Chapter V

Suddenly the clober squirmed in his arms and a chaos of mad, slobbering, disconnected thoughts washed against Tang's mind and staggered it with their very morbidity and black, hopeless fear.

For a moment he stood mentally numbed, desperately striving to sort the hodgepodge of impressions into a semblance of lucidity.

But they hit him, wave upon wave, as tangible as physical blows, and he fought the nausea they brought as he read them. _I'm dead ... like a spider ... wasps! My God, this can't be happening! The bastards, bastards, bastards. Move. I've got to move! I can't!_ The thoughts ran together like the incoherent mass of a madman's ravings.

Then the mind Tang was hearing seemed to halt, as though it felt a new thing. _Sammy? Sammy? Can you hear me?_

"I hear you!" Tang burst out, speaking aloud, but remembering, distractedly, to keep the clober in the forefront of his mind.

_Then come and kill me. For God's sake, come and kill me!_

Fighting down the shock that threatened to overwhelm him Tang dashed from the hut, still clutching the little clober. They wouldn't stop him this time, he vowed.

A semblance of reason came to him before he reached Lutscher's hut and he halted. There was something he should try, he realized, before he began killing. He looked down at the clober and then sent his message at the mahutes. _Go back to your huts!_ he commanded. They made no move to leave.

Then he understood that he was unable to contact the whole group at one time. It had to be done individually.

_Return to your home_, he directed, concentrating on the nearest mahute. Silently it turned and left. Tang repeated the order to another. Again and again until he was alone.

There was no time to waste. He aimed his pistol to fire at a tangent and blasted a hole through the wall of Lutscher's sealed hut. He crawled in.

The sight that met his eyes was one that Tang knew he would see in his nightmares the rest of his life.

On the ground against the far wall lay the hide of one of the large clobers. He recognized the dark fist-shaped mark on the hide's side as having belonged to Bunzo. Standing on the hide was one of the young stick-insects, its sharp little face ugly with some emotion and its mouth casing drawn back from its pointed teeth.

At Tang's feet lay Lutscher. He was muttering hoarsely to himself, and in his eyes that glared at the ceiling was madness--stark, terrible madness!

The flesh had been torn from Lutscher's left arm, stripping it to the bone. A shiny, gelatinous coating, covering the raw meat of the shoulder, seemed to have stopped the blood flow. Great chunks of flesh had been torn from one hip, and his teeth showed through where Lutscher's cheeks had been.

The ankite insect moved toward them and Tang beamed the ugly little head from its body.

Lutscher muttered something and Tang knelt at his side. God help you, he thought. "Is there anything I can do, Bill?" he asked softly.

"It's too late to help me now," Lutscher rasped feebly. "But there's no pain, Sammy." He seemed rational now, but Tang knew it would not last for long. "Just kill me, Sammy. And get out while you still can."

"What happened?"

"One of the ankites came ... when was it? Yester--yesterday?" Lutscher's whispering voice broke on the last word and he seemed about to slip back into his madness, but he drew a deep breath and went on talking.

"The ankite bit me. It must have injected a poison. I couldn't move. They sealed me in with Bunzo. Soon after Bunzo screamed and burst. You see the set-up now, don't you Sammy? The clobers are like cocoons on Earth. I think metamorphosis is the word. The ankites emerge from the clobers, like butterflies come from cocoons. And the poor, stupid mahutes feed them, care for their clobers, and then furnish the _piece d'occasion_ for the transformation feast." He laughed, and the utter lack of mirth caused a spasm of sickness in Tang's stomach.

"And you ..." Tang started to say.

"And I.... To the ankites I'm just another mahute. I'm like the spider that the wasp paralyzes and brings to its nest to be consumed by the young while it's still alive." Lutscher's voice rose to a shrill whisper. "Sammy! Kill me. Please! I can't take anymore!"

"I'll get you back to the ship," Tang said.

"I'm too far gone for ..." Lutscher stopped. His eyes seemed to try to smile. "Go ahead, Sammy," he said. "Try."

Tang put one arm under Lutscher's shoulders and the other under his knees and lifted him off the ground.

Lutscher's body came unhinged in the middle. A groan started in his throat and blood gushed from the raw places on his body. Tang put him down and Lutscher's mouth opened and a long sigh came out. He knew they would never be able to hurt Lutscher again.

Tang's mind had gone cold now. There was little he could do for Lutscher, but what little he could do, he would. He drew his gun and sprayed its beam up and down the length of Lutscher's body until nothing remained except a charred lump. At least he'd furnish no more meals for the ankites.

On the way back to the space ship Tang met exactly eight of the stick-insects. He counted them.

"One for you, Bill. Two for you, Bill," he counted as he burned each one down. Nothing he had ever done gave him as great a sense of fierce satisfaction.

Less than an hour after he left Lutscher's remains he blasted off the planet. He hated to think of the three months he would have to spend alone before he reached Gascol 11.