Authors: E. E. Smith
They dropped. Through the lush succulence of close-packed upper leaves and tentacles they crashed, through the heavier, woodier main branches below, 'through to the ground. And there they fought for their lives, for those voracious plants nourished themselves not only upon the soil in which their roots were imbedded, but also upon anything organic unlucky enough to come within their reach. Flabby but tough tentacles encircled them, ghastly sucking disks, exuding a potent corrosive, slobbered -wetly at their armor, knobbed and spiky bludgeons whanged against tempered steel as the monstrous organisms began dimly to realize that these particular tid-bits were encased in something far more resistant than skin, scales, or bark.
But the Lensman and his giant companion were not quiescent. They came down oriented and fighting. VanBuskirk, in the van, swung his frightful space-axe as a reaper swings his scythe-one solid, short step forward with each swing. And close behind the Valerian strode Kinnison, his own flying axe guarding the giant's head and back. Forward they pressed, and forward-not the strongest, toughest stems of that monstrous weed could stay vanBuskirk's Herculean strength, not the most agile of the striking tendrils and curling tentacles could gain a manacling hold in the face of Kinnison's flashing speed in cut, thrust, and slash.
Masses of the obscene vegetation crashed down upon their heads from above, revoltingly cupped orifices sucking and smacking, and they were showered continually with floods of the opaque, corrosive sap, to the action of which even their armor was not entirely immune. But, hampered as they were and almost blinded, they struggled on, while behind them an ever-lengthening corridor of demolition marked their progress.
"Ain't we got fun?" grunted the Dutchman, in time with his swing. "But we're quite a team at that, chief-brains and brawn, huh?"
"Ooh uh," dissented Kinnison, his weapon flying. "Grace and poise, or, if you want to be really romantic, ham and eggs,..
"Rack and ruin will be more like it if we don't break out before this confounded goo eats through our armor. But we're making it-the stuff's thinning out and I think I can see trees up ahead. "
"It is well if you can," came a cold, clear thought from Worsel, "for I am sorely beset. Hasten or I perish !"
At that thought the two Patrolmen forged ahead in a burst of even more furious activity. Crashing through the thinning barriers of the jungle's edge, they wiped their lenses partially clear, glanced quickly about, and saw the Velantian. That worthy was
"sorely beset" indeed. Six animals-huge, reptilian, but lithe and active-had him down. So helplessly immobile was Worsel that he could scarcely move his tail, and the monsters were already beginning to gnaw at his scaly, armored hide.
"I'll put a stop to that, Worsel!” called Kinnison, referring to the fact, well known to all us moderns, that any real animal, no matter how savage, can be controlled by any wearer of the Lens. For, no matter how low in the scale of intelligence the animal is, the Lensman can get in touch with whatever mind the creature has, and reason with it.
But these monstrosities, as Kinnison learned immediately, were not really animals.
Even though of animal form and mobility, they were purely vegetable in motivation and behavior, reacting only to the stimuli of food and of reproduction. Weirdly and completely inimical to all other forms of created life, they were so utterly noisome, so completely alien that the. full power of mind and Lens failed entirely to gain rapport.
Upon that confusedly writhing heap the Patrolmen flung themselves, terrible axes destructively a-swing. In turn they were attacked viciously, but this battle was not long to endure. VanBuskirk's first terrific blow knocked one adversary away, almost spinning end over end. Kinnison took out one, the Dutchman another, and the remaining three were no match at all for the humiliated and furiously raging Velantian. But it was not until the monstrosities had been gruesomely carved and torn apart, literally to bits, that they ceased their insensately voracious attacks.
"They took me by surprise," explained Worsel, unnecessarily, as the three made their way through the night toward their goal, "and six of them at once were too much for me. I tried to hold their minds, but apparently they have none."
"How about the Overlords?" asked Kinnison. "Suppose they have received any of our thoughts? Bus and I may have done some unguarded radiating."
"No," Worse! made positive reply. "The thought-screen batteries, while small and of very little actual power, have a very long service life. Now let us go over again the next steps of our plan of action."
Since no more untoward events marred their progress toward the Delgonian city, they soon reached it. It was for the most part dark and quiet, its somber buildings merely blacker blobs against a background of black. Here and there, however, were to be seen automotive vehicles moving about, and the three invaders crouched against a convenient wall, waiting for one to come along the "street" in which they were. Eventually one did.
As it passed them Worsel sprang into headlong, gliding flight, Kinnison's heavy knife in one gnarled fist. And as he sailed he struck-lethally. Before that luckless Delgonian s brain could radiate a single thought it was in no condition to function at all, for the head containing it was bouncing in the gutter. Worsel backed the peculiar conveyance along the curb and his two companions leaped into it, lying flat upon its floor and covering themselves from sight as best they could.
Worsel, familiar with things Delgonian and looking enough like a native of the planet to pass a casual inspection in the dark, drove the car. Streets and thoroughfares he traversed at reckless speed, finally drawing up before a long, low building, entirely dark. He scanned his surrounding with care, in every direction. Not a creature was in sight.
"All is clear, friends," he thought, and the three adventurers sprang to the building's entrance. The door-it had a door, of sorts-was locked, but vanBuskirk's axe made short work of that difficulty. Inside, they braced the wrecked door against intrusion, then Worsel led the way into the unlighted interior. Soon he flashed his lamp about him and stepped upon a black, peculiarly-marked tile set into the floor, whereupon a harsh, white light illuminated the room.
"Cut it, before somebody takes alarm!" snapped Kinnison.
"No danger of that," replied the Velantian. "There are no windows in any of these rooms, no light can be seen from outside. This is the control room of the city's power plant. If you can convert any of this power to your uses, help yourselves to it. In this building is also a Delgonian arsenal. Whether or not anything in it can be of service to you is of course for you to say. I am now at your disposal.., Kinnison had been studying the panels and instruments. Now he and vanBuskirk tore open their armor-they had already learned that the atmosphere of Delgon, while not as wholesome for them as that in their suits, would for a time at least support human life-and wrought diligently with pliers, screwdrivers, and other tools of the electrician. Soon their exhausted batteries were upon the floor beneath the instrument panel, absorbing greedily the electrical fluid from the busbars of the Delgonians.
"Now, while they're getting filled up, let's see what these people use for guns.
Lead on, Worsel!”
With Worsel in the lead, the three interlopers hastened along a corridor, past branching and intersecting hallways, to a distant wing of the structure. There, it was evident, manufacturing of weapons was carried on, but a quick study of the queer-looking devices and mechanisms upon the benches and inside the storage racks lining the walls convinced Kinnison that the room could yield them nothing of permanent benefit. There were high-powered beam-projectors, it was true, but they were so heavy that they were not even semiportable. There were also hand weapons of various peculiar patterns, but without exception they were ridiculously inferior to the DeLameters of the Patrol in every respect of power, range, controllability, and storage capacity. Nevertheless, after testing them out sufficiently to make certain of the above findings, he selected an armful of the most powerful models and turned to his companions.
"Let's go back to the power room," he urged. "I'm nervous as a cat. I feel stark naked without my batteries, and if anyone should happen to drop in there and do away with them, we'd be sunk without a trace."
Loaded down with Delgonian weapons they hurried back the way they had come.
Much to Kinnison's relief he found that his forebodings had been groundless, the batteries were still there, still absorbing myriawatt-hour after myriawatt-hour from the Delgonian generators. Staring fixedly at the innocuous-looking containers, he frowned in thought.
"Better we insulate those leads a little heavier and put the cans back in our armor," he suggested finally. "They'll charge just as well in place, and it doesn't stand to reason that this drain of power can go on for the rest of the night without
somebody
noticing it. And when that happens those Overlords are bound to take plenty of steps --
none of which we have any idea what are going to be."
"You must have 'power enough now so that we can all fly away from any possible trouble," Worsel suggested.
"But that's just exactly what we're not going to do!” Kinnison declared, with finality.
"Now that we've found a good charger, we aren't going to leave it until our accumulators are chock-a-block. It's coming in faster than full draft will take it out, and we're going to get a full charge if we have to stand off all the vermin of Delgon to do it."
Far longer than Kinnison had thought possible they were unmolested, but finally a couple of Delgonian engineers came to investigate the unprecedented shortage in the output of their completely automatic generators. At the entrance they were stopped, for no ordinary tools could force the barricade vanBuskirk had erected behind that portal.
With leveled weapons the Patrolmen stood, awaiting the expected attack, but none developed. Hour by hour the long night wore away, uneventfully. At daybreak, however, a storming party appeared and massive battering rams were brought into play.
As the dull, heavy concussions reverberated throughout the building the Patrolmen
-- each picked up two of the weapons piled before them and Kinnison addressed the Velantian.
"Drag a couple of those metal benches across that corner and coil up behind them," he directed. "They'll be enough to ground any stray charges-if they can't see you they won't know you're here, so probably nothing much will come your way direct."
The Velantian demurred, declaring that he would not hide while his two companions were fighting his battle, but Kinnison silenced him fiercely.
"Don’t be a fool !" the Lensman snapped. "One of these beams would fry you to a crisp in ten seconds, but the defensive fields of our armor could neutralize a thousand of them, from now on. Do as I say, and do it quick, or I'll shock you unconscious and toss you in there myself !”
Realizing that Kinnison meant exactly what he said, and knowing that, unarmored as he was, he was utterly unable to resist either the Tellurian or their common foe, Worsel unwillingly erected his metallic barrier and coiled his sinuous length behind it. He hid himself just in time.
The outer barricade had fallen, and now a wave of reptilian forms flooded into the control room. Nor was this any ordinary investigation. The Overlords had studied the situation from afar, and this wave was one of heavily-armed -- for Delgon-soldiery. On they came, projectors fiercely ,aflame, confident in their belief that nothing could stand before their blasts. But how wrong they were! The two repulsively erect bipeds before them neither burned nor fell. Beams, no matter how powerful, did not reach. them at all, but spent themselves in crackingly incandescent fury, inches from their marks. Nor were these outlandish beings inoffensive. Utterly careless of the service-life of the pitifully weak Delgonian projectors, they were using them at maximum drain and at extreme aperture-and in the resultant beams the Delgonian soldier-slaves fell in scorched and smoking heaps. On came reserves, platoon after platoon, only and continuously to meet the same fate, for as soon as one projector weakened the invincibly armored man would toss it aside and pick up another. But finally the last commandeered weapon was exhausted and the beleaguered pair brought their own DeLameters-the most powerful portable weapons known to the military scientists of the Galactic Patrol-into play.
And what a difference! In
those
beams the attacking reptiles did not smoke or burn. They. simply vanished in a blaze of flaming light, as did also the nearby walls and a good share of the building beyond! The Delgonian hordes having disappeared, vanBuskirk shut off his projector. Kinnison, however, left his on, angling its beam sharply upward, blasting into fiery vapor the ceiling and roof over their heads, remarking.
"While we're at it we might as well fix things, so that we can make a quick get-away if we want to."
Then they waited. Waited, watching the needles of their meters creep ever closer to the "full-charge" marks, waited while, as they suspected, the distant, cowardly-hiding Overlords planned some other, more promising line of physical attack.
Nor was it long in developing. Another small army appeared, armored this time, or, more accurately, advancing behind metallic shields. Knowing what to expect, Kinnison was not surprised when the beam of his DeLameter not only failed to pierce one of those shields, but did not in any way impede the progress of the Delgonian column.
"Well, were all done here, anyway, as far as I'm concerned," Kinnison grinned at the Dutchman as he spoke.
"My cans've been showing full back pressure for the last two minutes. How about yours?"
"Same here," vanBuskirk reported, and the two leaped lightly into the Velantian's refuge. Then, inertialess all, the three shot into the air at such a pace that to the slow senses of the Delgonian slaves they simply disappeared. Indeed, it was not until the barrier had been blasted away and every room, nook, and cranny of the immense structure had been literally and minutely combed that the Delgonians-and through their enslaved minds the Overlords-became convinced that their prey had in some uncanny and unknown fashion eluded them.