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overhead, two tremendous shapes flapped and tore at each other with fangs like
hay-hooks. Drifting down came a roaring and fierce yelling. Blaine reached out,
took Magnus Ridolph's elbow.
"There's thousands of 'em!" he yelled into Magnus Ridolph's ear. "Just waiting for
somebody to set foot out on the beach. We got to get rid of them! Also the twenty-
foot pincer-beetles that infest the ocean, and some half-ton gorillas that got a lot
of human tendencies. Not to mention the flying snakes."
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"They certainly seem a ferocious set of creatures," said Magnus Ridolph mildly.
The battle in the sky took a sudden lurch in their direction, and the three
spectators jerked back involuntarily.
"Shoo!" yelled Joe. "Get outa here!"
A spatter of blood began to fall like rain. Talons ripped, yanked - brought a tooth-
grinding screech. One of the forms toppled, started to fall with a tremendous slow
majesty.
Lucky gave a strangling cry. Joe yelled, "No, no, no - "
End over end came the torn body, almost at their heads. It fell through the roof of
the hotel, into the dining room. Glass sprayed a hundred feet in all directions. A
convulsive flap of wings made further destruction. And now the victor swooped
on vast leather pinions. It dropped hissing into the wreckage, began to tear at the
flesh.
Joe cried in wordless anguish. Lucky turned, ran to the desk, returned with a
grenade rifle.
"I'll show that overgrown lizard something." He sighted, pulled the trigger.
Fragments of dragon and hotel spattered across the beach.
There was a sudden heavy silence. Then Blaine said in a crushed voice, "This is it.
We're through."
-Magnus Ridolph cleared his throat mildly. "Perhaps the situation is not as bad as
you think."
"What's the use? We made a mistake. Kolama is just too tough. We might as well
face it, take our loss."
"Now, Joe," said Lucky, "brace up. Maybe it's not so bad after all. Mr. Ridolph
thinks we got a chance."
Joe snorted.
"Couldn't you post guards in copters, and kill any that came down?" suggested
Magnus Ridolph.
Blaine shook his head. "They fly high, drop down like hawks. I've watched 'em.
We couldn't keep 'em out. And one or two would be as bad for business as a
hundred."
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Lucky pulled at his lip. "What I want to know is how come we never had trouble
while the place was going up."
Joe shook his head. "Beats me. Seems like when the Mollies were around,
nothing ever bothered us. As soon as they took off our grief began."
Magnus Ridolph glanced inquiringly at Lucky. "Mollies? And what are they?"
"That's what Joe calls the natives," Lucky told him. "They helped us out while we
were building."
"Did the excavating," said Joe.
"Possibly you could keep natives here and there around the property," suggested
Magnus Ridolph.
Blaine shook his head. "Nobody could stand the stink. It must be the stink that
keeps the beasts away. God knows I don't blame 'em."
Magnus Ridolph considered the theory. "Well, possibly, if the odor were
extremely strong and pungent."
"It's not anything else."
Magnus Ridolph stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Just what sort of creatures are
these - 'Mollies'?"
"Well," said Joe, "think of a shrimp four feet tall, walking around on little stumpy
legs. A sort of a fat gray shrimp with big stary eyes. That's a Molly for you."
"Are they intelligent? Do you have any contact with them?"
"Oh, I guess you'd call 'em intelligent. They live in big hives back in the jungle.
Don't do any harm, and they helped us out quite a bit. We paid 'em in pots, pans,
knives."
"How did you communicate with them?"
"They got a language of squeaks." Joe pursed up his lips. "Squeak - squick,
squick." He cleared his throat. "That means 'come here.' "
"Hm," said Magnus Ridolph. "And how do you say 'go away'?"
"Squick - keek, keek."
"Hm."
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"Squeak, keek, keek, keek - that means 'time to knock off for the day.' I learned
that lingo pretty good."
"And you say the wild beasts never bothered them?"
"Nope. Only twice did anything even come near. Once a gorilla, once a dragon."
"And then?"
"They all stood still looking, as if asking themselves, now just what does this
johnny think he's doing? And the gorilla and the dragon both turned 'round and
took off " Toe shook his head. "Must have got a close whiff of them. Like skunk
and sewage and half a dozen tannery vats. I had to wear a mask."
Woolrich said, "We've got movies of everything, if you think there's anything to
it."
Magnus Ridolph nodded gravely, "They might be useful. I'd like to see them."
"This way," said Joe. He added glumly, "You can see them, but you can't smell
them."
"Just as well," said Lucky.
The first scene showed virgin territory - the beach, the blue ocean, the sharp cliff
of the jungle. On the beach sat the small prospect ship, and beside it stood Joe,
self-consciously waving at the camera.
The second scene showed the Mollies excavating foundations. They worked in a
crouched position with heads extended, and the sand exploded out of the trench
ahead of them. They were rather more manlike than Joe had described them -
gray whiskered creatures with soft segmented bodies. They had bulging pink
blind-looking eyes, horny bowed legs, a concave area around their mouths.
Magnus Ridolph leaned forward. "They have a peculiar method of digging."
"Yeah," said Blaine. "It's fast, though. They blow it out."
Magnus Ridolph moved in his seat. "Run that again, please."
With a tired sigh and a helpless glance at Lucky, Joe complied. Once again they
watched the crouched natives, saw the sand broken loose, thrown up and out of
the ditch as if by a strong jet of air.
Magnus Ridolph sat back in his seat. "Interesting."
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The scene changed. The concrete slab had been poured. A dozen natives were
carrying a length of timber.
"Hear 'em talking? Listen..." And Joe turned the volume control. They heard
rising and falling eddies of shrill noise.
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