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25 chapters
The Giants From Outer Space
The Giants From Outer Space
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV...
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
"Okay, make another check on the reading." "I've made four checks already—" "Damn it, make another!" "It's no use, Pink. The life-scanner's never wrong." "No possibility of a monkey wrench dropped into its innards? It couldn't be seeing things that aren't there?" "Not in a million years." "Then there's no water, no air, no gravity worth mentioning, and still—" "That's right. There's life on that silly-looking little apple. There's somebody sitting on it! " In the ninetieth star system to be expl
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Pink and Jerry and Joe Silver walked around and around the spacesuit. Bill Calico, the astrogator, and Washington Daley, the senior lieutenant, sat in front of it on stools covered with Venusian joerg-hide, going through a routine of flippant gags that thinly disguised their bafflement. Finally Pinkham said, "When were these suits invented?" "2144," said Joe Silver. Bright kid, thought Pink with irritation. "Thirty-odd years ago. That's my guess, too." "October 1st, 2144, is the patent date," sa
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
They sat at dinner, the eighteen officers of the Elephant's Child , eating fresh vegetables and curried lamb from the hydroponics farm and the frozen food lockers. On either side of Captain Pinkman sat O. O. Circe Smith, of the lamented Fawcett expedition, and First Officer Ynohp of the extinct Martian Space Navy. "If you Terrestrians came to Mars over one hundred years ago," Ynohp was saying, in a clear and metallic voice that came from the lingoalter on his chest—a tiny box which could be set
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
The intercom, the space drive, the life-scanner. So far apart that one man couldn't have put them out of whack. No one connected in any way with the others. Ynohp snoring gently in his stateroom. Pinkham, Daley, Silver, Kinkare, Jerry Jones, Calico, and the girl, all gathered in the Captain's quarters, tense, baffled, and all talking at once. And out of the hubbub, one clear sweet voice saying something that didn't make sense and yet electrified Pink as if he'd put his hand on a lighted cigar...
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
"None of you thought to look at the Martian spacesuit when we'd removed it?" asked Pink. The others shook their heads. They were all in his quarters again. "Neither did you, Captain," said Joe Silver. "You were as busy looking at the Martian as we were." "True enough," admitted Pinkham. "Well, the thing to do first is radio the Diogenes and the Cottabus to stand by for trouble." He lit a cigarette. "If the radio hasn't been tampered with," he said. "Silver, go tell Sparks to start sending to the
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
They gathered in Sparks' radio room. That was due to the simple fact that, aside from themselves, only Sparks was alive on this side of the mutiny gates. The other officers were scattered—in the most grisly sense of the word—all over the place. "Seven of us, if Silver's still alive," said Daley. "Eight with the girl. Why us? He could easily have attacked us in a body." Five of the dead officers had been found in a heap, just-used pistols in their rigid hands. Atomic force was obviously useless a
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
"But by all that's holy," said Daley (it was an hour later, and the eight were gathered in the control room, Kinkare now bandaged and relieved of pain, but unable to speak), "if he's a brain-picker, and got his lingo out of our minds, who did he get 'take heart mortals' from?" The lieutenant glanced at Pinkham. "It may seem little, but it's minutiae that will give us clues to his nature, and therefore how to fight him. Take heart, mortals, after all. Who talks like that?" "You're right," said Pi
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
O. O. Jerry Jones crept along the last ramp. Why the devil was he skulking like this? Habit, he grinned ruefully to himself; the habit of primitive man who crouched and slunk in the presence of danger, no matter what kind. And the old preservation instinct was also giving him all sorts of reasons to knock this silly business off, and go back to the protection, however illusory, of the control room. For instance, said the sly instinct, if this alien is telepathic, as you so neatly proved to yours
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
"It didn't work, but it taught us a few things." "You're right. It taught us that this bitch can't be trusted. Either she's in league with it , a sister or brother of it, or else she's so stupid that she's a menace to our survival." "Oh, you blithering jackass!" said Circe indignantly to her fellow organicus officer. "How could I guess what your plan was? Nobody told me. All I knew was that you were going to be murdered for doing a perfectly harmless—" "She's right," said Joe Silver. "We ought t
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
The long-unused armaments room was half the width of the ship away. They went toward it silently, seven men and a girl, praying that their visitor would not meet them or spot their furtive advance on the intercom. They slunk into the gunroom and Pink, coming last, ran the heavy emergency bolt across the door behind him. The armaments officer was dead, of course. Pink said quietly, "Who knows the principles of these weapons?" Daley and Joe Silver raised their hands. "Activate the viewers, then."
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
"What is it?" asked Circe. Her lovely face was a trifle pallid. "I feel odd—and you all look pale." Then it struck Pink. None of the others, even Daley, had recognized what was happening. He did not dare waste a second in telling them. He tore the door open and leaped into the corridor. Deliberately he tried to draw as much oxygen into his lungs as he could. It was growing rarer every instant; but never mind trying to conserve it—the life of everyone aboard depended on his reaching the atmospher
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
Jerry blinked. He opened his eyes and blinked again. Had Pink made it to the atmospheria? He must have, for the air was sweet and normal once more. So either Pink or Joe Silver had saved them. The others had all dropped along the way; he had passed Daley's motionless form some yards back there—now he looked, and saw the senior lieutenant sitting up against the wall. Jerry rubbed his forehead gingerly. What a headache! By the time he managed to stand, shakily, Joe Silver had appeared in front of
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
The dawn-man, a thing like a wet rat, bared its teeth at the dinosaur.... The Cro-Magnon faced a horde of hulking Neanderthals with a grin.... The Crusader stood with a broken sword and brandished the hilt at the charging Saracens.... The Apache drew his knife to fight a double-troop armed with carbines.... The American flung his empty M-1 in the faces of forty Japanese ... toujours le beau geste . Captain Pinkham, standing in his cabin aboard the spaceship Elephant's Child adrift in Star System
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
Pink woke from a sweating nightmare. He rolled over and his bandaged ribs creaked with a twinge. He had slept nearly a round of the clock; the other ships must be nearing the asteroids. He got up and dressed quickly, wondering who was watching Circe now, holding the revolver on her, praying that if she should change form, the old-fashioned gun would paralyze her as it had the giant. The giant. He had to check on that devil immediately. He called his quarters on the intercom, and Lieutenant Daley
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
The three spaceships lay together in the void. In the Elephant's Child , 57 men, seven officers, and Circe Smith were seated in the demolished recreation room, which was the only place besides the mess hall with enough chairs to accommodate them all. Radio communication with the other ships was handled over an extension set connected to the main radio room by a triple quancord laid down with furious energy by Sparks. "What we need, and need fast, is this," said Pinkham. "A method by which we can
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
He said to the alien, "Where's your home planetoid?" "Why?" it asked, mockery still in its weak voice. "I'm capitulating. I want to make a deal with your people." It said, "Ah, the human has sense after all. Our home is the largest of the asteroids, as you call them. The one you said at supper last night had a diameter of 440 miles. We call it Oasis—and a poor one it is, when we remember Earth." Jerry said, astounded, " What? " His narrow face worked with surprise. "Shut up, Jerry." Pink still h
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
The Elephant's Child rested on the surface of the asteroid Oasis, a waterless, airless, cold and gray ball as uninviting as any solid body in the universe. At the entrance to Air-lock One, the officers stood in a tight group listening to Pinkham; their spacesuits were fastened on, only the helmets remaining to be donned; their gloves were the modified digitmits which enabled the wearers to hold small objects and to operate machinery or firearms. There were seven officers, and now three crewmen i
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
I didn't have to do it, Pink thought. I could have changed the orders when I saw that no giants were in sight. We could have blasted the one on top of the Elephant's Child and taken off and got out of range of 'em and gone back to Earth. We were free in that instant, when Daley caught the alien and corked it up in the lead bottle with the liquor that drew it. We shouldn't have come out here to the caves. We should have left Oasis to itself. He knew that he had squelched this idea before it was b
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
Thought came to him before feeling. Pink lay in a hazy world of shifting ideas, of coagulating and disintegrating forms of cerebration. He was not wholly unaware of what had happened, but his groping mind was more concerned with piecing together certain facts and fancies, reaching conclusions he felt were of the first importance. If his body were in danger, it must help itself, for Pink had other fish to fry. As he sank into thick-witted stupor, then fought up to the light of reason, feeling his
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
"What is it?" asked Circe, her voice wild with fright. "Pink, darling, what is it? Are you hurt?" It was Circe who was holding him. Sobbing with relief, he said into the radio, "No, no, baby, I'm fine, I'm wonderful." Her answering cry was a tiny sound of joy and affection. "I wish I could kiss you," she said, "but there are two spacesuits in the way." He found her hand and squeezed it hard. "I wish I could see you, Smitty," he said, "but either I'm blind or—" "Oh, I should have told you at once
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
He beamed his radio to its fullest extent. "Daley," he said. "Daley, come in. Jerry. Cohan. Caleskie. Kole. Come in, anyone." "Kole here, Captain. I'm on the plain. It was all fouled up in that cave." "What can you see?" "They've got the big trap out of the ship," said the distant, tinny voice of the crewman. "What a waste of good liquor! Beg your pardon, Captain." "Giants?" Pink asked. "About a million of 'em, all headed for the trap. We should have tried it first. Did you know Caleskie got his
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
"I know how a fly feels," gasped the girl. "I'll never wield another swatter." Pink had emptied his Colt. He tried reloading on the run, or rather, he thought wryly, on the bounce, but it was a tricky job. And he had only about a dozen shells left. Circe shot another angry monster. If lead took just two seconds longer to work on those immense systems, Pink realized, he and Circe would have been squashed long since. They had fought down half the hall, past three of the triple entrances, and now t
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
Pink bellowed, "Jerry!" He yelled it so loudly that his ears protested at the helmet echoes. Jerry said groggily, "Wha?" "Stand up!" Jerry sat up and at once fell flat again. "Judas priest, I can't. That you Pink?" "We've got to make the ship," he bawled, twisting with pain. "Make it what?" "If you want to live, son—stand up!" Jerry got to his knees. "I'm sick, Pink." He had used up six seconds. He had to try it on his own. Jerry was too far gone to function properly. Pink stood up. His teeth we
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
The djinni on the floor said, "I concede this battle to you, Captain. I have seen the ending on the screen. But there are others out there, on Oasis and in the void. We'll win to Earth some day in spite of this victory." Pink, snugly ensconced in a foam-chair with his sprained ankle propped up, his surviving officers seated around him, and Circe on the arm of the deep chair, took another drink of lemonade. He made a face, almost asked for brandy, and remembered. He said, "Maybe the same way you
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