Chapter 2

"Very well, sir," nodded Kincaide, swallowing his disappointment. I should have liked to have Kincaide with me, for he was level-headed and cool in an emergency--but it was because of these very things that I wanted him in charge of the _Ertak_.

"We're close enough now, sir, to select a landing place," put in Correy. "There's a likely spot, a safe distance away and apparently level, almost on the shore. Shall I set her down there?"

"Use your own judgment, Mr. Correy. You may order the landing force to arm and report at the exit port. As soon as you have made contact, you and Mr. Hendricks will report to me there.

"Mr. Kincaide, you will remain on duty here. I am leaving the conduct of the ship entirely to your judgment, asking you to remember only that the rescue of the _Kabit_ and her nearly two thousand souls is the object of this expedition, and the safety of our own personnel cannot be given primary consideration."

"I understand, sir," nodded Kincaide gravely. He held out his hand in that familiar gesture of Earth, which may mean so much more than men ever dare put into words, and we shook hands silently.

There were to be three landing parties of five men and one officer each--eighteen men against a creature that held a mighty passenger liner in its coils!

"I wish, sir, that I were going in your place," said Kincaide softly.

"I know that. But--waiting here will be the hardest job of all. I'm leaving that for you." I turned and hurried out of the room, to make my entries in the log--perhaps my last entries--and secure my equipment.

* * * * *

There are times, in setting down these old tales of the Special Patrol Service as it was before they tacked a "Retired" after my name and title, that I wish I had been a bit more studious during my youth. I find myself in need of words, and possessed only of memories.

I wish I could think of words that would describe the sight that confronted us when we emerged from the _Ertak_ and set foot upon the soil of that newly-born continent of Hydrot, but I find I cannot. I have tried many times, and I find my descriptions fall far short of the picture I still carry in my mind.

The ground was a vast littered floor of wilted marine growths, some already rotting away, while others, more hardy, or with roots reaching into as yet undried ooze, retained a sort of freshness. Crab-like creatures scuttled in all directions, apparently feasting upon the plentiful carrion. The stench was terrible, almost overpowering at first, but after a few minutes we became accustomed to it, and, in the intensity of the work we had undertaken, it was forgotten.

Progress was not possible on the ground. Sheltered from the sun by the thick growths it supported, it was still treacherously soft. But the giant marine vegetation that had retained something of its vigor provided a highway, difficult and dangerous and uncertain, but passable.

I remained with the party taking the most direct route to the unfortunate _Kabit_, while Correy and Hendricks led the parties to my left and right, respectively. We kept in constant touch with each other by means of our menores.

"I believe," emanated Correy, "that the beast sees us. I had a good view of him a few seconds back, and his head was elevated and pointed this way."

"It's possible," I replied. "Be careful, however, to do nothing to alarm or excite him. All men must keep under cover, and proceed with as little noise and commotion as possible. I'm going to see, now, if I can get in touch with anyone on the _Kabit_; with full power, communication might be possible even through the _Kabit's_ grounded hull."

"It's worth trying," agreed Hendricks. "These new menores are powerful."

I adjusted the little atomic generator to maximum, and replaced the instrument on my head.

"On board the _Kabit_!" I emanated, trying by sheer mental effort to drive the thought over that stinking waste, and through the massive double hull of the liner. "Ahoy the _Kabit_!"

"This is Captain Gole," flashed back the answer instantly. "Captain Gole of the passenger liner _Kabit_. You are from the _Ertak_?"

"Commander Hanson of the _Ertak_ emanating. How are conditions on the _Kabit_?"

"Ghastly!" I could sense the feeling in the word, faintly as it smote upon my consciousness. "My officers are keeping the crew under some sort of control, but the passengers are unmanageable. They are frantic--insane with terror. Two or three have already gone mad. I am on the verge of insanity myself. Have you seen the thing that has us trapped?"

"Yes. We are coming to your aid. Tell your passengers to calm themselves. We'll find a way out of this somehow. You know the motto of our Service."

"Yes: '_Nothing Less Than Complete Success!_' I have already issued a bulletin to the effect that I am in contact with your ship. I think it has had a good effect. The clamor is quieting somewhat; you don't know what a terrible strain this has been, sir!"

I could well imagine his mental state. The captain of the _Kabit_ was a Zenian, and the Zenians are too high-strung to stand up under a severe strain.

"It may help us if you'll tell us, very briefly, the history of your experience here," I suggested. "We're going up against something we know nothing about. Perhaps you can give us some valuable information."

"I doubt it, for there's very little to tell. Undoubtedly, you have the report which I managed to get through to Arpan before our radio emanation plates were put out of commission.

"Against my better judgment, we set down here upon the insistence of the passengers. The television instruments revealed nothing more dangerous than the small life in the marine growths left stranded by the receding water.

"I unsealed one of the exit ports, and a small party of the more curious passengers, under the escort of my second officer and six men, ventured forth on a little tour of exploration. A goodly portion of the remaining passengers huddled close to the ship, contenting themselves with souvenir-hunting close by.

"Suddenly there was a great sound of shouting from the exploring party. Not knowing the danger, but realizing that something was wrong, the passengers rushed into the ship. Helplessly, for we are utterly defenseless, I watched the fleeing party of explorers.

"For a moment, I could not see why they fled; I could only see them scrambling desperately toward the ship, and casting frightened glances behind them. Then I saw the thing's head rear itself from the slimy tangle of vegetation, and behind it the wilting growths were lashed to shreds.

"The head drove forward. My second officer, courageously bringing up the rear, was the first victim. Perhaps his bright uniform attracted the beast's attention. I don't know.

"They were close now; very close. I knew that we were in danger, and yet I could not bear to seal the port in the faces of those helpless men racing towards the ship.

"I waited. Twice more the terrible head shot out and both times a man was picked from the fleeing ranks. It was terrible--ghastly.

"The rest of them reached the ship, and as the last man came reeling through the port, the door swung shut and began spinning upon its threads. Almost instantly I gave the order for vertical ascent at emergency speed, but before the order could be obeyed, the ship lurched suddenly, rolled half over, and swung back with a jolt. As the power was applied, the ship rose at a crazy angle, hung there trembling for a moment, and then sank back to the ground. The load was too great. I knew then that we were in the power of the thing that had come wriggling out of that sea of rotting weeds.

"I got the message off to Arpan before our radio emanation plates were grounded or destroyed by the coils of the monster. At intervals, I have tried to pull away, but each time the thing tightens its coils angrily, until the fabric of the ship groans under the strain. We have heard you calling us, faintly and faultily. I have been waiting for you to reach me with the menore. You have come at last, and I am at your orders. If you cannot help us, we are lost, for we shall all go mad."

"We'll have you in the clear very soon," I assured him with a confidence I did not feel. "Stand by for further communications, and--are your generators working?"

"Yes. They're in perfect order. If only the beast would uncoil himself--"

"We'll see to that very shortly. Stand by."

* * * * *

I reduced power and asked Correy and Hendricks if they had both followed the conversation. They had, and had now reduced power, as I had done. We all realized that our counsels might not be reassuring to Captain Gole.

"As I see it, gentlemen, the first thing we must do is to induce the beast to leave the _Kabit_. And the only way that can be accomplished is by--bait."

"Exactly!" snapped Correy. "He's hungry. He knows there's food in the _Kabit_. If we can get him to leave the liner and come after us, the problem's solved."

"But he can run faster than we. I can hardly crawl over this slimy mess," objected Hendricks. "I'm ready to try everything, but remember that we've got to lead him away far enough to make him release the _Kabit_."

"I've got it!" emanated Correy suddenly, his enthusiasm making the vibrations from the menore fairly hammer into my brain. "I'll cut a long, narrow swath with one of the portable disintegrator rays; long enough to take him far away from the _Kabit_, and just wide enough to pass a man. I'll run along this deep groove, just below the reach of the monster. I can make good time; the serpent'll have to slash and wriggle his way over or through this slimy growth. How's that for an idea?"

It was daring enough to have some hope of success, but its dangers were obvious.

"What happens when you reach the end of the path the ray cuts?" I asked grimly.

"You and Hendricks, with your men, will be on both sides of the path, not opposite each other. When he passes, you'll let go your disintegrator rays and the atomic bombs. He'll be in a dozen pieces before we reach the end of the path."

* * * * *

Spread out here before me, in all its wordy detail, it would seem that a long time must have elapsed while Captain Gole related his story, and my officers and myself laid our plans. As a matter of fact, communicating as we were by menore, it was only a minute or so since Correy had emanated his first comment: "I believe the beast sees us. His head was elevated and pointed this way."

And now Hendricks, who was peering over the ruffled edge of an undulating, rubbery leaf of seaweed, turned and waved both arms. Disobeying my strictest orders, he fairly screamed his frantic warning:

"He sees us! He sees us! He's coming!"

I ran up the twisted, concave surface of a giant stem of some kind. To my left, I could hear the shrill whine of Correy's disintegrator ray generator, already in action, and protesting against a maximum load. To the right, Hendricks and his men were scrambling into position. Before me was the enemy.

Slowly, deliberately, as though he did not doubt his terrible ability, he unwrapped his coils from the _Kabit_. His head, with its graceful antennae searching the air, and the tentacles around his mouth writhing hungrily, reared itself ten times a man's height from the ground. His small red eyes flashed like precious stones. Beyond, the mighty greenish coils slashed the rotting weed as he unwrapped them from the _Kabit_.

I snatched off my menore and adjusted it again for maximum power.

"Captain Gole!"

"Yes. What's happening? Tell me! We're rolling and pitching."

"In a moment you'll be free. When I signal 'Rise!' ascend as quickly as possible to a safe distance. Stand by!"

"Hendricks! Be ready to follow Correy's plan. It's our only chance. In a second, now--"

The last coil moved, slipped from the blunt nose of the liner.

"Rise!" I ordered. "_Rise!_"

I saw the ship rock suddenly, and roar hollowly toward the sky. I felt the rush of wind made by her passing.

Then, head still elevated and swaying, the two great reddish-brown fins fanning the air like grotesque wings, the serpent lashed out towards us, coming at amazing speed.

* * * * *

Correy, sure that he was observed by the serpent, leaped down from the huge leaf upon which he had been standing. Hendricks and I, followed by our men, scrambled desperately toward the deep path or lane that Correy's ray had cut through the tangled, stinking growth. Correy's plan had given some promise of success, had we had time to put it into proper operation. As it was, neither Hendricks or I had had time to get into position.

Hendricks, on my right, was working his way as rapidly as possible toward the path, but he had a long way to go. Unless a miracle happened, he would be too late to help. The portable ray machines would be helpless against such a mighty bulk, except at close range.

I reached the path and glanced hastily to the right, the direction, from which the great serpent was sweeping down on us. He was less than the _Ertak's_ length away.

"Hide, men!" I ordered. "Under the vegetation--in the muck--anywhere!" I glanced down the lane to the left, and saw, to my relief, that Correy and his men were a goodly distance away, and still far from the end of the swath their ray had cut for them. Then, with the monster towering almost over my head. I darted behind a spongy, spotted growth, listening, above the pounding of my heart, to the rapid slithering of the serpent's ponderous body.

Of a sudden the sound stopped. I was conscious of an excited warning from Hendricks: "He's stopped, sir! _Run!_ He's seen you ... he--"

Startled, I glanced up--directly into the hideous face of the snake.

* * * * *

It seemed to me he was grinning. His mouth was partially open, and the pale, writhing barbels that surrounded his mouth seemed to reach out toward me. The long and graceful antennae were bent downward inquiringly, quivering tensely, and his small eyes glowed like wind-fanned coals of fire. The brownish fins were rigid as metal, the retractile claws unsheathed and cruelly curved. He was so close that I could hear the air rushing through his crater-like breathing holes.

For an instant we stared at each other; he with confident gloating: myself, too startled and horrified to move. Then, as his head shot downward, I leaped aside.

The scaly head raked the clothes from one side of my body, and sent me, sprawling and breathless, into the welter of sagging weeds.

I heard the sharp whine of my ray generator going into action, but I took no chances on the accuracy of my men. They were working under tremendous difficulties. As I fell, I snatched an atomic bomb from my belt, and, as the horrid head drew back to strike again, I threw the bomb with all my strength.

I had thrown from an exceedingly awkward position, and the bomb exploded harmlessly some distance away, showering us with muck and slimy vegetation.

Evidently, however, the explosion startled the serpent, for his head slewed around nervously, and I felt the ground tremble under me as his mighty coils lashed the ground in anger. Scrambling to my feet, I seized the projector tube of the disintegrator ray and swept the beam upward until it beat upon that terrible head.

The thing screamed--a high, thin sound almost past the range of audibility. Reddish dust sifted down around me--the heavy dust of disintegration. In the distance, I could hear the slashing of the tail as it tore through the rubbery growth of weeds.

With half his head eroded by the ray, the serpent struck again, but this time his aim was wild. The mighty head half buried itself in the muck beside me, and I swung the projector tube down so that the full force of the ray tore into the region above and behind the eyes, where I imagined the brain to be. The heavy reddish dust fairly pelted from the ugly head.

Correy had come running back. Dimly, I could hear him shouting.

"Look out!" I warned him. "Keep back, Correy! Keep the men back! I've got him, but he'll die hard--"

As though to prove my words true, the head, a ghastly thing eroded into a shapeless mass, was jerked from the mud, and two tremendous loops of tortured body came hurtling over my head. One of the huge fins swung by like a sail, its hooked talons ripping one of Correy's men into bloody shreds. Correy himself, caught in a desperate endeavor to save the unfortunate man, was knocked twenty feet. For one terrible instant, I thought the beast had killed Correy also.

Gasping, Correy rose to his feet, and I ran to assist him.

"Back, men!" I shouted. "Hendricks! Get away as far and as fast as you can. Back! _Back!_" Half dragging Correy, who was still breathless from the blow, I hurried after the men.

Behind us, shaking the earth in his death agonies, the monstrous serpent beat the plain about him into a veritable sea of slime.

* * * * *

From a point of vantage, atop the _Ertak_, we watched for the end.

"I have never," said Correy in an awed voice, "seen anything take so long to die."

"You have never before," I commented grimly, "seen a snake so large. It took ages to grow that mighty body; it is but natural that, even with the brain disintegrated into dust, the body would not die immediately."

"Undoubtedly he has a highly decentralized nervous system," nodded Hendricks, who was, as I have said, something of a practical scientific man, although no laboratory worker or sniveling scientist. "And instinct is directing him back toward the sea from which, all unwillingly, he came. Look--he's almost in the water."

"I don't care where he goes," said Correy savagely, "so he goes there as carrion. Clark was a good man, sir." Clark was the man the serpent had killed.

"True," I said. Making the entry of that loss would hurt; even though the discipline of the Service is--or at least, used to be--very rigid, officers get rather close to their men during the course of many tours of duty in the confines of a little ship like the _Ertak_. "But the _Kabit_, with her nearly two thousand souls, is safe."

We all looked up. The _Kabit_ was no longer visible. Battered, but still space-worthy, she had gone on her way.

"I suppose," grinned Correy, "that we'll be thanked by radio." The grin was real; Correy had had action enough to make him happy for a time. The nervous tension was gone.

"Probably. But--watch our friend! He's in the water at last. I imagine that's the last we'll see of him."

* * * * *

Half of the tremendous body was already in the water, lashing it into white foam. The rest of the great length slid, twitching, down the shore. The water boiled and seethed; dark loops flipped above the surface and disappeared. And then, as though the giant serpent had found peace at last, the waters subsided, and only the wreaths of white foam upon the surface showed where he had sunk to the ooze that had given him birth.

"Finish," I commented. "All that's left is for the scientists to flock here to admire his bones. They'll probably condemn us for ruining his skull. It took them a good many thousand years to find the remains of a sea-serpent on Earth, you remember."

"Some time in the Twenty-second Century, wasn't it, sir?" asked Hendricks. "I think my memory serves me well."

"I wouldn't swear to it. I know that sailors reported them for ages, but that wouldn't do for the laboratory men and the scientists. They had to have the bones right before them, subject to tests and measurements."

That's the trouble with the scientists, I've found. Their ability to believe is atrophied. They can't see beyond their laboratory tables.

Of course, I'm just an old man, and perhaps I'm bitter with the drying sap of age. That's what I've been told. "Old John Hanson" they call me, and smile as if to say that explains everything.

Old? Of course I'm old! But the years behind me are not empty years. I didn't spend them bending over little instruments, or compiling rows of figures.

And I was right about the scientists--they did put in a protest concerning our thoughtlessness in ruining the head of the serpent. They could only estimate the capacity of the brain-pan, argue about the cephalic index, and guess at the frontal angle: it was a terrible blow to science.

Bitter old John Hanson!