"Black Destroyer" , uma novela de A. E. van Vogt , também a resposta à pergunta " O Cobalcat aparece em outras histórias além do 'Tuf Voyaging'? "; publicado pela primeira vez em Astounding Science-Fiction , julho de 1939 , disponível no Arquivo da Internet ; mais tarde incorporada ao romance de correção de 1950, A Viagem do Espaço Beagle .
On and on Coeurl prowled. The black, moonless, almost starless night yielded reluctantly before a grim reddish dawn that crept up from his left. A vague, dull light it was, that gave no sense of approaching warmth, no comfort, nothing but a cold, diffuse lightness, slowly revealing a nightmare landscape.
Black, jagged rock and black, unliving plain took form around him, as a pale-red sun peered at last above the grotesque horizon. It was then Coeurl recognized suddenly that he was on familiar ground.
Uma nave espacial humana pousa em um mundo alienígena. Não tenho certeza se eles estão explorando ou tocando em reparos.
É uma expedição científica:
Came cunning—understanding of the presence of these creatures. This,Coeurl reasoned for the first time, was a scientific expedition from another star. In the olden days, the coeurls had thought of space travel, but disaster came too swiftly for it ever to be more than a thought.
O mundo é um lugar de mau presságio e abriga um predador cruel que lembra um pouco uma pantera ou outro grande gato terrestre.
"I'd hate to meet that baby on a dark night in an alley."
"Don't be silly. This is obviously an intelligent creature. Probably a member of the ruling race."
"It looks like nothing else than a big cat, if you forget those tentacles sticking out from its shoulders, and make allowances for those monster forelegs."
A criatura é bastante astuta e embosca vários tripulantes quando eles estão explorando o planeta ou fazendo alguma outra atividade que os isolaria e afastaria do navio.
With unwinking eyes, Coeurl lay and watched the two men clearing away the loose rubble from the metal doorway of the huge old building. His whole body ached with the hunger of his cells for id. The craving tore through his palpitant muscles, and throbbed like a living thing in his brain. His every nerve quivered to be off after the men who had wandered into the city. One of them, he knew, had gone—alone.
Fico na minha mente, a criatura é muito strong e capaz de morder os trajes espaciais pesados que os homens usam com facilidade.
Fear completely evaporated, Coeurl leaped out of hiding. With ravenous speed, he smashed the metal and the body within it to bits. Great chunks of metal, torn piecemeal from the suit, sprayed the ground. Bones cracked. Flesh crunched.
It was simple to tune in on the vibrations of the id, and to create the violent chemical disorganization that freed it from the crushed bone. The id was, Coeurl discovered, mostly in the bone.
A criatura tem uma necessidade nutricional incomum de algum tipo. Como tal, não come suas vítimas, mas de alguma forma drena-as de um determinado elemento ou substância química. Não me lembro o que é, embora eu ache que tenha algo a ver com a estrutura esquelética dos homens. Cálcio, talvez?
"I've found the missing element," Kent said. "It's phosphorus. There wasn't so much as a square millimeter of phosphorus left in Jarvey's bones. Every bit of it had been drained out—by what super-chemistry I don't know. There are ways of getting phosphorus out of the human body. For instance, a quick way was what happened to the workman who helped build this ship. Remember, he fell into fifteen tons of molten metalite—at least, so his relatives claimed—but the company wouldn't pay compensation until the metalite, on analysis, was found to contain a high percentage of phosphorus—"
Tenho apenas lembranças muito gerais de como a história termina / é resolvida.
Não há necessidade de mim estragá-lo então. É claro que, como Campbell publicou em Astounding , é uma boa aposta que o alienígena não vença.