Page:Amazing Stories Volume 07 Number 08.djvu/91

762 danger, turned his head. Instantly he saw the great cat behind him. But too late to save himself. The jaguar had already left the ground in a mighty, death-dealing leap, legs far outstretched, claws unsheathed, fangs bared in a ferocious, hungry snarl. It bowled over two of the Subterraneans and slashed at the third, ripping his throat wide open with its claws.

Taas tubes were sent flying. One of them landed within Bob's reach. Quickly he picked it up. He aimed both weapons at the jaguar and its tangled victims, but withheld the rays. He saw the great cat close its powerful jaws over a warrior’s crow-like face. There followed the dull crunch of splintering bones.

Frantically a slashed Subterranean tried to get his taas tube into place. But so ferocious, so intent upon the kill was the hunger-maddened beast, that he had no chance. A mighty paw sent him, still clutching his weapon, rolling aside from where he lay, blue blood oozing from his tom throat. Bob thought the beast had killed him with a single blow.

He watched the the ugly sight with a sense of relief and a realization that again he had been spared. He felt a sudden warmth in his heart for the jaguar that had appeared so timely to save his life. If he ever owed a debt of gratitude, he told himself, as he watched the beast settle down over two of the warriors to gorge, he certainly owed it to the big jungle cat he had helped Dr. Marsden trap and cage far up the Amazon.

Shaking inwardly from the strain of facing death, he turned away from the jaguar’s ghastly kill, knowing that it would not attack him while it gorged. Resolved now to visit the Scienta at the lake, hoping that Patti might have gone there, he pressed the buttons controlling his taas flyer, and rose slowly into the air. Without looking back, he guided himself away from the crater, over the tangled brush and up toward the summit of the mountain down which he had climbed with Patti not long before, unsuspecting what might lie at the foot of its perilous trail.

But suddenly a thin beam of blue light stabbed the space not a dozen yards ahead of him. So close had it come, so menacing and powerful was it, that he heard its sputtering hiss. It was like the hiss of a venomous snake. He kicked his feet frantically to change his direction of flight for a look back toward the crater. Far below on the crater’s rim the great jaguar was snarling over its kills. But just above it and rising fast into the air was a flying Subterranean. Bob noticed quickly, despite the distance and the blue gloom, that one of the injured warriors had some way managed to draw away from the ferocious beast and take the air. The warrior was rising swiftly, but drunkenly, as if he had lost control of his flyer.

From his taas tube shot another blue ray. It hissed closer to its human target this time. Instantly Bob realized that the jaguar-mauled Subterranean was trying desperately to destroy him in the air. Only the creature's terrible injuries had interferred [sic] with his aim.

Glancing down into the crater. Bob saw a score of pygmy-sized objects dart suddenly into space, rising toward the rim. Recognizing pursuit he quickly aimed his two taas tubes at the ascending warriors. Grimly he pressed the buttons. The weapons recoiled slightly in his hands. He saw twin-beams flick out of the tubes. Thin puffs of blue smoke took shape in the crater as half of the ascending Subterraneans vanished. Again he pressed the buttons. Again the deadly beams hissed forth on their mission of destruction. He found the air in the crater suddenly cleared of everything but thin puffs of smoke. He grinned coldly, realizing that at last he had begun settling his score with the gargantaun warriors of the Inner World. Another blue beam from the injured warrior hissed through the space directly above his head. The creature came on, murder-bent.

Editor, :

I received the July this morning. It is the first of my "subscription" numbers and I have not yet had time to read it although I have been lucky enough to secure a good many back numbers since I became aware of the existence of Amazing Stories. I am looking forward to a year’s enjoyment when my "Quarterly" comes through.

In my opinion you have no one to touch Dr. Smith as a story writer of the more imaginative type. His style is easy to read and holds the attention from the beginning — it may be a trifle "colloquial," but after all few, if any, normal people speak "correct" English. I would a thousand times rather have Seaton's striking, if rather pungent slang, than stilted, correct conversation. I was very lucky in managing to get hold of the three numbers of "Skylark Three" — some story! But only one number of "Skylark of Space" and one of "Spacehounds": I expect there will be no chance of completing the "Skylark of Space," but perhaps I might stand a chance of getting the other two numbers of "Spacehounds." I require July and September issues for 1931. I have written twice to your representatives in London asking if I could obtain back numbers but they preserved a stony silence on the subject. Please, Mr. Editor, if possible, do your best to let me have these two numbers — what I read in the August issue has only whetted my curiosity.

I also like Campbell as an author — his science is as good as Smith's, but his stories have not the same swing — and, after all, no matter how good the idea or plot behind the yarn, It must have that "something" which makes one forget time and place and wake up at the end rather breathless — Smith undoubtedly has that.

However, good luck to them both — and I hope to read something from each of their pens in the near future.

Dr. W. A. Gibson, 14 Hopetown St. Bathgate, Scotland.

(If you will follow up in our "Discussions" columns letters from correspondents saying that they have back numbers, we think you will have little or no difficulty in getting the "Skylark" issue. We like what you say at the end of your letter about the undefinable "something" that we want in a story. — Editor.)

Editor, :

Though I am a new reader of A. S., having read it for about two years, I just have to tell you how much I like the latest serial, "The Swordsman of Sarvon," by Charles Cloukey. It is by far the best science fiction story I ever read.

But the September issue is counterbalanced with the story, "The Romance of Posi and Nega." That story did not seem quite right. Perhaps electrons have life; no one can say they haven't — yet. But if so, their intelligence would be of such an entirely different nature than ours that it would be impossible for an Earthman to write a story in conversation about them. For instance, their emotions would not be emotions as we know them. What