terminals and removed bodily. Without that
“No telling what we’ll run into out
anode-bar it was impossible to even start the there,” he commented, “so we’d better go well ship’s propulsion ray generators.
prepared. Remember what happened to
Larsen silently heaped maledictions Yokku’s first visitors. Three of them were upon the absent Martian’s head, as he realized never heard from again, and the fourth
what had happened. With drug-inspired returned to Mars a raving madman.”
cunning, Dalo Yok had made sure that no one
“What about one of us staying here on
would move the ship in his absence. Wherever
guard in case Dalo Yok circles back to the
the Martian now was, the anode-bar was with
ship?” Wheeler asked.
him.
“No use doing that,” Larsen decided.
Wheeler stepped back in through the
“Finding that lunatic will be a two-man job,
Amazing Stories
6
I’m afraid. He can’t move the ship if he does hue. Yokku’s sky, save in the direct vicinity of circle back here. Any fool can dismantle that the sun-arch, was a dark gray-black in which
anode-bar, but it requires an expert to set it the stars shone clearly visible.
properly in place again. Dalo Yok couldn’t get Larsen glanced swiftly at the stars and
it adjusted right in less than a week, even if his saw that Wheeler’s first report had been
wits weren’t hopelessly muddled with luhna.
correct. There was no doubt that they were on Come on, let’s go.”
Ran Yok’s lost sun. That glowing yellow star
Stepping out through the air-lock, they
down near the horizon was their own sun, now
swung the heavy outer port shut and locked it so far distant that it did not show as a disc to behind them, to keep any possible invaders
the naked eye. Small wonder that Yokku had
out of the ship during their absence. Larsen
never been discovered telescopically. Its
caught his breath as he saw for the first time gravity indicated that it was very little larger the starkly brilliant beauty of the scene around than earth itself. It was doubtful if the
them. Like Saturn, Yokku was surrounded by
telescopes of Earth or Mars could discern that a giant ring, but Yokku’s ring was one of
tiny radiant speck so far out in space even if pulsing fire. Squarely overhead the great sun-they were trained directly on its position.
arch swept from horizon to horizon in a
With every step the men took toward
rainbow ribbon of shimmering flame, with
the cliffs, they were impressed anew with the alternate stripes of livid blue, emerald green, utter strangeness of the flora and fauna around and golden yellow.
them. The seemingly fragile stems and
The
Falcon had landed near the edge
feathery fronds of the gray vegetation proved of a vast level area of sparkling white sand
upon contact to have the unyielding hardness
that was dotted here and there by clumps of
of hammered metal. There was the same
gray feathery vegetation. Some two hundred
striking metallic suggestion everywhere in the yards away a range of high cliffs rose, jagged life that teemed in the thickets.
and sheer from the plain, in titanic masses of Crab-like crustaceans with armored
crystalline stone, whose naked surfaces backs that sparkled as though encrusted with gleamed like giant sapphires under the vari-flakes of mica, clambered with spidery legs
colored rays of the sun-arch overhead. Nearly about through the branches. Through the tops
opposite the Falcon’s position the towering of the thickets weirdly beautiful flying things ramparts were briefly broken in a narrow pass drifted in graceful flight, looking like golden that gashed straight back into the range.
nuggets set in the center of gossamer webs of Wheeler pointed to where the hundred-spun silver.
foot walls towered on either side of the narrow Scores of small lizard-like quadrupeds
portal. “Dalo Yok went through there,” he
scampered over the sand under the gray
said. “He hasn’t over ten minutes’ start on us bushes, with chunky bodies whose rough
at the most. With any luck at all, we ought to surfaces glittered dully like living nuggets of catch him.”
copper. The manner in which the brutes fed
They started out across the fine white
was spectacular proof of how utterly different sand of the plain. Not a frond of the feathery Yokku’s life forces were from those of planets vegetation stirred in the still, dry air, and there in the solar system.
was not the faintest trace of a cloud in the
Set in the center of the bulging
arch-lit sky overhead. Even the air seemed
foreheads on the lizard-thing’s hideous heads devoid of the tiny dust particles that give
was a triangular group of three slender rod-
planetary skies of the solar system their azure like antennae. When a certain frond of the
The Flame-Worms of Yokku
7
gray vegetation was selected to be devoured,
white sand, that cut straight back for nearly strange pencil-beams of pale light shot from
two hundred feet before opening into another
the tips of the antennae, one ray blue, another valley. Near the center of the pass its
yellow, and the third green. As the rays came narrowness was accentuated by a great
to a focus on the bit of vegetation a swift and overhanging area that bulged out from one of
startling reaction occurred. The vegetation the side walls until it more than half closed the glowed in fiery incandescence for a brief space overhead. Wheeler and Larsen passed second, then vanished in a small dense cloud
the overhanging area, and another sixty feet
of swirling oily black vapor shot through with brought them to the other end of the pass.
leaping tongues of scarlet flame.
Before them was a circular shaped level
Abruptly the rays from the antennae
valley, approximately a quarter of a mile in
ceased, and the black vapor swiftly thickened diameter, and almost completely walled in by
and coalesced into a shapeless blob of viscid the jagged mountains that rose in glittering
ebony. A long slender tongue, three-pronged
splendor on every side.
at the tip in grotesque parody of a hand, darted Their first glance showed them that if
forth from the lizard-things mouth and Dalo Yok were still within the valley he was snatched the molten black lump with it as it
safely trapped. The only exit from the place
returned and the bony jaws again snapped
was through the pass itself. On every other
shut.
side mighty cliffs of sapphire crystal arose
The sight recalled to the minds of the
sheer and naked for hundreds of feet.
men with new force the words Ran Yok had
They searched the valley floor without
screamed in his last delirium. With the seeing any trace of the Martian among the existence of Yokku itself already proved to be many masses of vari-colored crystalline
actual fact, there was no reason to doubt that boulders that littered the white sand. Then as Ran Yok had also spoken truth when he had
they emerged from the shelter of the pass and screamed his horror of the mysterious started forward, Dalo Yak made his presence monsters he had called “Flame-worms—giant
known with startling suddenness.
flame-worms
of Yokku.”
They were barely clear of the walls of
Wheeler and Larsen searched their the pass, when there came the crashing surroundings with redoubled vigilance as they explosion of a nitrolite bullet against the cliff neared the crystalline blue cliffs, but they saw so near them that they were flung to the
nothing more formidable than new droves of
ground half dazed by the concussion.
the small lizard-creatures that fled in blind Scrambling madly to their feet, they
panic as they approached. Then they entered
succeeded in gaining the shelter of a rock heap the pass and for the moment forgot all thought just as another bullet burst close behind them.
of Ran Yok’s flame-worms as they
From their shelter they soon located
concentrated their full attention on the Dalo Yok’s position among the jagged litter of problem immediately at hand. Somewhere on
a high heap of rocks near the valley’s center.
the other side of that narrow pass through the
“It shouldn’t be hard to drive him out
cliffs was wandering a hopelessly crazed of there,” Larsen commented confidently.
Martian, carrying with him in his blind flight a
“You stalk him from this side. I’ll take the
tiny bit of metal that represented their only other. Whatever you do, be careful not to
chance of ever leaving this sinisterly beautiful make a direct hit on him. If that anode-bar
world of metal lizards and crystal mountains.
ever caught the full blast of a nitrolite bullet it The gap was a thirty-foot-wide strip of
would be wrecked beyond possible repair.
Amazing Stories
8
We’ll just have to keep trimming the corners
huge green boulder that rose from the sand
around him till we get a shot close enough to near Dalo Yok, disaster struck with
stun him. Let’s go.”
bewildering swiftness.
A swift fusillade of nitrolite against
Before Larsen’s startled eyes the great,
Dalo Yok’s position drove the Martian to green boulder for one flashing moment came cover, where he lay long enough for Wheeler
to life! Its jade front gaped open, releasing and Larsen to dart from their own shelter and blood-red tentacles that lashed out and
begin stalking their quarry. Skilled veterans enveloped Wheeler before he could move. The
that they were in a score of similar battles
crimson tissues instantly snapped back inside upon foreign planets, they set about their task the cavity with their prisoner, and the crystal with a methodical efficiency, against which
front of the boulder again clicked shut like the the luhna-crazed Martian had little chance.
closing jaws of a steel trap. The entire incident Wheeler worked along the left wall of
occurred with a lighting speed that stunned
the cliffs, Larsen along the right. Dodging
Larsen.
from cover to cover, coordinating their attack A moment of mad racing over the sand
perfectly to help each other’s progress, they brought him to where the great block of
swiftly flanked the Martian and drove him
opaque green crystal towered as stonily
from one rock heap to another, inexorably
motionless as it had been before Wheeler was
driving him near and nearer the barrier cliffs engulfed. Roughly oblong in shape and
at the valley’s rear. Dalo Yok’s answering
towering upward nearly eight feet, the thing
shots were wild, inaccurate efforts that did no looked somewhat like a great, jade coffin
damage other than occasionally to shower one
standing on end. Long ribbons of what seemed
of his attackers with flying sand and rock
to be dried vegetation festooned its sides,
fragments.
adding to its appearance of having stood there As Dalo Yok retreated the available
lifeless and motionless far centuries.
cover rapidly thinned, until the only rock-
Yet Larsen knew that within that stony
masses breaking the level white expanse of the shell there was hideous life—life that was
valley floor were occasional isolated boulders probably even now smothering the hopelessly
scattered here and there like gargantuan trapped body of Bart Wheeler. The line where jewels. The time inevitably came when Dalo
the lips had closed was faintly visible in the Yok was momentarily caught in the open as
front wall of the stone. Stepping between the he dashed from the shelter of one boulder to
dangling brown ribbons that trailed over the
another.
sand at the boulder’s base, Larsen snatched
It was the chance for which Wheeler
the heavy little hand-axe from his belt and
and Larsen had been waiting. Their bullets
savagely attacked the closed lips.
exploded in the sand within a yard of the
For all the effect his blows had, he
fleeing Martian. Dalo Yok was flung bodily
might as well have been assailing the metal
from his feet by the terrific concussion. He
shell of the Falcon itself. The green boulder sprawled in a limp heap on the sand, did not even quiver. Larsen stepped back, completely stunned.
baffled for the moment.
Wheeler and Larsen started toward the
Realizing that seconds might mean the
unconscious figure. Wheeler was much the
difference between life and death for Wheeler, closer of the two. He had nearly reached the
Larsen drove his racing brain in an agony of
Martian while Larsen was still fifty yards effort to find a way to pierce the crystal-away. Then, as Wheeler passed close beside a
armored walls. He dared not use nitrolite. Any
The Flame-Worms of Yokku
9
explosion violent enough to wreck that stony
life. Its festooning ribbons writhed like
colossus was almost certain to be fatal to
tortured snakes, while the whole vast bulk
Wheeler as well.
shuddered and rocked crazily on its base.
Larsen stepped despairingly forward to
For a moment the evidences of agony
make a last attempt at prying open the closed continued. Then abruptly the jaws gaped open
jaws. As he did so he trod upon one of the
and remained open while the tortured
trailing brown ribbons. The green wall membranes of the inner cavity retched in a instantly split open for its full height, as if two mighty effort to expel the object that was
doors were operated by a hidden spring. causing excruciating pain. Wheeler’s body Larsen’s instinctive leap backward saved him
was ejected with a violence that hurled it ten by inches from the tentacles of red flesh that feet away.
lashed out from the boulder’s interior.
With Wheeler safely clear, Larsen sent
The red tissues snapped back within
a swift burst of nitrolite bullets into the gaping the thing and again the stone jaws clicked
body cavity. When the explosions ceased,
shut, but not before Larsen had caught a brief nothing remained of the thing but a shattered ghastly glimpse of an inner cavity of pulsing heap of green crystal fragments and torn
red membranes, among which Wheeler’s scarlet membranes of quivering flesh.
stocky body still struggled feebly.
Wheeler, his clothes smeared with the
Swift realization flashed through body juices of the creature’s maw, was Larsen’s racing brain. H
e knew now how to
climbing dazedly to his feet as Larsen turned make the powerful jaws snap open. Those
toward him.
apparently innocent, brown ribbons were, in
“Thanks, Eric,” he said weakly,
reality, cleverly disguised sense-organs for the scowling in disgust as he wiped the slime
thing. When an unwary victim trod upon one
from his face. “About one more minute in that of the ribbons, the jaws automatically snapped hellish thing and I’d have gone raving crazy.
open and the lashing red membranes swept the
I’m all right now—just messed up a little is
captive inside, to be digested at the thing’s all. You’d better take care of that Martian,
leisure.
though. He seems to be coming to.”
Larsen’s lips set in a grim straight line
Heeding Wheeler’s warning, Larsen
as he snatched a selithium tube from his belt.
promptly stepped over to where Dalo Yok was
There was one morsel that the thing would not groggily rising to his feet. The Martian made relish. He pressed the switch in the handle.
no effort to resist as Larsen stripped his belt-The tube’s six-inch selithium tip—used by
gear from him, merely staring at Larsen with
explorers for both light and warmth—glowed
lusterless eyes that told of a brain that was in white-hot incandescence.
hopelessly dazed, now that his first murderous Larsen warily trod again upon one of
frenzy had passed. Larsen drew a breath of
the brown ribbons. The jaws snapped open in
deep relief as he found the anode-bar cached
instant response. In the fleeting second they in the Martian’s belt-pouch.
remained open Larsen flung the flaming tube
“Find it?” Wheeler queried. “Good.
between the curtains of membrane deep into
The Flame-Worms of Yokku by Hal K Page 2