When Kohonnes Screamed By GARDNER F. FOX Kohonnes breathed out across his little world and made the waters back up and the stones crawl and the trees writhe abominably. Why couldn't he distort men's souls also? [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The spaceship was changing shape all around him. The curving walls sloped inward at crazy angles, and the glassine windows bulged like giant bubbles. The floor was an unending series of little waves, and the ceiling melted to drop liquid pellets. "This is _it_!" exulted Grim Thorssen, slamming the levers of his control board, striving to slip his ship into the tug of the little planet looming through the starboard window. "Whatever kidnapped our trading vessels, whatever happened to the Fleet cruisers sent after them--here it is." His tawny hair, long uncut, looped over his hard blue eyes as he stared at the instruments in front of him. Even the hard steeliscite cones and rods were altering subtly, their shapes fading to reform in different, twisted patterns. Grim felt a quick stab of fear. Sudden pain changed his grin to a spasmodic grimace of agony. "Pirates I don't mind," he gasped, his body jerking suddenly as the force that bent his spaceship reached inside his body. "I--I'd take on Black Randolph as quick as down a cup of _yassallel_ right now. But this thing--" His head whipped back as spasms tore his chest. Laboring, sweat standing out on his high forehead, he thought, 'Matter isn't matter here--not as I know it. A ceiling starts crying steel tears and a heatlite floor develops a permanent.' The force was tearing him apart with pain. It came like iron fingers in his belly and across his ribs. It bent him over so that his face went purple. No wonder the Trader Unions lost their big Caravans, packed to their rivets as they were with priceless radium and korse-210 from Tanit and the other planets of the suns Deneb and Achernar! The Council thought at first that it was Black Randolph looting, so the Unions Council ordered out the cruisers from the Interstellar Fleet to hunt him down. The cruisers, like the big Caravans, never came back. Then they sent for Grim Thorssen.