Free Manly Wade Wellman - Novel 1959 by The Dark Destroyers (v1.1) Page B

pseudopods.
                 Darragh
swung around to face them. He was utterly happy to stand still.
                 "All
right, get it over with!" he found wind and strength to croak. "Kill
me and be damned to the last one of you! I'm through making sport for . .
                 His
drooping shoulders touched the wall, and the wall slipped beneath it. One of
the Cold Creatures was at a stand of levers at the side of the tunnel, was
pressing one down to open some sort of a panel. Blackness came through behind
Darragh, a blackness almost palpable, and a wave of
cold that surpassed anything he yet had felt. He reeled and caught his breath.
                 He
heard the lapping of liquid behind him. Turning, he gazed down into a ditch.
Along it flowed swift, steaming water—no, not water. Water could not flow here,
at many degrees below zero.
                 He
faced toward the Cold People again. They ranged themselves across the tunnel
down which he had run those last stumbling moments. The car was stopped, and
upon it was a squat mortarlike device with around lens.
                 One
of them touched buttons with its tentacles. Out sprang green light, dark green,
such as had filled his aircraft at the moment of its recapture.
                 Darragh
felt as though he had been struck in the center of his leather-clad chest by
the end of a flying log. He flew from his feet and whirled backward through the
air, soared across the floor. Under him burbled that torrent of liquid in the
ditch. Then he hung spread-eagled against a perpendicular partition on the far
side, held there by the ray as by a crushing hand. A moment later, the
partition, too, gave way, sinking back and down.
                 Darragh
fell through, clumsily and heavily, and the valve snapped shut, as though
forced by a great spring. He struck on a solid level space and lay there
crumpled.
                 For
long moments he could only gasp for breath. Brightness stabbed at his eyes,
and he closed them beneath the goggles. He never wanted to move again.
                 Then
something touched him. He had not the strength to pull his exhausted body away.
There was a fumbling at his hood. The scarf, frozen across his nose and mouth,
began slowly, painfully, to peel away.
                 "Stop,"
he moaned miserably. "Ill freeze."
                But he was not freezing. He felt
warmth on his exposed face. An arm slid behind his shoulders, lifting him from
where he lay.
                 "Take
it easy," said a hushed voice. "You're among friends."
     
                  

           CHAPTER VII
                  
                  
                 Mark Darragh lay quietly, as though he
could never summon energy or inclination to move again. Take it easy, the soft voice had advised, and the advice seemed
good after all the fighting, flying, running . You're among friends, the voice had
added, and it had sounded friendly. Darragh opened his eyes.
                 He
sprawled with his head out of the hood and supported on an arm. Close above him
bent the face of a woman—a girl really—a pleasant blue-eyed face just now full
of concern. Corn-yellow hair made bright masses around the face. Beyond and
above were the faces of other people, stooping to look.
                 "He
isn't one of us," said a man's voice. "Who are you, anyway?"
                 Darragh
had some of his wind back. "I was going to ask that question of you,"
he replied.
                 "He
can talk," said another. "He speaks English."
                Darragh sat up, then, and gazed at
the people around him. They were clad neatiy, in what he had seen in pictures
of the days of his unconquered grandfathers—the men in jackets and trousers,
the women in dresses of print or stout weave. There were a dozen of