I saw keen interest reflected there, surprise, intense concentration, but nothing of the strange terror I felt. A sensation of immense relief came over me, and I made a half-hearted effort to smile as he lowered the glasses and looked at me, grinning.
"Don't let it get you, Mel," he said. "I was expecting something of the sort—or more so. They are no more terrible than the old winged saurians, probably. At any rate, the Omnimobile can take care of herself. We're likely to meet something worse before we're through."
"I hope not!" I said, piously. "But the things are plants!"
"Possibly. But the idea of animated plants is nothing new to science. The line of division between the plant and animal kingdoms is rather vague, and it seems that both developed from a common ancestor. Even today there are living things that can be classified neither as plant nor animal. Take, for instance, Euglena Viridis, the microscopic organism that colors green scum on fresh-water ponds. It is a plant, because it contains chlorophyll, and utilizes sunlight in the manufacture of food from carbon dioxide and it absorbs salts dissolved in the water. It is an animal because it can swim about very actively, and because it can absorb particles of food that it finds in the water. Carry the evolution of such a thing to the nth degree, and you have the flying things before us!"
Again, I had to admit that Sam had advanced a most plausible explanation for an amazing thing, but still I prefer my plants fastened to the ground.
It soon became evident that the monsters had discovered us. They approached and circled close above, green wings slowly beating the air, and the great blooms that were like heads seeming to flicker with varied colors. The thick, red tentacles coiled below the great brown shark-like bodies, with terrible talons drawn back threateningly.
"The things may be feeling unpleasant," Sam suggested. "It might be a good thing to fix 'em a hot welcome."
That had already occurred to me. I let Sam have the controls, and ran out and loaded the little cannon. Through the thick windows of the little conning-tower I watched the monsters flying above us. They followed as we kept up our deliberate advance toward the jungle-covered shore.
Suddenly one of them dived down upon us. The impact of its heavy, shark-like body shook the machine, and its great claws grated over the metal plates with an unpleasantly suggestive sound, as it strove vainly to rip them open. I felt some alarm. For sheer fighting power I would match one of those flying plants against any animal that ever walked on earth. In wing-spread it was fully as long as the Omnimobile, though the machine was, of course, many times heavier.
I slipped into gear the machinery that revolved the turret, and as soon as a portion of that rough, armored brown body was fairly before the gun, I let fire with an explosive shell. The whole machine rocked with the force of the explosion, and the side of that vast scaly brown body was torn off. A viscid green fluid gushed out, dyeing the deck and tinting the water alongside. The terrible grasp of the thing relaxed, and it slipped off into the sea.