The Radio Beasts

by Ralph Milne Farley

This could not last long. Cabot’s left arm was gradually weakening. Nearer and nearer came the ant’s jaws to his throat. The fingers of his right hand twitched convulsively as he strove to release that arm. And then those fingers touched something familiar.

With one last supreme effort, he moved his hand sufficiently to grasp his lost revolver. A shot severed the leg which was holding him, and in an instant he had thrust the smoking weapon squarely between the horrid jaws and fired again. The battle was over. It was Cabot’s last cartridge, but the battle was over.

Cabot’s first inclination was to heave the body over among the rubbish; but on second thought he decided to use it as the keystone of a rather clever plan of camouflage. Propping the dead carcass up at the levers, so that it would appear to be driving, he crouched beside it, reached in front of it and started the kerkool. Thank Heavens he had had experience in driving the seatless machines of the Formians, as well as the more comfortable cars of his own people.

Cabot passed through the first town without challenge, but evidently his strange appearance was noted and excited some curiosity, for at the second town he was confronted by a formidable array of ant pinquis. Hoist by his own petar, he was, for it was his own system of radio-communication, installed throughout the Kingdom, which had enabled the authorities to broadcast the news of his approach.

There was nothing to do but run the gantlet; so thrusting aside the dead body of his companion, Myles took a firmer hold on the levers and charged full into the midst of the pinquis.

The kerkool shuddered from stem to stern at the shock, but her gyroscopes kept her steady, and Cabot sped on out of town amid a shower of lead from the greatly surprised and demoralized enemy.

The third town proved to be even a worse proposition, for by now the ant-men fully recognized Cabot’s identity and had thrown up a hasty barricade in the very heart of town. Putting on the brakes, he was just barely able to steer sharp to the right into a side street and thus avoid a collision with the barricade.

But, alas, the side street proved to be merely a blind alley, a cul-de-sac. He was trapped! Well, so be it. He had the rifle and ammunition of the dead ant, and would sell his life dearly. Although the rifle was built to fit claws rather than hands and a shoulder, still he could use it. So parking the kerkool crossways at the end of the street, he crouched behind it, and opened fire on the ant men as they rounded the corner in pursuit. They at once withdrew, thus giving him a brief respite.

But he realized that almost any moment they were likely to attack him from the roofs of the surrounding houses; and, accordingly, as soon as he had momentarily cleared the street, he withdrew into the house at its end. Of course, this was taking a chance on the occupants; but whoever they were, they discreetly kept out of the fight. The narrow window openings, which are typical of Porovian architecture, afforded ideal loopholes, and enabled Cabot to pick off with ease any black form which showed itself, either at the opening of the street or at the edge of any of the adjoining roofs. But this could not keep on forever. Even the bandolier which he had taken from the dead driver of the kerkool would in time become exhausted. And at any moment his enemies could be expected to enter his stronghold from the rear.

So leaving the muzzle of his rifle conspicuously protruding from the window, he made a hurried search of the ground floor of the house and finally found what he wanted, namely, a chair, the legs of which were about the same size and shape as rifle barrels. When he returned to the window with the four chair legs, the Formians were throwing up breastworks at the corner of the street, so that they could fire at the window from under cover.