SIX FRIGHTENED MEN
By Randall Garrett
It was an unexplored planet and anything
could happen—yet none of us expected to face a
creature impossible to fight, let alone kill....
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
June 1957
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
You put your life on the line when you join the Exploratory Wing of the Space Corps. They tell you that when you sign up. The way they told it to me, it went like this:
"You'll be out there on alien worlds where no human being has ever set foot—worlds which may or may not have been inhabited by hostile alien creatures. You take your life in your hands every time you make a planetfall out there. Still interested?"
"That's old stuff," I said. "You don't think I'd join up if it was an old ladies' tea party, do you?"
Which was how I happened to be crouching behind a fantastically-sculptured spiralling rock out on the yellow wind-blasted desert of Pollux V, huddling there with the fierce sweep of sand against my faceplate, looking at the monster that barred my path.
The thing was at least sixty feet tall and all eyes and mouth. The mouth yawned, showing yellow daggers a foot long. As for the eyes—well, they burned with the cold luminosity of an intelligent and inimical being.