I recall the horror of that expanding Lunar surface. The maw of Archimedes yawning. A blob. Widening to a great pit. Then I saw it was to one side, rushing upward.
"Gregg, dear one—good-bye."
Her gentle arms about me. The end of everything for us. I recall murmuring, "Not falling free, Anita. Some hull plates are set."
My dials showed another plate shifting, checking us a little further. Good old Snap!
I calculated the next best plate to shift. I tried it. Slid it over.
Then everything faded but the feeling of Anita's arms around me.
"Gregg, dear one—"
The end of everything for us....
There was an up-rush of gray-black rock.
I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt—a pain shooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not seem to move my left arm. Then I moved it and it hurt. I was lying twisted. I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was over. I was not dead. Anita—
She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in the silent blur—a soft mellow Earthlight filtering in the window. The weight on me was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way across my lap.
Not dead! Thank God, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, and I lifted her. The Earthlight glowed on her pale face.
"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive."
I held her as though all of life's turgid dangers were powerless to touch us.
But in the silence my floating senses were brought back to reality by a faint sound forcing itself upon me. A little hiss. The faintest murmuring breath like a hiss. Escaping air!
I cast off Anita's clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"
For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our embrace. But air was escaping! ThePlanetara'sdome was broken and our precious air was hissing out.
Full reality came to me. I was not seriously injured. I found I could move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, but they were better in a moment.
And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not her own.
Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giant figure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. A widening pool.
Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. This soundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its two motionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I were ghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to thePlanetara'sdeck. It lay dashed against the dome side.
The deck was aslant. A litter of wreckage! A broken human figure showed—one of the crew who, at the last, must have come running up. The forward observation tower was down on the chart room roof: in its metal tangle I thought I could see the legs of the tower lookout.
So this was the end of the brigands' adventure. ThePlanetara'slast voyage! How small and futile are humans' struggles. Miko's daring enterprise—so villainous—brought all in a few moments to this silent tragedy. ThePlanetarahad fallen thirty thousand miles. But why? What had happened to Hahn? And where was Coniston, down in this broken hull?
And Snap! I thought suddenly of Snap.
I clutched at my wandering wits. This inactivity was death. The escaping air hissed in my ears. Our precious air, escaping away into the vacant desolation of the Lunar emptiness. Through one of the twisted, slanting dome windows a rocky spire was visible. ThePlanetaralay bow down, wedged in a jagged cradle of Lunar rock. A miracle that the hull and dome had held together.
"Anita, we must get out of here!"
"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg."
She was staring at the fallen Miko and Moa. She shuddered and turned away and gripped me. "In the forward storage room, by the port of the emergency exit."
If only the exit locks would operate! We must find Snap and get out of here. Good old Snap! Would we find him lying dead?
We climbed from the slanting, fallen turret, over the wreckage of the littered deck. It was not difficult. A lightness was upon us. ThePlanetara'sgravity-magnetizers were dead; this was only the light Moon gravity pulling us.
"Careful, Anita. Don't jump too freely."
We leaped along the deck. The hiss of the escaping pressure was like a clanging gong of warning to tell us to hurry. The hiss of death so close!
"Snap—" I murmured.
"Oh, Gregg, I pray we may find him alive!"
With a fifteen foot leap we cleared a pile of broken deck chairs. A man lay groaning near them. I went back with a rush. Not Snap! A steward. He had been a brigand, but he was a steward to me now.
"Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here The air is escaping!"
But he sank back and lay still. No time to find if I could help him: there was Anita and Snap to save.
We found a broken entrance to one of the descending passages. I flung the debris aside and cleared it. Like a giant of strength with only this Moon gravity holding me, I raised a broken segment of superstructure and heaved it back.
Anita and I dropped ourselves down the sloping passage. The interior of the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage light was still burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckage everywhere but the double dome and hull shell had withstood the shock. Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat, like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling on everything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would soon be here in these wrecked corridors. The end of thePlanetara.
We prowled like ghouls. We did not see Coniston. Snap had been by the shifter pumps. We found him in the oval doorway. He lay sprawled. Dead? No, he moved. He sat up before we could get to him. He seemed confused, but his senses clarified with the movement of our figures over him.
"Gregg! Why, Anita!"
"Snap! You're all right? We struck—the air is escaping."
He pushed me away. He tried to stand. "I'm all right. I was up a minute ago. Gregg, it's getting cold. Where is she? I had her here—she wasn't killed. I spoke to her."
Irrational!
"Snap!" I held him. Shook him. "Snap, old fellow!"
He said normally, "Easy, Gregg. I'm all right."
Anita gripped him. "Who, Snap?"
"She—there she is...."
Another figure was here! On the grid floor by the door oval. A figure partly shrouded in a broken invisible cloak and hook. An invisible cloak! I saw a white face with opened eyes regarding me.
"Venza!" I bent down. "You!"
Venza here? Why ... how ... my thoughts swept on. Venza here—dying? Her eyes closed. But she murmured to Anita, "Where is he? I want him."
I murmured impulsively, "Here I am, Venza dear." Gently, as one would speak with gentle sympathy to humor the dying. "Here I am, Venza."
But it was only the confusion of the shock upon her. Andit was upon us all. She pushed at Anita. "I want him." She saw me; this whimsical Venus girl! Even here as we gathered, all of us blurred by shock, confused in the dim, wrecked ship with the chill of death coming—even here she could jest. Her pale lips smiled.
"You, Gregg. I'm not hurt—I don't think I'm hurt." She managed to get herself up on one elbow. "Did you think I wanted you with my dying breath? What conceit! Not you, Handsome Haljan! I was calling Snap."
He was down to her. "We're all right, Venza. It's over. We must get out of the ship. The air is escaping."
We gathered in the oval doorway. We fought the confusion of panic.
"The exit port is this way."
Or was it? I answered Snap, "Yes, I think so."
The ship suddenly seemed a stranger to me. So cold. So vibrationless. Broken lights. These slanting wrecked corridors. With the ventilating fans stilled, the air was turning fetid. Chilling. And thinning, with escaping pressure, rarefying so that I could feel the grasp of it in my lungs and the pin-pricks in my cheeks.
We started off. Four of us, still alive in this silent ship of death. My blurred thoughts tried to cope with it all. Venza here. I remembered how she had bade me create a diversion when the women passengers were landing on the asteroid. She had carried out her purpose! In the confusion she had not gone ashore. A stowaway here. She had secured the cloak. Prowling, to try and help us, she had come upon Hahn. Had seized his ray cylinder and struck him down, and been herself knocked unconscious by his dying lunge, which also had broken the tubes and wrecked thePlanetara. And Venza, unconscious, had been lying here with the mechanism of her cloak still operating, so that we did not see her when we came and found why Hahn did not answer my signals.
"It's here, Gregg."
Snap and I lifted the pile of Moon equipment to whichshe referred. We located four suits and helmets and the mechanisms to operate them.
"More are in the chart room," Anita said.
But we needed no others. I robed Anita and showed her the mechanisms. Snap was helping Venza. We were all stiff from the cold; but within the suits and their pulsing currents, the blessed warmth came again.
The helmets had ports through which food and drink could be taken. I stood with my helmet ready. Anita, Venza and Snap were bloated and grotesque beside me. We had found food and water here, assembled in portable cases which the brigands had prepared. Snap lifted them, and signaled to me he was ready.
My helmet shut out all sounds save my own breathing, my pounding heart, and the murmur of the mechanism. The warmth and pure air were good.
We reached the hull port locks. They operated! We went through in the light of the headlamps over our foreheads.
I closed the locks after us: an instinct to keep the air in the ship for the other trapped humans lying in there.
We slid down the sloping side of thePlanetara. We were unweighted, irrationally agile with this slight gravity. I fell a dozen feet and landed with barely a jar.
We were out on the Lunar surface. A great sloping ramp of crags stretched down before us. Gray-black rock tinged with Earthlight. The Earth hung amid the stars in the blackness overhead like a huge section of a glowing yellow ball.
This grim, desolate, silent landscape! Beyond the ramp, fifty feet below us, a tumbled naked plain stretched away into blurred distance. But I could see mountains off there. Behind us, the towering, frowning rampart-wall of Archimedes loomed against the sky.
I had turned to look back at thePlanetara. She lay broken, wedged between spires of upstanding rock. A few of her lights still gleamed. The end of thePlanetara!
The three grotesque figures of Anita, Venza and Snap hadstarted off. Hunchback figures with the tanks mounted on their shoulders. I bounded and caught them. I touched Snap. We made audiphone contact.
"Which way do you think?" I demanded.
"I think this way, down the ramp. Away from Archimedes, toward the mountains. It shouldn't be too far."
"You run with Venza. I'll hold Anita."
He nodded. "But we must keep together, Gregg."
We could soon run freely. Down the ramp, out over the tumbled plain. Bounding, grotesque, leaping strides. The girls were more agile, more skillful. They were soon leading us. The Earth shadows of their figures leaped beside them. ThePlanetarafaded into the distance behind us. Archimedes stood back there. Ahead, the mountains came closer.
An hour perhaps. I lost track of time. Occasionally we stopped to rest. Were we going toward the Grantline camp? Would they see our tiny waving headlights?
Another interval. Then far ahead of us on the ragged plain, lights showed! Moving, tiny spots of light! Headlights on helmeted figures!
We ran, monstrously leaping. A group of figures were off there. Grantline's party? Snap gripped me.
"Grantline! We're safe, Gregg! Safe!"
He took his bulb light from his helmet; we stood in a group while he waved it. A semaphore signal.
"Grantline?"
And the answer came, "Yes. You, Dean?"
Their personal code. No doubt of this—it was Grantline, who had seen thePlanetarafall and had come to help us.
I stood then with my hand holding Anita. And I whispered, "It's Grantline! We're safe, Anita, my darling!"
Death had been so close! Those horrible last minutes on thePlanetarahad shocked us, marked us. We stood trembling. And Grantline and his men came bounding up, weird, inflated figures.
A helmeted figure touched me. I saw through the helmetpane the visage of a stern-faced, square-jawed young man.
"Grantline? Johnny Grantline?"
"Yes," said his voice at my ear-grid. "I'm Grantline. You're Haljan? Gregg Haljan?"
They crowded around us. Gripped us, to hear our explanations.
Brigands! It was amazing to Johnny Grantline. But the menace was over now, over as soon as Grantline realized its existence.
We stood for a brief time discussing it. Then I drew apart, leaving Snap with Grantline. And Anita joined me. I held her arm so that we had audiphone contact.
"Anita, mine."
"Gregg—dear one!"
Murmured nothings which mean so much to lovers!
As we stood in the fantastic gloom of Lunar desolation, with the blessed Earthlight on us, I sent up a prayer of thankfulness. Not that the enormous treasure was saved. Not that the attack upon Grantline had been averted. But only that Anita was given back to me. In moments of greatest emotion the human mind individualizes. To me, there was only Anita.
Life is very strange! The gate to the shining garden of our love seemed swinging wide to let us in. Yet I recall that a vague fear still lay on me. A premonition?
I felt a touch on my arm. A bloated helmet visor was thrust near my own. I saw Snap's face peering at me.
"Grantline thinks we should return to thePlanetara. Might find some of them alive."
Grantline touched me. "It's only human—"
"Yes," I said.
We went back. Some ten of us—a line of grotesque figures bounding with slow, easy strides over the jagged, rock-strewn plain. Our lights danced before us.
ThePlanetaracame at last into view. My ship. Again that pang swept me as I saw her. This, her last resting place. She lay here, in her open tomb, shattered, broken,unbreathing. The lights on her were extinguished. The Erentz system had ceased to pulse—the heart of the dying ship, for a while beating faintly, but now at rest.
We left the two girls with some of Grantline's men at the admission port. Snap, Grantline and I, with three others, went inside. There still seemed to be air, but not enough so that we dared remove our helmets.
It was dark inside the wrecked ship. The corridors were black. The hull control rooms were dimly with Earthlight straggling through the windows.
This littered tomb. Cold and silent with death. We stumbled over a fallen figure. A member of the crew. Grantline straightened from examining it.
"Dead," he said.
Earthlight fell on the horrible face. Puffed flesh, bloated red from the blood which had oozed from its pores in the thinning air. I looked away.
We prowled further. Hahn lay dead in the pump room. The body of Coniston should have been near here. We did not see it. We climbed up to the slanting, littered deck. The air up here had all almost hissed away.
Again Grantline touched me. "That the turret?"
No wonder he asked me! The wreckage was all so formless.
"Yes."
We climbed after Snap into the broken turret room. We passed the body of that steward who just at the end had appealed to me and I had left dying. The legs of the forward lookout still poked grotesquely up from the wreckage of the observatory tower where it lay smashed down against the roof of the chart room.
We shoved ourselves into the turret. What was this? No bodies here! The giant Miko was gone! The pool of blood lay congealed into a frozen dark splotch on the metal grid.
And Moa was gone! They had not been dead. Had dragged themselves out of here, fighting desperately for life. We would find them somewhere around here.
But we did not. Nor Coniston. I recalled what Anita had said: other suits and helmets had been here in the nearby chart room. The brigands had taken them, and food and water doubtless, and escaped from the ship, following us through the lower admission ports only a few minutes after we were gone.
We made careful search of the entire ship. Eight of the bodies which should have been here were missing: Miko, Moa, Coniston and five of the crew.
We did not find them outside. They were hiding near here, no doubt, more willing to take their chances than to yield to us now. But how, in all this Lunar desolation, could we hope to locate them?
"No use," said Grantline. "Let them go. If they want death, well, they deserve it."
But we were saved. Then, as I stood there, realization leaped at me. Saved? Were we not indeed fatuous fools?
In all these emotion-swept moments since we had encountered Grantline, memory of that brigand ship coming from Mars had never once occurred to Snap and me!
I told Grantline now. He stared at me.
"What!"
I told him again. It would be here in eight days. Fully manned and armed.
"But Haljan, we have almost no weapons! All myComet'sspace was taken with equipment and the mechanisms for my camp. I can't signal Earth! I was depending on thePlanetara!"
It surged upon us. The brigand menace past? We were blindly congratulating ourselves on our safety! But it would be eight days or more before in distant Ferrok-Shahn the nonarrival of thePlanetarawould cause any real comment. No one was searching for us—no one was worried over us.
No wonder the crafty Miko was willing to take his chances out here in the Lunar wilds! His ship, his reinforcements, his weapons were coming rapidly!
And we were helpless. Almost unarmed. Marooned here on the Moon!
"Try it again," Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise some Earth station! Chance it! Use the power—run it up full. Chance it!"
We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty man, with blanched grim face, sat at his senders. The Grantline crew shoved close around us. There were very few observers in the high-powered Earth stations who knew that an exploring party was on the Moon. Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had sanctioned the expedition and Halsey and his confrères in the Detective Bureau were not anticipating trouble at this point. ThePlanetarawas supposed to be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn. It was when she was due to return that Halsey would be alert.
Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of safety. He cut down the lights; the telescope intensifiers and television were completely disconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so that the air here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew fetid. All, to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might survive.
Even so, it was strained to the danger point. Our heat was radiating away; the deadly chill of space crept in.
"Again!" ordered Grantline.
The duty man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence, the tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating prisms, intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible beam, it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead dome and into space.
"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for now."
It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath in the chill darkness. The lights came on again; the Erentz motors accelerated to normal. The strain on the walls eased up, and the room began warming.
Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power to find out. Our receivers were disconnected. If an answering signal came, we could not know it. One of the men said:
"Let's assume they read us." He laughed, but it was a high-pitched, tense laugh. "We don't dare even use the telescope or television. Or electron radio. Our rescue ship might be right overhead, visible to the naked eye, before we see it. Three days more—that's what I'll give it."
But the three days passed and no rescue ship came. The Earth was almost at the full. We tried signaling again. Perhaps it got through—we did not know. But our power was weaker now. The wall of one of the rooms sprang a leak, and the men were hours repairing it. I did not say so, but never once did I feel that our signals were read on Earth. Those cursed clouds! The Earth almost everywhere seemed to have poor visibility.
Four of our eight days of grace were all too soon passed. The brigand ship must be half way here by now.
They were busy days for us. If we could have captured Miko and his band, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasure insulated, and our camp in darkness, the arriving brigand ship might never find us. But Miko knew our location; he would signal his oncoming ship when it was close and lead it to us.
During those three days—and the days which followed them—Grantline sent out searching parties. But it was unavailing. Miko, Moa and Coniston, with their five underlings, could not be found.
We had at first hoped that the brigands might have perished. But that was soon dispelled! I went—about the third day—with the party that was sent to thePlanetara. We wanted to salvage some of its equipment, its unbroken powerunits. And Snap and I had worked out an idea which we thought might be of service. We needed some of thePlanetara'ssmaller gravity plate sections. Those in Grantline's wrecked littleComethad stood so long that their radiations had gone dead. But thePlanetara'swere still working.
Our hope that Miko might have perished was dashed. He too had returned to thePlanetara! The evidence was clear before us. The vessel was stripped of all its power units save those which were dead and useless. The last of the food and water stores were taken. The weapons in the chart room—the Benson curve lights, projectors and heat rays—had vanished!
Other days passed. Earth reached the full and was waning. The fourteen day Lunar night was in its last half. No rescue ship came from Earth. We had ceased our efforts to signal, for we needed all our power to maintain ourselves. The camp would be in a state of siege before long. That was the best we could hope for. We had a few short-range weapons, such as Bensons, heat-rays and projectors. A few hundred feet of effective range was the most any of them could obtain. The heat-rays—in giant form one of the most deadly weapons on Earth—were only slowly efficacious on the airless Moon. Striking an intensely cold surface, their warming radiations were slow to act. Even in a blasting heat beam a man in his Erentz helmet-suit could withstand the ray for several minutes.
We were, however, well equipped with explosives. Grantline had brought a large supply for his mining operations, and much of it was still unused. We had, also, an ample stock of oxygen fuses, and a variety of oxygen light flares in small, fragile glass globes.
It was to use these explosives against the brigands that Snap and I were working out our scheme with the gravity plates. The brigand ship would come with giant projectors and some thirty men. If we could hold out against them for a time, the fact that thePlanetarawas missing would bring us help from Earth.
Another day. A tenseness was upon all of us, despite the absorption of our feverish activities. To conserve power, the camp was almost dark, we lived in dim, chill rooms, with just a few weak spots of light outside to mark the watchmen on their rounds. We did not use the telescope, but there was scarcely an hour when one or the other of the men was not sitting on a cross-piece up in the dome of the little instrument room, casting a tense, searching gaze through his glasses into the black, starry firmament. A ship might appear at any time now—a rescue ship from Earth, or the brigands from Mars.
Anita and Venza through these days could aid us very little save by their cheering words. They moved about the rooms, trying to inspire us; so that all the men, when they might have been humanly sullen and cursing their fate, were turned to grim activity, or grim laughter, making a joke of the coming siege. The morale of the camp now was perfect. An improvement indeed over the inactivity of their former peaceful weeks!
Grantline mentioned it to me. "Well put up a good fight, Haljan. These fellows from Mars will know they've had a task before they ever sail off with the treasure."
I had many moments alone with Anita. I need not mention them. It seemed that our love was crossed by the stars, with an adverse fate dooming it. And Snap and Venza must have felt the same. Among the men, we were always quietly, grimly active. But alone.... I came upon Snap once with his arms around the little Venus girl. I heard him say:
"Accursed luck! That you and I should find each other too late, Venza. We could have a lot of fun in Greater New York together."
"Snap, we will!"
As I turned away, I murmured, "And pray God, so will Anita and I."
The girls slept together in a small room of the main building. Often during the time of sleep, when the camp was stilled except for the night watch, Snap and I would sit inthe corridor near the girls' door, talking of that time when we would all be back on our blessed Earth.
Our eight days of grace were passed. The brigand ship was due—now, tomorrow, or the next day.
I recall, that night, my sleep was fitfully uneasy. Snap and I had a cubby together. We talked, and made futile plans. I went to sleep, but awakened after a few hours. Impending disaster lay heavily upon me. But there was nothing abnormal nor unusual in that!
Snap was asleep. I was restless, but I did not have the heart to awaken him. He needed what little repose he could get. I dressed, left our cubby and wandered out into the corridor of the main building.
It was cold in the corridor, and gloomy with the weak blue light. An interior watchman passed me.
"All as usual, Haljan."
"Nothing in sight?"
"No. They're watching."
I went through the connecting corridor to the adjacent building. In the instrument room several of the men were gathered, scanning the vault overhead.
"Nothing, Haljan."
I stayed with them awhile, then wandered away. An outside man met me near the admission lock chambers of the main building. The duty man here sat at his controls, raising the air pressure in the locks through which the outside watchman was coming. The relief sat here in his bloated suit, with his helmet on his knees. It was Wilks.
"Nothing yet, Haljan. I'm going up to the peak of the crater to see if anything is in sight. I wish that damnable brigand ship would come and get it over with."
Instinctively we all spoke in half whispers, the tenseness bearing in on us.
The outside man was white and grim, but he grinned at Wilks. He tried the familiar jest: "Don't let the Earthlight get you!"
Wilks went out through the ports—a process of no morethan a minute. I wandered away again through the corridors.
I suppose it was half an hour later that I chanced to be gazing through a corridor window. The lights along the rocky cliff were tiny blue spots. The head of the stairway leading down to the abyss of the crater floor was visible. The bloated figure of Wilks was just coming up. I watched him for a moment making his rounds. He did not stop to inspect the lights. That was routine. I thought it odd that he passed them.
Another minute passed. The figure of Wilks went with slow bounds over toward the back of the ledge where the glassite shelter housed the treasure. It was all dark off there. Wilks went into the gloom, but before I lost sight of him, he came back. As though he had changed his mind, he headed for the foot of the staircase which led up the cliff to where, at the peak of the little crater, five hundred feet above us, the narrow observatory was perched. He climbed with easy bounds, the light on his helmet bobbing in the gloom.
I stood watching. I could not tell why there seemed to be something queer about Wilks' actions. But I was struck with it, nevertheless. I watched him disappear over the summit.
Another minute went by. Wilks did not reappear. I thought I could make out his light on the platform up there. Then abruptly a tiny white beam was waving from the observatory platform! It flashed once or twice, then was extinguished. And now I saw Wilks plainly, standing in the Earthlight, gazing down.
Queer actions! Had the Earthlight touched him? Or was that a local signal call which he sent out? Why should Wilks be signaling? What was he doing with a hand helio? Our watchmen, I knew, had no reason to carry one.
And to whom could Wilks be signaling? To whom, across this Lunar desolation? The answer stabbed at me: to Miko's band!
I waited less than a moment. No further light. Wilks was still up there!
I went back to the lock entrance. Spare helmets and suits were here beside the keeper. He gazed at me inquiringly.
"I'm going out, Franck. Just for a minute." It struck me that perhaps I was a meddlesome fool. Wilks, of all of Grantline's men, was, I knew, most in his commander's trust. The signal could have been some part of this night's ordinary routine, for all I knew.
I was hastily donning an Erentz suit. I added, "Let me out. I just got the idea Wilks is acting strangely." I laughed. "Maybe the Earthlight has touched him."
With my helmet on, I went through the locks. Once outside, with the outer panel closed behind me, I dropped the weights from my belt and shoes and extinguished my helmet light.
Wilks was still up there. Apparently he had not moved. I bounded off across the ledge to the foot of the ascending stairs. Did Wilks see me coming? I could not tell. As I approached the stairs the platform was cut off from my line of vision.
I mounted with bounding leaps. In my flexible gloved hand I carried my only weapon, a small projector with firing caps for use in this outside near-vacuum.
I held the weapon behind me. I would talk to Wilks first. I went slowly up the last hundred feet. Was Wilks still up there? The summit was bathed in Earthlight. The little metal observatory platform came into view above my head.
Wilks was not there. Then I saw him standing on the rocks nearby, motionless. But in a moment he saw me coming.
I waved my left hand with a gesture of greeting. It seemed to me that he started, made as though to leap away, and then changed his mind. I sailed from the head of the staircase with a twenty foot leap and landed lightly beside him. I gripped his arm for audiphone contact.
"Wilks!"
Through my visor his face was visible. I saw him and he saw me. And I heard his voice:
"You, Haljan. How nice!"
It was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.
The duty man at the exit locks stood at his window and watched me curiously. He saw me go up the spider stairs. He could see the figure he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw me join Wilks, saw us locked together in combat.
For a brief instant the duty man stood amazed. There were two fantastic figures, fighting at the very brink of the cliff. They were small, dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed in and out of the shadows. The duty man could not tell one from the other. To him it was Haljan and Wilks, fighting to the death!
The duty man sprang into action. An interior siren call was on the instrument panel near him. He rang it frantically.
The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them.
"What's this? Good God, Franck!"
They had seen the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff.
Grantline stood stricken with amazement. "That's Wilks!"
"And Haljan," the duty man gasped. "He went out—something wrong with Wilks' actions—"
The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men, awakened from sleep, ran out into the corridors shouting questions.
"An attack?"
"Is it an attack?"
"The brigands?"
But it was Wilks and Haljan in a fight up there on the cliff. The men crowded at the bull's-eye windows.
And over all the confusion the alarm siren, with no one thinking to shut it off, was screaming.
Grantline, momentarily stricken, stood gazing. One of the figures broke away from the other, bounded up to the summit from the stair platform to which they had both fallen. The other followed. They locked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed that they would go over; then they surged back, momentarily out of sight.
Grantline found his wits. "Stop them! I'll go out and stop them! What fools!"
He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits. "Cut off that siren!"
Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty man called from the window, "Still at it, the fools. By the infernal—they'll kill themselves!"
"Franck, let me out."
"I'll go with you, Commander." But the volunteer was not equipped. Grantline would not wait.
The duty man turned to his panel. The volunteer shoved a weapon at Grantline.
Grantline jammed on his helmet, took the weapon.
He moved the few steps into the air chamber which was the first of the three pressure locks. Its interior door panel swung open for him. But the door did not close after him!
Cursing the man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he turned to the corridor. The duty man came running.
Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell—"
"Broken! Dead!"
"What!"
"Smashed from outside," gasped the duty man. "Look there—my tubes—"
The control tubes of the ports had flashed into a short circuit and burned out. The admission ports would not open!
"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside!"
There was no way now of getting through the pressure locks. The doors, the entire pressure lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered with from outside?
As if to answer Grantline's question there came a chorus of shouts from the men at the corridor windows.
"Commander! By God—look!"
A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking at the port entrance, had ripped out the wires there.
It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it vanish around the building corner.
It was a giant figure, larger than an Earth man. A Martian?
Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.
A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever, Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some of the other suits, and called for some of the hand projectors.
But he could not get out through these main admission ports. He could have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure changing mechanism broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was, no one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.
Grantline was shouting, "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside! The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to go with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit."
But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was there. It was a smaller two-lock gateway of manual control, so that the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The lever would not open the panels!
Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? A traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?
The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The news spread. The camp was a prison! No one could get out!
And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again. Crazily swaying, bouncing, striking the rail.
They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks, and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the other.
They rolled unheeding to the brink. Here, beyond the midway ledge which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on down to the crater floor.
The figures were rolling; then one shook himself loose; rose up, seized the other and, with desperate strength, shoved him—
The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling down into the shadows past the camp level—down out of sight in the darkness of the crater floor.
Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the window gasped, "God! Was that Gregg who fell?"
No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp ledge, another helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast, bounding toward the spider staircase. It began mounting.
And now still another figure became visible—the giant Martian again. He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw too, no doubt, the second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with hisback to the building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps toward the ascending staircase.
Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the stairs? And was the third figure Miko?
Grantline's mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn from them, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridor was ringing with shouts.
"We're imprisoned! Can't get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands are outside!"
And then an interior audiphone blared a calling for Grantline. Someone in the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking.
"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed—"
But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news.
"Commander! The brigand ship!"
Miko's reinforcements had come.
Not Wilks, but Coniston! His drawling, British voice:
"You, Gregg Haljan! How nice!"
His voice broke off as he jerked his arm from me. My hand with the projector came up, but with a sweeping blow he struck my wrist. The weapon dropped to the rocks.
I fought instinctively, those first moments; my mind was whirling with the shock of surprise. This was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.
It was an eerie combat. We swayed; shoving, kicking, wrestling. His hold around my middle shut off the Erentz circulation; the warning buzz rang in my ears, to mingle with the rasp of his curses. I flung him off, and my Erentz motors recovered. He staggered away, but in a great leap came at me again.
I was taller, heavier and far stronger than Coniston. But Ifound him crafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, he seemed more skillfully agile.
I became aware that we were on the twenty foot square grid of the observatory platform. It had a low metal railing. We surged against it. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as we bounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashed against mine, striking as though butting with the side of his head to puncture my visor panel. His gloved fingers were clutching at my throat.
As we regained our feet, I flung him off, and bounded like a diver, head first, into him. He went backward, but skillfully kept his feet under him, gripped me again and shoved me.
I was tottering at the head of the staircase—falling. But I clutched at him. We fell some twenty or thirty feet to be next lower spider landing. The impact must have dazed us both. I recall my vague idea that we must have fallen down the cliff.... My air shut off—then it came again. The roaring in my ears was stilled; my head cleared, and I found that we were on the landing, fighting.
He presently broke away from me, bounded to the summit with me after him. In the close confines of the suit I was bathed in sweat and gasping. I had no thought to increase the oxygen control. I could not find it; or it would not operate.
I realized that I was fighting sluggishly, almost aimlessly. But so was Coniston!
It seemed dreamlike. A phantasmagoria of blows and staggering steps. A nightmare with only the horrible vision of this goggled helmet always before my eyes.
It seemed that we were rolling on the ground, back on the summit. The unshadowed Earthlight was clear and bright. The abyss was beside me. Coniston, rolling, was now on top, now under me, trying to shove me over the brink. It was all like a dream—as though I were asleep, dreaming that I did not have enough air.
I strove to keep my senses. He was struggling to roll me over the brink. God, that would not do! But I was so tired. One cannot fight without oxygen!
I suddenly knew that I had shaken him off and gained my feet. He rose, swaying. He was as tired, confused, as nearly asphyxiated as I.
The brink of the abyss was behind us. I lunged, desperately shoving, avoiding his clutch.
He went over, and fell soundlessly, his body whirling end over end down into the shadows, far below.
I drew back. My senses faded as I sank panting to the rocks. But with inactivity, my heart quieted. My respiration slowed. The Erentz circulation gained on my poisoned air. It purified.
That blessed oxygen! My head cleared. Strength came. I felt better.
Coniston had fallen to his death. I was victor. I went to the brink cautiously, for I was still dizzy. I could see, far down there on the crater floor, a little patch of Earthlight in which a mashed human figure was lying.
I staggered back again. A moment or two must have passed while I stood there on the summit, with my senses clearing and my strength renewed as the blood stream cleared in my veins.
I was victor. Coniston was dead. I saw now, down on the lower staircase below the camp ledge, another goggled figure lying huddled. That was Wilks, no doubt. Coniston had probably caught him there, surprised him, killed him.
My attention, as I stood gazing, went down to the camp buildings. Another figure was outside! It bounded along the ledge, reached the foot of the stairs at the top of which I was standing. With agile leaps, it came mounting at me!
Another brigand! Miko? No, it was not large enough to be Miko. I was still confused. I thought of Hahn. But that was absurd: Hahn was in the wreck of thePlanetara. One of the stewards then....
The figure came up the staircase recklessly, to assail me.I took a step backward, bracing myself to receive this new antagonist. And then I looked further down and saw Miko! Unquestionably he, for there was no mistaking his giant figure. He was down on the camp ledge, running toward the foot of the stairs.
I thought of my revolver. I turned to try and find it. I was aware that the first of my assailants was at the stairhead. I swung back to see what this oncoming brigand was doing. He was on the summit: with a sailing leap he launched for me. I could have bounded away, but with a last look to locate the revolver, I braced myself for the shock.
The figure hit me. It was small and light in my clutching arms. I recall I saw that Miko was halfway up the stairs. I gripped my assailant. The audiphone contact brought a voice.
"Gregg, is it you?"
It was Anita!
"Gregg, you're safe!"
She had heard the camp corridors resounding with the shouts that Wilks and Haljan were fighting. She had come upon a suit and helmet by the manual emergency lock, had run out through the lock, confused, with her only idea to stop Wilks and me from fighting. Then she had seen one of us killed. Impulsively, barely knowing what she was doing, she mounted the stairs, frantic to find if I were alive.
"Anita!"
Miko was coming fast! She had not seen him; for she had no thought of brigands—only the belief that either Wilks or I had been killed.
But now, as we stood together on the rocks near the observatory platform, I could see the towering figure of Miko nearing the top of the stairs.
"Anita, that's Miko! We must run!"
Then I saw my projector. It lay in a bowl-like depression quite near us. I jumped for it. And as I tore loose from Anita, she leaped down after me. It was a broken bowl in the rocks, some six feet deep. It was open on the side facing the stairs—a narrow, ravinelike gully, full of gray, broken, tumbled rock masses. The little gully was littered with crags and boulders. But I could see out through it.
Miko had come to the head of the stairs. He stopped there, his great figure etched sharply by the Earthlight. I think he must have known that Coniston was the one who had fallen over the cliff, as my helmet and Coniston's were different enough for him to recognize which was which. He did not know who I was, but he did know me for an enemy.
He stood now at the summit, peering to see where we had gone. He was no more than fifty feet from us.
"Anita, lie down."
I pulled her down on the rocks. I took aim with my projector. But I had forgotten our helmet lights. Miko must have seen them just as I pulled the trigger. He jumped sidewise and dropped, but I could see him moving in the shadows to where a jutting rock gave him shelter. I fired, missing him again.
I had stood up to take aim. Anita pulled me sharply down beside her.
"Gregg, he's armed!"
It was his turn to fire. It came—the familiar vague flash of the paralyzing ray. It spat its tint of color on the rocks near us, but did not reach us.
A moment later, Miko bounded to another rock.
Time passed—only a few seconds. I could not see Miko momentarily. Perhaps he was crouching; perhaps he had moved away again. He was, or had been, on slightly higher ground than the bottom of our bowl. It was dim down here where we were lying, but I feared that any moment Miko might appear and strike at us. His ray at any short range would penetrate our visor panes, even though our suits might temporarily resist it.
"Anita, it's too dangerous here!"
Had I been alone, I might perhaps have leapt up to lure Miko. But with Anita I did not dare chance it.
"We've got to get back to camp," I told her.
"Perhaps he has gone—"
But he had not. We saw him again, out in a distant patch of Earthlight. He was further from us than before, but on still higher ground. We had extinguished our small helmet lights. But he knew we were here and possibly he could see us. His projector flashed again. He was a hundred feet or more away now, and his weapon was of no longer range than mine. I did not answer his fire, for I could not hope to hit him at such a distance, and the flash of my weapon would help him to locate us.
I murmured to Anita, "We must get away."
Yet how did I dare take Anita from these concealing shadows? Miko could reach us so easily as we bounded away in plain view in the Earthlight of the open summit! We were caught, at bay in this little bowl.
The camp was not visible from here. But out through the broken gully, a white beam of light suddenly came up from below.
Haljan.It spelled the signal.
It was coming from the Grantline instrument room, I knew.
I could answer it with my helmet light, but I did not dare.
"Try it," urged Anita.
We crouched where we thought we might be safe from Miko's fire. My little light beam shot up from the bowl. It was undoubtedly visible to the camp.
Yes, I am Haljan. Send us help.
I did not mention Anita. Miko doubtless could read these signals. They answered,Cannot—
I lost the rest of it. There came a flash from Miko's weapon. It gave us confidence: he was unable to reach us at this distance.
The Grantline beam repeated:
Cannot come out. Ports broken. You cannot get in. Staywhere you are for an hour or two. We may be able to repair ports.
I extinguished my light. What use was it to tell Grantline anything further? Besides, my light was endangering us. But the Grantline beam spelled another message:
Brigand ship is coming. It will be here before we can get out to you. No lights. We will try and hide our location.
And the signal beam brought a last appeal:
Miko and his men will divulge where we are unless you can stop them.
The beam vanished. The lights of the Grantline camp made a faint glow that showed above the crater edge. The glow died, as the camp now was plunged into darkness.
We crouched in the shadows, the Earthlight filtering down to us. The skulking figure of Miko had vanished; but I was sure he was out there somewhere on the crags, lurking, maneuvering to where he could strike us with his ray. Anita's metal-gloved hand was on my arm; in my ear-diaphragm her voice sounded eager:
"What was the signal, Gregg?"
I told her everything.
"Oh Gregg! The Martian ship coming!"
Her mind clung to that as the most important thing. But not so myself. To me there was only the realization that Anita was caught out here, almost at the mercy of Miko's ray. Grantline's men could not get out to help us, nor could I get Anita into the camp.
She added, "Where do you suppose the ship is?"
"Twenty or thirty thousand miles up, probably."
The stars and the Earth were visible over us. Somewhere up there, disclosed by Grantline's instruments but not yetdiscernible to the naked eye, Miko's reinforcements were hovering.
We lay for a moment in silence. It was horribly nerve straining. Miko could be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire? Creeping—or would he make a swift, unexpected rush?
The feeling that he was upon us abruptly swept me. I jumped to my feet, against Anita's effort to hold me. Where was he now? Was my imagination playing me tricks?...
I sank back. "That ship should be here in a few hours."
I told her what Grantline's signal had suggested; the ship was hovering overhead. It must be fairly close; for Grantline's telescope had revealed its identity as an outlaw flyer, unmarked by any of the standard code identification lights. It was doubtless too far away as yet to have located the whereabouts of Grantline's camp. The Martian brigands knew that we were in the vicinity of Archimedes, but no more than that. Searching this glowing Moon surface, our tiny local semaphore beams would certainly pass unnoticed.
But as the brigand ship approached now—dropping close to Archimedes as it probably would—our danger was that Miko and his men would then signal it, join it, and reveal the camp's location. And the brigand attack would be upon us!
I told this now to Anita. "The signal from Grantline said, 'Unless you can stop them.'"
It was an appeal to me. But how could I stop them? What could I do, alone out here with Anita, to cope with this enemy?
Anita made no comment.
I added, "That ship will land near Archimedes, within an hour or two. If Grantline can repair the ports, and I can get you inside...."
Again she made no comment. Then suddenly she gripped me. "Gregg, look there!"
Out through the gully break in our bowl the figure of Miko showed! He was running. But not at us. Circling thesummit, leaping to keep himself behind the upstanding crags. He passed the head of the staircase; he did not descend it, but headed off along the summit of the crater rim.
I stood up to watch him. "Where's he going!"
I let Anita stand up beside me, cautiously at first, for it occurred to me it might be a ruse to cover some other of Miko's men who might be lurking near.
But the summit seemed clear. The figure of Miko was a thousand feet away now. We could see the tiny blob of it bobbing over the rocks. Then it plunged down—not into the crater valley, but out toward the open Moon surface.
Miko had abandoned his attack on us. The reason seemed plain. He had come here from his encampment with Coniston ahead to lure and kill Wilks. When this was done, Coniston had flashed his signal to Miko, who was hiding nearby.
It was not like the brigand leader to remain in the background. Miko was no coward. But Coniston could impersonate Wilks, whereas Miko's giant stature at once would reveal his identity. Miko had been engaged in smashing the ports. He had looked up and seen me kill Coniston. He had come to assail me. And then he had read Grantline's message to me. It was his first knowledge that his ship was at hand. With the camp exits inoperative, Grantline and his men were imprisoned. Miko had made an effort to kill me. He did not know my companion was Anita. But the effort was taking too long; with his ship at hand, it was Miko's best move to return to his own camp, rejoin his men, and await their opportunity to signal the ship.
At least, so I reasoned it. Anita and I stood alone. What could we do?
We went to the brink of the cliff. The unlighted Grantline buildings showed vaguely in the Earthlight.
I said, "We'll go down. I'll leave you there. You can wait at the port. They'll repair it soon."
"And what will you do, Gregg?"
I did not intend to tell her. "Hurry, Anita!"
"Gregg, let me go with you."
She jerked away from me and bounded back up the stairs. I caught her on the summit.
"Anita!"
"I'm going with you."
"You're going to stay here."
"I'm not!"
This exasperating controversy!
"Anita, please."
"I'll be safer with you than waiting here, Gregg." And she added, "Besides, I won't stay and you can't make me."
We ran along the crater top. At its distant edge the lower plain spread before us. Far down, and far away on the distant broken surface, the leaping figure of Miko showed. He plunged down the broken outer slope, reached the level. Soon, as we ran, the little Grantline crater faded behind us.
Anita ran more skillfully than I. Ten minutes or so passed. We had seen Miko and the direction he was taking, but down here on the plain we could no longer see him. It struck me that our chase was purposeless and dangerous. Suppose Miko were to see us following him? Suppose he stopped and lay in ambush to fire at us as we came leaping heedlessly by?
"Anita, wait!"
I drew her down amid a group of tumbled boulders. And then abruptly she clung to me.
"Gregg, I know what we can do! Gregg, don't tell me you won't let me try it!"
I listened to her plan. Incredible! Incredibly dangerous. Yet, as I pondered it, the very daring of the scheme seemed the measure of its possible success. The brigands would never imagine we could be so rash!
"But Anita—"
"Gregg, you're stupid!" It was her turn to be exasperated.
But I was in no mood for daring. My mind was obsessed with Anita's safety. I had been planning that we might seethe glow of Miko's encampment and decide on some course of action.
"But, Gregg, the safety of the treasure—of all the Grantline men...."
"To the infernal with that! It's you, your safety—"
"My safety, then! If you put me in the camp and the brigands attack it and I am killed—what then? But this plan of mine, if we can do it, Gregg, will mean safety in the end for all of us."
And it seemed possible. We crouched, discussing it. So daring a thing!
The brigand ship would come down near Archimedes. That was fifty miles from Grantline. The brigands from Mars would not have seen the dark Grantline buildings hidden in the little crater pit. They would wait for Miko and his men to make their whereabouts known.
Miko's encampment was ahead of us now, undoubtedly. We had been following him toward the Mare Imbrium. Or at least, we hoped so. He would signal his ship. But Anita and I, closer to it, would also signal it; and, posing as brigands, would join it!
"Remember, Gregg, I remain Anita Prince, George's sister." Her voice trembled as she mentioned her dead brother. "They know that George was in Miko's pay, and I as his sister, will help to convince them."
This daring scheme! If we could join the ship, we might be able to persuade its leader that Miko's distant signals were merely a ruse of Grantline to lure the brigands in that direction. A long range projector from the ship would kill Miko and his men as they came forward to join it! And then we would falsely direct the brigands, lead them away from Grantline and the treasure.
"Gregg, we must try it."
Heaven help me, I yielded to her persuasion!
We turned at right angles and ran toward where the distant frowning walls of Archimedes loomed against the starlit sky.