"You tell her, draggle-pate," he ordered his erstwhile guide. "It took me hell's own time to make you understand that I mean business, but you talk her language—see how fast you can get the thing through Her Royal Nibs' skull."
It did not take long. The lovely dark-green eyes held conviction now; but also a greater uncertainty.
"It will be best, I think, to kill you now, instead of allowing you to leave—" she began.
"Allow me to leave!" Kinnison exploded. "Where do you get such funny ideas as that killing stuff? Just who, Toots, is going to keep me from leaving?"
"This." At the thought a weirdly conglomerate monstrosity which certainly had not been in the dining hall an instant before leaped at Kinnison's throat. It was a frightful thing indeed, combining the worst features of the reptile and the feline, a serpent's head upon a panther's body. Through the air it hurtled, terrible claws unsheathed to rend and venomous fangs outthrust to stab.
Kinnison had never before met that particular form of attack, but he knew instantly what it was—knew that neither leather nor armor of proof nor screen of force could stop it. He knew that the thing was real only to the woman and himself, that it was not only invisible, but nonexistent to everyone else. He also knew how ultimately deadly the creature was, knew that if claw or fang should strike him, he would die then and there.
Ordinarily very efficient, to the Lensman this method of slaughter was crude and amateurish. No such figment of any other mind could harm him unless he knew that it was coming; unless his mind was given ample time in which to appreciate—in reality, to manufacture—the danger he was in. And in that time his mind could negate it. He had two defenses. He could deny the monster's existence, in which case it would simply disappear. Or, a much more difficult, but technically a much nicer course, would be to take over control and toss it back at her.
Unhesitatingly he did the latter. In midleap the apparition swerved, in a full right-angle turn, directly toward the quietly poised body of the Lyranian. She acted just barely in time; the madly reaching claws were within scant inches of her skin when they vanished. Her eyes widened in frightened startlement; she was quite evidently shaken to the core by the Lensman's viciously skillful riposte. With an obvious effort she pulled herself together.
"Or these, then, if I must," and with a sweeping gesture of thought she indicated the roomful of her Lyranian sisters.
"How?" Kinnison asked, pointedly.