Gaynor put his ear to the sounding-plate of the little plastic box. "Right," he stated grimly, "we're in the neighborhood."
"How about landing?" asked Jocelyn.
Gaynor flipped a coin. "We land. This two-header never fails me; pulls us out of Nowhere into the Wherever."
His wife juggled briefly with the controls. Stars flashed again from the port. The counter's ticking swelled to a roar that filled the cabin. "Emphatic device!" yelled Gaynor through the din. He turned a screw on the case and shut off the counter action. "This is it, I expect."
"It?" Jocelyn dazedly inspected the planet they were nearing. "Give me a look at that thing."
"What's the matter with it? Or maybe you mean that city?"
"Exactly," she assured him, raising her hand to blot out the sight. "It's—awfully—big, wouldn't you say?"
"Few thousand feet high," commented Gaynor airily.. "What's the odds?" He took over the controls and landed the ship.
"Ahg!" muttered Jocelyn to lo. "That extrovert—landing us in the principal square with cars zipping past. Not that I'd mind if the cars were a little smaller than zeppelins. But does he care for my peace of mind? Not that worm. Did I tell you what he did one night last week? There I was ..."
"Look!" yelled Gaynor hastily, turning a little red. "See those ginks? Fifty feet high if they're an inch. What do you suppose they want?"
"I wouldn't even care to guess. Try the counter."
Gaynor turned on the little thing. For the briefest moment it thundered, then went dead. "Blown out," muttered Gaynor. "Either that, or— " He tinkered with it. "Nope," he announced finally, a bead of sweat coming out on his brow. "It's in commission."
"Then why," asked Ionic Intersection plaintively, "doesn't it sound?"
"I know, teacher," said Jocelyn. "It's fulfilled its whole function. It has counted faithfully and well as long as the object on which it was focused—that is to say, your husband's ship, more particularly, the protolens of that ship, obtained. It is now no longer functioning for the direct reason that the lens is no longer in existence. It was completely destroyed a few seconds ago—when the counter stopped sounding."
"But the ship won't run without the lens! And the lens is mounted in solid quartz. How could they destroy the lens without destroying the ship?"
"They couldn't," stated Gaynor succinctly. "Keep calm, kid. If I know your husband, he's not in that ship. With his ship-rat instinct, he deserted it long ago. The pertinacious Pavlik won't fail you just yet. Meanwhile, dry your eyes—we have company. Give a look—out there." Gaynor stared through the port, glassy-eyed. "Giants," he continued strainedly. "Lots of them. Let's get out of here!" He kicked over the booster-pedal and very nearly started the drive-engines—but not before one of the giants had laid a two-ton finger on the ship and grasped it firmly between thumb and forefinger.
"No use busting gears against that thing." Gaynor cut off the motor and relaxed. "Any suggestions, babes?"
"Not one" said Jocelyn. "They seem to be talking—at least, the sky is clear; can't be thunder."
"Whu—what's that?" quavered Io, pointing. The port was completely filled by a colossal jellylike mass that heaved convulsively. The blackish center seemed to be a hole of some kind through which they could look and see a dim cavern shot through with a strata of metallic matter, and honeycombed in its far rear with a curiously regular pattern of hexacombs. "Is it alive?"
"That," said Gaynor gently, "is an eye. And not at all an unusual one—just a big one. It's what yours would look like under a microscope. For God's sake, keep calm."
The eye withdrew and the Prototype clanged hideously with the din of a thousand bells as some colossal sledge crashed against their shell. "That," said Jocelyn as she picked herself from the floor, "could be the inevitable attempt to establish communication with the little creatures so unexpectedly arriving. She lifted a wrench. "They answer, thus." She rained blows on the shell of the ship until their ears rang.
"That's enough," said her husband removing the wrench from her hands. "Now that you've succeeded in denting the hull all out of its streamlines. But maybe it did some good." They could hear the conversation thundering resumed; colossal feet stamped about the ship as it seemed to be surveyed from all angles.
"Awk!" shrilled Io as the Prototype lurched violently. Like peas in a bladder, they were shaken into the stern.
"Io," said Jocelyn sharply. "Would you mind—" she gestured the rest.
"Sorry," replied the brunette, arranging her clothes. "Anyway, your poor dear husband seems to be out." Jocelyn gave her a hard look. "I can take care of him," she retorted, climbing the steeply sloping floor, toward the water tank.
"Jocelyn," complained Gaynor reproachfully, "that wasn't fair—hitting me when I wasn't looking."
"I didn't," said his wife, busily changing the cold compress. "Your fifty-foot friends seem to be taking us for a ride in one of their Fallen Arch Sixes. You've just come to after an interval of about three hours. They keep looking in, and I think they're making dirty jokes." A titanic bellow of laughter rang through the ship. "See what I mean?"
"I don't see the joke," said Gaynor absently, holding his head. "What's Io doing?"
"Admiring the giants. She thinks the one in the middle has the cutest beard." Just then the vague drone of a colossal motor somewhere near them stopped.
"Journey's end, I take it? Or perhaps just a traffic light?"
"First stop thus far," said Jocelyn. The ship lurched again. "Up we go!" she cried gaily. "Better than a roller-coaster."
There was a brief, bumpy transition with admonishing grunts from the giants. "Easy there," warned Jocelyn. "Don't drop it more than two hundred feet—these animals might be delicate. Blunderbore, you dope—keep your end up—what're you doing, hanging on? There we are!" The ship settled and the seasick Gaynor groaned with relief. "Now what?" he asked tremulously.
"Now we get picked out and put on fish hooks, I guess. Think you'll wiggle?"
"Horrid woman!" he snapped, holding his head. And then something suspiciously like a can-opener poked through the shell of the Prototype with a screech of tearing metal. Jerkily it worked its way along the top of the ship, then twisted sidewise and opened a great gap in the frames. "Now we strangle?" worried Jocelyn. The air rushed out for just a moment, then the pressure seemed to equalize.
"Pfui!" sniffed Ionic Intersection. "Sulfur somewhere. But breathable, this air. How do you feel, honey?" She caught a glance from Jocelyn. "Paul, I mean," she amended.
"Okay, I guess—hey!" squawked Gaynor as a pair of forceps reached down into the ship and picked him up by his coat collar, through the colossal rent in the Prototype's hide.
"Write me a post card when you get there, dearest," called Jocelyn. "Oh well," she asided to Io, "easy come; easy go. But still I'd have—hey!" she squawked as the forceps made a return trip.
IV.
"No privacy," complained Gaynor bitterly. "No privacy at all—that's the part I don't like about it. And that damned blue ray they use—insult on injury; Pelion on Ossa! The great lubberly swine implied that they needed a short-wavelength to see us at all. Oh the curs, the skulldruggerers!"
"Shut up," advised Jocelyn. "We seem to be here for some little time under inspection. What comes next I can't possibly imagine. The thing I don't like is that while you can talk yourself out of any given scrape, this presents peculiar difficulties, such as that they can't hear you for small green caterpillars, and even if they could, they couldn't because your voice is too high-pitched. You!" She turned accusingly on Ionic Intersection.
"Your husband has to go running out on us and get himself involved with these stinkers— "