Harry Harrison - Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

"Ugly beggar," Jerry said, and the others nodded agreement.

"Not only that," Steigen-Sterben said, "but they smell very badly as well."

Now the creature on the screen rose, and picking up a stick, it stumped over on its four postlike legs to a diagram, which it began to point at with the stick. The diagram was a simple drawing of an Ormoloo with dotted lines across many different parts of his body.

"What does it mean?" John asked.

"Unhappily" – Steigen-Sterben sighed – "you will find out quickly enough."

They did, indeed, find out quickly enough. The scene changed, and a dead Ormoloo was stretched out on a wooden block while the speaker sawed him apart with a powerful bandsaw.

"Enough!" Jerry shouted, springing to his feet and knocking over his chair. The film vanished, and the lights came back on. Steigen-Sterben sat with head lowered and, finally, explained in a hushed voice.

"This was what I dared not speak of. The Garnishee seek only to capture us and eat us, for they are monsters."

"Monsters indeed!" Chuck roared, jumping up and knocking over his chair. "I know I speak for us all when I say that we will give you every aid within our power to wipe these fiends from the face of your fair planet!"

All the Earthmen nodded solemn agreement, and as one, the Ormoloo jumped to their feet and saluted and cheered themselves hoarse, shouting, "Hip, hip, HOORAY!" over and over again.

"And I think I know a way to do that," Jerry said thoughtfully. "I am considering a weapon far stronger than anything you have here, a weapon I could build that would wipe out your enemies to the last fiend."

"You wouldn't," Steigen-Sterben said, smiling broadly and putting a friendly arm or two around Jerry's shoulders, "care to tell me about it, would you, old man?"

"Not just yet. I have to work some bugs out of it before I do that. But first we have something more pressing to worry about. Before the frozen oxygen runs out, we have to do something about Sally."

"Could I examine your hospital?" John asked.

"Of course," Steigen-Sterben said, "but you must not expect it to be up to the fine standards of a hospital like your Pleasantville General Hospital and Rest Home. . . ."

"You've heard about that here?" Chuck gasped.

"Of course. I listened to the radio program myself about its unique modern wonders and remember it clearly. That is why I say ours are crude by comparison. You see we Ormoloo have no pain nerves or bloodstream as you do." To prove the point he drew his sword and plunged it through the body of the Ormoloo next to him who never batted an eyelid but went on licking a grass blade from his hand. When the sword came out, only a tiny hole could be seen that instantly sealed up. "Our blood goes from cell to cell by osmosis so we need neither heart nor blood vessels. Also, our bodies are very resistant to infections. Our hospitals are, well, just a sort of wooden table, a couple of knives and saws and a lot of needles and thread. If parts are too damaged to save, we hack them off, that's about all."

"Yes, I understand," John mused. "But I had something a little more complex in mind for Sally. Look – you must have machine shops and tools, things like that?"

"Of course. There is a complete machine shop here for servicing our weapons and machines."

"Then that's the answer. I can make the instruments I will need; it won't take long. I'll fix things up while you guys get Sally in here."

He was as good as his word, for no sooner had the two others put on their insulated gloves and carried Sally in from the refrigerated john than they found him in the middle of a well-equipped hospital room.

"I'll need some help. Are either of you up to assisting?"

"I have a graduate degree in open-heart surgery," Chuck said. "Will that help?"

"Good. You can pass me the instruments. What about you, Jerry?"

"My only graduate medical degree is in proctology, so maybe I better just watch."

The newly built revasculator pumped, throbbed and gurgled, the hysterisis-anniliilator hissed, the corpuscular reconstitutor clicked passionately – and all these machines under the deft control of John, who indeed was a master surgeon. Beneath his tender ministrations Sally's tender body, still clad in the remnants of her gay summer frock, relaxed and lost the glassy frozen look. Within minutes she had softened a good deal, though, of course, her heart was not beating, nor was she breathing.

"The intravascular oxygenator is supplying oxygen directly to her brain cells," John said calmly, while his hands flashed busily about their tasks. "As you know if the blood supply to the brain is cut off for more than two minutes, the brain begins to deteriorate, and even if the patient lives, it will be only as a mindless husk. We can only hope that Sally froze quickly back there on Titan, or she will be a beautiful but mindless husk. Now, stand back if you please, for I shall apply two hundred and thirty volts of direct current with these paddles directly to her heart which will surprise it into beating again, and she will, I hope, be restored to young and vital life."

The paddles were applied, the switch thrown, Sally's body contracted with the shock, and she leaped a yard into the air. When she came down, her eyes were wide open, and she put her knuckles to her mouth and screamed loudly over and over again.

"Husk. . . ." Both the young men who loved her sighed.

"Perhaps not," said John, injecting a note of hope into what appeared to be an inevitable and tragic occasion.

"Perhaps she was frozen so fast her memory was frozen as well, and she thinks she is still a prisoner of the loathsome Titanians."

"It's us, Sally," Jerry said hopefully. "You're safe, do you hear that, safe!"

She looked around her, dazedly, her eyes still empty of anything resembling intelligence.

"Well, thanks for trying, John," Jerry said wearily.

"Yeah," Chuck added in the same gloom-ridden tone of voice. "You did your best. But it was just too late. She is a hapless vegetable forever."

"Vegetable, my foot," Sally said angrily. "What on earth are you talking about? And what happened to those loathsome Titanians that were here just a moment ago?"

"It worked!" they shouted in unison, and there was a great deal of hugging, backslapping and furtive knuckling of tears from eye corners. Once the hysterical moment was over they explained to Sally, in detail, what had happened. They had but one question, and Jerry phrased it for all of them.

"We have only one question. Why did you open the plane door and let the Titanians in?"

"They knocked three times, and you told me to open the door at three knocks. That's a foolish question," she sniffed, and they dared not disagree with her. "In any case it's nice that it all ended the way it did and all. And I'm really not sorry I missed most of. it. Frankly I'm rather glad I was frozen by the time the Titanian king was caressing my limbs with his tentacles because I should not have liked that at all. So – when do we go back to Earth?"

"As soon as we have destroyed all of the disgusting carnivorous Garnishee," Jerry said stalwartly. "We can do at least that for these fine people here. And I must align the cheddite projector, and to do that I must find out where we are."

"This is the planet Domite which circles the star Proxima Centauri," Steigen-Sterben said, entering the operating room. "After dark you will be able to see the nearby double star of Alpha Centauri, the smaller companion of which is almost identical with the primary of your own solar system."

"He speaks pretty good English for a bald guy with four arms," Sally said, impressed.

"Steigen-Sterben at your service, dear Miss Sally. It is a pleasure to have you among us in revived form. Now, Mr. Jerry, if I could be so bold as to ask you about the weapon you had proposed constructing that would destroy once and for all our disgusting enemies. Is it ready?"