Bill Garson

“ With a sigh, Jon Karyl, who was curious unto death, relaxed and said, "All right, bub, you don't have to force-feed me. I'll take it like a man."
The cylinder apparently understood him, for it handed him the tumbler. It even reholstered his stubray pistol.
Jon brought the glass of liquid under his nose. The fumes of the liquid were pungent. It brought tears to his eyes.
He looked at the cylinder, then at the Steel-Blues crowding around the plastic igloo. He waved the glass at the audience.
"To Earth, ever triumphant," he toasted. Then he drained the glass at a gulp. ”

“ Jon Karyl unsheathed the stubray pistol at his side, turned the oxygen dial up for greater exertion, increased the gravity pull in his space-suit boots as he neared the ravine he'd been racing for.
The oxygen was just taking hold when he hit the lip of the ravine and began sprinting through its man-high bush-strewn course.
The power ray from behind ripped out great gobs of the sheltering bushes. But running naturally, bent close to the bottom of the ravine, Jon Karyl dodged the bare spots. ”

“ Jon sighed. For 400 years scientists had been preaching preparedness as Earth flung her ships into the reaches of the solar system, taking the first long step toward the conquest of space.
There are other races somewhere, they argued. As strong and smart as man, many of them so transcending man in mental and inventive power that we must be prepared to strike the minute danger shows. ”

“ It was only as he crawled out of the depths of the rocket power plant that he realized something was wrong.
By then it was almost too late. The six blue figures were only fifty feet away, approaching him at a lope.
Jon Karyl took one look and went bounding over the asteroid's rocky slopes in fifty-foot bounds.
When you're a Lone Watcher, and strangers catch you unawares, you don't stand still. You move fast. It's the Watcher's first rule. Stay alive. An Earthship may depend upon your life. ”

“ On the sixteenth day, the Earthman realized that the Steel-Blues also were waiting for the SP ship.
The extra-terrestrials had repaired the blue ship where the service station atomic ray had struck. And they were doing a little target practice with plastic bubbles only a few miles above the asteroid.
When his chronometer clocked off the beginning of the twenty-first day, Jon received a tumbler of the hemlock from the hands of No. 1 himself.
"It is the hemlock," he chuckled, "undiluted. Drink it and your torture is over. You will die before your SP ship is destroyed. ”

“ It was when he quaffed the new and stronger draught that Jon knew that his hope that it was citric acid was squelched.
The acid taste was weaker which meant that the citric acid was the diluting liquid. It was the liquid he couldn't taste beneath the tang of the citric acid that was the corrosive acid.
On the fourteenth day, Jon was so weak he didn't feel much like moving around. He let the cylinder feed him the hemlock.
No. 1 came again to see him, and went away chuckling, "Decrease the dilution. This Earthman at last is beginning to suffer." ”

“ Jon Karyl said. "I didn't die. I was just plain dead-beat so I went to sleep." The Steel-Blues apparently didn't understand.
"Good it is that you live. The torture will continue," spoke No. 1 before loping away.
The cylinder business began again. This time, Jon drank the bitter liquid slowly, trying to figure out what it was. It had a familiar, tantalizing taste but he couldn't quite put a taste-finger on it.
His belly said he was hungry. He glanced at his chronometer. Only 20 days left before the SP ship arrived. ”

“ It causes joints to harden if even so much as a drop remains on it long. It eats away the metal, leaving a scaly residue which crumbles eventually into dust.
"We will dilute it with a harmless liquid for you since No. 1 does not wish you to die instantly.
"Enter your"—the Steel-Blue hesitated—"mausoleum. You die in your own atmosphere. However, we took the liberty of purifying it. There were dangerous elements in it."
Jon walked into the little igloo. The Steel-Blues sealed the lock, fingered dials and switches on the outside. Jon's space suit deflated. Pressure was building up in the igloo. ”

“ Already our ship is equipped with a force field designed especially to deflect your atomic guns."
Jon Karyl covered up his thoughts quickly. They can delve deeper than the surface of the mind. Or wasn't I keeping a leash on my thoughts?
The Steel-Blue chuckled. "You get—absent-minded, is it?—every once in a while."
Just then four other Steel-Blues appeared lugging great sheets of plastic and various other equipment.
They dumped their loads and began unbundling them.
Working swiftly, they built a plastic igloo, smaller than the living room in the larger service station igloo. ”

“ Invasion by extra-terrestrials.
"What did you say?" asked Steel-Blue. "I couldn't understand."
"Just thinking to myself," Jon answered. It was a welcome surprise. Apparently his thoughts had to be directed outward, rather than inward, in order for the Steel-Blues to read it.
He followed the Steel-Blue into the gaping lock of the invaders' space ship wondering how he could warn Earth. The Space Patrol cruiser was due in for refueling at his service station in 21 days. But by that time he probably would be mouldering in the rocky dust of the asteroid. ”

“ But where he tapered from broad shoulders to flat hips, they were straight up and down. They had no legs, just appendages, many-jointed that stretched and shrank independent of the other, but keeping the cylindrical body with its four pairs of tentacles on a level balance. ”