Part 2

Ward's impatience grew with every inactive moment.

"How much longer are we going to hide in here like scared rats?" he blazed finally. He paced furiously up and down the small room, glaring in rage at Halliday's stooped figure.

Halliday smiled nervously and removed his glasses. His fingers were trembling so violently that he almost dropped them to the floor.

"I can't even guess," he said shakily. "I was hoping that the monsoon would blow over, but I'm afraid we're in for it."

"You've been saying that ever since I arrived," Ward said bitterly.

Halliday was studying a _aerograph_ on the wall. When he turned to Ward, his face was gray. His lips were more tightly clamped than ever.

"If anything should happen to our front door lock," he said, "there's an exit we can use in the kitchen. Possibly you've noticed the small door beside the refrigeration and oxygen unit. That leads to a small room that can be locked from the inside. There are supplies there to last a week. I didn't tell you this before because I was afraid it might alarm you."

"Thanks for sparing my feelings," Ward snapped. "But I don't think I'll be needing your cosy little refuge. I've stalled just about enough. I was sent here to do a job and by Heaven I'm going to try and finish it."

He jerked his tunic from the back of a chair and scooped up his raytube and belt. Halliday regarded him in silence as he buckled on the weapon.

"What do you think you're going to do?" he asked at last.

"First I'm going to flash a message to Earth, asking that I be placed in command here," Ward said. He buttoned his tunic swiftly, and his eyes were cold slits of anger as he looked at Halliday nervously fumbling with his glasses. "I was sent here with instructions to find out what the delay was in getting the work done. I've found out to my satisfaction. You've done about one day's work for every month you've spent cooped up in here, trembling every time the wind howled. When I come back I'll have an authorization from GHQ to take over here immediately. Then you and I are going to work and damn the weather. If you don't want to cooperate," Ward slapped the weapon at his hip, "I'll use what force is necessary to make you."

"Please listen to me," Halliday said desperately. "You're impulsive and reckless and I admire you for it. Sometimes I wish I were more like that. But I know the situation here better than you do. We'd be running a terrible risk trying to work right at this time."

"Sure," Ward said, "We'd be running a risk. That's apparently your entire philosophy. Sit tight, do nothing, because there might be a slight risk involved."

He turned and strode to the door.

"Wait," Halliday cried. "You can't go out now."

Ward disengaged the lock with a swift deft motion.

"Who's going to stop me?" he asked.

Halliday crossed to his side with quick, pattering strides. He grabbed him by the arm and pulled him around.

"Please listen to me," he said imploringly. "I know what I'm talking about. I--"

Ward shook the hand loose and stared coldly into Halliday's, white strained features.

"You're gutless, Halliday," he said in a low tense voice. "Now keep out of my way."

He turned to the door again, but Halliday grabbed him suddenly and pushed him back.

"You're not going to do it," he cried, his voice trembling. "I'm not going to let you."

* * * * *

Ward grabbed the man by his lapels and swung him away from the door. He stepped close to him and his right fist chopped down in a savage axe-like stroke. The short, powerful blow exploded under Halliday's chin. His knees buckled and he sprawled limply to the floor.

Ward stared down at the still form and he felt an instant of regret for striking a man fifty pounds lighter than himself, but he realized that it had been the only course open.

He drew his raytube, inspected it quickly to make sure that it was in perfect order, then swung open the door and stepped out into the gray murkiness of the Martian atmosphere.

The wind had increased to a wild mad scream. Flaky particles of soil stung his face like myriad needle-pricks as he braced himself against the buffeting force of the gale.

He couldn't see more than a few feet ahead of him, but he knew the general direction of the building which housed the materialization unit and he headed that way, bent almost double against the wind.

He heard and saw nothing but the wild wail of the monsoon and the gray swirling murk. There was an awesome feeling in staggering blindly on through a dead gray world of howling dust-laden wind.

He felt as if he were the only person left alive in the universe. But he plowed stubbornly forward. There was work to be done and he felt a grim exaltation in the knowledge that he had enough fortitude to let nothing stop him from doing his job.

Hell! What was a little wind? This thought came to him and he smiled grimly. He'd show Halliday! He'd show 'em all! Nothing was going to stop him!

There was a peculiar crackling sound in the air about him, as if bolts of unseen lightning were slashing through the turbulent atmosphere, but he forged ahead. He knew there was little danger of an electric bolt striking him as long as he was out in the open.

The distance to the goal was not a matter of a dozen yards or so, but it took him fully five minutes to cover the stretch. He had trouble breathing; each breath was snatched from his open mouth by the fury of the wind. And his eyes were rimmed with dust and streaming from the stinging bite of the flaky soil.

When he reached the wall of the building he was sobbing for breath and blind from the whiplash of the wind. He sagged against the comfortable bulk of the squat, solid structure and wiped at his eyes with a handkerchief, but the wind soon tore the flimsy cloth from his fingers.

There was nothing to do but find the door of the building as quickly as possible. Using his hands as groping feelers he staggered around two corners of the buildings until his fingers closed about a door knob.

The gale was increasing in intensity; the roaring lash of the wind was wild and explosive, as if the floodgates of Nature had swung open to unleash this maelstrom of fury and destruction.

The sputtering crackle of electric energy he had noticed seemed to be swelling in volume, rising steadily in pitch and fury. And then a new sound was added to the hideous cacophony. Ward heard it faintly at first and it failed to register on his consciousness.

The new sound was an unearthly rasping noise that roared about his head and crashed against his ear drums with terrifying impact. The sound seemed everywhere; it seemed to emanate from the unleashed forces of the storm itself; its marrow-chilling, rasping moan was a demoniacal cry, screaming a weird defiance into the teeth of the mighty monsoon.

* * * * *

Ward, hugging the building, heard the rasping sound, and he remembered what Halliday had told him. Crouched against the side of the structure, listening to that weird, desolate wail of unnamable horror, he felt his heart thudding with sudden fear against his ribs.

The door of the building was jammed. He slammed his shoulder against its solid unyielding surface again and again--without avail! The harrowing rasping undertone of the crushing gale was growing and swelling--it seemed to be converging on him from all sides, a creation of the gray whining murk of the monsoon.

Ward's hand tightened on the butt of his raytube. He wheeled about, pressing his back to the wall of the building. His eyes raked the swirling turbulence of the storm.

And through the raging, eddying mists of gray his wind-lashed eyes made out dreadful, weaving shapes, slithering through the fury of the storm--toward him!

An instinctive scream tore at the muscles of his throat, but the wind whipped the sound from his mouth and cast it into the gale before it could reach his ears.

He crouched and raised his gun.

The shapes were vague misty illusions to his straining eyes. Then a blanket of wind swept over him, buffeting him against the wall at his back, and in a momentary flick of visibility that followed the blast, he was able to see the _things_ that were advancing toward him.

There was one nauseous, sense-stunning instant of incredible horror as his eyes focused on the nameless monstrosities that were revealed in the gray mists of the monsoon.

One instant of sheer numbing horror, an instinct a billion years old, buried beneath centuries' weight in his subconscious, suddenly writhed into life, as pulsing and compelling as the day it had been generated.

The lost forgotten instincts of man's mind that warn him of the horror and menace of the unknown, the nameless, the unclean, were clamoring wildly at his consciousness.

For these _things_ were hideous and repellent in their very essence. Whether they were alive or not, his numbed, horror-stunned brain would never know. The dry, rustling rasping sound that emanated from them seemed to partake of the same nature as the electrical energy generated by the monsoon, but that was only a fleeting, terror-strained impression.

The raytube fell from his palsied hand; but he didn't notice. There was only one blind motivation governing his thoughts.

And that was flight!

The unreasoning terror of the hunted, of the helpless, gripped him with numbing force. There was no thought in his mind to fight, to face these things that emerged from the dead grayness of the monsoon, but only a hideously desperate desire to escape.

* * * * *

Without conscious thought or volition his legs suddenly churned beneath him and he lunged forward blindly, desperately, lurching through the buffeting force of the gale toward the sanctuary of the building where he had left Halliday.

The rasping, nerve-chilling sound roared about his head and the lashing screech of the monsoon was a banshee-wail in his ears as he stumbled and staggered on, driven by the wildest, most elemental fear he had ever known.

Suddenly the squat structure loomed directly ahead of him, only a yard away. The door was standing ajar, and, with a broken sob of relief, he lunged into the lighted interior of the room.

Halliday was crawling dazedly to his feet as Ward staggered blindly through the door, his breath coming in great choking sobs.

"My God--"

Halliday's voice broke and Ward saw that his eyes were staring in horror beyond him, to the still open door where the gray swirling fury of the monsoon was creeping in.

And other _things_ were in the open doorway!

Ward knew that without turning to look. The horror mirrored in Halliday's face told him that more plainly than could his own eyes.

There was horror and fear in Halliday's face, but the tightness of his lips did not relax into the flaccid looseness of hysteria.

With superhuman control he was keeping a grip on himself.

"Don't move!" he snapped, through set jaws. "I'll try to get at the rifle."

Ward's heart was thundering a tattoo of terror. Halliday's words made no impression on the horror-stunned brain. He lunged wildly across the room, dimly he heard Halliday's sudden shouted warning.

Without a backward glance he lurched into the small room that served as a kitchen. Through the fog of terror that swirled about his mind, he remembered only one thing: Halliday's remark of a refuge built there for emergency purposes.

His fingers tore open the small door alongside the refrigerator unit. A black passage stretched ahead of him and he plunged into dark shelter, jerking the door shut after him.

A light snapped on when the door closed and he saw that he was in a small, stoutly reinforced storeroom, with bales of supplies and equipment packed against the walls.

He threw the heavy bolt that locked the door and sagged against a wall, his breath coming in deep shuddering gasps. There was no sound from outside. Gradually his labored breathing subsided and he stared with dull, unseeing eyes ahead of him.

And in that moment Ward Harrison came face-to-face with what he had done. In a single gleaming flash of understanding, he realized that he had bought his life with his honor.

A shuddering sob passed through his body.

He remembered with scalding self-hatred the things he had said to Halliday--a man who had endured the horror of this isolated base for three years. He had called a man cowardly who had more courage in his smallest finger than Ward had in his entire body.

Halliday had stuck here, doing his job, making no complaints or excuses, always aware of the horrible, soul-numbing danger he was facing.

* * * * *

Ward cursed and buried his face in his trembling hands. With bitter shame he recalled his jeering remarks to Halliday about his nervous habit of removing his glasses.

_God!_ Three years on this hellish base and the only sign a nervous habit of fiddling with his glasses. Stark raving madness would have been the effect on any other person Ward could imagine.

At that instant he despised himself more than he had ever despised any human being in his life.

And he knew that the worst punishment that would ever be meted to him, would be the mere act of living and being able to think--to remember.

With feverish eyes he glared about the room. A small leaden cask was set apart from the other equipment and it was marked with three xxx's, the indication of high explosive contents.

Ward dropped to his knees and pried open the lid of the small cask. It was filled with neat rows of U-235 pellets, hardly an inch in diameter. He picked up one in each hand and then stood up and walked to the door.

He was beyond thought or reason. He knew he was going to his death and he felt nothing but a numb sense of anticipation. He knew that in dying he would not expiate the crime of cowardice he had committed. Nothing would ever erase the stigma of that shame. A thousand deaths could not do that.

He did not actually think these things. His mind was wrapped in a fog of blind instinct. There was something he must do--do immediately. That was as far as his mind would go.

The kitchen and front room of the small building were empty and the door leading to the outside was open. The wild raging storm of the monsoon blew in the door, whipping papers into the air, resounding against the walls with a booming roar.

Ward strode across the room, bracing himself against the blast of the wind. He stepped through the doorway and the full force of the wind almost bent him backward, but he moved on, fighting his way forward.

After six feet, the building was lost in the grayness. He was again alone in a wild howling world of horror and death.

Then he heard the rasping noise of the _things_ directly ahead of him, and an instant later he was able dimly to make out their weaving shapes in the swirling mists of the storm.

They were coming toward him.

* * * * *

With a grim exultation pounding in his temples, Ward hurled a pellet of U-235 directly into their midst. The thunderous reverberations of the explosion rocked the ground under his feet. A terrific blast of air that dwarfed the raging turbulence of the monsoon roared about his head.

He staggered back, almost falling.

When he could see again, he made out a great hole in the ranks of the _things_ moving toward him.

His laugh was a wild cry in the fury of the night.

"Damn you!" he shouted.

His arm whipped back and the second pellet crashed into the serried ranks of the deadly rasping creatures.

Something grasped his ankle as the second pellet exploded. He fell backward, striking the ground hard. A hand grabbed his and then, miraculously, incredibly, Halliday was pulling him to his feet, jerking him toward the building.

They stumbled through the door together. Ward fell to the floor as Halliday wheeled and slammed the door, throwing the automatic bolts with the same motion.

Halliday knelt beside Ward.

"Good work," he said huskily. "They were holding me. I don't know what they were planning. Those bombs blew them into little pieces. Luckily I got through the blast all right." He gripped Ward's arm suddenly. "You came through too, son."

"No," Ward said dully. "I didn't. I ran out on you. I'm a fool, a yellow fool."

"A coward wouldn't have come back," Halliday said quietly. "We're going to lick this job together, from now on. We've found a weapon to use against the Raspers. I never thought of high explosives."

He grinned suddenly and the tightness was leaving his mouth. "It doesn't seem so terrible when you've got something to fight back with."

Ward looked up at Halliday and a faint smile touched his own lips. "Some_one_ to fight with, means a lot, too," he said. He suddenly grinned. "You've lost your glasses."

"I won't miss them," Halliday said. "I didn't need them. I wore them to give me something to do, that's all. But we're going to have plenty to do, now."

Ward swallowed with difficulty. He knew that in his wild, thoughtless act of heroism he hadn't redeemed himself. Redemption would come from a lifetime of playing the game the way men like Halliday did. But the chance was there for him, and he was glad that he could start immediately.

"Whatever you say," he said. He grinned, and added, "--boss."