by Don Wilcox
“That’s telling him,” the girl added defiantly, flourishing a pistol of her own. “He’s the man that sold the earth down the Milky Way.”
“They’re crazy!” Katherine cried.
“Quickly, Paul, tell them where we are.”
“We’re standing on the back of the Mogo giant! A little more fire and he’ll wake up and roll over. I hope your space flivver is insured.”
“The giant!” the girl screeched. She caught the idea quick for a stranger. “Big Boy! We’re on it! What’ll we do?”
The big fellow answered with action, and the girl followed suit. Between them, they managed to keep Paul and Katherine covered with one pistol or another while they swung out of their space jackets and converted them into fire fighting equipment. Then all four persons were swinging at the fire in deadly earnest, for one line of blaze was racing along as fast as they could run. It swung halfway around the space flivver before they got it under control. Paul saw plainly enough that the nifty little boat was a proud possession. The husky pilot completely forgot his gun, and Paul found an opportunity to lift it.
As the last blaze was extinguished, Katherine flashed a light.
“We have your pistols, friends,” Paul said quietly. “We know how to use them, too, don’t you doubt it. No noise, now! The giant is sensitive to noise.”
The young pilot and the girl exchanged looks that meant something more than a distress signal, though Paul wasn’t sure what. They didn’t seem to be scoring each other for their failure. They were rather agreeing to bide their time.
“We could have killed you outright,” the girl said, trying hard to ignore her defeat. “You can thank your stars that Big Boy Hurley believes in laws instead of rewards. We’d have had an extra ten thousand if we’d—”
“Quiet, Pantella,” her husky friend growled.
“Go right ahead, Pantella,” Katherine said sweetly. “It’s very entertaining. So someone is offering a reward for us. How sweet. I haven’t forgotten how they cheered us when we agreed to try an expedition to Mogo.”
The girl took her friend’s nudge seriously and said no more. Big Boy Hurley wasn’t feeling very talkative, either, but he did ask what Paul expected would happen to his space flivver.
“You landed it there,” Paul said gently, “but I’d hate to see it crushed when Gret-O-Gret rolls over.” He turned to Katherine. “Shall we do this young man a favor, dear?”
Katherine took a few steps around George Hurley, studying him.
“He looks honest. And obviously he came here to do us a favor. Why shouldn’t we return kindness for kindness?”
“Pour on the sarcasm,” George Hurley grumbled. “You’ve got us down. Go ahead and tramp on us. We shouldn’t expect mercy from your kind.”
“You’ve got things badly twisted, son,” Paul said quietly. He and Katherine moved toward the space flivver, motioning their two prisoners to follow. “We can set you straight if you want the facts.”
“We got our facts straight from the fact factory,” said Anna Pantella, her eyes flashing triumph.
“Yes, I perceived that,” Paul said, “a factory named Garritt Glasgow. His trademark showed up as plain as your face the minute you spoke.”
“Are you insulting Pantella’s face?” The young pilot acted as if he needed to swing his fists about something in spite of the pistol that was pointed at him. Paul and Katherine stepped through the open airlocks and the other couple were ordered to follow. Hurley took his place obediently at the controls.
“Lift her easy,” Paul warned, “or Gret-O-Gret might yawn and knock us down . . . Easy . . . That’s it, straight ahead . . . Now, a little to your right, right up the valley. There’s an ideal landing spot—a big box about a half mile long.”
“You don’t say,” said Anna Pantella. “White?”
The moonlight enabled them to land without flares. They stepped out of the flivver, at Paul’s suggestion. It was simpler to maintain a firm grip on his prisoners out in the open, and at the same time keep watch on the skies. They sauntered to one corner of the white rectangular surface and sat with their feet dangling over.
“Don’t be thinking you might leap down,” Paul warned, pointing down into the darkness.
“Don’t worry, we won’t jump that far,” the girl said. There it was again, Paul thought—an implication that these strangers knew their way around this camp. There was something mysterious –
“Why don’t you push us off and be done with it?” George Hurley said grumpily. “From what I’ve heard of your methods, here’s your dish.”
Paul allowed him to talk long enough to get some of the venom out of his system. While he and the girl aired their grievances, Katherine passed some sandwiches which she had picked up in their ship.
Anna turned the gesture into an ulterior motive. “All this kindness—umh! You think you’ll buy leniency when you face the court?”
“Court? What court?”
“Never mind. You’ve got the drop on us now, so you don’t feel worried. But just wait.”
“Do have another sandwich,” Katherine said.
“Thank you, chum. I’ll recommend gas instead of hanging.”
“Listen to us,” Paul said. “So far it’s our word against Garritt Glasgow’s. You must have bumped into him, somehow, and you’ve swallowed his fantastic line, hook and sinker. But suppose, Hurley, that I could show you some movies of our approach to Mogo land. If you saw the fate of the other ship—how death struck it from an unearthly source—would you be willing to exchange your ‘facts’ for the real facts?”
George Hurley seemed to be staring hard at him through the moonlight. “I knew Judy Longworth,” he said. “What ‘unearthly’ cause would the pictures show?”
“A Mogo giant. A giant like the one we walked over a little while ago. He thought the ship was some sort of insect. He caught it and tried to eat it. He crushed it in his teeth. Then he threw the ruins in the river. That’s how death struck down half of my proud expedition in one quick blow. We have the movies in Gret-O-Gret’s space boat. He saved all the equipment he could salvage from my own ship, including these films.”
Paul’s listeners were at last visibly impressed. But not necessarily convinced.
“If that’s the sort of killers the Mogo giants are,” Hurley finally said, “why do you associate with them?”
Katherine answered that one with a question: “Are all earth people alike, Mr. Hurley?”
“Certainly not.”
“Are some good and some bad?”
“Of course.”
“Some thoughtful and some careless?”
“Yes.”
“Some intelligent and some ignorant?”
“Naturally, but—”
“That’s how it is with the Mogo giants,” Paul interpolated. “By the way, did you ever go fishing, Hurley?”
“Many times.”
“If you were in midstream and a fish swam into your hands, and you were hungry, you’d probably grab it and reach for the frying pan, wouldn’t you?”
“Probably.”
“If it happened to be an extraordinary fish—some new variety—say, an unusually intelligent fish—you’d have to be quick in the trigger if you gave it a break.”
“I don’t get you.”
“Thats how quick Gret-O-Gret was. He might have destroyed our ship for an insect, the way the other giant did with the other ship. But Gret is good. He’s wise. He’s quick. Quick enough to hold back the hand of death that might have crushed our lives out as easily as we step on an ant. That’s why three of us out of the original ten are still alive.”
The silence lasted for a brief moment. George Hurley was hearing everything and weighing it carefully.
“That leaves two unaccounted for. The other two in your ship. What happened to them?”
“Glasgow murdered them.”
“Glasgow?”
“In cold blood. He was working a one man campaign to steal the expedition ou
t of my hands.
“I hope you will believe my husband,” Katherine said. “Paul, can’t we return their guns to them?”
Paul handed Anna Pantella her pistol. She murmured a thanks. When he offered George his, the pilot shook his head.
“Not just yet—I mean, I don’t want the responsibility for bringing you in, not till I’ve had time to think.”
“Bringing us in?”
“You see, it’s already pretty complicated. We’ve got an earth committee that’s getting things started, and two of the first jobs are, to bring you to trial—”
“This is complicated,” Katherine gasped.
“And to kill the giant that blasted the earth.”
“We know who did it,” Katherine blurted. “It was not Gret-O-Gret.”
“Another giant?”
“Yes.”
“Is the other giant here?”
“Not now,” said Paul. “It was a hit-and-run job. He’s back at Mogo.”
George shook his head dubiously. “Since a Mogo giant did it, the committee will be ready to kill any Mogo giant they see.”
“That’s bad thinking, Hurley,” said Paul. “I hope you don’t think that way. That kind of talk is responsible for all kinds of class prejudice. That kind of talk—”
“Paul!” Katherine’s voice held a note of alarm. “Paul, I keep hearing things.”
“Take it easy,” Paul said. Then by way of explanation he told George and Anna about the shipload of wingmen who had arrived that afternoon for an attack on the giant. His listeners inquired quickly about the results.
“The results,” Paul said, “were threefold. One—the wingmen dropped their bombs on nothing and were chased away. Two—Gret was exhausted and sick. And three—my wife keeps hearing wings rustle wherever we go.”
“I thought I heard it,” Anna said. “But it could have been the fluttering in my stomach from these good sandwiches I made and had given to me.”
Paul wanted to drive his former point home, for he saw now that there must be a plan afoot to murder Gret-O-Gret at once.
“Let me repeat, it’s unfair to hold a prejudice against all because of what one does. That goes for men of any class. And it goes for giants, too.”
A strange voice sounded up from the darkness along the wall of the box. “Does it go for wingmen?”
“Eavesdroppers!” Katherine cried. She switched on the light and shot it down the wall.
Flap! Flap! Flap! There was no question about the noise this time. The beam showed quick glimpses of three wingmen—two husky fighters and a purple winged female—racing off into the night’s blackness.
“Spies!” Paul muttered. “Now I wonder. What did we say that they might understand?”
“I’d better have my gun, if you don’t mind,” George Hurley said enigmatically.
CHAPTER XXII
Gret-O-Gret was a sick giant. The bright sunrise awakened him and he started to rouse up, only to discover that he was too ill. He looked around for the Kellers. He saw their car and decided that they were still sleeping. He hoped he could avoid letting them know he was sick. They were weighed down with enough troubles already.
Gret turned over on his side so he could look up the valley. Although he couldn’t see over the purple misted hills, he knew the approximate distance back to his ship.
“I shall go home,” he said to himself. “Then the Kellers won’t have me to worry about.”
He had become a source of embarrassment to them, he was sure. And his own existence here had grown steadily more painful. Disappointments. Climate. Breathing difficulties. Sickness. And now—hatreds and even bombs.
“Back on my own planet I was always respected. I was considered an upright, intelligent citizen. But here—what am I except a monstrosity? I don’t fit. I am considered a dangerous beast”
His thoughts naturally turned with bitterness to Mox-O-Mox. He raised up on two elbows and looked up into the white sky. If it had not been for Mox’s evil deed, would he, Gret, then be a welcome guest? Would his box of foods and supplies then have been accepted by earth people as gifts from Mogo?
Ah, silly dream. Only a few like Paul and Katherine would have trusted him. But they were people of exceptional understanding. If the earth’s vast populations had lived, they would have feared and hated him. Even if Mox hadn’t done the atrocious deed, the earth would not have had room for a giant like himself.
“Small creatures,” he concluded gloomily, “would have an instinctive distrust of me because I am so large.”
So saying, he decided that he would cut his earth visit short. For even such friends as the Kellers, who had been willing to spend hours and hours acquainting him with their ways, the relationship was hardly a profitable one. Communicating was painfully cumbersome.
What perverse inspiration had ever made him believe that he might own this planet?
“I shall keep legal possession of the earth in the eyes of the Mogo laws,” he decided. “In this way I’ll have a right to protect it from such destroyers as Mox. But I can never hope to own it, in the eyes of these proud, belligerent little people.”
The irony of it all weighed upon his spirits. That he should be so large and at the same time so useless was dismaying.
“I will go home at once!” He spoke much too loud. The rocks on the hillside quivered.
If the Kellers heard his spontaneous burst of thunder, they managed to sleep on. He mustn’t tell them his decision. He must simply get into his ship and go.
But what of the distance back to the ship? Could he make it? How?
He tried again to rise and walk. His energies simply were not equal to the occasion. He was alarmed.
“Paul! . . . Katherine! . . . Where are you?”
No answer.
“Paul?” He tried to remember when he had seen them last.
“Oh, yes, the wingmen . . . Bombs and feathers and a sudden retreat to the hills.”
He turned his eyes toward the distant cliff but saw no signs of activity. He recalled that Paul and Katherine tried frantically to help him when they thought he was in danger. Poor little people—so completely lost in their ruined world—holding fast to his friendship, under difficulties. If he could only be of service to them—but no, his very presence here was adding to their troubles.
“I will go back to Mogo,” he repeated softly, “as soon as I am able.”
He moaned uneasily and snuggled closer to the warm earth. The sun and the breezes played kindly over his back. He thought of Faz-O-Faz, the lazy youth, who would spend his hours lying in the warm dust beneath the three suns of Mogo. Such indolence—and such a delightful, carefree existence!
“I must be homesick,” Gret-O-Gret murmured, and fell fast asleep.
CHAPTER XXIII
Green Flash was a wingman of great restraint. On the previous evening he had led a spying expedition and it had been highly successful—yes, it had been perfect—until the brother of Black Cloud made that dreadful break!
Green Flash wanted to smash his face smack against the wall of the box. His claw-like fists had barely stopped in time. The restraint was painful.
Flap! Flap! Flap! The three of them flew off into the thick darkness, but not before the flashlight beam had swept over them. Humiliating, and so unnecessary.
“A purple one! And that green fellow! And another—”
It was the voice of the one they called Katherine. She had caught them in the act, all right. Green Flash knew how earth people detested wingmen who spied. With every flap of his wings Green Flash fully expected pistol fire. He kept Purple Wings ahead of him, but he feared he would have been little protection if the atomic blaze had streaked out at them.
Now they were away and could afford to stop behind a bulwark of rocks and catch their breath.
“Why did you do it?” Purple Wings cried. “Everything was going beautifully until you blurted.”
The brother of Black Cloud had doubtless been making up answers for such a quest
ion. He did it at a risk, of course. But let them have it. The next time they talked about tolerance and fair play they would remember his words.
“They’ll remember being startled,” Green Flash said. “And have one more reason to hate us.”
Thrown on the defensive, the wingman whimpered that Green Flash and Purple Wings were picking on him because they hated his brother.
“Stop it!” Green Flash snapped. “Come on. You’re going back to camp and tell them exactly what happened. It’s all yours. I’ll keep my voice out of it. Make out a good story for yourself if you want your brother to like it.”
“Where are you going?”
“Back to the white box,” said Green Flash. “I want to get the rest of that conversation.”
Purple Wings declared she would come, too. And the black-winged brother refused to go back to camp alone. So they all three flew back and circled the box. But the conversations had been taken into the space flivver by this time, and the airlocks closed. Eavesdropping was over for tonight.
“All right, back to camp,” Green Flash agreed. “Anyway, we’ve got a line on this fellow Keller and his trouble.”
“Did George and Anna believe his story?” Purple Wings asked.
“What do you think?”
“I think they’re in a quandary.”
“I think,” said the black-winged brother, “that George is playing sly while he waits for a chance to murder Keller. He’s not going back and face his committee with a bad record.”
Green Flash smiled to himself, knowing that someone else was worried about returning to face his flock with a bad record. Purple Wings must have caught it, too, for she flew close to Green Flash and touched his hand. He closed his fingers over hers and knew that it was good to be flying through the earth’s air, with the earth’s moon beaming down, and a pretty female with flowing dark hair flying beside him.
The dawn aroused the flock and they gathered around to listen to the report. Black Cloud limped up, last of all, favoring his injured wing. He watched them with a jealous eye as they recounted their adventure. To his brother’s narrative he made one brief comment.