought them ... human being or a ... well ... or
something else."
A sudden thought struck Stiffy. "Maybe them guys found the Lost Mine!
By cracky, that would be something, wouldn't it? Maybe this critter
could lead us to it."
"Maybe?" Meek said doubtfully.
Meek patted the Prowler's rocky shoulder gently, filled with wonder. In
some unguessed time, in some unknown sector of space, the Prowler had
been fashioned by an alien people. For some reason they had made him,
for some reason they had left him here. Abandonment or purpose?
Meek shook his head. That would be something to puzzle over later,
something to roll around in his brain on some monotonous flight into
the maw of space.
Space! Startled at the thought clanging on his brain he jerked a quick
glance upward, saw the bleak stars staring at him. Eyes that seemed to
be laughing at him, cruel, ironic laughter.
"Stiffy," he whispered. "Stiffy, I just thought of something."
"Yeah, what is it?"
Stark terror walked in Meek's words. "My oxygen tank is better than
half gone. And the ship is wrecked...."
"Cripes," said Stiffy, "I guess we just forgot. We sure are behind the
eight ball. Somehow we got to get back to Asteroid City. And we got to
get there quick."
Meek's eyes brightened. "Stiffy, maybe.... Maybe we could ride the
Prowler."
Stiffy backed away. But Meek reached out and grasped his arm. "Come on.
It's the only way, Stiffy. We have to get there and the Prowler can
take us."
"But ... but ... but...." Stiffy stammered.
"Give me a leg up," Meek ordered.
Stiffy complied and Meek leaped astride the broad metal back, reached
down and hauled Stiffy aboard.
"Get going, you flea-bitten nag!" Meek yipped, in sudden elation.
There was reason for elation. Not until that moment had he stopped to
consider the Prowler might object to being ridden. Might consider it an
insult.
The Prowler apparently was astonished, but that was all. He shook his
head in bewilderment and weaved his neck around as if he wasn't quite
sure just what to do. But at least he hadn't started to take the place
apart.
"Giddap!" yelled Stiffy, bringing the butt of his pistol down.
The Prowler jigged a little, then gathered himself together and
started. The landscape blurred with speed as he leaped a mighty
boulder, skipped along a narrow ledge around a slick-faced mountain,
skidded a hairpin turn.
Meek and Stiffy fought desperately to hang on. The metal back was slick
and broad and there weren't any handholds. They bounced and thumped,
almost fell off a dozen times.
"Stiffy," yelled Meek, "how do we know he's taking us to Asteroid City?"
"Don't fret about that," said Stiffy. "He knows where we want to go. He
read our mind."
"I hope so," Meek said, prayerfully.
The Prowler whished around a right angle turn on a narrow ledge and the
distant peaks wheeled sickeningly against the sky.
Meek lay flat on his belly and hugged the Prowler's sides. The
mountains whistled past. He stole a look at the jagged peaks on the
near horizon and they looked like a tight board fence.
* * * * *
Oliver Meek fought manfully to get back his composure as the Prowler
pranced down the main street of Asteroid City.
The sidewalks were lined with hundreds of staring faces, faces that
drooped in astonishment and disbelief.
Stiffy was yelling at someone. "Now, doggone you, will you believe
there is a Prowler?"
And the man he yelled at didn't have a word to say, just stood and
stared.
In the swarm of faces, Meek saw those of the Reverend Harold Brown and
Andrew Smith and, almost as if in a dream, he waved jauntily to them.
At least, he hoped the wave was jaunty. Wouldn't do to let them know
his knees were too weak to hold him up.
Smith waved back and shouted something, but the Reverend Brown's jaw
hung open and he seemed too wonder-struck to move.
This, thought Meek, is the kind of things you read about. The
conquering hero coming home astride his mighty charger. Only the
conquering hero, he remembered with a sudden twinge, usually was a
young lad who sat straight in the saddle instead of an old man with
shoulders hunched from thirty years of poring over dusty ledgers.
A man was stepping out into the street, a man who carried a gun in hand
and suddenly Meek realized they were abreast of the Silver Moon.
The armed man was Blacky Hoffman.
Here, thought Meek, is where I get it. This is what I get for playing
the big shot ... for being a smart alec, for remembering how cards
shouldn't be dealt and for shooting a man's gun out of his hand and
letting myself be talked into being a marshal.
But he sat stiff and as straight as he could on the Prowler and kept
his eyes on Hoffman. That was the only way to do. That was the way all
the heroes did in the stories he had read. And doggone, he was a hero.
Whether he liked it or not, he was one.
The street was hushed with sudden tension and the very air seemed to be
crackling with the threat of direful happenings.
Hoffman's voice rang crisply through the stillness.
"Go for your blasters, Meek!"
"I have no blasters," Meek told him calmly. "Your hoodlums took them
from me."
"Borrow Stiffy's," snapped Hoffman, and added, with a nasty laugh: "You
won't need them long."
Meek nodded, watching Hoffman narrowly. Slowly he reached back for
Stiffy's gun. He felt it in his hand, wrapped his fingers tightly
around it.
Funny, he thought, how calm he was. Like he had been in the Silver Moon
that night. There was something about a gun. It changed him, turned him
into another man.
He didn't have a chance, he knew. Hoffman would shoot before he could
ever get the gun around. But despite that, he felt foolishly sure....
Hoffman's gun flashed in the weak sunlight, blooming with blue
brilliance.
For an instant, a single fraction of a second, Meek saw the flash of
the beam straight in his eyes, but even before he could involuntarily
flinch, the beam had bent. True to its mark, it would have drilled Meek
straight between the eyes ... but it didn't go straight to its mark.
Instead, it bent and slapped itself straight between the Prowler's eyes.
And the Prowler danced a little jig of happiness as the blue spear of
energy knifed into its metal body.
"Cripes," gasped Stiffy, "he draws it! He ain't satisfied with just
taking it when you give it to him. He reaches out and gets it. Just
like a lightning rod reaching up and grabbing lightning."
Puzzlement flashed across Hoffman's face, then incredulity and finally
something that came close to fear. The gun's beam snapped off and his
hands sagged. The gun dropped in the dust. The Prowler stood stock
still.
"Well, Hoffman?" Meek asked quietly and his voice seemed to run all
along the street.
Hoffman's face twitched.
"Get down and fight like a man," he rasped.
"No," said Meek, "I won't do that. Because it wouldn't be man to man.
It would be me against your entire gang."
Hoffman started to back away, slowly, step by furtive step. Step by
step the Prowler stalked him there in the silent street.
Then Hoffman, with a scream of terror, broke and ran.
"Get him!" Meek roared at the Prowler.
The Prowler, with one lightning lunge, one flip of its whip-like neck,
got him. Got him, gently, as Meek had meant he should.
* * * * *
Howling in mingled rage and terror, Hoffman dangled by the seat of his
pants from the Prowler's beak. Neatly as any circus horse, the Prowler
wheeled and trotted back to the Silver Moon, carrying Hoffman with a
certain gentle grace that was not lost upon the crowd.
Hoffman quieted and the crowd's jeers rang against the dome. The
Prowler pranced a bit, jiggled Hoffman up and down.
Meek raised a hand for silence, spoke to Hoffman. "O.K., Mr. Hoffman,
call out your men. All of them. Out into the middle of the street.
Where we can see them."
Hoffman swore at him.
"Jiggle him some," Meek told the Prowler. The Prowler jiggled him and
Hoffman bawled and clawed at empty air.
"Damn you," shrieked Hoffman, "get out into the street. All of you.
Just like he said."
No one stirred.
"Blaine," yelled Hoffman. "Get out there! You, too Smithers. Loomis.
Blake!"
They came slowly, shame-faced. At a command from Meek they unholstered
their blasters and heaved them in a pile.
The Prowler deposited Hoffman with them.
Meek saw Andrew Smith standing at the edge of the sidewalk and nodded
to him. "There you are, Mr. Smith. Rounded up, just like you wanted
them."
"Neat," said Stiffy, "but not gaudy."
Slowly, carefully, bones aching, Meek slid from the Prowler's back, was
surprised his legs would hold him up.
"Come in and have a drink," yelled a dozen voices all at once.
"Bet your life," agreed Stiffy, licking his chops.
Men were slapping Meek on the back, yelling at him. Yelling friendly
things, calling him an old he-wolf.
He tried to thrust out his chest but didn't succeed too well. He hoped
they wouldn't insist on his drinking of lot of _bocca_.
A hand tugged at Meek's elbow. It was the Reverend Brown.
"You aren't going to leave that beast out here all alone?" he asked.
"No telling what he might do."
"Ah, shucks," protested Stiffy, "he's gentle as a kitten. Stands
without hitching."
But even as he spoke, the Prowler lifted his head, almost as if he were
sniffing, started down the street at a swinging trot.
"Hey," yelled Stiffy, "come back here, you cross-eyed crow-bait!"
The Prowler didn't falter in his stride. He went even faster.
Cold fear gripped Meek by the throat. He tried to speak and gulped
instead. He'd just thought of something. The power plant that supplied
Asteroid City with its power and light, the very oxygen it breathed,
was down that way.
A power plant and an alien robot that was starved for energy!
"My stars!" gasped Meek.
He shook off the minister's hand and galloped down the street,
shrieking at the Prowler. But the Prowler had no thought of stopping.
Panting, Meek slowed from a gallop to a trot, then to a labored walk.
Behind him, he heard Stiffy puffing along. Behind Stiffy trailed
practically the entire population of Asteroid City.
Far ahead came the sound of rending steel and crashing structure as the
Prowler ripped the plant apart to get at the juice.
Stiffy gained Meek's side and panted at him. "Cripes, they'll crucify
us for this. We got to get him out of there."
"How?" asked Meek.
"Danged if I know," said Stiffy.
One side of the plant was a mass of tangled wreckage, surrounding a
hole out of which protruded the Prowler's hind quarters. Terrified
workers and maintenance men were running for their lives. Live wires
spat and crackled with flaming energy.