Part 6

One foot struck Komso's side. Barry felt something shatter beneath his heel.

Komso pulled up from his rush. He turned, unhurt, prepared to dive again. And then one hand went to his side, feeling through his clothing. His face went greenish; his jaw sagged. His eyes rolled and he screamed in utter despair. Barry was too startled to follow up his advantage.

Seconds passed, and then there was a whizzing, hissing sound moving through the water at tremendous speed. A streak of light. Barry barely glimpsed the shark-like creature that burst through the ranks of Komso's men. Straight as an arrow it came, ignoring those it knocked aside.

Komso's third scream broke in the middle, unfinished. Then there was only a spreading pink stain and a few remnants.

The dead silence that followed was broken by a yell of horror. Out to sea specks of light grew brighter by the second. Warriors and women alike milled in confusion, leaderless, and when one man started a panic-stricken dash up the slough, the others dropped their weapons and followed.

Barry hung in the water, still not comprehending, until Xintel shook him out of his stunned inaction.

"Quick, Barry!"

Her legs churned the water at top speed and she guided him with occasional touches. Once he glanced over his shoulder, and the glow around the slough's mouth disclosed huge black shapes gathering. Torvaks!

The girl swam close to shore where the water was thick and muddy and fetid with the reek of decay. After a while she cut her speed so he could come up beside her. No Venusians were in sight.

"His own curse!" she said.

Barry understood. Komso had been carrying a vial of his secret lure. Barry's random kick had broken it, saturating the priest's clothing. The beasts of the ocean had done the rest, and now, in addition, they had the smell of fresh blood to attract them.

"I've got to get ashore at once!" Barry panted.

Trapped between the electric barrier and the monsters prowling the slough, the Venusians would be doomed. With their leader dead, and ravening death at their heels, they would have forgotten all about attacking the colony, Barry hoped.

X

Once more they reached the spot where the tree lay at the water's edge.

"Wait here, darling," Barry said hurriedly, and climbed out.

He lay on the tree trunk a moment, coughing the water from his lungs. When he glanced up Robson Hind was standing there. Under his arms was a submachine gun.

"You damned degenerate fish-man!" he said.

Barry could only stare helplessly as Hind's trigger finger tightened. The man looked mad.

A shot barked from the swamp and at the same instant a slender arm from the water caught Hind's ankle and jerked. The submachine gun roared an unaimed burst as he toppled backwards. His head thwacked dully against the wood, and then there was a splash as he sank.

Barry stood up trembling.

A coveralled and hooded figure emerged from the swamp, carrying a carbine from which a wisp of smoke still curled.

"Barry, did I--?" Under the smears of mud Dorothy's face was pale.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"I saw him following your trail, and I guessed--"

A head broke water beside the log. Dorothy fired, but Barry knocked the muzzle skyward just in time to deflect the bullet. Then he knelt to give Xintel a hand up.

The Venusian girl cleared her lungs, rubbed one webbed hand across her eyes, then gave Dorothy a long, level stare.

"He breathes like you?" she asked.

"No."

"Good. Did she kill him or did I?"

"Is that your Venusian girl?" Dorothy interrupted. "And what are you two talking about?"

Barry switched to English. "Hell's still loose. Got to get to headquarters immediately."

He started off, looked back with a worried frown. Xintel had drawn a tube-weapon to match Dorothy's rifle. The slender, coveralled Earthgirl and the more fully curved Venusian, dressed in only a torn skirt, were eying each other like two alley cats. He could almost feel the crackle of emotion between them. He winced.

* * * * *

"It's murder if you don't!" Barry raged.

Captain Stanley of Ship Two was in charge of the slough sector of defense. He shook his head regretfully.

"Must have the approval of the other captains first," he said.

"Well, in God's name, get them!"

Barry strained his eyes, but the mist had settled down thickly. Only the vaguest hints of heaving, convulsive movement were discernible beneath the water. The air-masked crews of the machine guns and mortars and flame throwers set up to supplement the stun barrier were tense and jittery as they waited.

The radio handpiece crackled with static that drowned all communication, so Captain Stanley sent a runner to summon the others.

Anger and despair contended in Barry's mind. They would be too late. The heavy cables sprawled into the black water like great snakes, lifeless in appearance, but he knew the torturing forces with which they were filling the slough. And he alone of all the colony knew the full horror of the torvaks.

Through the mist he could just see the building where Nick had set up the switchboard, and he hoped he would be watching for orders. Otherwise--

With deceptive calm he walked to one of the flame throwers, snapped the latch releasing the bulky mechanism from its tripod, picked it up in both arms.

"What are you doing?" Captain Stanley demanded.

"I'm going in," Barry declared.

The watching men were too dumfounded to stop him as he ran downstream.

Through the mist he saw something move just below the surface. A Venusian woman, her muscles twitching in spastic convulsions as the electric current ripped at her nerves. And then a few yards away a shadow, misshapen and unbelievably huge.

Barry stopped, cradling the heavy flame thrower in his arms.

"Turn off that current!" he pleaded once again.

Without waiting for an answer he leaped.

The weight of the weapon took him instantly to the bottom. He sprawled in the ooze. He had miscalculated. A million fiends were stabbing with red-hot knives, and his muscles twitched and squirmed in insane convulsions. His chest was clamped in a gigantic vise that kept him from filling his lungs with the water that meant life.

But he was still conscious, still able to see the screaming forms of Venusians who, in their flight from the monsters, had ventured too deep into the charged area.

An ugly creature came toward Barry. It was shaking its huge body, but it was coming on nonetheless. Its scaly hide and low-grade nervous system made it at least partially immune to the electrical charge; its killer instincts forced it to disregard the discomfort. Through the reek of decaying vegetation Barry got a whiff of the acrid odor he had learned to identify as fresh blood.

He struggled to raise his flame thrower, but he was unable to coordinate his movements.

And then at the last possible moment the twitchings of his body ceased. Someone, Captain Stanley or Nick, had pulled the main switch.

He brought the nozzle of the flame thrower around. Flame blossomed and ricocheted through the water in burning globules. Concussion and shock wave threw him face down in the mud, dazzled and deafened.

He picked himself up, gagging and retching at the taint of charred flesh. The creature was still twitching in its death throes, stirring the water to opacity. Through the silt Barry could see several Venusian survivors moving feebly.

"Follow me!" he yelled, fearful that at any instant the current would be turned on again.

Then he went down the slough in great leaping bounds while a howling lust to kill mounted within him. The flame thrower, designed to be used from a fixed mount, made a clumsy burden in his arms. Monsters, dozens of them of all sizes and shapes, had come to kill. They remained to be killed instead.

Time after time the flame thrower sent its blazing cone licking forth. The water grew thick and uncomfortably hot, but little by little he cleared a path to the sea.

Once he looked back. The Venusians were following, and on each face was a look of adoration. Barry knew then he had made himself the new leader of Tana. They crowded close, anxious to get away from the bewitched waters. He motioned them to keep a safe distance.

And then suddenly he reached open water and the last of the monsters died in fire. Barry looked down at the pressure gauges. The tanks were empty.

The Venusians gathered around but kept a respectful distance from his person.

"Get back to Tana, all of you!" he commanded. "Remain there until either Xintel or I tell you otherwise!"

Without further questioning they obeyed.

* * * * *

He would have missed the half submerged tree entirely except for something white on the bottom, something from which small carrion-eaters scuttled at his approach. Hind's skeleton, already half buried in the ooze. Gunshot or drowning? Dorothy or Xintel? What matter?

The two women were still watching each other warily on the bank. But, he saw with relief, they had laid their weapons aside.

Together, each in her own language, they bombarded him with questions.

He managed a faint smile although the skin of his face felt stiff and scorched from the flame thrower's heat.

"No war," he said.

That should have finished it, and all he wanted now was rest.

But again they spoke at once. Their languages were different but their meanings were the same.

"Barry, I want to talk to her."

Wearily he slumped down, nodding.

But as the conversation progressed he fidgeted uneasily. With the amazing frankness of two strong-willed females, they were settling his future while he translated. It was like a distorted dream.

They finally reached an agreement. Neither liked it entirely, but both were unselfish enough to consider Barry's welfare. And both were realists.

Barry blinked and blushed as he translated, but could not suppress a feeling of relief.

"I really don't mind--too much," Dorothy addressed him directly. "But if you ever tell anyone up here you're still carrying on with this bare breasted fish-girl I swear you'll be sorry."

Xintel spoke. "I understand. She is of your own people. But please, Barry, those of Tana do not need to know."

Dorothy and Xintel were watching him, waiting for his answer.

Two women in his life, both determined to remain. Either they would resent each other, and through jealousy, make his life hell, or they would become firm friends. He could easily become the most henpecked man on all Venus. But to choose between them--

Well, boredom was one thing he need never fear.

He nodded.

* * * * *

[Transcriber's Note: No Section VII heading in original text.]