Some of them could withstand the pull of the liquor, and some could not.There was a phalanx of them coming, for a good third of the growth'spopulation had seen the disturbance by now. Any who appeared to bepassing by the bottles, he and Circe shot; those who hesitated by themand were drawn in exchanged their liberty for their lives, because intwo minutes Pinkham had feverishly capped them into the leaden prisons.He hooked them onto his belt and said into the mouthpiece before hislips, "Go for the entrance, baby. I'll cover you."
"No!" she snapped back. "You are not going to sacrifice--"
"Sacrifice, nuts!" he yelled. "This is part of the plan you'd have heardif you hadn't sneaked into the landing party at the last minute. Getgoing!" He was reloading as he spoke.
She ran, almost flying down the cave-tunnel with great leaps thatcovered many yards each. He fired three times at the giants who nowloomed above him; then he was running too, stretching his legs andthrowing every ounce of power and panic in his frame into the incrediblejumps. And apparently he had the advantage over the brutes, for he beganto outdistance them; their mass being greater, he was helped by the lackof gravity.
Then a rock crumbled under his toe, he was thrown off balance, hismomentum shot him full tilt against the wall of the passage, and hishead cracked sharply against the inside of his helmet. He knew that hewas losing consciousness, and that he had fallen and was rollingstraight into the path of the raging aliens.
CHAPTER XIX
Thought came to him before feeling. Pink lay in a hazy world of shiftingideas, of coagulating and disintegrating forms of cerebration. He wasnot wholly unaware of what had happened, but his groping mind was moreconcerned with piecing together certain facts and fancies, reachingconclusions he felt were of the first importance. If his body were indanger, it must help itself, for Pink had other fish to fry.
As he sank into thick-witted stupor, then fought up to the light ofreason, feeling his mind ebb and flow with ideas and mad conjectures, itcame to him that he knew the truth of the giants, and had not stated itto himself before in so many words. He had deliberately shied away fromit, in fact, for it stank of fantasy, of crack-brained superstition andimbecilic fairy tales....
Admit it, he told himself, giggling in the far reaches of his brain.Admit it. You know about these critters, Pink.
Yes. I know about them. They are the djinn.
The djinn that Solomon ruled, conquered, and put down. The enormousentities of Arabian Nights tales, whose habits and character andshrewd-canny-gullible ways of thinking were all set down in the booksand marveled at by people even yet, hundreds and hundreds of years afterthey had been written. Marveled, sure, but marveled only at theimaginations that had produced them. And it wasn't imagination at all.It was the real actual goddam solid thing.
The djinn had been at once a triumph and a sad mistake of nature. Theywere the ultimate in physical perfection, needing nothing, livingperfectly independently, huge and strong and yet able to assume thetiniest proportions when needed. Wounds were nothing, for their makeupwas such that their molecules compressed away from weapons, to ooze backinto place when danger was past. They controlled the forces of the atom,at least to the extent of ability to freeze protons, and probably theycould do many more stunts in that line.
All their powers, being far in advance of man's, had been misunderstoodand misinterpreted in the old days. So when a djinni let his atoms flowinto the most convenient shape for getting into bottles for alcohol orfor passing an obstruction he didn't care to demolish, it seemed to menthat he turned into a cloud of smoke. Hadn't Pink used that simile tohimself?
The fact that they could levitate, probably by control of the force ofgravity, and fly through the thin upper air, by some process Pink onlydimly understood, was certainly enough to stamp them as minor gods inArabia and all the other countries they had infested.
Sure, they were a triumph of nature; but also a colossal failure. Forthey were, despite their scientific powers, too stupid for pity, tooinsensitive for compassion, and too egocentric for tolerance. Theirnature was that of the most depraved human being. Consequently they'dbeen beaten. In spite of their terrific strength, they'd been beaten bypuny, unscientific, bumbling man.
How?
Well, Solomon had known about the lead. He'd sealed them in copperbottles with stoppers of lead, and Pink would bet a buck those bottleshad been lead-lined, too. Solomon hadn't gone far enough, of course;he'd thrown the bottles into the sea, and sometimes they'd washed up andbeen opened. For bait, he must have used alcohol, too, since it was theAchilles heel of the djinn.
Had he nailed the entire breed of djinn in his lifetime? It seemedlikely, for the legends stopped soon afterwards, didn't they? Pinkwasn't sure. Anyway, there sure as hell weren't any djinn on Earthtoday.
How had they gotten out here, all the way to Star System Ninety? Thatwas beyond conjecture. How come the first brute he had contacted, oldYnohp the phony Martian, spoke a kind of messed-up Shakespearian lingo?God only knew.
Now he'd discovered them, anyway, and they wanted to go back to Earth.If they got hold of the _Elephant's Child_, they might do it. Hecouldn't let them succeed ... but then the crew was going to blow up theship in two hours.
Two hours!
Pinkham's mind beat wildly at the prison of lethargy and dimmedconsciousness. How long had he lain here? Where _was_ he lying? Did thegiants, the djinn, have him? And Circe?
Circe. Making the most intense and painful effort of his life, Pinkdragged his eyes open and tried to sit up. He had to find Circe.
He saw nothing, and there was a weight on him that held him flat on hisback. Either his lamp was broken, or he was blind.
Sensibly, though it cost him untold hell to be sensible, Pink layquietly until he felt all his faculties under control. Then he made anabrupt and violent attempt to sit up. Whatever it was that was holdinghim down rolled off. He managed to get to his knees, one hand on therock beneath him, and then arms were thrown around him and a bodypressed against his.
The horror of absolute blackness and the unknown predicament he was inproved just a little too much for him. Captain Pinkham gave a loud, longscream of fear.
CHAPTER XX
"What is it?" asked Circe, her voice wild with fright. "Pink, darling,what is it? Are you hurt?"
It was Circe who was holding him. Sobbing with relief, he said into theradio, "No, no, baby, I'm fine, I'm wonderful."
Her answering cry was a tiny sound of joy and affection. "I wish I couldkiss you," she said, "but there are two spacesuits in the way."
He found her hand and squeezed it hard. "I wish I could see you,Smitty," he said, "but either I'm blind or--"
"Oh, I should have told you at once. I turned off our chest-lamps."
"But where are we?"
"Not far from where you fell." Her hand was a comfort in his, as much soas a squad of Space Marines marching down to greet them would have been."You flew past me like a kicked football, Pink, and I veered off to seeif you were okay. When you fell and didn't move, the first thing I didwas snap off the lamps. About a second afterwards, the giants went past.They have a weird kind of glow in the dark. I think they could have seenus--certainly they don't exist blind in this ink-pool--but there's aridge of rock and we were pretty well hidden behind it. I dragged youabout forty feet and found this hole and we've been lying here eversince."
"The others," he said, remembering.
"I've been in touch with Daley all the time. He and Calico ran into alot of trouble and Calico got a broken leg. Joe Silver took him back tothe ship. Daley and Jerry found each other and fought off a horde ofgiants. Every man got all his bottles full of 'specimens' and then usedup most of his lead. Sparks--" she hesitated a moment--"Sparks is dead.So is Randy Kinkare."
Pink said quietly into the dark, "I don't think Randy would mind that.He didn't have much of a face left."
"Whatever that first one did to burn him, that's the weapon they used onhim and Sparks. Both of them were burnt to a...."
>
"Okay," he said. "Okay, okay."
"So Daley said they'd try to find us; but everyone got mixed up in thecaves, and there hasn't been a sign or sound of anyone for half anhour."
"Half an hour?" The flesh chilled down his back. "How long have I beenout?"
"I don't know. A couple of hours."
"My Lord! The _Elephant's Child_ is to be blown up two hours from theminute we left her!"
"Daley said Silver was going to countermand that order."
Pink groaned heavily. "He can't! Jackson had my absolute command on it,and Jackson would see himself and Silver and the whole lot of them deadbefore he'd fail to carry out a command of mine. That was important; wecalculated that two hours was more than enough to expend all the ammo,and that if we weren't back by then, the hull would be crawling withgiants. Every bullet aboard came out with us. We couldn't take thechance of the ship blasting off with giants on her, maybe in the form ofgnats or smoke or--no," he finished, "Silver, if he tried to change myorder, is either dead or unconscious or in the brig right now." Helifted his left hand. "I've got to check the time," he said, and for aninstant switched on the dial of his glove watch.
It was a hundred and two minutes after landing time.
He had eighteen minutes to get back to the _Elephant's Child_.
CHAPTER XXI
He beamed his radio to its fullest extent. "Daley," he said. "Daley,come in. Jerry. Cohan. Caleskie. Kole. Come in, anyone."
"Kole here, Captain. I'm on the plain. It was all fouled up in thatcave."
"What can you see?"
"They've got the big trap out of the ship," said the distant, tinnyvoice of the crewman. "What a waste of good liquor! Beg your pardon,Captain."
"Giants?" Pink asked.
"About a million of 'em, all headed for the trap. We should have triedit first. Did you know Caleskie got his?"
"No, I didn't know. We had to suck them out into the open before theycould spot the trap, Kole. Is Lieutenant Daley in sight?"
"I saw him a while back, sir. He was headed out of a cave with the O. O.But it turned out they were going the wrong way, because I--"
"Thanks, Kole. Report aboard ship. Don't get mixed up with the giants."
"They won't bother me, sir. It's like a bunch of big bees tearing aftera vat of nectar out here. They don't even see me."
"What did he mean?" asked Circe. "A trap?"
"Plastikoided lead box, twelve by twelve feet. All the alcohol in theship was poured into it an hour after we left, and they set it outsideas far from the ship as they could safely go. I didn't know it wouldwork, but it was a try. It still doesn't affect Jackson's orders. Ididn't know, I still don't know, but that some of the djinn can resistthe stuff."
"The _what_?" she asked, startled.
"Never mind. We've got about a quarter hour to get back. Where in blazesis Daley?"
A small, weakened voice said in his ear, "I'm here, Pink. Jerry too. Buthe's out cold. I don't feel so hot myself."
"Daley!" he roared. "Where are you?"
"Big cave, about size of Texas. Came across it trying to find our wayout. Lot of giants here. One of them saw us and picked us up and bangedus together. I think he must be saving us for a hearty lunch. He'ssitting ten feet off watching us."
"Your guns, boy!"
"No good. All the slugs are gone. Pink," said the weak, worried voice,"do you know what time it is? You better hightail it for the ship."
"I'm coming after you," said Pink.
"Don't be a heroic son of a space cook, Pink!"
"Shut up and lie still." He switched his radio to close quarters."Honey, you make for the _Child_. I'll pick up the boys and be rightwith you."
"You're crazy," she said flatly. "I wouldn't leave you if--"
He had switched on his chest lamp and drawn out a pen and paper from hispocket kit. "I'm going to write Jackson a note countermanding the order.Take it to him."
"You're wasting your time," she said grimly. "If you're going into thecave, I'm going too."
"You fathead, you can save the ship by taking this note."
"You're doing it to save me. I won't. What happens to you happens tome."
"My God the whole damn ship--"
"Doesn't matter to me if you're gone, Pink." Her voice was strange,half-hysterical and oddly loving. "I don't know why I feel this wayabout you, Pink. I've never been in love before. If I hadn't beenstranded, I'd be old enough to be your mother. You're a big colddedicated spaceman, but I love you. Lead the way, if you're going tomake a fool of yourself."
* * * * *
In that moment Pink learned wisdom, for he gave up his attempt at a noteand bounded to his feet. Some well-spring of instinct had told him thata man could never argue a woman out of anything.
"Got your automatic?"
"And a full clip left."
"Come on, baby."
They ran down the cavernous corridor, grotesque tiny fleas makingunbelievable leaps. In seconds they had entered the grotto.
Many, too many giants were still there. Some of them seemed not to haveseen anything of the hectic occurrences, others were standing in smallgroups (if anything formed of thousand-foot beings could be calledsmall, thought Pink as he rocketed along) motioning hugely to oneanother.
"Stay close," he called to Circe. She was moving as fast as he, herlight frame an asset. They ran down one side of the cavern, ignoringgiants who did not at first notice them. Pink beamed out his radio andsaid, "Daley! Locate yourself." "I'm in the cavern."
"You ape," said Daley, "why'd you come? We're in front of an entrancethat's the middle one of three. Spot it?"
"I see four sets of three," said Pink, heading for the nearest as hisheart sank.
"Sorry, I can't see any more than these. Be careful, old boy." There wasa pause. "We have twelve minutes left," said the senior lieutenantcalmly.
The first of the triple entrances--had they been built, or were theynatural?--was at hand. Three gigantic djinn sat near them. The ground,uneven as a lava flow solidified, might have concealed a score ofhumans. Pink gave a high leap, surveyed the terrain as he floated down.Nobody here. But a giant saw him.
Pink shot him in the ankle and dived like a skin-swimmer between hislegs. He had lost Circe. He pivoted, wide-eyed, and saw her beneath theskyscraper torso of a bending giant. Their lamps were drawing attentionnow. He saw her shoot the titan and fly off at a tangent, disappearingbehind others of the enemy.
Sixth sense warning prickled his neck. He whirled again to pot at agroping hand the size of a ten-story house; the hand contracted,bunched, groped outward and was hidden as the body fell upon it. Pinksaved himself by a frantic backward shove that jolted him into the wall.Circe sped by and he followed, shouting into his radio. They joinedhands and aimed for the next entrances, a mile down the hall.
Four speeding djinn abruptly barred their path, express-flying down onthem.
CHAPTER XXII
"I know how a fly feels," gasped the girl. "I'll never wield anotherswatter."
Pink had emptied his Colt. He tried reloading on the run, or rather, hethought wryly, on the bounce, but it was a tricky job. And he had onlyabout a dozen shells left.
Circe shot another angry monster. If lead took just two seconds longerto work on those immense systems, Pink realized, he and Circe would havebeen squashed long since. They had fought down half the hall, past threeof the triple entrances, and now there was only one to check on. IfDaley and Jerry weren't there, they might as well give up; the shipwould go scattering into the void in about five minutes.
They had to watch backwards as well as before them. The giants werenearly all in motion now, the milling of such throngs of them havingcaught the vacant stares of those who had been gaping at nothing.
And suddenly there was Daley, standing before them and holding the limpspacesuited form of Jerry Jones in his arms. "Hey, Pink," he said, "downhere."
Pinkham blasted two foemen in the hands as they grasped
for him. "Likefighting giant redwoods," said Circe indistinctly, panting. They joinedthe two officers, jumping and digging in their heels to halt sharply.
"We have to make for that," said Pink, waving across the grotto at theinvisible hole which led to the plain. "Straight through these dam Alpsof aliens." He shot over Circe's head. "How you feeling?"
"Little rocky," said Daley.
"Take the Colt, then." He shoved it into the lieutenant's hand andhoisted Jerry like a rag out of Daley's arms. "Come on," he barked. "Anddon't get slapped. That's an order." He ran.
Their combined chest-lamps beamed out a couple of miles as they headedfor the home stretch. Across the light passed the giant djinn, moving towaylay them, standing mountain-steady to intercept. Circe rocketed intothe lead and led them on a zigzag course that avoided the vast parodiesof human feet which barred the way like river dams.
They had had uncanny luck thus far. Why? Probably the giants weresluggish from long inactivity. Too, Pink knew, it's hard to hit a smalldarting object that's not more than one-one-hundred-and-sixty-sixth ofyour size. And the lead slugs of their guns had turned many surecaptures into escapes.
But now the guns were empty.
"Feet," said Pink, quoting an ancient joke, "feet, do your stuff!"
Circe was amazing, dodging and pirouetting and even hurdling the grossfeet when they couldn't be side-stepped. Pink gamely followed her lead,Jerry now slung over his shoulder. There was panting in his ears--Daleymust be having tough going. Then he recognized the deep wheezingbreaths: they were his own.