Jerome Bixby

“ He held back that particular beast from the lot. When the others had been tossed through, he hauled back his tentacle, wound up, and pegged the offending beast with all his might. It streaked through the doorway like a projectile, legs and eyestalks rigid.
Pud plucked a machine from the two-foot claws of the very last beast, and tossed the beast through. Then he examined the machine—it was beyond repair. He slammed that through the doorway too.
In ten seconds, the two Vegan Scientists had slapped and mauled all their rioting experiments into inaction. ”

“ Johnny went on, a little grimly. "I think we're just edgy. Planets don't give people headaches ... and there's nothing alive within in a million miles of this dustball." He hefted his blaster, which he had adjusted to Wide-Field. "But just in case...."
"Pud," Gop said, still more nervously.
"Yes, I see, you idiot! Lift the tharn-field out of their way ... I'll take care of the space-warp generator!"
The giant Vegans, for all their bulk, moved soundlessly and at great speed until they were between the aliens and the stone outcropping toward which they appeared to be heading. ”

“ Several other garage-sized beasts converged on her, all looking as hungry as the first. In reality, they weren't hungry—their food consisted of stone, primarily, while they also drew sustenance from cosmic radiation. But they liked to tear things to pieces. They were native to the planetoid; the Vegan Scientists had gathered them up and shoved them through the intraspatial-doorway to this side of the planet, where they wouldn't be underfoot all the time. It was a one-way doorway, through which Pud or Gop would occasionally reach to pluck one of the beasts back for use in experimentation. ”

“ They romped and trampled over delicate machines, sent heavier equipment spinning to smash against boulders; they ran head-on into sizzling energy-fields and, head-off, kept running.
Pud grabbed up an armful of beasts, raced to the doorway, reversed it and poured them through. He grabbed up more beasts, threw them after. Gop was busily engaged in the same task. Some of the beasts began fighting among themselves even as the Vegans held them—Gop jumped as one tore six cubic yards of flesh from a tentacle. ”

“ Helen sobbed. "I tripped when I started to turn around, and fell down the other side, and all of a sudden ... it was horrible ... I thought I was going crazy—"
Johnny Gorman had his arms tight around her. Behind her back, his blaster was pointed straight down the far slope of the ridge, ready to atomize anything that moved.
"What, honey?" he said. "What happened? I didn't see anything near you ... what happened?"
"It was like I was in a hurricane ... I couldn't see anything, but something seemed to be whirling around me, something as big as the universe ... ”

“ The thermonuclear bolts tickled Pud's hide. He sighed and relaxed his personal invisibility field and became visible. That didn't matter now.
The alien stared upward. Its face whitened. It dropped its popgun and fell over backward, slid gently off the ship's nose and started a slow light-gravity fall toward the ground.
Pud caught it, and said, "I thought that might happen. Evidently they lose consciousness rather easily at unaccustomed sights. A provincial trait."
He slid the aliens gently into the airlock of their ship.
The Vegans waited for the aliens to regain consciousness. ”

“ Gop said unhappily. "I wasn't day-dreaming, I was observing the magnificent skill and finesse with which you shaped the thig. After all, this system is so isolated. No one ever came along before.... I just supposed no one ever would—"
"A Scientist isn't supposed to suppose! Until he's proven wrong, he's supposed to know!" Thirty of Pud's eyes glowered upward at the tiny alien spaceship, only ninety or so miles above the surface of the laboratory-planet and lowering rapidly. ”

“ I was so scared after that meteor hit us, it's a wonder I didn't nail the ship halfway into the planet, instead of just jolting us up."
Helen looked up at the three-foot hole in the side of the ship.
Johnny followed her gaze, and grunted. "We'd better get to work." He turned to the ladder that led up to the airlock. "I'll rig the compressor to charge the spare oxy-tanks ... we'll have to delouse this air of ammonia, but otherwise it's fine. Look, honey, I won't need any help; why don't you get busy on a PC?"
Helen nodded, still staring up at the meteor-hole. ”

“ Gop thought triumphantly at Pud. "That's just what I did with the tharn-field.... I guess nobody is above accidents, eh?"
Pud thought pure vitamins at his Junior Scientist. "You idiot, I didn't accidentally turn on the warp! You left the tharn on, and it triggered the warp! Why didn't you deactivate the tharn?"
"Why didn't you?" Gop shot back. "You were there too!"
Pud lashed a tentacle over the outcropping, and the tharn-field became inactive. Then he looked around, and every eye in his prime head popped. "Look out, the dimensional-warp is spreading ... it's lost its cohesion ... ”

“ Gop extended a tentacle, curled it at an odd angle, and picked up the shimmering tharn-field, which was the Vegans' reservoir of Basic Universal Energy. Set in any energy matrix, tharn became that energy; added to any existing energy, tharn augmented it to any desired potential. Thus it was extremely valuable to their experiments ... and very risky stuff to handle, as well. ”

“ Here we are. And there—" Pud motioned with a tentacle at the little aliens—"they are. As you can see, we must reveal ourselves to still a greater extent ... they can't even get into their ship to leave the planet without our help!"
Gop was silent.
"Also—" Pud sent a brief extra-sensory probe at the aliens, and both of them clutched at their helmeted heads—"their problem of air supply is critical. There is very little left in their suit-tanks, and the time required for their machines to refine air from this planet's atmosphere has been wasted in—in—the entertainment so recently concluded. ”

“ At last: "They're getting out," Gop observed.
A tiny airlock had opened in the side of the ship. A metal ladder poked out, swung down, settled against the ground.
The aliens—two of them—appeared; looked down, looked up, looked to the right and to the left. Then they came warily down the ladder.
For a few minutes the giant Vegans watched the creatures wander about. One of them approached one of Pud's tails. Irritatedly Pud lifted it out of the way. The little creature snooped on, unaware that twenty tons of invisible silicoid flesh hung over its head. ”

“ You know that they've seen enough to draw the very conclusions we don't want them to draw. You know how vital it is that no race under Contact-level status know of the existence of other intelligent races ... ”

“ Pud thought in roars.
The tiny creature had stopped and was turning its helmeted head this way and that, as if trying to see where the sound had come from. It had drawn a weapon of some sort from a holster at its belt—another thermonuclear popgun.
The creature turned and came back toward the Vegans, heading for his ship. Pud lifted his tail again. The creature passed under it, reached the ship, joined its partner.
"I heard it too, Johnny," Helen Gorman said nervously. "A loud scraping noise—"
"It seemed to come from right behind me," Johnny Gorman said. "Damn near scared me off the planet ... ”