He turned this over in his mind, and he nodded gravely in confirmation of his own conclusions. It seemed somehow of tremendous importance that he get this clearly thought out—this experience that was close ahead.
"Skin friction!" he added. "It will burn us up!"
He has a sudden vision of a flaming star blazing a hot trail through the atmosphere of this globe; there would be only savage eyes to follow it—to see the line of fire curving swiftly across the heavens.... He, himself, was seeing that blazing meteor so plainly....
His eyes found the lookout; the globe was gone. They were close—close! Only for the enveloping gas that made of this a dark moon, they would be seeing the surface, the outlines of continents.
Chet strained his eyes—to see nothing! It was horrible. It had been fearful enough to watch that expanding globe.... He was abruptly aware that the outer rim of the lookout was red!
For Chet Bullard, time ceased to have meaning; what were seconds—or centuries—as he stared at that glowing rim? He could not have told. The outer shell of their ship—it was radiant—shining red-hot in the night. And above the roar of the generator came a nerve-ripping shriek. A wind like a blast from hell was battering and tearing at their ship.
"Good-by!" He has tried to call; the demoniac shrieking from without smothered his voice. One arm was across his eyes in an unconscious motion. The air of the little room was stifling. He forced his arm down; he would meet death face to face.
The lookout was ringed with fire; it was white with the terrible white of burning steel!—it was golden!—then cherry red! It was dying, as the fire dies from glowing metal plunged in its tempering bath—or thrown into the cold reaches of space!
In Chet's ears was the roar of a detonite motor. He tried to realize that the lookouts were rimmed with black—cold, fireless black! An incredible black! There were stars there like pinpoints of flame! But conviction came only when he saw from a lookout in another wall a circle of violet that shrank and dwindled as he watched....
A hand was gripping his shoulder; he heard the voice of Walter Harkness speaking, while Walt's hand crept to raise the triple star that was pinned to his blouse.
"Master Pilot of the World!" Harkness was saying. "That doesn't cover enough territory, old man. It's another rating that you're entitled to, but I'm damned if I know what it is."
And, for once, Chet's ready smile refused to form. He stared dumbly at his friend; his eyes passed to the white face of Mademoiselle Diane; then back to the controls, where his hand, without conscious volition, was reaching to move a metal ball.
"Missed it!" he assured himself. "Hit the fringe of the air—just the very outside. If we'd been twenty thousand feet nearer!... He was moving the ball: their bow was swinging. He steadied it and set the ship on an approximate course.
"A stern chase!" he said aloud. "All our momentum to be overcome—but it's easy sailing now!"
He pushed the ball forward to the limit, and the explosion-motor gave thunderous response.
No man faces death in so shocking a form without feeling the effects. Death had flicked them with a finger of flame and had passed them by. Chet Bullard found his hands trembling uncontrollably as he fumbled for a book and opened it. The tables of figures printed there were blurred at first to his eyes, but he forced himself to forget the threat that was past, for there was another menace to consider now.
And uppermost in his mind, when his thoughts came back into some approximate order, was condemnation of himself for an opportunity that was gone.
"I could have jumped him," he told himself with bitter self-reproach; "I could have grabbed the pistol from Kreiss—the man was petrified." And then Chet had to admit a fact there was no use of denying: "I was as paralyzed as he was," he said, and only knew he had spoken aloud when he saw the puzzled look that crossed Harkness' face.
Harkness and Diane had drawn near. In a far corner of the little room Schwartzmann had motioned to Kreiss to join him; they were as far away from the others as could be managed. Schwartzmann, Chet judged, needed some scientific explanation of these disturbing events; also he needed to take the detonite pistol from Kreiss' hand and jam it into his own hand. His eyes, at Chet's unconscious exclamation, had come with instant suspicion toward the two men.
"Forty-seven hours, Walt," the pilot said, and repeated it loudly for Schwartzmann's benefit; "—forty-seven hours before we return to this spot. We are driving out into space; we've crossed the orbit of the Dark Moon, and we're doing twenty thousand miles an hour.
"Now we must decelerate. It will take twenty hours to check us to zero speed; then twenty-seven more to shoot us back to this same point in space, allowing, of course, for a second deceleration. The same figuring with only slight variation will cover a return to the Dark Moon. As we sweep out I can allow for the moon-motion, and we'll hit it at a safe landing speed on the return trip this time."
Chet was paying little attention to his companion as he spoke. His eyes, instead, were covertly watching the bulky figure of Schwartzmann. As he finished, their captor shot a volley of questions at the scientist beside him; he was checking up on the pilot's remarks.
Chet was leaning forward to stare intently from a lookout, his head was close to that of Harkness.
"Listen, Walt," he whispered; "the Moon's out of sight; it's easy to lose. Maybe I can't find it again, anyway—it's going to take some nice navigating—but I'll miss it by ten thousand miles if you say so, and even the Herr Doktor can't check me on it."
Chet saw the eyes of Schwartzmann grow intent. He reached ostentatiously for another book of tables, and he seated himself that he might figure in comfort.
"Just check me on this," he told Harkness.
He put down meaningless figures, while the man beside him remained silent. Over and over he wrote them—would Harkness never reach a decision?—over and over, until—
"I don't agree with that," Harkness told him and reached for the stylus in Chet's hand. And, while he appeared to make his own swift computations, there were words instead of figures that flowed from his pen.
"Only alternative: return to Earth," he wrote. "Then S will hold off; wait in upper levels. Kreiss will give him new bearings. We'll shoot out again and do it better next time. Kreiss is nobody's fool. S means to maroon us on Moon—kill us perhaps. He'll get us there, sure. We might as well go now."
Chet had seen a movement across the room. "Let's start all over again," he broke in abruptly. He covered the writing with a clean sheet of paper where he set down more figures. He was well under way when Schwartzmann's quick strides brought him towering above them. Again the detonite pistol was in evidence; its small black muzzle moved steadily from Harkness to Chet.
"For your life—such as is left of it—you may thank Herr Doktor Kreiss," he told Chet. "I thought at first you would have attempted to kill us." His smile, as he regarded them, seemed to Chet to be entirely evil. "You were near death twice, my dear Herr Bullard; and the danger is not entirely removed.
"'Forty-seven hours' you have said; in forty-seven hours you will land us on the Dark Moon. If you do not,"—he raised the pistol suggestively—"remember that the pilot, Max, can always take us back to Earth. You are not indispensable."
Chet looked at the dark face and its determined and ominous scowl. "You're a cheerful sort of soul, aren't you?" he demanded. "Do you have any faint idea of what a job this is? Do you know we will shoot another two hundred thousand miles straight out before I can check this ship? Then we come back; and meanwhile the Dark Moon has gone on its way. Had you thought that there's a lot of room to get lost in out here?"
"Forty-seven hours!" said Schwartzmann. "I would advise that you do not lose your way."
Chet shot one quizzical glance at Harkness.
"That," he said, "makes it practically unanimous."
Schwartzmann, with an elaborate show of courtesy, escorted Diane Delacouer to a cabin where she might rest. At a questioning look between Diane and Harkness, their captor reassured them.
"Mam'selle shall be entirely safe," he said. "She may join you here whenever she wishes. As for you,"—he was speaking to Harkness—"I will permit you to stay here. I could tie you up but this iss not necessary."
And Harkness must have agreed that it was indeed unnecessary, for either Kreiss or Max, or some other of Schwartzmann's men, was at his side continuously from that moment on.
Chet would have liked a chance for a quiet talk and an exchange of ideas. It seemed that somewhere, somehow, he should be able to find an answer to their problem. He stared moodily out into the blackness ahead, where a distant star was seemingly their goal. Harkness stood at his side or paced back and forth in the little room, until he threw himself, at last, upon a cot.
And always the great stern-blast roared; muffled by the insulated walls, its unceasing thunder came at last to be unheard. To the pilot there was neither sound nor motion. His directional sights were unswervingly upon that distant star ahead. Seemingly they were suspended, helpless and inert, in a black void. But for the occasional glowing masses of strange living substance that flashed past in this ocean of space, he must almost have believed they were motionless—a dead ship in a dead, black night.
But the luminous things flashed and were gone—and their coming, strangely, was from astern; they flicked past and vanished up ahead. And, by this, Chet knew that their tremendous momentum was unchecked. Though he was using the great stern blast to slow the ship, it was driving stern-first into outer space. Nor, for twenty hours, was there a change, more than a slackening of the breathless speed with which the lights went past.
Twenty hours—and then Chet knew that they were in all truth hung motionless, and he prayed that his figures that told him this were correct.... More timeless minutes, an agony of waiting—and a dimly-glowing mass that was ahead approached their bow, swung off and vanished far astern. And, with its going, Chet knew that the return trip was begun.
He gave Harkness the celestial bearing marks and relinquished the helm. "Full speed ahead as you are," he ordered; "then at nineteen-forty on W.S. time, we'll cut it and ease on bow repulsion to the limit."
And, despite the strangeness of their surroundings, the ceaseless, murmuring roar of the exhaust, the weird world outside, where endless space was waiting for man's exploration—despite the deadly menace that threatened, Chet dropped his head upon his outflung arms and slept.
To his sleep-drugged brain it was scarcely a moment until a hand was dragging at his shoulder.
"Forty-seven hours!" the voice of Schwartzmann was saying.
And: "Some navigating!" Harkness was exclaiming in flattering amazement. "Wake up, Chet! Wake up! The Dark Moon's in sight. You've hit it on the nose, old man: she isn't three points off the sights!"
The bow-blast was roaring full on. Ahead of them Chet's sleepy eyes found a circle of violet; and he rubbed his eyes savagely that he might take his bearings on Sun and Earth.
As it had been before, the Earth was a giant half-moon; like a mirror-sphere it shot to them across the vast distance the reflected glory of the sun. But the globe ahead was a ghostly world. Its black disk was lost in the utter blackness of space. It was a circle, marked only by the absence of star-points and by the halo of violet glow that edged it about.
Chet cut down the repelling blast. He let the circle enlarge, then swung the ship end for end in mid-space that the more powerful stern exhaust might be ready to counteract the gravitational pull of the new world.
Again those impalpable clouds surrounded them. Here was the enveloping gas that made this a dark moon—the gas, if Harkness' theory was correct, that let the sun's rays pass unaltered; that took the light through freely to illumine this globe, but that barred its return passage as reflected light.
Black—dead black was the void into which they were plunging, until the darkness gave way before a gentle glow that enfolded their ship. The golden light enveloped them in growing splendor. Through every lookout it was flooding the cabin with brilliant rays, until, from below them, directly astern of the ship, where the thundering blast checked their speed of descent, emerged a world.
And, to Chet Bullard, softly fingering the controls of the first ship of space—to Chet Bullard, whose uncanny skill had brought the tiny speck that was their ship safely back from the dark recesses of the unknown—there came a thrill that transcended any joy of the first exploration.
Here was water in great seas of unreal hue—and those seas were his! Vast continents, ripe for adventure and heavy with treasure—and they, too, were his! His own world—his and Diane's and Walt's! Who was this man, Schwartzmann, that dared dream of violating their possessions?
A slender tube pressed firmly, uncompromisingly, into his back to give the answer to his question. "Almost I wish you had missed it!" Herr Schwartzmann was saying. "But now you will land; you will set us down in some place that you know. No tricks, Herr Bullard! You are clever, but not clever enough for that. We will land, yess, where you know it is safe."
From the lookout, the man stared for a moment with greedy eyes; then brought his gaze back to the three. His men, beside Harkness and Diane, were alert; the scientist, Kreiss, stood close to Chet.
"A nice little world," Schwartzmann told them. "Herr Harkness, you have filed claims on it; who am I to dispute with the great Herr Harkness? Without question it iss yours!"
He laughed loudly, while his eyes narrowed between creasing wrinkles of flesh. "You shall enjoy it," he told them; "—all your life."
And Chet, as he caught the gaze of Harkness and Diane, wondered how long this enjoyment would last. "All your life!" But this was rather indefinite as a measure of time.
The ship that Chet Bullard and Harkness had designed had none of the instruments for space navigation that the ensuing years were to bring. Chet's accuracy was more the result of that flyer's sixth sense—that same uncanny power that had served aviators so well in an earlier day. But Chet was glad to see his instruments registering once more as he approached a new world.
Even the sonoflector was recording; its invisible rays were darting downward to be reflected back again from the surface below. That absolute altitude recording was a joy to read; it meant a definite relationship with the world.
"I'll hold her at fifty thousand," he told Harkness. "Watch for some outline that you can remember from last time."
There was an irregular area of continental size; only when they had crossed it did Harkness point toward an outflung projection of land. "That peninsula," he exclaimed; "we saw that before! Swing south and inland.... Now down forty, and east of south.... This ought to be the spot."
Perhaps Harkness, too, had the flyer's indefinable power of orientation. He guided Chet in the downward flight, and his pointing finger aimed at last at a cluster of shadows where a setting sun brought mountain ranges into strong relief. Chet held the ship steady, hung high in the air, while the quick-spreading mantle of night swept across the world below. And, at last, when the little world was deep-buried in shadow, they saw the red glow of fires from a hidden valley in the south.
"Fire Valley!" said Chet, "Don't say anything about me being a navigator. Wait, you've brought us home, sure enough."
"Home!" He could not overcome this strange excitement of a homecoming to their own world. Even the man who stood, pistol in hand, behind him was, for the moment, forgotten.
Valley of a thousand fires!—scene of his former adventures! Each fumerole was adding its smoky red to the fiery glow that illumined the place. There were ragged mountains hemming it in; Chet's gaze passed on to the valley's end.
Down there, where the fires ceased, there would be water; he would land there! And the ship from Earth slipped down in a long slanting line to cushion against its under exhausts, whose soft thunder echoed back from a bare expanse of frozen lava. Then its roaring faded. The silvery shape sank softly to its rocky bed as Chet cut the motor that had sung its song of power since the moment when Schwartzmann had carried him off—taken him from that frozen, forgotten corner of an incredibly distant Earth.
"Iss there air?" Schwartzmann demanded. Chet came to himself again with a start: he saw the man peering from the lookout to right and to left as if he would see all that there was in the last light of day.
"Strange!" he was grumbling to himself. "A strange place! But those hills—I saw their markings—there will be metals there. I will explore; later I return: I will mine them. Many ships I must build to establish a line. The first transportation line of space. Me, Jacob Schwartzmann—I will do it. I will haff more than anyone else on Earth; I will make them all come to me crawling on their bellies!"
Chet saw the hard shine of the narrowed eyes. For an instant only, he dared to consider the chance of leaping upon the big, gloating figure. One blow and a quick snatch for the pistol!... Then he knew the folly of such a plan: Schwartzmann's men were armed; he would be downed in another second, his body a shattered, jellied mass.
Schwartzmann's thoughts had come back to the matter of air; he motioned Chet and Harkness toward the port.
Diane Delacouer had joined them and she thrust herself quickly between the two men. And, though Schwartzmann made a movement as if he would snatch her back, he thought better of it and motioned for the portal to be swung. Chet felt him close behind as he followed the others out into the gathering dark.
The air was heavy with the fragrance of night-blooming trees. They were close to the edge of the lava flow. The rock was black in the light of a starry sky; it dropped away abruptly to a lower glade. A stream made silvery sparklings in the night, while beyond it were waving shadows of strange trees whose trunks were ghostly white.
It was all so familiar.... Chet smiled understandingly as he saw Walt Harkness' arm go about the trim figure of Diane Delacouer. No mannish attire could disguise Diane's charms; nor could nerve and cold courage that any man might envy detract from her femininity. Her dark, curling hair was blowing back from her upraised face as the scented breezes played about her; and the soft beauty of that face was enhanced by the very starlight that revealed it.
It was here that Walt and Diane had learned to love; what wonder that the fragrant night brought only remembrance, and forgetfulness of their present plight. But Chet Bullard, while he saw them and smiled in sympathy, knew suddenly that other eyes were watching, too; he felt the bulky figure of Herr Schwartzmann beside him grow tense and rigid.
But Schwartzmann's voice, when he spoke, was controlled. "All right," he called toward the ship; "all iss safe."
Yet Chet wondered at that sudden tensing, and an uneasy presentiment found entrance to his thoughts. He must keep an eye on Schwartzmann, even more than he had supposed.
Their captor had threatened to maroon them on the Dark Moon. Chet did not question his intent. Schwartzmann would have nothing to gain by killing them now. It would be better to leave them here, for he might find them useful later on. But did he plan to leave them all or only two? Behind the steady, expressionless eyes of the Master Pilot, strange thoughts were passing....
There were orders, at length, to return to the ship. "It is dark already," Schwartzmann concluded; "nothing can be accomplished at night.
"How long are the days and nights?" he asked Harkness.
"Six hours." Harkness told him; "our little world spins fast."
"Then for six hours we sleep," was the order. And again Herr Schwartzmann conducted Mademoiselle Delacouer to her cabin, while Chet Bullard watched until he saw the man depart and heard the click of the lock on the door of Diane's room.
Then for six hours he listened to the sounds of sleeping men who were sprawled about him on the floor; for six hours he saw the one man who sat on guard beside a light that made any thought of attack absurd. And he cursed himself for a fool, as he lay wakeful and vainly planning—a poor, futile fool who was unable to cope with this man who had bested him.
Nineteen seventy-three!—and here were Harkness and Diane and himself, captured by a man who was mentally and morally a misfit in a modern world. A throw-back—that was Schwartzmann: Harkness had said it. He belonged back in nineteen fourteen.
Harkness was beyond the watching guard; from where he lay came sounds of restless movement. Chet knew that he was not alone in this mood of hopeless dejection. There was no opportunity for talk; only with the coming of day did the two find a chance to exchange a few quick words.
The guard roused the others at the first sight of sunlight beyond the ports. Harkness sauntered slowly to where Chet was staring from a lookout. He, too, leaned to see the world outside, and he spoke cautiously in a half-whisper:
"Not a chance, Chet. No use trying to bluff this big crook any more. He's here, and he's safe; and he knows it as well as we do. We'll let him ditch us—you and Diane and me. Then, when we're on our own, we'll watch our chance. He will go crazy with what he finds—may get careless—then we'll seize the ship—" His words ended abruptly. As Schwartzmann came behind them, he was casually calling Chet's attention to a fumerole from which a jet of vapor had appeared. Yellowish, it was; and the wind was blowing it.
Chet turned away; he hardly saw Schwartzmann or heard Harkness' words. He was thinking of what Walt had said. Yes, it was all they could do; there was no chance of a fight with them now. But later!
Diane Delacouer came into the control-room at the instant; her dark eyes were still lovely with sleep, but they brightened to flash an encouraging smile toward the two men. There were five of Schwartzmann's men in the ship besides the pilot and the scientist, Kreiss. They all crowded in after Diane.
They must have had their orders in advance; Schwartzmann merely nodded, and they sprang upon Harkness and Chet. The two were caught off their guard; their arms were twisted behind them before resistance could be thought of. Diane gave a cry, started forward, and was brushed back by a sweep of Schwartzmann's arm. The man himself stood staring at them, unmoving, wordless. Only the flesh about his eyes gathered into creases to squeeze the eyes to malignant slits. There was no mistaking the menace in that look.
"I think we do not need you any more," he said at last. "I think, Herr Harkness, this is the end of our little argument—and, Herr Harkness, you lose. Now, I will tell you how it iss that you pay.
"You haff thought, perhaps, I would kill you. But you were wrong, as you many times have been. You haff not appreciated my kindness; you haff not understood that mine iss a heart of gold.
"Even I was not sure before we came what it iss best to do. But now I know. I saw oceans and many lands on this world. I saw islands in those oceans.
"You so clever are—such a great thinker iss Herr Harkness—and on one of those islands you will haff plenty of time to think—yess! You can think of your goot friend, Schwartzmann, and of his kindness to you."
"You are going to maroon us on an island?" asked Walt Harkness hoarsely. Plainly his plans for seizing the ship were going awry. "You are going to put the three of us off in some lost corner of this world?"
Chet Bullard was silent until he saw the figure of Harkness struggling to throw off his two guards. "Walt," he called loudly, "take it easy! For God's sake, Walt, keep your head!"
This, Chet sensed, was no time for resistance. Let Schwartzmann go ahead with his plans; let him think them complacent and unresisting; let Max pilot the ship; then watch for an opening when they could land a blow that would count! He heard Schwartzmann laughing now, laughing as if he were enjoying something more pleasing than the struggles of Walt.
Chet was standing by the controls. The metal instrument-table was beside him; above it was the control itself, a metal ball that hung suspended in air within a cage of curved bars.
It was pure magic, this ball-control, where magnetic fields crossed and recrossed; it was as if the one who held it were a genie who could throw the ship itself where he willed. Glass almost enclosed the cage of bars, and the whole instrument swung with the self-compensating platform that adjusted itself to the "gravitation" of accelerated speed. The pilot, Max, had moved across to the instrument-table, ready for the take-off.
Schwartzmann's laughter died to a gurgling chuckle. He wiped his eyes before he replied to Harkness' question.
"Leave you," he said, "in one place?Nein!One here, the other there. A thousand miles apart, it might be. And not all three of you. That would be so unkind—"
He interrupted himself to call to Kreiss who was opening the port.
"No," he ordered: "keep it closed. We are not going outside; we are going up."
But Kreiss had the port open. "I want a man to get some fresh water," he said; "he will only be a minute."
He shoved at a waiting man to hurry him through the doorway. It was only a gentle push: Chet wondered as he saw the man stagger and grasp at his throat. He was coughing—choking horribly for an instant outside the open port—then fell to the ground, while his legs jerked awkwardly, spasmodically.
Chet saw Kreiss follow. The scientist would have leaped to the side of the stricken man, whose body was so still now on the sunlit rock; but he, too, crumpled, then staggered back into the room. He pushed feebly at the port and swung it shut. His face, as he turned, was drawn into fearful lines.
"Acid!" He choked out the words between strangled breaths. "Acid—sulfuric—fumes!"
Chet turned quickly to the spectro-analyzer: the lines of oxygen and nitrogen were merged with others, and that meant an atmosphere unfit for human lungs! There had been a fumerole where yellowish vapor was spouting: he remembered it now.
"So!" boomed Schwartzmann, and now his squinting eyes were full on Chet. "You—youschwein! You said when we opened the ports there would be a surprise! Und this iss it! You thought to see us kill ourselves!
"Open that port!" he shouted. The men who held Chet released him and sprang forward to obey. The pilot, Max, took their place. He put one hand on Chet's shoulder, while his other hand brought up a threatening metal bar.
Schwartzmann's heavy face had lost its stolid look; it was alive with rage. He thrust his head forward to glare at the men, while he stood firmly, his feet far apart, two heavy fists on his hips. He whirled abruptly and caught Diane by one arm. He pulled her roughly to him and encircled the girl's trim figure with one huge arm.
"Put youallon one island?" he shouted. "Did you think I would put youallout of the ship? You"—he pointed at Harkness—"and you"—this time it was Chet—"go out now. You can die in your damned gas that you expected would kill me! But, you fools, you imbeciles—Mam'selle, she stays with me!" The struggling girl was helpless in the great arm that drew her close.
Harkness' mad rage gave place to a dead stillness. From bloodless lips in a chalk-white face he spat out one sentence:
"Take your filthy hands off her—now—or I'll—"
Schwartzmann's one free hand still held the pistol. He raised it with deadly deliberation; it came level with Harkness' unflinching eyes.
"Yes?" said Schwartzmann, "You will do—what?"
Chet saw the deadly tableau. He knew with a conviction that gripped his heart that here was the end. Walt would die and he would be next. Diane would be left defenseless.... The flashing thought that followed came to him as sharply as the crack of any pistol. It seemed to burst inside his brain, to lift him with some dynamic power of its own and project him into action.
He threw himself sideways from under the pilot's hand, out from beneath the heavy metal bar—and he whirled, as he leaped, to face the man. One lean, brown hand clenched to a fist that started a long swing from somewhere near his knees; it shot upward to crash beneath the pilot's outthrust jaw and lift him from the floor. Max had aimed the bar in a downward sweep where Chet's head had been the moment before; and now man and bar went down together. In the same instant Chet threw himself upon the weapon and leaped backward to his feet.
One frozen second, while, to Chet, the figures seemed as motionless as if carved from stone—two men beside the half-opened port—Harkness in convulsive writhing between two others—the figure of Diane, strained, tense and helpless in Schwartzmann's grasp—and Schwartzmann, whose aim had been disturbed, steadying the pistol deliberately upon Harkness—
"Wait!" Chet's voice tore through the confusion. He knew he must grip Schwartzmann's attention—hold that trigger finger that was tensed to send a detonite bullet on its way. "Wait, damn you! I'll answer your question. I'll tell you what we'll do!"
In that second he had swung the metal bar high; now he brought it crashing down in front of him. Schwartzmann flinched, half turned as if to fire at Chet, and saw the blow was not for him.
With a splintering crash, the bar went through an obstruction. There was sound of glass that slivered to a million mangled bits—the sharp tang of metal broken off—a crash and clatter—then silence, save for one bit of glass that fell belatedly to the floor, its tiny jingling crash ringing loud in the deathly stillness of the room....
It had been the control-room, this place of metal walls and of shining, polished instruments, and it could be called that no longer. For, battered to useless wreckage, there lay on a metal table a cage that had once been formed of curving bars. Among the fragments a metal ball that had guided the great ship still rocked idly from its fall, until it, too, was still.
It was a room where nothing moved—where no person so much as breathed....
Then came the Master Pilot's voice, and it was speaking with quiet finality.
"And that," he said, "is your answer. Our ship has made its last flight."
His eyes held steadily upon the blanched face of Herr Schwartzmann, whose limp arms released the body of Diane; the pistol hung weakly at the man's side. And the pilot's voice went on, so quiet, so hushed—so curiously toneless in that silent room.
"What was it that you said?—that Harkness and I would be staying here? Well, you were right when you said that, Schwartzmann: but it's a hard sentence, that—imprisonment for life."
Chet paused now, to smile deliberately, grimly at the dark face so bleached and bloodless, before he repeated:
"Imprisonment for life!—and you didn't know that you were sentencing yourself. For you're staying too, Schwartzmann, you contemptible, thieving dog! You're staying with us—here—on the Dark Moon!"
Perhaps to every person in that control room there came, as Chet's quiet, emotionless tones died away, the same mental picture; for there was the same dazed look on the countenances of all.
They were seeing an ocean of space, an endless void of empty black. And across that etheric sea was a whirling globe. They had seen it from afar; they had seen its diminutive continents and its snow-clad poles.... They would never see it again....
Earth!—their own world!—home! And now for them it was only a moon, a tremendous, glorious moon, whose apparent nearness would be taunting and calling them each day and night of their lives....
It was Diane Delacouer who dared to break the hard silence that bound them all. From wide eyes she stared at Walt Harkness; then her lips formed a trembling smile in which Chet, too, was included.
"You saved us," she whispered; "you saved us, Chet ... but now it looks as if we all were exiles."
She crossed slowly, walking like one in a dream, to stand close to Walt Harkness. And Chet Bullard also roused himself; but it was toward the stupefied, hulking figure of Schwartzmann that he moved.
He reached for the detonite pistol, and this man who had been their captor was too stunned to make any resistance. Chet jammed the weapon under his belt.
"Close that port!" he ordered the two men who had half-opened it at Schwartzmann's command. "Keep that poison gas out."
There was a flash of color that swept by the open port—some flying creature of vivid crimson: Chet had no time to see what manner of bird or beast it was. But it was alive! He crossed to examine the spectro-analyzer, and the two men disregarded his order and slipped into the rear cabin.
"Seems all clear to me, Walt," he said; and Harkness confirmed his findings with a quick glance.
"O.K.!" he assured Chet; "that air is all right to breathe."
He glanced from a lookout port. "The air's moving now," he said. "That gas—whatever it was—is gone; it must have settled down here in the night. Some new vent that has opened since we were here before.
"But suppose we forget that and settle matters in here," he suggested; and Chet nodded assent.
"Call your men!" Harkness ordered Schwartzmann.
The man had recovered his composure; again his heavy face was flushed beneath a stubble of beard. He made no move to comply with Harkness' demand.
But there was no need: from the cabin at the rear came the scientist, Kreiss. His face was pale and drawn, and he stared long and searchingly at Chet Bullard. His breath still whistled in his throat; the poison gas had nearly done for him.
At his heels were the two who had been working at the port. Two others, who had held Harkness, were drawn off at one side, where they mumbled one to another and shot ugly glances toward Chet.
This, Chet knew, accounted for all. Even the pilot, Max, had roused from the sleep that a blow on the chin had induced and was again on his feet. For him no explanation was needed; the shattered cage of the ball-control told its own story.
Harkness seated Mademoiselle Delacouer on a bench at the pilot's post. "You will want to be in on this," he told her, "but I'll put you here in case they get rough. But don't worry," he added; "we'll be ready for them now."
Then he turned to Schwartzmann: "Now, you! Oh, there are plenty of things I could call you! And you would understand them perfectly, though they are all words that no gentleman would use."
At Schwartzmann's outburst of profane rejoinder, Harkness broke in with no uncertain tones.
"Shut up, Schwartzmann, and stay that way; I'm giving the orders now. And we'll just cut out all the pleasantries; they won't get us anywhere. We must face the situation, all of us; see what we're up against and make some plans."
But Herr Schwartzmann was not to be put down so easily. He crossed over to where Chet stood. Chet's hand dropped to the pistol that was hooked in his own belt, but Schwartzmann made no move toward it. Instead he planted himself before the pilot and jammed his fists into his hips while he tried to draw his stocky form to equal Chet's slim height.
"Fool!" he said. "Dolt! For a minute I believed you; I thought you had cut us off from the Earth. Now I know better. Max, he understands ships; and the Herr Doktor Kreiss iss a man of science: together they the repairs will make."
The Master Pilot smiled grimly. "Try to do it," he said, and turned toward the two whom Schwartzmann had named. "You, Max, and you, too, Doctor Kreiss—do you want to take on the job? If you do, I will help you."
But the two looked at the shattered controls and shook their heads at their employer.
"Impossible!" the pilot exclaimed. "Without new parts it can never be done."
Schwartzmann seemed about to vent his fury upon the man who dared give such a report, but Doctor Kreiss raised a restraining hand.
"Check!" he said. "I check that report. Repairs are out of the question."
Chet caught Harkness' eye upon him. "I'll be back," Harkness told him and went quickly toward the rear of the ship. Their stores were back there; would Walt think to get a detonite pistol? He came back into the room while the thought was still in Chet's mind. A gun was in each hand; he passed one of the weapons to Diane.
Unconsciously, Schwartzmann felt for his own gun that was in Chet's belt. He laughed mirthlessly. "Two men," he said scornfully; "two men and a girl!"
Harkness paid no attention. "Now we will get right down to cases," he remarked. "Two men and a girl is right—plus what is left of one ship. And please don't forget that the ship is ours and all the supplies that are in it. Now, you listen to me; I've a few things to tell you."
He faced squarely toward Schwartzmann, and Chet had to repress a grin at the steely glint in his companion's eyes. Nice chap, Harkness—nice, easy-going sort—up to a certain point. Chet had seen him in action before.
"First of all," Harkness was saying, "don't think that we have any illusions about you. You're a killer, and, like all such, you're a coward. If you had the upper hand, you would never give us a chance for our lives. In fact you were ready to throw us out to be gassed when Chet raised your little bet.
"But it looks as if Chet and Mademoiselle Delacouer and I will have to be living on this world for some time. We don't want to start that life by killing off even such as you—not in cold blood. We will give you a chance; we will split our provisions with you—give you half of what we have; you will have to shift for yourselves when that is gone. We will all have to learn to do that."
Again the heavy, glowering face of Schwartzmann broke into a laugh that was half sneer.
"You're damned kind," he told Harkness, "and, as usual, a fool. Two men and a girl!" He half turned to count his own forces.
"There are seven of us," he challenged; "seven! And all of them armed—all but me!"
He spoke a curt order in his own tongue, and each man whipped a pistol from his clothes.
"Seven to two," he said, and laughed again; "maybe it iss that Herr Harkness would like to count them.
"Yourship andyoursupplies!" he exclaimed scornfully. "And you would be so kind as to giff us food.
"Gott im Himmel!" he shouted; "I show you! I am talking now! We stay here—ja—because thisDummkopfhas the controlsgebrochen! But it iss we who stay; und you? You go, because I say so. It iss I who rule, und I prove it—seven to two!"
"Three!" a firm voice spoke from between Chet and Harkness; "seven to three! Our odds are improving, Herr Schwartzmann."
And Chet saw from the corner of his eye that the gun in the small hand of Mademoiselle Diane was entirely unwavering. But he spoke to her sharply, and his voice merged with that of Harkness who was saying somewhat the same words:
"Back—go back, Diane! We can handle this. For God's sake, keep out; we don't want any shooting."
Neither of the men had drawn his gun. Their hands were ready, but each had hoped to end this weird conference without firing a shot. Here was no place for gun-play and for wounded men.
Their attention was on Diane for the moment. A growled word from their enemy brought their minds back to him; they turned to find black pistol muzzles staring each of them in the eyes. Herr Schwartzmann, in the language of an earlier day, had got the drop.
"Seven to three," Schwartzmann said; "let it go that way; no difference does it make. If I say one word, you die."
Chet's arm ached to snap his hand toward his gun. It would be his last move, he well knew. He was sick with chagrin to see how easily they had been trapped; Walt had tried to play fair with a man who had not an atom of fairness in his character. And now—
"Seven to three!" Schwartzmann was gloating—till another voice broke in.
"I don't check your figures." The whistling tones were coming from a tortured throat, but the words were clear and distinct. "I don't check you; I make it six to four—and if one of your men makes a move, Herr Schwartzmann, I shall blow you to a pulp!"
And Herr Doktor Kreiss held a gun in a steady hand as he moved a pace nearer to Chet—a gun whose slender barrel made a glinting line of light toward Schwartzmann's eyes.
"If the gentlemen and Mademoiselle will permit," he offered almost diffidently, "I would prefer to be aligned with them. We are citizens of another world now; my former allegiance to Herr Schwartzmann is ended. This is—what is it you say?—a new deal. I would like to see it; and I use another of your American aphorisms: I would like to see it a square deal."
The voice of a scholar, thought Chet; one more used to the precision of laboratory phrases than to wild talk like this; but no man to be trifled with, nevertheless. Chet did not hesitate to turn despite the pistols that were still aimed at him.
But Herr Kreiss was not looking in his direction; his eyes were trained steadily in the same line as his gun. This little experiment he was conducting seemed to require his undivided attention until the end. To Schwartzmann he said sharply:
"Your men—order them to drop their weapons. Quick!"
As they clattered upon the floor the scientist turned and extended his hand to Chet.
"And still speaking not too technically," he continued, "this is one hell of a fix that you have got us into. Even in desperate straits it took nerve to do that." He pointed to the shattered remains of the multiple bars that had been the control mechanism, and added:
"I admire that kind of nerve. And, if you don't mind, since we are exiles together—" His throat seemed choking him again.
There were weapons in the hands of Chet and Harkness; they were not making the same mistake twice. Chet shifted his gun to his left hand that he might reach toward the scientist with his right.
"I knew you were white all the time," Chet told him; "I'll say you belong!"
It was a matter of a half hour later when Harkness ordered them all outside. He had accepted Kreiss as an addition to their ranks and had made himself plain to Schwartzmann.
To the scientist he said. "You remarked that no ship could hold two commanding pilots: that goes for an expedition like this, too. I am in command. If you will take orders we will be mighty glad to have you with us."
And to Schwartzmann, in a different tone: "I am sparing you and your men. I ought to shoot you down, but I won't. And I don't expect you to understand why; any decency such as that would beyond you.
"But I am letting you live. This world is big enough to hold us both, and pretty soon I will tell you what part of it you can live in. And then remember this one thing, Schwartzmann—get this straight!—you keep out of my way. I will show you a valley where you and your men can stay. And if ever you leave that valley I will hunt you down as I would one of the beasts that you will see in this world."
Chet had to repress a little smile that was twitching at his lips; it always amused him hugely to see Harkness when roused.
"Turn us out to starve?" Schwartzmann was demanding. "You would do that?"
"There will be food there," said Harkness curtly: "suit yourself about starving. Only stay where I put you!"
Back of the others of Schwartzmann's men, the pilot, Max, was stooping. Half-hidden he moved toward the doorway to the rear cabin and to the storage-room and gun-rooms beyond. Chet glimpsed him in his silent retreat.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Max," he advised quietly. "Personally, I think you're all getting off too well; as for myself, I'm sort of itching for an excuse to let off this gun."
It was here that Harkness turned to the open port.
"Put them out!" he snapped. "You, Chet, go out first and line them up as they come—but, no, wait: there may be gas out there."
Chet was beside the port; a breath from outside came to him sweetly fragrant. A shadow was moving across the smooth lava rock. "A bird!" he thought. Then a flash of red in startling vividness swept past the open door: it was like a quick flicker of living flame. He could not see what it was, but it was alive—and this answered his question.
"Send 'em along," he said; "it seems all right now." He stepped through the opening in the heavily insulated walls.
It was early morning, yet the sun was already hot upon the smooth expanse of the lava flow. Some ancient eruption from the distant peaks that hemmed in the valley had sent out this flood of molten rock; it was hard and black now. But, to the right, where the valley went on and up, and rose gently and widened as it rose, a myriad of red flames and jets of steam told of the inner fires that still raged.
These were the fumeroles where only a month before he and Harkness and Diane had found clustering savages who were more apes than men; they had been roasting meat at these flames. And below, where the lava stopped, was the open glade where the little stream splashed and sparkled: in the high rock walls that hemmed the glade the caves showed black. And, beyond the open ground, was the weird forest, where tree-trunks of ghostly white were laced with a network of red veining. They grew close, those spectral columns, in a shadow-world beneath the high roof of greenery they supported.
Here was the scene of an earlier adventure. Chet was swept up in the flood of recollections born of familiar sights and scents. Herr Schwartzmann, cursing steadily in a guttural tongue, came from the ship to bring Chet's thoughts back to the more immediate problem.
There were five others who followed—the pilot and Schwartzmann's four men. There had been another, but his body lay huddled upon the bare lava. He had followed his master far—and here, for him, was the end.
Kreiss' pistol was still in his hand as he came after. Harkness and Diane were last.
Harkness pointed with his gun. "Over there!" he ordered. "Get them away from the ship, Chet. Line them up down below there; all the ape-men have cleared out since we had our last fight. Get them down by the stream. Diane and I will bring them some supplies, and then we can send them off for good."
Chet sent Kreiss down first, where an easy slope made the descent a simple matter; it had been the bow-wave of the molten lava—here was the end of that inundation of another age—and the slope was wrinkled and creased. Schwartzmann followed; then the others. The last man was ready to descend when Diane and Walt came back.
They had packages of compressed foods. This was all right with Chet, but he raised his eyebrows inquiringly at sight of several boxes of ammunition and an extra gun. Harkness smiled good-naturedly.
"I will give them one pistol," Walt told him, "and a good supply of shells. We don't need to be afraid of them with only one gun, and we can't leave the poor devils at the mercy of every wild beast."
"You're the boss," said Chet briefly; "but, for me, I'd sooner give this Schwartzmann just one bullet—right where it would do the most good.
"Let's make him work for it," he suggested, and called to the men below:
"Come back up here, Schwartzmann! A little present for you—and I'm saying you don't deserve it."
He watched the return trip as Schwartzmann dragged his heavy bulk up the slope; he was enjoying the man's explosive, panted curses. Beside him were Diane and Walt. With them, it was as it had been with him at first. They had eyes only for the familiar ground below: the stream, the open ground, the trees....
Each of them was looking down at that lower ground.
It was Kreiss standing down there who first caught Chet's attention. Kreiss was trying to shout. Chet saw his waving arms; he stared, puzzled, at the facial contortions—the working lips from which no sound came. He knew that something was wrong. It was a moment or two before he realized that Kreiss could not speak, that the throat, injured by the choking fumes, had failed him. Then he heard the strangled croak that Kreiss forced from his lips: "Behind you!—look behind you!"
Schwartzmann was scrambling to the top where they stood; every man was accounted for. What had they to fear? And suddenly it was borne in upon Chet's consciousness that he had been hearing a sound—a sound that was louder now—a rustling!—a clashing of dry, rasping things! The very air seemed to hold something ominous.
He knew this in the instant while he whirled about; while he heard the dry rustling change to a humming roar; while he saw, like a cloud of flame, a great swarm of red, flying things like the one that had flown past the port—and one, swifter than the rest, that darted from the swarm and flashed upon him.