There was a crackle of static from the walkie-talkie. Sorensen called, "Eakins, have you got that message off?"
"Haven't sent it," Eakins called back. "Listen, Bill. Wemustn'tsend any messages! That bug wants—" He stopped abruptly.
"What is it?" Sorensen asked. "What's happening?"
Eakins had appeared on deck, still holding the walkie-talkie. He was backing toward the stern.
"Hermit crabs," he said. "They climbed up the anchor line. I'm going to swim to shore."
"Don't do it," Sorensen said.
"Gotta do it," Eakins said. "They'll probably follow me. All of you come out here andget that transmitter. Bring it ashore."
Through his binoculars, Sorensen could see a solid gray carpet of hermit crabs crawling down the deck and waterways of the ketch. Eakins jumped into the water. He swam furiously toward shore, and Sorensen saw the rats turn and follow him. Hermit crabs swarmed off the boat, and the wild pig and the anteater paddled after him, trying to head him off before he reached the beach.
"Come on," Sorensen said. "I don't know what Eakins figured out, but we better get that transmitter while we have a chance."
They ran down the beach and put the launch into the water. Two hundred yards away, Eakins had reached the far edge of the beach with the animals in close pursuit. He broke into the jungle, still clinging to his walkie-talkie.
"Eakins?" Sorensen asked into the walkie-talkie.
"I'm all right," Eakins said, panting hard for air. "Get that transmitter, and don't forget the batteries!"
The men boarded the ketch. Working furiously, they ripped the transmitter off its bulkhead and dragged it up the companionway steps. Drake came last, carrying a twelve-volt battery. He went down again and brought up a second battery. He hesitated a moment, then went below for a third time.
"Drake!" Sorensen shouted. "Quit holding us up!"
Drake reappeared, carrying the ketch's two radio direction finders and the compass. He handed them down and jumped into the launch.
"OK," he said. "Let's go."
They rowed to the beach. Sorensen was trying to re-establish contact with Eakins on the walkie-talkie, but all he could hear was static. Then, as the launch grounded on the beach, he heard Eakins' voice.
"I'm surrounded," he said, very quietly. "I guess I'll have to see what Mr. Bug wants. Maybe I can swat him first, though."
There was a long silence. Then Eakins said, "It's coming toward me now. Drake was right. It sure isn't like any bugI'veever seen. I'm going to swat hell out of—"
They heard him scream, more in surprise than pain.
Sorensen said, "Eakins, can you hear me? Where are you? Can we help?"
"It sureisfast," Eakins said, his voice conversational again. "Fastest damned bug I've ever seen. Jumped on my neck, stung me and jumped off again."
"How do you feel?" Sorensen asked.
"Fine," Eakins said. "Hardly felt the sting."
"Where is the bug now?"
"Back in the bush."
"The animals?"
"They went away. You know," Eakins said, "maybe this thing doesn't work on humans. Maybe—"
"What?" Sorensen asked. "What's happening now?"
There was a long silence. Then Eakins' voice, low-pitched and calm, came over the walkie-talkie.
"We'll speak with you again later," Eakins said. "We must take consultation now and decide what to do with you."
"Eakins!"
There was no answer from the other end of the walkie-talkie.
IV
Returning to their camp, the men were in a mood of thorough depression. They couldn't understand what had happened to Eakins and they didn't feel like speculating on it. The ravaging afternoon sun beat down, reflecting heat back from the white sand. The damp jungle steamed, and appeared to creep toward them like a huge and sleepy green dragon, trapping them against the indifferent sea. Gun barrels grew too hot to touch, and the water in the canteens was as warm as blood. Overhead, thick gray cumulus clouds began to pile up; it was the beginning of the monsoon season.
Drake sat in the shade of the copra shed. He shook off his lethargy long enough to inspect the camp from the viewpoint of defense. He saw the encircling jungle as enemy territory. In front of it was an area fifty yards deep which they had cleared. This no man's land could perhaps be defended for a while.
Then came the huts and the copra shed, their last line of defense, leading to the beach and the sea.
The expedition had been in complete control of this island for better than three months. Now they were pinned to a small and precarious beachhead.
Drake glanced at the lagoon behind him and remembered that there was still one line of retreat open. If the bug and his damned menagerie pressed too hard, they could still escape in the ketch. With luck.
Sorensen came over and sat down beside him. "What are you doing?" he asked.
Drake grinned sourly. "Planning our master strategy."
"How does it look?"
"I think we can hold out," Drake said. "We've got plenty of ammo. If necessary, we'll interdict the cleared area with gasoline. We certainly aren't going to let that bug push us off the island." He thought for a moment. "But it's going to be damned hard digging for treasure."
Sorensen nodded. "I wonder what the bug wants."
"Maybe we'll find out from Eakins," Drake said.
They had to wait half an hour. Then Eakins' voice came, sharp and shrill over the walkie-talkie.
"Sorensen? Drake?"
"We're here," Drake said. "What did that damned bug do to you?"
"Nothing," Eakins said. "You are talking to that bug now. My name is the Quedak."
"My God," Drake said to Sorensen, "that bug must have hypnotized him!"
"No. You are not speaking to a hypnotized Eakins. Nor are you speaking to a creature who is simply using Eakins as a mouthpiece. Nor are you speaking to the Eakins who was. You are speaking to many individuals who are one."
"I don't get that," Drake said.
"It's very simple," Eakins' voice replied. "I am the Quedak, the totality. But my totality is made up of separate parts, which are Eakins, several rats, a dog named Oro, a pig, an anteater, a cassowary—"
"Hold on," Sorensen said. "Let me get this straight. This isnotEakins I'm speaking to. This is the—the Quedak?"
"That is correct."
"And you control Eakins and the others? You speak through Eakins' mouth?"
"Also correct. But that doesn't mean that the personalities of the others are obliterated. Quite the contrary, the Quedak state is a federation in which the various member parts retain their idiosyncrasies, their individual needs and desires. They give their knowledge, their power, their special outlook to the Quedak whole. The Quedak is the coordinating and command center; but the individual parts supply the knowledge, the insights, the special skills. And together we form the Great Cooperation."
"Cooperation?" Drake said. "But you did all this by force!"
"It was necessary in the beginning. Otherwise, how would other creatures have known about the Great Cooperation?"
"Would they stay if you released your control over them?" Drake asked.
"That is a meaningless question. We form a single indivisible entity now. Would your arm return to you if you cut it off?"
"It isn't the same thing."
"It is," Eakins' voice said. "We are a single organism. We are still growing. And we welcome you wholeheartedly into the Great Cooperation."
"To hell with that," Drake said.
"But you must join," the Quedak told them. "It is the Quedak Mission to coordinate all sentient creatures into a single collective organism. Believe me, there is only the most trifling loss of the individuality you prize so highly. And you gain so much more! You learn the viewpoints and special knowledge of all other creatures. Within the Quedak framework you can fully realize your potentialities—"
"No!"
"I am sorry," the Quedak said. "The Quedak Mission must be fulfilled. You will not join us willingly?"
"Never," Drake said.
"Thenwewill joinyou," the Quedak said.
There was a click as he turned off the walkie-talkie.
From the fringe of the jungle, several rats appeared. They hesitated, just out of rifle range. A bird of paradise flew overhead, hovering over the cleared area like an observation plane. As the men watched, the rats began to run forward in long zigzags.
"Start firing," Drake called out. "But go easy with the ammo."
The men began to fire. But it was difficult to sight on the quick-moving rats against the grayish-brown clearing. And almost immediately, the rats were joined by a dozen hermit crabs. They had an uncanny knack for moving when no one was watching them, darting forward, then freezing against the neutral background.
They saw Eakins appear on the fringe of the jungle.
"Lousy traitor," Cable said, raising his rifle.
Sorensen slapped the muzzle of the rifle aside. "Don't do it."
"But he's helping that bug!"
"He can't help it," Sorensen said. "And he's not armed. Leave him alone."
Eakins watched for a few moments, then melted back into the jungle.
The attack by the rats and crabs swept across half of the cleared space. Then, as they came closer, the men were able to pick their targets with more accuracy. Nothing was able to get closer than twenty yards. And when Recetich shot down the bird of paradise, the attack began to falter.
"You know," Drake said, "I think we're going to be all right."
"Could be," said Sorensen. "I don't understand what the Quedak is trying to accomplish. He knows we can't be taken like this. I should think—"
"Hey!" one of the men called out. "Our boat!"
They turned and saw why the Quedak had ordered the attack. While it had occupied their attention, Drake's dog had swum out to the ketch and gnawed through the anchor line. Unattended, the ketch was drifting before the wind, moving toward the reef. They saw it bump gently, then harder. In a moment it was heeled hard over, stuck in the coral.
There was a burst of static from the walkie-talkie. Sorensen held it up and heard the Quedak say, "The ketch isn't seriously damaged. It's simply immobilized."
"The hell you say," Drake growled. "For all you know, it's got a hole punched right through it. How do you plan on getting off the island, Quedak? Or are you just going to stay here?"
"I will leave at the proper time," the Quedak said. "I want to make sure that we all leave together."
V
The wind died. Huge gray thunderheads piled up in the sky to the southeast, their tops lost in the upper atmosphere, their black anvil bottoms pressing the hot still air upon the island. The sun had lost its fiery glare. Cherry-red, it slid listlessly toward the flat sea.
High overhead, a single bird of paradise circled, just out of rifle range. It had gone up ten minutes after Recetich had shot the first one down.
Monty Byrnes stood on the edge of the cleared area, his rifle ready. He had drawn the first guard shift. The rest of the men were eating a hasty dinner inside the copra shed. Sorensen and Drake were outside, looking over the situation.
Drake said, "By nightfall we'll have to pull everybody back into the shed. Can't take a chance on being exposed to the Quedak in the dark."
Sorensen nodded. He seemed to have aged ten years in a day's time.
"In the morning," Drake said, "we'll be able to work something out We'll.... What's wrong, Bill?"
"Do you really think we have a chance?" Sorensen asked.
"Sure we do. We've got a damned good chance."
"Be realistic," Sorensen said. "The longer this goes on, the more animals the Quedak can throw against us. What can we do about it?"
"Hunt him out and kill him."
"The damned thing is about the size of your thumb," Sorensen said irritably. "How can we hunt him?"
"We'll figure out something," Drake said. He was beginning to get worried about Sorensen. The morale among the men was low enough without Sorensen pushing it down further.
"I wish someone would shoot that damned bird," Sorensen said, glancing overhead.
About every fifteen minutes, the bird of paradise came darting down for a closer look at the camp. Then, before the guard had a chance to fire, he swept back up to a safe altitude.
"It's getting on my nerves, too," Drake said. "Maybe that's what it's supposed to do. One of these times we'll—"
He stopped abruptly. From the copra shed he could hear the loud hum of a radio. And he heard Al Cable saying, "Hello, hello, this is Vuanu calling. We need help."
Drake and Sorensen went into the shed. Cable was sitting in front of the transmitter, saying into the microphone, "Emergency, emergency, Vuanu calling, we need—"
"What in hell do you think you're doing?" Drake snapped.
Cable turned and looked at him, his pudgy pink body streaked with sweat. "I'm radioing for help, that's what I'm doing. I think I've picked up somebody. But they haven't answered me yet."
He readjusted the tuning. Over the receiver, they could hear a bored British voice saying, "Pawn to Queen four, eh? Why don't you ever try a different opening?"
There was a sharp burst of static. "Just move," a deep bass voice answered. "Just shut up and move."
"Sure," said the British voice. "Knight to king bishop three."
Drake recognized the voices. They were ham radio operators. One of them owned a plantation on Bougainville; the other was a shopkeeper in Rabaul. They came on the air for an hour of chess and argument every evening.
Cable tapped the microphone impatiently. "Hello," he said, "this is Vuanu calling, emergency call—"
Drake walked over and took the microphone out of Cable's hand. He put it down carefully.
"We can't call for help," he said.
"What are you talking about?" Cable cried. "We have to!"
Drake felt very tired. "Look, if we send out a distress call, somebody's going to come sailing right in—but they won't be prepared for this kind of trouble. The Quedak will take them over and then use them against us."
"We can explain what the trouble is," Cable said.
"Explain?Explainwhat? That a bug is taking over the island? They'd think we were crazy with fever. They'd send in a doctor on the inter-island schooner."
"Dan's right," Sorensen said. "Nobody would believe this without seeing it for himself."
"And by then," Drake said, "it'd be too late. Eakins figured it out before the Quedak got him. That's why he told us not to send any messages."
Cable looked dubious. "But why did he want us to take the transmitter?"
"So thathecouldn't send any messages after the bug got him," Drake said. "The more people trampling around, the easier it would be for the Quedak. If he had possession of the transmitter, he'd be calling for help right now."
"Yeah, I suppose so," Cable said unhappily. "But, damn it, we can't handle thisalone."
"We have to. If the Quedak ever gets us and then gets off the island, that's it for Earth. Period. There won't be any big war, no hydrogen bombs or fallout, no heroic little resistance groups. Everybody will become part of the Quedak Cooperation."
"We ought to get help somehow," Cable said stubbornly. "We're alone, isolated. Suppose we ask for a ship to stand offshore—"
"It won't work," Drake said. "Besides, we couldn't ask for help even if we wanted to."
"Why not?"
"Because the transmitter's not working," Drake said. "You've been talking into a dead mike."
"It's receiving OK," Cable said.
Drake checked to see if all the switches were on. "Nothing wrong with the receiver. But we must have joggled something taking the transmitter out of the ship. It isn't working."
Cable tapped the dead microphone several times, then put it down. They stood around the receiver, listening to the chess game between the man in Rabaul and the man in Bougainville.
"Pawn to queen bishop four."
"Pawn to king three."
"Knight to Queen bishop three."
There was a sudden staccato burst of static. It faded, then came again in three distinct bursts.
"What do you suppose that is?" Sorensen asked.
Drake shrugged his shoulders. "Could be anything. Storm's shaping up and—"
He stopped. He had been standing beside the door of the shed. As the static crackled, he saw the bird of paradise dive for a closer look. The static stopped when the bird returned to its slow-circling higher altitude.
"That's strange," Drake said. "Did you see that, Bill? The bird came down and the static went on at the same time."
"I saw it," Sorensen said. "Think it means anything?"
"I don't know. Let's see." Drake took out his field glasses. He turned up the volume of the receiver and stepped outside where he could observe the jungle. He waited, hearing the sounds of the chess game three or four hundred miles away.
"Come on now, move."
"Give me a minute."
"A minute? Listen, I can't stand in front of this bleeding set all night. Make your—"
Static crackled sharply. Drake saw four wild pigs come trotting out of the jungle, moving slowly, like a reconnaissance squad probing for weak spots in an enemy position. They stopped; the static stopped. Byrnes, standing guard with his rifle, took a snap shot at them. The pigs turned, and static crackled as they moved back into the jungle. There was more static as the bird of paradise swept down for a look, then climbed out of range. After that, the static stopped.
Drake put down his binoculars and went back inside the shed. "That must be it," he said. "The static is related to the Quedak. I think it comes when he's operating the animals."
"You mean he has come sort of radio control over them?" Sorensen asked.
"Seems like it," Drake said. "Either radio control or something propagated along a radio wavelength."
"If that's the case," Sorensen said, "he's like a little radio station, isn't he?"
"Sure he is. So what?"
"Then we should be able to locate him on a radio direction finder," Sorensen said.
Drake nodded emphatically. He snapped off the receiver, went to a corner of the shed and took out one of their portable direction finders. He set it to the frequency at which Cable had picked up the Rabaul-Bougainville broadcast. Then he turned it on and walked to the door.
The men watched while Drake rotated the loop antenna. He located the maximum signal, then turned the loop slowly, read the bearing and converted it to a compass course. Then he sat down with a small-scale chart of the Southwest Pacific.
"Well," Sorensen asked, "is it the Quedak?"
"It's got to be," said Drake. "I located a good null almost due south. That's straight ahead in the jungle."
"You're sure it isn't a reciprocal bearing?"
"I checked that out."
"Is there any chance the signal comes from some other station?"
"Nope. Due south, the next station is Sydney, and that's seventeen hundred miles away. Much too far for this RDF. It's the Quedak, all right."
"So we have a way of locating him," Sorensen said. "Two men with direction finders can go into the jungle—"
"—and get themselves killed," Drake said. "We can position the Quedak with RDFs, but his animals can locate us a lot faster. We wouldn't have a chance in the jungle."
Sorensen looked crestfallen. "Then we're no better off than before."
"We're a lot better off," Drake said. "We have a chance now."
"What makes you think so?"
"He controls the animals by radio," Drake said. "We know the frequency he operates on. We can broadcast on the same frequency. We can jam his signal."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Am Isure? Of course not. But I do know that two stations in the same area can't broadcast over the same frequency. If we tuned in to the frequency the Quedak uses, made enough noise to override his signal—"
"I see," Sorensen said. "Maybe it would work! If we could interfere with his signal, he wouldn't be able to control the animals. And then we could hunt him down with the RDFs."
"That's the idea," Drake said. "It has only one small flaw—our transmitter isn't working. With no transmitter, we can't do any broadcasting. No broadcasting, no jamming."
"Can you fix it?" Sorensen asked.
"I'll try," Drake said. "But we'd better not hope for too much. Eakins was the radio man on this expedition."
"We've got all the spare parts," Sorensen said. "Tubes, manual, everything."
"I know. Give me enough time and I'll figure out what's wrong. The question is, how much time is the Quedak going to give us?"
The bright copper disk of the sun was half submerged in the sea. Sunset colors touched the massing thunderheads and faded into the brief tropical twilight. The men began to barricade the copra shed for the night.
VI
Drake removed the back from the transmitter and scowled at the compact mass of tubes and wiring. Those metal boxlike things were probably condensers, and the waxy cylindrical gadgets might or might not be resistors. It all looked hopelessly complicated, ridiculously dense and delicate. Where should he begin?
He turned on the set and waited a few minutes. All the tubes appeared to go on, some dim, some bright. He couldn't detect any loose wires. The mike was still dead.
So much for visual inspection. Next question: was the set getting enough juice?
He turned it off and checked the battery cells with a voltmeter. The batteries were up to charge. He removed the leads, scraped them and put them back on, making sure they fit snugly. He checked all connections, murmured a propitiatory prayer, and turned the set on.
It still didn't work.
Cursing, he turned it off again. He decided to replace all the tubes, starting with the dim ones. If that didn't work, he could try replacing condensers and resistors. If that didn't work, he could always shoot himself. With this cheerful thought, he opened the parts kit and went to work.
The men were all inside the copra shed, finishing the job of barricading it for the night. The door was wedged shut and locked. The two windows had to be kept open for ventilation; otherwise everyone would suffocate in the heat. But a double layer of heavy mosquito netting was nailed over each window, and a guard was posted beside it.
Nothing could get through the flat galvanized-iron roof. The floor was of pounded earth, a possible danger point. All they could do was keep watch over it.
The treasure-hunters settled down for a long night. Drake, with a handkerchief tied around his forehead to keep the perspiration out of his eyes, continued working on the transmitter.
An hour later, there was a buzz on the walkie-talkie. Sorensen picked it up and said, "What do you want?"
"I want you to end this senseless resistance," said the Quedak, speaking with Eakins' voice. "You've had enough time to think over the situation. I want you to join me. Surely you can see there's no other way."
"We don't want to join you," Sorensen said.
"You must," the Quedak told him.
"Are you going to make us?"
"That poses problems," the Quedak said. "My animal parts are not suitable for coercion. Eakins is an excellent mechanism, but there is only one of him. And I must not expose myself to unnecessary danger. By doing so I would endanger the Quedak Mission."
"So it's a stalemate," Sorensen said.
"No. I am faced with difficulty only in taking you over. There is no problem in killing you."
The men shifted uneasily. Drake, working on the transmitter, didn't look up.
"I would rathernotkill you," the Quedak said. "But the Quedak Mission is of primary importance. It would be endangered if you didn't join. It would be seriously compromised if you left the island. So you must either join or be killed."
"That's not the way I see it," Sorensen said. "If you killed us—assuming that you can—you'd never get off this island. Eakins can't handle that ketch."
"There would be no need to leave in the ketch," the Quedak said. "In six months, the inter-island schooner will return. Eakins and I will leave then. The rest of you will have died."
"You're bluffing," Sorensen said. "What makes you think you could kill us? You didn't do so well today." He caught Drake's attention and gestured at the radio. Drake shrugged his shoulders and went back to work.
"I wasn't trying," the Quedak said. "The time for that was at night.Thisnight, before you have a chance to work out a better system of defense. You must join me tonight or I will kill one of you."
"One of us?"
"Yes. One man an hour. In that way, perhaps the survivors will change their minds about joining. But if they don't, all of you will be dead by morning."
Drake leaned over and whispered to Sorensen, "Stall him. Give me another ten minutes. I think I've found the trouble."
Sorensen said into the walkie-talkie, "We'd like to know a little more about the Quedak Cooperation."
"You can find out best by joining."
"We'd rather have a little more information on it first."
"It is an indescribable state," the Quedak said in an urgent, earnest, eager voice. "Can you imagine yourself asyourselfand yet experiencing an entirely new series of sensory networks? You would, for example, experience the world through the perceptors of a dog as he goes through the forest following an odor which to him—and to you—is as clear and vivid as a painted line. A hermit crab senses things differently. From him you experience the slow interaction of life at the margin of sea and land. His time-sense is very slow, unlike that of a bird of paradise, whose viewpoint is spatial, rapid, cursory. And there are many others, above and below the earth and water, who furnish their own specialized viewpoints of reality. Their outlooks, I have found, are not essentially different from those of the animals that once inhabited Mars."
"What happened on Mars?" Sorensen asked.
"All life died," the Quedak mourned. "All except the Quedak. It happened a long time ago. For centuries there was peace and prosperity on the planet. Everything and everyone was part of the Quedak Cooperation. But the dominant race was basically weak. Their breeding rate went down; catastrophes happened. And finally there was no more life except the Quedak."
"Sounds great," Sorensen said ironically.
"It was the fault of the race," the Quedak protested. "With sturdier stock—such as you have on this planet—the will to live will remain intact. The peace and prosperity will continue indefinitely."
"I don't believe it. What happened on Mars will happen again on Earth if you take over. After a while, slaves just don't care very strongly about living."
"You wouldn't be slaves. You would be functional parts of the Quedak Cooperation."
"Which would be run by you," Sorensen said. "Any way you slice it, it's the same old pie."
"You don't know what you're talking about," the Quedak said. "We have talked long enough. I am prepared to kill one man in the next five minutes. Are you or are you not going to join me?" Sorensen looked at Drake. Drake turned on the transmitter.
Gusts of rain splattered on the roof while the transmitter warmed up. Drake lifted the microphone and tapped it, and was able to hear the sound in the speaker.
"It's working," he said.
At that moment something flew against the netting-covered window. The netting sagged; a fruit bat was entangled in it, glaring at them with tiny red-rimmed eyes.
"Get some boards over that window!" Sorensen shouted.
As he spoke, a second bat hurtled into the netting, broke through it and tumbled to the floor. The men clubbed it to death, but four more bats flew in through the open window. Drake flailed at them, but he couldn't drive them away from the transmitter. They were diving at his eyes, and he was forced back. A wild blow caught one bat and knocked it to the floor with a broken wing. Then the others had reached the transmitter.
They pushed it off the table. Drake tried to catch the set, and failed. He heard the glass tubes shattering, but by then he was busy protecting his eyes.
In a few minutes they had killed two more bats, and the others had fled out the window. The men nailed boards over both windows, and Drake bent to examine the transmitter.
"Any chance of fixing it?" Sorensen asked.
"Not a hope," Drake said. "They ripped out the wiring while they were at it."
"What do we do now?"
"I don't know."
Then the Quedak spoke to them over the walkie-talkie. "I must have your answer right now."
Nobody said a word.
"In that case," the Quedak said, "I'm deeply sorry that one of you must die now."
VII
Rain pelted the iron roof and the gusts of wind increased in intensity. There were rumbles of distant thunder. But within the copra shed, the air was hot and still. The gasoline lantern hanging from the center beam threw a harsh yellow light that illuminated the center of the room but left the corners in deep shadow. The treasure-hunters had moved away from the walls. They were all in the center of the room facing outward, and they made Drake think of a herd of buffalo drawn up against a wolf they could smell but could not see.
Cable said, "Listen, maybe we should try this Quedak Cooperation. Maybe it isn't so bad as—"
"Shut up," Drake said.
"Be reasonable," Cable argued. "It's better than dying, isn't it?"
"No one's dying yet," Drake said. "Just shut up and keep your eyes open."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Cable said. "Dan, let me out."
"Be sick where you are," Drake said. "Just keep your eyes open."
"You can't give me orders," Cable said. He started toward the door. Then he jumped back.
A yellowish scorpion had crept under the inch of clearance between the door and the floor. Recetich stamped on it, smashing it to pulp under his heavy boots. Then he whirled, swinging at three hornets which had come at him through the boarded windows.
"Forget the hornets!" Drake shouted. "Keep watching the ground!"
There was movement on the floor. Several hairy spiders crawled out of the shadows. Drake and Recetich beat at them with rifle butts. Byrnes saw something crawling under the door. It looked like some kind of huge flat centipede. He stamped at it, missed, and the centipede was on his boot, past it, on the flesh of his leg. He screamed; it felt like a ribbon of molten metal. He was able to smash it flat before he passed out.
Drake checked the wound and decided it was not fatal. He stamped on another spider, then felt Sorensen's hand clutching his shoulder. He looked toward the corner Sorensen was pointing at.
Sliding toward them were two large, dark-coated snakes. Drake recognized them as black adders. These normally shy creatures were coming forward like tigers.
The men panicked, trying to get away from the snakes. Drake pulled out his revolver and dropped to one knee, ignoring the hornets that buzzed around him, trying to draw a bead on the slender serpentine targets in the swaying yellow light.
Thunder roared directly overhead. A long flash of lightning suddenly flooded the room, spoiling his aim. Drake fired and missed, and waited for the snakes to strike.
They didn't strike. They were moving away from him, retreating to the rat hole from which they had emerged. One of the adders slid quickly through. The other began to follow, then stopped, half in the hole.
Sorensen took careful aim with a rifle. Drake pushed the muzzle aside. "Wait just a moment."
The adder hesitated. It came out of the hole and began to move toward them again....
And there was another crash of thunder and a vivid splash of lightning. The snake turned away and squirmed through the hole.
"What's going on?" Sorensen asked. "Is the thunder frightening them?"
"No, it's the lightning!" Drake said. "That's why the Quedak was in such a rush. He saw that a storm was coming, and he hadn't consolidated his position yet."
"What are you talking about?"
"The lightning," Drake said.
"The electrical storm! It's jamming that radio control of his! And when he's jammed, the beasts revert to normal behavior. It takes him time to re-establish control."
"The storm won't last forever," Cable said.
"But maybe it'll last long enough," Drake said. He picked up the direction finders and handed one to Sorensen. "Come on, Bill. We'll hunt out that bug right now."
"Hey," Recetich said, "isn't there something I can do?"
"You can start swimming if we don't come back in an hour," Drake said.
In slanting lines the rain drove down, pushed by the wild southwest wind. Thunder rolled continually and each flash of lightning seemed aimed at them. Drake and Sorensen reached the edge of the jungle and stopped.
"We'll separate here," Drake said. "Gives us a better chance of converging on him."
"Right," Sorensen said. "Take care of yourself, Dan."
Sorensen plunged into the jungle. Drake trotted fifty yards down the fringe and then entered the bush.
He pushed forward, the revolver in his belt, the radio direction finder in one hand, a flashlight in the other. The jungle seemed to be animated by a vicious life of its own, almost as if the Quedak controlled it. Vines curled cunningly around his ankles and the bushes reached out thorny hands toward him. Every branch took a special delight in slapping his face.
Each time the lightning flashed, Drake's direction finder tried to home on it. He was having a difficult time staying on course. But, he reminded himself, the Quedak was undoubtedly having an even more difficult time. Between flashes, he was able to set a course. The further he penetrated into the jungle, the stronger the signal became.
After a while he noticed that the flashes of lightning were spaced more widely apart. The storm was moving on toward the north, leaving the island behind. How much longer would he have the protection of the lightning? Another ten or fifteen minutes?
He heard something whimper. He swung his flashlight around and saw his dog, Oro, coming toward him.
His dog—or the Quedak's dog?
"Hey there, boy," Drake said. He wondered if he should drop the direction finder and get the revolver out of his belt. He wondered if the revolver would still work after such a thorough soaking.
Oro came up and licked his hand. He was Drake's dog, at least for the duration of the storm.
They moved on together, and the thunder rumbled distantly in the north. The signal on his RDF was very strong now. Somewhere around here....
He saw light from another flashlight. Sorensen, badly out of breath, had joined him. The jungle had ripped and clawed at him, but he still had his rifle, flashlight and direction finder.
Oro was scratching furiously at a bush. There was a long flash of lightning, and in it they saw the Quedak.
Drake realized, in those final moments, that the rain had stopped. The lightning had stopped, too. He dropped the direction finder. With the flashlight in one hand and his revolver in the other, he tried to take aim at the Quedak, who was moving, who had jumped—
To Sorensen's neck, just above the right collarbone.
Sorensen raised his hands, then lowered them again. He turned toward Drake, raising his rifle. His face was perfectly calm. He looked as though his only purpose in life was to kill Drake.
Drake fired from less than two feet away. Sorensen spun with the impact, dropped his rifle and fell.
Drake bent over him, his revolver ready. He saw that he had fired accurately. The bullet had gone in just above the right collarbone. It was a bad wound. But it had been much worse for the Quedak, who had been in the direct path of the bullet. All that was left of the Quedak was a splatter of black across Sorensen's chest.
Drake applied hasty first aid and hoisted Sorensen to his shoulders. He wondered what he would have done if the Quedak had been standing above Sorensen's heart, or on his throat, or on his head.
He decided it was better not to think about that.
He started back to camp, with his dog trotting along beside him.