Harry Harrison - Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

"Enter at your own peril!" he shouted, raising a handful of the deadly coal dust, coal dust to him, but drugaddicting DnDrf to the Hagg-Loos who now clattered into the cave after him.

"You heard me," Jerry cried, backing away. "I mean it. One step more and I let fly and you are an addict for life until your chitin rots away!"

But the Hagg-Loos warrior ignored him and still came forward. Good as his word, Jerry let fly unerringly with the coal dust, which shmeared itself on the enemy's white chitin. And still it came. Jerry abandoned the coal-dust ploy and seized up one of the clubs, not much of a weapon against the yard-long nippers of the enemy, but if fight he must, why, then he would die fighting.

"To me, Chuck, to me!" he called out. "I may have to die fighting, and a little help would be appreciated." But the help was not coming. Chuck had regained consciousness and was back at the mangel-wurzel trough, noshing away with bestial slurping sounds. The enemy advanced until its great form hovered over Jerry, and he drew back his club for one last blow when a trapdoor opened in its abdomen and a mop of tentacles popped out.

"I know those familiar tentacles," Jerry exulted, hurling the club aside. "That is you, isn't it, Slug-Togath?"

"None other," came the gloomy answer. "Left behind by force despite strong reservations as to wisdom of abandonment, to aid in effecting your escape."

"Damn good idea on someone's part. Am I allowed to ask just what you are doing inside one of the enemy?"

"Not enemy, giant robot machine constructed after you were sold to the slavers. It seems that the Hagg-lnder albino spy on this planet was interrupted during a secret message, and they have not been able to contact him yet. So this robot was built, and I agreed to take it into the enemy city to see about the spy, but under controlled conditions and etc., not just dumped at the North Pole like this." His tentacles wriggled with self-pity as he gave his TS card a good verbal punching.

"Cheer up, old Medusa head," Jerry chirruped, patting him on the back, inadvertently giving him a black eye at the same time since, of course, he had eyes on his back as well. "You've got help on this mission now, one and oneeighth good men to help you. Chuck being the one-eighth, about all he is good for since they crunched his brain." Chuck happily slurped an answer.

"Look, tell me about it later, will you?" Slug-Togath said nervously, peering in all directions, which of course was easy for him to do. "Climb into this damn thing so I can seal the hatch before any of them spots us."

And this they did, only getting Chuck away from the mangel-wurzels with some difficulty and by promising him an Ormoloo-burger if he was a good boy and climbed into the Haggis machine and sat quietly. This was done and the hatch slammed, and Jerry looked around approvingly at the well-organized, though cramped, quarters. A control seat in the head with vision screens to operate the machine, with special controls for the poison sting in the tail which also housed a supersonic crumbler beam. Tool and food compartments were on both sides, a compact galley, recruiting posters and VD warnings on the walls, a folding cot, a color TV next to the bar, and a chemical toilet tucked discreetly in the rear behind a curtain. "Not bad, not bad at all," Jerry approved as he sizzled up a burger for the salivating Chuck, who was strapped into a chair. It smelled so good he made one himself and was munching away under the disapproving eyes of Slug-Togath.

"I know your Earthling axiom about Nero fiddling while Rome burned," he disapproved, "and we have the equivalent in our axiom about how only a crogis nardles while his friend's mother cakarakas."

"Sounds sort of dirty," Jerry mumbled around a mouthful, "so don't bother to translate. While eating I have been thinking, and I have a plan of escape, but first I've got a couple of questions. Like do you have a mind shield for Chuck, since the enemy might think something was wrong if they caught his brutish thoughts emanating from the neighborhood of this thing's big intestine?"

"Not to worry. The entire device is mind-shielded. They will catch no stray thoughts."

"That's a good beginning. But what about if they should try to contact what they think is their buddy here and get no thoughts in return?"

"I assure you, all this was taken into consideration when the device was constructed. There is a programmed brainwave transmitter hooked to the antenna. This is the board that controls it By selecting the correct button, it will broadcast thoughts of immense concentration, including the message 'buzz off and don't bug me now,' the random thoughts of deep sleep, and so forth."

"What is this button labeled 'section 8'?"

"Well, as I am sure you know, all the Hagg-Loos are insane to a greater or lesser degree, usually greater, driven that way by the maddening hard radiation of their sun, the great star Spica. Many of the creatures have periods of frothing insanity at which time the others leave them completely alone. That is the frothing insanity button.

"Then that is all I need to know!" Jerry shouted and did a little victory dance. "My plan is now complete. Prepare to escape."

As soon as the plan had been explained to him, the dubious Slug-Togath became an enthusiast as well and joined in the preparations. Using the great front claws, they dug into the powdered coal dust and hurled it all over the white body of the machine. Then, with all claws full of more coal dust, they raced for the entrance, and before they emerged, Jerry pressed the section 8 button.

Oh, what a hideous sight it was to the Hagg-Loos warriors who were emerging from the fighting ships. For, in their institutional madness, they fear nothing in the universe other than the dread DnDrf which would bring on addiction, rotted chitin, you know the drill. So they took one glimpse at what appeared to be one of their number just coated with the deadly substance, stoned out of his mind obviously and radiating nuttiness on every wavelength, and coming in their direction.

They split. Those still in their ships blasted off instantly. Those near their ships dived into them, in many cases slamming the doors in their comrades' faces. These, and the others too far from the ships, instantly fled at top speed into the frigid 110 degree Artic wastes.

It worked like a charm. Slug-Togath labored at the controls, his tentacles a blur of motion as he spun the machine about and headed for the grounded spaceships, their owners fleeing before him. Still mentally broadcasting crazy like crazy, he clambered the machine into the first one with an open port, slamming and sealing the port behind. The control cabin was in the nose, and in a matter of seconds he and Jerry examined and figured out how they worked, and whammo! the ship blasted free from the ground and rose erratically inte the air. Moments later they were alone, arcing up into space in a high parabola.

"What's next?" Jerry asked pouring himself a large martini cocktail and draining it almost instantly.

"Food for Chuckee," that pathetic voice entreated, so Jerry went and fried up another batch of Ormolooburgers.

"They'll try to intercept us and blast us out of space, so we are getting out of space before they can report and locate us. This orbit will bring us down a few miles outside Haggis City, where we will abandon the ship and proceed to the rendezvous with the Hagg-Inder spy, or at least to the place where he is supposed to be, to determine the nature of the trouble."

Night arrived suddenly as they caught up with the planet's rotation, and darkness concealed their fall.

"Controls are set," Slug-Togath reported. "When this ship lands, we have just four seconds to get out of it before it takes off on a random course that I have programmed into the computer. I am sure that they will disintegrate the ship so that all the DnDrf in it will be destroyed. As long as we are not seen emerging we will be safe."