Symbiotica (ss) by Eric Frank Russell

Author:Eric Frank Russell [Russell, Eric Frank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sci-Fi Short Story
Publisher: Astounding Science Fiction
Published: 1943-10-06T00:00:00+00:00

Awaiting us half a mile ahead was a vanguard of enormous snakelike things far thicker than my body and no less than a hundred feet in length. They writhed in our general direction, their movements peculiarly stiff and lacking sinuosity. Behind them, also moving awkwardly forward, came a small army of bushes deceivingly harmless in appearance. And behind those, hooting with the courage of those who feel themselves secure, was a horde of green natives. The progress of this nightmarish army was determined by the pace of the snakish objects in the lead, and these crept forward in tortuous manner as if striving to move a hundred times faster than was natural.

Aghast at this incredible spectacle, we halted. The creepers came steadily on and somehow managed to convey an irresistible impression of tremendous strength keyed-up for sudden release. The nearer they came, the bigger and nastier they looked. By the time they were a mere three hundred yards away I knew that any one of them could embrace a bunch of six of us and do more to the lot than any boa constrictor ever did to a hapless goat.

These were the wild ones of a vast and semisentient forest. I knew it instinctively and I could hear them faintly mewing as they advanced. These, then; were my bright green tigers, samples of the thing our captors had battled in the emerald jungle: But apparently they could be tamed, their strength and fury kept on tap. This tribe had done it.

Veritably they were higher than. the Ka.

“I think I can just about make this distance;” said Jay Score when the intervening space had shrunk to two hundred yards.

Nonchalantly he thumbed a little bomb that could have made an awful mess of theMarathon or a boat twice its size. His chief and mast worrying weakness was that he never did appreciate the power of things that go bang. So he carelessly juggled it around in a way that made me wish him someplace the other side of the cosmos and just when I was about to burst into tears; he threw it. His powerful arm also whistled through the air as he flung the missile in a great arc.

We flattened. The earth heaved like the belly of a sick man. Huge clods of plasma and lumps of torn green fibrous stuff geysered high, momentarily hung in mid-air, then showered all around. Getting up, we raced forward a hundred yards, went prone as Jay flung another. This one made me think of volcanoes being born alongside my abused ears. Its blast shoved me down in my boots. The uproar had scarcely ceased when the pinnace reappeared, dived upon the rear ranks of the foe and let them have a couple there. More disruption. It tied me in knots to see what went up even above the tree-tops.

“Now!” yelled Jay. Grabbing the handicapped Jepson, we tossed him over one shoulder and pounced forward. We drove with him.

Our first obstacle was a huge crater bottomed with tired and steaming earth amid which writhed some mutilated yellow worms.

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