The Giants From Outer Space Part 11

"Okay. Now let's have the technicians' report."

A lean, angular man rose. "I've checked all the books, Captain. There is no way to subst.i.tute a charge of lead for the war-head in the curium sh.e.l.ls."

There was a stillness. "You mean we can't shoot lead at the giants except with the few handguns in my possession," said Pink heavily.

"That's right, Captain."

"The giants are too alert to be caught that way," said Bill Calico. "I have an idea--not much of a one, but it's a try."

"Let's have it."

Jerry waved a hand. "Please remove O. O. Smith first."

Circe flared, "I think you're just afraid I'll get your job, you incompetent--"

"Take her out," said Pink to Joe Silver.

Calico then outlined his plan. Pinkham said at once, "I'll relay it to the other ships. We'll try it immediately." They all nodded agreement.

Pink bent over the radio; he gave the co-captains instructions in an ancient language which they all knew, but which he felt sure would baffle any eavesdropping giants--an old, old tongue known as Pig Latin.

The officers and men scattered to their stations. Pink and Jerry took Circe to the captain's quarters, where Pink took his seat for the plan's direction, Jerry holding the Colt on Circe and the dying giant.

The s.p.a.ce drives of the three ships were activated, and in side-by-side formation they moved slowly forward, as Pink watched keenly for a sign of objection from the gigantic "jockeys" atop them. None so far ... probably they thought Pink was under the instructions of their brother inside. Five minutes went by. Eight. Fifteen.

The largest asteroid in this part of the belt appeared ahead; it was roughly fourteen miles in diameter. The ships dipped their noses as if to pa.s.s well under it. They drew very close. Pink bent to his speaker and bellowed, "Now!"

As one, the auxiliary jets of each ship roared into life. _Cottabus_ and _Diogenes_ leaped out beside their flagship, and like three hotshot pilots buzzing an airdrome, the captains took the enormous s.p.a.cecraft hurtling for the surface of the asteroid. Pa.s.sing beneath it--or, thought Pink irrelevantly, while every nerve and sinew concentrated on the dangerous task, perhaps they were flying over it upside down--they brought their years of training and experience to bear on the problem of missing that k.n.o.bbed gray surface by the smallest margin possible.

_Diogenes_ actually sc.r.a.ped her superstructure, with a noise that made every hair on her captain's neck stand upright; the others missed the planetoid by no more than a foot or two. Then they were clear and again in the void.

According to orders, they slowed at a distance of four hundred miles, and eagerly scanned one another in their viewscreens for signs of the giants.

Pink gave a loud shout of relief, and took a second to realize that his co-captains had each groaned....

The riders on _Cottabus_ and _Diogenes_ had vanished, and were undoubtedly back there by the asteroid, reconst.i.tuting their bashed-up bodies angrily. But Pink now heard, with a sinking heart, that his giant was still with him. It had leaned backward from the knees, lying flat on the hull which it had gripped with legs and arms. Somehow it had grasped Pink's plan in time to prepare itself. The asteroid had flattened its face and chest like a plane smoothing wood, and it was now forming itself anew, with, so they told Pink, a truly malicious scowl on its reformed lips.

Jerry was standing with a hand on Pink's shoulder; he had forgotten Circe in the tenseness of the bid for freedom. She came up on the other side and put her own hand on the captain's other shoulder. He was startled, and realizing that she could have killed or captured them both, had she wished, chalked up another doubt in his mind against the theory of her alienness.

"Please come outside," she said urgently. "I want to suggest something to you."

He rose at once and followed her to the door, while Jerry frowned and the dying giant watched him out of faded red eyes. In the hall, she said, "You're almost licked, Captain. It's time for desperation measures." Pink laughed, but before he could ask her what the h.e.l.l they _had_ been trying, she hurried on. "Find out where the home of these monsters is; it must be an asteroid. Then go there. Land and get out with your guns. They will think our friend in there brought us to them--and you'll have the advantage of surprise. You have about a dozen firearms that will take lead bullets. That's enough for twelve of us. I think we'd stand a chance of success."

"And if they murder us all? What about the ship?"

She said, "Leave orders to blow it up if we fail."

Pink scratched his jaw. The girl had something, or the nucleus of something, there. He saw other possibilities in it--it was tantamount to suicide, but there was nothing else left to try. He said, "If we live through this, Circe, I'll see you make lieutenant!"

"I'd rather make ... well, never mind." She turned to go into the room.

He wondered if she had had Joe Silver in mind.

CHAPTER XVI

He said to the alien, "Where's your home planetoid?"

"Why?" it asked, mockery still in its weak voice.

"I'm capitulating. I want to make a deal with your people."

It said, "Ah, the human has sense after all. Our home is the largest of the asteroids, as you call them. The one you said at supper last night had a diameter of 440 miles. We call it Oasis--and a poor one it is, when we remember Earth."

Jerry said, astounded, "_What?_" His narrow face worked with surprise.

"Shut up, Jerry." Pink still had things to find out. "Can you tell your race, telepathically, what we're doing? I don't want them to lose patience and tear up the hull. We have a very angry gent atop us."

"It's the girl," snarled Jerry, before the alien could answer. "She's got you fooled like a--like a--good Lord, Pink, are you so crazy about her you can't see she's been waiting to put this idea in your head all this time?"

"Jerry," he said through his teeth, "shut your d.a.m.n mouth. I'm captain of the _Elephant's Child_."

Jerry was aiming the Colt at him; accidentally, Pink hoped. Then the O.

O. said, "If I have to blow out your guts to save us, Pink, I will." His tortured features writhed with pain. "Oh, h.e.l.l, boy, wake up!"

"Give me one more minute, before you fly off the handle and make an a.s.s of yourself--and a mess of me." Pink had to have that minute. It was so vital he couldn't save himself from the angered Jerry with the one phrase that would explain everything. "Jerry, one lousy minute."

"Just tell me you don't mean it about giving in."

He couldn't. My G.o.d, he couldn't. There was too much of a chance that this brute on the floor was telepathic with its own kind. "I have to do it, Jerry," he said.

"Then I have to tie you up till you're sane," said Jerry. "First, though, I've got to make sure about this girl." The muzzle of the gun traveled toward Circe, steadily, remorselessly.

Pink had no alternative; the lives of all his men hung in that teetering balance. He jerked his right hand, and the tiny gambler's gun, the antique Derringer he had hidden up his sleeve for emergencies, slid down into his palm. Instinctively his forefinger caught the trigger and with sorrow and determination he shot Jerry high in the chest, below the clavicle and a safe distance from the lung. Jerry staggered back, a look of amazement spreading over his face; he fired the Colt wildly, putting a slug into the floor. Then he sat down, making hurt, uncomprehending noises. Circe took the gun from his hand.

Pink heard a babble from the intercom. He grasped that some of his officers must have seen the occurrence. He still hadn't much more than a minute.

"Circe," he snapped, "turn off that intercom and then lock the door." To the giant he said, "Well, can you tell your friends?"

"I would have doubted you, had you not eliminated your objecting officer," it told him. "Now I will say that I cannot communicate with my race through thought transference; but if you head for Oasis, you will be safe."

Pink breathed a little easier. He s.n.a.t.c.hed down a bottle of whisky and twisted off the cap. There was another fact he must learn. He knelt and presented the bottle to the inert lips. "Have a slug," he said.

"You are sensible," said the being with satisfaction. "Pour it into my mouth or my eye; I can absorb it through any orifice." Pink poured rapidly. The liquor ran down over the yellow hide.

"No, no," gurgled the monster. "Slowly! I absorb it far more slowly than you do--"