He felt pitifully eager for their quixotic journey to be over, but he only said, “It’s practically all over but the shouting. And you can bet there’ll be shouting, Irene. We’ll be heroes, you and I.”
Irene’s attempt at enthusiasm was feeble. “I’m tired. Henry. Let’s rest.” She sank slowly to the ground, and Henry, after signalling the Phibs, joined her.
“How much longer, Henry?” Almost without volition, she found her head nestling wearily against his shoulder.
“One more day, Irene. Tomorrow this time, we’ll be back.” He looked wretched, “You think we shouldn’t have tried to do this ourselves, don’t you?”
“Well, it seemed a good idea at the time.”
“Yes, I know,” said Henry. “I’ve noticed that I get lots of ideas that seem good at the time, but sometimes they turn sour.” He shook his head philosophically, “I don’t know why, but that’s the way it is.”
“All I know,” said Irene, “is that I don’t care if I never move another step in my life. I wouldn’t get up now-”
Her voice died away as her beautiful blue eyes stared off towards the right. One of the Centosaurs stumbled into the waters of a small, tributary to the stream they were following. Wallowing in the water, his huge serpentine body mounted on the ten stocky pairs of legs, glistened horribly. His ugly head weaved towards the sky and his terrifying call pierced the air. A second joined him.
Irene was on her feet. “What are you waiting for. Henry. Let’s go! Hurry!”
Henry gripped his Tonite gun tightly and followed.
Arthur Scanlon gulped savagely at his fifth cup of black coffee and, with an effort, brought the Audiomitter into optical focus. His eyes, he decided, were becoming entirely too balky. He rubbed them into red-rimmed irritation and cast a glance over his shoulder at the restlessly sleeping figure on the couch.
He crept over to her, and adjusted the coverlet.
“Poor Mom,” he whispered, and bent to kiss the pale lips.
He turned to the Audiomitter and clenched a fist at it, “Wait till I get you, you crazy nut”
Madeline stirred, “Is it dark yet?”
“No,” lied Arthur with feeble cheerfulness. “Hell call before sundown. Mom. You just sleep and let me take care of things. Dad’s upstairs working on the stat-field and he says he’s making progress. In a few days everything will be all right.” He sat silently beside her and grasped her band tightly. Her tired eyes closed once more.
The signal light blinked on and, with a last look at his mother, he stepped out into the corridor, “Well!”
The waiting Tweenie saluted smartly, “John Barno wants to say that it looks as if we are in for a storm.” He handed over an official report.
Arthur glanced at it peevishly, “What of that? We’ve had plenty so far, haven’t we? What do you expect of Venus?”
“This will be a particularly bad one, from all indications. The barometer has fallen unprecedentedly. The ionic concentration of the upper atmosphere is at an unequalled maximum. The Beulah River has overflowed its banks and is rising rapidly.”
The other frowned, “There’s not an entrance to Venustown that isn’t at least fifty yards above river level. As for rain- our drainage system is to be relied upon.” He grimaced suddenly. “Go back and tell Barno that it can storm for my part -for forty days and forty nights if it wants to. Maybe it will drive the Earthmen away.”
He turned away, but the Tweenie held his ground, “Beg pardon sir, but that’s not the worst. A scouting party today-”
Arthur whirled. “A scouting party? Who ordered one to be sent out?”
“Your father, sir. They were to make contact with the Phibs,-I don’t know why.”
“Well, go on.”
“Sir, the Phibs could not be located.”
And now, for the first time, Arthur was startled out of his savage ill-humor, ‘They were gone?”
The Tweenie nodded, “It is thought that they have sought shelter from the coming storm. It is that which causes Barno to fear the worst.”
“They say rats desert a sinking ship,” murmured Arthur. He buried his head in trembling hands. “Godi Everything at once! Everything at once!”
The darkening twilight hid the pall of blackness that lowered over the mountains ahead and emphasized the darting flashes of lightning that flickered on and off continuously.
Irene shivered, “It’s getting sort of windy and chilly, isn’t it?”
“The cold wind from the mountains. We’re in for a storm, I guess,” Henry assented absently. “I think the river is getting wider.”
A short silence, and then, with sudden vivacity, “But look, Irene, only a few more miles to the lake and then we’re practically at the Earth village. It’s almost over.”
Irene nodded, “I’m glad for all of us-and the Phibs, too.”
She had reason for the last statement. The Phibs were swimming slowly now. An additional detachment had arrived the day before from upstream, but even with those reinforcements, progress had slowed to a walk. Unaccustomed cold was nipping the multi-legged reptiles and they yielded to superior mental force more and more reluctantly.
The first drops fell just after they had passed the lake. Darkness had fallen, and in the blue glare of the lightning the trees about them were ghostly specters reaching swaying fingers towards the sky. A sudden flare in the distance marked the funeral pyre of a lightning-hit tree.
Henry paled. “Make for the clearing just ahead. At a time like this, trees are dangerous.”
The clearing he spoke of composed the outskirts of the Earth village. The rough-hewn houses, crude and small against the fury of the elements, showed lights here and there that spoke of human occupancy. And as the first Centosaur stumbled out from between splintered trees, the storm suddenly burst in all its fury.
The two Tweenies huddled close. “It’s up to the Phibs,” screamed Henry, dimly heard above the wind and rain. “I hope they can do it.”
The three monsters converged upon the houses ahead. They moved more rapidly as the Phibs called up every last bit of mental power.
Irene buried her wet head in Henry’s equally wet shoulder, “I can’t look! Those houses will go like matchsticks. Oh, the poor people!”
“No, Irene, no. They’ve stopped!”
The Centosaurs pawed vicious gouges out of the ground beneath and their screams rang shrill and clear above the noise of the storm. Startled Earthmen rushed from their cabins.
Caught unprepared-most having been roused from sleep -and faced with a Venusian storm and nightmarish Venusian monsters, there was no question of organized action. As they stood, carrying nothing but their clothes, they broke and ran.
There was the utmost confusion. One or two, with dim attempts at presence of mind, took wild, ineffectual pot-shots at the mountains of flesh before them-and then ran.
And when it seemed that all were gone, the giant reptiles surged forward once more and where once had been houses, there were left only mashed splinters.
“They’ll never come back, Irene, they’ll never come back.” Henry was breathless at the success of his plan. “We’re heroes now, and-” His voice rose to a hoarse shriek, “Irene, get back! Make for the trees!”
The Centosaurian howls had taken on a deeper note. The nearest one reared onto his two hindmost pairs of legs and his great head, two hundred feet above ground, was silhouetted horribly against the lightning. With a rumbling thud, he came down on all feet again and made for the river-which under the lash of the storm was now a raging flood.
The Phibs had lost control!
Henry’s Tonite gun flashed into quick action as he shoved Irene away. She, however, backed away slowly and brought her own gun into line.
The ball of purple light that meant a hit blazed into being and the nearest Centosaur screamed in agony as its mighty tail threshed aside the surrounding trees. Blindly, the hole where once a leg had been gushing blood, it charged.
A second glare of purple and it was down with an earthshaking thud, its last shriek reaching a crescendo of shrill frightfulness.
But the other two monsters were crashing towards them. They blundered blindly towards the source of the power that, had held them captive almost a week; driving violently with all the force of their mindless hate to the river. And in the path of the Juggernauts were the two Tweenies.
The boiling torrent was at their backs. The forest was a groaning wilderness of splintered trees and ear-splitting sound.
Then, suddenly, the reports of Tonite guns sounded from the distance. Purple glares-a flurry of threshing-spasmodic shrieking-and then a silence in which even the wind, as if overawed by recent events, held its peace momentarily.
Henry yelled his glee and performed an impromptu war-dance. “They’ve come from Venustown, Irene,” he shouted. ‘They’ve got the Centosaurs and everything’s finished! We’ve saved the Tweenies!”
It happened in a breath’s time. Irene had dropped her gun and sobbed her relief. She was running to Henry and then she tripped-and the river had her.
“Henry!” The wind whipped the sound away.
For one dreadful moment. Henry found himself incapable of motion. He could only stare stupidly, unbelievingly, at the spot where Irene had been, and then he was in the water. He plunged into the surrounding blackness desperately.
“Irene!” He caught his breath with difficulty. The current drove him on.
“ Irene! ” No sound but the wind. His efforts at swimming were futile. He couldn’t even break surface for more than a second at a time, his lungs were bursting.