With a soft, wet squish, the dead body of the fish exploded, unable to contain the hideous force. My skin crawled with revulsion. This was a power of which I could not have dreamed, a force which had invaded a human body, sapping its very fibers, devouring it from within while holding its matter together until the last spark of life was snuffed out, the alien's hold broken by the bullet from Laurie's gun smashing into the decayed body. Sickness twisted in my stomach. I swayed dizzily. The strumming vibrations of the alien mind shivered through my head, soundless yet like an unendurable, endless screech.
And still I could not move as the alien flowed again on the wet sand, drawing together as a cluster of frothy bubbles, spreading out once more, the moist membranes hardly visible, the rainbow-hued strings of its web-like body reaching, groping blindly, creeping toward me, closer and closer. And a small sand crab scuttled toward it across the sand between us. Sweating and shaking, I watched the hard-shelled creature crawl toward its unseen enemy. A claw touched the moist tissue and the alien struck with sudden violence, silent and terrible, enveloping, smothering, invading the helpless body.
At last I moved. Looking around wildly I saw a chunk of jagged rock half buried in the sand. I pawed it loose. The crab, possessed now, turned a beady eye toward me as I swung around. The painful pulsing in my mind rose harrowingly. With a choking sob of fury I smashed the rock down upon the crab, raised it and smashed down again and again and again, burying the broken, pulpy body in the sand. A sticky piece of protoplasm flew through the air and stuck to my wrist. I brushed it off and it adhered to my fingers like a living thing. I saw the glitter of a tiny string of beads. It moved.
Acting without thought, I clawed in my pocket with my free hand and grasped the small metal cylinder of the pocket lighter. I jerked it out and pressed the button on the end. A thin blue finger of fire danced from the nozzle. I turned the flame upon my fingers where the sticky bit of substance stirred. In my mind there was a snap and shriek like a violin string breaking. Gritting my teeth against the searing pain of the burning flesh, I shook my fingers. The blackened thing dropped off.
I bent down to direct the flame upon the smashed remains of the crab where the alien still crawled. I held it there until at last I was struck by silence. The pulsations were gone. I stared down at the contracted body of the alien.
At first my mind could register only shocked disbelief. What I saw was so familiar that I could not comprehend its meaning. I thought I must be truly mad. Glittering on the wet sand was a small hard cluster of surfaces arranged into the frozen patterns of ordinary rock crystals. On impulse I turned the blue jet of fire upon the chunk. It blackened slowly. At first there seemed to be an infinitesimal shrinking, then only a dark discoloration. When at last I stood erect, turning off the lighter, I knew this alien mind was silenced forever.
I stared down at the blackened chunk of crystals, trying to sort out all the answers that crowded through the suddenly opened door in my mind. This much I knew for certain—strange rock and crystal formations had been brought back from Mars. I had seen them carefully placed on their shelves behind special glass doors. I remembered how strikingly beautiful they had appeared in their dazzling interplay of light and color.
With a shudder I thought of the scientist's habit of touching strange crystals with the tongue.
When I reached Laurie, she was already stirring. I felt an intense relief. Oblivious of the throbbing burn in my left hand, I knelt beside her and put my arm under her shoulders to raise her to a sitting position. Fainting had saved her life—and mine. If she had been conscious the alien would not have needed my body. He would have had no need to call me back from the grave.