There were red bodies on the bare rock before him. A scaly, scabrous thing was pressing against his upflung hands that he raised above his head--a loathsome touch! A beak that was a needle-pointed tube stabbed his shoulder before he could flinch aside: the quick pain of it was piercingly sharp.... * * * * * Other red horrors dropped from the main mass overhead; he saw Harkness beating at them wildly while he made a shelter of his body above the crouched figure of Diane. Two of them--two incredible, beastly, flying things! He saw them so plainly where they hovered, and Harkness striking at them with a useless, empty gun, while they waited to drive home their lance-like beaks. The picture was so plain! His brain was a photographic plate, super-sensitized by the utter horror of the moment. While the red monster stabbed its beak into his shoulder, while he drove home one blow against its parchment body with his empty pistol, while the wild, beating wings lifted the creature again into the air--he saw it all. Here were Diane and Harkness! Nearby Schwartzmann was on the ground! His man--the one who had not yet descended with the others--was running stumblingly forward. He was wounded, and the blood was streaming from his back. Chet saw the two monsters hovering above Harkness' head; he saw their thick-lidded eyes--and he saw those eyes as they detected an easier prey. The fleeing man was half-stooped in a shambling run. The winged reptile Chet had beaten off joined the other two and they were upon the wounded man in a flurry of red. Chet saw him go down and took one involuntary step forward to give him aid--then stopped, transfixed by what he beheld. The man was down crouching in terror. Above him the three monstrous things beat each other with their wings; then their long beaks stabbed downward. The man's body was hidden, but through those transparent beaks there mounted swiftly a red stream. Plainly visible, Chet saw that vital current--the living life-blood of a living man--drawn into those beastly bodies; he saw it spread through a network of canals! And he was held rigid with horror until a harsh scream from Harkness reached his brain. "The trees!" Harkness was shouting. "The trees! Down, Chet, for God's sake! You can't save him!" * * * * * Walt was half carrying Diane. Even then Chet was vaguely thankful that their bodies were between the girl and this gruesome sight. And Walt was leaping madly down the lava slope. Beyond him, already on the lower level, was the racing figure of Schwartzmann. A whirring flash of red pursued him. Another made a crimson streak through the air toward Walt's back. Chet came with startling abruptness from the frozen rigidity that held him, and he crashed his empty pistol in well-directed aim through the body of the beast. Then he, too, threw himself in great leaps down the slope.