Campbell, John W Jr - The Tenth World

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2024-11-23 0 0 71.76KB 15 页 5.9玖币

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THE TENTH WORLD

I SHLEATH vs. PIPELINE

CAUTIOUSLY, Penton looked around the corner of the building. In the west,

Jupiter was setting; here, on Ganymede, complete darkness would come in a few

moments.

"No one in sight," he whispered. "For God's sake, don't start concentrating,

Blake. Those boys are catching on to telepathy too fast. If they don't hear

us, they may telepath us if you think so blasted hard. Hurry up."

Blake hitched his pack into a more comfortable position, and the two set off

hurriedly, noiselessly down the broad, deserted avenue. Two blocks they passed

silently, to turn down a narrow, rubbish-choked alley. Jupiter's light faded

altogether, and they had to pick their way with utmost care. Six blocks they

traversed without disturbance-then abruptly a squeaking flurry of shuffling,

running steps darted out from under some rubbish. Dim light reflected from the

clouded sky overhead showed a two-foot, glistening mass of evilly

furious protoplasm racing down the alley toward them, squealing in helpless

fury.

Behind it, silent as death, but with a broad grin of eagerness on its homely

face, came a six-legged creature built on the general lines of a dachshund.

The protoplasm darted under some rubbish; the six-legged dog clawed after it,

the piled boards exploding in a dozen directions, to fall with a furious

clatter.

There was a moment of savage squalling, and sodden gulping sounds, while the

two men shrank back into protecting shadows. Somewhere a window went up, and a

Lanoor's voice shrilled curses into the silence of the night.

The six-legged animal came out from the mass of rubbish presently, its head

high, walking with a slow, rather labored step. Its belly had expanded

miraculously, until the six short legs barely held it from the ground. Its

keen nose detected the man, and, for a moment, it sniffed at them briefly,

tail wagging, before it went on about its business. Two more of the animals

trotted down the alley alertly, paused a moment to watch the first, and turned

away disappointed.

"One of Pipeline's innumerable progeny can make more noise chasing down a

shleath, than any single animal I ever before encountered," Blake said with

intent bitterness. "Can we move now, do you think?"

"It isn't the hexapods, it's the shleath that do the squalling." Penton

reproved him.

"It wasn't the shleath's idea to throw that lumber around. From what I saw,

its primary interest was getting under there and staying, very quiet and

peaceable."

"Shut up and move. Somebody may come to see if the shleath were all eaten, or

only part. We have to get out of here while we can-" Penton turned down the

next intersecting street; together they dodged through the sleeping city. Half

a mile they went, then gradually, as they neared the airport, more life

appeared. Ships from cities half

around the world, and still in daylight, were active, and the air-force crew

had to be up.

"Man, what I'd give for some of those sleep-gas bombs they used on us the

first time we landed," sighed Penton. "There's a dozen Civil Guards standing

about our spaceship."

"You said you'd get through somehow." Blake shrugged. "Get going. It's almost

light."

Penton glowered at him, and sat down in the shadow of a low, spreading,

bushlike tree. From the knapsack he carried, he pulled a number of small metal

chips and cuttings, piled them on the sidewalk before him, and added a handful

of filings. Then two waxy white cylinders half an inch through and three

inches long. He rose to his feet and nodded toward Blake.

"All right, guy, get moving."

A flash of electric current snapped from an atomic flashlight in his hand,

touched the metal chips, and they burst into sudden, intense flame. Penton ran

hastily into deeper shadows in the direction of the airport. The flare built

up to a colossal, intolerable glare; voices over at the airport shouted, and

gangling, seven-and-a-half-foot Lanoor Civil Guardsmen were racing toward the

strange beacon.

Penton and Blake raced in the opposite direction. Every eye was focused on the

weirdly brilliant flare Penton had just made. Windows were clattering open in

nearby houses, curious voices calling out. The Earthmen slipped down the side

of the huge hangar, rounded a turn, and jumped to their ship. In an instant,

Penton had the lockdoor open, and was struggling at the inner door.

The combination dial delayed him, slow turns that must be accurate.

"The flare's burned out," Blake said softly. "They-" A sudden new shout went

up, and the Civil Guards were Streaming back across the field toward them,

their arms waving frantically. From the nearer barracks, a score of Guardsmen

burst out, half-dressed and holding up drag-

ging clothes with one hand, blunt weapons waving in the other.

A monstrous eye winked lazily, redly, across the field at them, then opened

fully in a blinding pencil of light that pinned them like insect specimens on

the broad, blue-green turf of the flying field.

The inner door opened as Penton threw a lever. Simultaneously the outer door

swung shut on rubber grommets. A score of men shouting outside were suddenly

silenced. Pen-ton dived through the widening crack, twisted up the main

corridor to the control room.

A moment later the atomic engines tchked twice in gentle reproof as relays

closed, and began to sing softly of empty spaces. The ship trembled slightly,

and when Blake reached the window, a patchwork field was dwindling swiftly

below. A dozen, then a score of great beams of light laced across the city,

swinging back and forth in slow majesty.

Penton settled back in the pilot seat comfortably, with a deep sigh. He

snapped on the automatic controls, and hauled the knapsack off his back.

"Was I mistaken, or did I see Pipeline making a mad dash to join us just

before we left?"

Blake chuckled.

"You weren't mistaken, but I guess the borax did the trick. The greedy little

hog couldn't leave to follow us until he had eaten it all. But I told you he'd

find where we were going."

Penton smiled. "Maybe," he punned, "a hexapod can trail a man by his sense,

the way a bloodhound trails a man by his scents. They have telepathic power."

Blake looked at him sourly.

"Lousy, if I may say so. Are any planes trying to follow us?"

Penton shook his head.

"Not now. We're about fifty miles up, and going farther rapidly-ah, there's

the sun." A burst of light struck through the control window as the spaceship

shot out of the shadow

of Ganymede. "Poor PTiolkuun. In some ways it seems like a sort of dirty

trick. The poor guy's been sweating for three days over that speech thanking

us for exterminating the shleath."

Blake groaned.

" 'Farewell-come again-we've been glad to see you.' That's all right. But when

an orator works himself into a foaming frenzy and calls us the 'saviours of

our civilization' and 'the destroyers of the tyrannous Shaloor overlords,' to

wind up in a burst of rhetorical glory on 'the greatest, the final blessing,

the gift of the hexapods which have freed us from the terrible menace of the

shleath'-I quit. Personally, I'll bet P'holkuun was glad to be quit, too. I

like that guy, blue-haired beanpole or not, and I'll bet he was no happier

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Campbell, John W Jr - The Tenth World

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