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                             FIRST MAN

                           By CLYDE BROWN

                         Illustrated by WOOD

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction
April 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: _He obstinately wanted no part in achieving the goal of
generations--but the goal with equal obstinacy wanted all of him!_]

To keep the record straight: Orville Close was first man on the Moon.
Harold Ferguson was second. They never talk about it.

It started on that October morning when the piece came out in the
Parkville _News_. Harold grumbled that they'd gotten the story all
wrong, calling his ship a rocket ship, and treating him like a flagpole
sitter or a man going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. His wife took
their sad, thin little girl and went to live with her brother. The city
police blocked off Elm Street, letting no one through except the
residents. The neighbors were getting up a petition. But Orville refused
to become excited.

What was going to happen?

Why, nothing.

Harold would probably crack up completely, but this evening that thing
would still be standing there, solid as the Washington Monument.

Nevertheless, Orville's wife Polly was going to her sister's, across
town. _She_ wasn't going to stay there and be blown up! While she was
getting ready, Orville picked up a package by the sink and carried it
outside to the alley and dropped it in the garbage can. He wore his
double-breasted fall suit. He strolled to the boundary fence and leaned
against a post.

A reporter was taking angle shots of the spaceship. Flashbulbs were
scattered over Harold's garden.

It really does catch the eye, Orville thought. Smarten the ship up a
little, put some stripes running down from the nose, a few pieces of
chrome around over the body....

Poor old Harold came off his back porch carrying a thermos jug and six
loaves of bread.

"Morning, Harold," said Orville.

"Oh--morning, Orville." Harold flinched. Another reporter had come out
of the shed and taken their picture.

"What's your name, mister?" the reporter asked Orville.

"I'd rather you left me out of this," Orville said.

A loaf of bread had broken open and slices were falling out. Harold put
down the thermos jug and picked up the slices and stuffed them back into
the wrapper. The first reporter came over.

"It's got Vitamin D." Harold grinned wretchedly. "Costs two cents more a
loaf, but I thought, what the heck--"

"How about a shot of you and the missus saying good-by?" the first
reporter said.

"Why--she left me," Harold blurted. He tried to get away, but the
reporters hemmed him in.

"Was she scared?" the second reporter asked.

"Look, boys!" Orville put his hands on the top rail of the fence and
climbed across. He was getting his shoes wet in the weeds in Harold's
garden, but he didn't care. "The man has work to do. Can't you leave him
alone?"

He picked up the jug and took Harold by the elbow and led him into the
shed.

There, resting on some concrete blocks on the dirt floor, was the base
of the ship. In the semi-darkness, it looked harmless enough: like a
tank, six or eight feet across, reaching up through a jagged hole in the
roof.

"Harold, you could make a good thing out of this," Orville said. "All
this publicity."

Harold was climbing a rickety ladder to the roof. Orville followed.

"Mount this thing on a trailer. Take her around to fairs and carnivals."

Orville waited on the roof while Harold climbed another ladder to the
small oval door in the side of the ship. Harold called down: "You never
saw the inside. Want to look around?"

"Well...." Orville glanced into his back yard. Polly wasn't ready yet.
He climbed up and handed the jug to Harold and stuck his head in.

"Huh!" There wasn't much to see. Just a small compartment with some
pipes leading from below into the nose. "You got to fix this up," he
said. "Some Rube Goldberg contraptions."

"The works are all up here." Harold climbed a ladder and disappeared
through a hole overhead. "C'mon up, I'd like you to see this!"

Orville looked down again into his yard. "It'll take her forever! Polly,
I mean. Okay, I guess I got time for a look." He stepped in and climbed
until his waist was through the hole.

The nose of the ship was dark. Harold was shining an extension lamp
around. There were parts of a junked car and some old plumbing fixtures
and Orville recognized the wheels of a lawnmower he'd left by the alley
for the trash men to pick up. This didn't look like the inside of a
spaceship. It looked exactly like a corner in Harold's basement.

"Oh, Lord," Orville said.

"I call this my scope." Harold was shining the light on a shaving
mirror, on a long arm that could be swung and tilted about. "How about
that? Pretty neat, huh?"

Neat was hardly the word for it. "Look here, Harold! The neighbors are
getting an injunction. Why don't you play it smart? Fight it out in the
courts. There'll be a lot of publicity--"

"They are?" Harold was hurt. He was shining the lamp in Orville's eyes.

"Yeah. Now while you're fighting it out in the courts--"

"Do you call that neighborly?"

"They're scared. They're afraid you'll blow the whole neighborhood to
pieces."

"Well, hell with them!"

"While we're on that subject, ain't that my trouble lamp you're
holding?"

"Yeah. Guess it is. Need it right away?"

"Just want you to remember where it came from."

"Actually, it'll be no use on the trip. I got her fixed so when I take
off, the cord down at the base will come unplugged and--"

"Well, Polly must be ready by now." Orville gave up. Polly was right.
Harold was insane.

Orville tried to turn on the ladder so that he could climb back down.
His foot slipped. He spread his arms to keep from falling through the
hole and knocked over the pile of bread.

"Watch out!" Harold yelped.

"I'm all right." Orville felt a slight tingle.

"Yes, but you--" Harold's voice trailed off with dismay. The light in
his hand had gone out, but Orville didn't think of what this meant at
the time.

There was light coming through the door below and Orville climbed down.
Darn! He pulled out his handkerchief and tried to brush the dust off his
lapels. He'd have to change suits, and that meant changing his socks and
tie, and he was supposed to meet those people about that deal on
Maplehurst Extension at nine. Well, he'd be late. He leaned out of the
door.

"Orville!" shouted Harold. "Come back! Don't step out there!"

A lot of fog was blowing down past the nose of the ship. Orville
wondered where it came from. He stuck his foot out, reaching for the
ladder. He heard Harold scrambling down from above and he wanted to get
away from that madman. He reached farther. Harold grabbed his arm.

Then the fog cleared away and Orville swayed dizzily, gaping at where he
had almost stepped. They had been going through a cloud. Now he looked
down at dazzling clouds in the bright October sun and between them he
saw the streets of Parkville, very neat, just like the map hanging in
the office.

He dropped back inside and lay weakly on the floor. He grabbed one of
the pipes and shakily clung to it.

"What happened?" he stammered.

"Hit the main switch." Harold was reaching out for the door handle. He
banged the door shut with a concussion that burst inside Orville's head.
"We took off."

It was dark in there, at first; then Orville saw a dim violet light that
filled the inside of the ship.

He followed Harold up the ladder into the nose of the ship and sank to
the floor. Harold was twiddling with some knobs mounted on the dashboard
of the junked car.

"Boy!" Orville pulled out his handkerchief again and swabbed his
forehead. He tried to wipe the grime from his hands. "And I've never
even been in an airplane!"

"Me either." Harold pounded on the dashboard. A meter didn't seem to be
working. "There ... guess I can open her up a little."

"Hey, wait! Take me back!"

Harold moved a knob an eighth of a turn. He switched on the scope and
waited for it to warm up. He took off his glasses and wiped them,
squinting at Orville with that one bad eye.

"Turn it around and take me back!"

"But I can't, Orville." Harold put on the glasses and looked into the
scope. "It's working!"

"I demand it! You've made me late for the office as it is!"

"Sure looks different from the map," Harold said. "Must be the East
Coast. There's Florida sticking out there."

He snapped off the scope and sat opposite Orville. He opened the thermos
and poured coffee into the cap.

"Been so busy, didn't have my breakfast." He held out the cap to
Orville. "I take mine without sugar."

Orville shook his head. "Do I understand--"

"Ugh! It's hot!" Harold put down the coffee and rummaged in some brown
paper bags. "Should be some glazed doughnuts.... Shoot! Bet I left them
in the kitchen!"

Orville faced him firmly. "You've shown me it'll fly. I believe you. Now
I give you one more chance--take me back!"

"But I can't!" Harold protested.

"There are laws about this sort of thing, my friend. This is abduction.
Kidnapping. You know what the penalty is for that?"

"Well, gee, I didn't mean to take you along, Orville. You hit that
switch--"

"It's criminal negligence, leaving a switch out there like that where it
could be hit by accident!"

"Had to put it there so I could reach up from below and work it."

Orville balled his fists and stood squarely. Funny--it was no trouble at
all, standing and walking around. If he hadn't seen those clouds, and
the landscape sinking away, he'd swear the two of them were still in
Harold's back yard.

"Do you take me back," he said, "or do I have to break every--"

"But I can't!" Harold grasped his wrist pleadingly. "I got her set up in
a sequence. If I tried to change the sequence now, why--" He shuddered.
"I haven't got any idea what might happen!"

Orville sat back down.

"I'm sorry." The weak way Harold said it made Orville feel worse than
ever.

"Me! Trapped up here in this thing with you!" Orville said bitterly.
"You can't even drive a car! You're just about the worst driver I know!"

"I know," Harold admitted. "But this is safer than a car. Besides, out
where we're going, there'll be no traffic problem." He gave his inane
giggle. "Far as I know, there's no one else at all!"

"And the neighborhood back there. Probably all blown to pieces. Polly.
The house. My car! I got complete coverage on it, but who ever heard of
a car wrecked by a spaceship? When we get back, if my insurance doesn't
cover it, I'll sue you!"

"There's nothing hurt at all," Harold said. "Unless someone had his hand
on the ship when we took off. I'd planned to have 'em stand back."

Orville closed his eyes. Something was crossing and crisscrossing inside
him like two rings tossed back and forth by jugglers. It was not
painful, but it was disturbing. Something must be going wrong. He didn't
trust Harold's mechanical ability. In the past ten years, Harold had
been fired from a couple of filling station jobs because of blunders,
once for leaving the plug out of a crank case, and once for botching up
a flat tire repair.

"Running kind of rough, isn't she?" Orville said. "What makes this
little--" He circled his hands sickly in front of his stomach.

Harold closed his eyes and made similar circles. "Oh, that's this
counter-grav of mine. You see, the gravitation of the Earth--"

"Can't you do anything about it?" Orville was in no mood to listen to
one of Harold's lectures.

"I could move her over so we couldn't feel it, but it would be shaking
the ship then. Might tear it apart."

"Won't it tear us apart?"

"I don't think so. We got more give to us than the ship has." Harold was
able to drink the coffee now. "No, I don't think I've done a bad job on
this. First time a machine is built, you're bound to run into a few
bugs. But this is working, so far, even better than I expected."

"Yeah," Orville had to admit, "it ain't bad--for a guy with no
mechanical ability whatever."

II

Harold had opened the ship up a little more, and according to him, they
were now moving eighteen thousand miles per hour or so, approximately.
Orville had tried to drink some water from a milk bottle, but the sight
of the water, bouncing in rhythm to the invisible circles in his
stomach, had given him nausea.

Harold knelt on the floor, smoothing out a soiled sheet of paper. In the
center was a small circle, labeled in Harold's sloppy handwriting
"Earth." An arrow showed the direction of the Earth's motion around the
Sun. Outside this was a larger circle labeled "Orbit of Moon." A spiral
reached out from the Earth to intersect the Moon's orbit.

"Had the darnedest time drawing this," Harold said. "Got it out of an
astronomy book. _Let's Look at the Stars_ by someone. Thirty-five cents.
Let's see now."

He wet the point of the pencil and made a mark. He scratched his head
and erased the mark and made another.

"Harold, another thing," said Orville. "I weigh around one ninety-five.
Won't that take a lot of extra gas?"

"Nope. Doesn't matter if you weigh a ton. According to my counter-grav
principle--"

"Won't it get stuffy in here with two of us?"

"Why, I have some oxygen. That welding place in back of the garage where
I work--got a tank off them. Had to pay cash, but I can turn in the
empty when we get back."

"You sure one tank'll be enough?"

"Well--" Harold flushed guiltily. "You won't say anything about this? I
took along several extra tanks, just to make sure. I wasn't stealing.
You see, I figure I might make some money out of this thing."

"Say!" Orville hadn't thought of this angle before. "You really could."

"And there should be plenty of food. Let me see now." He fished in his
pocket and brought out a piece of brown wrapping paper. "I'll run over
the list and make sure I didn't forget something." He glanced up
sharply. "Relax! Make yourself to home. And the little boy's room is
down there." He squinted at the paper. "Water. There's plenty. Six
family-size cans pork and beans. Charged 'em." He ran through the list,
mumbling, then looked up brightly. "Yep. Looks all right. Nope, there's
one thing I forgot. Stickum plaster! Doggone. Never go anywhere without
my first aid kit. Never know what's liable to happen."

"Y'know, Harold," Orville said, "I'm beginning to see some possibilities
in this trip. First man on the Moon. Think of the fuss they made over
Lindy and Wrong-way Corrigan. The guys who climbed Mount Everest. Why,
that was nothing!"

"Course, I'm not doing this for fame. Or money, either."

"Then why are you doing it?"

Harold stared vaguely toward where the Moon would be if they could see
it. "I guess ... because it's there."

"Huh! Well, don't forget I'm in on it, too."

Some time later, when the Moon first appeared on the scope, about the
size of a basketball, Harold indulged in a mild spree. He opened some
pineapple juice. Orville did not feel like drinking any. In fact, he
felt ill.

"Space sickness," Harold said. "Lot of bread is good for that. Stuff
yourself with it. Just think--back there on Earth, they're going about
their business and no one knows that we're out here heading for the
Moon. Just think--if I'd call them on the radio and report making first
contact with the Moon--"

"Harold, one thing. How're you going to get her down?"

"Naval observatory would be the people to call, I guess. They'd notify
the President and they'd interrupt the TV programs--I thought of putting
a radio in here, but I'd already gone way over my budget."

"How do you plan to land her?"

"And wouldn't those guys at the Atomic Energy Commission have red faces!
You know, I wrote them, asking to use some of their energy and--darn
these government bureaus!--they never even had the courtesy to answer my
letter!"

"Listen--"

"And the birds at the college! When I took that navigation chart to the
astronomy department to see if they'd check it for me, they blew up!
Acted like I had no business flying to the Moon. Acted like they owned
the thing. Bunch of smart-alecs! With their double-talk! Knew less than
I did when I went there."

He looked at his watch. "I'm going to have a snack and then I'll get
some sleep. That's one good thing about having you along. Now I can
sleep and not have to worry."

As Harold sawed at the top of a can of beans with the can-opener.
Orville closed his eyes. Instantly, he saw the ship, heading for the
Moon, and then there was a blinding flash. He opened his eyes. Harold
was digging into the can with a spoon, munching away.

"Just brought one." Harold waved the spoon. "But I'm not poison. Better
have some of these beans. They'll stick to your ribs."

Orville crawled to the door leading to the other compartment, flung it
open and leaned there a while. He sat up, rubbing his eyes. Harold was
wiping the spoon on a piece of brown paper.

"Last call!" Harold giggled and pushed the can to Orville. Orville
pushed it away and closed his eyes and sat, holding his middle. When he
opened them, Harold was sleeping.

Orville crawled over and shook him. "How soon do you want me to wake you
up?"

Harold sat up. "Oh, my gosh! I forgot! Why, don't let me sleep more than
four hours."

He went to sleep again. Orville sat back. He could see it. Harold,
watching the Moon grow bigger and bigger on that scope, until they were
right on it, then turning with a surprised look: Oh, my gosh! I forgot
something! Then he'd give that giggle and there'd be that crash....

Orville's watch said two hours, but he wasn't sure. Maybe he'd slept and
the hand had gone clear around. He kept seeing that flash. Some amateur
astronomer, looking at the Moon right then, might see it. He'd be a
bungler, like Harold, and it wouldn't be much of a telescope. He was
always seeing flashes in the thing, from cars or lightning bugs or from
the kitchen door, because his wife was there yelling at him, just like
Rosie yelling at Harold. For they always married women like Rosie, or
they made women turn that way. Polly, now, she nagged all the time, but
that was different!

Orville drank some water and ate some bread, and when he swallowed, he
felt that circular bump-bump grab the bread and chop away at it, just
like Polly feeding stale bread into the meat chopper to make stuffing.

I have no business being out here, he moaned.

Here he was riding to the Moon with a tinkering idiot who couldn't fix a
kitchen faucet or locate a blown fuse in the basement. Streams of
moisture were trickling down the wall. The metal felt cold, like the
window of the car on a day when you needed the heater and defroster. Was
something going wrong?

Maybe they were out of oxygen. He listened to Harold snoring. Once
Harold took a quick breath, and strangled, and turned his head
restlessly. His glasses were slipping off.

Orville looked at his watch. He couldn't believe that just five minutes
had gone by since he'd looked at it last. He could hear Harold's
two-dollar watch ticking away, almost as loud as his own. His was
gaining on Harold's and then they were ticking together so that the
combined pounding sent echoes through the ship. He tried to crawl.

He couldn't move.

"Harold!" The ticking of the watches drowned out his voice. "We're in
trouble! We're out of oxygen! Help!"

It was like a bad dream. Then something woke him: Harold, stumbling
across his legs, turning on the scope and waiting, breathing hard, for
it to come to life.

Harold saw that he was awake. "You went to sleep! You shoulda woke me.
It's been six hours!"

Orville said nothing.

"We may be clear past the Moon by now," Harold grumbled.

Orville turned his face to the wall. He heard the hiss as Harold ran in
fresh oxygen. "Shoot! Better go down and hook up a new tank." Harold
clanked around in the other end of the ship and came back.

"How far out are we?" asked Orville.

"Not far. I'm cutting down the speed some."

"Uh ... how do you plan to take her down?"

"That's an interesting point, now. Let's see...."

"Wouldn't it be better if we just flew up close, not too close, and then
headed for home? Of course, there's that problem back there, too."

"Don't you want the beans? I'll eat 'em then."

"But I'd feel better crashing on the Earth, somehow, than on the Moon--"

"Who says we're going to crash? There are several ways to set her down.
Head first, tail first, but I guess I'll lay her in sideways. It'll be
easier to crawl outside."

"What?"

"Sure." Harold was munching beans. Then he rummaged in the supplies and
brought out a jar of peaches. He drank off some of the juice. "Rosie
never gets enough sugar in these to suit me." The peaches slid off the
spoon. He dug in with his fingers and brought out a slice. "Point of the
whole thing. Explore. Look around." He tilted the jar to his mouth and
let slices fall into his mouth. "Pick up some samples of rocks and
things."

"You can get rocks right around home."

"But these are different. These weigh only a quarter as much as the
rocks on Earth. Or is it a sixth?"

"In that case--" Orville started gathering up empty bags and cans and
putting them into a soup carton.

"What're you doing?"

"Cleaning the place up a little. We can get rid of some of this trash."

"Don't throw those out! I paid a deposit on them." Harold pulled out the
empty milk bottles and put them back in the case.

Harold had said the landing would be as gentle as laying a baby in its
cradle. It wasn't exactly.

He said: "There!"

"Are we down?"

Harold nodded. Orville let go of the railing he'd been hanging onto.
Harold unplugged something.

The ship went dark and started rolling. It was a slow, drunken roll and
as noisy as an oil drum going down the court house steps. There was a
final hard blow; then the ship rocked and lay still.

Orville sat up. He could hear Harold scrambling about, and then a
flashlight came on.

"What happened?"

"Must have landed on the side of a mountain. Rolled down when I turned
off our counter-grav. Shoot!" Harold held up something. "Broke a lens in
my glasses. There's another trip to the eye-doctor's."

Orville rescued a couple of bottles that were spilling water. Everything
else seemed to be all right. The ship lay on its side now and Harold was
crawling through the hole leading to the other compartment. When Orville
got through, Harold was hauling something from the other end of the
ship.

"What we waiting for?" Orville put his hand on the handle of the outer
door. "Last one out is a--"

"Wait a minute! You gotta wear this thing." Harold was laying out a
spacesuit. He explained how it worked. He didn't object a great deal
when Orville volunteered to go out first.

"We can take turns." Harold helped Orville slide his feet into the thing
and pull it on. It fitted Orville rather tightly in places, but it
seemed to be all right.

"Be careful now." Harold squinted at him through the one lens of his
glasses. "Don't tear her on a rock or anything. You'd pop like a kid's
balloon."

"Wait a minute!"

Harold paused, holding the helmet.

"I can't go through with it," Orville said. "I was planning a mean trick
on you. I was going to be the first man."

"What difference does that make? We're both in on it together." Harold
clapped the helmet down on Orville's shoulders. He tightened some clamps
and leaned close and said something which Orville could not hear. Then
Orville saw that he wanted to shake hands, so Orville shook his hand.

Harold squirmed back through the hole into the nose, waved and shut the
door.

Orville aimed the flashlight at the outer door. He turned the valve
beside the door, feeling the suit puff out around him, and when the
pressure in the compartment was gone, he reached toward the handle. His
eyes were watering. He had to use all of his strength to move the
handle; then the door popped open, swinging out and down, and he was
looking out at the Moon.

There was glaring light and a kind of fog. He laid down the flashlight
and, groping, found the soup carton in which he'd put the refuse
accumulated during the trip, and flung the box into the fog.

He looked out again. There was nothing but the glaring white void.
"Well, that settles that!" There was no use getting out. On the other
hand, how about a souvenir?

He stuck a leg out through the opening, which was now about two feet
high and four feet wide. By wriggling, he got the other leg out, but he
couldn't touch the ground. He reached his left foot a little farther and
touched something that rolled slightly, then was solid. That's far
enough, he thought; to hell with the souvenir!

But the mittens were too clumsy. He couldn't pull himself back in. He
lowered himself farther and stood. He shuffled among the loose, rolling
stones and reached down and picked one of them up. Harold was right:
they weighed a lot less than the rocks on Earth. He cradled the thing in
one arm and stood there.

Here he was, standing on the Moon! The very first man! He hugged the
souvenir to his body. They'd keep it on the coffee table, between those
two awful ashtrays Polly had brought back from Niagara Falls, and when
anyone asked him what was that funny rock lying there, he'd say--

Orville had been reaching, trying to touch the ship. His hand met
nothing....

Now keep calm, he thought. Don't get turned around. And don't panic. It
can't be far away. He reached out in another direction and took a step,
but still his waving hand met nothing. Try this way then....

As he turned, his elbow struck the edge of the opening. Maybe he'd been
waving his arm through the opening all the time!

He tossed in the souvenir. He wriggled in after it. Careful! What did
Harold say about tearing the suit?

He closed the outer door. As he returned the pressure to the
compartment, the suit became limp against him, and Orville was so weak
that he sank to the floor. He was still lying there when Harold took off
the headpiece.

"It's a total flop," Orville told him. "It's been a waste of time. No
use going out."

He told Harold about the narrow escape he'd had in the fog. _Fog_ on the
Moon? This didn't sound right to Harold. He was fooling with the helmet,
scratching frost from the inside of the visor. "Couldn't you get the
defroster working? This little button right here. I showed you."

Orville knew, to his shame and disgust, that he had been looking at his
own breath all of that time.

Harold now insisted on going out. Orville shined the flashlight around.
He was looking for the souvenir, and he found it, near their feet.

It was a package carefully wrapped in paper, some of the refuse which he
had thrown outside.

That figures, he thought bitterly. Well, anyway, I was _first man_. They
can't take that away from me!

Harold was gone a long time. The nose of the ship was becoming very cold
and the only light came from the luminous dial of Orville's watch. What
was Harold doing out there? Maybe he'd snagged his suit and blown up
like a soap bubble. How long should Orville wait before giving up? He
should have learned how to run the ship, in case of an emergency like
this.

A distant clank startled him. The ship rolled slightly. Orville reached
out a hand in the dark to steady himself and chilled when he realized
what he'd put his hand on. It was the starting switch.

What was that idiot doing out there?

Then Harold was back, breathing hard, squinting through his one good
lens. "Boy, what a sight! I'd give anything for a camera!"

"Never mind that! Let's go! I'm freezing!"

They were off without any trouble and the dim violet light returned and
the ice on the compartment walls began to melt. When the ship was
settled on course, Harold took off the rest of the spacesuit, pulled
some paper from the glove compartment of the dashboard and began
writing.

"It's the official report," Harold said presently. "Getting it all down
while it's fresh in my mind."

"Let's see that!" Orville couldn't read Harold's handwriting. "What's it
say?"

"You really want to hear it? Well...." Harold cleared his throat
modestly and began to read. "'The _Discovery_'--decided to call her the
_Discovery_ on account of--'the _Discovery_ was lying on her side in the
shade, but a blinding light was coming down from some peaks. It nearly
blinded me! Boy, what a--'" Harold squinted over a word--"'sight!'"

"Wait a minute! You giving me credit?"

"What for?"

"For being the first man."

"Oh, sure. I mention that in here some place."

"Just so there's no mistake!" Orville suddenly felt very drowsy. He
curled up facing the wall and went to sleep.

When he awoke, he saw Harold leaning against the wall, his glasses
sliding down, his head nodding. Orville reached over and jerked his
foot.

"There now," he said. "Old neighbor. You go to sleep. I'll watch her for
a while."

Orville felt fine now. While Harold slept, he opened a jar of Rosie's
peaches, drank off the juice and dug in with the spoon. It wasn't really
so bad, not shaving or taking a bath, roughing it out here in space!

He dug into his coat pocket, found a cigar, but it was crushed. Oh,
well. He flung it into the trash. He folded his arms, leaned back his
head.

They sat at the head of a banquet table, he and Harold. The mayor was
there, and the college president, and way down the table was the boss,
old Haverstrom, real proud to be in such important company. And the
governor was there and--by gosh! Sitting right next to Orville was the
President of the United States!

Someone was making a speech--they were awarding some kind of prize for
_first man_ and there was applause and they were waiting for Orville to
get up. He stood, waited for applause to die down.

"Thank you, friends ... all of you ... being no speechmaker ... but I do
want to say right here and now ... no more idea of receiving this great
honor tonight than of--flying to the Moon!"

That would get a laugh. Then he'd go on and give due credit to Harold,
poor old Harold sleeping there, innocent as a baby about such things.

Why, the publicity angle alone could take up a man's full time. Guest
appearances on TV. Getting signed up as technical adviser in Hollywood.
But that was just the beginning.

Take the metal in this ship. Harold had made it out of junk from the
city dump, melting it in a forge he'd fashioned out of an old oil drum.
It had to be cheap and easy to make--but you could probably use it for
almost anything. There was your whole metal industry shot to pieces!

This thing he called a scope now. With a big corporation behind it, Lord
only knew what it would do to the communications setup.

But the big thing was this counter-grav business! _There_ was where you
got into the big leagues. If Harold could do this with it, think what
General Motors could do! Orville could see TWA, B&O and steamship
companies bidding against each other for it. And car manufacturers and
freight handlers--and tugboat owners--and taxi fleets-and the armed
forces--

Harold was waking up. He rubbed his skimpy whiskers, put on his broken
glasses, creaked over to the scope and turned it on. Harold, old boy,
Orville thought tenderly, you don't know it yet, but your troubles are
all over!

"What do you see, Harold?"

"The Earth."

Orville went over. There was a dark green spot on the scope, bright
against deep black. "You sure?"

"Almost positive. That's the only thing that size there is right around
here."

"Well, fine! That calls for a celebration, doesn't it?"

"Oh, yes. Forgot that. We can open the tuna."

IV

"It's about time," Orville said, "that we started figuring out a plan."
He scraped the bottom of the can. The tuna tasted fine. He took a swig
of pineapple juice and passed the can back to Harold.

"Yeah, I been thinking about that," said Harold.

"I've had more experience in that line than you, so maybe--"

"Do you think mankind is ready for my secret?"

"There, you see?" Orville laughed heartily. "Now don't you worry about
such things."

"But look what they did with the atomic bomb. And if this ever got
loose--"

"Harold!" Orville's laugh was less hearty. "Do you think you could keep
this a secret? The minute we land, they'll be all over us. The
government can impound this ship, you know."

"Won't do them any good. They can tear it all apart and never find out a
thing."

Hours later, they were still arguing.

"If the government had it, they'd build a war machine and then the
Russians would steal it--"

"Harold! That's Communist talk!"

"Shoot! I'm no Communist!"

"You're playing right into their hands...."

It went on and on. Then: "Harold--as your neighbor--won't you tell _me_
what it is?"

"I'll try...."

Orville sat up, tingling. You take gravity, Harold said. What do we know
about it? Was it like a lot of rubber bands, stretching back and forth
between everything, or was it a flow, like water? Now if it was a flow,
it would have to flow back some way, or else you'd run out, wouldn't
you? Then if you hooked onto this counter-flow--

Orville nodded. This wasn't so hard to understand. He felt a little
nervous. "Go on, Harold."

"I guess it's none of those things." Harold gave his inane giggle.

Orville felt cheated. "You call this neighborly? Remember when I drove
clear out into the country with a gallon of gas that time when you got
stuck?"

"I'm trying. You gotta think of it up to that point, then you gotta
think the _other_ way. But you can't explain it. You just do it."

Harold picked up two of the rings from Rosie's fruit jars and moved them
back and forth across one another. He tried with three rings, dropped
them.

"It's no use."

"Try harder."

Harold shook his head. "I suppose if I wanted to bad enough.... But now
that we been to the Moon, there's nothing else I want to do."

Orville reached for the rings and tried.

Suddenly, Harold sprang up. "Oh, my socks!"

He turned on the scope and swung it wildly back and forth. "You made me
commit a boo-boo. I think we've shot right past the Earth!"

The scope was getting weak. They could not find the Earth until Harold
had reversed course. Then Orville saw it, the edge filling part of the
scope. Harold's eyes were watering. He wiped the good lens of his
glasses and leaned close.

"Can you make out any land?" he asked Orville.

"This looks like Indian Lake. I've fished there lots of times."

"It would be something bigger. Say, Greenland or South America."

This was the first time Orville realized they might not land squarely in
Harold's back yard. He began looking intently at the scope.

"What's this kidney-bean shape?"

Harold squinted. "Think that's Australia. Now we're getting somewhere."

"But it belongs down here."

"We're coming up on it the other way."

"Can't we get closer to home than that?"

"I'll not be too particular where it is, just so it's land. The Earth is
mostly covered with water."

Harold began turning the knobs and muttering. "Let me see now ... gotta
miss Mount Everest...." At last, he turned off the scope. "It's clear
gone. I'm taking her down slow. Will you look outside, Orville?"

Orville gulped. But Harold said it was the only way, so he squeezed into
the other compartment. There were now about six of the little circles
going back and across inside of him. He stood a little to one side and
struck the lever of the outer door sharply with the palm of his hand.
The door gave a faint "swoosh" and was open about an inch. His ears
crackled and there was a dull whispering in his head like the sound in a
sea-shell.

He put his face to the door, but saw nothing except the blue sky.

"You sure we came to the right place?" he asked worriedly.

"Positive ... almost," Harold called back. "Are we over land or water?"

Orville looked up. There was a brown, black and white landscape. Trees
hung down like icicles around a frozen lake.

"There's land, but it's upside down."

"Just a minute." Harold did something and the trees and land swirled
around until they were underneath.

Not far away, as they came down gently, Orville saw a building with
people outside. Or he thought they were people. Harold set the ship down
on its side in the snow and Orville stepped out. Then Harold was out
beside him, slapping him on the shoulder.

"Well, old buddy-buddy! How about that?"

"Yeah." Orville spoke with less enthusiasm. "How about that?"

He proposed that they get in and ride back to civilization, but Harold
said there wasn't enough power left and it couldn't be done. They
started walking toward the house Orville had seen.

Halfway there, they met four men wearing gray overcoats and furry hats.
One carried a rifle, and as Harold ran shouting up to him, the man
lifted the rifle and struck Harold across the head, knocking him into
the snow and breaking the other lens of his glasses. For a while,
Orville wondered if it was the right planet after all. But, he decided,
the men were Russian soldiers somewhere in Siberia.

Since the men were more interested in looting the ship than guarding the
prisoners, it was not hard to slip away and get to a railroad that ran
east and west. Even Harold knew which direction to take. Their journey
out of Siberia, through Korea and Japan to San Francisco, though more
difficult than their trip to the Moon, was not very interesting. Once,
on a freighter in mid-Pacific, Harold tried to convince a fellow
deckhand that they were on their way back from the Moon. He agreed not
to talk of it again.

"Looks like Rosie's still gone," Harold said as they slunk up the alley
behind Harold's shed. All the leaves had fallen and the place looked
forlorn without the spaceship poking up through the roof.

"Wonder what they thought," Orville said, "when the ship disappeared,
and us with it?"

"Nothing, I expect."

"If we'd disappeared with a couple of blondes now, the whole world would
know about it."

They parted. The back door was locked. As Orville went around the house,
he heard the TV going. Polly sat in the turquoise armchair, sewing on a
dress. She put down the sewing and folded her arms.

The oration lasted five minutes. He could still hear her upstairs
through the noise of the shower.

Then, after a visit to the barber's, he went to face old Haverstrom.
This lecture was not quite as long, and through it the boss had a trace
of a leer, and a certain respect, though he let Orville know these
disappearances should not become a habit.

Harold did not do so well. His old job was gone and he was a whole week
getting another. Rosie did not come back for still another week.

It was hard for Orville to believe that a moonstruck fellow like Harold
could change his ways, but that was what happened. It was as though that
one wild trip had satisfied something inside Harold, for he never fooled
with things like that again. He even joined church.

As for Orville: some evenings, when he reads of artificial satellites or
of trips to the Moon, he feels a sharp rise in blood pressure and he
breathes fast. But a glance across the room at Polly in her turquoise
chair sewing is enough to make him swallow and squirm back and keep his
mouth shut.


Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

                          Menace of the Mists

                           By RICHARD STOREY

           A nameless horror poured from the sea-bottoms of
             Venus, driven by a soulless intelligence that
            could not be beaten. Four Earthmen stood in the
          way of the voracious horde, knowing they could not
           escape--but swearing they would not admit defeat.

                       Planet Stories May 1943.

MacAloon rose in the stirrups of his saddle-lizard. His guide, a
Venusian fishman, trembled nervously at the mount's side and pointed
straight ahead. MacAloon followed the direction of the quivering
four-jointed, scaly arm.

"See, bossmac?" the reptilian native hissed in fright. "Bosslimpy
speak truth. Cen'pedes ready to march. Soon they attack us. Then is all
over."

On the other lizard, little Al Birchall tried to peer through the
bright white fog of Venus. It was like attempting to gaze through a
bedsheet.

MacAloon lifted a pair of infra-red binoculars to his eyes. Instantly,
the glasses dispelled the blinding mist.

"See anything, Mac?" Birchall asked.

Mac stared ahead without answering. Before him lay the black,
motionless ocean which covered all the planet except a few hundred
large islands. At the shore he saw movement, an enormous inky wave that
flowed ponderously up over the land and steadily inched forward.

Countless thousands of foot-long creatures were swarming out of the
water and falling into dense marching ranks. The beasts, like huge
centipedes, each had dozens of swift legs. The front half was legless,
though, and looked like the human part of a centaur. It wasn't only the
posture that made the resemblance. They had round heads, shaped like
skulls, with deadly mandibles; and clever arms and hands grew out of
their shoulders.

Centaurpedes--even more than the heat, the mud and the fog, they were
man's most murderous enemy on Venus.

Silently, Mac handed the binoculars to Al Birchall.

"Bossmac," the fishman pleaded, "we go 'way, not fight cen'pedes? They
kill and eat us; nothing we can do."

Mac watched Al lower the glasses from his eyes. He did it very slowly
at first, then grinned when he caught Mac's gaze, and flipped the
binoculars across.

"They sure look dangerous," he said.

"They are," Mac answered quietly. "They can strip the flesh off our
bones in three minutes flat."

Below them, between the tall bulk of the two mounts, the fishman's
long, flat head turned from Mac's face to Al's.

"Bossal, tell bossmac we not able fight cen'pedes," he begged
sibilantly. "They come--" The thin, scaled hands waved excitedly, "like
biggest army you ever see, make war on mine. You kill and kill, more
come. Please, we go to man city!"

MacAloon jerked his lizard's reins around in the direction of the mine.
Al's mount came alongside. The fishman groaned, then began trotting
before them on swift webbed feet. They splashed over the eternal mud,
through the ever-present white fog.

Should they give up the fight against the shrewd, heartbreakingly
persistent vermin? If they did, they would have to abandon the mine
which had become their lifework. They would have to blow up the place
before retreating.

For all life on Venus was amphibious, but centaurpedes were
deliberately trying to quit the water, knowing their semi-civilization
could reach its mechanistic goal only on land.

Unable to prop the porous native rock with the brittle, primitive
plastics they used instead of metals, they were striving to take over
an iron mine that had already been started by human engineers. Then,
with the metal they could produce, they would make tools and raise
cities ... and manufacture weapons with which to push men clear off the
planet.

Their forays had forced a number of mines out of existence. Two years
ago, before Al Birchall became the fourth partner here, an undersea
colony of 'pedes swarmed down on this place. Surrounded on all sides,
the men had put up a long, bitter fight. If Adonis City, half around
the globe, hadn't finally sent a rocket ship, they would have been lost.

In the rocket, Mac had tried flame-strafing with the bow jets, swooping
back and forth across the black mass of besiegers. But the wily animals
merely dug deep in the mud and waited till he passed overhead, then
continued the attack. Since he couldn't be everywhere at once, part of
the army was always surging forward. At best, the strafing only slowed
down the assault.

But then Limpy Austin, up in the lookout tower, sighted foraging
parties in the rear, dragging up food supplies in the form of gigantic
dead meat-eaters. Mac had rocketed over the rear of the army, burning
the food into useless charred fragments. Starving, the attackers were
at last forced to retreat to their ocean city, but only until they
could figure out a new strategy.

Mac said, "We'll stick."

Otherwise, he knew, he'd have to go back to ferrying fruit boats
between South America and Antarctica. Birchall would revert to his old
confidence games all over the System. Swede Steffansen would have to
manipulate a freight crane on Mercury again. And Limpy Austin--well,
there wasn't much a semi-cripple could do, outside of being lookout and
radio operator for his friends.

The two riders approached the mine enclosure which struggled into
visibility through the smothering haze. The fishman, fleeter than the
lumbering saddle-lizards, had already reached the high wire fence. He
gestured wildly at the guard nearest him, an alert armed Venusian who
stood on a stilt-platform that overlooked the fence to the mud flats
beyond.

The guard pressed a button that opened a gate in the wire barricade.
The mounted men pounded through, and over the wide muddy stretch to the
concrete wall.

Deeply embedded in the ooze, with the rock bed for a foundation,
the wall paralleled the outer fence and closed in the entire mining
grounds. Its polished outer face was deeply indented, like a sharply
curved concave lens. No joints showed in the smooth surface.

But Limpy Austin, up in the glass-walled lookout room atop the stilt
blockade house, saw them. He opened a tightly fitting door in the
concrete rampart. They rode through into the compound, dismounted near
the closed-cabin freight tractor that stood beside the smelter.

"The 'pedes are coming, aren't they?" asked a slow, heavy voice behind
them. Swede Steffansen came around the lizards. He was a big, placid
man, but his sky-blue eyes--blue as the heaven of Earth, not this white
hell--were troubled now. He said: "I could tell by the way the pack
animals are acting. They're touchy."

"They caught the scent," Mac answered. "The attack's due in about two
hours. Let all the animals out. We don't want them stampeding during
the battle."

Swede nodded, slogged off toward the corral.

"Tell the fishmen we're in for a fight with 'pedes," Mac ordered
Birchall. "Weed out the weak sisters. They'd only get in our way,
anyhow."

Stepping high to avoid splashing, Al bounded off in the direction of
the tipple at the mine entry. MacAloon went into the blockade house and
climbed to the lookout room.

Limpy Austin was standing at the infra-red glass wall. His left arm
and leg were shriveled, and one side of his face was twisted up in
a sardonic leer. Mercurian Paralysis, that strange disease which
immobilizes either half of a person depending on whether it is
contracted at the Day or Night Side, had made a hopeless cripple of him.

He turned around when Mac came in. "Well?" he asked.

"They're coming, all right," Mac grunted. He leaned over the control
panel, pushed the button that clanged the cease-work alarm down in the
mine. Then he threw the lever that halted the ore cars to bring the men
to the surface.

"How do things look?" Limpy pursued.

Mac shrugged. "We ought to have a better chance than before. There are
four of us this time."

Limpy shuffled to the radio. With his slender, sensitive right hand, he
twisted the dials.

"Adonis City," he said harshly into the microphone. "Limpy Austin
calling Adonis City...."

There was a squeal of static. "Adonis City," replied a harried voice.
"Come in, Austin, but make it short!"

"What's up?"

"'Pede attack on every damned mine. How about you? Aren't they--"

"Yeah," Limpy cut in. "That's why I'm calling. Send over a ship. Ours
is wrecked."

The weary voice cursed. "I can't, Austin. We figured you had a boat, so
we shipped them all to the other mines."

"Okay," Limpy shrugged. "Then we'll have to do without."

"Why don't you guys blow up the place and leave?"

"Maybe we'll have to. I don't know. When you get a chance--"

"Yeah," the man replied hastily. "The first ship that comes in, you
guys get. So long, and good luck!"

Limpy switched off and glanced inquiringly at Mac, his paralyzed grin a
slash of seemingly pure evil.

"Looks bad, Mac."

"Maybe," MacAloon said curtly. "If we can hold out till they give us a
boat, we'll come through all right."

Nevertheless, he frowned, worried by the simultaneous attacks. There
was something ominous behind them--and he didn't know what.

Limpy was sullen; the more the right side of his face drew down in
anger, the more sardonically leered the frozen left side. Swede's
placid features showed no emotion, but his clenched fists did. Mac
alone tried to appear cheerful, though his mind was furiously analyzing
their grave situation. While Birchall said nothing, peering absently
into space.

Silently, the men pulled on steel-soled shoes, lead-fiber gloves and
infra-red goggles. On their backs they strapped compact battery-radios
with short antennae, a fixed microphone at the chest. The loudspeaker
atop each small set, at neck level, could be heard in anything short
of a vacuum or explosion. Then the defenders armed themselves with
flame-throwers and machine guns that shot steel-piercing bomb bullets.

Straightening, Mac asked: "How many fishmen are staying?"

"Twenty-one," snarled Birchall.

Mac grinned wryly. "Cheer up, Al. That's better than I figured on." He
turned. "Limpy, stay up at lookout. Warn me when the 'pedes are getting
close. Swede, you and Al set up ammunition dumps in the compound. Then
make sure the explosives and contacts will work fast if we have to blow
up the place in a hurry."

While the others dispersed, Mac gathered a squad of fishmen, armed with
flame-throwers and led them outside the high fence. Methodically, they
burned down all vegetation for a distance of several hundred yards, to
prevent the centaurpedes from creeping up close under cover.

When Mac and his detachment were returning, Limpy opened a sluice from
the central control tower. Oil poured into the shallow water-filled
moat that ringed the wire barrier. A thick, greasy film spread over the
water.

Meanwhile, the rest of the fishmen had been deployed around the inside
of the fence. They stood nervously holding their flame-throwers, their
membrane-covered eyes bulging anxiously. Up on the stilt towers, the
best native marksmen pressed their quivering scaled shoulders against
the stocks of mounted machine-guns.

Mac felt a pang of gratitude. He knew what their decision to stay had
meant. All life on Venus dreaded the centaurpede with a blind, wild
terror.

"Hey!" Limpy's voice grated through the radio. "Come up to the lookout
room!"

MacAloon rushed through the mud and climbed to the glass-walled
chamber. He glanced questioningly at Limpy. The lookout man wordlessly
handed him a pair of binoculars and pointed to the coast.

Swede and Al burst in, as usual, asked no questions. But Birchall was
babbling at a terrific rate.

"Shut up!" Limpy said tensely.

Mac stared at the ocean. His jaw muscles suddenly bunched into hard
knots. At wide intervals, six black waves were lapping over the shore
and rolling down on the mine like a flood--a deluge with gigantic
mandibles and fiendish cunning, a torrent miles long and spread far
over the muddy plain.

"That's never happened before," Limpy whispered. "It was always one
colony to a mine."

Swede and Al took turns at the binoculars. No change came over Swede's
face. Birchall's, though, contracted in horror.

"They got together!" he yapped. "We're done for, Mac! We can't fight
six colonies all at once, and without a boat!"

Scowling, Mac jammed his hands into his pockets. "They're using holding
attacks on the other mines to tie up help from Adonis City. Meanwhile,
they're concentrating their main force here."

"Smart little devils," rumbled Swede.

"We ought to quit!" Al chattered. "We can't lick them!"

His face whiter and more contorted than ever, Limpy said: "Why don't
you guys beat it?"

Mac's head jerked up sharply. Swede looked at Limpy in mild surprise.
Al Birchall's chin dropped.

"What do you mean--us guys?" Al demanded. "What about you?"

Both sides of Limpy's face grinned sardonically. "No boat, all the
animals set free--you'll have to run for it. And me? Well, I'm not
much good at running. But you three can escape, if I'm not along to
hold you back."

"I'm a heel," snarled Birchall. "Forget what I said."

"Sure, Limpy," Swede added with clumsy joviality. "This little ape is
always talking before he thinks. We're sticking--all of us."

"Cut it out!" snapped Limpy. "Somebody has to stay here to throw the
dynamite switch. I don't need any help."

"Nobody's throwing any switch," Mac declared. "This is our mine, and no
damned vermin are taking it over!"

"But you'll never beat them," pleaded Limpy. "And even if you did,
they'd only keep coming back until they got the place. You can't wipe
them out once and for all."

"Someday, somebody will," Mac said. "In the meantime, we can fight like
hell. 'Pedes haven't any more intelligence than a bee, but even they
get tired of being slaughtered."

"A bee?" Al asked. "I thought 'pedes were smart devils."

"Not individually, according to Graves, the old-time biologist."

"Then how can they plan and act all together?"

"They have some way of coordinating, Graves claimed. How does a beehive
act as a unit? We don't know, but it does just the same."

"Can't I talk you fellows into leaving?" begged Limpy.

"No!" Al stated flatly.

Limpy shrugged. Shuffling over to the window, he pointed down at the
closed-cabin tractor beside the smelter.

"Then how about letting me use that as a tank?" he asked. "I'm not much
good here, anyhow. The 'pedes wouldn't be able to get at me, inside the
cabin, and I could crush and burn them down till they quit."

"That was tried once at a mine," said Mac. "The 'pedes dug tank traps.
The driver killed himself after being stuck in one for a week. It
didn't matter; he'd have died soon enough. But even when he skipped the
traps, the 'pedes dodged the treads. They don't just stand around and
wait to be crushed."

The right side of Limpy's face drew down in disappointment. "You guys
are suckers to stick around. I'm just a rubber cog."

"Rubber cog, huh?" Al yelped. "How do you think we're going to fight
without a lookout man?"

"Don't talk like a sap, Limpy," added Mac with gruff gentleness. "We
need you a lot more than you need us."

A slow, sad smile spread over Limpy's twisted features.

"Okay, if that's how you feel about it."

"That's how we feel about it," Swede answered.

They went down to their stations within the enclosure. In deadly
silence, the camp waited for the first blow.

It came when the tension was almost unbearable. Through his infra-red
goggles, MacAloon could see a vast, dark smear, advancing inexorably,
like the ominous march of a black glacier. Before the ordered ranks
came the expected stampede of animals.

As if they had studied the break-through tactics of the extinct Nazis,
the 'pedes were driving huge beasts ahead of them, living tanks
that were meant to smash down the mine's fortifications. Enormous
meat-eaters were thundering along on vast legs, crushing smaller
carnivores in their frenzied flight. Fleet, timid vegetarians raced
beside their killers, but neither thought of anything except the
hideously lethal creatures close behind them.

When the animals were close to the fence, Mac snapped an order into
his microphone. Instantly, flame-throwers spat at the pool of oil
surrounding the mine. A fierce blaze sprang up.

The demented rabble scattered right and left--all but the meat-eaters,
the biggest beasts on Venus. Too stupid to fear fire, they were the
greatest danger. In idiot terror, they crashed toward the fence.

Somehow, the fishmen stood their ground. Mac knew how they felt. It was
a sensation of unnerving horror to watch a gigantic animal plunging
toward you, to stare at the enormous fangs in the slavering yard-wide
mouth, to feel the ground trembling beneath their tremendous feet....

MacAloon opened fire. From every side of the camp, he heard answering
blasts. The pounding of the machine-guns made a furious clatter.
Bullets exploded savagely in the great bodies. Then horrible bellows of
agony drowned every other sound.

For minutes after a man managed to pump an endless burst of slugs into
a meat-eater, and saw the flesh erupt in bloody blobs, he couldn't help
shaking, though he knew the monster was already dead on its feet. Then
the vast beast collapsed into the mud with a deafening splash, and he
wondered if he could ever forget the terrifying sight.

When the thick, oily smoke thinned out, the smaller animals had fled
into the fog. Mac sent out a squadron of fishmen, who destroyed the
dying meat-eaters. If the bodies had been allowed to remain, the 'pedes
would have used them as a food supply.

The fishmen came back inside, and all the fog-wrapped world was silent.
On noiseless feet, the oncoming army moved with impossible precision
toward the camp.

Twenty-five defenders against uncounted millions, with only a web of
wiring and a concrete wall between them and the jaws of doom. And even
if they won, victory would be no more than a truce....

The six armies of centaurpedes met and fused. Narrower and narrower
grew the gap between the mine and the unending wave of repulsive
vermin. Then, when they were almost at the fence, the main army
suddenly slowed down, and the two wings broke into double-swift march,
advancing on both sides of the barrier.

"Turn on the juice!" Mac snapped into his microphone.

Abruptly, the fence began shooting off big blue sparks in the wet air.
The main body of centaurpedes halted a few yards away and remained
impassive. Inside, the fishmen stood frozen, staring in terror at the
long, multi-legged animals, the round, intelligent-looking heads, the
huge mandibles, and the upright shoulders with pairs of clever hands
and arms.

Behind the camp, the encircling wings met and joined. More advanced
until the surrounding army was uniform in depth. Then, with a single
movement, the black cataract flooded straight at the wire fence.

"Hold your fire!" Mac yelled at his fishmen.

Around the compound, he heard Swede and Al shouting the same order. But
it was too much to expect of fear-tightened native nerves. Spasmodic
bursts of fire spurted out. Undaunted, the horde pressed on against the
fence.

Crackling and flashing, the electrified wire suddenly flung out great
streamers of sparks. The moist chitinous bodies shriveled into ashes. A
stink of burned flesh polluted the heavy fog.

Apparently at an inaudible signal, the entire mass of 'pedes fell
back out of danger. MacAloon was awed. He knew that the rear of a
human army, unable to see what was happening up front, would keep
pushing forward. But a secret knowledge, impossible to men, made the
centaurpedes act as a single entity.

Looking along the fence, Mac could see detachments of 'pede scouts,
moving warily toward the sparking barrier. While the army watched, the
reconnoiterers experimentally touched the wire. A flash and they were
destroyed, but not before serving their purpose. They had given the
army a chance to analyze the fence's properties.

Again the entire force moved forward, this time with more caution than
before. MacAloon looked on anxiously, knowing they were aware of the
danger.

"Mac!" cried Al's voice. "What're they going to do?"

"They're too smart to keep electrocuting themselves," said MacAloon
tersely. "They must have a plan."

"But what is it?"

"I don't know," Mac admitted.

The first ten lines halted within a foot of the flashing barricade. The
next nine marched forward and mounted the backs of the first lines.
Then each succeeding rank climbed those in front.

"A pyramid!" Al yapped.

The fishmen gaped up at Mac, then back at the 'pedes. They were close
to cracking.

"Wait!" Mac ordered. "Wait till boss-limpy says they're almost to the
top of the fence. Then fire low. Don't keep firing after the pyramid
falls!"

The sporadic firing ceased. Immense gaps had appeared in the pyramid,
but the fence had heated red. The drain on the generators would be
enormous, and this MacAloon had feared more than the few invaders that
might drop across.

Swiftly, the pyramid grew until it was as high as the fence. Then, up
in the lookout room, Limpy barked a signal.

Flame leaped out at the lowest line of 'pedes, slashed back and forth.
All in an instant, the pyramid collapsed. The centaurpedes retreated,
leaving a ring of charred bodies around the fence. But the survivors
were as numberless as ever.

In the sudden silence, agonized shrieks rang out across the compound.

"What's wrong, Limpy?" demanded MacAloon.

"It's Al, but I can't see what happened!"

"Stay where you are, Swede!" Mac ordered. "Keep the fishmen fighting!"

He raced to Birchall's station, saw that Al's flame-thrower had jammed.
Hundreds of centaurpedes had hurled themselves over the fence and
surrounded two natives. Others had brought up a tree trunk and hammered
a big hole in the wire. Through the gap, a full regiment was pouring
into the enclosure.

"Take care of the ones inside!" Al shrieked. "I'll stop them!"

"Don't be a fool!" shouted Mac. "Fall back and get another
flame-thrower!"

Unheeding, Al smashed a path to the fence with the butt of his weapon.
'Pedes were already climbing up his body and wasting no time. He bit
his lip and charged on. The trickle of blood running down his chin
was the smallest one flowing from his torn flesh. In a last desperate
lunge, he grabbed the ends of the broken fence.

"_Al!_" Mac cried out.

He was too late. A sheet of blue flame had sprung up. There was a
piercing scream of pain beyond endurance. Then Birchall hung limply,
caught, as he had intended, by the jagged ends of wire. His mangled,
lifeless body, through which the current flowed, had closed the gap.

A sudden film spoiled Mac's vision. Savagely, he blinked it away. With
vicious fury, he burned down the swiftly crawling centaurpedes around
him. The two fishmen, no longer surrounded, shuddered free of their
fright and began to help. Under the fierce heat, all the animals in the
enclosure curled and died.

Murderously calm, Mac fired a steady blast through the fence at the
pyramid outside. Sizzling and frying, the formation fell to the ground.

In spite of that, the 'pedes had won this battle. They had unleashed a
new weapon while the defenders had turned to watch the struggle. A rain
of vermin seemed to come from the sky. For, thrust deep into the mud
outside the fence, were whip-like catapults. Ten animals were drawing
back each slingshot, flinging a 'pede into the enclosure!

Dismayed, MacAloon watched them hurtle over the wire in unbelievable
numbers. Shooting wildly at them, yet fixed to the ground they were
defending, the fishmen were desperately near panic.

"Stop firing!" Mac shouted.

His order was ignored. He cursed and pulled half of the natives away,
giving their flame-throwers to the remaining guards. The first half
he sent inside the compound with snapped instructions. The others he
placed just before the concrete rampart. Armed with two weapons instead
of one, each fishmen had double firing power.

"Let them reform their ranks inside the camp," Mac ordered. "Then let
them have it!"

Limpy communicated the command to Swede on the other side of the
compound. The haphazard blasts stopped. Undisturbed now, the
centaurpedes well into military formation, as Mac had expected. When
their lines were twenty deep, they advanced, a black, tight unit with
champing mandibles.

"Now!" MacAloon roared.

A withering wall of flame lashed out, burning down the invaders by the
hundreds. But reinforcements kept flying over the blue-flashing fence.
And under cover of the air invasion, the pyramids were being built
again! The fishmen, backed up against the curved concrete barricade,
were unable to reach this new threat with a stream of fire.

Obeying his previous instructions, a squad of fishmen came staggering
through the doors in the wall. They dragged oxygen and hydrogen
tanks that were connected in pairs by flexible, insulated hoses with
triggered nozzles.

"Forward!" Mac commanded.

Limpy passed the word around the besieged mine, and fishmen advanced
with blazing flame-throwers. Behind them, the reserves hauled up the
tanks. Slowly, stubbornly, the tide of centaurpedes was driven back
into the fence. An ear-splitting crackle, and they were gone, a smoking
pile of cinders.

Even after the camp was clear, Mac did not rest. He drove the reserves
to the fence and kept them firing at the enemy beyond.

"Not the 'pedes!" he shouted. They looked up, bewildered, wondering
why ammunition should be used, if not to burn down the foe. "Melt the
catapults!" he ordered.

The natives understood at last that the hand-weapons were too feeble to
reduce the crude plastic slingshots, but that the tank flame-throwers
were not. They blasted out at the catapults.

But the centaurpedes were damnably shrewd. In half the time it had
taken the fishmen to comprehend, the vermin had begun pulling up their
slingshots and retreating out of range.

Harrying his forces to get the catapults, Mac glanced aside and swore
viciously. In the gaps between his widely spaced crew, more pyramids
were forming.

"Forget the slingshots!" he yelled. "They can wait till later!"

The revised order didn't make sense to the fishmen. They couldn't see
that, while their attention was diverted, the main army could pour over
the fence on a secure pyramid. They blasted away at the slingshots and
ignored the wall of 'pedes.

The deadly animals saw their chance and acted. With quick cunning,
they sent over a torrent of invaders. Chattering in fear, the fishmen
switched their attack to the pyramids, but they were too late. They
were being driven back by the vermin inside the fence, and more and
more were coming over.

"I can't hold them, Mac," came Swede's unalarmed voice.

"I can't either," Mac said tensely. "Get the fishmen and fuel tanks
into the compound."

Shrill screams erupted from the natives. Faced by alert, precise ranks
marching toward them, they threw down their weapons and rushed for the
concrete wall.

Mac ran forward, cursing. He grabbed an oxy tank and pulled it to
safety. Most of the thrower fuel was safe in the camp, but the tanks
outside would be badly needed if the attack continued in force. But
regiments of 'pedes had by-passed the ammunition and posted guards to
prevent their being rescued.

Hard-faced, Mac ordered a fishmen to go out into the enclosure with
him. While Mac kept back the horde with a hail of fire, the shivering
native pulled a tank into the compound. Mac increased the size of the
raiding parties. Again and again they sallied out, until the bulk of
the abandoned fuel was saved.

Sweating, Mac signaled to Limpy in the blockade house. The hermetic
doors in the wall slid shut. The natives stood on the ledge on the
inner side of the rampart, watching with horror-filled eyes as the
fiendish beasts tried to scale the concave surface.

Mac called Swede by radio, then trudged through the mud to the blockade
house. The three men met in the lookout room.

Seeing Swede, Mac realized for the first time how dirty, wet and
exhausted he was himself. They were both blackened with mud and flame
blasts, their clothing grimy and sopping.

Limpy's good eye was harrowed, the frozen side of his face contorted in
an evil grin.

"Poor Al," muttered Swede. He sank down ponderously on a chair. "He was
a game little fellow. I'll miss him."

Without replying, Limpy turned around. He stared sightlessly through
the infra-red windows at the white fog and the eternal mud, the
seething mass of centaurpedes and the shaking, gabbling fishmen.
All around the mine, seeming to reach every horizon, stretched the
completely encircling army of vermin. But that was not what Limpy was
seeing.

Mac came over to the window. "I saw Al die, too," he said in a harshly
gentle voice. "If I have to kick off that way, I hope I'll be as brave
as he was."

"Maybe you'll get your chance sooner than you think," Limpy snarled.
"Six armies against us, one dead, our boat no good, the fence useless,
the fishmen demoralized--" He whirled. "What are we waiting for? Why
don't we blow up the place and quit?"

"Because we still have a chance," Mac answered. "They've taken our
first line of defense, but we still have the second."

"The wall?" Swede grunted. "Think that'll stop them long?"

"Long enough," promised Mac. "It's thirty times as high as they are,
and three feet out of plumb-line with the bottom. Before they figure
out how to get across, maybe Adonis City'll be able to send us a
rocket. Get them on the radio, anyhow, Limpy. We're carrying the whole
weight of the attack. They've got to give us a ship."

Limpy shuffled to the panel. He set the dials, then spoke mechanically
into the microphone: "Adonis City. Limpy Austin calling Adonis
City...." Several minutes went by. He looked up. "They don't answer."

"Keep trying," Mac said. "Everybody must be calling them from all the
other mines."

"That's what I mean," Swede put in earnestly. "We fight; the other
mines fight. Sometimes we win; sometimes the 'pedes do. Whatever
happens, it's never finished. We spoil their old tricks, so they figure
out new ones. They're devils, Mac. We can never lick them for good."

"Someday, somebody will," Mac said stubbornly.

He gripped the sill and stared out through the infra-red glass. In
the outer compound was a black fester of centaurpedes, crawling like
gigantic lice before the concrete barricade.

"Nothing can stop them," Swede said beside him. "They'll find a way of
getting over. They always do. And then--"

Mac's skin began to creep. To be eaten, the flesh stripped off your
bones while you're alive and screaming.... The fence had halted them,
and they'd built pyramids. When flame-throwers cut down the pyramids,
they used catapults. Now the wall was holding them back, but they'd
work out some method of hurtling over.

Then those armored bodies would push back the defenders until they
could retreat no farther. Before those steel-hard mandibles, one man
after another would go down, a living skeleton, covered with black,
crawling vermin....

Mac shuddered. "As long as that wall holds them," he said, "it isn't
hopeless. But the sooner the boat gets here, the better off we'll be.
Are you trying Adonis City, Limpy?"

"All over the dial!" Limpy groaned. "They don't answer!"

Swede shook his head. "The fishmen know what the odds are. Look at
that."

Mac saw three natives fling up their arms, claw over the wall and throw
themselves into the 'pedes' jaws. They fought to their feet and raced
toward the fence, but their fleetness didn't save them. Long before
they reached the wire, they were black and shapeless, covered from head
to foot with clinging, rending animals.

"The fence," Swede explained quietly. "That's why they went crazy."

Far to the right, a corps of centaurpede engineers had hauled up the
huge tree trunk. Using it as a battering ram again, they smashed
down a section of the barrier. Now they were rushing in, tearing the
chargeless fence to pieces. As the two men watched tensely, another
section collapsed with a splash into the mud. Instantly, the 'pedes
began moving it toward the concrete wall.

"I knew they'd find a way," said Swede. "They're going to use the fence
segments as ladders." He turned away.

Mac, continuing to stare down, suddenly stiffened. The 'pedes were
acting queerly, moving around sluggishly, as if they had lost interest
in their task! He frowned and faced his companions.

"That's funny," he muttered. "They're stopping--they seem confused."

Limpy shrugged and went on twirling the dials. Swede glanced out, then
looked at Mac with upraised eyebrows.

"They look the same to me," he said slowly. "You seeing things, Mac?"

Startled, MacAloon shot his gaze back to the scene below. Swede was
right! The 'pedes had resumed their work! Mac stood still for a moment,
his mind racing swiftly, trying to grasp the significance of that
momentary halt. Then he whirled, facing Limpy.

"What were you doing just a moment ago?"

Limpy raised his head from the dials. "Trying all the wave lengths.
Adonis City isn't on its usual--"

"I thought so!" Mac yelled triumphantly. "Get back to the length you
had before!"

"But there wasn't any answer."

"They're halfway to the wall," Swede muttered abstractedly.

"Get that wave length again!" Mac snapped.

Limpy's right shoulder shrugged. He twisted the dial gently while
MacAloon turned back to the window and stared out tensely.

"Hold it!" he suddenly ordered. "Don't touch those dials!"

Swede and Limpy looked at him puzzledly. He pointed down at the
swarming enclosure. Limpy shuffled over to him, followed the direction
of his finger.

"They've dropped the fence," whispered the lookout. "They don't seem to
know what they're doing."

"Yah," Swede said in an awed voice.

Below, the centaurpedes were moving about aimlessly, as if they had
forgotten their orders. They had completely lost their terrible
machine-like precision!

"I don't get it," Swede complained in bewilderment. "What's wrong with
them?"

Mac's grin was hard and tight. "They're directed by a central brain, a
sort of queen 'pede which coordinates their actions by ultra-short-wave
commands, the way a queen bee directs a beehive. That's the secret of
their synchronization!"

"And I was working the ultra-short--" Limpy stopped, stunned.

"That's the idea," Mac nodded. "Our signals blanket theirs! They can't
get orders from the main intelligence, so they don't know what to do!"

For a moment, the men were silent. Slowly, then, Swede said: "Now all
we have to do is kill the brain."

"Yeah," Limpy agreed bitterly. "What a chance of getting through!
Where's the queen 'pede, or the brain, or whatever it is?"

Mac squinted through a pair of binoculars. He gazed along that
meandering tangle of disorganized vermin. Abruptly, he halted. A mile
beyond the ravaged fence was a small patch of integrated activity, a
regiment of centaurpedes that still functioned in unison.

"There's the truth," he muttered. "Or more likely, there are six of
them, one from each undersea colony. They probably formed a council of
war to attack us. That's why we almost lost."

"_Almost?_" Swede echoed. "But we can't fight them now!"

Mac shook his head. "We won't lose," he said grimly. "I'm going to kill
the council of war."

"You're crazy!" Limpy cried. "You'd have to run through a mile of mud
and 'pedes. Brain or no brain to direct them, they'll pull you down
instinctively. Mac, you won't have a chance!"

MacAloon looked out at the wandering army. "I think I will," he said.
He went to the door. "They won't attack together. Open the wall, Limpy.
Don't mind if a few 'pedes get through. You can take care of them. Just
keep that ultra-short-wave blanket clamped down over their minds. So
long."

He ran down the metal steps and across the mud toward the smelter.
Tearing open the door of the closed-cabin tractor, he jumped inside and
slammed the port shut. He started the motor, drove past the blockade
house. Swede and Limpy were at the window. Mac waved.

A door in the wall swung wide for him. He tooled through, the door
closed and he was among the centaurpedes. Infinitely disgusting things,
a few individuals attacked the tractor in blind rage, clamping their
mandibles on the steel parts and clinging senselessly. Others gaped up
in blank wonder as the machine bore down on them. He heard them _crack_
and _squish_ beneath the threads.

He drove straight at the fence. It went down and he was out of the
enclosure, entirely surrounded by vermin. On all sides, farther than
he could see, were purposeless animals, no longer in orderly ranks,
obeying a single dictate. How long would they remain severed from the
controlling brains?

Desperately, Mac fixed in his mind the position of the place where he
had seen unified activity. He headed directly for the war council of
intelligent centaurpedes.

The treads of his tractors made sucking, splashing sounds through the
mud. 'Pedes, not bright enough by themselves to get out of the way of
danger, died by the thousands under the grinding chains.

He was drawing closer, into the thickest cluster of all. The vermin
here were also wandering around, but they seemed to be trying to make
up their minds. Mac knew the blanketing wave was weaker here, that the
council of queens 'pedes was struggling to get its nearer minions under
control again. Before that happened, they had to be destroyed.

But where were they? Two hundred yards away was a great battle square
of centaurpedes, setting themselves with idiot bravery to stop his
invincible machine. Mandibles opened wide, they crouched back, ready to
spring and rend the indestructible steel.

Were the 'pede dictators in the center of that battalion?
Theoretically, they should be, but Mac knew better than to expect the
obvious. Were they brain-like, slug-like, or did they hide their vast
significance behind protective disguises of mediocrity, pretending to
be nothing but ordinary centaurpedes?

The tractor lumbered on across the mud, smashed into that wall of
nauseating bodies. The cracking and squashing made his stomach heave,
yet he kept grinding ahead.

"Damn your murdering hearts, where are you?" he bit out.

He crashed through the battalion, started to turn back for another
charge. Instead, he clamped his teeth together and continued savagely.
Far before him, he had seen several 'pedes, identical with the rest,
racing in different directions toward the ocean. They had set up a rear
guard to cover their retreat.

He wrenched the wheel aside. _Crack!_

"One!" he gloated.

Another was scampering furiously twenty feet ahead. He drove down on
it, exulted when he heard the treads crush the hard chitinous shell.

"Two!"

"Three!"

The revolting beasts were fleet, but the tractor was swifter. One after
another, he ran them down, his lips twisting in a fierce grin each
time he heard one squash beneath his treads.

At last, two miles from camp, he stopped. He had destroyed the last
'pede trying to escape to the ocean. But had he killed the brains that
had directed this gigantic assault on the mine?

He pivoted and started back to the compound. The 'pedes were still
ambling around, following their single purposes. He could never have
got through if the ultra-short wave hadn't actually blanketed the
brains' commands. But were the animals merely disorganized only as long
as the broadcast continued, or had their rulers really been killed?

Mac reached the mine. Limpy opened a gate in the concrete wall, and he
drove through. A moment later, he was in the lookout wall, standing
beside his two partners, gazing out the window.

"Did you get them?" Limpy asked breathlessly.

Mac leaned forward and watched with intent eyes. Slowly, like
brainless creatures gradually coming to a decision, the endless mob of
centaurpedes began moving away. They didn't march, as they had advanced
to the attack. They wandered off in the general direction of the sea
from which they had sprung.

"I got them," Mac said. He straightened and turned around wearily.
"Get in touch with Adonis City, Limpy. Give them the wave length
that blankets the queen 'pedes' instructions. Tell them to relay the
information to mines that are under siege."

"We've won?" asked Swede incredulously.

"Yes," Mac replied. "And this time it's for good. We'll be able to
beat off every attack from now on. Only, I don't think they'll go on
fighting much longer. They'll have to quit."

Swede sat down ponderously. "I'm glad, Mac. Not for us; for Al. He
didn't die uselessly."

"No," Mac said. "He didn't."

Fumbling with the radio dials, Limpy grinned. None but his close
friends could know that grief made his grin wider and more evil-looking
than ever.