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electronic plate in his great mass. Instantly, the automatic stabilizing
"tubes" sent out balancing impulses. The hot, internal, partly-rigid,
partly-fluid matter that made up the greater portion of his body, grew
hotter, more fluidic. The weaknesses induced by that tre- mendous
concussion accepted the natural union of a liquid, hardening quickly
under enormous pressures. Sane again, Iilah considered what had
happened. An attempt at communication? The possibility excited him.
Instead of closing the gap in his outer wall he hardened the matter
immediately behind it, thus cutting off wasteful radiation. He waited.
Again the hurtling object, and the enormously potent blow, as it struck
him . . . After a dozen blows, each with its resulting disaster to his
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r r
protective shell, Iilah writhed with doubts. If these were messages he
could not receive them, or understand. He began reluctantly to allow the
chemical reactions that sealed the protective barrier. Faster than he
could seal the holes the hurtling objects breached his defenses. And
still he did not think of what had happened as an at- tack. In all his
previous existence he had never been at- tacked in such a fashion. Just
what methods had been used against him, Iilah could not remember. But
certainly nothing so purely molecular. The conviction that it was an
attack came reluctantly, and he felt no anger. The reflex of defense in
him was logical, not emotional. He studied the destroyer and it seemed
to him that his purpose must be to drive it away. It would also be
necessary to drive away every similar creature that tried to come near
him. All the scurrying objects he had seen when he mounted the crest of
the hillall that must depart.
He started down the hill.
The creature floating above the plateau had ceased exuding flame. As
Iilah eased himself near it, the only sign of life was a smaller object
that darted alongside it. There was a moment then when Iilah entered the
water. That was a shock. He had almost forgotten that there was a level
of this desolate mountain below which his life forces were affected. He
hesitated. Then, slowly, he slid further down into the depressing area,
conscious that he had attained a level of strength that he could
maintain against such a purely negative pressure. The destroyer began to
fire at him. The shells delivered at point-blank range, poked deep holes
into the ninety-foot cliff with which Iilah faced his enemy. As that
wall of rock touched the destroyer, the firing stopped. (Maynard and his
men, having defended the Coulson as long as possible, tumbled over the
far side into their boat and raced away as fast as possible.) Iilah
shoved. The pain that he felt from those titanic blows was the pain that
comes to all living creatures experiencing partial dissolution.
Laboriously, his body repaired it- self. And with anger and hatred and
fear ROW, he shoved. In a few minutes he had tangled the curiously
unwieldy structure in the rocks that rose up to form the edge of the
plateau. Beyond was the sharp declining slope of the mountain. An
unexpected thing happened. Once among the rocks, the creature started to
shudder and shake, as if caught by some inner destructive force. It fell
over on its side and lay there like some wounded thing, quivering and
breaking It was an amazing spectacle. Iilah withdrew from the water,
reclimbed the mountain, and plunged down into the sea on the other side,
where a freighter was just getting under way. It swung around the
promontory, and successfully floated through the channel and out,
coasting along high above the bleak valley that fell away beyond the
breakers. It moved along for several miles, then slowed and stopped.
Iilah would have liked to chase it further, but he was limited to ground
movement. And so, the moment the freighter had stopped, he turned and
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r r
headed towards the point, where the small objects were cluttered. He did
not notice the men who plunged into the shallows near the shore and,
from that comparative safety, watched the destruction of their
equipment. Iilah left a wake of burning and crushed vehicles. The few
drivers who tried to get their machines away became splotches of flesh
and blood inside and on the metal of their machines. There was a
fantastic amount of stupidity and panic. Iilah moved at a speed of about
eight miles an hour. Three hundred and seventeen men were caught in
scores of individual traps and crushed by a monster that did not even
know they existed Each man must have felt himself personally pursued.
Afterward, Iilah climbed to the nearest peak and studied the sky for
further interlopers. Only the freighter remained, a shadowy threat some
four miles away. Darkness cloaked the island slowly. Maynard moved
cautiously through the grass, flashing his flashlight directly in front
of him on a sharp downward slant. Every little while he called "Anybody
around?" It had been like that for hours now. Through the fading day
they had searched for survivors, each time loading them aboard their
boat and ferrying them through the channel and out to where the
freighter waited. The orders had come through by radio. They had forty-
eight hours to get clear of the island. After that the bomb run would be
made by a drone plarre. Maynard pictured himself walking along on this
monster- inhabited, night-enveloped island. And the shuddery thrill that
came was almost pure unadulterated pleasure. He felt himself pale with a
joyous terror. It was like the time his ship had been among those
shelling a Jap-held beach. He had been gloomy until, suddenly, he had
visualized himself out there on the beach at the receiving end of the
shells. He began to torture himself with the possibility that, somehow,
he might be left behind when the freighter finally withdrew. A moan from
the near darkness ended that thought. In the glow of the flashlight
Maynard saw a vaguely familiar face. The man had been smashed by a
fading tree. As executive officer Gerson came forward and administered
morphine, Maynard bent closer to the injured man and peered at him
anxiously. It was one of the world-famous scientists on the island. Ever
since the disaster the radio messages had been asking for him. There was
not a scientific body on the globe that cared to commit itself to the
navy bombing plan until he had given his opinion. "Sir," began Maynard,
"what do you think about" He stopped. He settled mentally back on his
heels. Just for a moment he had forgotten that the naval author- ities [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]