Novelette
Taa the Terrible
- by Malcolm Jameson
- in Astonishing Stories, December 1933
After a run-in with an oppressive governor on the planet Arania, tourist Larry Frazer and a helpful human Nelda must decide what they’ll do with their knowledge that all the planet’s natives are entering a long sleep to protect them from Taa the Terrible. —Michael Main
My people now go into the long sleep. We do that out of terror of Taa, for when he roams the land in wrath no thing that can feel, see or hear can survive.Only in these catacombs is it possible to bear his thunders and live. We call it the Sleep of Ten Thousand Years, though no one knows how long the time really is.