Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1959 by The Dark Destroyers (v1.1) Read Free Book Online Page B

murderous heat. Already the monster was
helpless, unconscious. Darragh, still upon his knees, the fighting grin stamped
upon his desperate brown face, watched while the inner organ grew dimmer,
feebler of pulse, and dark and motionless.
                 The
Cold Creature was dead. He knew that, and he knew why.
                 From
what little he had heard from men who had assembled knowledge about the
invaders, the Cold Creatures must have come from a planet not only bitterly
cold, but of an unchanging temperature. Like snakes and snails, the Cold
Creatures took their temperature from their surroundings, and did not have
within themselves any heat-regulating mechanism. But they were highly
organized mentalities. A very few degrees of heat beyond their margin of
endurance meant unconsciousness. If it continued, that unendurable degree of
heat, it meant death.
                 Darragh's
discoverer had died, within less than a minute— the first of the Cold Creatures
to die of a human hand since those pitifully unequal pitched battles of half a
century ago.
                 No
motion or menace from the operator a few feet away at the controls of the ship.
The drama of menace and sudden counter-attack and death behind it had gone all
unnoticed. Darragh felt a sudden surging flush of fierce, triumphant
exultation. Then he dragged the clothes to him and, crouching to hide behind
the silent bulk of the Cold Creature he had slain, drew his knife and cut away
the lashings. In trembling silence he drew on the wide breeches, tied the
belt-cord, and then lowered the quilted jacket down over his head. He dragged
the moccasins upon his numb bare feet, gratefully slid his hands into the
gauntiets, and pulled the hood over his ears and face. He drew a steamy breath
of comparative relief, and dared to peer cautiously around the shielding bulk
of his conquered enemy.
                 Still
the ship was mounting upward, its floor gendy tilted beneath him as he
crouched, and the temperature was dropping steadily. By now, as Darragh
judged, it was truly below the freezing mark. He had not won his swift victory
and secured his garments any whit too soon. But the quilted swaddling of
leather was sufficient. He strapped the goggles over his eyes, and wound his
nose and mouth in the grateful warmth of the woollen scarf. Then, very
gingerly, he wriggled back under the sail and propped up its edge so that he
could look out past the dead mass of his victim toward the other creature at
the controls.
                 He
found himself ready to accept his own congratulations at killing one enemy;
but, since he had done so, he must kill the other if it did not kill him first.
He could see the transparent pouch on the armor at its side, and in the pouch
the pistol-formed apparatus for throwing rays. So far luck had been richly on
the side of Mark Darragh, and he felt it would carry him further. But he would
launch the attack at the next clash, before this second enemy could muster its
devices against him.
                 Attack
he would, but not now, not until he had learned something more about how to
operate the ship. If he managed to kill the second creature, he must manage to
keep the speeding vessel from crashing with him. He glued his goggle-covered
eyes to the controls on which confidently skillful tentacle-tips slid beads
backward and forward to adjust speed and direction. Higher the craft was
mounting, and higher, toward the upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere. Darragh
felt the chill of the altitude, even through his thick garments of quilted
leather; his breath made frost in the woolen fabric he had stretched across his
mouth and nose, so that it was like a rigid mask of ice-cold tin.
                 At
last the creature at the controls began to pluck at its armor with free
tentacles, unfastening studs and clamps and dragging the fabric away. Its own
range of temperature-comfort was