erstellar space.

Anita abruptly gave a startled outcry. The four of us, sitting in a
group, had no time to rise. From behind a dark crag nearby, two
figures appeared. The starlight showed them clearly.

Molo and Wyk! They lunged forward at us.

14

We were unarmed. I had flung my weapon at the thing in the forest; and
Snap had exhausted all his bolts firing at the multitude of green
eyes. Molo and Wyk came with a dive through the air. Two tiny flashes
leaped from them to the rocks behind them, and flung them forward.

Snap and I seized Venza and Anita. It was a second of confusion; then
I saw we would not be able to rise in time. The driving, oncoming
figures were no more than twenty feet away.

"Protect Venza, Snap! Get her behind you!"

Snap shoved Venza behind him; I got myself in front of Anita. We had
almost gained our feet. I tried to thrust Anita and myself violently
upward. We rose, but only a few feet. And then we were struck by the
oncoming body of Wyk, like a huge, light-shelled, three-pound insect
lunging in mid-air against us. The two longest tentacle arms wrapped
around us. Anita twisted and kicked. The gruesome, goggling face of
Wyk thrust itself almost into mine. The hollow voice panted, "I have
you fast."

One of my arms was free and I struck with my fist at the gaping,
upended mouth. There was a crack. My fist sank through the shell; a
cold, sticky ooze spurted out.

Wyk screamed. His encircling arms fell away. The grisly smashed face
was white with ooze and pulp where my fist had gone in.

We had sunk back to the rocks. I kicked the dead body of Wyk away.

"Anita! Swim up!"

"No!"

Sinking beside us were the flailing bodies of Molo, Snap and Venza
were drifting down. They seemed intermingled. Snap was shouting: "No
you don't! Drop that!"

I leaped for them. Something long and thin and glowing was dangling
from Molo's hand. He broke loose from the struggling Snap and Venza;
his feet struck the rocks and he shoved himself backward. My leap had
carried me too high. I saw that in his hand was a six-foot length of
glowing wire. He whirled it. The weight on its end described an arc,
and then he flung the handle. The weighted wire struck Venza and Snap
just as their repulsive ray shot down against the rocks and shoved
them upward. The whirling wire wrapped itself around them, bound them
together. Its glow vanished. Snap had been shouting, "Gregg, come up."
But it died in his throa