The Flame-Worms of Yokku by Hal K Read online

  terminals and removed bodily. Without that

  “No telling what we’ll run into out

  anode-bar it was impossible to even start the there,” he commented, “so we’d better go well ship’s propulsion ray generators.

  prepared. Remember what happened to

  Larsen silently heaped maledictions Yokku’s first visitors. Three of them were upon the absent Martian’s head, as he realized never heard from again, and the fourth

  what had happened. With drug-inspired returned to Mars a raving madman.”

  cunning, Dalo Yok had made sure that no one

  “What about one of us staying here on

  would move the ship in his absence. Wherever

  guard in case Dalo Yok circles back to the

  the Martian now was, the anode-bar was with

  ship?” Wheeler asked.

  him.

  “No use doing that,” Larsen decided.

  Wheeler stepped back in through the

  “Finding that lunatic will be a two-man job,

  Amazing Stories

  6

  I’m afraid. He can’t move the ship if he does hue. Yokku’s sky, save in the direct vicinity of circle back here. Any fool can dismantle that the sun-arch, was a dark gray-black in which

  anode-bar, but it requires an expert to set it the stars shone clearly visible.

  properly in place again. Dalo Yok couldn’t get Larsen glanced swiftly at the stars and

  it adjusted right in less than a week, even if his saw that Wheeler’s first report had been

  wits weren’t hopelessly muddled with luhna.

  correct. There was no doubt that they were on Come on, let’s go.”

  Ran Yok’s lost sun. That glowing yellow star

  Stepping out through the air-lock, they

  down near the horizon was their own sun, now

  swung the heavy outer port shut and locked it so far distant that it did not show as a disc to behind them, to keep any possible invaders

  the naked eye. Small wonder that Yokku had

  out of the ship during their absence. Larsen

  never been discovered telescopically. Its

  caught his breath as he saw for the first time gravity indicated that it was very little larger the starkly brilliant beauty of the scene around than earth itself. It was doubtful if the

  them. Like Saturn, Yokku was surrounded by

  telescopes of Earth or Mars could discern that a giant ring, but Yokku’s ring was one of

  tiny radiant speck so far out in space even if pulsing fire. Squarely overhead the great sun-they were trained directly on its position.

  arch swept from horizon to horizon in a

  With every step the men took toward

  rainbow ribbon of shimmering flame, with

  the cliffs, they were impressed anew with the alternate stripes of livid blue, emerald green, utter strangeness of the flora and fauna around and golden yellow.

  them. The seemingly fragile stems and

  The

  Falcon had landed near the edge

  feathery fronds of the gray vegetation proved of a vast level area of sparkling white sand

  upon contact to have the unyielding hardness

  that was dotted here and there by clumps of

  of hammered metal. There was the same

  gray feathery vegetation. Some two hundred

  striking metallic suggestion everywhere in the yards away a range of high cliffs rose, jagged life that teemed in the thickets.

  and sheer from the plain, in titanic masses of Crab-like crustaceans with armored

  crystalline stone, whose naked surfaces backs that sparkled as though encrusted with gleamed like giant sapphires under the vari-flakes of mica, clambered with spidery legs

  colored rays of the sun-arch overhead. Nearly about through the branches. Through the tops

  opposite the Falcon’s position the towering of the thickets weirdly beautiful flying things ramparts were briefly broken in a narrow pass drifted in graceful flight, looking like golden that gashed straight back into the range.

  nuggets set in the center of gossamer webs of Wheeler pointed to where the hundred-spun silver.

  foot walls towered on either side of the narrow Scores of small lizard-like quadrupeds

  portal. “Dalo Yok went through there,” he

  scampered over the sand under the gray

  said. “He hasn’t over ten minutes’ start on us bushes, with chunky bodies whose rough

  at the most. With any luck at all, we ought to surfaces glittered dully like living nuggets of catch him.”

  copper. The manner in which the brutes fed

  They started out across the fine white

  was spectacular proof of how utterly different sand of the plain. Not a frond of the feathery Yokku’s life forces were from those of planets vegetation stirred in the still, dry air, and there in the solar system.

  was not the faintest trace of a cloud in the

  Set in the center of the bulging

  arch-lit sky overhead. Even the air seemed

  foreheads on the lizard-thing’s hideous heads devoid of the tiny dust particles that give

  was a triangular group of three slender rod-

  planetary skies of the solar system their azure like antennae. When a certain frond of the

  The Flame-Worms of Yokku

  7

  gray vegetation was selected to be devoured,

  white sand, that cut straight back for nearly strange pencil-beams of pale light shot from

  two hundred feet before opening into another

  the tips of the antennae, one ray blue, another valley. Near the center of the pass its

  yellow, and the third green. As the rays came narrowness was accentuated by a great

  to a focus on the bit of vegetation a swift and overhanging area that bulged out from one of

  startling reaction occurred. The vegetation the side walls until it more than half closed the glowed in fiery incandescence for a brief space overhead. Wheeler and Larsen passed second, then vanished in a small dense cloud

  the overhanging area, and another sixty feet

  of swirling oily black vapor shot through with brought them to the other end of the pass.

  leaping tongues of scarlet flame.

  Before them was a circular shaped level

  Abruptly the rays from the antennae

  valley, approximately a quarter of a mile in

  ceased, and the black vapor swiftly thickened diameter, and almost completely walled in by

  and coalesced into a shapeless blob of viscid the jagged mountains that rose in glittering

  ebony. A long slender tongue, three-pronged

  splendor on every side.

  at the tip in grotesque parody of a hand, darted Their first glance showed them that if

  forth from the lizard-things mouth and Dalo Yok were still within the valley he was snatched the molten black lump with it as it

  safely trapped. The only exit from the place

  returned and the bony jaws again snapped

  was through the pass itself. On every other

  shut.

  side mighty cliffs of sapphire crystal arose

  The sight recalled to the minds of the

  sheer and naked for hundreds of feet.

  men with new force the words Ran Yok had

  They searched the valley floor without

  screamed in his last delirium. With the seeing any trace of the Martian among the existence of Yokku itself already proved to be many masses of vari-colored crystalline

  actual fact, there was no reason to doubt that boulders that littered the white sand. Then as Ran Yok had also spoken truth when he had

  they emerged from the shelter of the pass and screamed his horror of the mysterious started forward, Dalo Yak made his presence monsters he had called “Flame-worms—giant

  known with startling suddenness.

  flame-worms
of Yokku.”

  They were barely clear of the walls of

  Wheeler and Larsen searched their the pass, when there came the crashing surroundings with redoubled vigilance as they explosion of a nitrolite bullet against the cliff neared the crystalline blue cliffs, but they saw so near them that they were flung to the

  nothing more formidable than new droves of

  ground half dazed by the concussion.

  the small lizard-creatures that fled in blind Scrambling madly to their feet, they

  panic as they approached. Then they entered

  succeeded in gaining the shelter of a rock heap the pass and for the moment forgot all thought just as another bullet burst close behind them.

  of Ran Yok’s flame-worms as they

  From their shelter they soon located

  concentrated their full attention on the Dalo Yok’s position among the jagged litter of problem immediately at hand. Somewhere on

  a high heap of rocks near the valley’s center.

  the other side of that narrow pass through the

  “It shouldn’t be hard to drive him out

  cliffs was wandering a hopelessly crazed of there,” Larsen commented confidently.

  Martian, carrying with him in his blind flight a

  “You stalk him from this side. I’ll take the

  tiny bit of metal that represented their only other. Whatever you do, be careful not to

  chance of ever leaving this sinisterly beautiful make a direct hit on him. If that anode-bar

  world of metal lizards and crystal mountains.

  ever caught the full blast of a nitrolite bullet it The gap was a thirty-foot-wide strip of

  would be wrecked beyond possible repair.

  Amazing Stories

  8

  We’ll just have to keep trimming the corners

  huge green boulder that rose from the sand

  around him till we get a shot close enough to near Dalo Yok, disaster struck with

  stun him. Let’s go.”

  bewildering swiftness.

  A swift fusillade of nitrolite against

  Before Larsen’s startled eyes the great,

  Dalo Yok’s position drove the Martian to green boulder for one flashing moment came cover, where he lay long enough for Wheeler

  to life! Its jade front gaped open, releasing and Larsen to dart from their own shelter and blood-red tentacles that lashed out and

  begin stalking their quarry. Skilled veterans enveloped Wheeler before he could move. The

  that they were in a score of similar battles

  crimson tissues instantly snapped back inside upon foreign planets, they set about their task the cavity with their prisoner, and the crystal with a methodical efficiency, against which

  front of the boulder again clicked shut like the the luhna-crazed Martian had little chance.

  closing jaws of a steel trap. The entire incident Wheeler worked along the left wall of

  occurred with a lighting speed that stunned

  the cliffs, Larsen along the right. Dodging

  Larsen.

  from cover to cover, coordinating their attack A moment of mad racing over the sand

  perfectly to help each other’s progress, they brought him to where the great block of

  swiftly flanked the Martian and drove him

  opaque green crystal towered as stonily

  from one rock heap to another, inexorably

  motionless as it had been before Wheeler was

  driving him near and nearer the barrier cliffs engulfed. Roughly oblong in shape and

  at the valley’s rear. Dalo Yok’s answering

  towering upward nearly eight feet, the thing

  shots were wild, inaccurate efforts that did no looked somewhat like a great, jade coffin

  damage other than occasionally to shower one

  standing on end. Long ribbons of what seemed

  of his attackers with flying sand and rock

  to be dried vegetation festooned its sides,

  fragments.

  adding to its appearance of having stood there As Dalo Yok retreated the available

  lifeless and motionless far centuries.

  cover rapidly thinned, until the only rock-

  Yet Larsen knew that within that stony

  masses breaking the level white expanse of the shell there was hideous life—life that was

  valley floor were occasional isolated boulders probably even now smothering the hopelessly

  scattered here and there like gargantuan trapped body of Bart Wheeler. The line where jewels. The time inevitably came when Dalo

  the lips had closed was faintly visible in the Yok was momentarily caught in the open as

  front wall of the stone. Stepping between the he dashed from the shelter of one boulder to

  dangling brown ribbons that trailed over the

  another.

  sand at the boulder’s base, Larsen snatched

  It was the chance for which Wheeler

  the heavy little hand-axe from his belt and

  and Larsen had been waiting. Their bullets

  savagely attacked the closed lips.

  exploded in the sand within a yard of the

  For all the effect his blows had, he

  fleeing Martian. Dalo Yok was flung bodily

  might as well have been assailing the metal

  from his feet by the terrific concussion. He

  shell of the Falcon itself. The green boulder sprawled in a limp heap on the sand, did not even quiver. Larsen stepped back, completely stunned.

  baffled for the moment.

  Wheeler and Larsen started toward the

  Realizing that seconds might mean the

  unconscious figure. Wheeler was much the

  difference between life and death for Wheeler, closer of the two. He had nearly reached the

  Larsen drove his racing brain in an agony of

  Martian while Larsen was still fifty yards effort to find a way to pierce the crystal-away. Then, as Wheeler passed close beside a

  armored walls. He dared not use nitrolite. Any

  The Flame-Worms of Yokku

  9

  explosion violent enough to wreck that stony

  life. Its festooning ribbons writhed like

  colossus was almost certain to be fatal to

  tortured snakes, while the whole vast bulk

  Wheeler as well.

  shuddered and rocked crazily on its base.

  Larsen stepped despairingly forward to

  For a moment the evidences of agony

  make a last attempt at prying open the closed continued. Then abruptly the jaws gaped open

  jaws. As he did so he trod upon one of the

  and remained open while the tortured

  trailing brown ribbons. The green wall membranes of the inner cavity retched in a instantly split open for its full height, as if two mighty effort to expel the object that was

  doors were operated by a hidden spring. causing excruciating pain. Wheeler’s body Larsen’s instinctive leap backward saved him

  was ejected with a violence that hurled it ten by inches from the tentacles of red flesh that feet away.

  lashed out from the boulder’s interior.

  With Wheeler safely clear, Larsen sent

  The red tissues snapped back within

  a swift burst of nitrolite bullets into the gaping the thing and again the stone jaws clicked

  body cavity. When the explosions ceased,

  shut, but not before Larsen had caught a brief nothing remained of the thing but a shattered ghastly glimpse of an inner cavity of pulsing heap of green crystal fragments and torn

  red membranes, among which Wheeler’s scarlet membranes of quivering flesh.

  stocky body still struggled feebly.

  Wheeler, his clothes smeared with the

  Swift realization flashed through body juices of the creature’s maw, was Larsen’s racing brain. H
e knew now how to

  climbing dazedly to his feet as Larsen turned make the powerful jaws snap open. Those

  toward him.

  apparently innocent, brown ribbons were, in

  “Thanks, Eric,” he said weakly,

  reality, cleverly disguised sense-organs for the scowling in disgust as he wiped the slime

  thing. When an unwary victim trod upon one

  from his face. “About one more minute in that of the ribbons, the jaws automatically snapped hellish thing and I’d have gone raving crazy.

  open and the lashing red membranes swept the

  I’m all right now—just messed up a little is

  captive inside, to be digested at the thing’s all. You’d better take care of that Martian,

  leisure.

  though. He seems to be coming to.”

  Larsen’s lips set in a grim straight line

  Heeding Wheeler’s warning, Larsen

  as he snatched a selithium tube from his belt.

  promptly stepped over to where Dalo Yok was

  There was one morsel that the thing would not groggily rising to his feet. The Martian made relish. He pressed the switch in the handle.

  no effort to resist as Larsen stripped his belt-The tube’s six-inch selithium tip—used by

  gear from him, merely staring at Larsen with

  explorers for both light and warmth—glowed

  lusterless eyes that told of a brain that was in white-hot incandescence.

  hopelessly dazed, now that his first murderous Larsen warily trod again upon one of

  frenzy had passed. Larsen drew a breath of

  the brown ribbons. The jaws snapped open in

  deep relief as he found the anode-bar cached

  instant response. In the fleeting second they in the Martian’s belt-pouch.

  remained open Larsen flung the flaming tube

  “Find it?” Wheeler queried. “Good.

  between the curtains of membrane deep into