wait until the noise and heat died down.
But Julie had something else in mind. She kept on firing until, with a sudden thunderous roar, the cave mouth collapsed. A cloud of dust and smoke arose, and then it was quiet.
Julie turned off her weapon, as did Gill. “That'll do it for a little while,” she said. “Until they find another exit from the hive,” Stan said.
“Well, it's better than nothing. Now, where in hell are we?”
Stan pointed. “You've done a great job, Julie. Look down there.”
Julie looked, and saw, less than a hundred yards away, the squat hull of the harvester.
“Now we're getting somewhere!” she said. “We just have to get aboard.”
“Yes,” said Gill. “But there's a difficulty.” He pointed again.
It took Julie a moment to see it. But then she saw the small black dots moving at the base of the hive. She could finally make them out: aliens! They had found another exit from the hive sooner than she expected. And they were blocking the way to the harvester.
She asked, “What now, Stan?” But Stan was unconscious again.
Julie and Gill looked at each other, then glanced up as a shadow crossed them.
It was a ship. For one moment Julie's hopes flared. But then she took in the ship's markings and design, and a great despondency came over her. That was not the
Stan revived and sat up. “The harvester, did you say?”
“It's right down there.” Julie pointed.
Stan looked and nodded. He struggled to his feet. “We've got to get there. From there, something may be possible.”
“There are quite a few aliens in the way,” Gill pointed out.
“So I see,” Stan said. “Have you ever heard of the old American Indian stunt of running the gauntlet?”
“I don't believe so,” Gill said.
“You're about to learn history in a very practical way,” Stan announced. “Load what's left of the ammo and we'll be on our way.”
Despite the mortal danger of their position, Julie could have kissed him at that moment.
65
Stan gave the signal and they were off, trotting down the rocky path that led from the edge of the hive to the plain. Fifty yards away, more or less, was the harvester. In the sky above them, the
And then the aliens came.
They came singly and in pairs, and then in threes. They seemed to crawl out from under rocks and to appear out of holes. They came in silent ferocity, fangs bared, talons extended, forming a rough line between the hive and the harvester. Stan and the others ran through the line, blasting as they went. They had all shifted now to rapid-fire weapons. Never did Julie display better hand-eye coordination. She managed to move at full stride, at the same time keeping a look on all sides of her and releasing sizzling bolts of energy at anything that moved. The rocks turned white-hot under the glancing energy beams. The aliens surged forward, and died. Julie and Gill were doing fine….
And then Stan collapsed.
He had been doing very well, for a man in his condition. But his illness and general debilitation were not to be denied forever. Pain coursed through his chest like a sea of fire. He gritted his teeth and tried to continue, but now everything was turning dark before his eyes. He couldn't see where he was going. His feet stumbled on the rocky surface, a pebble turned under his foot. He felt himself falling, and a black pit seemed to yawn in front of him. He threw his arms wide as he fell, but before he hit, Gill scooped him up.
“Don't stop for me!” Stan said.
“Order denied,” Gill said, setting him on his shoulder and running again.
They cut their way through the ranks of the aliens. Flesh, blood, and bile spilled in all directions. It was like a free-for-all in a slaughterhouse. Julie hadn't imagined there was that much gore in the whole world. Scattered parts of aliens lay everywhere, arms and legs, long ugly tails, heads with the teeth still snapping. And still they came on. Julie thought that every alien on the planet must be here, or on its way.
She was firing two weapons now, cutting a path for herself through a growing mound of living matter — the locked bodies of aliens, still trying to get at them. Gill, running along hard on Julie's heels, with Stan bouncing up and down on his shoulder, was cutting wide swaths in the clustered aliens. Julie saw her left-hand weapon flare and die. Firing right-handed, she snatched a vibraknife from her waist pouch to set it on high. The blade had to make physical contact to do any harm, but it had come to that now with the aliens pressing ever closer. It seemed to her that this was the end; aliens pressed in and she had no idea where she was. And then Gill was shouting, “The harvester, Julie!”
They were there. Gill raced up the landing platform and dumped Stan inside through the entry port. Then he turned, feet braced, firing a bazooka-style weapon that gave out great gouts of green flame. Julie ducked into the harvester under his arm.
She saw Stan, lying on the floor, unconscious again. Something big and black and many-toothed was bending over him. It was an alien, damn it! The harvester was filled with the creatures — two, no three of them. She cut them down. “Gill!” she screamed. “Get inside so we can close the door!”
Gill cut and slashed and backed through the door. Julie cut down an alien and now there was one left. It stood in the doorway, towering over her, and just at that instant her gun began to fail.
She must have screamed, because Gill slung a handgun across the harvester to her. She caught it, aimed, and triggered it in one rapid moment. The alien was in her face, but she had no choice: at extreme close range she blasted him.
The alien's throat exploded. One wildly waving claw came completely off. His forelimb, severed at the wrist, waved wildly in the air. The milky white acidic substance that was the blood of the alien spewed forth in a stream.
Some of the acid hit Julie. She screamed and went down, and it seemed to her that she could hear Gill yelling something, too, and then she didn't know anything anymore.
66
Stan returned to consciousness angry that the dose of pure royal jelly hadn't done anything for him. Luckily he still had some of the older product left. He'd take some of that soon.
He was not really surprised that the pure royal jelly hadn't helped him. He had always suspected that it was too good to be true, the idea that some other form of the jelly would cure him in some miraculous way. It just doesn't work like that, he told himself.
His mind raced back to earlier days. He thought of all the work he had done, all his accomplishments. He'd had a lot of chances in the poker game that was his life. Could he have played his cards some other way? He didn't really think so. And it was strange, but he knew that for some strange reason there was no place he'd rather be than here, right here, at the end of a glorious venture, with Julie and Gill, his friends.
Gill was at the other side of the harvester, looking after Julie. There really wasn't much he could do for her. Just see that she was comfortable. Most of the acid had missed her, but some drops had fallen along the side of her neck and penetrated deep under the skin. Her face was ashen, her breathing labored. Her vital signs were diminishing.
