Robert W. Krepps

“ Bill Calico lifted off the crest, Daley removed the helmet, Jerry and Joe Silver caught the suit as it fell away in two sections.
And Captain Pinkham caught the girl.
She was slim and full in the places where a woman ought to be so, and her hair, close-cropped, was black-brown and shining. Her face was good, damn good, bloody damn fine to a spaceman who'd been out on the ways for a couple of years; but Pink had the happy thought—it was the first one he had, before the shock really hit him that that this was a girl—that she would have looked just as good to him on Earth. ”

“ Four days later Pinkham and Circe stood quietly before a scanner screen, Pink leaning on a cane, and watched the great lead vat and then the multitude of bottles go tumbling into space. "We are giving them a chance of survival," mused Circe. "There's about one chance in a billion that some day they'll be found and released again." ”

“ Deliberately he tried to draw as much oxygen into his lungs as he could. It was growing rarer every instant; but never mind trying to conserve it—the life of everyone aboard depended on his reaching the atmospheria. For the air in the spaceship was rapidly degenerating, becoming unbreathable as what remained of the good stuff was inhaled and thrown off as useless gases....
Either the atmospheric system had gone on the blink by itself, he thought, which was a hell of a long shot and too much of a coincidence, or else the alien, experimenting, had turned it off by accident. ”

“ I think you're lying, said Pink to himself. Nothing in the universe is indestructible ... or at any rate, unalterable. Everything has its Achilles heel, even the atom.
The monster spoke, half to itself. "That, the locked switch was the air, then. I thought it was the air-lock." It laughed. Pink thought it had a pretty primitive sense of humor. "Not the air-lock, but the air."
"You wanted to let your friends into the ship," accused Pink. The beast nodded. "Didn't you know that opening the air-locks without sealing off their compression rooms would kill all the humans aboard?" ”

“ Except for Joe Silver.
"I say, sit tight and wait," he said. "Something will happen. There's no use committing suicide."
"If he wants us alive, and we can't fight him, I think we're better off dead," said Jerry through his teeth.
"Hell. Where there's life there's hope."
"I suppose you're right," said Pink slowly. His muscles ached, his hands grasped ceaselessly at the air; he was a man of action, his desire for combat throttled by incapability. "Twenty-some hours before the other ships get here. If our deductions are on the beam, he won't do anything till then. He wants the whole armada." ”

“ The djinni did not seem to hear him. Its eyes, like dead coals now in the yellow face, rested on Pink. "It was clever of you to recognize us from history."
"You go into bottles, speak Arabic, fly and are humanoid in form. I should have guessed your race hours before."
"We are not humanoid. You are djinnoid. We came before you in evolution."
"How do you know?" asked Daley.
"Our legends ... I cannot tell, being no more than six or seven thousand years old myself. But we are told we predate man."
"When were you relegated to this belt?" asked Jerry, who was still a little pale. ”

“ Somebody's been at it."
"Where is he?" asked Pink in a whisper.
"What, Captain?" Kinkare stopped the bottle halfway to his lips.
"Where the devil is the brute? We combed the place. He can't have got through the mutiny gates. He can't have slipped past our chain. Where the hell is he?"
"Maybe disguised as one of us," said Daley slowly. "He isn't a Martian, but he imitated one to the last pore. Why couldn't he imitate us?"
"Well, I'm me," said Kinkare, and put the bottle to his mouth. Then he dropped it, screeching. Pinkham stared at him and saw his upper lip turned violent, hideous scarlet. ”

“ Impossibly Pink stood on his good leg and aimed for the scanner-port which he knew, or hoped, connected with the screen in the control room where Jackson sat.
Now the Elephant's Child was done, Jackson was shoving the switch over, now it would all disintegrate in his face. He flew through space and struck the hull flat; all the perishing strength in him glued his body, his fingers in their thin gloves, to that curving surface. His great helmet, with the crest insignia of comets and spears that marked him as the captain, hung for a short time directly in front of the scanner-port. ”

“ Many, too many giants were still there. Some of them seemed not to have seen anything of the hectic occurrences, others were standing in small groups (if anything formed of thousand-foot beings could be called small, thought Pink as he rocketed along) motioning hugely to one another.
"Stay close," he called to Circe. She was moving as fast as he, her light frame an asset. They ran down one side of the cavern, ignoring giants who did not at first notice them. Pink beamed out his radio and said, "Daley! Locate yourself." ”

“ Kinkare, unable to speak through his bandaged mouth, nodded strongly. Circe glared defiance at Pinkham. "Next time, for God's sake tell me what you have in mind," she said. "Not that I'd let you sacrifice poor Jerry, anyway."
"Women," said Jerry. "Women on a ship. Jonahs. Sentimental imbeciles."
"I'll knock your teeth down your scrawny throat," began Joe Silver, and "Quiet!" roared Pinkham. "We're quarreling like kids. What's to be done now!"
"I was saying it taught us a few things," said Daley. "Let's figure them out. ”

“ Their somber faces looked out of the screen at him. "Let us in, Captain," pleaded one big repairman. "We'll mob the critter."
"No use, Jackson. Stand by." He turned the dial of the visiograph into the officers' section, scanned one room after another. No alien being appeared. "I wonder if he's in here with us?" said Pink half-aloud.
Jerry came to him. "I have an idea," he said quietly. Then he whispered at length into Pinkham's ear.
"It won't work. He knows what he's doing."
"How do we know that? If he needs us, he's ignorant of spaceships. ”

“ The common ordinary non-toxic germs we carry in our systems all the time. It was a massacre—and of a queer, sweet kind of beast. They had no tolerance for our microbes."
"I volunteer to find the alien and breathe in his face," said Jerry. "Somebody hand me an onion," he added.
The conversation went on. It grew aimless to Pink, a bunch of boys whistling by a graveyard, eight prisoners speculating on their escape when they had no real knowledge of their jailer. He fiddled with the intercom, saw that the crew had gathered by the mutiny gates and were waiting tensely, puny weapons in their hands. ”

“ The senior officer; said, "Jerry, let's take a look at that critter you think is perched on this thing."
The organicus officer grinned with one corner of his mouth. He pulled down a platinum lever, and a thirty-inch screen above his control board sprang to life. The black of space showed the bumpy planetoid like a ball of cold lava, and seated in the center of the screen, a man in a spacesuit.
Captain Pinkham licked his lips. "Okay," he said, "I owe you a shot of rye. You were right." Then he blinked his gray eyes. "My God!" he roared. "What's a human being doing out here in System Ninety?" ”

“ The intercom, the space drive, the life-scanner. So far apart that one man couldn't have put them out of whack. No one connected in any way with the others. Ynohp snoring gently in his stateroom. Pinkham, Daley, Silver, Kinkare, Jerry Jones, Calico, and the girl, all gathered in the Captain's quarters, tense, baffled, and all talking at once. ”

“ Daley, the oldest of the lot at thirty-six, and the coolest spacehead of them all, said, "May I introduce Captain John Pinkham, our leader?" Formalities eased a shock, he knew, and helped you over the rough spots. "I'm Lt. Washington Daley and you are—"
"Organicus Officer Circe Smith, of Colonel Fawcett's exploratory armada," she said automatically.
"Fawcett!" said everyone, loudly and with amazement.
"So he got to System Ninety," said Pink. "Every spaceman on the ways has wondered about Fawcett for eighteen years. He vanished with two ships—"
"She knows that, Captain," said Daley. ”

“ She was limp in his arms, as relaxed as a sleeping kitten. Her eyes, deep brown, were open but heavy-lidded. He half-knelt, cradling her comfortably, as Jerry anticipated his question and said, "She's okay. She'll be out of it in a few minutes. She's still living slower than we are."
Joe Silver, unaccountably across the room by the life-scanner, said, "Hey! There's another one!"
"Another what?" asked his senior lieutenant, Daley. ”

“ The giant had released the ship.
"We are chastened," murmured Jerry, feeling a bruised shin.
"And now what?" asked Joe Silver. "Ordinary weapons are as much use to us as spitballs." He sat down. "Let's figure out what else to try. Somewhere there's an answer."
They all sat down, Pink said, "Remember Wolf 864?"
"Sure," said Daley, who had been on that expedition with Pinkham when they were young cubs out of jetschool. "Friendly natives, kind of vegetable-animal life, and we murdered half of them unintentionally. We had to get out and never go back."
"How?" asked Circe. "How did you kill them?" ”

“ The djinni on the floor said, "I concede this battle to you, Captain. I have seen the ending on the screen. But there are others out there, on Oasis and in the void. We'll win to Earth some day in spite of this victory."
Pink, snugly ensconced in a foam-chair with his sprained ankle propped up, his surviving officers seated around him, and Circe on the arm of the deep chair, took another drink of lemonade. ”

“ There was another fact he must learn. He knelt and presented the bottle to the inert lips. "Have a slug," he said.
"You are sensible," said the being with satisfaction. "Pour it into my mouth or my eye; I can absorb it through any orifice." Pink poured rapidly. The liquor ran down over the yellow hide.
"No, no," gurgled the monster. "Slowly! I absorb it far more slowly than you do—"
Pink stood up. ”

“ When the instruments of the ship detected this belt of asteroids, Captain Pinkham turned aside as a matter of course, to cruise through it and let his cartographer map it, his organicus officer check it for signs of life, and all his other crewmen turn their inquisitive eyes and machines upon it. It was the seventh asteroid belt to be discovered by man, if you included the one between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, back home, incredible light-years behind....
No life had ever been discovered on an asteroid, except for the vegetable-animal space-eating bacteria on Pallas. No life—
Until now. ”

“ She wore the uniform of an organicus officer: just a bit dated, the lapels too wide by an inch, the synthetic fabric of the jacket just a little more clinging and revealing than the current fashion, the pants narrow at the cuff where today's were bell-bottomed. ”

“ There were always legends of giants and ogres and djinn and demons on earth, myths that started to die out about the time this late friend of ours left the globe for good. Maybe the djinni developed side by side with man, but was limited because of his flaws. There are a million life-forms in the universe so alien to man as to be unexplainable, and a lot of them are right home on Terra. ”

“ A big meteor tore out your belly, or your fuel gave out, or any of a million things happened to crack up the beautiful great spaceship that was your vehicle and your pride and almost you, an extension of yourself, an expression of your yearning to conquer the stars. So you got into your slugjet suit and walked out an air-lock, if you had enough warning, that is. ”

“ Three-dimensional movies were shown on your translucent face plate, so slow that to a person with unhampered reflexes they would look like stills. Music played to you, a low drone and buzz that to you was jazz, classical, anything you selected. ”

“ Even if we're all killed, the giants might manage to learn the control of the ships, and take them to Terra alone.
"So if we can't wipe out the enemy, our only course is to destroy ourselves and our ships. Every officer in the armada has instructions to blow up his ship if the giants should break into it. The thing is so important that I've issued orders to do that even though the use of lead-thrower weapons might conquer the invaders.
"If giants seize a ship and it is not destroyed within five minutes, the other two will turn their platinum guns on it. ”

“ They gathered in Sparks' radio room. That was due to the simple fact that, aside from themselves, only Sparks was alive on this side of the mutiny gates. The other officers were scattered—in the most grisly sense of the word—all over the place.
"Seven of us, if Silver's still alive," said Daley. "Eight with the girl. Why us? He could easily have attacked us in a body." Five of the dead officers had been found in a heap, just-used pistols in their rigid hands. Atomic force was obviously useless against the thing from the asteroid. ”

“ Grim terror lurked in the void many light years from Earth. But Pinkham and his men were unaware of it—until suddenly they discovered—The Giants From Outer Space
"I've made four checks already—"
"Damn it, make another!"
"It's no use, Pink. The life-scanner's never wrong." ”

“ Every man leaned forward, scowling at the screens. The nearest space-soarer squinted full in their faces, as though he could actually see them as they were scanning him. Coincidence, but—Pink shuddered.
"One," said Daley. "Two."
The Elephant's Child rocked wildly up and back as thirty platinum guns, the heaviest type in the known universe, fired their hell-projectiles—great shells whose inconceivable destructive power was released by the splitting of the curium atom. In flight, the ship would have absorbed the tremendous recoil automatically ”