Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 39: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

SYMBIOTICA through the worm, went over Jay’s left shoulder, broke to shards on the top recoil chamber of the pom-pom. A thin, golden liquid splashed around, vaporized instantly. Reversing, Jay faced the black opening. Armstrong got to the wall, put out a thumb to jab the general alarm stud. Without touch- ing the stud, Armstrong went down as if batted by, an invisible club. My needler out, its muzzle extended, I began to move cau- tiously forward, saw the glittering thread of the worm framing a picture of Jay standing against the ebony background. It was a hell of a mistake—I should have gone for that stud. Three steps, and the whole picture swelled like a blown bubble, the circle widened, the threads of the worm became broad and deep with Jay as a gigantic shape in the middle. The bubble burst and I went . down as soggily as Armstrong had done. _ Don’t know how long I stayed that way, for when I opened my eyes it was with the faint memory of hearing much shouting and stamping of feet around my prostrate form. Things must have happened over and all around me while I lay like a corpse. Now I was still flat. I reposed full length on deep, dew-soaked turf with the throbbing forest close on my left, the indifferent stars peering at me. from the vault of night. It was bound up like an Egyptian mummy. Jepson was another mummy at one side of me; Arm- strong and several more at the other. Several hundreds of yards away, noises were still spoiling the silence of the night, a mixture of occasional Terrestrial.oaths and many queer, alien pipings. The Marathon lay over there; all that could be seen of her in the general blackness was the funnel of light pouring from her open lock. The light flickered, waxed and waned, once or twice was momentarily obliterated. There was a struggle on that shaft of light which became blocked as the fight swayed to and fro. Jepson was snoring as if it was Saturday night in the old home town, but Armstrong was in full possession of his wits and tongue. He cursed luridly. Rolling over, he started to chew at the knots of Blane’s bindings. Something vaguely human emerged silently from the darkness, smote downward. Arm- strong went quiet. Blinking my eyes, I adapted them enough to make out many more noiseless shapes standing around us. Keeping still and be- having myself, I thought noncomplimentary thoughts about McNulty, the Marathon, old Flettner who’d invented the ship and all the public-spirited guys who'd backed him 3] morally and financially. ’'d always had the feeling that sooner or later they would be the death of me. Deep down inside me, a tiny voice said, “Sergeant, d’you remember that promise you made your mother about obscene language? D’you remember when you gave that guppy a can of condensed milk for a pinfire opal not as big as the city clock? Repent, ser- geant, while there yet is time!” The distant pipings arose crescendo, the few earthly voices died out. There sounded occasional smashings of light, brittle things. More shapes brought more bodies, dumped them beside us, melted back into the gloom. I wish I could have counted the catch, but darkness didn’t permit it. All the newcomers were unconscious. They revived rapidly. I could recognize Brennand’s angry voice and the skipper’s asthmatic breathing. A blue star shone through the thin fringe of a drifting cloud as the fight ended. The succeeding pause was ghastly; a solemn, brooding silence broken only by the scuffle of many feet through the grass and the steady pumping in the forest. Forms gathered around us in_ large numbers. The glade was full of them. Hands lifted me, felt my bonds, tossed me into a wicker hammock. I went up shoulder-high, was borne along. You’d have thought I was a defunct wart hog being toted in some sportsman’s line of native porters. Just meat —that was me. Just a trophy of the chase. I wondered whether God would confront me with that guppy. The caravan filed into the forest, my direc- tion of progress being head first. Another hammock followed my feet and I could sense rather than see a string of them farther behind. Jepson was the sardine fol- lowing me; he went along making a loud recitation about how he’d got tied up ever since he landed in this unprintable world. Curving warily around one dim tree, our line marched boldly under the next, dodged the third. How the deuce our bearers could tell one growth from another in this lousy light was beyond my comprehension. We’d just got deep into the deeper dark- ness when a tremendous explosion sounded way back in the glade and a column of fire lit up the whole sky. Even the fire looked faintly green. Our line stopped. Two or three hundred voices cheeped querulously, run- ning from the front past me to a hundred yards farther back. “They’d blown up the _ good old Marathon,” thought I. “Ah, well, C@© oO comicbooo S