CHAPTER VI

They gathered in Sparks' radio room. That was due to the simple fact that, aside from themselves, only Sparks was alive on this side of the mutiny gates. The other officers were scattered--in the most grisly sense of the word--all over the place.

"Seven of us, if Silver's still alive," said Daley. "Eight with the girl. Why us? He could easily have attacked us in a body." Five of the dead officers had been found in a heap, just-used pistols in their rigid hands. Atomic force was obviously useless against the thing from the asteroid.

Pink said, fighting nausea, "All the senior officers are alive. We can run the _Elephant's Child_ without the eleven who died. Maybe that's why. Maybe we have to be preserved to carry this monster wherever he wants to go."

"Logical," said Jerry. "He'll have to be pretty persuasive, though. I hope he knows that."

Sparks said, "The radio's working. I had an answer from the _Cottabus_ that she's heading this way. _Diogenes_ hasn't replied; she must be further off."

"Evidently he doesn't care if the radio works," said Calico.

"Or else he wants the whole armada assembled," added Daley.

"I could use a drink," blurted Kinkare. "You got anything in this place, Sparks?"

"Gin on the shelf," said the radioman, pointing.

Kinkare picked up the bottle. "You always leave the cap off?"

"No! Somebody's been at it."

"Where is he?" asked Pink in a whisper.

"What, Captain?" Kinkare stopped the bottle halfway to his lips.

"Where the devil is the brute? We combed the place. He can't have got through the mutiny gates. He can't have slipped past our chain. Where the hell is he?"

"Maybe disguised as one of us," said Daley slowly. "He isn't a Martian, but he imitated one to the last pore. Why couldn't he imitate us?"

"Well, _I'm_ me," said Kinkare, and put the bottle to his mouth. Then he dropped it, screeching. Pinkham stared at him and saw his upper lip turned violent, hideous scarlet. Blood began to drip to the rug. The skin and flesh of his lip had dissolved as though sprayed with acid.

Kinkare fell to his knees, covering his face with both arms. The others sprang to help him, Sparks reaching for the medicine chest; but Pink snatched up the gin bottle. What the hell? Acid? Or--

From the square spout poured a gush of smoke, writhing sinuous in the bright indirect light of the small room; it coalesced, clotted into a body. Impossible, brain-boggling, an unreal fantasy amid the most concrete achievements of man, the thing swelled into solidity before the Captain's staring eyes.

He was eight feet tall, three broad; his eyes were brilliant vermilion, his swollen head was egg-bald, and the expression on his coarse features was at once lecherous, evil, savage and cunning. He was stark naked, completely humanoid. And he had come out of the bottle.

A voice boomed from him like a vocalizing cannon. "I object to anyone trying to drink me!" he roared at them.

In the reeling chaos of all his beliefs gone wild, Pinkham had one sane thought, and yelled it as fast and short as he could. "Don't shoot! For God's sake, don't shoot!" Then, as Calico and Jerry held their pistols partly raised, he said urgently, "We'll only blast each other. Remember this thing's invulnerable."

The pistols were holstered with reluctance. The five pale men--Kinkare still thrashed in agony on the floor--gaped at the apparition, which said, "I am Ynohp the Martian." Gargantuan laughter rocked him. "I am your god, Earthmen. Bow down to me!"

"Damfido," said Jerry, which was evidently all he could manage to get out of "Damned if I do."

"Drop your weapons on the floor," said the being.

Pink drew his gun; casually he sighted on the great head above him, and risked one shot, which had all the effect of a sunbeam; then he let the pistol fall. The others discarded theirs. The naked creature reached out a foot and herded the weapons into a corner. "You can't hurt me with them," he said, "but you might try suicide, and I need you. Take heart, mortals," he said, laughing, "you may get out alive!"

Then he dwindled and his lines blurred into ephemera and he slid out through the door, which was open perhaps an inch.