The Venusian girl cleared her lungs, rubbed one webbed hand across her eyes, then gave Dorothy a long, level stare. "He breathes like you?" she asked. "No." "Good. Did she kill him or did I?" "Is that your Venusian girl?" Dorothy interrupted. "And what are you two talking about?" Barry switched to English. "Hell's still loose. Got to get to headquarters immediately." He started off, looked back with a worried frown. Xintel had drawn a tube-weapon to match Dorothy's rifle. The slender, coveralled Earthgirl and the more fully curved Venusian, dressed in only a torn skirt, were eying each other like two alley cats. He could almost feel the crackle of emotion between them. He winced. * * * * * "It's murder if you don't!" Barry raged. Captain Stanley of Ship Two was in charge of the slough sector of defense. He shook his head regretfully. "Must have the approval of the other captains first," he said. "Well, in God's name, get them!" Barry strained his eyes, but the mist had settled down thickly. Only the vaguest hints of heaving, convulsive movement were discernible beneath the water. The air-masked crews of the machine guns and mortars and flame throwers set up to supplement the stun barrier were tense and jittery as they waited. The radio handpiece crackled with static that drowned all communication, so Captain Stanley sent a runner to summon the others. Anger and despair contended in Barry's mind. They would be too late. The heavy cables sprawled into the black water like great snakes, lifeless in appearance, but he knew the torturing forces with which they were filling the slough. And he alone of all the colony knew the full horror of the torvaks. Through the mist he could just see the building where Nick had set up the switchboard, and he hoped he would be watching for orders. Otherwise-- With deceptive calm he walked to one of the flame throwers, snapped the latch releasing the bulky mechanism from its tripod, picked it up in both arms. "What are you doing?" Captain Stanley demanded. "I'm going in," Barry declared. The watching men were too dumfounded to stop him as he ran downstream. Through the mist he saw something move just below the surface. A Venusian woman, her muscles twitching in spastic convulsions as the electric current ripped at her nerves. And then a few yards away a shadow, misshapen and unbelievably huge. Barry stopped, cradling the heavy flame thrower in his arms. "Turn off that current!" he pleaded once again. Without waiting for an answer he leaped. The weight of the weapon took him instantly to the bottom. He sprawled in the ooze. He had miscalculated. A million fiends were stabbing with red-hot knives, and his muscles twitched and squirmed in insane convulsions. His chest was clamped in a gigantic vise that kept him from filling his lungs with the water that meant life.