Slowly, down an open lane, the Terrestrials were forced to approach the thing. Then they saw what it was—some hellish form of life. It grew in a bowl-like hollow in the floor. It seemed at first glance to be only a semi-liquid mass of phosphorescent pulp. But then one saw the countless fine, nerve-like filaments that traversed it in every direction, and the glowing nuclei of the myriad, oversized cells that composed it. The effect of a close scrutiny was disturbing. Presently and inevitably one realized that here in this mass of alien protoplasm resided deific wisdom, and an intellect that never wearied.
The ghoulish pulp heaved and moved suggestively, thrusting up hungry pseudopods. From the latter, translucent, reddish flakes broke away and dropped to the floor around the pit. These were the Red Shards. They were a natural product of the devilish thing, perhaps originally exuded as a liquid, from its substance, just as a mollusk exudes the liquid which hardens to form its shell.
A number of Cereans were around the pit. Some were gathering the shards in metal baskets. Others, stripped of all their ornaments except a sort of belt made of interlocking shard fragments, stood in line, waiting to perform what seemed a fanatical act of devotion to their hideous god.
ONE by one they were easing themselves gently into the pit whose glowing, pulpy contents folded over them, and began to absorb their still-living flesh.
And now the Earthmen could begin to guess their own fate. With cool deliberation, their hands went to work removing their space armor, clothing, and other equipment. The air around them, now, was cool and fresh. They too were to be food for the monster—a strange delicacy which it longed to taste!
A man named Rogers was the first victim. Still retaining his grip on the red, glassy fragment that Ronnie Iverness had given him, he lowered himself into the pit with the same outward calm that the Cereans were showing. He moved very slowly, as if to avoid injuring the abhorrent mass of jelly that craved his flesh. Pseudopods enveloped him, and he sank into the mass of glowing cells. His body writhed a little, and then was still. Its substance began to dwindle.
Hansen, the engineer, was next....
Behind him, just ahead of Ronnie, was Professor Farnsworth. The sickening experience of watching the ends of two of his loyal henchmen had done almost as much to reduce the stamina of his old body as the exertion of the descent into this realm of horror. He knew that he was going to swoon before his limbs could carry him into the slimy clutches of the monster; and at last he thought he understood the strange and ghastly mystery of Ceres.
He took one more step toward the pit. Then his knees buckled. He could no longer respond to the commands of whatever it was that controlled him. Blackness closed in around him. His ears were roaring. As he fell, he stumbled against the small figure of Ronnie Iverness, close behind him. The weird crystal of evil was knocked from his numbed hand. The boy and the savant sprawled together.
For a fleeting fragment of time, while a dim shred of consciousness still remained to him, Professor Farnsworth was once more his own master. And he acted quickly and surely. With stiff fingers he groped for Ronnie’s right hand and struck it a fierce blow. A second shard of evil went skittering and tinkling across the floor.
Then with a final, tremendous effort the old scientist rasped out instructions: “Throw something at that—devil. Something heavy. Kill—it— Get the—the fragment away from—Dave—”
The savant lapsed into limp unconsciousness. But a quick young body was free, now, to act under the direction of a quick young mind. Ronnie no longer held the glassy fragment, and temporarily at least his slavery was at an end. Cereans were rushing toward him, but for the moment he was free.
His gaze fell on a discarded space suit. Here at the heart of Ceres its weight was very small, but its large mass remained unchanged. He seized it, hoisted it easily above his head, and threw it with all his might.
It landed in the center of the slimy mass that filled the pit. The effect was something like that of hurling a heavy stone into soft mud. The hard metal of the armor was not like the soft living flesh of the victims, and it was hurled with considerable force. The monstrous thing in the pit heaved and throbbed with the shock of pain.
THEN Ronnie darted toward his brother. No one hindered him. The Cereans who were leaping in his direction stopped in their tracks. The other natives stood like grotesque statues, seemingly too surprised to act. But it was not surprise which held them spellbound; it was something far more bizarre.
Ronnie kicked the shard from his brother’s hand. At once Dave went into action. A second space suit went crashing into the pulpy mass of glowing jelly. The elder Iverness was a powerful man.
This time the effect on the Cereans was more definite. Their hideous, furry bodies swayed. Many of them crumpled to the floor, and writhed and kicked aimlessly there.
There were no weapons among the Earthmen, but Dave rushed to one of the fallen natives and jerked from its harness the pistol-like device with which it was armed. Sensing that the ghoulish horror would quickly recover from the shock of the missiles, he directed the muzzle of the weapon toward the pit, and pressed the button which was evidently the trigger.
A sheet of killing flame leaped forth. Dave did not release pressure on the trigger until all of the slimy thing was blasted and seared into nothingness. A reeking, steamy vapor filled the cavern.
Panting, Dave looked about. A little light was afforded by the now incandescent stone at the bottom of the pit. The Cereans all lay inert except for feeble, pointless twitchings. The Earthmen regained control of their bodies, discarding the Red Shards.
“That, somehow, seems to be that,” Iverness commented with a puzzled grimace. “Good work, Ronnie!
Several minutes later, under the ministrations of his henchmen, Professor Farnsworth regained his senses. He looked about, and then smiled in wan satisfaction.
“I think none of our alien friends are in a position to cause us any more trouble,” he said.
“How so?” someone asked.
“You all saw that each of them is wearing fragments of the red, glassy substance,” the savant replied. “Even those about to sacrifice themselves retained a string of the pieces. This gave me a clue. Those fragments afforded a means of contact between the ruling entity of Ceres, and his subjects. They were the detectors for his commands, which were emanated from his substance in the form of a kind of etheric impulse or wave.
“Symbiosis—that was what it was: A state in which two diverse forms of life exist together, usually to each other’s mutual benefit. The relationship of the ants, and the aphids, or plant lice, of Earth, is an example. The ants care for the aphids much as human beings care for and protect domestic animals. In return the aphids exude a sweet juice which the ants like; thus both kinds of insect are benefited.
“The thing in the pit was not just a huge, senseless mass of jelly, of which the Cereans made a god. It was the brains of the whole system! The more man-like creatures were controlled by it just as it controlled us—through the agency of the red flakes which it produced. Without the master’s guidance, they are inert, as you see. They have not enough intellect of their own to remain on their feet. The ruling entity saw through their eyes, and worked with their tentacles, inventing and building marvelous machines. Now that the entity is dead they will starve, for they have not the sense to feed themselves.
“BARRING violence, the master of Ceres was probably immortal; for, in spite of his wisdom, he had no complex organs to wear out. A few cells in his structure would die, but they would be replaced by the splitting of other cells.
“The entity was very old, and probably had seen much in his time. He and the lesser Cereans must have evolved on another greater planet, where their symbiotic relationship began, for Ceres is too small to have produced a native life of its own. Its gravity is too slight to retain external atmosphere and water. Perhaps that greater planet was destroyed by an explosion. Perhaps thus the asteroids were formed. If this is true, the entity’s science was alr
eady far advanced; he built this comfortable underworld. That, I think, is about as far as human guesswork can go.”
There was a moment of silence after the Professor finished. Ronnie broke it.
“The Cereans in the other caverns—they won’t bother us either?”
“I’m sure they won’t, lad,” Farnsworth replied.
“Two space suits are gone,” the boy persisted pessimistically. “Burned up in the monster’s hole!”
“We won’t need those suits,” the scientist reminded him. “There’s still enough to go around. Rogers and Hansen are dead, remember. We’ll be able to blast and climb our way out of here, I think.”
“Then everything’s okay?” Ronnie questioned, casting a scared glance about the shadowy cavern. “I mean—about what I did—finding that red stuff.”
“Forget it, Ronnie,” the savant laughed. “If I had found the shards I would have done just as you did. Someone would have found them eventually, I’m sure; for we were making a fairly complete survey of the substances that compose Ceres. The result would have been the same, no matter who the discoverer happened to be.”
Dave Iverness patted his young brother’s shoulder.
“You’re a real space man, kid!” he reassured him.
And Ronnie Iverness’ freckled face registered a grin of relief.
The End
***************************
Strange Creature,
by Raymond Z. Gallun
Science Fiction Aug. 1939
Short Story - 4010 words
Sabakko was a poor, dumb native of the planet Jupiter;
in a rightful revenge he killed Marlin, the one man who
could free that pitiful group of Earthmen from the
menace of an alien jungle!
SABAKKO was in a jam. It was usual for Sabakko to be in a jam; and so he wagged his long, shaggy ears in a gesture of apology, just as he had done so often before. His vast shoulders hunched submissively as he licked the blood from his pendulous lips; the gaze of his wicked, horn-lidded eyes wandered with mild concern from the mangled huddle of human flesh on the floor to the white visages of his terrestial companions. Sabakko fully expected that in a moment he would be forgiven for his latest misdeed.
But presently he began to be puzzled. The men around him gave no sign that they were in a mood to grant a pardon. In fact, expressions of dawning and fearful comprehension had come into their eyes. Except for the faint buzz of the air-purifiers here within the hull of the Traveller and the distant howl of a Gargantuan wind sweeping across the acrid twilight of Jupiter’s wild terrain, lying just beyond the Traveller’s external shell, there were no sounds.
Out of this comparative silence, and out of the austere glitter of instruments within the cramped interior of the great tractor-like vehicle, Sabakko’s primitive mind seemed at last to draw a shadow of comprehension. What he had just done was different from his more ordinary pranks and mishaps. It was more serious, somehow, than the upsetting of a cartload of radium ore, or the failure to remember that laboring miners need drinking water. Just why this was true was not clear to Sabakko; but in a moment his intuitive intimation was confirmed.
“My God!” one of the terrestrials rasped thickly. “The devil’s killed Marlin, the only man who was able to get us out of this hell! It’s the end of us!”
“As everyone here knows, Richard Marlin certainly deserved to die,” another stated defensively. The speaker was a tall, well-built youth named Mel Hawks. “Anyway, what has finally happened to him was his own fault. See that whip over there? And see those welts on Sabakko’s hide? No wonder the old fellow got hopping mad. I saw him chew up Marlin; but it all happened so quick that there was no chance to do anything about it.”
“Marlin deserved to die, all right,” the first speaker admitted. “He crippled the Traveller, the dirty crook, just so that he could get us under his thumb and snatch all the radium and actinium we’ve mined! He’s driven us like slaves. But that doesn’t alter the facts: he knew how to repair our engines; he’d have to do that eventually to get out of here himself, and he’d have to take us along as crew. We’d have had a fair chance of reaching Sadra or some other civilized place. But now—now we’re here until we—rot!”
“Kill the beast!” someone yelled, and others took up the cry: “Kill the beast! Kill this damned Jovian monkey! He’s doomed us all to slow death!”
SABAKKO watched the threatening tableau before him in bewilderment, his gigantic muscles, developed far beyond anything terrestrial, by a lifelong struggle with the ponderous gravity of Jupiter, relaxed. He made a little whimpering gurgle, deep in his throat. Considering his massive size, it seemed ridiculous—as ridiculous, almost, as if a volcano of the Dark Lands had made the chirping of a young bird. It was not a whimper of fear; rather, it was like the puzzled protest of a big, well-meaning dog that, knowing that it has displeased its master, is still not sure of the reason why.
“Don’t understand,” he complained in his mild, fragmentary English. “Sabakko don’t unnerstand.”
Being a native of the largest planet in the Solar System, Sabakko was at a loss to know how it was that these Earthians could be so fearful of the colossal natural demonstrations of Jupiter; her terrible hot winds, her crushing gravity, two and a half times as great as that of Earth; her vast lava seas, her gigantic storms; and the horrid monstrosities that grew on those steaming plains where the crust of the planet had hardened sufficiently to support life. All these things spelt but one result to human beings who were unprotected by the safeguards of their science. That result was death. Even the dense atmosphere, impregnated with volcanic vapors, was poison to them. But to Sabakko these were only the details of the environment which he had always known; and so, since he was only a simple savage, his puzzlement was understandable.
By judicious use of his tremendous strength, he might have swiftly subdued the fragile aliens who, maddened by fear, demanded his life. But he was too fuddled to do this, and the promise of destruction lashed out toward him like a bolt of lightning.
It came from a small pistol grasped by one of the men. The bullet thudded glancingly against Sabakko’s horny skull, above his right eye. Blackness closed in upon his mind and he slumped weakly to the floor.
Only one thing had saved him. Young Hawks had stumbled toward Sabakko’s would-be killer and had managed to strike up his pistol arm slightly, before the bullet had left the weapon.
Mel Hawks’ face was grim. “We can’t do that, fellas,” he said with quiet self-control. “Our Jovian here may be the only means we’ve got of pulling ourselves out of our difficulties.”
Resentful, unbelieving faces turned toward the youth.
“What are you talking about?” a white-haired old fellow demanded hoarsely. He was known as Stephen Montridge.
Once, not very long ago, Montridge may have been a civilized, well-groomed, and soft-spoken gentleman; but a short period in the dread environment of Jupiter’s Dark Lands, chasing riches along with the other members of this expedition, which was one of several that participated in the great radium and actinium rush, had changed him utterly. He was dirty and unkempt, and there was an ominous glitter in his squinted eyes.
MEL HAWKS was patient.
“Well,” he said, “here we are, a good hundred and twenty miles from Sadra, the nearest terrestrial settlement. In between there are several dozen interesting ways of getting a free trip to the Place of Harps and Glory. Besides, we’re a bunch of greenhorns. Two months back, until the easy-money bug bit us, we were just folks holding nice, safe jobs on Earth. None of us has sufficient knowledge to fix up the motors which our sourdough friend, Marlin, so effectively crippled. And without motors, the caterpillar treads of the Traveller won’t move. So here we are, stuck until our food gives out and starvation gets us, unless we can think of a way to cheat the devil. No call for help can be sent by radio, for this crazy atmosphere has too much static in it. So I thought that, with Sabakko’s aid, I
could somehow get word to Sadra—”
“Sabakko would be a likely one to get a message through, wouldn’t he?” Montridge rasped with bitter sarcasm. “In half an hour, he’d forget what he was doing and ramble off into the brush, never to return.”
Hawks grimaced ruefully and glanced toward the inert form of the Jovian. He knew that Montridge had spoken very close to absolute truth. Sabakko was a strange paradox. For a brief time, he could be fiercely loyal; but like many primitive beings, he was fickle because he was forgetful. Strong, instinctive urges could easily alter any decisions made by his simple intellect. Generally as gentle as a dove, he could explode into a fleeting fit of temper against which nothing known to man could be relied upon to prevail, except the mortal finality of some scientific weapon inflicting instant demise.
Mel Hawks nodded slowly. “I know, Montridge,” he said. “But, you see, 1 figure on going along with Sabakko, to sort of keep him on the straight and narrow.”
“You going along!” the old man scoffed wildly. “You couldn’t get more than ten or twenty miles on foot! Don’t you realize that it’s hell all the way to Sadra? Jungles, lava flows, darkness, storms! And then there’s the gravity—two and a half times Earth-normal. All I can say, Hawks, is that you are an imbecile!”
At this, Mel Hawks’ brown features whitened a shade, and he swallowed hard; he realized, without Montridge’s prompting, what he was up against.
“All right, you old fool,” he growled, anger breaking through his self-control, “You think of something! This is serious business, and if I’ve got to die, I intend to do it trying to pull myself out of this tangle. It’s better than just lying down and grumbling. I’ve got a couple of dim ideas; but if anyone here can make any suggestions that look halfway good, let him speak up!”
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