Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









                         WHEN WHIRLYBIRDS CALL

                            by Frank Banta

                  Five-Gun DeCrabbe was the terror of
               every planet--especially to his friends!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
              Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1963.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Those of the city of Featherton, on Grimes Planet, were with him to a
man. Feathertonians cheered and waved from their windows that morning,
not daring to come out for fear of the whirlybirds, and admiring
Five-gun Charles DeCrabbe all the more for riding down the main stem
of the town with the bubble of his convertible space coupe slid
back--ignoring the menace from the skies.

Five-gun Charles DeCrabbe rode down the exact center of the street,
looking neither to right or left, not acknowledging the screams of
adulation that poured from the windows. His bare head was up, his
mouth was pressed into firm, haughty lines of self-confidence and even
his battle dress of dark green seemed to exude the aura of a competent
killer.

Five-gun Charles DeCrabbe had come to clean up the town. Of whirlybirds.

He stopped his space convertible in front of the white stone building
titled City Hall on its facade. The two men waiting to greet him stayed
safely under the bullet-shaped marquee as he alighted. He jumped over
the side, checked his two holstered needle pistols, slung his explosive
pellet rifle over one shoulder, his N-ray flashburn gun over the other
shoulder and picked up his rocket-powered stun-gas spray gun in his
hands. He strode over to the waiting men.

"I'm Alson Prince, Mayor of Featherton," said the older man shaking
hands with the one DeCrabbe stuck out from under the spray gun. "And
you are Five-gun Charles DeCrabbe?"

"Yes yes yes!" exclaimed DeCrabbe impatiently in his clipped speech.

"I'm the mayor's son," introduced the younger man with admiration
shining in his eyes. "You sure look like you're ready to whip those
whirlybirds."

"Yes yes yes!" exclaimed DeCrabbe haughtily. "Always dislike long
conversations you know. Supposing you tell me what you know so can
exterminate them without further delay. No doubt solution before dusk."

"Before dusk?" asked the mayor, dumfounded. "Oh, no, not today, I'm
afraid. They've been around too many years to whip in one day."

"Perhaps shall require two days then," said Five-gun Charles DeCrabbe
graciously. "But doubt it. Tell me what you know of them."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Very well," assented the older man. "Perhaps the best place to
begin is with their name. When we first occupied this planet, a
bare twenty years ago, we called them wolfhawk-whirlybirds and
tigerhawk-whirlybirds because they preyed on vicious animals. The
whirlybirds were our best friends in those days. The only trouble is
that they ran out of tigers and wolves to eat."

"Presumed they are now called peoplehawk-whirlybirds?" DeCrabbe
frowningly asked in his clipped speech.

"Exactly!" answered the older man. "Although that isn't their full
name. From the way they attack--"

"Most important," interrupted Five-gun. "Give to me in detail."

"They prefer to attack strollers, although they have attacked on city
streets when there is little traffic. They fly with amazing speed,
considering they are an untidy ball forty feet in diameter, and they
are on top of their victims before the unlucky ones are aware of the
menace. Blowing their victims down with a rush of air from their
feathers, they grab them up by the heels, carry them high aloft and
drop them on piles of rock outside of town."

"They are _downdraft_-peoplehawk-whirlybirds then?" asked DeCrabbe.

"That's almost it," agreed the mayor. "I have not yet told
you of their cries. As they rise in the air with the victim
dangling from their talons by his heels, they utter a pleased
'Coo! Coo!' like a gentle dove. That is why they are called
Coocoo-downdraft-peoplehawk-whirlybirds."

"Approve of adequate names," nodded Five-gun, unbending a trifle.
"First step toward efficiency. Only one thing haven't made clear.
Presumably have shotguns and rifles. Why unable drive off these
predators yourselves?"

The mayor laughed bitterly. "It would be easy to tell you'd just
arrived on this planet--although the birds are not well known in the
other cities either; they are all concentrated in this area. Yes, our
sportsmen tried to shoot down the whirlybirds. No luck, of course.
Imagine the problems you have when one of these forty-foot balls of
commotion comes at you: You try to aim but you can't hold your arm
still because of the swirling wind they raise; and then the dust clouds
thicken and you're firing wildly, and you can't begin to tell which is
body and which is feathers anyway."

"Very well," accepted Charles DeCrabbe mercifully. "You've made
attempt. My first step therefore the attachment of high explosives to
boobytrapped mannequins. Brought these with me."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Great winds of catastrophe. I'm glad you mentioned it before you did
it!" exclaimed the mayor. "We tried that once. The city was six weeks
digging out from under the feathers--and it didn't kill the whirlybird!"

"Aren't you exaggerating difficulties encountered in picking up few
feathers?" loftily inquired DeCrabbe.

"How do you think we got the name of Featherton? Before the deluge we
were called West Applebury!"

"Then why haven't you attempted lure them into boobytraps outside town?
Could detonate them there without even slight inconvenience of picking
up feathers."

"Believe me, if there were only a _few_ feathers," insisted Mayor
Prince, "few enough for you to pick up by yourself, we wouldn't mind
you blowing up a whirlybird."

"Wasn't considering picking up _any_ feathers," replied Five-gun with
dignity. "Had supposed a menial or two could be supplied for that."

The mayor shook his head. "It would take everybody in town to clean
up. And as for blowing one up outside the city, one of our orchardists
tried it. He blew it to bits all right, but eighty acres of his apple
trees were smothered under the debris!"

"Now anticipate that the extermination of the whirlybirds will almost
certainly take me up to two days," conceded Five-gun DeCrabbe calmly.
"However will be all the more interesting to defeat them without
recourse large explosives."

"Gee, what a man!" admired the mayor's son. "Only two days!"

"If you will now lead me to your city park will begin campaign of
extermination at once."

"It's down that way," said the mayor, pointing. Plainly he had no
intention of leaving the shelter of the marquee. "You can't miss it."

As Five-gun Charles DeCrabbe leaped back into his craft and started
off, the mayor's son called after him, "Aren't you scared, going out
exposed like that?"

DeCrabbe turned. "Am armed, young man," he retorted severely.

"Yeah, but those whirlybirds don't pay any attention to guns."

"Soon will," DeCrabbe replied, unruffled.

Slowly he drove down the center of the empty street, receiving more
cheers from heads thrust out of windows. He arrived at the city park
and turned in. He unloaded most of his equipment under the roof of the
bandstand.

A few minutes later one of his robot mannequins moved slowly around
the clearing before the bandstand, its control set for slow walking to
conserve its atomic battery. The predator hunter unlimbered all his
guns as he sat under the bandstand roof waiting.

It was an hour before the first whirlybird attacked.

His first warning was the rising wind. His gaze moved around the sky
until he found the rapidly growing black spot. A few seconds later
it became a universe-engulfing blackness as it spotted the mannequin
and came down for it. As soon as the wind-screaming blackness reached
the mannequin, the needle guns in his hands emptied their hundreds of
anesthetizing needles into the turbulence. But it was as the mayor had
said. Where did the bird's body end and the feathers begin? When the
needle pistols were empty he dropped them and snatched up the rocket
powered stun-gas weapon; its immense flare poured into the blackness
without visible result. He dropped it and grabbed the N-ray flashburn
gun. The forty-foot ball of fury was beginning to rise high with its
prey now, as the gun stuttered fifty bolts of burning lethal radiation
into it. He smelled feathers that time. Finally as the giant bird,
without faltering, rose above the range of the N-ray gun, he took to
the explosive pellet rifle. It had only ten shots; all of these went
into the center of the blackness well before the whirlybird had flown
beyond range. And as it neared the horizon with its mannequin prey, he
heard its sweet song:

"Coo! Coo!"

"How _dare_ it coo after all I did to it?" muttered DeCrabbe grimly.
"Shall not coo next time!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Half an hour later a new mannequin stood out in front of the bandstand.
Its arms waved ceaselessly but it stood still. Nestled against its
back was a ten gallon drum of gas, which would be exploded--blanketing
most of the park in fumes--as soon as the mannequin was moved. Charles
DeCrabbe waited, his mask ready, his potent weapons all reloaded.

Ninety minutes later the huge black menace arrived--either the first
whirlybird or another forty-foot wind-screaming fury. Slipping his
gas mask on, the man waited for the right moment to begin firing. The
whirlybird swooped down, the tank exploded in a fog, and the giant
wobbled!

DeCrabbe emptied all his weapons again. The bird arose, wobbling, its
speed greatly impaired, but making its getaway despite all he could do.

"Damn well didn't coo that time," he said when the monster had reached
the horizon. "Next time won't fly either."

But just then the monstrous bird mocked him in the distance with a
loud, sweet, "Coo! Coo!"

Shortly after lunch he had it all set up. A new mannequin stood out in
front of the bandstand, its arms waving and a pair of slim, gleaming,
ten-gallon drums of stun gas nearby.

It was one o'clock before the third whirlybird struck.

Down it sank until it became a huge, ebony blot in the afternoon sky.
Underneath the bandstand roof DeCrabbe got ready for his supreme
effort. He slipped on his gas mask and made sure his N-ray flashburn
gun was ready for instant action, its safety off. He was determined
that if he got the bird prostrate he would climb aboard and fire N-ray
bolts into it until something _gave_!

The huge black, wind-screaming monster plummeted the last few yards
down and grabbed the mannequin. Both tanks of stun gas exploded. The
giant whirlybird slumped unconscious--and DeCrabbe scrambled aboard!

The feverishly hurrying hunter was not long discovering why he had
not--and never would--penetrate the bird's feathers with any of his
weapons: He burrowed down into the feathers the length of his arm and
there were yet more feathers beyond! A feather pillow would stop a
rifle bullet, he knew, and this monster had the probable equivalent of
a thousand feather pillows protecting it, invulnerable as a battleship.

And just then the maneater awoke, wobbled into the air, and flew away
before DeCrabbe could get off!

       *       *       *       *       *

The following afternoon, as Five-gun Charles DeCrabbe made his farewell
of the city of Featherton, he once more drove down the center of the
street with the bubble of his space convertible slid back.

Yet there was a difference this time. The mayor and his son rode beside
him on the seat, and all of the people were now out of doors standing
along the curb, cheering their deliverer wildly as he passed.

"I can't tell you how much I personally appreciate what you've done for
us," said the mayor humbly.

"Quite quite quite!" returned Five-gun haughtily in his clipped speech,
hoping to shut off the man's tendency toward windyness.

With awe in his voice the mayor's son admired, "So instead of being
scared to death you were all ready for action when you and the
whirlybird landed at their rocky, mountain lair?"

"Yes yes yes! Slid off its back, hid between two boulders, waited
for the appropriate moment. After bagging that one, waited for other
monsters as they landed, one by one. Bagged them."

"Just like that!" said the youngster. "You just get up close enough for
those peoplehawks to grab you and then you bagged them."

"Only possible way is my way," clipped DeCrabbe immovably.

"Its eyes couldn't be buried deeply in feathers if they were to be of
use."

"So?"

"So eye is proximate to beak--and brain," said the hunter with dignity.
"Where one of its _coo-coos_ came out, one of my N-ray bolts went in,
and that was that!"