Chapter 22

Jason stood to one side and watched the deadly cargo being loaded into the hold of the ship. The Pyrrans were in good humor as they stowed away riot guns, grenades and gas bombs. When the back-pack atom bomb was put aboard one of them broke into a marching song, and the others picked it up. Maybe they were happy, but the approaching carnage only filled Jason with an intense gloom. He felt that somehow he was a traitor to life. Perhaps the life form he had found needed destroying--and perhaps it didn’t. Without making the slightest attempt at conciliation, destruction would be plain murder.

Kerk came out of the operations building and the starter pumps could be heard whining inside the ship. They would leave within minutes. Jason forced himself into a foot-dragging rush and met Kerk halfway to the ship.

“I’m coming with you, Kerk. You owe me at least that much for finding them.”

Kerk hesitated, not liking the idea. “This is an operational mission,” he said. “No room for observers, and the extra weight-- And it’s too late to stop us Jason, you know that.”

“You Pyrrans are the worst liars in the universe,” Jason said. “We both know that ship can lift ten times the amount it’s carrying today. Now ... do you let me come, or forbid me without reason at all?”

“Get aboard,” Kerk said. “But keep out of the way or you’ll get trampled.”

This time, with a definite destination ahead, the flight was much faster. Meta took the ship into the stratosphere, in a high ballistic arc that ended at the islands. Kerk was in the co-pilot’s seat, Jason sat behind them where he could watch the screens. The landing party, twenty-five volunteers, were in the hold below with the weapons. All the screens in the ship were switched to the forward viewer. They watched the green island appear and swell, then vanish behind the flames of the braking rockets. Jockeying the ship carefully, Meta brought it down on a flat shelf near the cave mouth.

Jason was ready this time for the blast of mental hatred--but it still hurt. The gunners laughed and killed gleefully as every animal on the island closed in on the ship. They were slaughtered by the thousands, and still more came.

“Do you have to do this?” Jason asked. “It’s murder--carnage, just butchering those beasts like that.”

“Self-defense,” Kerk said. “They attack us and they get killed. What could be simpler? Now shut up, or I’ll throw you out there with them.”

It was a half an hour before the gunfire slackened. Animals still attacked them, but the mass assaults seemed to be over. Kerk spoke into the intercom.

“Landing party away--and watch your step. They know we’re here and will make it as hot as they can. Take the bomb into that cave and see how far back it runs. We can always blast them from the air, but it’ll do no good if they’re dug into solid rock. Keep your screen open, leave the bomb and pull back at once if I tell you to. Now move.”

The men swarmed down the ladders and formed into open battle formation. They were soon under attack, but the beasts were picked off before they could get close. It didn’t take long for the man at point to reach the cave. He had his pickup trained in front of him, and the watchers in the ship followed the advance.

“Big cave,” Kerk grunted. “Slants back and down. What I was afraid of. Bomb dropped on that would just close it up. With no guarantee that anything sealed in it, couldn’t eventually get out. We’ll have to see how far down it goes.”

There was enough heat in the cave now to use the infra-red filters. The rock walls stood out harshly black and white as the advance continued.

“No signs of life since entering the cave,” the officer reported. “Gnawed bones at the entrance and some bat droppings. It looks like a natural cave--so far.”

Step by step the advance continued, slowing as it went. Insensitive as the Pyrrans were to psi pressure, even they were aware of the blast of hatred being continuously leveled at them. Jason, back in the ship, had a headache that slowly grew worse instead of better.

“Watch out!“ Kerk shouted, staring at the screen with horror.

The cave was filled from wall to wall with pallid, eyeless animals. They poured from tiny side passages and seemed to literally emerge from the ground. Their front ranks dissolved in flame, but more kept pressing in. On the screen the watchers in the ship saw the cave spin dizzily as the operator fell. Pale bodies washed up and concealed the lens.

“Close ranks--flame-throwers and gas!” Kerk bellowed into the mike.

Less than half of the men were alive after that first attack. The survivors, protected by the flame-throwers, set off the gas grenades. Their sealed battle armor protected them while the section of cave filled with gas. Someone dug through the bodies of their attackers and found the pickup.

“Leave the bomb there and withdraw,” Kerk ordered. “We’ve had enough losses already.”

A different man stared out of the screen. The officer was dead. “Sorry, sir,” he said, “but it will be just as easy to push ahead as back as long as the gas grenades hold out. We’re too close now to pull back.”

“That’s an order,” Kerk shouted, but the man was gone from the screen and the advance continued.

Jason’s fingers hurt where he had them clamped to the chair arm. He pulled them loose and massaged them. On the screen the black and white cave flowed steadily towards them. Minute after minute went by this way. Each time the animals attacked again, a few more gas grenades were used up.

“Something ahead--looks different,” the panting voice cracked from the speaker. The narrow cave slowly opened out into a gigantic chamber, so large the roof and far walls were lost in the distance.

“What are those?” Kerk asked. “Get a searchlight over to the right there.”

The picture on the screen was fuzzy and hard to see now, dimmed by the layers of rock in-between. Details couldn’t be made out clearly, but it was obvious this was something unusual.

“Never saw ... anything quite like them before,” the speaker said. “Look like big plants of some kind, ten meters tall at least--yet they’re moving. Those branches, tentacles or whatever they are, keep pointing towards us and I get the darkest feeling in my head...”

“Blast one, see what happens,” Kerk said.

The gun fired and at the same instant an intensified wave of mental hatred rolled over the men, dropping them to the ground. They rolled in pain, blacked out and unable to think or fight the underground beasts that poured over them in renewed attack.

In the ship, far above, Jason felt the shock to his mind and wondered how the men below could have lived through it. The others in the control room had been hit by it as well. Kerk pounded on the frame of the screen and shouted to the unhearing men below.

“Pull back, come back...”

It was too late. The men only stirred slightly as the victorious Pyrran animals washed over them, clawing for the joints in their armor. Only one man moved, standing up and beating the creatures away with his bare hands. He stumbled a few feet and bent over the writhing mass below him. With a heave of his shoulders he pulled another man up. The man was dead but his shoulder pack was still strapped to his back. Bloody fingers fumbled at the pack, then both men were washed back under the wave of death.

“That was the bomb!” Kerk shouted to Meta. “If he didn’t change the setting, it’s still on ten-second minimum. Get out of here!”

Jason had just time to fall back on the acceleration couch before the rockets blasted. The pressure leaned on him and kept mounting. Vision blacked out but he didn’t lose consciousness. Air screamed across the hull, then the sound stopped as they left the atmosphere behind.

Just as Meta cut the power a glare of white light burst from the screens. They turned black instantly as the hull pickups burned out. She switched filters into place, then pressed the button that rotated new pickups into position.

Far below, in the boiling sea, a climbing cloud of mushroom-shaped flame filled the spot where the island had been seconds before. The three of them looked at it, silently and unmoving. Kerk recovered first.

“Head for home, Meta, and get operations on the screen. Twenty-five men dead, but they did their job. They knocked out those beasts--whatever they were--and ended the war. I can’t think of a better way for a man to die.”