and soon nothing but fragments of steaming Hagg-Loos flesh littered the landscape and the last defender was dead.
'Into the plane!' Lord Prrsi ordered. 'Reinforcements are on the way, and I don't think we are up to facing their entire battle fleet.'
'Hold on!' Jerry called out, battling his way against the stream of slaves pouring into the 747. 'Where's Chuck? After all, we did come here to release him; that was the idea of the whole thing.'
'He's not in the plane or in this bunch,' John mused.
'Then he's still in the cave,' Jerry called out and ran that way in the instant.
'Come back!' Lord Prrsi ordered. 'We cannot wait, for if we do so, we risk the loss of the cheddite projector, as well as all aboard your ship, not to mention the ship itself.'
'You just stay there and wait for me,' Jerry commanded. 'I'll only be a moment. Fight if you must, but just hold on a bit'
Then he was pounding into the cave once more and, frankly, getting sort of pooped and out of breath after the recent bout of activity. Inside the cave he could see nothing, since his eyes were now adjusted to the glare outside.
'Chuck!' he called, and 'Chuck!' again, but there was no answer. Stumbling blindly along, he made his way to the food troughs – had he heard a slurping noise? – and there, sure enough, was his buddy, head down in the gruel and slurping away.
'We have to get out of here!' He pulled at Chuck's resisting shoulder.
'Booger off!' was the growled answer. 'Chuck eet him food.'
'Jerry's arm was sore when he raised it, and the edge of his hand hurt when he administered the karate chop to the muscular neck below him. It was a job to get the dead weight of his friend onto his shoulder, but he did manage, then staggered out of the tunnel once again. A steak and a hot bath was what he needed after this, he thought to himself, and maybe a couple of good belts of bourbon. Then the entrance was ahead, and he staggered and stumbled and stopped. High above he could see the diving forms of Hagg-Loos fighters, weapons glistening and ready.
But, before him on the battle-scarred plain where the Pleasantville Eagle had stood there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
They were alone, trapped on this enemy planet so far from home.
What a hideous way to die. . . .
13
TRAPPED ON HAGGIS
It was a moment of ghastly paralysis for this intrepid space explorer, who, at this instant, was beginning to regret very much the whole idea of space exploration. What to do? Suicide seemed about the only answer, and he let the unconscious Chuck slip heavily to the ground while he considered possible means of terminating a life that was just about as good as terminated anyway. The moment passed, and he abandoned thoughts of suicide for the moment, mainly because he could not see any easy way of doing it, short of drowning himself in the mashed mangelwurzels which didn't sound attractive at all. Above him the Hagg-Loos fighting ships raced and cavorted and occasionally banged off their guns at suspicious objects on the ground below, but other than the cooked lumps of slain Haggisians and an occasional slave corpse or two, the landscape was empty.
Or was it? What was that strange sort of rattling, slithering sound that came from behind the heaped-up rocks? Reflexively, Jerry withdrew into the tunnel mouth, pulling Chuck after him. The scraping grew louder and louder until, with horrifying abruptness, the great pallid form of a Hagg-Loos appeared. Its poison barb twitched, its faceted, evil eyes stared at the tunnel – and then it attacked! Fast as it was, Jerry was just as fast. With Chuck in tow he sprinted into the mine and dived for the grinding machine.
'Enter at your own peril!' he shouted, raising a handful of the deadly coal dust, coal dust to him, but drugaddicting DnDrf to the Hagg-Loos who now clattered into the cave after him.
'You heard me,' Jerry cried, backing away. 'I mean it. One step more and I let fly and you are an addict for life until your chitin rots away!'
But the Hagg-Loos warrior ignored him and still came forward. Good as his word, Jerry let fly unerringly with the coal dust, which shmeared itself on the enemy's white chitin. And still it came. Jerry abandoned the coal-dust ploy and seized up one of the clubs, not much of a weapon against the yard-long nippers of the enemy, but if fight he must, why, then he would die fighting.
'To me, Chuck, to me!' he called out. 'I may have to die fighting, and a little help would be appreciated.' But the help was not coming. Chuck had regained consciousness and was back at the mangel-wurzel trough, noshing away with bestial slurping sounds. The enemy advanced until its great form hovered over Jerry, and he drew back his club for one last blow when a trapdoor opened in its abdomen and a mop of tentacles popped out.
'I know those familiar tentacles,' Jerry exulted, hurling the club aside. 'That is you, isn't it, Slug-Togath?'
'None other,' came the gloomy answer. 'Left behind by force despite strong reservations as to wisdom of abandonment, to aid in effecting your escape.'
'Damn good idea on someone's part. Am I allowed to ask just what you are doing inside one of the enemy?'
'Not enemy, giant robot machine constructed after you were sold to the slavers. It seems that the Hagg-lnder albino spy on this planet was interrupted during a secret message, and they have not been able to contact him yet. So this robot was built, and I agreed to take it into the enemy city to see about the spy, but under controlled conditions and etc., not just dumped at the North Pole like this.' His tentacles wriggled with self-pity as he gave his TS card a good verbal punching.
'Cheer up, old Medusa head,' Jerry chirruped, patting him on the back, inadvertently giving him a black eye at the same time since, of course, he had eyes on his back as well. 'You've got help on this mission now, one and oneeighth good men to help you. Chuck being the one-eighth, about all he is good for since they crunched his brain.' Chuck happily slurped an answer.
'Look, tell me about it later, will you?' Slug-Togath said nervously, peering in all directions, which of course was easy for him to do. 'Climb into this damn thing so I can seal the hatch before any of them spots us.'
And this they did, only getting Chuck away from the mangel-wurzels with some difficulty and by promising him an Ormoloo-burger if he was a good boy and climbed into the Haggis machine and sat quietly. This was done and the hatch slammed, and Jerry looked around approvingly at the well-organized, though cramped, quarters. A control seat in the head with vision screens to operate the machine, with special controls for the poison sting in the tail which also housed a supersonic crumbler beam. Tool and food compartments were on both sides, a compact galley, recruiting posters and VD warnings on the walls, a folding cot, a color TV next to the bar, and a chemical toilet tucked discreetly in the rear behind a curtain. 'Not bad, not bad at all,' Jerry approved as he sizzled up a burger for the salivating Chuck, who was strapped into a chair. It smelled so good he made one himself and was munching away under the disapproving eyes of Slug-Togath.
'I know your Earthling axiom about Nero fiddling while Rome burned,' he disapproved, 'and we have the equivalent in our axiom about how only a crogis nardles while his friend's mother cakarakas.'
'Sounds sort of dirty,' Jerry mumbled around a mouthful, 'so don't bother to translate. While eating I have been thinking, and I have a plan of escape, but first I've got a couple of questions. Like do you have a mind shield for Chuck, since the enemy might think something was wrong if they caught his brutish thoughts emanating from the neighborhood of this thing's big intestine?'
'Not to worry. The entire device is mind-shielded. They will catch no stray thoughts.'
'That's a good beginning. But what about if they should try to contact what they think is their buddy here and get no thoughts in return?'
'I assure you, all this was taken into consideration when the device was constructed. There is a programmed brainwave transmitter hooked to the antenna. This is the board that controls it By selecting the correct button, it will broadcast thoughts of immense concentration, including the message 'buzz off and don't bug me now,' the random thoughts of deep sleep, and so forth.'
