The Greatest Works of E. E. Smith. E. E. Smith
his mighty wings, took up the task of propulsion. Inertialess still, with Kinnison and vanBuskirk grasping his tail, each beat a mile-long leap, he struggled on. But all too soon the battery powering the neutralizers also went dead and the three began to plummet downward at a sharper and sharper angle, in spite of the Velantian’s Herculean efforts to keep them aloft.
Some distance ahead of them the green of the jungle ended in a sharply cut line, beyond which there was a heavy growth of fairly open forest. A couple of miles of this and there was the city, their objective—so near and yet so far!
“We’ll either just make the timber or we just won’t,” Kinnison, mentally plotting the course, announced dispassionately. “Just as well if we land in the jungle, I think. It’ll break our fall, anyway—hitting solid ground inert at this speed would be bad.”
“If we land in the jungle we will never leave it,” Worsel’s thought did not slow the incredible tempo of his prodigious pinions, “but it makes little difference whether I die now or later.”
“It does to us, you pessimistic croaker!” flared Kinnison. “Forget that dying complex of yours for a minute! Remember the plan, and follow it! We’re going to strike the jungle, about ninety or a hundred meters in. If you come in with us you die at once, and the rest of our scheme is all shot to hell. So when we let go, you go ahead and land in the woods. We’ll join you there, never fear: our armor will hold long enough for us to cut our way through a hundred meters of any jungle that ever grew—even this one . Get ready, Bus . Leggo!”
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?”
“Uh 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,” Worsel 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.”