Val Kenton whirled, took charge of the situation as though he was still the patrolman he had once been. He jerked his head toward the open port.
"Tony," he snapped, "get inside and bring out that catalyst feed. We can't fight this thing for long; we've got to make a run for it."
The patrolman moved without hesitation, swinging into the port, leaving his guns outside. His face was strained and white as he cast one last look at the hungry horror that moved so slowly, so implacably, up the beach.
Val Kenton set the control on his rifle. "Set your guns for flame," he said sharply, whirled and helped Elise to the ground, "we haven't enough power for atomic fire for any length of time; our only hope lies in holding that thing at bay until Tony gets the feed."
They stood, the three of them, shoulder to shoulder at the ship's side, and their guns hissed like high pressure jets as they fired in unison at the insensate monster.
Steam rose and swelled from the protoplasm, and the great blob seemed to draw back. Val Kenton felt a flame of exultation flare momentarily in his heart.
"Maybe?" he whispered to himself.
Then the weird cohesive slime surged forward again. The three guns raved and wailed with unleashed power, and the steam and horrible odor filled the air. Great areas of the protoplasm disappeared under the continuous fire, but the power of the guns was not enough to stop the horror from its relentless advance.
It moved faster now, seeming to have had new energy released within it from the dozens of crab bodies it had assimilated, and its pseudopods were great flicking blind loops of death questing before it for further sustenance.
The rifles went dead, and the two men and the girl lifted the hand guns. The flame from the guns did not have the power of the rifles, and the terror moved even closer. A four foot blob of protoplasm shot from the main body, smashed into the ship, dropped toward the three below. Johnson flicked it out of existence with full power from his gun, and the gun went dead.