Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition), April 1944 — page 45: what you’re looking at

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

THE BEAST nerve, shedding tiny rivers of perspiration, Pendrake slid forward on his back. His wrist was tied to one ankle, but his other leg was free. Free to kick, free to— Big Oaf turned. “He’s comin’,” he said. He seemed not to notice the strained body, the. strained expression of his captive. He said in a matter-of-fact tone that was more terrible than all the passion and fury that had gone before: “I’m gonna let you slide down on a rope, untyin’ the bonds around your wrist just before I lower you over the edge. That way you'll be able to do a little runnin’ when you get down. The beast likes that; it gives him exercise.” There was a rope neatly coiled at one side of the cave. As he picked it up and tossed one end over the abyss, Big Oaf explained precisely : “I keep this here handy. You ain’t the first, you know, who’s gone over secret like this. Notice how one end’s tied to a fence post.” He waddled over to Pendrake, knelt beside him and started to untie the cord that bound him. “Funny,” he philosophized, “the kind of stuff the men have brought with ’em from Earth: Rope, a wagon load of tools, rifles, revolvers—I got ’em all. Some of it, mostly ammunition, is hidden in this cave, and the rest in other caves they don’t know about that I closed up. “I’m gonna use those guns if Devlin wins. It don’t take long to kill a hundred men from ambush if you’ve got bullets. “You see,” he finished with a grin, “I’ve got it all figgered. It—”’ On Earth it wouldn’t have worked. A three-hundred-pound body not quite in position for a good shove would have stag- gered back a couple of feet, then regained balance. The Moon was different. The body weighed only fifty pounds, and the leg that shoved it strove desperately to act with all the force of a stick of exploding dynamite. Big Oaf stumbled back, fighting for bal- ance. If there had been one more step be- hind him, he might have made it. But that step he took into the abyss. It took minutes to wriggle out of the half-untied but clinging bonds. And then there was another more timeless period while the blood tingled #ack into the numbed members and while he lay almost sick with reaction. 43 Finally, with a desperate will, Pendrake scrambled to the edge of the cliff and looked down. : Big Oaf was just getting to his feet on the grass below, and the sabre-toother tiger was circling him. “Hitler!” The cry rang out over the valley. “Hitler, how does it feel?” Pendrake thought: “Did I shout that?” His mind must have been turned by those minutes on the cliff’s edge. Because even now that he recognized that it had been his voice, no shame came, nothing but a sense of the utter 1ightness of every mad syllable. It fitted. How it fitted! | “Big Oaf,’” he screamed, “have you ever heard of the Shaposhenko punishment? There’s an article in the beginning of it that says: ‘—he who evokes the Beast in Man, and feeds the Beast with cunning purpose, let him suffer from the Beast ac- cording to his measure. Let—’ ” Pendrake stopped. Then he stared. Below him, Big Oaf was on his feet, backing away from the tiger. That was normal enough. It was the saber tooth that was unnormal. The great animal was whining in unmistak- able puzzlement—and backing away from the hairy man! Backing away— It couldn’t be fear. Nothing alive on Earth in the last ten million years could have brought one tre- mor of fear to that savage heart. Big Oaf was shaking his head like a stunned ox; and Pendrake’s attention con- centrated on the man, and forgot the devil beast, even as the animal darted out of sight. He saw that the Neanderthal was heading for the rope that hung down from the cave. With a gasp, he snatched the rope out of his reach, thinking for the first time: “He fell seventy yards, and lived. That would be about forty feet on Earth. Could be—’”’ “Pendrake!”’ The squat body was directly below. The unsightly head glanced fearfully toward where the tiger had disappeared; then: “Pendrake, it recognized me as its feeder, but it'll be back. Pendrake, let that rope down.” Pendrake felt no mercy. His body was as cold as ice itself with the freezing thoughts that were in his mind. His whole being throbbed with the bleak yet utterly intense words that poured from his lips: “Go to all the hells you’ve ever sent other men to. Go and lie in the belly of the beast you’ve nurtured with the blood comiclooks.c©