Harry Harrison - Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers

Great motors hummed in the legs of their robot Hagg-Loos machine as it jumped clear just in time. At full power they sprinted away from the station and the growing excitement at the jammed exit, and just before they turned the corner, Jerry sighted carefully and put a quick zap of the heat ray into the load of bombs.

They blew up nicely indeed, shaking the ground with a mighty thunder and bringing down half the station behind them. Chortling, they fled, strolled rather, so they would not be noticed. Inside the strolling machine Slug-Togath unfolded a map of Haggis City that the spy had sent them and guided them swiftly toward the secret lair of the spy, X-9.

"Careful now," Jerry cozened, "we are getting close."

"I can read a map just as well as you can," Slug-Togath grumbled.

"That's nice," Jerry mused. "Say, do you notice that that manhole lid – the one over there about twelve feet in diameter – is sort of lifted up, and I think I can see two glowing eyes watching us from under it."

"The police!" Slug-Togath wailed, and his tentacles stumbled over the controls so that their robot danced a little two-step on the pavement.

"Easy does it there, old squid-head," Jerry consoled.

"Don't get carried away until we find out what it is. Might just be the sewer men at work, you know." From a loudspeaker on the wall came an impatient hissing.

"The manhole is also hissing," Jerry observed. "And it may just be hissing for attention. Let's sidle over in that direction."

Attempting to look innocent, the twenty-foot-long machine disguised as a great white scorpion foxtrotted sideways until it was close to the manhole. The glowing eyes followed them, and when they were close a hoarse voice whispered, "One, two, three, four, five. . . ."

"The password!" Slug-Togath shouted, then switched on an external loudspeaker. "Six, seven, eight, nine, ten," he said into it.

"What kind of cockamamie password is that?" Jerry asked, aggrieved. "A five-year-old could figure that one out."

"It's what they call native psychology." The manhole lifted higher, and a white claw beckoned them forward. After a quick look around to make sure they weren't being watched, the machine shot forward and down the giant manhole. "The Hagg-Loos have such short tempers that they can't count past four without getting so irritated they stop. In this manner do we know that the great beast lurking here is none other than the Hagg-Inder spy who goes by the name of X-9."

"Hiya, X-9," Jerry said into the microphone.

"You took your own sweet time about getting here," X-9 grumbled. "I been lurking in this damn sewer so long that I'm covered with fungus."

"Hazard of the game," Jerry said offhandedly, ignoring the other's bitter tongue. "We came as soon as we could after you stopped answering the radio on the secret wavelength. What happened?"

"They caught me cracking into the secret laboratory and became suspicious. I talked them out of it for a while; after all, I am head of intelligence on this filthy planet. But I couldn't convince the Lortonoi of my innocence, they were too shrewd for that, and when they wanted to subject me to their infamous mind-vacuum technique, I fled and have been hiding out here ever since waiting for you."

"But you know the location of the secret laboratory!" Slug-Togath exulted.

"That I do."

"Would someone let me in onto what's going on?" Jerry muttered petulantly.

"Chuckee hungry," a new voice said as Chuck woke up with a wide yawn.

"Here is what has happened since you were sold into slavery," Slug-Togath explained, counting off the different points on his tentacle tips. "First, experiments showed that the new cheddite was far stronger than the original piece, perhaps owing to the presence of certain gastric acids of your female companion. More experiments are planned to determine validity of this, although female companion presents great resistance to sample takers. Suffice for the moment that not only has the cheddite projector been aligned to project the Pleasantville Eagle, within which it is installed, to a precise and distant spot, but it can take with the Eagle at least one hundred other ships."

"Chuckee thirstee," the almost brainless hulk muttered and struggled against the strap that held it to the chair. Jerry gave it a couple of inches of straight rye in a glass which soothed it somewhat.

"So the massive attack is planned and ready," SlugTogath continued, "but could not begin until the precise location of secret laboratory was known. Since the first attack must blast straight to the lab and stop any attempt to escape with the cheddite projector there, nothing could be done until that information was obtained. Which, if you will pardon my saying so, X-9, is the purpose of our presence here and if you have the coordinates for the secret laboratory they would be greatly appreciated."

"83556.98 by 23976.23," the master spy instantly replied.

Slug-Togath wasted no time. He flipped the switches that hurled power into the ultlra-radio with the secret wavelength and, with a certain smugness in his voice said,

"Slug-Togath reporting from Hagg-Loos. The coordinates of the secret laboratory are 83556.98 by 2396.23. Do you read me?"

They read him all right, for the results of his message were dramatic to say the least. The instant he had stopped speaking the sky above became black with Hagg-Inder battle cruisers, one hundred of them, instantly transported there across the gulf of space by the power of the cheddite projector. As soon as they had appeared, they roared into action, each hurtling toward an assigned target so that a moment later great explosions rocked the ground as ravening death hurled down from the wide-open projectors and guns of the fleet. Crackling bolts of electrical destruction tore at the national armory, the spaceport, the liquid lead works, the factories, the sewage plant, everything for they showed no mercy. The very air crackled with the discharge of the mighty energies, and the solid earth beneath their claws trembled at its magnitude. Cautiously they lifted the manhole cover and peered out at the rain of destruction. But as they did so, some force grabbed onto X-9 and the robot Hagg-Loos and plucked them up into the air. Jerry and Slug-Togath both rushed to the weapons, but even as they touched the triggers, they saw the source of this strange force and relinquished their grips on the weapons. For they were being pulled straight up to the Pleasantville Eagle, which circled and swooped above. At the last moment, before they were crushed against the dural, the force lessened and drew them on, softly as a falling rising feather, to rest against the underside of the wing. They could see John waving from the pilot's compartment as his voice crackled on the radio.

"Welcome back, gang. As you can see, we were ready to go as soon as we got your message. We jumped here, and an automatic tracer zeroed in on your radio broadcast, and the new magnet beams, developed in the laboratories of the Hagg-Inder under the tutelage of the eons-old wisdom of the Garnishee, whisked you up. Now, so you don't think I'm just flying in circles and beating my gums, you will notice that below, as we talked, the gunner on the cheddite projector has been peeling back layer after layer of that immense fortress, hurling the layers into the sun of course, to expose the laboratory. Ahh, I believe that is it."

"It is indeed!" X-9 agreed, hurling the thought at them, since he had been telepathically following the conversation.

"Sic 'em!" Jerry jubilated as the flying fortress of the 747 dived like a hawk into the ruins. A light touch on the wheel, aided by a quick projection from the cheddite projector landed them right in the middle of the lab among the fleeing Hagg-Loos, a good number of whom were squashed by the wheels as they dropped.