They neglected to point out that Tokyo had not been defended.
By now, Mike's beaters had driven several scamours out of the lower swamps. They heard the piteous "Gobble, gobble, gobble" of Wildoatia's most dangerous reptile not far ahead. Rifles crashed to the right. Someone screamed in the middle distance. Then a dead-grey head, with eyes big as saucers, swayed out of the muck directly in their path!
Frank and Sadie fired together. The nauseating head jerked back, then flicked forward on a scaly body equipped with a score of yardlong legs. The thing embraced the girl lovingly. Taloned feet clawed at her armor. A spiked tail wrapped about her in coil after slow coil.
"Gobble," moaned the scamour, showing its teeth in a wide smile before they sought the girl's throat.
Frank sprang forward, swinging his machete with both hands.
"Beg to state," hissed Schmidzu, "laws of Wildoatia forbid aid to another. Regret I must report this."
"Report and be damned," snarled Frank. Green ichor spurted under his blows but the creature seemed not to notice. Sadie was frantically squeezing the monster's throat to no avail. It forced its triangular snout forward, inch by inch.
Bracing himself with feet wide apart, the spaceman put all his strength into a blow aimed just below that horny carapace. The blade struck home this time, sheering through flinty scales to the backbone. The scamour's head fell backward and its coils loosened as it wailed like a hurt child.
Another wail made Frank whirl. The board chairman had been attacked by the creature's mate. Samurai swords sheared off several of the creature's legs but proved pitifully inadequate in the hands of the little Japanese. Instinctively the captain sprang to the rescue. Sadie, white and shaken though she was, gripped his arm with fingers of steel.