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

of his lungs. "I want to pound these slivers of rock beside the knife to brace it."
    And Jamieson pounded while she danced frantically from one foot to another in a panic of anxiety. He pounded while that scrambling from above became a roaring confusion, so near now that it was deafening. He pounded while his nerves jangled and shook from the hellish bass mewing that blasted down from the ravenous beast.
    And then, with a gasp, he flung aside the piece of rock with which he had been hammering, and they lowered themselves recklessly over the edge—just as two great glowing eyes peered down upon them. The firelight revealed the vague outlines of a Hark fanged mouth, a thick, twisting tongue; and then there was a scaly glitter as the monstrosity plunged downward right onto the fire.
    Jamieson saw no more. He let go his hold and skittered downward for nearly twenty feet before he struck bottom. For a minute he lay there, too dizzy to realize that the scrambling noise from above had stopped. Instead there was a low grunting of pain, and then a sucking sound.
    "What in the world?" the woman said, puzzled.
    "Wait!" Jamieson whispered tensely.
    They waited what must have been five minutes, then ten— half an hour. The sucking sound above was weaker. An overtone of wheezing accompanied it, and the grunts had stopped. Once there was a low, hoarse moan of agony.
    "Help me up," Jamieson whispered. "I want to see how close it is to death."
    "Listen," she snapped, "either you're mad or I'm going to be. For heaven's sake, what's it doing?"
    "It smelled the blood on the knife," Jamieson replied, "and began to lick it. The licking cut its tongue into ribbons, which whipped it into a frenzy, because with every lick more of its own blood would flow into its mouth. You say it loves blood. For the last half hour it's been gorging itself on its own blood. Primitive stuff, common to many planets."
    "I guess," Barbara Whitman said in a queer voice after a long moment, "there's nothing now to prevent us getting back to the Five Cities."
    Jamieson stared with narrowed eyes at her vague shape in the darkness. "Nothing except—you!"
    They climbed in silence to where the gryb lay dead. Jamieson was aware of Barbara watching him as he gingerly removed the knife from where it was wedged into the rock. Then, abruptly, harshly, she said, "Give me that!"
    Jamieson hesitated, then handed the knife over. Outside, the morning greeted them, bleak yet somehow more inviting. The Sun was well above the horizon, and something else was in the sky, too: a huge red ball of pale fire, sinking now toward the western horizon. It was Carson's Planet.
    The sky, the world of this moon, was lighter, brighter; even the rocks didn't look so dead or so black. A strong wind was blowing, and it added to the sense of life. The morning seemed cheerful after the black night, as if hope were once again possible.
    It's a false hope, thought Jamieson. The Lord save me from
    the stubborn duty sense of an honest woman. She's going to attack.
    Yet, the attack, when it came, surpassed his expectations. He caught the movement, the flash of the knife, out of the corner of his eye and whipped aside. Her strength astonished him. The knife caught the resisting fabric of the arm of his electrically heated suit, scraped a foot-long scar on that obstinate, half-metallic substance, and then Jamieson was dancing away along a ledge of firm rock.
    "You silly fool," he gasped. "You don't know what you're doing."
    "You bet I know!" she said, panting. "I've got to kill you, and I'm going to in spite of your silver tongue. You're the devil himself for talking, but now you die."
    She came forward, knife poised, and Jamieson let her come. There was a way of disarming a person attacking with a knife, providing the method was unknown to the attacker. She came at him silently; her free hand grabbed at Jamieson, and that was all he needed. Just a damned amateur who didn't know knife fighters didn't try for