The Void had spawned these hell-creatures
of destruction, had sown them deep within
Earth's soil. And now Earth was reaping a
whirlwind of death—weapons futile against
the immortal conquerors from another space.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Art Douglas saw one of the very first of them, found and brought in bytwo drivers from the huge steel burrowing worm which was at that timeconducting the sub-crust explorations many miles below the rollingKansas prairies. Why the men should have brought the discovery toan organization such as the Interplanetary Research Institute, wassomething not quite clear to Art. They must have known, he reflectedbitterly, how utterly bogged down the Institute was, how close toabsolute disintegration, from inability to work or progress, and theresultant effect on the morale of the highly trained scientists whomade up its staff.
But the weird organism which lay before him on the laboratory benchdispelled all such thoughts immediately. His imaginative, yetscientific brain leaped to meet the challenge and the InterplanetaryResearch Institute became only a workshop full of tools, ready for hisuse.
It was only natural that he should first assume that thecreature-plants were probably native to the level at which they hadbeen found, and that this was their natural environment. How terriblywrong this was to prove! Of the terrible menace in the thing beforehim, Douglas could not dream; although he could plainly see itspotentialities. For it had been found boring through solid rock.
It seemed to have been designed for just that. Its form was that ofspiral screw, about a foot long, tapering from a diameter of about aninch at one end, to four inches at the other. In color it was a dullblue-black, the surface fine textured and smooth, and steely hard.Its strength was of steel also, for it was constantly whipping about,trying to fasten its three needle sharp jaws, which were located at thesmaller end, in anything it might find. One of the men who brought ithad suffered a frightful gash in the forearm before they had learnedthat this could be avoided by picking it up at the larger end. Thecreature could not quite achieve the feat of bending itself double.
Art found that once it had hooked those fierce jaws into anything, itstarted boring and could not be torn loose. However, it would boreonly upward! When laid on a flat table, it merely writhed about,looking for some object above it. He held a thick piece of board overit. The head had bored through in a few seconds, but when he turnedthe board over, it backed out hastily, and flopped to the table again,where it resumed its endless searching, searching for something,anything overhead, in which it could fasten its tenuous grip.
Art called and had a huge two ton block of granite brought in by theoverhead crane. In its lower side he ordered some workmen to chip acavity, a little larger than the creature on the table. The thing wasdropped on the floor, and the block carefully lowered over it, so thatit was imprisoned in the cavity. Art had a hunch that it would havemade little difference to the creature whether it was allowed thecavity, or merely had the block dropped on it. A little shudder ranthrough him at the thought of such unearthly strength. He decided to goto lunch, before he got too deeply involved.
Passing through the outer office, he met Elene Moor, lovely secretaryto Doctor Theller, Chief Director of the Institute and his immediatesuperior. He had known Elene in college before se