War Against the Rull by A. E. van Vogt Page A

Perhaps it didn't mean much, but there was a tone of acceptance of him in her voice.
    The sustained darkness of that night, the insistent crackle of the palely flickering fire seemed to become more and more alive as the nervous hours twitched by. It was Jamieson who was pacing now, his powerful body restless and tense with anxious uncertainty.
    It was getting distinctly warmer; the white hoarfrost was melting in places, yielding for the first time to the heat of the spluttering flame; and the chill was no longer reaching clammily through his heated clothes.
    A scatter of fine ashes lay on the ground, indicating how completely the fuel had burned away; but even as it was, the cave was beginning to show a haze of smoke fumes, through which it was difficult to see properly.
    Abruptly there was a great stirring above them, and then a deep, eager mewing and a scrambling, scratching sound. Barbara Whitman jerked erect from where she had been lying. "It's awake," she gasped, "and it's remembered."
    "Well," said Jamieson grimly, "this is what you've been longing for."
    From across the fire, she stared at him moodily. "I'm beginning to see that killing you will solve nothing. It was a mad scheme."
    A rock bounded down and crashed between them, missing the fire, then vanishing noisily into the darkness beyond. There followed a horrible squeezing, a rasping sound as of brittle scales scraping rock, and then, terribly near, the drumming sound as of a monstrous sledge hammer at work.
    "He's breaking off a piece of rock!" she said breathlessly. "Quick! Get into a concavity against the wall. Those rocks may come tumbling down here, and they won't miss us forever. What are you doing?"
    "I'm afraid," said Jamieson in a shaky voice, "I've got to risk the rock. There's no time to waste."
    His leather-covered hands trembled with the excitement that gripped him as he hastily unfastened one of the glove extensions. He winced a little as his hand emerged into the open air and immediately jerked it over the hot flame of the fire.
    "Phew, if s cold. Must still be ninety below. I'll have to warm this knife or it'll stick to my skin."
    He held the blade into the flame, finally withdrew it, made a neat incision in the thumb of his bare hand and wiped the blood onto the knife blade, smearing it on until his hand, blue with the cold, refused to bleed any more. Then he quickly slipped it back into his glove. It tingled as it warmed, but in spite of the pain he picked up a flaming faggot by its unburned end and walked along into the darkness, his eyes searching the floor. He was vaguely aware of the woman following him.
    "Ah," said Jamieson, and even in his own ears his voice sounded wrenched from him. He knelt quiveringly beside a thin crack in the rock. "This'll be just about right. It's practically against the wall, protected from falling rocks by this projecting edge of wall." He glanced up at the woman. "The reason I had us camp here last night instead of farther down was because this ledge is nearly sixty feet long. The gryb is about thirty feet long from tail to snout, isn't it?"
    "Yes."
    "Well, this will give it room to come down and walk a few feet; and besides, the cave is wide enough here for us to squeeze past it when it's dead."
    "When it's dead!" she echoed with a faint moan. "You must be the world's prize fool!"
    Jamieson scarcely heard her. He was carefully inserting the handle of the knife into the crack of the rock, wedging it in. . He tested it.
    "Hm-m-m, it seems solid enough. But we'll have to make doubly sure."
    "Hurry," Barbara exclaimed. "We've got to get down to the next level. There's just a chance that there is a connection somewhere below with another cave."
    "There isn't! I went down to investigate while you were sleeping. There are only two more levels after this."
    "For heaven's sake, it'll be here in a minute."
    "A minute is all I need," Jamieson replied, struggling to calm his clamoring heart, to slow the convulsive gasping