Harry Harrison - Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

There was a thunder of heavy feet as the Garnishee rushed for the door. Slug-Togath stayed behind and issued incomprehensible orders in a strange tongue through a hand communicator.

"The attack has begun," he announced. "We have hurled our entire remaining forces against the fort. Pray to Great Cacodyl that we succeed before their reinforcements arrive."

"Let me shake your tentacle," Jerry said, now recovered, striding forward. "Sally has told me everything, and I'm glad to have you on our side. I'm sorry about, you know, wiping out almost all your ancient and intelligent race. . ."

"Fortunes of war, we shall not speak of it again. Ahh, I have a message!" The communicator blurbled and bleeped. "The walls have been breached, we are inside the fort, the attack is succeeding, though, of course, not without an incredible loss of life on both sides. Wait! What is this? Something has happened. The advance guard reports a hideous alien life form has been spotted – that must be your friend, Chuck – they are closing in but 'preprabishkom!' he is escaping!"

They rushed to the windows and had their first view of the battle. Half the fort was in ruins, and flames guttered through the rest. Bodies, of friend and foe alike, littered the landscape, which was also a junkyard of wrecked war vehicles.

"There he goes!" Slug-Togath shouted, pointing a quivering tentacle.

From the ruined fort there slowly rose up a strange flying vehicle. Shells exploded around it, but miraculously, it escaped and rose even higher in the merciless glare of the piercing Garnishee searchlights. It was a steam-driven ornithopter held aloft by four pairs of great flapping black wings. Smoke gushed from the chimney, and the wings thrashed and beat strongly as the flying machine gathered speed and rushed toward the horizon.

"Strap in, everyone," Jerry shouted, diving for the controls. "We're going after him!"

They barely had time to find their seats before the great bulk of the Pleasantville Eagle was roaring down the improvised runway and hurling itself into the air.

"I have it on the radar," John announced. "It looks like he's heading due north."

"I feared that," Slug-Togath said gloomily, but would not elucidate.

"We'll catch up with them quickly enough," Jerry said assuredly. "That wing-flapping gadget can't outfly this baby."

But Jerry's prediction was brought to naught, for as soon as the ornithopter had reached sufficient altitude and speed, a built-in ramjet fired, and the wings were retracted, and the now jet-powered aircraft sizzled north above the speed of sound. It was all that the 747 could do, throttles wide open, to keep the alien vessel on the edge of the radarscope.

"They have to come down some time," Jerry said, grimly. "And when they do, we'll be there."

Onwards they raced in this race to save a race, a man, a world, possibly the entire inhabited galaxy, and soon dawn rushed upon them and, yes, their quarry was visible as a dark spot against the eternal snowfields that hurtled by below.

"What in tarnation is he doing up here at the North Pole?" Jerry asked puzzledly. "Does anyone live up here?"

"Not to our knowledge," Slug-Togath answered grimly.

"But we have our suspicions. It seems that during all the centuries of eternal warfare upon this planet we have never known where the secret base is from which the Lortonoi operate with their mental powers. We have had suspicions and have raided certain areas, but we feel now that these were, how do you say it, blue herrings to throw us off-"

"Red," Jerry said. "We say red."

"Blue reds to throw us off-"

"Herrings, not reds, you got it wrong-"

"Look, do you mind if I finish the story and we save the goddamn language lesson for later?" Slug-Togath snapped irritably, undoubtedly fatigued and out of sorts because of the destruction of most of his millennia-old race. "For the last few centuries we have come to suspect one certain inaccessible location at the North Pole, an extinct volcano named Mount Krisco, and plans were being drawn up for a secret attack."

"The escaping ornithopter-jet is losing speed and dropping!" John called out, hunched over the radar screen.

"It's going down, and it looks like it is heading toward that mountain, the big one that looks like an extinct volcano."

"Mount Krisco." Slug-Togath sighed.

"Is he committing suicide?" Sally screeched as the ornithopter-jet dived straight at the side of the mountain.

"Would he were," Slug-Togath intoned grimly. "I realize you will be put out by the death of your friend, but this is as nothing to one who has lost almost his entire race, and it would mean the destruction of the cheddite projector which would keep it out of the hands – if they have hands – of the Lortonoi. No, too bad, such a happy course is not possible."

At the very last instant a great slab of the solid mountain swung back to reveal a black opening in the stone cliff. The 747 dived to follow, but long before they were close, the secret entrance had closed again so that they had to veer off.

"I'll land on that ice sheet there," Jerry said. "We'll follow him into the secret hideout."

Meanwhile, Sally, who was more than a little rumpled after being kidnapped, dragged through tunnels and that kind of thing, decided she ought to freshen up or at least comb the tangles out of her hair. Unthinkingly she picked up her comb and took the mind shield from her head. Instantly, she was a different person. A look of malevolent cunning swept across her features and painted them with an evil grin while her tongue darted in and out like a snake's. With her fingers clenching and unclenching like talons she sidled across the cabin and, in a lightning-quick motion seized the submachine gun and flicked off the safety.

"This is the end for all of you," she snarled in a voice rich with venom. "Look upon your deaths, and let me revel in your expressions of horrified shock before I press the trigger and send this plane with all aboard crashing into the Artic wastes."

"Sally – have you gone mad?" Jerry cried out, flicking on the automatic pilot and jumping to his feet.

"No!" Slug-Togath called out and put out a tentacle to stop him. "That is not Sally talking. I recognize the voice as one of the Lortonoi. She must have lost her mind shield."

"Very acute thinking, Garnishee swine." Sally laughed in the alien voice of the thing that had possessed her. "But soon you will think no more. We now have the secret of the cheddite projector and no longer need waste our time on your backward planet. The galaxy is ours!"

With these last shouted words she pressed hard on the trigger, and ravening bullets screamed from the muzzle of the gun. But quick as she had been, Slug-Togath was quicker. He hurled his trunklike body into the path of the bullets, then tore the weapon from her hand, imprisoning her instantly with many tentacles.

"You're hurt," Jerry called out. "Shot a dozen times at least!"

"Please do not concern yourself for my physical condition. We Garnishee are very tough and almost bulletproof, and the few slugs that penetrated will be absorbed by my body chemistry in a matter of days."

"Too late, too late!" Sally rasped in a hoarse voice and began to laugh madly.

"What does she, I mean it, mean?"

"There is your answer," Slug-Togath pointed. "The Lortonoi are fleeing our planet, escaping with the galaxy's most important secret."

Even as he spoke, there was a rumble from the extinct volcano and a flare of fire and a plume of smoke. But this was no simple eruption, a plain matter of lava and poison gas, but something far more important. With a thunderous roar a great spaceship hurled itself into the air from the mouth of the volcano and sped skyward. Faster and faster it went, shrinking to a tiny dot and then finally vanishing completely.