Who Goes There by John W. Campbell Page A

seven days – abandon all hope, ye wolves who enter here!
    “Maybe we can save time. Connant, would you step for – “
    Again Barclay was too slow. There were more grins, less tensity still, when Barclay and Van Wall finished their work.
    Garry spoke in a low, bitter voice. “Connant was one of the finest men we had here – and five minutes ago I’d have sworn he was a man. Those damnable things are more than imitation. “Garry shuddered and sat back in his bunk.
    And thirty seconds later, Garry’s blood shrank from the hot platinum wire, and struggled to escape the tube, struggled as frantically as a suddenly feral, red-eyed, dissolving imitation of Garry struggled to dodge the snake-tongue weapon Barclay advanced at him, white faced and sweating. The Thing in the test-tube screamed with a tin, tinny voice as McReady dropped it into the glowing coal of the galley stove.
     

Chapter 12
    “The last of it?” Dr. Copper looked down from his bunk with bloodshot, saddened eyes. “Fourteen of them – “
    McReady nodded shortly. “In some ways – if only we could have permanently prevented their spreading – I’d like to have even the imitations back. Commander Garry – Connant – Dutton – Clark -”
    “Where are they taking those things?” Copper nodded to the stretcher Barclay and Norris were carrying out.
    “Outside. Outside on the ice, where they’ve got fifteen smashed crates, half a ton of coal, and presently will add ten gallons of kerosene. We’ve dumped acid on every spilled drop, every torn fragment. We’re going to incinerate those.”
    “Sounds like a good plan.” Copper nodded wearily. “I wonder, you haven’t said whether Blair -”
    McReady started. “We forgot him! We had so much else! I wonder – do you suppose we can cure him now?
    “If -” began Dr. Copper, and stopped meaaningly.
    McReady started a second time. “Even a madman. It imitated Kinner and his praying hysteria -” McReady turned toward Van Wall at the long table. “Van, we’ve got to make an expedition to Blair’s shack.”
    Van looked up sharply, the frown of worry faded for an instant in surprised remembrance. Then he rose, nodded. “Barclay better go along. He applied the lashings, and may figure how to get in without frightening Blair too much.”
    Three quarters of an hour, through -37 cold, while the Aurora curtain bellied overhead. The twilight was nearly 12 hours long, flaming in the north on snow like white, crystalline sand under their skis. A 5-mile wind piled it in drift-lines pointing off to the northwest. Three quarters of an hour to reach the snow-buried shack. No smoke came from the little shack, and the men hastened.
    “Blair!” Barclay roared into the wind when he was still a hundred yards away. “Blair!”
    “Shut up,” said McReady softly. “And hurry. He may be trying a long hike. If we have to go after him -no planes, the tractors disabled -”
    “Would a monster have the stamina a man has?”
    “A broken leg wouldn’t stop it for more than a minute,” McReady pointed out.
    Barclay gasped suddenly and pointed aloft. Dim in the twilit sky, a winged thing circled in curves of indescribable grace and ease. Great white wings tipped gently, and the bird swept over them in silent curiosity. “Albatross -” Barclay said softly. “First of the season, and wandering way inland for some reason. If a monster’s loose -”
    Norris bent down on the ice, and tore hurriedly at his heavy, wind-proof clothing. He straightened, his coat flapping open, a grim blue-metaled weapon in his hand. It roared a challenge to the white silence of Antarctica.
    The thing in the air screamed hoarsely. Its great wings worked frantically as a dozen feathers floated down from its tail. Norris fired again. The bird was moving swiftly now, but in an almost straight line of retreat. It screamed again, more feathers dropped and with beating wings it soared behind a ridge of pressure ice, to vanish.
    Norris