Already the flat, glittering robot was after Harwich, but he continued his surprise rush toward the roofed, pillared kiosk that was the receiver for telepathic orders.
His attack ended in a dying tackle. Bayley was drawing his heat pistol, but before he could fire it, Harwich's weight struck him. There, together, in the kiosk, they wrestled and fought. At last there was a chance for the patrol pilot to bring his massive muscles into play. He swung his heavy fists, and all the fury of weeks of hardship and misfortune were back of his blows. Bayley tottered away from under the kiosk, and for a second Harwich stood there free.
He was in the position of control at last; but Bayley had his pistol out and aimed, now. Clara was screaming as the fat man pressed the trigger.
It was too late for Harwich to marshal his thoughts properly. He was only able to will that the automaton behind him should cease attacking him. He could not call to his aid any of the great science of Io, in time.
With the speed of light, a slender pencil of intense heat waves from Bayley's pistol, struck his side and burned straight through his body. No bullet could have drilled a neater hole. Harwich's legs collapsed under him, and he lay writhing there within the kiosk.
A split second later the heat pistol in Bayley's hand spat again. Turning weakly, Harwich saw Clara crumple and go down. In another instant, Paul became the third victim.
"You're done, Harwich!" the fat printer was yelling triumphantly. "You're finished, all of you!"
But by now the patrol man's seething flood of hate had registered. He was within the telepathy kiosk; and if he had ever willed instant destruction for anyone, he willed it now, for Bayley. Under other circumstances he might not have felt so vengeful, but his ebbing pulses blazed with fury.
There was a click within that vast, slumberous pyramid, that loomed like a grim god in this shadowy place of enigmas. The automaton that had recently held Harwich captive, seemed to move like a maddened animal, created out of pure lightning. Its tentacles whipped around Bayley long before he could fire again. Harder than steel cable, the tendrils tightened, like the coils of a python.