ther in the
darkness, transfixed for a moment by horror. The distended head,
ghastly of face with its green glowing eyes, wobbled upon a long,
spindly neck. The eyes seemed luminous of their own internal light.
The radiance from them faintly lighted the black cave so we were able
to see its tawny, hairy body. It was long sleek, the size of an Earth
leopard. A muscled body, with ponderable weight, it was moving toward
us, padding on the rocks.

I recovered my wits and shoved Anita behind me. I crouched on one
knee. There was no escape, nowhere to run. This tunnel was blocked by
a fallen rock mass behind us, with the wild storm raging outside. The
thing was some twenty feet away, where the tunnel broadened into a
black cave of unknown size. Beside me Snap and Venza lay inert, the
still-unconscious Molo with them.

There was nothing to do but crouch here and protect Anita. I waved my
arms, shouted above the outside surge of the storm; my voice
reverberated with a muffled roar in this subterranean darkness.

"Get back! Back! Back, away from me!"

It stopped. Round ears stood up from the bloated head. Then it laughed
again. I felt Anita shoving a rock at my hand, a chunk of rock the
size of my head. "Its face, Gregg! Aim for its face!"

The rock felt like a ball of cork. I flung it and hit the thing on the
body. Its laughter checked abruptly; it crouched, as though gathering
for a spring.

And then I thought of my gravity projector. I flashed on the repulsive
ray to its full intensity.

The tawny body leaped. It came hurtling, but my beam met it in
mid-air. For a second I thought that I had been too late. The thing
was clawing the air; its momentum carried it against the push of my
ray. For an instant it hung, snarling, and then laughed that wild
laugh.

The ray forced it back. It receded through the air, back across the
blackness of the cave, gathering speed until, in a moment it brought
up against the opposite wall some forty feet away. There it hung,
pinned as I held the ray upon it. The body had struck the rocky wall
but the head was uninjured. It was writhing and twisting: the cave was
filled with the reverberations of its screams.

Over the screams, I heard another voice: "Oh Gregg, where are you?"

Snap! Behind me, Anita was moving sidewise toward where Snap and Venza
were lying. The thing pinned in my light stopped its screaming, with
curiosity perhaps at this new sound.

"Snap! We're here, Snap!"

T