en we
would not go back to bring--

* * * * *

That was enough for me.

"Men!" I spoke softly, but with an intensity that gave me their
instant attention, "it's going to be a fight for life. When I give the
signal, make a rush for the entrance by which we came in. I'll lead
the way. Use your pistols, and your bombs if necessary. All
right--forward!"

Correy's great shout rang out after mine, and I flung my menore in the
face of the nearest guard. It bounced off as though it had struck a
rubber ball. Behind me, one of the men called out sharply; I heard a
sharp crunch of bone, and with a pang realized that the _Ertak's_ log
would have at least one death to record.

A dozen tentacles lashed out at me, and I sprayed their owners with
pellets from my atomic pistol. The air was filled with the shouts of
my men and the whispers of our enemies. All around me I could hear the
screaming of ricochets from our pistols. Twice atomic bombs exploded
not far away, and the solid rock shook beneath my feet. Something shot
by close to my face; an instant later a limp bundle in the blue and
silver uniform of our Service struck the rock wall of the cavern,
thirty feet away. The strength in those rubbery tentacles was
terrible.

The pistols seemed to have but little effect. They wounded, but they
did not kill unless the pellet struck the head. Then the victim
rolled over, rocking idiotically on its middle.

"In the head, men!" I shouted. "That downs them! And keep the bombs in
action. Throw them against the walls of the cavern. Take a chance!"

A ragged cheer went up, and I heard Correy's voice raised in angry
conversation with the enemy:

"You will, eh? There!... Now!... Ah!--right--through--the--eye.
That's--the place!"

* * * * *

A score of times I was grasped and held by the writhing arms of the
angry horde whispering all around me. Each time I literally shot the
tentacle away with my atomic pistol, leaving the severed end to unwrap
itself and drop from my struggling body. The things had no blood in
them.

Steadily, we fought our way toward the doorway, out of the cavern,
down the passageway, pressed into a compact, sweating mass by the
pressure of the eager bodies around us. I have never heard any sound
even remotely like the babel of angry, sibilant whispering that beat
against the walls and roof of that cavern.

I had saved my own bombs for a specific p