Clifford D. Simak

Maxwell felt himself falling to the floor, unable to control his body, which seemed tied up in knots from the fearful stink that exuded from the Wheeler. He hit the floor and rolled and his hands went to his throat and tore at it, as if to rip it open to allow himself more air-although there seemed to be no air, there was nothing but the foulness of the Wheeler.

Above him he heard a fearful screaming and when he rolled around so he could look up, he saw Sylvester suspended above him, his front claws hooked around the upper portions of the Wheeler’s body, his rear legs clawing and striking at the bulging and transparent belly in which writhed the disgusting mass of roiling insects. The Wheeler’s wheels were spinning frantically, but something had gone wrong with them. One wheel spun in one direction and the second in another, so that the Wheeler whirled about in a giddy dance, with Sylvester clinging desperately and his back legs working like driving pistons at the Wheeler’s belly. It looked for all the world, thought Maxwell, as if the two of them were engaged in a rapid and unwieldy waltz.

An unseen hand reached out and grasped Maxwell by the arm and hauled him unceremoniously across the floor. His body thumped across the threshold and some of the foulness diminished and there now was a breath of air.

Maxwell rolled over and got on his hands and knees and fought his way erect. He reached up with his fists and rubbed at his streaming eyes. The air still was heavy with the stench, but one no longer gagged.

Sharp sat propped against the wall, gasping and rubbing at his eyes. Carol was slumped upon the floor. Oop, crouched in the doorway, was tugging Nancy out of the fetid room, from which still came the screaming of the saber-tooth at work.

Maxwell staggered forward and reaching down, picked up Carol and slung her, like a sack, across one shoulder. Turning, he beat an unsteady retreat down the corridor.

Thirty feet away he stopped and turned around and as he did, the Wheeler burst out of the doorway, finally free of Sylvester and with both wheels spinning in unison. He came down the hall, wheeling crazily and lopsidedly-staggering blindly, if a thing with wheels could be said to stagger, slamming into one wall and caroming off it to smash into the other. From a great rent in his belly small whitish objects dropped and scattered all across the floor.

Ten feet from where Maxwell stood, the Wheeler finally collapsed when one wheel hit the wall and caved in. Slowly, with what seemed to be a rather strange sort of dignity, the Wheeler tipped over and out of the torn belly gushed a bushel or so of insects that piled up on the floor.

Sylvester came slinking down the hail, crouched low, his muzzle extended in curiosity, taking one slow step and then another as he crept upon his handiwork. Behind Oop and Sylvester came the rest of them.

“You can let me down now,” said Carol.

Maxwell let her down, stood her on her feet. She leaned against the wall.

“I never saw a more undignified way to be carried,” she declared. “You haven’t got a spark of chivalry to pack a girl around in a manner such as that.”

“It was all a mistake,” said Maxwell. “I should have left you there, laid out on the floor.”

Sylvester had stopped now and reaching out his neck, sniffed at the Wheeler, all the while with wrinkles of disgust and wonder etched upon his face. There was no sign of life in the Wheeler. Satisfied, Sylvester pulled back and squatted on his haunches, began to wash his face. On the floor beside the fallen Wheeler, the mound of bugs were seething. A few of them started crawling from the pile, heading out into the hall.

Sharp swung out past the Wheeler.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.” The corridor still was sour with the terrible stench.

“But what is it all about?” wailed Nancy. “Why did Mr. Marmaduke…”

“Nothing but stink bugs,” Oop told her. “Can you imagine that? A galactic race of stink bugs! And they had us scared!”

Inspector Drayton lumbered forward importantly. “I’m afraid it will be necessary for you all to come with me,” he said. “I will need your statements.”

“Statements,” Sharp said viciously. “You must be out of your mind. Statements, at a time like this, with a dragon loose and…”

“But an alien has been killed,” protested Drayton. “And not just an ordinary alien. A member of a race that could be our enemies. This could have repercussions.”

“Just write down,” said Oop, “killed by a savage beast.”

“Oop,” snapped Carol, “you know better than to say a thing like that. Sylvester isn’t savage. He’s gentle as a kitten. And he is not a beast.”

Maxwell looked around. “Where is Ghost?” he asked. “He took it on the lam,” said Oop. “He always does when trouble starts. He’s nothing but a coward.”

“But he said…”

“That he did,” said Oop. “And we are wasting time. O’Toole could do with help.”

Mr. O’Toole was waiting for them when they got off the roadway.