He knew what to do. Why then, did he hesitate before the Torrg?
The girl stood stiff with terror, mindless, muscles drawn tight, nerves twitching.
He hesitated. He had about gained the maximum from her beauty. It was a passing thing. He could not possibly go on appreciating it much longer; she was a limited art form. And the Torrg—even he was apprehensive of that one. Even he had never challenged the ferocious deadliness of the giant Torrg. It was a mighty, mindless machine of destruction, and so difficult to kill. Its thick leathery body, slick with green scum, was almost impossible to pierce, and any one of its twenty writhing arms was a pounding, sucking, smashing bludgeon of power. He had five amphos to live ... but if he tried to keep the Torrg from this alien creature....
He searched her mind, as the Torrg raised up higher and higher from the thick nest of its pool. Vaguely, beneath her terror-stricken mind, he saw the symbol SQUID, enlarged many times. Its great green-colored caudal fins swayed impatiently, fanning huge swirling spirals of vapor, like smoke, throwing drops of swamp weed and mud until the groveling girl's beauty was almost buried in the steaming stench.
Why had she reacted so adversely to that brief sight of him? Why was he so uncertain about his course of action? If he had a form suitable for her eyes, if he could look forward to having her always to watch its perfect rhythm of movement; if he were only assured of her beauty going on forever, flowering for his pleasure in this world of teeming ugliness, if—
The Torrg acted almost too quickly for his reaction. But that unexpectedness of the Torrg's move decided him. His instinct guided him again, guided him in a blinding streaking flash of sheer power.
He took the muddy squirming figure of the girl between his unhinged jaws, delicately, but firmly. He accomplished this in an incomparable burst of energy, continuing on through the finish of the move without a stop. His body shot beneath the whipping tentacles of the Torrg, toward the SHIP that waited helplessly for her return.
He felt the Torrg's suckers close on his back as he passed. There was no pausing to understand why he was exposing himself to certain defeat. One must get in the initial blow in his world, or lose. His instinct was guiding him. It had never yet failed him. Later, if he survived, he could reason out the problem.
He sat the girl down gently, an inert lump just beneath the bow of the SHIP. Then he twisted around to try and rake the Torrg from his back. He had put himself wholly into the mad mindless power of the Torrg's blood-thirst. He kept trying to turn, but it seemed too late for that. He felt its twenty arms wrap about his throat and belly and flippers. Its monstrous weight crawled up his back. Two more of its appendages clinched about his jaws—his only means of destruction.