And the Prowler danced a little jig of happiness as the blue spear of energy knifed into its metal body.
“Cripes,” gasped Stiffy, “he draws it! He ain’t satisfied with just taking it when you give it to him. He reaches out and gets it. Just like a lightning rod reaching up and grabbing lightning.”
Puzzlement flashed across Hoffman’s face, then incredulity and finally something that came close to fear. The gun’s beam snapped off and his hands sagged. The gun dropped in the dust. The Prowler stood stock still.
“Well, Hoffman?” Meek asked quietly and his voice seemed to run all along the street.
Hoffman’s face twitched.
“Get down and fight like a man,” he rasped.
“No,” said Meek, “I won’t do that. Because it wouldn’t be man to man. It would be me against your entire gang.”
Hoffman started to back away, slowly, step by furtive step. Step by step the Prowler stalked him there in the silent street.
Then Hoffman, with a scream of terror, broke and ran.
“Get him!” Meek roared at the Prowler.
The Prowler, with one lightning lunge, one flip of its whip-like neck, got him. Got him, gently, as Meek had meant he should.
Howling in mingled rage and terror, Hoffman dangled by the seat of his pants from the Prowler’s beak. Neatly as any circus horse, the Prowler wheeled and trotted back to the Silver Moon, carrying Hoffman with a certain gentle grace that was not lost upon the crowd.
Hoffman quieted and the crowd’s jeers rang against the dome. The Prowler pranced a bit, jiggled Hoffman up and down.
Meek raised a hand for silence, spoke to Hoffman. “OK, Mr. Hoffman, call out your men. All of them. Out into the middle of the street. Where we can see them.”
Hoffman swore at him.
“Jiggle him some,” Meek told the Prowler. The Prowler jiggled him and Hoffman bawled and clawed at empty air.
“Damn you,” shrieked Hoffman, “get out into the street. All of you. Just like he said.”
No one stirred.
“Blaine,” yelled Hoffman. “Get out there! You, too Smithers. Loomis. Blake!”
They came slowly, shamefaced. At a command from Meek they unholstered their blasters and heaved them in a pile.
The Prowler deposited Hoffman with them.
Meek saw Andrew Smith standing at the edge of the sidewalk and nodded to him. “There you are, Mr. Smith. Rounded up, just like you wanted them.”
“Neat,” said Stiffy, “but not gaudy.”
Slowly, carefully, bones aching, Meek slid from the Prowler’s back, was surprised his legs would hold him up.
“Come in and have a drink,” yelled a dozen voices all at once.
“Bet your life,” agreed Stiffy, licking his chops.
Men were slapping Meek on the back, yelling at him. Yelling friendly things, calling him an old he-wolf.
He tried to thrust out his chest but didn’t succeed too well. He hoped they wouldn’t insist on his drinking of lot of bocca.
A hand tugged at Meek’s elbow. It was the Reverend Brown.
“You aren’t going to leave that beast out here all alone?” he asked. “No telling what he might do.”
“Ah, shucks,” protested Stiffy, “he’s gentle as a kitten. Stands without hitching.”
But even as he spoke, the Prowler lifted his head, almost as if he were sniffing, started down the street at a swinging trot.
“Hey,” yelled Stiffy, “come back here, you cross-eyed crow-bait!”
The Prowler didn’t falter in his stride. He went even faster.
Cold fear gripped Meek by the throat. He tried to speak and gulped instead. He’d just thought of something. The power plant that supplied Asteroid City with its power and light, the very oxygen it breathed, was down that way.
A power plant and an alien robot that was starved for energy!
“My stars!” gasped Meek.
He shook off the minister’s hand and galloped down the street, shrieking at the Prowler. But the Prowler had no thought of stopping.
Panting, Meek slowed from a gallop to a trot, then to a labored walk. Behind him, he heard Stiffy puffing along. Behind Stiffy trailed practically the entire population of Asteroid City.
Far ahead came the sound of rending steel and crashing structure as the Prowler ripped the plant apart to get at the juice.
Stiffy gained Meek’s side and panted at him. “Cripes, they’ll crucify us for this. We got to get him out of there.”
“How?” asked Meek.
“Danged if I know,” said Stiffy.
One side of the plant was a mass of tangled wreckage, surrounding a hole out of which protruded the Prowler’s hind quarters. Terrified workers and maintenance men were running for their lives. Live wires spat and crackled with flaming energy.
IV
Meek and Stiffy halted a half block away, breath whistling in their throats. The Prowler’s tail, protruding from the hole in the side of the plant, twitched happily. Meek regarded the scene with doleful thoughts.
“I wish,” Stiffy declared, “we’d stayed out there and died. It would have been easier than what’s liable to happen to us now.”
Feet thumped behind them and a hand grabbed Meek’s shoulder, grabbed it. It was Andrew Smith, a winded, apoplectic Andrew Smith.
“What are you going to do?” he shouted at Meek.
Meek swallowed hard, tried to make his voice even. “Just studying over the situation, Mr. Smith. I’ll figure out something in a minute.”
“Sure he will,” insisted Stiffy. “Leave him alone. Give him time. He always does what he says he’ll do. He said he’d round up Blacky for you, and he did. He went out single-handed and captured the Prowler. He …”
“Yeah,” yelled Smith, “and he said the Prowler would stand without hitching, too. And did he stand? I ask you …”
“He didn’t say that,” Stiffy interrupted, testily, “I said that.”
“It don’t make a bit of difference who said it,” shrieked Smith. “I got stock in that plant there. And the Prowler’s ruining it. He’s jeopardizing the life of this whole city. And it’s all your fault. You brought him here. I’ll sue you, the both of you, so help me. …”
“Ah, shut up,” snapped Stiffy. “Who can think with you blabbering around?”
Smith danced in rage. “Who’s blabbering? I got a good mind to. …”
He doubled up his fist and started toward Stiffy.
And
