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Read Ebook: Menace of the Mists by Gold H L Horace Leonard Doolin Joseph Illustrator
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Ebook has 248 lines and 10060 words, and 5 pages
"Yeah," the man replied hastily. "The first ship that comes in, you guys get. So long, and good luck!"
Limpy switched off and glanced inquiringly at Mac, his paralyzed grin a slash of seemingly pure evil.
"Looks bad, Mac."
"Maybe," MacAloon said curtly. "If we can hold out till they give us a boat, we'll come through all right."
Nevertheless, he frowned, worried by the simultaneous attacks. There was something ominous behind them--and he didn't know what.
Limpy was sullen; the more the right side of his face drew down in anger, the more sardonically leered the frozen left side. Swede's placid features showed no emotion, but his clenched fists did. Mac alone tried to appear cheerful, though his mind was furiously analyzing their grave situation. While Birchall said nothing, peering absently into space.
Silently, the men pulled on steel-soled shoes, lead-fiber gloves and infra-red goggles. On their backs they strapped compact battery-radios with short antennae, a fixed microphone at the chest. The loudspeaker atop each small set, at neck level, could be heard in anything short of a vacuum or explosion. Then the defenders armed themselves with flame-throwers and machine guns that shot steel-piercing bomb bullets.
Straightening, Mac asked: "How many fishmen are staying?"
"Twenty-one," snarled Birchall.
Mac grinned wryly. "Cheer up, Al. That's better than I figured on." He turned. "Limpy, stay up at lookout. Warn me when the 'pedes are getting close. Swede, you and Al set up ammunition dumps in the compound. Then make sure the explosives and contacts will work fast if we have to blow up the place in a hurry."
While the others dispersed, Mac gathered a squad of fishmen, armed with flame-throwers and led them outside the high fence. Methodically, they burned down all vegetation for a distance of several hundred yards, to prevent the centaurpedes from creeping up close under cover.
When Mac and his detachment were returning, Limpy opened a sluice from the central control tower. Oil poured into the shallow water-filled moat that ringed the wire barrier. A thick, greasy film spread over the water.
Meanwhile, the rest of the fishmen had been deployed around the inside of the fence. They stood nervously holding their flame-throwers, their membrane-covered eyes bulging anxiously. Up on the stilt towers, the best native marksmen pressed their quivering scaled shoulders against the stocks of mounted machine-guns.
Mac felt a pang of gratitude. He knew what their decision to stay had meant. All life on Venus dreaded the centaurpede with a blind, wild terror.
"Hey!" Limpy's voice grated through the radio. "Come up to the lookout room!"
MacAloon rushed through the mud and climbed to the glass-walled chamber. He glanced questioningly at Limpy. The lookout man wordlessly handed him a pair of binoculars and pointed to the coast.
Swede and Al burst in, as usual, asked no questions. But Birchall was babbling at a terrific rate.
"Shut up!" Limpy said tensely.
Mac stared at the ocean. His jaw muscles suddenly bunched into hard knots. At wide intervals, six black waves were lapping over the shore and rolling down on the mine like a flood--a deluge with gigantic mandibles and fiendish cunning, a torrent miles long and spread far over the muddy plain.
"That's never happened before," Limpy whispered. "It was always one colony to a mine."
Swede and Al took turns at the binoculars. No change came over Swede's face. Birchall's, though, contracted in horror.
"They got together!" he yapped. "We're done for, Mac! We can't fight six colonies all at once, and without a boat!"
Scowling, Mac jammed his hands into his pockets. "They're using holding attacks on the other mines to tie up help from Adonis City. Meanwhile, they're concentrating their main force here."
"Smart little devils," rumbled Swede.
"We ought to quit!" Al chattered. "We can't lick them!"
His face whiter and more contorted than ever, Limpy said: "Why don't you guys beat it?"
Mac's head jerked up sharply. Swede looked at Limpy in mild surprise. Al Birchall's chin dropped.
"What do you mean--us guys?" Al demanded. "What about you?"
Both sides of Limpy's face grinned sardonically. "No boat, all the animals set free--you'll have to run for it. And me? Well, I'm not much good at running. But you three can escape, if I'm not along to hold you back."
"I'm a heel," snarled Birchall. "Forget what I said."
"Sure, Limpy," Swede added with clumsy joviality. "This little ape is always talking before he thinks. We're sticking--all of us."
"Cut it out!" snapped Limpy. "Somebody has to stay here to throw the dynamite switch. I don't need any help."
"Nobody's throwing any switch," Mac declared. "This is our mine, and no damned vermin are taking it over!"
"But you'll never beat them," pleaded Limpy. "And even if you did, they'd only keep coming back until they got the place. You can't wipe them out once and for all."
"Someday, somebody will," Mac said. "In the meantime, we can fight like hell. 'Pedes haven't any more intelligence than a bee, but even they get tired of being slaughtered."
"A bee?" Al asked. "I thought 'pedes were smart devils."
"Not individually, according to Graves, the old-time biologist."
"Then how can they plan and act all together?"
"They have some way of coordinating, Graves claimed. How does a beehive act as a unit? We don't know, but it does just the same."
"Can't I talk you fellows into leaving?" begged Limpy.
"No!" Al stated flatly.
Limpy shrugged. Shuffling over to the window, he pointed down at the closed-cabin tractor beside the smelter.
"Then how about letting me use that as a tank?" he asked. "I'm not much good here, anyhow. The 'pedes wouldn't be able to get at me, inside the cabin, and I could crush and burn them down till they quit."
"That was tried once at a mine," said Mac. "The 'pedes dug tank traps. The driver killed himself after being stuck in one for a week. It didn't matter; he'd have died soon enough. But even when he skipped the traps, the 'pedes dodged the treads. They don't just stand around and wait to be crushed."
The right side of Limpy's face drew down in disappointment. "You guys are suckers to stick around. I'm just a rubber cog."
"Rubber cog, huh?" Al yelped. "How do you think we're going to fight without a lookout man?"
"Don't talk like a sap, Limpy," added Mac with gruff gentleness. "We need you a lot more than you need us."
A slow, sad smile spread over Limpy's twisted features.
"Okay, if that's how you feel about it."
"That's how we feel about it," Swede answered.
They went down to their stations within the enclosure. In deadly silence, the camp waited for the first blow.
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