Part 3

Then, with his hand on the ice pistol's butt, his eyes on the raging bat slowly nearing below, an idea flared in his head that brought him to his feet like an electric shock.

* * * * *

Quickly, he headed the plane down toward the bat, set automatic pilot. Then, fingers flying, he ripped a wire from the control panel, looped one end through his pistol's trigger guard, the other end through his belt. Then he ran to the door.

Standing in the air lock, he forced the outside door against the wind. He looked down at the cable, caught firmly on the hook, dangling under the plane. He reached out, got his hand on the cable and swung out over the jungle far below. The door clanged shut behind him.

He started down the cable hand over hand. Guided by the automatic pilot, the ship moved slowly ahead. He got down the cable and into the dangling tree.

It was like climbing a tree in a cyclone as he fought his way through the branches to a limb he could lock his legs around. Then, with a scissors hold on the limb, he sat upright and drew the ice pistol from its holster.

Down below, the bat had smashed a wide area of trees and was hunting Greeno and Karen like mice in the tall grass. When it heard the plane, it twisted up, circled suspiciously. The tree and the cable confused it for a moment. But only for a moment. Then its tiny brain sent it toward its persistent enemy, the plane.

It came by so close and its hairy mass was so immense, Flint caught his breath. There was nothing to aim at with a pistol. It was too big. He just pointed the gun at the expanse of hair and pulled the trigger as fast as he could work his finger.

Instantly, one great wing of the creature went rigid. It was the wing nearest Flint and the bat slid that way. The black mass of hair, each hair a full yard long, swept upon him. The branches of the tree caved in. The cable was snatched from the plane. Flint clawed at the monster's side blindly. He caught a handful of hair. The bat flailed the air wildly with its other wing, a hundred tons of solid flesh falling--

Then the whole world exploded around Flint. Tree trunks cracking, green vegetation whirling past him, then a stunning thud as the bat struck the ground, shaking the whole forest.

Like a man fleeing some horror in a nightmare, Flint tore his way through the stalks of hair, leaped to the ground and ran into the jungle.

When he finally stopped running, safely away from the bat's hammering wings and claws, he saw he was now permanently safe. It had beaten its good wing to shreds in the trees. When the effect of the ice gun wore off, it wouldn't be able to fly.

Slowly, Flint grinned. He glanced down, saw his ice pistol dangling the length of its wire against his knee. Almost tenderly, he picked it up, untied the wire, and stuck the gun into its holster.

Greeno and Karen ran toward him through the woods. Their faces were scratched, their clothes in tatters. Karen's feet were bare; she had lost her shoes, removed her stockings. Her hair was tangled, a raven mop on her half-bare shoulders.

She seemed on the verge of collapse but her cheeks and eyes, despite the weariness of her grim experience, glowed. Today's excitement had completely displaced her cultivated pose of boredom by the fresh beauty of a jungle flower.

And it had done something to Flint too. He ran to meet them, caught the girl as she fell toward him. "Are you all right?"

She was too breathless to speak. "We all right," Greeno said. "But almost weren't." He held out his arm. From shoulder to wrist was a wide deep scratch, a claw mark.

Then the sudden sound of rockets turned all their faces skyward. High over the trees, circling lower, came three patrol planes and Flint's ship.

Flint's fingers tightened on the girl's arm. "Greeno," he said, "we have to get out of here, hide in the woods." He said it sadly, tired of the game now. He had forgotten it wasn't over. He looked down into the girl's face. "Miss Vaun," he said quickly, "this was all my fault. I won't ask you to forgive me but I want you to know I'm sorry, not for trying to do what I could to protect the feather-deer, but because this business came so close to ending in a tragedy much worse than your slaughtering them all."

He dropped his hands, turned to the jungle. Greeno was standing at the edge of the woods, waiting for him. He started walking slowly.

Then suddenly he turned, came back to the girl quickly. "Might as well be shot for a sheep as a lamb," he said. He put a hand under her chin, kissed her soundly on the lips, then ran toward the woods.

When he was halfway there, he heard her cry, "Mr. Flint! Wait!" It occurred to him that she probably didn't even know his first name. He didn't look back. And Miss Karen Vaun did a very strange thing.

She had one hand behind her as Flint ran away. Now she brought it forth and in it was Flint's own ice pistol. She raised it, took careful aim and pulled the trigger.

Flint's legs stopped in midstride, knees bent one before the other, like a stop-motion movie. He sprawled forward.

Before he could get up, the girl was beside him. She sat down on his back, pinning him to the ground. "Next time you kiss a girl without knowing whether she wants to be kissed or not," she said, "hang onto your gun."

Then the police, with Hudson and Leggett, were crowded around them.

"Are you all right, Miss Vaun?"

Flint lay there feeling very foolish.

But the girl ignored the crowd, still talking to him, "You didn't know I was an ice pistol expert, too, did you? You didn't know I was in the fur business because my father used to be a trapper on Venus. When I was twelve years old, I could bring down a tigodon at a half a mile."

The beefy-faced patrolman, his nose bandaged now, said, "If you'll get up, Miss Vaun, we'll take care of him now."

The others were staring at the space bat, flopping about feebly a short distance away, its awful strength spent.

"Leggett," the fur merchant said to the lawyer, "think what a _rug_ that would make for the firm's front office!"

"Miss Vaun can also come into a nice bit of cash from that circus for it," one of the other patrolmen said. "This is her land--or soon will be--and the bat's on it. Where Flint's going, he won't be able to claim anything."

The big patrolman helped Karen up. Flint stumbled to his feet. The patrolman grabbed him by the collar, roughly. "Come along, kidnapper," he said.

Karen Vaun stared at the patrolman blankly. "_Kidnapper?_"

* * * * *

The patrolman frowned. "Certainly, Miss Vaun. Don't you know this guy engineered the whole business--having you taken off his plane? He and that Venusian were going to hold you for ransom."

Karen shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "Greeno was merely bringing me out to look at these planetoids while Mr. Flint went to get his big guns for the bat. Kidnapper? Preposterous! Mr. Flint and I are buying these planetoids _together_."

"What!" Leggett and Hudson said the word simultaneously. And they seemed the only ones in the crowd who could speak. "Together!" Leggett said weakly. "Why this area is a million dollar investment!"

"Two million," Karen said. She took Flint's hand, he standing there as dumbfounded as the rest. "Mr. Flint's going to contribute a million of his own from the sale of the bat. We're going to raise feather-deer here. It would be bad business to kill them all off." She paused, surveying the crowd as if daring anybody to disagree with her. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll get back to Saturn. We have business to discuss." Then she glanced toward the jungle. "Greeno!" she called. "Aren't you coming with us? If you're going to be foreman around our feather-deer ranch, you've got to be in on the conferences."

Greeno stepped out of the shadows, a faint smile softening his stony face. "Attend later conferences," he said. "From what is in your thoughts, don't think I should attend this one."

Karen Vaun blushed, then led Flint quickly away toward his plane.