Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/91

Rh some electrical current that gives them their life impulse. There's some sort of dynamo in them that's just as important to them as a heart is to us." Grimes stated.

Claude was somewhat taken aback. Grimes seemed to know more than he had given him credit for. He listened as the grizzled little officer went on.

"Well because of that electricity, which is a very real force, the body vibrations of the krickaks—when especially active—usually register here in the rayhouse on our instruments. It's not enough to affect our instruments unless they are especially strong in number and unusually excited about something."

Claude found himself looking again at the wavering needle.

"I haven't seen those instruments react as strongly from those devils in a very long time," Grimes said. "Something is afoot. I'll stake my heart on it."

OR a change, Claude Kelvin didn't know quite what to say. He opened his mouth and closed it, wordlessly.

Grimes was staring at him.

"What did you do when you ran into that krickak out there this afternoon?"

Claude gulped.

"I gave him a present, er, a token of good will."

"What was it you gave him?"

"Some whisky—a bottle of it—belonging to you."

Grimes glared in disgust. His fists bunched and he stepped forward slightly.

"See here," Claude said hastily, backing a pace, "I intended to reimburse you for it. I'll pay you this instant if you don't believe me."

"You blundering jackass!" Grimes spat the words. "I never should have let you poke your nose outside the rayhouse. Do you think the price of the stuff meant a damned thing to me?"

"Well, then," Claude said hastily, in an effort to dismiss the affair, "I don't see why you're making such a melodramatic fuss about everything. Surely a little whiskey, just a bott—"

"One bottle of whisky," said Grimes, emphasizing each word with ominous clarity, "is enough to make an entire tribe of krickaks crazy drunk for a week. One drop to a krickak can cause enough hell for two days' shooting."

"How was I to know—" began Claude.

"I shouldn't have expected you to know anything," Grimes said in disgust. "That was my mistake!"

Again Claude opened his mouth, ready to protest hotly. But Grimes leaped suddenly to the side of the flickering instrument needle on the panel. It was wobbling twice as madly as before.

Grimes' language was not delicate.

"See here—" Claude managed.

"Shut up," Grimes snapped. "Get downstairs and bring up a pair—no four—atomic rifles!"

Something in Grimes' tone made Claude wheel automatically and turn hastily down the spiral of the staircase. When at last he was pounding up the stairs again he had divested himself of the rest of his space gear and was bearing four atomic rifles.

Grimes grabbed two of the rifles from his hand.

"Know how to shoot?" the grizzled little space officer snapped.

Claude nodded mutely. Grimes shoved two of the rifles onto the railing before him. Then he reached out and threw a switch. The entire landing platform outside and beneath the rayhouse was flooded with light. The fringes of the jungle around it were also revealed.

And Claude gasped at what the sudden flood of light revealed. A swarm