They had been working a few minutes, on the third morning, when, the radio outpost at the farthest entrance announced, "The beasts are coming!"
There were no television screens, but the announcer's description was horrible enough.
"They've got walking snakes in front—with triangular heads like rattlers—probably poisonous—but a bite from one of those babies would be enough anyway, they're twenty feet long. Now they are nearer—I wondered how they could come so fast—They're running. Every damned one of them has a row of little short legs, that hustle them along.... Their hissing sounds like steam from hundreds of locomotives, even in this atmosphere."
The announcer quieted down to a sense of awe—"Off to the side, there's a group of big things ... big as six elephants, with long, heavy tails dragging, and small heads. They seem to be covered with some kind of scales.
"Up in the air is a flight of flying lizards, about six feet long I should guess, and I can see their teeth flashing when a ship gets near. They keep trying to turn back, but the ships herd them in the air like a flock of flying sheep. Probably only dangerous when cornered. I wonder if they are poisonous.
"There's a space of several miles of clear desert behind, and beyond there is a dark wave of beasts clear to the sky line. I can't see them, because it is still too dark.... It looks like a black ocean rolling at us!" The announcer's voice stopped and the silence was oppressive.
"Hell, I've seen worse than that in the D.T.'s," cracked one of the alcoholics, but his hands trembled as he picked up the largest of the crude stone throwers. "This pop gun might stop one of the birds, but it wouldn't do much to the giant elephants."
Major Mattson roared into a megaphone in the huge drill room. "Well, boys, this is it—We've got plenty to fight and damned little to fight with. If we can get all the big beasts with the disintegrators before they break down the barriers, we'll be O.K. The Mars Colony expects every man to shoot his damndest—Let's go!"
The cheering mob, in loose order, ran down the corridors with their pathetic little guns, Major Mattson and Jake in the lead. Jake leaped on his new legs like a man of twenty, and roared as if he had found a new hold on life. The buzz and hum of activity behind them continued. Forges flared, hammers clanged, and in the distance some of the patients were singing a martial hymn.