The other two in the path of the ray had not lost their grip upon the logs, and the men could not advance to scoop them up.  Not while there were others not affected, free to flee back into hiding.  Weeks bound the net about the captive and looked to Rip for orders.

“Deep freeze,” the acting-commander of the Queen said succinctly.  “Let me see it get out of that!”

Surely the cold of the deep freeze, united to the sleep ray, would keep the creature under control until they had a chance to study it.  But, as Weeks passed Sinbad on his errand, the cat was so frantic to avoid him, that he reared up on his hind legs, almost turning a somersault, snarling and spitting until Weeks was up the ladder to the next level.  It was very evident that the ship’s cat was having none of this pest.

They might have been invisible and their actions non-existent as far as Queex was concerned.  For the Hoobat continued its siren concert.  The lured became more reckless, mounting the logs to Queex’s post in sudden darts.  Dane wondered how the Hoobat proposed handling four of the creatures at once.  For, although the other two which had been in the path of the ray had not moved, he now counted four climbing.

“Stand by to ray—­” that was Rip.

But it would have been interesting to see how Queex was prepared to handle the four.  And, though Rip had given the order to stand by, he had not ordered the ray to be used.  Was he, too, interested in that?

The first red projection was within a foot of the Hoobat now and its fellows had frozen as if to allow it the honor of battle with the feathered enemy.  To all appearances Queex did not see it, but when it sprang with a whir of speed which would baffle a human, the Hoobat was ready and its claws, halting their rasp, met around the wasp-thin waist of the pest, speedily cutting it in two.  Only this time the Hoobat made no move to unjoint and consume the victim.  Instead it squatted in utter silence, as motionless as a tri-dee print.

The heavy lower half of the creature rolled down the pile of logs to the deck and there paled to the gray of its background.  None of its kind appeared to be interested in its fate.  The two which had been in the path of the ray, continued to be humps on the wood, the others faced the Hoobat.

But Rip was ready to waste no more time.  “Ray them!” he snapped.

All three of their sleep rods sprayed the pile, catching in passing the Hoobat.  Queex’s pop eyes closed, but it showed no other sign of falling under the spell of the beam.

Certain that all the creatures in sight were now relatively harmless, the three approached the logs.  But it was necessary to get into touching distance before they could even make out the outlines of the nightmare things, so well did their protective coloring conceal them.  Wearing gloves Ali detached the little monsters from their holds on the wood and put them for temporary safekeeping—­during a transfer to the deep freeze—­into the Hoobat’s cage.  Queex, they decided to leave where it was for a space, to awaken and trap any survivor which had been too wary to emerge at the first siren song.  As far as they could tell the Hoobat was their only possible protection against the pest and to leave it in the center of infection was the wisest course.