'Let your gun cool, Marshy,' Gramp yelled.
He aimed the new weapon at a shambling thing that crawled over the barricade of bodies. Calmly he blasted it straight between the eyes.
'We'll need your gun later,' Gramp yelled at Jurg Tec.
A shadowy something, with spines around its face and with a cruel beak just below its eyes, charged over the barricade and Gramp blasted it with one short burst.
The attack was thinning out.
Gramp held his pistol ready and waited for more. But no more came.
'What are 'em dog-gone things?' asked Gramp, jerking his pistol toward the pile of bodies.
'Don't know,' said the Martian. There aren't supposed to be any beasts on Ganymede.'
They acted dog-gone funny,' Gramp declared. 'Not exactly like animals. Like something you would up and put down on the floor. Like toys. Like the toy animals I got my grandson for Christmas year or two ago. You wound 'em up and the little rascals run around in circles.'
Jurg Tec stepped outside the cut-bank, nearer to the pile of bodies.