Robert Silverberg: Gorgon Planet

But the others realized what it meant, too, and we raced through the airlock door in no time at all.

We were too late, of course. We found the biologist bent over the decapitated gorgon, examining the head with interest. And frozen stiff.

Averting our eyes, we carried Kal back to the ship and buried him next to Flaherty and Janus. More than any of us, Kal had been a scientist, and he couldn’t resist trying to solve the puzzle of the gorgon. Whether he had or not we would never know—but apparently the gorgon’s neural network had been of a low order, low enough to remain functioning for a while after the organism’s death. And there had been enough of a charge left in those deadly eyes to give Framer a freezing blast.

I directed operations from the door of the ship, trying hard not to stare at the upturned gorgon-head. Upton and Morro crept up blindfolded and slipped the gorgon’s head into a thick plasticanvas bag, and zipped up the top. We stuck a “danger—do not open” sign on it.

Medusa had cost us three men, but we had beaten her. We loaded her headless corpse into the deep freeze for Earth’s scientists to puzzle over. It took all five of us to lift the huge thing and stow it away, and we were glad to see the end of it. No more monsters, we thought; the expedition would be restful from here on.

Until the next day, when Ramirez found that Sphinx crouching near the ship—