Now and then it went to fours again, and he thought it did not hunt by sight but rather by scent, and it was nosing them out. Finally it came to the standards below the platform. If it could climb, how could they fight it off? Even though he had not been able to assess its natural weapons, there was that about it that suggested even to an armed man that it would prove a formidable opponent. Meshler had been able to climb without the ladder. Could it?
An appalling shriek broke from immediately under them, and the platform itself quivered—not from the sound, but because some heavy force beat at one of its supports. Dane dared not lean over far enough to see what was going on below, but it felt as if the creature was working to either pull down or push over the nearest pillar-leg of the four supporting their perch. The blows or jerks were enough to set it shuddering and swinging.
Thud-jerk-thud! The creature persisted. How long before that would pay off and the platform would collapse, taking them with it? They were cornered up here. Yet the move to climb had seemed the best escape.
“Look!” Tau’s hand on him pulled Dane around a little. The medic was lying flat, too, as if he thought they had a better chance of not being shaken loose that way.
Look? Where? At what? Patrol men descending via grav belts to their rescue? This venture had already taken on so many of the incredible elements of a tridee show that Dane could expect that traditional ending to extreme danger to be a part of it.
But what he did see was a green-white glowing spot at or near where the monster had earlier emerged.
12.HIDDEN BASE
The platform shuddered under them, and Dane wondered how long it would be before it gave way under the determined assault of the thing below. Meanwhile, that phosphorescent greenish blob flowed farther into the open.
Flowed was the best description of its progress. It was unstable in outline, as if it were a mass of some semi-liquid substance, and the closer it approached, the less it resembled any living creature Dane knew.
Now another odor warred with the stench of the first comer—as foul. There was a sudden halt in the thumping of the support. Once more came the screech. From their perch they could not see the monster below, but Dane guessed that what approached was no companion it welcomed.
The flowing mass was huge, and its glow gave it visibility in the night. It was, Dane speculated, about the size of the wrecked flitter. As it neared the platform, it now and then put out projections of quivering material, white and brighter than the main bulk of its body. All of these inclined one way, pointing at the monster under them. But none held position long, instead sinking back into the general mass, as if such effort was more than it could summon for any length of time.
Again the monster screeched, but it did not charge to do battle with the newcomer, nor did it flee. It was as if it hesitated, not quite sure of the safest course.
The blob made excellent time across the open. More and more of the projections appeared, to point tips forward. The projections grew thinner, developing distinct tips, taking on the style of tentacles, though still they did not stay aloft for long.
A third screech and the monster seemed to have made up its mind. It shot forward to the right with a speed that made it just a dark blur, a dark arm and limb streaking down across the blob as it passed, cutting cleanly, and throwing off the stuff of at least three tentacles, which hit the ground and began a movement of its own, forming a small mass like the parent body. But the monster paid no attention to that. It faced about, its forelimbs up and whirling out, as the blob altered course, heading with less speed but with inexorable purpose for it.
Once more the first comer made a lightning-swift attack, shearing and tossing aside what it cut away from the blob. Again those fragments combined to become a smaller blob, moving as the first cutting had done toward the monster. The monster was facing now not one opponent but three, though the two small ones would seem to be far less dangerous than the main body. Twice more the thing struck, ripping at its opponent in a frenzy, and each time it only created a new, if much smaller, enemy.
“They have it ringed!” Meshler cried out. “It may think it’s cutting that other thing to pieces, but it’s really ringing itself in.”
He was right. The first three blobs had become eighteen. The monster no longer attacked with the same speed. Either it was tiring, its energy perhaps already somewhat worn by its battle with the platform support, or else it was growing more wary, perhaps beginning to understand, if it had a mind to comprehend, that its efforts put it in more and more danger.
The blob now, the parent one, was less than half the size it had been when it oozed into the open. But as it shrank, its offspring increased. Now the larger of those were beginning to sprout short, wavering tentacles in turn. And always those pointed to the creature around which they had built a ring.
There came a pause in that weird struggle. The monster squatted motionless now, still facing the first blob. The others did not move. Instead the first tentacles they put forth, to point small fingers at their enemy, now waved to each side, spinning thinner and thinner, weaving back and forth aimlessly through the air. But that there was method in this was quickly demonstrated. Two weaving tentacles from separate smaller blobs touched. Instantly they united, so that the two became one, thin and closer to the ground. And as they had managed this unification, so did the rest. Thus the ring about their enemy was complete, save for directly before the monster, where the parent blob lay. Perhaps its inertia was meant to lull the victim. It would seem that way, for the first comer apparently did not see or care that three-quarters of the way around, it was now encircled by a ribbon band lying on the ground, momentarily quiescent.
What signal passed to produce the next move in that struggle Dane did not know, but the two loose ends of that band flew to join themselves to the parent. As an overstretched piece of elastic material might do, the band itself snapped against the back of the squatting monster, pushing it forward, screeching and flailing wildly, until the front portion of the blob raised up, not tentacles but half its bulk, to come down with smashing finality on its captive. It heaved and rolled from side to side, the band now completely reunited.
Though engulfed, the monster had not surrendered. The rolling blob spun around, changing shape constantly as the struggle within it beat and tore at its heart. But that struggle gradually subsided. The blob tightened, drew in and in until it was a solid-looking sphere, and there was no more movement.
“Digesting,” Tau said. “Well, we’ve seen how you don’t fight that anyway.”
“What is it?” Dane turned to Meshler for enlightenment He should know something of the native wildlife.
“I don’t know.” The ranger was still staring, bemused, at the ball. “It is not native here.”
“That makes two—three, if you count what it ate,” Dane said. “That antline and these two. The antline was certainly from off-world, maybe these, too.”
“But”—Meshler turned his head as if it was a distinct effort to do so—“it is against the law to import without a certificate. The Trosti people would not—”
“Who said these were imported, or—if so—in these forms?” Tau asked. “If they have a box, these could be retrogressions of things entirely different. The Trosti people have a high reputation, of course, but are you entirely sure, Meshler, that this is a Trosti undertaking?”
“This is top-security country under Trosti management,” the ranger said slowly.
“Orders can be used as a screen at times,” commented the medic, and in that he was reflecting what the Free Traders had learned long ago.