LITMIR.BIZ

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had to see you,” she said, panting for breath. “If you’ll come back to the ship before they beam you down, we can prove to Colonel Petersen that you’re all right. We can show them that the Masters—”

      She realized suddenly what she said and uttered a little gasp. She had her pistol out before the surprised Wayne could move.

      He stared coldly at the pistol, thinking bitterly that this was a hell of a way for it all to finish. “So they got you too,” he said. “That little display at the airlock was a phony. You were sent out here to lure me back into the ship. Just another Judas.”

      She nodded slowly. “That’s right,” she said. “We all have to go to the Masters. It is—it—is—is—”

      Her eyes glazed, and she swayed on her feet. The pistol wavered and swung in a feeble spiral, no longer pointed at Wayne. Gently, he took it from her nerveless fingers and caught her supple body as she fell.

      He wiped his forehead dry. Up above, the sun was climbing toward the top of the sky, and its beams raked the planet below, pouring down heat.

      * * * *

      He glanced at his wristwatch while waiting for his nerves to stop tingling. Sherri must have been the last one—the drug must have taken effect at last, and not a moment too soon. He decided to wait another half hour before he tried to get into the spaceship, just the same.

      The huge globe of the Lord Nelson stood forlornly in the center of the valley. The airlock door stayed open; no one tried to close it.

      Wayne’s mouth was growing dry; his tongue felt like sandpaper. Nevertheless, he forced himself to sit quietly, watching the ship closely for the full half hour, before he picked up Sherri, tied his rope around her waist, and lowered her to the valley floor. Then he wandered around the rocks, collecting the six unconscious men, and did the same for them.

      He carried them all, one by one, across the sand, burning a path before him with the needle beam.

      Long before he had finished his task, the sand was churning loathsomely with the needles of hundreds and thousands of the monstrous little beasts. They were trying frantically to bring down the being that was so effectively thwarting their plans, jabbing viciously with their upthrust beaks. The expanse of sand that was the valley looked like a pincushion, with the writhing needles ploughing through the ground one after another. Wayne kept the orifice of his beam pistol hot as he cut his way back and forth from the base of the cliff to the ship.

      When he had dumped the seven unconscious ones all inside the airlock, he closed the outer door and opened the inner one. There was not a sound from within.

      Fifty-nine down, he thought, and none to go.

      He entered the ship and dashed down the winding staircase to the water purifiers to change the water in the reservoir tanks. Thirsty as he was, he was not going to take a drink until the water had been cleared of the knockout drug he had dropped into the tanks.

      After that came the laborious job of getting everyone in the ship strapped into their bunks for the takeoff. It took the better part of an hour to get all sixty of them up—they had fallen all over the ship—and nestled in the acceleration cradles. When the job was done, he went to the main control room and set the autopilot to lift the spaceship high into the ionosphere.

      Then, sighting carefully on the valley far below, he dropped a flare bomb.

      “Goodbye, little monsters,” he said exultantly.

      For a short space of time, nothing happened. Then the viewplate was filled with a deadly blue-white glare. Unlike an ordinary atomic bomb, the flare bomb would not explode violently; it simply burned, sending out a brilliant flare of deadly radiation that would crisp all life dozens of feet below the ground.

      He watched the radiation blazing below. Then it began to die down, and when the glare cleared away, all was quiet below.

      The valley was dead.

      When it was all over, Wayne took the hypodermic gun from his pouch, filled it with the anti-hypnotic drug that he had taken from the medical cabinet, and began to make his rounds. He fired a shot into each and every one aboard. He had no way of knowing who had been injected by the small monsters and who had not, so he was taking no chances.

      Then he went to the colonel’s room. He wanted to be there when the Commanding Officer awoke.

      * * * *

      The entire crew of the Lord Nelson was gathered in the big mess hall. Wayne stared down at the tired, frightened faces of the puzzled people looking up at him, and continued his explanation.

      “Those of you who were under the control of the monsters know what it was like. They had the ability to inject a hypnotic drug into a human being through a normal space boot with those stingers of theirs. The drug takes effect so fast that the victim hardly has any idea of what has happened to him.”

      “But why do they do it?” It was Hollingwood, the metallurgist, looking unhappy with a tremendous bruise on his head where Wayne had clobbered him.

      “Why does a wasp sting a spider? It doesn’t kill the spider, it simply stuns it. That way, the spider remains alive and fresh so that young wasps can feed upon it at their leisure.”

      Wayne glanced over to his right. “Lieutenant Jervis, you’ve been under the effect of the drug longer than any of us. Would you explain what really happened when the Mavis landed?”

      The young officer stood up. He was pale and shaken, but his voice was clear and steady.

      “Just about the same thing that almost happened here,” Jervis said. “We all walked around the valley floor and got stung one at a time. The things did it so quietly that none of us knew what was going on until we got hit ourselves. When we had all been enslaved, we were ready to do their bidding. They can’t talk, but they can communicate by means of nerve messages when that needle is stuck into you.”

      Nearly half the crew nodded in sympathy. Wayne studied them, wondering what it must have been like. They knew; he could only guess.

      “Naturally,” Jervis went on, “those who have already been injected with the drug try to get others injected. When everyone aboard the Mavis had been stung, they ordered me to take the ship home and get another load of Earthmen. Apparently they like our taste. I had to obey; I was completely under their power. You know what it’s like.”

      “And what happened to the others—the eight men you left behind?” asked Colonel Petersen.

      Jervis clenched his teeth bitterly. “They just laid down on the sand—and waited.”

      “Horrible!” Sherri said.

      * * * *

      Jervis fell silent. Wayne was picturing the sight, and knew everyone else was, too—the sight of hordes of carnivorous little aliens burrowing up through the sand and approaching the eight Earthmen who lay there, alive but helpless. Approaching them—and beginning to feed.

      Just when the atmosphere began to grow too depressing, Wayne decided to break the spell. “I’d like to point out that the valley’s been completely cauterized,” he said. “The aliens have been wiped out. And I propose to lead a mission out to reconnoiter for the double-nucleus beryllium.”

      He looked around. “MacPherson? Boggs? Manetti? You three want to start over where we left off the last time?”

      Sergeant Boggs came up to him. “Sir, I want you to understand that—”

      “I know, Boggs,” Wayne said. “Let’s forget all about it. There’s work to be done.”

      “I’m sorry I misjudged you, Wayne. If it hadn’t been for your quick action, this crew would have gone the way of the Mavis.”

      “Just luck, Colonel,” Wayne said. “If it hadn’t been for those heavy-soled climbing boots, I’d probably be lying out there with the rest of you right now.”

      Colonel Petersen grinned.

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