"It's the old Moon sword," said Illeria. "Horta worships the old customs, and swears by the beliefs of the astrologers. It's the astrologers who direct his actions, my mother had said."
"It's a dirty weapon," shuddered Moore. "I'll take a ray-gun any time."
He came within an ace of regretting his choice a moment later, when a whole squad of soldiers rounded an outcrop of rock. Ross whispered a warning, and shot fast. Moore went into action then, but not before one of the Horta men had fired. The ray blasted past them and sheared off a half-ton of rock behind them.
"Whew, that was close," gasped Moore as the last of the soldiers fell.
"How about ray-guns now?" gibed Ross. "Do you know, I think we're in luck. This party is evidently supposed to relieve the sentries we met—so there'll be no alarm over their condition."
"You're right!" exclaimed Moore. "Now all we have to do is to get to that ray machine!"
They stood within sight of it when the heavy hand of Horta fell.
In the shadows of the cavern they had crept from arsenal to foundry, until they had inspected from far or near every establishment in this dim and fearsome chasm. And finally they saw it, a great cylinder nestling deep in the ground and looming high in the cavern, supported by guy beams of gleaming metal.
"A ray-gun!" cried Moore. His incautious exclamation was their undoing. A half-clad foundry worker, looking like a gnome in his eye-shade helmet and drooping gauntlets, gaped at them. Ross shot a split second too late to stop the shout of alarm. The foundryman dropped, but a dozen soldiers came on the run. Moore and Ross fired and fired again, but they went down in a charge of scores of Horta soldiers. The flat of a sword struck Ross a stunning blow on the side of his head.
He came to his senses to find himself in a strange room, bound hand and foot and prone on a stone floor. Beside him was Moore.
"Where are we?" muttered Ross.
"In Horta's headquarters," whispered Moore. "Here's Horta."
Ross twisted his head. He blinked. For Horta was an eyeful.
The Lord of the Caverns was a giant. Fully seven feet tall, he must have weighed four hundred pounds. But he bore his great bulk with ease and a certain dignity. He strode over to the two prisoners, looked them over with curiosity but without visible rancor, and spoke sharply to a guard in the Moon tongue. The guard hastened to free the two flyers.
They exchanged glances of surprise. "You don't suppose he's a pal in disguise?" asked Moore blandly. He looked up with a start when he heard a rumbling chuckle.
Horta was amused. "No, Earth-man. You are prisoners. But I have no need to bind you, for you cannot escape. Yet you need not fear death, for if you will stay and serve me you shall have life and all the blessings that will be showered upon a new Kingdom."
"New Kingdom?" Moore blinked. "It's a Regency, isn't it?"
Horta's great laugh boomed out. "Nay! I am the King! And for my queen—well, you have delivered her to me!"
Ross sat up and stared. "You mean—Illeria?"
Horta chuckled as he nodded.
"Illeria!" Ross stifled a curse. His mind raced. The girl was a prisoner, too. He spoke aloud, easily. "Well, I guess we can give Your Royal Highness a hand."
"Hey, Bruce!" Moore expostulated. "You don't mean—"
"Why not?" drawled Ross. Turning to face Moore, he winked. "We know a lot that will pay our way with the new Kingdom."
Moore blinked. "Of course!" he assented hastily. "Sure!"
Horta stared suspiciously at the two flyers. "Make sure, then, that you have no secret longings to return to Earth," he warned heavily. "For henceforth there shall be no intercourse between Moon and Earth. The truce is ended."
Ross ventured a question. "What'll you do with the men of the Peaks?"
Horta smiled grimly. "They will submit, or die." He gestured imperiously, and the guards pushed the flyers forward as Horta strode from the room.
As they trailed behind, Moore whispered, "He doesn't look like a killer."
"Probably a fanatic," Ross muttered.
"What's the play?"
"Watch our chance, and wreck the ray machine."
"And us with it," grumbled Moore.
"Most likely," Ross agreed.
They entered a softly lit room, in the wake of Horta. As their eyes became accustomed to the dim light they gasped. There was Illeria. But beside her was the queen—Boada!
She swept them with a glance in which contempt was mingled with a kind of pity. "You did not expect to see me here," she said harshly. "But I serve the destiny of the Moon. The wise men have shown me that the Moon was never destined to serve the Earth, but must stand with the Blue Stars when the Universe is rent asunder. And now the Moon is ready to defend itself, thanks to the new King Horta!"
In the silence that followed Ross heard the girl gasp. The queen spoke softly. "And you, my daughter, shall be the new queen, wife of the almighty Horta the Liberator."
"Not," Ross muttered between his teeth, "if I can help it."
"Me, too," whispered Moore.
The girl said nothing. But her eyes sought Ross with piteous entreaty.
Horta broke the silence. "The nuptials shall be solemnized in tomorrow's full light. You, Earth-men, shall remain under guard until you have given earnest proof of your fealty."
The guards punched the two as Horta rapped an order in the Moon tongue, and they allowed themselves to be led away. Through a dim corridor they passed, and into a stone cell, with oddly fashioned stone bars and a door that slid on a metal base, locking them into their tomb.
Ross circled the cell, then shook his head. "We couldn't get out of this without a ray machine," he muttered.
Moore sat down against a wall. "Guess not. Say, Bruce, did you hear the old girl?"
"The Universe is to be rent asunder," grunted Ross. "Where does that leave us?"
"Behind the eight ball, as I believe they used to say back in the twentieth century," grinned Moore. "That is, that's where we would be if the Universe really were to be rent asunder."
"Oh!" grunted Ross in heavy sarcasm. "So it isn't going to happen?"
"Gosh, no," chuckled Moore. "It's the silliest kind of astrological fake, discredited two centuries ago. Where Horta picked it up I don't know. Probably he got some power from the blue stars by accident, and his faker astrologists strung him along on the big bust-up idea."
"Nice clean fun," muttered Ross. "Well, we missed. Horta's still got his ray machine. He's also got the princess—and the queen for an ally."
"He's also," amended Moore dryly, "got us."
"And how," grunted Ross. "How long do you suppose we'll last if we don't—"
He stopped abruptly. A faint noise came to his ears. "Hear that?" he asked, puzzled.
Moore cocked his head to one side. "Running water," he remarked. "They haven't got a river down—"
A scream, faint and far away, took his breath away. Another sounded, and then a chorus, dimmed by space and the stone walls. Suddenly Ross and Moore whirled to face one another.
"Artana!" cried Ross.
"He's opened the reservoirs!" gasped Moore.
They leaped to their feet. Ross tried the door, savagely. Moore broke the skin of his hands on the stout stone bars of the window. In a moment, water was swirling at their feet.
Moore stared down at it gloomily. "I was two days on a raft in the middle of the Atlantic," he sighed, "and I didn't drown."
The water rose to their knees.
V
Ross tugged at the door. "You aren't drowned yet. How did this door open?"
"From the outside," grumbled Moore, tugging with his chief. "It rolled—ha! It's opening! We've got it!"
The door was sliding open. A rush of water swept them half off balance, and they splashed into the flood when the Princess Illeria catapulted into them.
"Princess!" yelled Moore. "Good girl!"
Ross gripped her arm. "What's going on?"
"Panic," she panted, clinging to him. "Horta and his steadiest men are at the ray machine, fighting to keep the water out of the ray reservoir. The Queen went with him. I'm—afraid—"
"Cheer up," Ross consoled her. "And let's get out of this." He led the way out of the cell. Water was waist deep in the corridor. Ross pointed up an incline, where the swirling waters ran thinly. "Looks good," he suggested. He whirled then on Illeria. "Where do you suppose we could get some guns?"
"What good would they do?" growled Moore.
"There's that ray machine," Ross reminded him.
"Oh! Yes. But—" Moore shot a glance at the Princess. "Don't forget—the Queen—"
Ross scowled. "I know."
Illeria touched his arm. "If the Queen must die, that the Moon people and the Earth folk may be saved, let it be so," she urged simply.
The two men bit their lips.
"Come!" urged the girl. "There is a guardroom above. There must be weapons."
"I could use one of those antique hook-'em swords on old Horta," growled Moore.
They burst into the guardroom prepared for sudden and violent action. But the great chamber was empty of Moon men. On the walls hung ray rifles. Ross and Moore each snatched one.
"Now where?" asked Moore.
Ross surveyed the room. Windowed on all sides, it had only two doors, the one they had entered and another opposite. "We'll try that," Ross decided. "What we've got to find now is a spot that commands the square where the ray machine is bedded."
The sloping corridor led them to such a spot. On a balcony they stood and for a moment were content to watch Horta's artisans toiling with sandbags and debris to make barricades against the flood.
"They'll do it, too," Moore said aloud, voicing his chief's thought.
"Artana's trick was probably just to help us out," Ross judged. "He hadn't enough water to flood 'em out."
Moore fidgeted. "Let's do something, Bruce! There's that ray reservoir. Think these pop-guns will punch a hole in it?"
Ross raised his rifle, and lowered it as suddenly. For into sight, beside the giant Horta, walked Queen Boada. Moore exclaimed under his breath, fingering his rifle.
It was the Princess Illeria who, snatching the rifle from Moore's hands, leveled it swiftly and fired. As Ross sought to snatch it from her she faced him defiantly. "Let destiny rule us!" she exclaimed. "My mother is an unhappy woman who stands in the way of peace. Let me fire again!"
Her demand left Ross irresolute. As he held her hand, Moore cried out. "They spotted that shot, Bruce! They're looking for us!"
It was true. Horta stood, legs spread, his fierce glance sweeping the open space. Workers had begun to drop sandbags and pick up guns. Ross loosed his hold.
"Let's fire together, then," he said heavily. "The double shot may pierce that thick metal. Aim at the muddy mark, Illeria! Ready—fire!"
The two rifles spat together. Moore yelled, "You've done it! Duck—fast!"
They could not take cover fast enough. Ross had one glimpse of a tremendous sheet of flame licking out of the hole they had blasted, saw its counterpart high in the sky at the mouth of the ray cylinder, heard a great roar, and seemed to know nothing else.
He regained consciousness on the platform of Peak Four, where his flagship, now repaired, rested airily. Artana, Moore and Illeria bent over him solicitously.
"What happened?" he asked, fretfully.
Artana spoke soberly. "The Queen is dead." He turned to Illeria, dropped to one knee, and bowed his head. "Long live the Queen!"
Ross glanced at Moore. The navigator winked. "Order is restored, Chief," he explained. "That blow-up finished Horta and all his works. And Earth is on the phone. All serene there, since the Los Angeles disaster. You are ordered to return and report."
Illeria dropped to her knees beside Ross. "You will not go? You will stay—and my people shall make you king!"
Ross looked long into her eyes, and the Earth seemed far away and an unreal world. But he slowly shook his head as he rose and gently lifted her to her feet. "I must go, Illeria," he said. "But—perhaps I shall return. Good-bye, Artana, you will restore peace to the Moon."
The Lord of the Peaks bowed his head, "That I will, farewell, Ross!"
With one last glance at the white-faced princess, Ross nodded shortly to Moore. They strode to their ship without a backward glance. At a curt order the helmsman took her off, and in seconds the two figures on Peak Four's platform had dwindled to specks.
"You can come back," Moore grunted.
"Think so?"
"Sure. When the Council hears what you've done they'll give you twenty years' leave. With pay."
Ross smiled. And the smile lingered as he turned to Jorgens to dictate a message for the Earth. The rocket ship droned on through space.