Gordon had no hope of that. “No, Durk Undis mentioned a secret wave they would use. No doubt that means they can call Thallarna without being overheard.”
For minutes, the calls continued. Then they heard Durk Undis order the transmitter turned off.
“We'll try again,” they heard him say. “We've got to keep trying until we reach headquarters.”
Gordon hitched his recoil-chair around by imperceptible jerks of his body. He could now look across the shattered corridor into the stereo-room, whose door sagged from its frame.
In there, two hours later, he saw Durk Undis and his operator again try to reach Thallarna with a call. As the generator's stern began humming, the operator closed the switches of his transmitter and then carefully centered a series of vernier dials in his panel.
“Be careful to keep exactly on the wave,” Durk Undis cautioned. “If the cursed Empire ships get even a whisper of our call, they'll run a direction-fix on it and be here to hunt us.”
Then, again, begin the series of calls. And this time, Durk Undis succeeded in obtaining a response.
“Dendra calling, Captain Durk Undis speaking!” he exclaimed eagerly into the transmitter. “I can't go stereo, for lack of power. But here's my identification.”
He uttered a series of numbers, evidently a prearranged identification code. Then he rapidly gave the space coordinates of the planet inside the nebula where the wreck lay, and reported the battle and its sequel.
Shorr Kan's ringing voice came from the receiver of the apparatus.
“So Zarth Arn tried to sabotage the mission? I didn't think he was such a fool. I'll send another phantom-cruiser for you at once. Maintain silence until it arrives. For the Empire fleet mustn't suspect you're in their realm.”
“I assume that we will not now be continuing the mission to Earth?” said Durk Undis.
“Of course not!” snapped Shorr Kan. “You'll bring Zarth Arn and the woman back to the Cloud. Above all, he mustn't get away to carry any news to Throon.”
Gordon's heart chilled, as he heard. Lianna looked mutely at him.
Durk Undis and the other Cloudmen were jubilant. Gordon heard the fanatic young captain give his orders.
“We'll maintain sentries around the wreck. We don't know what kind of creatures are in these jungles. Linn Kyle, you command the first watch.”
Night swept upon the ocher jungles as the coppery sun sank. The dank breath of the forest became stronger.
The night was like one of wondrously glowing moonlight, for the flaring nebula sky dripped strange radiance upon the brooding jungles and the wreck.
Out of the nebula-illumined jungle there carne a little later the echo of distant cry. It was a throaty, bestial call, but with a creepy human quality in its tones.
Gordon heard Durk Undis' sharp voice. “That must be a beast of some size. Keep your eyes open.”
Lianna shivered slightly. “They tell strange tales of some of these lost worlds in the nebula. Few ships ever dare to enter these dust-whorls.”
“Ships are going to enter this one, if I can bring it about,” muttered Gordon. “We're not going back to the Cloud.”
He had discovered something that gave him a faint hope. The recoil-chair in which he was fettered had suffered like the rest of the wreck from the shock of the crash-landing. The metal frame of the chair was slightly cracked along the arm to which his wrist was fettered.
The crack was a slight one, not affecting the strength of the chair. But it presented a slightly raised and ragged edge. Against this roughened edge, Gordon began secretly rubbing the plastic fetter on his wrist.
Gordon realized the improbability of this small abrasion severing the plastic. But it was at least a possibility, and he kept it up by imperceptible movements until his muscles ached.
Toward morning, they were awakened from doze by a repetition of the weird, throaty call in the distant, forests. The next day, and the next, passed as the Cloudmen waited. But on the third night, horror burst upon them.
Soon after nightfall that night, a yell from one of the Cloudmen sentries was followed by the crash of an atom pistol.
“What is it?” said Durk Undis.
“Creatures that looked like men-but they melted when I fired at them!” cried another voice. “They disappeared like magic!”
“There's another. And more of them!” said a third Cloudman. “See.”
Guns went off, the explosion of their atomic pellets rocking the night. Durk Undis yelled orders.
Lianna had swung her chair around on its pedestal, toward the porthole. She cried out.
“Zarth. Look!
Gordon managed to hitch his chair around also. He stared at the unbelievable sight outside the porthole.
Out there, manlike creatures in scores were pouring out of the jungle toward the wreck. They looked like tall, rubbery human men. Their eyes were blazing as they charged.
Durk Undis and his men were using their atom-pistols. The blinding flare of the atomic pellets darkened the soft nebula glow.
But wherever those pellets blasted the strange invaders, the rubbery men simply melted. Their bodies melted down into viscous jelly that flowed back over the ground in slow retreat.
“They're coming from the other side too!” yelled the warning of Linn Kyle.
Durk Undis' voice rang imperatively. “Pistols won't hold them off long. Linn, take two men and start the ship's generators. Hook a jet-cable to them and we can spray these creatures with pressure-rays.”
Lianna's eyes were distended by horror, as they witnessed the rubbery horde seize two of the Cloudmen and bear them back into the jungles.
“Zarth, they are monsters. Not men, yet not beasts-”
Gordon saw that the fight was going badly. The rubbery horde had pressed Durk Undis' men back close against the wreck.
It seemed that the weird attackers could not be harmed. For those who were hit simply melted to jelly and flowed away.
The generators in the wreck began humming loudly. Then Linn Kyle and his two men emerged dragging a heavy cable. At the end of this they had hastily attached one of the pressure-ray jet projectors that ordinarily propelled the ship.
“Use it, quickly!” shouted Durk Undis. “The brutes are too much for us.”
“Stand clear!” yelled Linn Kyle.
He switched on the heavy ray-projector he held. Blinding beams of force leaped from it and cut through the rubbery horde. The ground instantly became a horrible stream of creeping, flowing jelly.
The monstrous attackers sullenly retreated. And the viscous slime upon the ground retreated also toward the shelter of the jungle.
There came then a raging chorus of inhuman, throaty shouts from out in the ocher forest.
“Quick, rig other jet-projectors!” Durk Undis ordered. “It's all that will keep them off. We need one on each side of the wreck.”
“What in the name of all devils are the things?” cried Linn Kyle, his voice shrill with horror.
“There's no time for speculating on that!” rapped the other. “Get those projectors ready.”
Gordon and Lianna witnessed another attack, a half-hour later. But this time, four jets of pressure-rays met the rubbery horde. Then the attacks desisted.
“They've gone!” sweated a Cloudman. “But they carried off two of us.”
As the generators were turned off, Gordon heard a new sound from the distance.
“Lianna, hear that?”
It was a pulsing, throbbing sound like the deep beat of distant drums. It came from far westward in the nebula-lit jungle.
Then, breaking into the throbbing drumbeat, there came a faint, agonized series of human screams. There swelled up a triumphant chorus of throaty shouts, then silence.
“The two Cloudmen who were captured,” Gordon said sickly. “God knows what happened to them out there.”