The Raid on the Termites

ng of th

ozen times more powerful than any man its size, were handicapped in a chase, too-by the very weight of their enormous mandibles. In their thunderi

a fraction while he tore his arms at last free of the clingi

had come to his racing mind. It wasn't much of a plan, and it seemed utterly futile in the face of the odds against him. But he had boasted

lways as if they had a dozen eyes instead of none, rushed to prevent

now cowered. But, while one of the syringe-monsters sent a brown stream blindly toward the leaping, shifting man, no other attacking move

An ineffective thing against the plates of living armor covering the scissor-mandibles

the living cisterns. The so

hough to make a defiant last stand against the guards. They stopped, too, then began

he calculated distances and fractions of a second. Jim stood there beneat

orming two halves of a deadly horn circle that

poised his spear and shot it straight toward the bu

is chest ached, as the scarlet liquid spread over the great hulks that twisted and fought in ponderou

ad flicked it onto the garden slug. Did that mean that the flipper was immunized to the stuff, like the lining of the stomach,

id vat. Again they were on the trail. The maneuver had been fruitless! The chase was on again, which meant

he acid was able to set on the horny exterior of the termites, it was as deadly to their soft interiors as to any other

f the huge room to the other, leaping over the smaller paralyzed insects and darting behind the la

like an abandoned piece of armor; and

able. The acid was by now spending its awful force in their vitals, having seeped down through every joint and crevice

had outwitted them. Then both, as though at a spoken command, stopped dea

dies. His plan had succeeded beyond all belief; and realization of thi

e'd punctured it with-only three feet of it was left: the rest had

feet and hasten its cracking by tearing at it with partially loosened hands. As Jim reached him, he free

suredly had none! In proof of this was the fact that when the half dozen specialized soldiers ringing it round might have leaped to the aid of the two clumsy door guards and probably have ended the uneven fight in a few minutes, the craven monarch h

eely surfaces as shields! Those armored terrors with the syringe-heads-one of which still held a full cargo of the terrible brown fl

and the heart of termite power it enclosed. Not only was the slimmest of hopes of escape rendered impossible while the supe

is hand, from which slo

still bulging with the brown liquid, faced them. The two men stopped, warily.

stream at him-but held its fire. Jim moved still closer, then leaped crabwise to one side as the brain behind the gua

steps straight at the monster that was the principal menace. At the last moment he

hing's head bulged with it. And no real move co

with the three-foot club which was all that was

he drew it back for a throw-and shot it forward

into the flabby, living syringe. A foun

e of draining the dread reservoir of its sticky contents. But the results-as logical and inevitable as they were astounding and un

nd the syringe of the thing; for it reared in an agony that

. The telepathic communications had been snapped with that crashing spear-point. It charged blindly, un

ermite charged among them. Furthermore, the fountain of thick brown liquid exuding from its

wriggling feebly in a binding sheath of its own poison. And with it, so

s head. And side by side he and Denny started again the charge against the ruler's gua

d the soft and vulnerable bodies. The third was of the syringe type, with invulnerable horn breastp

y swinging his spear at the body of the nearest guard. "W

pear from his hand; but almost before it could drop, he had recovered it. And in that flashing instant Denny had darted in at the side of the

bby head of the syringe-monster that loomed a f

ay suddenly burst in on the din of the eery fight. Both

m in his complete resignation. "But we'll try to

! At some time early in the one-sided struggle it had sent out a soundless call to arms. And now, in the doorway, struggling to force through in numbers too great for the entrance's narrow limits, were the first of the soldier hordes the rul

gh over his head, clubwise. Disdaining now to try for a thrust behind and to one side of the great co

a crack that could be heard even above the crashing mandibles of the soldiers pouring across th

jarred and numbed for an instant. The great creature stood still, its head weavin

ain-bag that cowered down between the backs that bore it-leaping here and there to avoid the blunt mandibles of the burden bearers. He, too, brought down his three-f

vulsively, and its balloonlike, fragile head cleft almost in two halves. It was possible that even that terrific injury might not be fatal to a thing so great and flexible o

pped Jim. "We'll make

termite, dead now, with its distended abdomen deflated and the last of the acid tr

before. For now the huge chamber was swarming with the giant soldiers. In numbers so great that they crashed and rattled against each other as they adva