Title: Space-Wolf
Author: Cummings, Ray
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Space-Wolf" ***


                              SPACE-WOLF

                            By RAY CUMMINGS

               The lure of precious zolonite drew Morgan
             to barren Titan--to find a weird beast-empire
                ruled by a cold-eyed Earth-girl queen.

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                      Planet Stories Summer 1941.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Solo Morgan laid his small portable spectroscope on the rock and sat
down beside it to rest. He was panting, breathless from the climb up
to these precipitous heights, even though the gravity here on Titan
was less than that of Earth. It was night. The pallid little Sun had
swiftly set behind a distant line of jagged mountain peaks. At the
other horizon Saturn was rising, a monstrous glowing ball with a
foreshortened segment of the rings spreading in a great iridescent
flame of pale prismatic color across half the sky.

From here, Solo Morgan could just see the tiny blob of his one-man
space-ship where he had left it down in the hollow. "He travels fastest
who travels alone," had always been Solo Morgan's motto. But now at
the age of twenty-eight, a big, rangy, handsome fellow with curly,
crisp brown hair, it seemed to Morgan that he was somewhat a failure.
So far he had failed to strike it rich; and a single big strike had
always been what he was after. He set his jaw grimly as he thought of
it. Well, now was the time. There was a lode of Zolonite here on this
moon of Saturn. The spectroscopic evidence of it had been faint, yet
unmistakable. Doubtless it was a single, small concentration; Zolonite
perhaps in an almost pure state. Immensely more valuable than radium;
more valuable, than any other radioactive substance known to earth.

Morgan stood up, rested, to continue his climb. By all that he had
been able to determine from the faint spectroscopic bands, and the
intensity registers which he had so carefully used in that circling
flight around the bleak, uninhabited satellite, the Zolonite deposit
must be somewhere in this neighborhood. The radiometer had seemed to
indicate gathering strength as he climbed. Perhaps it would be beyond
this next rise, where now he could see a ragged plateau thick with a
lush, fantastic blue-gray vegetation.

He started forward; and suddenly from nearby there was a sharp crack,
an explosive report with a stab of yellow-red flame that mingled with
the iridescent sheen of Saturn's glow. And there was a ping, a tanging
whistle past his head with a thud against one of the nearby rocks where
a leaden pellet flattened itself and dropped beside him.

An old-fashioned bullet! Morgan dropped to the rocks, into a shadow
from which in a moment he cautiously raised his head. There was nothing
to be seen, except that from a distant clump a little spiral of smoke
was rising. What in the devil was this? Titan, so far as anyone knew,
was uninhabited. For a second it had flashed to Morgan that it might
be a band of space-pirates who had followed him here.

But an old-fashioned bullet-projector! Modern space-pirates would
laugh at such a thing! They had nothing but the most modern electronic
flash-guns, as Morgan himself in several classes could well testify.
Explosive bullet-projectors were museum pieces now. Yet here was one on
Titan, handled by somebody, trying to drill him!

Thoughts are instant things. Morgan was flat in the rock hollow. And
as he cautiously raised his head there came another crack. The bullet
thudded into the metal of his tri-cornered hat, knocking it off. Too
close for comfort. His flash-cylinder was in his hand. He sent a bolt
sizzling against the distant rocks. It hit nothing but the rocks; but
now, abruptly to one side of where he had struck, he saw a flutter--a
blue-white drape fluttering in the iridescent light. And in the silence
there was a frightened, startled cry. A girl's voice! In that second
she had dropped back into the rock-clump. But Morgan had seen her; a
white-limbed girl clad in blue drapes, with dark hair flowing down over
her shoulders.

Amazement was on Morgan's rugged bronzed face. But his grim lips
twitched into a vague, startled smile. Holding the metal hat-brim,
he raised the hat. A bullet thudded into it. Her aim was certainly
too good to trifle with! Cautiously he stared out over the glowing
iridescent rocks. There was no sign of movement; no sound save the
distant reverberations of the girl's last shot. Morgan quietly
discarded his equipment; his cylinders of synthetic food, water, the
radiometer and the big insulated leaden cylinder in which he hoped to
take home the Zolonite-concentrate. Thus unburdened he hitched himself
back into a deeper hollow. Then he stood half erect, with his gun
clipped to his belt, tensing his leg muscles for a jump. She might be
able to wing him in the air during the arc of his leap, but he doubted
it.

There was a rock-ledge some thirty feet away over a little chasm.
The crouching Morgan eyed it, took a few running, crouching steps,
straightened and leaped. His body sailed in a great flattened arc over
the chasm. There was another startled exclamation from the girl;
another explosive report, but the bullet went wide. Morgan, chuckling,
landed in a heap on the ledge, behind a little line of intervening
rocks. He could stand erect here, unseen by the girl. The line of rocks
extended diagonally toward her. Morgan ducked along behind them. He ran
perhaps a hundred feet, crouched down again where there was a break in
his rocky shield.

       *       *       *       *       *

He could see her plainly now. She was a huddled blob with a
long-barreled bullet-gun resting in a rock crevice as she peered out at
the line of rocks behind which his leap had carried him. He was much
nearer to her now; not over twenty feet. And he cautiously peered,
more amazed than ever. The pearly, glowing sheen of the Saturn-light
glistened on her skin. Her oval face, framed by her flowing black hair,
was set and grim, but he could see that it was a beautiful face.

"What the devil," Morgan muttered to himself. He had clipped his gun to
his broad leather belt. Still grimly smiling, he picked up a huge chunk
of the porous gray-black Titan rock and heaved it. The rock sailed over
the girl; fell with a clatter behind her. It made her give another
startled cry as she aimed toward the sound.

And simultaneously, Morgan leaped again--with a bound that carried him
back over the gully, and landed him almost at the girl's side. She
screamed, tried to struggle to her feet, with the gun jerking around.
But Morgan gripped the barrel.

"Easy," he murmured. "Don't get excited; I won't hurt you." He thought
that his tone, if perhaps not his words, would quiet her. And then she
gasped,

"You--you let me alone!"

She spoke English! Morgan was beyond being amazed at anything now.
He snatched the rusty old gun from her and tossed it away. She stood
docile within his grip, terrified, but defiant. She was younger than
he had thought, not over sixteen or seventeen probably. Her single,
blue-gray garment, he could see now, was tattered, frayed. It had
the look of a fabric fragile with age. It fell from her pink-white
shoulders to her thighs. A crudely fashioned animal-skin belt girdled
her slender waist. Leather thongs crossed her breast, modeling the
dress, and her long black hair lay there in a tangle. Her feet were
bare, with toughened soles from long walking on these jagged rocks.

"Let me alone," she was muttering. She stood swaying backward in his
grip, her dark eyes watchful, alert. He could not miss now the wildness
upon her, a weird mixture of savagery and civilization. She looked as
though she were figuring only how she could kill him.

"Well," he said, "I don't get this at all. What's your name?"

"Nada," she gasped.

"Nothing else? You speak English so you're from Earth. Now how in the
devil--"

She suddenly twitched away from him, but he caught her and again she
stood panting.

"Now listen, take it easy," he said. He drew her down to the rock, and
sat beside her, still holding her. "So your name's Nada? Well, Nada,
let's talk about this. But first, the main idea is, I'm not going to
hurt you, an' I damn' sure won't let you kill me. Get the idea?"

"Yes. I understand."

"Well, in a nutshell, I'm Morgan--Solo Morgan. Here alone. You might
want to call me Tom; that was my original name. I'm here looking
for a precious metal. I hope I find it, because it'll make me rich
back on earth. And the last thing I did expect to find, here on this
God-forsaken little satellite, was a pretty girl like you."

It somewhat startled Solo Morgan that his heart seemed beating faster
as he stared at her and felt her resisting arms within his grip. An
interest in the opposite sex had never been one of his failings. It was
completely contrary to his theory that he travels fastest who travels
alone.

But this somehow was different, startlingly different. "That's my
story," he finished. "Now it's your turn."

Normally, Solo Morgan always had been alert, under all circumstances,
to possible danger. But he was absorbed now. He hadn't noticed the
faint sound of flapping wings behind him, nor noticed the weird-looking
bird-shape which passed over his head, and vanished as it dropped down
into a rock-clump a hundred feet away.

But Nada saw it. Her gaze, like the gaze of a trapped animal, was
darting around the iridescent darkness. Her hearing, far keener than
Morgan's, heard a faint cawing call, as though a parrot were chattering.

She tensed in Morgan's grip. "Stop it," he said. "You can't get away
from me. What other name have you got besides Nada?"

"Nada Livingston. I was from Nairobi."

He stared. The name was vaguely familiar. "Dr. Carter Livingston?" he
murmured.

"Yes. That was my father."

       *       *       *       *       *

Morgan remembered now. He had been a boy of ten or eleven when the name
of Dr. Carter Livingston had been notorious all over the world. He was
a cracked old scientist living in East Africa. As Morgan remembered
it, Carter Livingston had had some theory that the wild animals of
earth should be protected from the cruelty of man. He wanted laws that
no animals should be hunted. Then he had gone to Africa, with new
theories that animals were only different forms of humans; undeveloped,
untaught, but with a latent ability for learning which no human had yet
recognized. Then there were rumors that in the African jungle, Carter
Livingston and his young wife had established a trained-animal zoo.
Wild tales. Parrots, with their pseudo-human vocal cords, not only
chattering English words, but putting a childish but human intelligence
into them. Apes that could mouth human words, and think human thoughts.
Then Livingston's wife had died, leaving him an infant daughter.
There had been some incidents of violence--Livingston's trained apes
accused of raiding a nearby Masai village, and killing some of the
black children whose fathers had been hunting wild animals in the
neighborhood. Livingston had denied the thing as fantastic. But the
British authorities had descended upon his animal-colony and cleaned it
out. In a rage, Livingston, with his infant daughter, had disappeared.

Morgan had been murmuring the story. "That was your father?" he said.

"Yes. We came here. He died just a little while ago."

Morgan drew in his breath. "And now you're living alone here on Titan?"

"Alone? Why--"

He heard the flapping wings this time. Startled, his hands dropped
from the girl's shoulders as he turned around. A great birdlike shape
was fluttering past overhead; a blue thing like a big flamingo. A
grotesque bird. Its body seemed feathered, but its huge wings were
naked membrane, pointed like a bat's. Its head was round, with a little
glistening skull and a great hawked nose.

"Caw--caw--coming, Nada--coming, Nada."

In that second Morgan sucked in his breath at the gruesome, chattering
cry. Just a monstrous parrot? It seemed more than that. It darted down,
swooping on as though it were about to attack. Then it suddenly darted
up, dropped back of a nearby rock.

"Coming--help--Nada--"

Its eerie cackled words still sounded. Morgan had snatched out his
flash gun. Nada was clutching at him now.

"Don't!" she murmured. "That's my friend. You--you must not."

Hairy shapes abruptly were materializing from the rocks behind Morgan.
He heard a low whining bark; whirled to see a monstrous, shaggy,
red-haired animal coming at him. It suggested an ape, yet was unlike
one. A large body on two long shaggy legs, with long, dangling arms.
A bushy tail, wildly swishing. A round head, with the shaggy red hair
dangling over its face where eyes were shining and a mouth was growling.

Morgan's gun flashed. But with a cry Nada had knocked up his arm. The
bolt went sizzling into the air, with its tiny crack of thunder rolling
in muffled reverberations out through the shining night. He had no
chance to fire again. The shaggy, oncoming thing pounced. Morgan was
aware only that behind it there were others like it. The shaggy body
knocked him backward. From its padded paws, fingers like claws came
out--bluish fingers like the hands of an ape, clutching at his throat,
strangling him. Then he heard the whizz of a thrown chunk of rock. It
cracked on his skull so that all the shining darkness burst into a
roaring glare of light in his head. Then the light swiftly faded as he
sank into the soundless abyss of unconsciousness.

       *       *       *       *       *

"You're better now?"

He was vaguely aware that cool water was running down his face from his
hair and that Nada's voice was softly murmuring to him.

"You are better now? Don't die. Tamo is sorry that he hit you."

His eyelids had fluttered up. He knew now that she was sponging a wound
in his scalp. And all he could see was a blurred interior, and the
blurred blob of Nada bending over him. Then her outline clarified. He
was lying on something soft, and she was sitting beside him.

"All right," he murmured. He grinned. "That was some crack somebody or
something gave me."

Her face lighted with relief. "One of my goths," she said. "He's
sorry.... No, you lie quiet now." He was trying to struggle up on one
elbow, but she shoved him back. Beside him there was a cracked old
china wash basin. The water in it with which she was sponging his head
was red with his blood.

"Guess I'm all right now," he muttered. His hand went to his belt. His
gun was gone.

"Just lie quiet. You'll be all right in a few minutes."

He was weak and dizzy; his body bathed in cold sweat. For another
minute he closed his eyes and she went on silently sponging his head.
He remembered now, vaguely, that he had been conscious enough to
realize that he had been dragged here by the weird red-haired animals.
It had evidently not been far. Dimly he seemed to recall that they had
plunged underground, where there were phosphorescent rocks to light up
the subterranean passages with an eerie glow.

He opened his eyes again. He could see that phosphorescent glow through
the window-openings here. He was in a room--a little grotto with
tattered, faded fabric drapes on its walls, a rug on its floor. And two
or three pieces of weird-looking, old-fashioned earth-style furniture.

Presently he was sitting up. "I'm all right," he declared. "Thanks,
Nada." His hand went to his head. "I guess it's stopped bleeding."

"Yes. I think so." She was gazing at him with interest now, and Morgan
realized he was the only man she had ever seen, except her father. Her
bosom rose and fell under the bodice of her tattered dress with her
emotion.

Morgan understood that faded, old-fashioned earth-dress now. They had
been her mother's clothes. And he understood the furnishings. He saw
now that a bookcase in a corner of the cave-room contained half a dozen
shelves of books. And on a rickety table stood a small portable sewing
machine; a hoop with embroidery; needles and thread and a garment in
process of mending.

Her little world. Solo Morgan gazed around him, from where he lay on a
camp cot, and was astonished at the thoughts he was thinking and the
emotion he was feeling.

"Tell me about yourself," he said gently. "This is your home, eh?"

"Yes," she agreed. She told him how her father had brought her up here,
how he had taught her from the books which he had brought with them.

Queer that there on this moon of Saturn, the wandering, embittered
Carter Livingston had found no humans, but an animal, bird and insect
life. Yet it was no coincidence, for Livingston had journeyed until
he found what he wanted. Himself an educated human, he would give
the animals the advantages he had had through the centuries of human
advancement. Breed God's creatures upward, some day perhaps to reach
the intelligence of man.

Morgan stared at the girl as she so earnestly described it. Rot, of
course. And yet that flying, flamingo-like thing had certainly talked,
and talked much more intelligently than any parrot. It had called
for help, and the red-haired ape things had come on the run. Morgan
grimaced with the memory. One of those round-headed goths had throttled
him with its ape-like hands, while another of them cracked him on the
head with a rock. He gazed around the room uneasily now, but none of
them was in sight.

"Can those goths talk, too?" he demanded.

"Yes. A little, but it's hard to understand. A growling mumble. But
they're very intelligent. You see, their life-span is nearly ten
years, so we only have a few generations that father taught. He said
that with use, the vocal cords and the larynx were getting more
adapted. Tamo is my best one. And he makes the others understand.
They're very gentle."

"With you," Morgan supplemented wryly.

"Yes. Cah called them for help."

"Cah? You mean that big bird?"

"Yes. Father bred six generations of his family. And nature made his
talking apparatus very adequate for human words."

"No argument on that," Morgan agreed. He was gazing through the glowing
window-opening of the cave-room. There was vegetation outside. It
was like a great lush subterranean forest. Gnarled, fantastic-shaped
trees with bluish vines lacing them together. Huge pods hung on them,
and monstrous pallid flowers that opened and closed their petals
rhythmically as though breathing.

       *       *       *       *       *

Gruesome damn things. Morgan was about to ask if what looked like
vegetation here might not be more animal than vegetable, when suddenly
his attention was caught by a little round red thing that was on the
ledge of the rocky window-opening. It was no bigger than the end of
his finger--a round, glistening, red-shelled thing with jointed legs
protruding from it. Tiny antenna were weaving in front of its single
eye, which seemed glaring at him balefully.

He made a startled gesture. "What the devil is that?" he demanded.

Nada smiled. "One of our insects. Father used to call them rollers. He
said on earth you'd consider them of the ant family. They're remarkable
little things. Well, I guess you'd say that about earth ants, too,
wouldn't you? Terribly strong for their size, with a nasty bite. They
build their own houses. They're highly organized, with workers and
leaders, and their own armies."

"And you can talk to them, too?" Morgan muttered.

"Well, no," she said. "Not exactly. But Cah seems to be able to make
them understand."

The little red-shelled, ball-like thing on the window ledge suddenly
hitched out a leg and rolled itself backward; then picked itself up and
scurried away like a tiny round crab.

"Well," Morgan said, "your father's theories, here on Titan--"

A sudden distant growl made him check himself. It was outside; muttered
growls, growing louder. He stared inquiringly at Nada.

"The goths," she murmured. "Something wrong?"

They came in a moment; two of the weird, round-headed animals, dragging
something between them. In the background a pack of the others lurked,
shaggy red blobs half hidden by the fantastic tangle of vines, their
peering eyes like little lanterns among the foliage and the pallid
flowers.

It was a dead goth which was being dragged here to Nada. With Morgan
after her, she ran outside. The huge dead goth lay crumpled. Its
companions were mumbling at Nada. Queer form of speech, half animal,
half human, so that the mouthed, snarled words of anger now, to Morgan,
seemed almost but not quite intelligible.

"What happened?" he demanded.

The dead goth's face was leprous. Burned into a noisome, pulpy mass as
though by a flash bolt.

"They found him, lying like that," Nada said. Terror was on her face.
"Something--someone with a strange gun of lightning, like the one I
took from you."

It was dawning on Morgan. Then a flapping of wings sounded. "Coming,
Nada. Cah comes."

The beaked-nosed, feathered shape of Cah came fluttering; landed by
Nada. Weird chattering bird. "Cah saw it, Nada. Men like this one.
Out beyond the tunnels, they killed Tagaro. Cah saw them. Cah sees
everything--"

It fluttered away, excited, like an imbecilic child, chattering with
its excitement.

Space-pirates! Prowling here, looking for the Zolonite. Doubtless they
had seen Morgan's little space-ship; knew he was here, and were looking
for him.

"They were outside?" Morgan demanded swiftly. "Out near where I found
you? Is that what the parrot-thing tried to say?"

"Yes," she gasped. "Oh, who could it be? Other earthmen here? You--you
said you came alone."

"I did. But I can make a pretty darn good guess who it is all right.
Nada, listen!"

The ring of goths here were all eyeing Morgan suspiciously with weird,
baleful eyes set in wrinkled, bluish, ape-like faces.

"Tell them I didn't do it," Morgan said hastily. "Tell them bad men did
it, if they can manage to understand that much from you."

Would the damned growling things jump on him now? "Listen," he added
swiftly to the girl. "That's a band of earthmen--space-pirates. They're
here to try and steal the Zolonite I came after. Nada, where's that gun
of mine you took away from me?"

"What--what are you going to do?" she stammered.

His eyes hardened.

"I don't want them to find you. Understand that!"

Morgan knew perfectly well what he was going to try to do--get the girl
out of here, into his space-ship. Zolonite or not, he had no intention
of trying to fight the space-pirates with this girl as the stake for
success or victory.

"Get that gun of mine," he commanded. "Hurry it now."

       *       *       *       *       *

The girl ran into the cave-room; came back with it. She was trembling;
white-faced. "Will--will they really kill you?"

"I hope not," Morgan said grimly. "We're not going to stick around
here and let them try it. Nada, listen: you show me the way into those
tunnels. Tell the goths to stay here, as they'll only complicate
things."

The goths were sullenly watching, listening. At Nada's vehement command
they slunk back, but they still watched Morgan suspiciously.

"Into the tunnels?" she stammered. "But why?"

He seized her arm.

"Yes. Come on." No use telling her that he was going to get her back to
earth. She might put up an argument at leaving her animals. He ran with
her, through the little cave-room, into a dim, glowing tunnel.

"This was the way you brought me in, wasn't it?" he presently demanded
as they ran.

She nodded.

"Yes. The outer surface, not so far ahead."

Good enough. He'd slam her into the ship and tell her what it was all
about afterward. The tunnel was dark, with just a faint eerie glow of
phosphorescence that seemed inherent to the rocks themselves. It was
a narrow passage, seeming to wind upward. At intervals, other little
corridors crossed it. Occasionally it widened into grottos. They came
to a large one with a jagged rocky floor, broken, rocky walls.

Here they halted.

"Not so far now," Nada was saying. Her face in the dimness was turned
toward Morgan, and she was trying to smile--a frightened, puzzled
smile. And suddenly he sucked in his breath. Her teeth were shining
with blue-green iridescence; luminous with a blue-green light streaming
from them! Radioactive, stroboscopic light! The treasure of Zolonite he
had come here to find. It must be here close at hand!

Morgan gripped the girl and stood still, peering around.

"What is it?" she murmured with new terror.

"Wait! I'm looking around for something."

And then he saw it. Zolonite in almost its pure state. The vein of its
out-cropping was a crescent curve diagonally up the wall; and beneath
it, shining chunks had crumbled and were lying strewn. Swiftly Morgan
stooped, gathered up handfuls, stuffed them into his pockets. Samples,
and then he would bring back a mining crew to open this up. And even
the samples would be worth a sizable fortune. But the space-pirates
wanted this, too.

Solo Morgan, at that instant, was not quite clear in his mind what he
would try to do. But the feel of the girl's pliant waist within his arm
as they ran, decided him. She was certainly more important than the
Zolonite.

"I'm taking you to my ship," he murmured suddenly. "Don't bother to
put up any argument now. That's where you're going."

He saw her turn and stare at him. They had come abruptly to the end of
the tunnel; the sheen of Saturn-light was on her face, shining in her
misted eyes as she regarded him.

"Taking me to earth?" she said uncertainly.

"I sure am. You can't live out your life here, just for a bunch of
weird animals."

"But some time you'd bring me back?" she murmured tremulously.

"Sure I would. Got to come anyway to mine the Zolonite."

Here was the clump of rocks where he had been when first he saw Nada.
His leaden cylinder was lying here. He stuffed the Zolonite samples
carefully into it. Sealed it.

"Now we go down the mountain, Nada, to my ship down there."

A sizzling flash with a tiny crack of thunder interrupted him. The bolt
from nearby sizzled over their heads as Morgan, with a sweep of his
arm, knocked the girl to the ground and flung himself beside her.

"That's them," he muttered grimly. "Keep down, Nada."

Another bolt cracked with a prismatic shower of sparks on the rocks in
front of them. Morgan and the girl were lying in a little depression
now, protected by a broken line of rocks with a cliff close behind
them. He could see where the pirates were gathered, at the bottom of a
small gully some fifty feet away. And then in the silence, an ironic
chuckling voice floated over.

"Got you, Morgan. No use putting up a fight. Toss out your gun an' we
won't kill you."

Morgan, watchful for the chance to drill one of them if he showed
himself, lay quiet with the huddled girl trembling beside him.

"Got your wife with you?" the voice drawled. "That who it is? Come on
out and let's have a look at her. We won't hurt her." There was a burst
of raucous laughter from the other pirates.

Morgan did not reply. His brain was busy trying to find an out.

       *       *       *       *       *

Morgan could see that there was no chance for him and the girl to move
from where they were lying. He had chanced a leap from here against
Nada's old-fashioned explosive-gun with its single small bullet, but he
couldn't take such a chance against modern bolt-weapons. The least move
would expose them in the full sheen of Saturn-light.

They lay still.

"So you just want to stay where you are?" the voice called. "Okay,
we'll get you."

They were invisible; but back down the distant little gully Morgan
suddenly saw the blob of a creeping figure; one of the pirates trying
to get to where he could chance a leap. Morgan tensed; raised his gun.
The shadowed blob moved again; straightened a little. Morgan's flash
spat its bolt. A scream mingled with the tiny thunder-crack, and the
blob leaped into the air, turned over and crashed down again, inert
upon the rocks.

It brought a fusillade of shots; but they splattered harmlessly with
a great shower of sparks on the blackened rocks. And suddenly the
trembling girl gripped Morgan.

"Look! Cah is flying over there." She pointed.

There was a flapping of wings in the Saturn-light. And the bird's
eerie, cawing, chattering voice. "Cah sees them. There they are!"

The excited bird's fluttering shape was visible. "Cah sees them! Cah
sees everything!" it chattered.

A bolt from one of the pirates mingled with its cries. The flash shot
up. The huge bird, its weirdly childish voice stilled forever, came
wavering down, turning end over end until it thudded heavily on the
rocks.

"Oh poor Cah," Nada murmured. Then she gasped: "Oh look! There by the
little gully."

The rocks on the upper lip of the small gully where the crouching
pirates were gathered were splashed pale-white by the Saturn-light. And
in the glow there now, a thin little red line was visible. A moving
line. It stretched back over the rocks, down into another hollow and up
again. Morgan caught his breath as he stared. It was a line of tiny,
moving red figures. Myriads of them; round things small as the end of
his finger.

The rolling, red ants. They came hitching themselves, scuttling; a vast
little army. And then he saw other lines of them converging on the
gully; marching grimly, silently to battle, summoned perhaps by Cah's
excited calls.

Breathlessly Morgan and the girl watched. The pirates undoubtedly
didn't notice the marching red hordes of tiny insects behind them. A
dozen thin red moving lines now. Silently but inexorably they crawled
over the rocks, down into the gully.

Then there was a startled cry. "What in hell!" And one of the pirates
incautiously straightened, his arms flailing wildly, his hands plucking
at his clothing, at his face.

Morgan raised his gun, but Nada shoved it down. "No need," she
murmured. "The bites of those red ants are quite poisonous."

Silently then, they stood and watched the strange battle.

It was a ghastly attack. Within a minute the space-pirates were
screaming, staggering. Half a dozen of their frenzied bolts went wild
into the air. And then they had flung their guns away, frenzied,
demoniac as they fought the swarming, viciously biting little insects
crawling upon them. There were four of the men. Morgan could have
shot them all as they staggered out into the open, but there was no
need. In another minute they were rolling in agony on the ground,
with yet more thin red lines converging upon them. And then at last
their blood-chilling screams were silent. In the Saturn-light they lay
motionless, red with their blood and red with the swarming hordes that
crawled over them.

Morgan was standing now, with the horrified, shuddering girl trembling
against him. The lead cylinder with its treasure of Zolonite was
clipped to his belt. But with his arm around Nada he knew that she was
the real treasure he had found upon Titan. He held her closer. Nobody
would ever be able to call him Solo Morgan again.





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Space-Wolf" ***

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