Brigands of the Moon

Brigands of the Moon

(The Book of Gregg Haljan)

PART TWO OF A FOUR-PART NOVEL

By Ray Cummings


Out of awful space tumbled the Space-ship _Planetara_ towards the
Moon, her officers _dead_, with bandits at her helm--and the
controls out of order!


My name, Gregg Haljan. My age, twenty-five years. My occupation, at the
time my narrative begins, in 2075, was third officer of the
Interplanetary Space-ship _Planetara_.

Thus I introduce myself to you. For this is a continuation of the book
of Gregg Haljan, and of necessity I am the chief actor therein. I shall
recapitulate very briefly what has happened so far:

Unscrupulous Martian brigands were scheming for Johnny Grantline's
secret radium-ore treasure, dug out of the Moon and waiting there to be
picked up by the _Planetara_ on her return trip from Mars.

The _Planetara_ left, bound for Mars, some ten days away. Suspicious
interplanetary passengers were aboard: Miko and Moa, a brother and a
sister of Mars; Sir Arthur Coniston, a mysterious Englishman; Ob Hahn, a
Venus mystic. And small, effeminate George Prince and his sister, Anita.
Love, I think, was born instantly between Anita and me. I found all too
soon that Miko, the sinister giant from Mars, also desired her.

[Illustration]

As we neared the Moon we received Grantline's secret message: "Stop for
ore on your return voyage. Success beyond wildest hopes!" But I soon
discovered that an eavesdropper in an invisible cloak had overheard it!

Soon afterwards Miko accidentally murdered a person identified as Anita
Prince.

Then, in the confusion that resulted, Miko struck his great blow. The
crew of the _Planetara_, secretly in his pay, rose up and killed the
captain and all the officers but Snap Dean, the radio-helio operator,
and myself.

I was besieged in the chart-room. George Prince leaped in upon me--and
put his arms around me. I looked at him closer--only to discover it was
Anita, disguised as her brother! It was her brother, George, who had
been killed! George had been in the brigands' confidence--thus Anita was
able to spy for us.

Quickly we plotted. I would surrender to her, Anita Prince, whom the
brigands thought was George Prince. Together we might possibly be able,
with Snap's help, to turn the tide, and reclaim the _Planetara_.

I was taken to my stateroom and locked there until Miko the brigand
leader should come to dispose of me. But I cared not what had
happened--Anita was alive!




CHAPTER XIV

_The Brigand Leader_


The giant Miko stood confronting me. He slid my cubby door closed behind
him. He stood with his head towering close against my ceiling. His cloak
was discarded. In his leather clothes, and with his clanking
sword-ornament, his aspect carried the swagger of a brigand of old. He
was bareheaded; the light from one of my tubes fell upon his grinning,
leering gray face.

"So, Gregg Haljan? You have come to your senses at last. You do not wish
me to write my name upon your chest? I would not have done that to Dean;
he forced me. Sit back."

I had been on my bunk. I sank back at the gesture of his huge hairy arm.
His forearm was bare now; the sear of a burn on it was plain to be seen.
He remarked my gaze.

"True. You did that, Haljan, in Great-New York. But I bear you no
malice. I want to talk to you now."

He cast about for a seat, and took the little stool which stood by my
desk. His hand held a small cylinder of the Martian paralyzing ray; he
rested it beside him on the desk.

"Now we can talk."

I remained silent. Alert. Yet my thoughts were whirling. Anita was
alive. Masquerading now as her brother. And, with the joy of it, came a
shudder. Above everything, Miko must not know.

"A great adventure we are upon, Haljan."

* * * * *

My thoughts came back. Miko was talking with an assumption of friendly
comradeship. "All is well--and we need you, as I have said before. I am
no fool. I have been aware of everything that went on aboard this ship.
You, of all the officers, are most clever at the routine mathematics. Is
that so?"

"Perhaps," I said.

"You are modest." He fumbled at a pocket of his jacket, produced a
scroll-sheaf. I recognized it: Blackstone's figures; the calculation
Blackstone roughly made of the elements of the asteroid we had passed.

"I am interested in these," Miko went on. "I want you to verify them.
And this." He held up another scroll. "This is the calculation of our
present position. And our course. Hahn claims he is a navigator. We have
set the ship's gravity plates--see, like this--"

He handed me the scrolls; he watched me keenly as I glanced over them.

"Well?" I said.

"You are sparing of words, Haljan. By the devils of the airways, I could
make you talk! But I want to be friendly."

* * * * *

I handed him back the scrolls. I stood up; I was almost within reach of
his weapon, but with a sweep of his great arm he abruptly knocked me
back to my bunk.

"You dare?" Then he smiled. "Let us not come to blows!"

"No," I said. I returned his smile. In truth, physical violence could
get me nothing in dealing with this fellow. I would have to try guile.
And I saw now that his face was flushed and his eyes unnaturally bright.
He had been drinking alcolite; not enough to befuddle him--but enough to
make him triumphantly talkative.

"Hahn may not be much of a mathematician," I suggested. "But there is
your Sir Arthur Coniston." I managed a sarcastic grin. "Is that his
name?"

"Almost. Haljan, will you verify these figures?"

"Yes. But why? Where are we going?"

He laughed. "You are afraid I will not tell you! Why should I not? This
great adventure of mine is progressing perfectly. A tremendous stake,
Haljan. A hundred millions of dollars in gold-leaf; there will be
fabulous riches for us all, when that radium ore is sold for a hundred
million in gold-leaf."

"But where are we going?"

"To that asteroid," he said abruptly. "I must get rid of these
passengers. I am no murderer."

* * * * *

With half a dozen killings in the recent fight this was hardly
convincing. But he was obviously wholly serious. He seemed to read my
thoughts.

"I kill only when necessary. We will land upon the asteroid. A perfect
place to maroon the passengers. Is it not so? I will give them the
necessities of life. They will be able to signal. And in a month or so,
when we are safely finished with our adventure, a police ship no doubt
will rescue them."

"And then, from the asteroid," I suggested, "we are going--"

"To the Moon, Haljan. What a clever guesser you are! Coniston and Hahn
are calculating our course. But I have no great confidence in them. And
so I want you."

"You have me."

"Yes. I have you. I would have killed you long ago--I am an impulsive
fellow--but my sister restrained me."

He gazed at me slyly. "Moa seems strangely to like you, Haljan."

"Thanks," I said. "I'm flattered."

"She still hopes I may really win you to join us," he went on.
"Gold-leaf is a wonderful thing; there would be plenty for you in this
affair. And to be rich, and have the love of a woman like Moa...."

He paused. I was trying cautiously to gauge him, to get from him all the
information I could. I said, with another smile, "That is premature, to
talk of Moa. I will help you chart your course. But this venture, as you
call it, is dangerous. A police-ship--"

"There are not many," he declared. "The chances of us encountering one
is very slim." He grinned at me. "You know that as well as I do. And we
now have those code pass-words--I forced Dean to tell me where he had
hidden them. If we should be challenged, our pass-word answer will
relieve suspicion."

"The _Planetara_," I objected, "being overdue at Ferrok-Shahn, will
cause alarm. You'll have a covey of patrol-ships after you."

"That will be two weeks from now," he smiled. "I have a ship of my own
in Ferrok-Shahn. It lies there waiting now, manned and armed. I am
hoping that, with Dean's help, we may be able to flash it a signal. It
will join us on the Moon. Fear not for the danger, Haljan. I have great
interests allied with me in this thing. Plenty of money. We have planned
carefully."

* * * * *

He was idly fingering his cylinder; his gaze roved me as I sat docile on
my bunk. "Did you think George Prince was a leader of this? A mere boy.
I engaged him a year ago--his knowledge of ores is valuable."

My heart was pounding, but I strove not to show it. He went on calmly.

"I told you I am impulsive. Half a dozen times I have nearly killed
George Prince, and he knows it." He frowned. "I wish I had killed him,
instead of his sister. That was an error."

There was a note of real concern in his voice. Did he love Anita Prince?
It seemed so.

He added, "That is done--nothing can change it. George Prince is helpful
to me. Your friend Dean is another. I had trouble with him, but he is
docile now."

I said abruptly, "I don't know whether your promise means anything or
not, Miko. But George Prince said you would use no more torture."

"I won't. Not if you and Dean obey me."

"You tell Dean I have agreed to that. You say he gave you the code-words
we took from Johnson?"

"Yes. There was a fool! That Johnson! You blame me, Haljan, for the
killing of Captain Carter? You need not. Johnson offered to try and
capture you. Take you alive. He killed Carter because he was angry at
him. A stupid, vengeful fool! He is dead, and I am glad of it."

* * * * *

My mind was on Miko's plans. I ventured. "This treasure on the Moon--did
you say it was on the Moon?"

"Don't be an idiot," he retorted. "I know as much about Grantline as you
do."

"That's very little."

"Perhaps."

"Perhaps you know more, Miko. The Moon is a big place. Where, for
instance, is Grantline located?"

I held my breath. Would he tell me that? A score of questions--vague
plans--were in my mind. How skilled at mathematics were these brigands?
Miko, Hahn, Coniston--could I fool them? If I could learn Grantline's
location on the Moon, and keep the _Planetara_ away from it. A pretended
error of charting. Time lost--and perhaps Snap could find an opportunity
to signal Earth, get help.

Miko answered my question as bluntly as I asked it. "I don't know where
Grantline is located. But we will find out. He will not suspect the
_Planetara_. When we get close to the Moon, we will signal and ask him.
We can trick him into telling us. You think I do not know what is on
your mind, Haljan? There is a secret code of signals arranged between
Dean and Grantline. I have forced Dean to confess it. Without torture!
Prince helped me in that. He persuaded Dean not to defy me. A very
persuasive fellow, George Prince. More diplomatic than I am, I give him
credit."

I strove to hold my voice calm. "If I should join you, Miko--my word, if
I ever gave it, you would find dependable--I would say George Prince is
very valuable to us. You should rein your temper. He is half your
size--you might some time, without intention do him injury."

* * * * *

He laughed. "Moa says so. But have no fear--"

"I was thinking," I persisted, "I'd like to have a talk with George
Prince."

Ah, my pounding, tumultuous heart! But I was smiling calmly. And I
tried to put into my voice a shrewd note of cupidity. "I really know
very little about this treasure, Miko. If there were a million or two of
gold-leaf in it for me--"

"Perhaps there would be."

"I was thinking. Suppose you let me have a talk with Prince? I have some
knowledge of radium ores. His skill and mine--a calculation of what
Grantline's treasure may really be. You don't know; you are only
assuming."

I paused. Whatever may have been in Miko's mind I cannot say. But
abruptly he stood up. I had left my bunk, but he waved me back.

"Sit down. I am not like Moa. I would not trust you just because you
protested you would be loyal." He picked up his cylinder. "We will talk
again." He gestured to the scrolls he had left upon my desk. "Work on
those. I will judge you by the results."

He was no fool, this brigand leader.

"Yes," I agreed. "You want a true course now to the asteroid?"

"Yes. I will get rid of these passengers. Then we will plan further. Do
your best, Haljan--no error! By the Gods, I warn you I can check up on
you!"

I said meekly, "Very well. But you ask Prince if he wants my
calculations of Grantline's ore-body."

I shot Miko a foxy look as he stood by my door. I added, "You think you
are clever. There is plenty you don't know. Our first night out from the
Earth--Grantline's signals--didn't it ever occur to you that I might
have some figures on his treasure?"

It startled him. "Where are they?"

I tapped my forehead. "You don't suppose I was foolish enough to record
them. You ask Prince if he wants to talk to me. A high thorium content
in ore--you ask Prince. A hundred millions, or two hundred. It would
make a big difference, Miko."

"I will think about it." He backed out and sealed the door upon me once
again.

* * * * *

But Anita did not come. I verified Hahn's figures, which were very
nearly correct. I charted a course for the asteroid; it was almost the
one which had been set.

Coniston came for my results. "I say, we are not so bad as navigators,
are we? I think we're jolly good, considering our inexperience. Not bad
at all, eh?"

"No."

I did not think it wise to ask him about Prince.

"Are you hungry, Haljan?" he demanded.

"Yes."

A steward came with a meal. The saturnine Hahn stood at my door with a
weapon upon me while I ate. They were taking no chances--and they were
wise not to.

The day passed. Day and night, all the same of aspect here in the starry
vault of Space. But with the ship's routine it was day.

And then another time of sleep. I slept, fitfully, worrying, trying to
plan. Within a few hours we would be nearing the asteroid.

The time of sleep was nearly passed. My chronometer marked five A. M. of
our original Earth starting time. The seal of my cubby door hissed. The
door slowly, opened.

Anita!

She stood there with her cloak around her. A distance away on the
shadowed deck-space Coniston was loitering.

"Anita!" I whispered it.

"Gregg, dear!"

She turned and gestured to the watching brigand. "I will not be long,
Coniston."

She came in and half closed the door upon us, leaving it open enough so
that we could make sure that Coniston did not advance.

I stepped back where he could not see us.

"Anita!"

She flung herself into my opened arms.




CHAPTER XV

_The Masquerader_


A moment when beyond all thought of the nearby brigand--or the
possibility of an eavesdropping ray trained now upon my little cubby--a
moment while Anita and I held each other; and whispered those things
which could mean nothing to the world, but which were all the world to
us.

Then it was she whose wits brought us back from the shining fairyland of
our love, into the sinister reality of the _Planetara_.

"Gregg, if they are listening--"

I pushed her away. This brave little masquerader! Not for my life, or
for all the lives on the ship, would I consciously have endangered her.

"But the ore," I said aloud. "There was, in Grantline's message--See
here, Prince."

Coniston was too far away on the deck to hear us. Anita went to my door
again and waved at him reassuringly. I put my ear to the door opening,
and listened at the space across the grid of the ventilator over my
bunk. The hum of a vibration would have been audible at those two
points. But there was nothing.

"It's all right," I whispered. "Anita--not you who was killed! I can
hardly realize it now. Not you whom they buried yesterday morning."

We stood and whispered, and she clung to me--so small beside me. With
the black robe thrown aside, it seemed that I could not miss the curves
of her woman's figure. A dangerous game she was playing. Her hair had
been cut short to the base of her neck, in the fashion of her dead
brother. Her eyelashes had been clipped; the line of her brows altered.
And now, in the light of my ray tube as it shone upon her earnest face,
I could remark other changes. Glutz, the little beauty specialist, was
in this secret. With plastic skill he had altered the set of her jaw
with his wax--put masculinity there.

She was whispering: "It was--was poor George whom Miko shot."

* * * * *

I had now the true version of what had occurred. Miko had been forcing
his wooing upon Anita. George Prince was a weakling whose only good
quality was a love for his sister. Some years ago he had fallen into
evil ways. Been arrested, and then discharged from his position with the
Federated Radium Corporation. He had taken up with evil companions in
Great-New York. Mostly Martians. And Miko had met him. His technical
knowledge, his training with the Federated Corporation, made him
valuable to Miko's enterprise. And so Prince had joined the brigands.

Of all this, Anita had been unaware. She had never liked Miko. Feared
him. And it seemed that the Martian had some hold upon her brother,
which puzzled and frightened Anita.

Then Miko had fallen in love with her. George had not liked it. And that
night on the _Planetara_, Miko had come and knocked upon Anita's door.
Incautiously she opened it; he forced himself in. And when she repulsed
him, struggled with him, George had been awakened.

She was whispering to me now. "My room was dark. We were all three
struggling. George was holding me--the shot came--and I screamed."

And Miko had fled, not knowing whom his shot had hit in the darkness.

"And when George died, Captain Carter wanted me to impersonate him. We
planned it with Dr. Frank, to try and learn what Miko and the others
were doing. Because I never knew that poor George had fallen into such
evil things."

* * * * *

I could only hold her thankfully in my arms. The lost
what-might-have-been seemed coming back to us.

"And they cut my hair, Gregg, and Glutz altered my face a little, and I
did my best. But there was no time--it came upon us so quickly."

And she whispered, "But I love you, Gregg. I want to be the first to say
it: I love you--I love you."

But we had the sanity to try and plan.

"Anita, when you go back, tell Miko we discussed radium ores. You'll
have to be careful, clever. Don't say too much. Tell him we estimate the
treasure at a hundred and thirty millions."

I told her what Miko had vouchsafed me of his plans. She knew all that.
And Snap knew it. She had had a few moments alone with Snap. Gave me now
a message from him:

"We'll pull out of this, Gregg."

With Snap she had worked out a plan. There were Snap and I; and Shac and
Dud Ardley, upon whom we could doubtless depend. And Dr. Frank. Against
us were Miko and his sister; and Coniston and Hahn. Of course there were
the members of the crew. But we were numerically the stronger when it
came to true leadership. Unarmed and guarded now. But if we could break
loose--recapture the ship....

I sat listening to Anita's eager whispers. It seemed feasible. Miko did
not altogether trust George Prince; Anita was now unarmed.

"But I can make opportunity! I can get one of their ray cylinders, and
an invisible cloak equipment."

That cloak--it had been hidden in Miko's room when Carter searched for
it in A20--was now in the chart-room by Johnson's body. It had been
repaired now; Anita thought she could get possession of it.

* * * * *

We worked out the details of the plan. Anita would arm herself, and come
and release me. Together, with a paralyzing ray, we could creep aboard
the ship, overcome these brigands one by one. There were so few of the
leaders. With them felled, and with us in control of the turret and the
helio-room we could force the crew to stay at their posts. There were,
Anita said, no navigators among Miko's crew. They would not dare oppose
us.

"But it should be done at once, Anita. In a few hours we will be at the
asteroid."

"Yes. I will go now--try and get the weapons."

"Where is Snap?"

"Still in the helio-room. One of the crew guards him."

Coniston was roaming the ship; he was still loitering on the deck,
watching our door. Hahn was in the turret. The morning watch of the crew
were at their posts in the hull-corridors; the stewards were preparing a
morning meal. There were nine members of subordinates altogether, Anita
had calculated. Six of them were in Miko's pay; the other three--our own
men who had not been killed in the fighting--had joined the brigands.

"And Dr. Frank, Anita?"

He was in the lounge. All the passengers were herded there, with Miko
and Moa alternating on guard.

"I will arrange it with Venza," Anita whispered swiftly. "She will tell
the others. Dr. Frank knows about it now. He thinks it can be done."

* * * * *

The possibility of it swept me anew. The brigands were of necessity
scattered singly about the ship. One by one, creeping under cover of an
invisible cloak, I could fell them, and replace them without alarming
the others. My thoughts leaped to it. We would strike down the guard in
the helio-room. Release Snap. At the turret we could assail Hahn, and
replace him with Snap.

Coniston's voice outside broke in upon us. "Prince."

He was coming forward. Anita stood in the doorway. "I have the figures,
Coniston. By God, this Haljan is with us! And clever! We think it will
total a hundred and thirty millions. What a stake!"

She whispered, "Gregg, dear--I'll be back soon. We can do it--be ready."

"Anita--be careful of yourself! If they should suspect you...."

"I'll be careful. In an hour, Gregg, or less, I'll come back. All right,
Coniston. Where is Miko? I want to see him. Stay where you are, Haljan!
All in good time Miko will trust you with your liberty. You'll be rich
like us all, never fear."

She swaggered out upon the deck, waved at the brigand, and banged my
cubby door in my face.

I sat upon my bunk. Waiting. Would she come back? Would she be
successful?




CHAPTER XVI

_In the Blue-lit Corridor_


She came. I suppose it was no more than an hour: it seemed an eternity
of apprehension. There was the slight hissing of the seal of my door.
The panel slid. I had leaped from my bunk where in the darkness I was
lying tense.

"Prince?" I did not dare say, "Anita."

"Gregg."

Her voice. My gaze swept the deck as the panel opened. Neither Coniston
nor anyone else was in sight, save Anita's dark-robed figure which came
into my room.

"You got it?" I asked her in a low whisper.

I held her for an instant, kissed her. But she pushed me away with quick
hands.

"Gregg, dear--"

She was breathless. My kisses, and the tenseness of what lay before us
were to blame.

"Gregg, see, I have it. Give us a little light--we must hurry!"

In the blue dimness I saw that she was holding one of the Martian
cylinders. The smallest size; it would paralyze, but not kill.

"Only one, Anita?"

"Yes. I had it before, but Miko took it from me. It was in his room. And
this--"

The invisible cloak. We laid it on my grid, and I adjusted its
mechanism. A cloak of the reflecting-absorbing variety.[A]


[A] The principle of this invisible cloak involves the use of an
electronized fabric. All color is absorbed. The light rays reflected to
the eye of the observer thus show an image of empty blackness. There is
also created about the cloak a magnetic field which by natural laws
bends the rays of light from objects behind it. This principle of the
natural bending of light when passing through a magnetic field was first
recognized by Albert Einstein, a scientist of the Twentieth century. In
the case of this invisible cloak, the bending light rays, by making
visible what was behind the cloak's blackness, thus destroyed its solid
black outline and gave a pseudo-invisibility which was fairly effective
under favorable conditions.

* * * * *

I donned it, and drew its hood, and threw on its current.

"All right, Anita?"

"Yes."

"Can you see me?"

"No." She stepped back a foot or two further. "Not from here. But you
must let no one approach too close."

Then she came forward, put out her hand, fumbled until she found me.

It was our plan to have me follow her out. Anyone observing us would see
only the robed figure of the supposed George Prince, and I would escape
notice.

The situation about the ship was almost unchanged. Anita had secured the
weapon and the cloak and slipped away to my cubby without being
observed.

"You're sure of that?"

"I think so, Gregg. I was careful."

Moa was now in the lounge, guarding the passengers. Hahn was asleep in
the chart-room; Coniston was in the turret. Coniston would be off duty
presently, Anita said, with Hahn taking his place. There were look-outs
in the forward and stern watch-towers, and a guard upon Snap in the
helio-room.

"Is he inside the room, Anita?"

"Snap? Yes."

"No--the guard."

"No. He was sitting upon the spider bridge at the door."

* * * * *

This was unfortunate. That guard could see all the deck clearly. He
might be suspicious of George Prince wandering around; it would be
difficult to get near enough to assail him. This cylinder, I knew, had
an effective range of only some twenty feet.

Anita and I were swiftly whispering. It was necessary now to decide
exactly what we were to do; once under observation outside, there must
be no hesitation, no fumbling.

"Coniston is sharpest, Gregg. He will be the hardest to get near."

The languid-spoken Englishman was the one Anita most feared. His alert
eyes seemed to miss nothing. Perhaps he was suspicious of this George
Prince--Anita thought so.

"But where is Miko?" I whispered.

The brigand leader had gone below a few moments ago, down into the
hull-corridor. Anita had seized the opportunity to come to me.

"We can attack Hahn in the chart-room first," I suggested. "And get the
other weapons. Are they still there?"

"Yes. But Gregg, the forward deck is very bright."

We were approaching the asteroid. Already its light like a brilliant
moon was brightening the forward deck-space. It made me realize how much
haste was necessary.

We decided to go down into the hull-corridors. Locate Miko. Fell him,
and hide him. His non-appearance back on deck would very soon throw the
others into confusion, especially now with our impending landing upon
the asteroid. And under cover of this confusion we would try and release
Snap.

We had been arguing no more than a minute or two. We were ready. Anita
slid my door wide. She stepped through, with me soundlessly scurrying
after her. The empty, silent deck was alternately dark with
shadow-patches and bright with blobs of starlight. A sheen of the Sun's
corona was mingled with it; and from forward came the radiance of the
asteroid's mellow silver glow.

* * * * *

Anita turned to seal my door; within my faintly humming cloak I stood
beside her. Was I invisible in this light? Almost directly over us,
close under the dome, the look-out sat in his little tower. He gazed
down at Anita.

Amidships, high over the cabin superstructure, the helio-room hung dark
and silent. The guard on its bridge was visible. He, too, looked down.

A tense instant. Then I breathed again. There was no alarm. The two
guards answered Anita's gesture.

Anita said aloud into my empty cubby: "Miko will come for you presently,
Haljan. He told me to tell you that he wants you at the turret controls
to land us on the asteroid."

She finished sealing my door and turned away; started forward along the
deck. I followed. My steps were soundless in my elastic-bottomed shoes.
Anita swaggered with a noisy tread. Near the door of the smoking room a
small incline passage led downward. We went into it.

The passage was dimly blue-lit. We descended its length, came to the
main corridor, which ran the length of the hull. A vaulted metal
passage, with doors to the control rooms opening from it. Dim lights
showed at intervals.

* * * * *

The humming of the ship was more apparent here. It drowned the slight
humming of my cloak. I crept after Anita; my hand under the cloak
clutched the ray weapon.

A steward passed us. I shrank aside to avoid him.

Anita spoke to him. "Where is Miko, Ellis?"

"In the ventilator-room, Mr. Prince. There was difficulty with the air
renewal."

Anita nodded, and moved on. I could have felled that steward as he
passed me. Oh, if I only had, how different things might have been!

But it seemed needless. I let him go, and he turned into a nearby door
which led to the galley.

Anita moved forward. If we could come upon Miko alone. Abruptly she
turned, and whispered, "Gregg, if other men are with him, I'll draw him
away. You watch your chance."

What little things may overthrow one's careful plans! Anita had not
realized how close to her I was following. And her turning so
unexpectedly caused me to collide with her sharply.

"Oh!" She exclaimed it involuntarily. Her outflung hand had unwittingly
gripped my wrist, caught the electrode there. The touch burned her, and
close-circuited my robe. There was a hiss. My current burned out the
tiny fuses.

My invisibility was gone! I stood, a tall black-hooded figure, revealed
to the gaze of anyone who might be near!

The futile plans of humans! We had planned so carefully! Our
calculations, our hopes of what we could do, came clattering now in a
sudden wreckage around us.

"Anita, run!"

If I were seen with her, then her own disguise would probably be
discovered. That above everything would be disaster!

"Anita, get away from me! I must try it alone!"

* * * * *

I could hide somewhere, repair the cloak perhaps. Or, since now I was
armed, why could I not boldly start an assault?

"Gregg, we must get you back to your cubby!" She was clinging to me in a
panic.

"No! You run! Get away from me! Don't you understand? George Prince has
no business here with me! They'd kill you!"

Or worse--- Miko would discover it was Anita, not George Prince.

"Gregg, let's get back to the deck."

I pushed at her. Both of us in sudden confusion.

From behind me there came a shout. That accursed steward! He had
returned, to investigate perhaps what George Prince was doing in this
corridor. He heard our voices; his shout in the silence of the ship
sounded horribly loud. The white-clothed shape of him was in the nearby
doorway. He stood stricken in surprise at seeing me. And then turned to
run.

I fired my paralyzing cylinder through my cloak. Got him! He fell. I
shoved Anita violently.

"Run! Tell Miko to come--tell him you heard a shout! He won't suspect
you!"

"But Gregg--"

"You mustn't be found out! You're our only hope, Anita! I'll hide, fix
the cloak, or get back to my cubby. We'll try it again."

It decided her. She scurried down the corridor. I whirled the other way.
The steward's shout might not have been heard.

Then realization flashed to me. That steward would be revived. He was
one of Miko's men: for two voyages he had been a spy upon the
_Planetara_. He would be revived and tell what he had seen and heard.
Anita's disguise would be revealed.

A cold-blooded killing I do protest went against me. But it was
necessary. I flung myself upon him. I beat his skull with the metal of
my cylinder.

I stood up. My hood had fallen back from my head. I wiped my bloody
hands on my useless cloak. I had smashed the cylinder.

"Haljan!"

* * * * *

Anita's voice! A sharp note of horror and warning. I became aware that
in the corridor, forty feet down its dim length, Miko had appeared, with
Anita behind him. His rifle-bullet-projector was leveled. It spat at me.
But Anita had pulled at his arm.

The explosive report was sharply deafening in the confined space of the
corridor. With a spurt of flame the leaden pellet struck over my head
against the vaulted ceiling.

Miko was struggling with Anita. "Prince, you idiot!"

"Miko, don't! It's Haljan! Don't kill him--"

The turmoil brought members of the crew. From the shadowed oval near me
they came running. I flung the useless cylinder at them. But I was
trapped in the narrow passage.

I might have fought my way out. Or Miko might have shot me. But there
was the danger that, in her horror, Anita would betray herself.

I backed against the wall. "Don't kill me! See, I will not fight!"

I flung up my arms. And the crew, emboldened, and courageous under
Miko's gaze, leaped on me and bore me down.

The futile plans of humans! Anita and I had planned so carefully, and in
a few brief minutes of action it had come only to this!




CHAPTER XVII

_A Woman of Mars_


"So, Gregg Haljan, you are not as loyal as you pretend!"

Miko was livid with suppressed anger. They had stripped the cloak from
me, and flung me back in my cubby. Miko was now confronting me; at the
door Moa stood watching. And Anita was behind her. I sat outwardly
defiant and sullen on my bunk. But I was alert and tense, fearful still
of what Anita's emotion might betray her into doing.

"Not so loyal," Miko repeated. "And a fool! Do you think I am such a
child you can escape me!"

He swung around. "How did he get out of here? Prince, you came in here!"

My heart was wildly thumping. But Anita retorted with a touch of spirit:

"I came to tell him what you commanded. To check Hahn's latest
figures--and to be ready to take the controls when we go into the
asteroid's atmosphere."

"Well, how did he get out?"

"How should I know?" she parried. Little actress! Her spirit helped to
allay my fear. She held her cloak close around her in the fashion they
had come to expect from the George Prince who had just buried his
sister. "How should I know, Miko? I sealed his door."

"But did you?"

"Of course he did," Moa put in.

"Ask your look-outs," said Anita. "They saw me--I waved to them just as
I sealed the door."

I ventured, "I have been taught to open doors." I managed a sly,
lugubrious smile. "I shall not try it again, Miko."

Nothing had been said about my killing of the steward. I thanked my
constellations now that he was dead. "I shall not try it again," I
repeated.

A glance passed between Miko and his sister. Miko said abruptly, "You
seem to realize that it is not my purpose to kill you. And you presume
upon it."

"I shall not again." I eyed Moa. She was gazing at me steadily. She
said, "Leave me with him, Miko...." She smiled. "Gregg Haljan, we are no
more than twenty thousand miles from the asteroid now. The calculations
for retarding are now in operation."

* * * * *

It was what had taken Miko below, that and trouble with the ventilating
system, which was soon rectified. But the retarding of the ship's
velocity when nearing a destination required accurate manipulation.
These brigands were fearful of their own skill. That was obvious. It
gave me confidence. I was really needed. They would not harm me. Except
for Miko's impulsive temper, I was in no danger from them--not now,
certainly.

Moa was saying, "I think I may make you understand, Gregg. We have
tremendous riches within our grasp."

"I know it," I added with sudden thought. "But there are many with whom
to divide this treasure...."

Miko caught my intended implication. "By the infernal, this fellow may
have felt he could seize the treasure for himself! Because he is a
navigator!"

Moa said vehemently, "Do not be an idiot, Gregg! You could not do it!
There will be fighting with Grantline."

My purpose was accomplished. They seemed to see me a willing outlaw like
themselves. As though it were a bond between us. And they could win me.

"Leave me with him," said Moa.

Miko acquiesced. "For a few minutes only." He proffered a heat-ray
cylinder, but she refused it.

"I am not afraid of him."

Miko swung on me. "Within an hour we will be nearing the atmosphere.
Will you take the controls?"

"Yes."

* * * * *

He set his heavy jaw. His eyes bored into me. "You're a strange fellow,
Haljan. I can't make you out. I am not angry now. Do you think, when I
am deadly serious, that I mean what I say?"

His calm words set a sudden shiver over me. I checked my smile.

"Yes," I said.

"Well then, I will tell you this: not for all of Prince's well-meaning
interference, or Moa's liking for you, or my own need of your skill,
will I tolerate more trouble from you. The next time--I will kill you.
Do you believe me?"

"Yes."

"That is all I want to say. You kill my men, and my sister says I must
not hurt you. I am not a child to be ruled by a woman!"

He held his huge fist before my face. "With these fingers I will twist
your neck! Do you believe it?"

"Yes." I did indeed.

He swung on his heel. "If Moa wants to try and put sense into your
head--I hope she does. Bring him to the lounge when you are finished,
Moa. Come, Prince--Hahn will need us." He chuckled grimly. "Hahn seems
to fear we will plunge into this asteroid like a wild comet gone
suddenly tangent!"

Anita moved aside to let him through the door. I caught a glimpse of her
set white face as she followed him down the deck.

Then Moa's bulk blocked the doorway. She faced me.

"Sit where you are, Gregg." She turned and closed the door upon us. "I
am not afraid of you. Should I be?"

"No," I said.

She came and sat down beside me. "If you should attempt to leave this
room, the stern look-out has orders to bore you through."

"I have no intention of leaving the room," I retorted. "I do not want to
commit suicide."

"I thought you did. You seem minded in such a fashion. Gregg, why are
you so foolish?"

* * * * *

I remained silent.

"Why?" she demanded.

I said carefully, "This treasure--you are many who will divide it. You
have all these men on the _Planetara_. And in Ferrok-Shahn, others, no
doubt."

I paused. Would she tell me? Could I make her talk of that other brigand
ship which Miko had said was waiting on Mars? I wondered if he had been
able to signal it. The distance from here to Mars was great; yet upon
other voyages Snap's signals had gotten through. My heart sank at the
thought. Our situation here was desperate enough. The passengers soon
would be cast upon the asteroid: there would be left only Snap, Anita
and myself. We might recapture the ship, but I doubted it now. My
thoughts were turning to our arrival upon the Moon. We three might,
perhaps, be able to thwart the attack upon Grantline, hold the brigands
off until help from the Earth might come.

But with another brigand ship, fully manned and armed, coming from Mars,
the condition would be immeasurably worse. Grantline had some twenty
men, and his camp, I knew, would be reasonably fortified. I knew, too,
that Johnny Grantline would fight to his last man.

Moa was saying, "I would like to tell you our plans, Gregg."

Her gaze was on my face. Keen eyes, but they were luminous now--an
emotion in them sweeping her. But outwardly she was calm, stern-lipped.

"Well, why don't you tell me?" I said. "If I am to help you...."

"Gregg, I want you with us. Don't you understand? We are not many. My
brother and I are guiding this affair. With your help, I would feel
differently."

"The ship at Ferrok-Shahn--"

* * * * *

My fears were realized. She said, "I think our signals reached it. Dean
tried, and Coniston was checking him."

"You think the ship is coming?"

"Yes."

"Where will it join us?"

"At the Moon. We will be there in thirty hours. Your figures gave that,
did they not, Gregg?"

"Yes. And the other ship--how fast is it?"

"Quite fast. In eight days--or nine, perhaps--it will reach the Moon."

She seemed willing enough to talk. There was indeed, no particular
reason for reticence; I could not, she naturally felt, turn the
knowledge to account.

"Manned--" I prompted.

"About forty men."

"And armed? Long range projectors?"

"You ask very avid questions, Gregg!"

"Why should I not? Don't you suppose I'm interested?" I touched her.
"Moa, did it ever occur to you, if once you and Miko trusted me--which
you don't--I might show more interest in joining you?"

The look on her face emboldened me. "Did you ever think of that, Moa?
And some arrangement for my share of this treasure? I am not like
Johnson, to be hired for a hundred pounds of gold-leaf."

"Gregg, I will see that you get your share. Riches, for you--and me."

"I was thinking, Moa, when we land at the Moon to-morrow--where is our
equipment?"

The Moon, with its lack of atmosphere, needed special equipment. I had
never heard Carter mention what apparatus the _Planetara_ was carrying.

* * * * *

Moa laughed. "We have located air-suits and helmets--a variety of
suitable apparatus, Gregg. But we were not foolish enough to leave
Great-New York on this voyage without our own arrangements. My brother,
and Coniston and Prince--all of us shipped crates of freight consigned
to Ferrok-Shahn--and Rankin had special baggage marked 'theatrical
apparatus.'"

I understood it now. These brigands had boarded the _Planetara_ with
their own Moon equipment, disguised as freight and personal baggage.
Shipped in bond, to be inspected by the tax officials of Mars.

"It is on board now. We will open it when we leave the asteroid, Gregg.
We are well equipped."

She bent toward me. And suddenly her long lean fingers were gripping my
shoulders.

"Gregg, look at me!"

I gazed into her eyes. There was passion there; and her voice was
suddenly intense.

"Gregg, I told you once a Martian girl goes after what she wants. It is
you I want--"

Not for me to play like a cad upon a woman's emotions! "Moa, you flatter
me."

"I love you." She held me off, gazing at me. "Gregg--"

I must have smiled. And abruptly she released me.

"So you think it amusing?"

"No. But on Earth--"

"We are not on the Earth. Nor am I of the Earth!" She was gauging me
keenly. No note of pleading was in her voice; a stern authority; and the
passion was swinging to anger.

"I am like my brother: I do not understand you, Gregg Haljan. Perhaps
you think you are clever? It seems stupidity, the fatuousness of man!"

"Perhaps," I said.

* * * * *

There was a moment of silence. "Gregg, I said I loved you. Have you no
answer?"

"No." In truth, I did not know what sort of answer it would be best to
make. Whatever she must have read in my eyes, it stirred her to fury.
Her fingers with the strength of a man in them, dug into my shoulders.
Her gaze searched me.

"You think you love someone else? Is that it?"

That was horribly startling; but she did not mean it just that way. She
amended with caustic venom: "That little Anita Prince! You thought you
loved her! Was that it?"

"No!"

But I hardly deceived her. "Sacred to her memory! Her ratlike little
face--soft voice like a purring, sniveling cat! Is that what you're
remembering, Gregg Haljan?" she sneered.

I tried to laugh. "What nonsense!"

"Is it? Then why are you cold under my touch? Am I--a girl descended
from the Martian flame-workers--impotent now to awaken a man?"

A woman scorned! In all the Universe there could be no more dangerous an
enemy. An incredible venom shot from her eyes.

"That miserable mouselike creature! Well for her that my brother killed
her."

It struck me cold. If Anita was unmasked, beyond all the menace of
Miko's wooing, I knew that the venom of Moa's jealousy was a greater
danger.

I said sharply, "Don't be simple, Moa!" I shook off her grip. "You
imagine too much. You forget that I am a man of the Earth and you a girl
of Mars."

"Is that reason why we should not love?"

"No. But our instincts are different. Men of the Earth are born to the
chase."

* * * * *

I was smiling. With thought of Anita's danger I could find it readily in
my heart to dupe this Amazon.

"Give me time, Moa. You attract me."

"You lie!"

"Do you think so?" I gripped her arm with all the power of my fingers.
It must have hurt her, but she gave no sign; her gaze clung to me
steadily.

"I don't know what to think, Gregg Haljan...."

I held my grip. "Think what you like. Men of Earth have been known to
kill the thing they love."

"You want me to fear you?"

"Perhaps."

She smiled scornfully. "That is absurd."

I released her. I said earnestly, "I want you to realize that if you
treat me fairly, I can be of great advantage to this venture. There will
be fighting--I am fearless."

Her venomous expression was softening. "I think that is true, Gregg."

"And you need my navigating skill. Even now I should be in the turret."

I stood up. I half expected she would stop me, but she did not. I added,
"Shall we go?"

She stood beside me. Her height brought her face level with mine.

"I think you will cause no more trouble, Gregg?"

"Of course not. I am not wholly witless."

"You have been."

"Well, that is over." I hesitated. Then I added, "A man of Earth does
not yield to love when there is work to do. This treasure--"

I think that of everything I said, this last most convinced her.

She interrupted, "That I understand." Her eyes were smoldering. "When it
is over--when we are rich--then I will claim you, Gregg."

* * * * *

She turned from me. "Are you ready?"

"Yes. No! I must get that sheet of Hahn's last figures."

"Are they checked?"

"Yes." I picked the sheet up from my desk. "Hahn is fairly accurate,
Moa."

"A fool nevertheless. An apprehensive fool."

A comradeship seemed coming between us. It was my purpose to establish
it.

"Are we going to maroon Dr. Frank with the passengers?" I asked.

"Yes."

"But he may be of use to us." I wanted Dr. Frank kept aboard. I still
felt that there was a chance for us to recapture the ship.

But Moa shook her head decisively. "My brother has decided not. We will
be well rid of Dr. Frank. Are you ready, Gregg?"

"Yes."

She opened the door. Her gesture reassured the look-out, who was alertly
watching the stern watch-tower.

"Come, Gregg."

I stepped out, and followed her forward along the deck, which now was
bright with the radiance of the nearby asteroid.




CHAPTER XVIII

_Marooned on an Asteroid_


A fair little world. I had thought so before; and I thought so now as I
gazed at the asteroid hanging so close before our bow. A huge, thin
crescent, with the Sun off to one side behind it. A silver crescent,
tinged with red. From this near viewpoint, all of the little globe's
disc was visible. The shadowed portion lay dimly red, mysteriously; the
sunlit crescent--widening visibly is we approached--was gleaming silver.
Inky moonlike shadows in the hollows, brilliant light upon the mountain
heights. The seas lay in gray patches. The convexity of the disc was
sharply defined. So small a world! Fair and beautiful, shrouded with
clouded areas.

"Where is Miko?"

"In the lounge, Gregg."

"Can we stop there?"

Moa turned into the lounge archway. Strange, tense scene. I saw Anita at
once. Her robed figure lurked in an inconspicuous corner; her eyes were
upon me as Moa and I entered, but she did not move. The thirty-odd
passengers were huddled in a group. Solemn, white-faced men, frightened
women. Some of them were sobbing. One Earth-woman--a young widow--sat
holding her little girl, and wailing with uncontrolled hysteria. The
child knew me. As I appeared now, with my gold-laced white coat over my
shoulders, the little child seemed to see in my uniform a mark of
authority. She left her mother and ran to me.

"You, please--you will help us? My moms is crying."

I sent her gently back. But there came upon me then a compassion for
these innocent passengers, fated to have embarked upon this ill-starred
voyage. Herded here in this cabin, with brigands like pirates of old
guarding them. Waiting now to be marooned on an uninhabited asteroid
roaming in space. A sense of responsibility swept me. I swung upon Miko.
He stood with a nonchalant grace, lounging against the wall with a
cylinder dangling in his hand. He anticipated me.

"So, Haljan--she put some sense into your head? No more trouble? Then
get into the turret. Moa, stay there with him. Send Hahn here. Where is
that ass Coniston? We will be in the atmosphere shortly."

I said, "No more trouble from me, Miko. But these passengers--what
preparation are you making for them on the asteroid?"

* * * * *

He stared in surprise. Then he laughed. "I am no murderer. The crew is
preparing food, all we can spare. And tools. They can build themselves
shelter--they will be picked up in a few weeks."

Dr. Frank was here. I caught his gaze, but he did not speak. On the
lounge couches there still lay the quarter-score bodies. Rankin, who
had been killed by Blackstone in the fight; a man passenger killed; a
woman and a man wounded.

Miko added, "Dr. Frank will take his medical supplies--he will care for
the wounded. There are other bodies among the crew." His gesture was
deprecating. "I have not buried them. We will put them ashore; easier
that way."

The passengers were all eyeing me. I said:

"You have nothing to fear. I will guarantee you the best equipment we
can spare. You will give them apparatus with which to signal?" I
demanded of Miko.

"Yes. Get to the turret."

I turned away, with Moa after me. Again the little girl ran forward.

"Come--speak to my moms! She is crying."

It was across the cabin from Miko. Coniston had appeared from the deck;
it created a slight diversion. He joined Miko.

"Wait," I said to Moa. "She is afraid of you. This is humanity."

I pushed Moa back. I followed the child. I had seen that Venza was
sitting with the child's weeping mother. This was a ruse to get word
with me.

I stood before the terrified woman while the little girl clung to my
legs.

I said gently, "Don't be so frightened. Dr. Frank will take care of you.
There is no danger--you will be safer on the asteroid than here on the
ship."

I leaned down and touched her shoulder. "There is no danger."

* * * * *

I was between Venza and the open cabin. Venza whispered swiftly, "When
we are landing, Gregg, I want you to make a commotion--anything--just as
the women passengers go ashore."

"Why? No, of course you will have food, Mrs. Francis."

"Never mind! An instant. Just confusion. Go, Gregg--don't speak now!"

I raised the child. "You take care of mother." I kissed her.

From across the cabin Miko's sardonic voice made me turn. "Touching
sentimentality, Haljan! Get to your post in the turret!"

His rasping note of annoyance brooked no delay. I set the child down. I
said, "I will land us in an hour. Depend on it."

Hahn was at the controls when Moa and I reached the turret.

"You will land us safely, Haljan?" he demanded anxiously.

I pushed him away. "Miko wants you in the lounge."

"You take command here?"

"Of course, Hahn. I am no more anxious for a crash than you."

He sighed with relief. "That is true. I am no expert at atmospheric
entry, Haljan--nor Coniston, nor Miko."

"Have no fear. Sit down, Moa."

I waved to the look-out in the forward watch-tower, and got his routine
gesture. I rang the corridor bells, and the normal signals came promptly
back.

"It's correct, Hahn. Get away with you." I called after him. "Tell Miko
that things are all right here."

Hahn's small dark figure, lithe as a leopard in his tight fitting
trousers and jacket with his robe now discarded, went swiftly down the
spider incline and across the deck.

"Moa, where is Snap? By the infernal, if he has been injured!--"

* * * * *

Up on the helio-room bridge the brigand guard still sat. Then I saw that
Snap was out there sitting with him. I waved from the turret window, and
Snap's cheery gesture answered me. His voice carried down through the
silver moonlight: "Land us safely, Gregg. These weird amateur
navigators!"

Within the hour I had us dropping into the asteroid's atmosphere. The
ship heated steadily. The pressure went up. It kept me busy with the
instruments and the calculations. But my signals were always promptly
answered from below. The brigand crew did its part efficiently.

At a hundred and fifty thousand feet I shifted the gravity plates to the
landing combinations, and started the electronic engines.

"All safe, Gregg?" Moa sat at my elbow; her eyes, with what seemed a
glow of admiration in them, followed my busy routine activities.

"Yes. The crew works well."

The electronic streams flowed out like a rocket tail behind us. The
_Planetara_ caught their impetus. In the rarified air, our bow lifted
slightly, like a ship riding a gentle ground swell. At a hundred
thousand feet we sailed gently forward, hull down to the asteroid's
surface, cruising to seek a landing space.

A little sea was now beneath us. A shadowed sea, deep purple in the
night down there. Occasional green-verdured islands showed, with the
lines of white surf marking them. Beyond the sea, a curving coastline
was visible. Rocky headlines, behind which mountain foothills rose in
serrated, verdured ranks. The sunlight edged the distant mountains; and
presently this rapidly turning little world brought the sunlight
forward.

* * * * *

It was day beneath us. We slid gently downward. Thirty thousand feet
now, above a sparkling blue ocean. The coastline was just ahead: green
with a lush, tropical vegetation. Giant trees, huge-leaved. Long
dangling vines; air plants, with giant pods and vivid orchidlike
blossoms.

I sat at the turret window, staring through my glasses. A fair little
world, yet obviously uninhabited. I could fancy that all this was
newly-sprung vegetation. This asteroid had whirled in from the cold of
the interplanetary space far outside our Solar System. A few years
ago--as time might be measured astronomically, it was no more than
yesterday--this fair landscape was congealed white and bleak, with a
sweep of glacial ice. But the seeds of life miraculously were here. The
miracle of life! Under the warming, germinating sunlight, the verdure
sprung.

"Can you find landing space, Gregg?"

Moa's question brought back my wandering fancies. I saw an upland glade,
a level spread of ferns with the forest banked around it. A cliff-height
nearby, frowning down at the sea.

"Yes. I can land us there." I showed her through the glasses. I rang the
sirens, and we spiraled, descending further. The mountain tops were now
close beneath us. Clouds were overhead, white masses with blue sky
behind them. A day of brilliant sunlight. But soon, with our forward
cruising, it was night. The sunlight dropped beneath the sharply convex
horizon; the sea and the land went purple.

A night of brilliant stars; the Earth was a blazing blue-red point of
light. The heavens visibly were revolving; in an hour or so it would be
daylight again.

On the forward deck now Coniston had appeared, commanding half a dozen
of the crew. They were carrying up caskets of food and the equipment
which was to be given the marooned passengers. And making ready the
disembarking incline, loosening the seals of the side-dome windows.

Sternward on the deck, by the lounge oval, I could see Miko standing.
And occasionally the roar of his voice at the passengers sounded.

* * * * *

My vagrant thought flung back into Earth's history. Like this, ancient
travelers of the surface of the sea were herded by pirates to walk the
plank, or put ashore, marooned upon some fair desert island of the
tropic Spanish main.

Hahn came mounting our turret incline. "All is well, Gregg Haljan?"

"Get to your work," Moa told him sharply. "We land in an hour-quadrant."

He retreated, joining the bustle and confusion which now was beginning
on the deck. It struck me--could I turn that confusion to account? Would
it be possible, now at the last moment, to attack these brigands? Snap
still sat outside the helio-room doorway. But his guard was alert, with
upraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in his position high
amidships, commanded all the deck.

And I saw too, as the passengers now were herded in a line from the
lounge oval, that Miko had roped and bound all of the men. And a
clanking chain connected them. They came like a line of convicts,
marching forward, and stopped on the open deck-space near the base of
the turret. Dr. Frank's grim face gazed up at me.

Miko ordered the women and children in a group beside the chained men.
His words to them reached me: "You are in no danger. When we land, be
careful. You will find gravity very different--this is a very small
world."

I flung on the landing lights; the deck glowed with the blue radiance;
the search-beams shot down beside our hull. We hung now a thousand feet
above the forest glade. I cut off the electronic streams. We poised,
with the gravity-plates set at normal, and only a gentle night-breeze to
give us a slight side drift. This I could control with the lateral
propeller rudders.

For all my busy landing routine, my mind was on other things. Venza's
swift words back there in the lounge. I was to create a commotion while
the passengers were landing. Why? Had she and Dr. Frank, perhaps, some
last minute desperate purposes?

* * * * *

I determined I would do what she said. Shout, or mis-order the lights.
That would be easy. But to what advantage?

I was glad it was night--I had, indeed, calculated our descent so that
the landing would be in darkness. But to what purpose? These brigands
were very alert. There was nothing I could think of to do which would
avail us anything more than a possible swift death under Miko's anger.

"Well done, Gregg!" said Moa.

I cut off the last of the propellers. With scarcely a perceptible jar,
the _Planetara_ grounded, rose like a feather and settled to rest in the
glade. The deep purple night with stars overhead was around us. I hissed
out our interior air through the dome and hull-ports, and admitted the
night-air of the asteroid. My calculations--of necessity mere
mathematical approximations--proved fairly accurate. In temperature and
pressure there was no radical change as the dome-windows slid back.

We had landed. Whatever Venza's purpose, her moment was at hand. I was
tense. But I was aware also, that beside me Moa was very alert. I had
thought her unarmed. She was not. She sat back from me; in her hand was
a small thin knife-blade.

She murmured tensely, "You have done your part, Gregg. Well and
skillfully done. Now we will sit here quietly and watch them land."

Snap's guard was standing, keenly watching. The look-outs in the forward
and stern towers were also armed; I could see them both gazing keenly
down at the confusion of the blue-lit deck.

The incline went over the hull-side and touched the ground.

"Enough!" Miko roared. "The men first. Hahn, move the women back!
Coniston, pile those caskets to the side. Get out of the way, Prince."

* * * * *

Anita was down there. I saw her at the edge of the group of women. Venza
was near her.

Miko shoved her. "Get out of the way, Prince. You can help Coniston.
Have the things ready to throw off."

Five of the steward-crew were at the head of the incline. Miko shouted
up at me:

"Haljan, hold our shipboard gravity normal."

"Yes," I responded.

I had done so. Our magnitizers had been adjusted to the shifting
calculations of our landing. They were holding now at intensities, so
that upon the _Planetara_ no change from fairly normal Earth-gravity
was apparent. I rang a tentative inquiry signal; the operator in the
hull-magnetizer control answered that he was at his post.

The line of men were first to descend. Dr. Frank led them. He flashed a
look of farewell up at me and Snap as he went down the incline with the
chained men passengers after him.

Motley procession! Twenty odd, dishevelled, half-clothed men of three
worlds. The changing, lightening gravity on the incline caught them. Dr.
Frank bounded up to the rail under the impetus of his step: caught and
held himself, drew himself back. The line swayed. In the dim, blue-lit
glare it seemed unreal, crazy. A grotesque dream of men descending a
plank.

They reached the forest glade. Stood swaying, afraid at first to move.
The purple night crowded them; they stood gazing at this strange world,
their new prison.

"Now the women."

Miko was shoving the women to the head of the incline. I could feel
Moa's steady gaze upon me. Her knife-blade gleamed in the turret light.

She murmured again, "In a few minutes you can ring us away, Gregg."

* * * * *

I felt like an actor awaiting his cue in the wings of some turgid drama
the plot of which he did not know. Venza was near the head of the
incline. Some of the women and children were on it. A woman screamed.
Her child had slipped from her hand, bounded up over the rail, and
fallen. Hardly fallen--floated down to the ground, with flailing arms
and legs, landing in the dark ferns, unharmed. Its terrified wail came
up.

There was a confusion on the incline. Venza, still on the deck, seemed
to send a look of appeal to the turret. My cue?

I slid my hand to the light switchboard. It was near my knees. I pulled
a switch. The blue-lit deck beneath the turret went dark.

I recall an instant of horrible, tense silence, and in the gloom beside
me I was aware of Moa moving. I felt a thrill of instinctive fear--would
she plunge that knife into me?

The silence of the darkened deck was broken with a confusion of sounds.
A babble of voices; a woman passenger's scream; shuffling of feet; and
above it all, Miko's roar:

"Stand quiet! Everyone! No movement!"

On the descending incline there was chaos. The disembarking women were
clinging to the gang-rail; some of them had evidently surged over it and
fallen. Down on the ground in the purple-shadowed starlight I could
vaguely see the chained line of men. They too were in confusion, trying
to shove themselves toward the fallen women.

Miko roared:

"Light those tubes! Gregg Haljan! By the Almighty, Moa, are you up
there? What is wrong? The light-tubes--"

Dark drama of unknown plot! I wonder if I should try and leave the
turret. Where was Anita? She had been down there on the deck when I
flung out the lights.

I think twenty seconds would have covered it all. I had not moved. I
thought, "Is Snap concerned with this?"

Moa's knife could have stabbed me. I felt her lunge against me; and
suddenly I was gripping her, twisting her wrist. But she flung the knife
away. Her strength was almost the equal of my own. Her hand went for my
throat, and with the other hand she was fumbling.

* * * * *

The deck abruptly sprang into light again. Moa had found the switch and
threw it back.

"Gregg!"

She fought me as I tried to reach the switch. I saw down on the deck
Miko gazing up at us. Moa panted, "Gregg--stop! If he--sees you doing
this, he'll kill you--"

The scene down there was almost unchanged. I had answered my cue. To
what purpose? I saw Anita near Miko. The last of the women were on the
plank.

I had stopped struggling with Moa. She sat back, panting; and then she
called: "Sorry, Miko. It will not happen again."

Miko was in a towering rage. But he was too busy to bother with me; his
anger swung on those nearest him. He shoved the last of the women
violently at the incline. She bounded over. Her body, with the
gravity-pull of only a few Earth-pounds, sailed in an arc and dropped to
the sward near the swaying line of men.

Miko swung back. "Get out of my way!" A sweep of his huge arm knocked
Anita sidewise. "Prince, damn you, help me with those boxes!"

The frightened stewards were lifting the boxes, square metal
storage-chests each as long as a man, packed with food, tools, and
equipment.

"Here, get out of my way, all of you!"

My breath came again; Anita nimbly retreated before Miko's angry rush.
He dashed at the stewards. Three of them held a box. He took it from
them; raised it at the top of the incline. Poised it over his head an
instant, with his massive arms like gray pillars beneath it. And flung
it. The box catapulted, dropped; and then, passing the Planetara's
gravity area, it sailed in a long flat arc over the forest glade and
crashed into the purple underbrush.

"Give me another!"

* * * * *

The stewards pushed another at him. Like an angry Titan, he flung it.
And another. One by one the chests sailed out and crashed.

"There is your food--go pick it up! Haljan, make ready to ring us away!"

On the deck lay the dead body of Rance Rankin, which the stewards had
carried out. Miko seized it, flung it.

"There! Go to your last resting place!"

And the other bodies. Balch Blackstone, Captain Carter, Johnson--Miko
flung them. And the course masters and those of our crew who had been
killed; the stewards appeared with them; Miko unceremoniously cast them
off.

The passengers were all on the ground now. It was dim down there. I
tried to distinguish Venza, but could not. I could see Dr. Frank's
figure at the end of the chained line of men. The passengers were gazing
in horror at the bodies hurtling over them.

"Ready, Haljan?"

Moa prompted me. "Tell him yes!"

I called, "Yes!" Had Venza failed in her unknown purpose? It seemed so.
On the helio-room bridge Snap and his guard stood like silent statues in
the blue-lit gloom.

The disembarkation was over.

"Close the ports," Miko commanded.

The incline came folding up with a clatter. The port and dome-windows
slid closed. Moa hissed against my ear:

"If you want life, Gregg Haljan, you will start your duties!"

Venza had failed. Whatever it was, it had come to nothing. Down in the
purple forest, disconnected now from the ship, the last of our friends
stood marooned. I could distinguish them through the blur of the closed
dome--only a swaying, huddled group was visible. But my fancy pictured
this last sight of them--Dr. Frank, Venza, Shac and Dud Ardley.

They were gone. There were left only Snap, Anita, and myself.

* * * * *

I was mechanically ringing us away. I heard my sirens sounding down
below, with the answering clangs here in the turret. The _Planetara's_
respiratory controls started; the pressure equalizers began operating,
and the gravity plates shifted into lifting combinations.

The ship was hissing and quivering with it, combined with the grating of
the last of the dome ports. And Miko's command:

"Lift, Haljan."

Hahn had been mingled with the confusion of the deck, though I had
hardly noticed him; Coniston had remained below, with the crew answering
my signals. Hahn stood now with Miko, gazing down through a deck window.
Anita was alone at another.

"Lift, Haljan."

I lifted us gently, bow first, with a repulsion of the bow plates. And
started the central electronic engine. Its thrust from our stern moved
us diagonally over the purple forest trees.

The glade slid downward and away. I caught a last vague glimpse of the
huddled group of marooned passengers, staring up at us. Left to their
fate, alone on this deserted little world.

With the three engines going we slid smoothly upward. The forest
dropped, a purple spread of tree-tops, edged with starlight and
Earth-light. The sharply curving horizon seemed following us up. I swung
on all the power. We mounted at a forty degree angle, slowly circling,
with a bank of clouds over us to the side and the shining little sea
beneath.

"Very good, Gregg." In the turret light Moa's eyes blazed at me. "I do
not know what you meant by darkening the deck-lights." Her fingers dug
at my shoulders. "I will tell my brother it was an error."

I said, "An error--yes."

"An error? I don't know what it was. But you have me to deal with now.
You understand? I will tell my brother so. You said, 'On Earth a man may
kill the thing he loves.' A woman of Mars may do that! Beware of me,
Gregg Haljan."

Her passion-filled eyes bored into me. Love? Hate? The venom of a woman
scorned--a mingling of turgid emotions....

* * * * *

I twisted away from her grip and ignored her; she sat back, silently
watching my busy activities; the calculations of the shifting conditions
of gravity, pressures, temperatures; a checking of the score or more of
instruments on the board before me.

Mechanical routine. My mind went to Venza, back there on the asteroid.
The wandering little world was already shrinking to a convex surface
beneath us. Venza, with her last unknown play, gone to failure. Had I
failed my cue? Whatever my part, it seemed now that I must have horribly
mis-acted it.

The crescent Earth was presently swinging over our bow. We rocketed out
of the asteroid's shadow. The glowing, flaming Sun appeared, making a
crescent of the Earth. With the glass I could see our tiny Moon,
visually seeming to hug the limb of its parent Earth.

We were away upon our course for the Moon. My mind flung ahead.
Grantline with his treasure, unsuspecting this brigand ship. And
suddenly, beyond all thought of Grantline and his treasure, there came
to me a fear for Anita. In God's truth I had been, so far, a very
stumbling inept champion--doomed to failure with everything I tried. It
swept me, so that I cursed my own incapacity. Why had I not contrived to
have Anita desert at the asteroid? Would it not have been far better for
her there? Taking her chance for rescue with Dr. Frank, Venza and the
others?

But no! I had, like an inept fool, never thought of that! Had left her
here on board at the mercy of these outlaws.

And I swore now that, beyond everything, I would protect her.

Futile oath! If I could have seen ahead a few hours! But I sensed the
catastrophe. There was a shudder within me as I sat in that turret,
docilely guiding us out through the asteroid's atmosphere, heading us
upon our course for the Moon.




CHAPTER XIX

_In the Zed-light Glow_


"Try again. By the infernal, Snap Dean, if you do anything to balk us!"

Miko scanned the apparatus with keen eyes. How much technical knowledge
of signaling instruments did this brigand leader have? I was tense and
cold with apprehension as I sat in a corner of the helio-room, watching
Snap. Could Miko be fooled? Snap, I knew, was trying to fool him.

The Moon spread close beneath us. My log-chart, computed up to thirty
minutes past, showed us barely some thirty thousand miles over the
Moon's surface. The globe lay in quadrature beneath our bow quarter--a
huge quadrant spreading across the black starry vault of the lower
heavens. A silver quadrant. The sunset caught the Lunar mountains, flung
slanting shadows over the empty Lunar plains. All the disc was plainly
visible. The mellow Earth-light glowed serene and pale to illumine the
Lunar night.

The _Planetara_ was bathed in silver. A brilliant silver glare swept the
forward deck, clean white and splashed with black shadows. We had partly
circled the Moon, so as now to approach it from the Earthward side. I
had worked with extreme concentration through the last few hours,
plotting the trajectory of our curving sweep, setting the gravity plates
with constantly shifting combinations. And with it a necessity for the
steady retarding of our velocity.

* * * * *

Miko for a time was at my elbow in the turret. I had not seen Coniston
and Hahn of recent hours. I had slept, awakened refreshed, and had a
meal. Coniston and Hahn remained below, one or the other of them always
with the crew to execute my sirened orders. Then Coniston came to take
my place in the turret, and I went with Miko to the helio-room.

"You are skilful, Haljan." A measure of grim approval was in Miko's
voice. "You evidently have no wish to try and fool me in this
navigation."

I had not, indeed. It is delicate work at best, coping with the
intricacies of celestial mechanics upon a semicircular trajectory with
retarding velocity, and with a make-shift crew we could easily have
come upon real difficulty.

We hung at last, hull-down, facing the Earthward hemisphere of the Lunar
disc. The giant ball of the Earth lay behind and above us--the Sun over
our stern quarter. With forward velocity almost checked, we poised, and
Snap began his signals to the unsuspecting Grantline.

My work momentarily was over. I sat watching the helio-room. Moa was
here, close beside me; I felt always her watchful gaze, so that even the
play of my expression needed reining.

Miko worked with Snap. Anita too was here. To Miko and Moa it was the
somber, taciturn George Prince, shrouded always in his black mourning
cloak, disinclined to talk; sitting alone, brooding and cowardly sullen.

Miko repeated, "By the infernal, if you try to fool me, Snap Dean!"

The small metal room, with its grid floor and low-arched ceiling, glared
with moonlight through its windows. The moving figures of Snap and Miko
were aped by the grotesque, misshapen shadows of them on the walls. Miko
gigantic--a great, menacing ogre. Snap small and alert--a trim, pale
figure in his tight-fitting white trousers, broad-flowing belt, and
white shirt open at the throat. His face was pale and drawn from lack of
sleep and the torture to which Miko had subjected him. But he grinned at
the brigand's words, and pushed his straggling hair closer under the red
eyeshade.

"I'm doing my best, Miko--you can believe it."

* * * * *

The room over long periods was deadly silent, with Miko and Snap bending
watchfully at the crowded banks of instruments. A silence in which my
own pounding heart seemed to echo. I did not dare look at Anita, nor she
at me. Snap was trying to signal Earth, not the Moon! His main helios
were set in the reverse. The infra-red waves, flung from the bow
window, were of a frequency which Snap and I believed that Grantline
could not pick up. And over against the wall, close beside me and
seemingly ignored by Snap, there was a tiny ultra-violet sender. Its
faint hum and the quivering of its mirrors had so far passed unnoticed.

Would some Earth-station pick it up? I prayed so. There was a thumb nail
mirror here which could bring an answer. I prayed that it might swing.

Would some Earth telescope be able to see us? I doubted it. The pinpoint
of the _Planetara's_ infinitesimal bulk would be beyond them.

Long silences, broken only by the faint hiss and murmur of Snap's
instruments.

"Shall I try the 'graphs, Miko?"

"Yes."

I helped him with the spectroheliograph. At every level the plates
showed us nothing save the scarred and pitted Moon-surface. We worked
for an hour. There was nothing. Bleak cold night on the Moon here
beneath us. A touch of fading sunlight upon the Apennines. Up near the
South Pole, Tycho with its radiating open rills stood like a grim dark
maw.

Miko bent over a plate. "Something here? Is there?"

An abnormality upon the frowning ragged cliffs of Tycho? We thought so.
But then it seemed not.

* * * * *

Another hour. No signal came from Earth. If Snap's calls were getting
through we had no evidence of it. Abruptly Miko strode at me from across
the room. I went cold and tense; Moa shifted, alert to my every
movement. But Miko was not interested in me. A sweep of his clenched
fist knocked the ultra-violet sender and its coils and mirrors in a
tinkling crash to the grid at my feet.

"We don't need that, whatever it is!"

He rubbed his knuckles where the violet waves had tinged them, and
turned grimly back to Snap.

"Where are your Gamma ray mirrors? If the treasure is exposed--"

This Martian's knowledge was far greater than we believed. He grinned
sardonically at Anita. "If our treasure is on this hemisphere, Prince,
we should pick up Gamma rays? Don't you think so? Or is Grantline so
cautious it will all be protected?"

Anita spoke in a careful, throaty drawl. "The Gamma rays came plain
enough when we passed here on the way out."

"You should know," grinned Miko. "An expert eavesdropper, Prince--I will
say that for you. Come Dean, try something else. By God, if Grantline
does not signal us, I will be likely to blame you--my patience is
shortening. Shall we go closer, Haljan?"

"I don't think it would help," I said.

He nodded. "Perhaps not. Are we checked?"

"Yes." We were poised, very nearly motionless. "If you wish an advance,
I can ring it. But we need a surface destination now."

"True, Haljan." He stood thinking. "Would a zed-ray penetrate those
crater-cliffs? Tycho, for instance, at this angle?"[B]

"It might," Snap agreed. "You think he may be on the Northern inner side
of Tycho?"

"He may be anywhere," said Miko shortly.

"If you think that," Snap persisted, "suppose we swing the _Planetara_
over the South Pole. Tycho, viewed from there--"

"And take another quarter-day of time?" Miko sneered. "Flash on your
zed-ray; help him hook it up, Haljan."


[B] An allusion to the use of the zed-ray light for making
spectro-photographs of what might be behind obscuring rock masses,
similar to the old-style X-ray.

* * * * *

I moved to the lens-box of the spectroheliograph. It seemed that Snap
was very strangely reluctant: Was it because he knew that the Grantline
camp lay concealed on the north inner wall of Tycho's giant ring? I
thought so. But Snap flashed a queer look at Anita. She did not see it,
but I did. And I could not understand it.

My accursed, witless incapacity! If only I had taken warning!

"Here," commanded Miko. "A score of 'graphs with the zed-ray. I tell you
I will comb this surface if we have to stay here until our ship comes
from Ferrok-Shahn to join us!"

The Martian brigands were coming. Miko's signals had been answered. In
ten days the other brigand ship, adequately manned and armed, would be
here.

Snap helped me connect the zed-ray. He did not dare even to whisper to
me, with Moa hovering always so close. And for all Miko's sardonic
smiling, we knew that he would tolerate nothing from us now. He was
fully armed, and so was Moa.

I recall that Snap several times tried to touch me significantly. Oh, if
only I had taken warning!

We finished our connecting. The dull gray point of zed-ray gleamed
through the prisms, to mingle with the moonlight entering the main lens.
I stood with the shutter trip.

"The same interval, Snap?"

"Yes."

Beside me, I was aware of a faint reflection of the zed-light--a gray
Cathedral shaft crossing the helio-room and falling upon the opposite
wall. An unreality there, as the zed-light faintly strove to penetrate
the metal room-side.

I said, "Shall I make the exposure?"

* * * * *

Snap nodded. But that 'graph was never made. An exclamation from Moa
made us all turn. The Gamma mirrors were quivering! Grantline had picked
our signals! With what undoubtedly was an intensified receiving
equipment which Snap had not thought Grantline able to use, he had
caught our faint zed-rays, which Snap was sending only to deceive Miko.
And Grantline had recognized the _Planetara_, and had released his
occulting screens surrounding the radium ore. The Gamma rays were here,
unmistakable!

And upon their heels came Grantline's message. Not in the secret system
he had arranged with Snap, but unsuspectingly in open code. I could read
the swinging mirror, and so could Miko.

And Miko decoded it triumphantly aloud:

"_Surprised but pleased your return. Approach Mid-Northern hemisphere,
region of Archimedes, forty thousand toises[C] off nearest Apennine
range._"

The message broke off. But even its importance was overshadowed. Miko
stood in the center of the helio-room, triumphantly reading the
light-indicator. Its beam swung on the scale, which chanced to be almost
directly over Anita's head. I saw Miko's expression change. A look of
surprise, amazement came to him.

"Why--"

He gasped. He stood staring. Almost stupidly staring for an instant. And
as I regarded him with fascinated horror, there came upon his heavy gray
face a look of dawning comprehension. And I heard Snap's startled intake
of breath. He moved to the spectroheliograph, where the zed-ray
connections were still humming.

But with a leap Miko flung him away. "Off with you! Moa, watch him!
Haljan, don't move!"


[C] About fifty miles.

* * * * *

Again Miko stood staring. Oh dear God, I saw now that he was staring at
Anita!

"Why George Prince! How strange you look!"

Anita did not move. She was stricken with horror: she shrank back
against the wall, huddled in her cloak. Miko's sardonic voice came
again:

"How strange you look. Prince!" He took a step forward. He was grim and
calm. Horribly calm. Deliberate. Gloating--like a great gray monster in
human form toying with a fascinated, imprisoned bird.

"Move just a little Prince. Let the zed-ray light fall more fully."

Anita's head was bare. That pale, Hamletlike face. Dear God, the
zed-light reflection lay gray and penetrating upon it!

Miko took another step. Peering. Grinning. "How amazing, George Prince!
Why, I can hardly believe it!"

Moa was armed with an electronic cylinder. For all her amazement--what
turgid emotions sweeping her I can only guess--she never took her eyes
from Snap and me.

"Back! Don't move, either of you!" She hissed it at us.

Then Miko leaped at Anita like giant gray leopard pouncing.

"Away with that cloak, Prince!"

* * * * *

I stood cold and numbed. And realization came at last. The faint
zed-light glow had fallen by chance upon Anita's face. Penetrated the
flesh; exposed, faintly glowing, the bone-line of her jaw. Unmasked the
waxen art of Glutz.

And Miko had seen it.

"Why George, how surprising! Away with that cloak!"

He seized her wrist, drew her forward, beyond the shaft of zed-light,
into the brilliant light of the Moon. And ripped her cloak from her. The
gentle curves of her woman's figure were so unmistakable!

And as Miko gazed at them, all his calm triumph swept away.

"Why, Anita!"

I heard Moa mutter: "So that is it?" A venomous flashing look--a shaft
from me to Anita and back again. "So that is it?"

"Why, _Anita_!"

Miko's great arms gathered her up as though she were a child. "So I have
you back; from the dead delivered back to me!"

"Gregg!" Snap's warning, and his grip over my shoulders brought me a
measure of sanity. I had tensed to spring. I stood quivering, and Moa
thrust her weapon against my face. The helio mirrors were swaying again
with another message from Grantline. But it came ignored by us all.

In the glare of moonlight by the forward window, Miko held Anita, his
great hands pawing her with triumphant possessive caresses.

"So, little Anita, you are given back to me."

Against her futile struggles he held her.

Dear God, if only I had had the wit to have prevented this!




CHAPTER XX

_The Grantline Camp_


In the mid-northern hemisphere upon the Earthward side of the Moon, the
giant crater of Archimedes stood brooding in silent majesty. Grim, lofty
walls, broken, pitted and scarred, rising precipitous to the upper
circular rim. Night had just fallen. The sunlight clung to the
crater-heights; it tinged with flame the jagged peaks of the Apennine
Mountains which rose in tiers at the horizon; and it flung great inky
shadows over the intervening lowlands.

Northward, the Mare Imbrium stretched mysterious and purple, its million
rills and ridges and crater holes flattened by distance and the
gathering darkness into a seeming level surface. The night slowly
deepened. The dead-black vault of the sky blazed with its brilliant
starry gems. The gibbous Earth hung high above the horizon, motionless,
save for the invisible pendulum sway over the tiny arc, of its
libration: widening to quadrature, casting upon the bleak naked Lunar
landscape its mellow Earth-glow.

Slow, measured process, this coming of the Lunar night! For an Earth-day
the sunset slowly faded on the Apennines; the poised Earth widened a
little further--an Earth-day of time, with the Earth-disc visibly
rotating, the faint tracery of its oceans and continents passing in
slow, majestic review.

Another Earth-day interval. Then another. And another. Full night now
enveloped Archimedes. Splotches of Earth-light and starlight sheen
slowly shifted as the night advanced.

Between the great crater and the nearby mountains, the broken,
pseudo-level lowlands lay wan in the Earth-light. A few hundred miles,
as distance would be measured upon Earth. A million million rills were
here. Valleys and ridges, ravines, sharp-walled canyons, cliffs and
crags--tiny craters like pock-marks.

Naked, gray porous rock everywhere. This denuded landscape! Cracked and
scarred and tumbled, as though some inexorable Titan torch had seared
and crumbled and broken it, left it now congealed like a wind-lashed sea
abruptly frozen into immobility.

* * * * *

Moonlight upon Earth so gently shines to make romantic a lover's smile!
But the reality of the Lunar night is cold beyond human rationality.
Cold and darkly silent. Grim desolation. Awesome. Majestic. A frowning
majesty that even to the most intrepid human beholder is inconceivably
forbidding.

And there were humans here now. On this tumbled plain, between
Archimedes and the mountains, one small crater amid the million of its
fellows was distinguished this night by the presence of humans. The
Grantline camp! It huddled in the deepest purple shadows on the side of
a bowl-like pit, a crudely circular orifice with a scant two miles
across its rippling rim. There was faint light here to mark the presence
of the living intruders. The blue-glow radiance of Morrell tube-lights
under a spread of glassite.

The Grantline camp stood mid-way up one of the inner cliff-walls of the
little crater. The broken, rock-strewn floor, two miles wide, lay five
hundred feet below the camp. Behind it, the jagged precipitous cliff
rose another five hundred to the heights of the upper rim. A broad
level shelf hung midway up the cliff, and upon it Grantline had built
his little group of glassite dome shelters. Viewed from above there was
the darkly purple crater floor, the upflung circular rim where the
Earth-light tinged the spires and crags with yellow sheen; and on the
shelf, like a huddled group of birds nests, Grantline's domes clung and
gazed down upon the inner valley.

Intricate task, the building of these glassite shelters! There were
three. The main one stood close at the brink of the ledge. A quadrangle
of glassite walls, a hundred feet in length by half as wide, and a scant
ten feet high to its flat-arched dome roof. Built for this purpose in
Great-New York, Grantline had brought his aluminite girders and braces
and the glassite panels in sections.

* * * * *

The air here on the Moon surface was negligible--a scant one
five-thousandth of the atmospheric pressure at the sea-level on Earth.
But within the glassite shelter, a normal Earth-pressure must be
maintained. Rigidly braced double walls to withstand the explosive
tendency, with no external pressure to counteract it. A tremendous
necessity for mechanical equipment had burdened Grantline's small
ship to its capacity. The chemistry of manufactured air, the
pressure equalizers, renewers, respirators, the lighting and
temperature-maintenance systems--all the mechanics of a space-flyer were
here.

And within the glassite double walls, there was necessity for a constant
circulation of the Erentz temperature insulating system.[D]

There was this main Grantline building, stretching low and rectangular
along the front edge of the ledge. Within it were living rooms, messroom
and kitchen. Fifty feet behind it, connected by a narrow passage of
glassite, was a similar, though smaller structure. The mechanical
control rooms, with their humming, vibrating mechanisms were here. And
an instrument room with signaling apparatus, senders, receivers,
mirror-grids and audiphones of several varieties; and an
electro-telescope, small but modern, with dome overhead like a little
Earth observatory.

From this instrument building, beside the connecting pedestrian passage,
wire cables for light, and air-tubes and strings and bundles of
instrument wires ran to the main structure--gray snakes upon the
porous, gray Lunar rock.

The third building seemed a lean-to banked against the cliff-wall, a
slanting shed-wall of glassite fifty feet high and two hundred in
length. Under it, for months Grantline's borers had dug into the cliff.
Braced tunnels were here, penetrating back and downward into this vein
of radio-active rock.


[D] An intricate system of insulation against extremes of temperature,
developed by the Erentz Kinetic Energy Corporation in the twenty-first
century. Within the hollow double shell of a shelter-wall, or an
explorer's helmet-suit, or a space-flyer's hull, an oscillating
semi-vacuum current was maintained--an extremely rarified air,
magnetically charged, and maintained in rapid oscillating motion. Across
this field the outer cold, or heat, as the case might be, could
penetrate only with slow radiation. This Erentz system gave the most
perfect temperature insulation known in its day. Without it,
interplanetary flight would have been impossible.

And it served a double purpose. Developed at first for temperature
insulation only, the Erentz system surprisingly brought to light one of
the most important discoveries made in the realm of physics of the
century. It was found that any flashing, oscillating current, whether
electronic, or the semi-vacuum of rarified air--or even a thin sheet of
whirling fluid--gave also a pressure-insulation. The kinetic energy of
the rapid movement was found to absorb within itself the latent energy
of the unequal pressure.

(The intricate postulates and mathematical formulae necessary to
demonstrate the operation of the physical laws involved would be out of
place here.)

The _Planetara_ was so equipped, against the explosive tendency of its
inner air-pressures when flying in the near-vacuum of space. In the case
of Grantline's glassite shelters, the latent energy of his room interior
air pressure went largely into a kinetic energy which in practical
effect resulted only in the slight acceleration of the vacuum current,
and thus never reached the outer wall. The Erentz engineers claimed for
their system a pressure absorption of 97.4%, leaving, in Grantline's
case, only 2.6% of room pressure to be held by the building's aluminite
bracers.

It may be interesting to note in this connection that without the Erentz
system as a basis, the great sub-sea developments on Earth and Mars of
the twenty-first century would also have been impossible. Equipped with
a fluid circulation device of the Erentz principle within its double
hull, the first submarine was able to penetrate the great ocean deeps,
withstanding the tremendous ocean pressures at depths of four thousand
fathoms.

* * * * *

The work was over now. The borers had been dismantled and packed away.
At one end of the cliff the mining equipment lay piled in a litter.
There was a heap of discarded ore where Grantline had carted and dumped
it after his first crude refining process had yielded it as waste. The
ore-slag lay like gray powder-flakes strewn down the cliff. Tracks and
ore-carts along the ledge stood discarded, mute evidence of the weeks
and months of work these helmeted miners had undergone, struggling upon
this airless, frowning world.

But now all that was finished. The radio-active ore was sufficiently
concentrated. It lay--this treasure--in a seventy-foot pile behind the
glassite lean-to, with a cage of wires over it and an insulation barrage
guarding its Gamma rays from escaping to mark its presence.

The ore-shelter was dark; the other two buildings were lighted. And
there were small lights mounted at intervals about the camp and along
the edge of the ledge. A spider ladder, with tiny platforms some twenty
feet one above the other, hung precariously to the cliff-face. It
descended the five hundred feet to the crater floor; and, behind the
camp, it mounted the jagged cliff-face to the upper rim-height, where a
small observatory platform was placed.

* * * * *

Such was the outer aspect of the Grantline Treasure Camp near the
beginning of this Lunar night, when, unbeknown to Grantline and his
score of men, the _Planetara_ with its brigands was approaching. The
night was perhaps a sixth advanced. Full night. No breath of cloud to
mar the brilliant starry heavens. The quadrant Earth hung poised like a
giant mellow moon over Grantline's crater. A bright Earth, yet no air
was here on this Lunar surface to spread its light. Only a glow,
mingling with the spots of blue tube-light on the poles along the cliff,
and the radiance from the lighted buildings.

The crater floor was dimly purple. Beyond the opposite upper rim, from
the camp-height, the towering top of distant Archimedes was visible.

No evidence of movement showed about the silent camp. Then a pressure
door in an end of the main building opened its tiny series of locks. A
bent figure came out. The lock closed. The figure straightened and gazed
about the camp. Grotesque, bloated semblance of a man! Helmeted, with
rounded dome-hood suggestion of an ancient sea diver, yet goggled and
trunked like a gas-masked fighter of the twentieth century war.

He stooped presently and disconnected metal weights which were upon his
shoes.[E]

Then he stood erect again, and with giant strides bounded along the
cliff. Fantastic figure in the blue-lit gloom! A child's dream of crags
and rocks and strange lights with a single monstrous figure in
seven-league boots.

He went the length of the ledge with his twenty-foot strides, inspected
the lights, and made adjustments. Came back, and climbed with agile,
bounding leaps up the spider ladder to the dome on the crater top. A
light flashed on up there. Then it was extinguished.

The goggled, bloated figure came leaping down after a moment.
Grantline's exterior watchman making his rounds. He came back to the
main building. Fastened the weights on his shoes. Signaled within.

The lock opened. The figure went inside.

It was early evening, after the dinner hour and before the time of
sleep, according to the camp routine Grantline was maintaining. Nine P.
M. of Earth Eastern-American time, recorded now upon his Earth
chronometer. In the living room of the main building Johnny Grantline
sat with a dozen of his men dispersed about the room, whiling away as
best they could the lonesome hours.


[E] Within the Grantline buildings it was found more convenient to use a
gravity normal to Earth. This was maintained by the wearing of
metal-weighted shoes and metal-loaded belt. The Moon-gravity is normally
approximately one-sixth the gravity of Earth.

* * * * *

"All as usual. This cursed Moon! When I get home--if ever I do get
home--"

"Say your say, Wilks. But you'll spend your share of the gold-leaf and
thank your constellations that you had your chance!"

"Let him alone! Come on, Wilks, take a hand here. This game is no good
with three."

The man who had been outside flung his hissing helmet recklessly to the
floor and unsealed his suit. "Here, get me out of this. No, I won't
play. I can't play your cursed game with nothing at stake!"

"Commissioner's orders."

A laugh went up at the sharp look Johnny Grantline flung from where he
sat reading in a corner of the room.

"Commander's orders. No gambling gold-leafers tolerated here."

"Play the game, Wilks." Grantline said quietly. "We all know it's
infernal doing nothing."

"He's been struck by Earth-light," another man laughed. "Commander, I
told you not to let that guy Wilks out at night."

* * * * *

A rough but good-natured lot of men. Jolly and raucous by nature in
their leisure hours. But there was too much leisure here now. Their
mirth had a hollow sound. In older times, explorers of the frozen polar
zones had to cope with inactivity, loneliness and despair. But at least
they were on their native world. The grimness of the Moon was eating
into the courage of Grantline's men. An unreality here. A weirdness.
These fantastic crags. The deadly silence. The nights, almost two weeks
of Earth-time in length, congealed by the deadly frigidity of Space. The
days of black sky, blaring stars and flaming Sun, with no atmosphere to
diffuse the daylight. Days of weird blending sheen of illumination with
most of the Sun's heat radiating so swiftly from the naked Lunar surface
that the outer temperature still was cold. And day and night, always the
familiar beloved Earth-disc hanging poised up near the zenith. From
thinnest crescent to full Earth, and then steadily back again to
crescent.

All so abnormal, irrational, disturbing to human senses. With the mining
work over, an irritability grew upon Grantline's men. And perhaps since
the human mind is so wonderful, elusive a thing, there lay upon these
men an indefinable sense of impending disaster. Johnny Grantline felt
it. He thought about it now as he sat in the room corner watching Wilks
being forced into the plaget-game, and he found it strong within him.
Unreasonable, ominous depression! Barring the accident which had
disabled his little space-ship when they reached this small crater hole,
his expedition had gone well. His instruments, and the information he
had from the former explorers, had picked up the ore-vein with a scant
month of search.

* * * * *

The vein had now been exhausted; but the treasure was here. Nothing was
left but to wait for the _Planetara_. The men were talking of that now.

"She ought to be well mid-way from here to Ferrok-Shahn by now. When do
you figure she'll be back here, and signal us?"

"Twenty days. Give her another five now to Mars, and five in port.
That's ten. We'll pick her signals in three weeks, mark me."

"Three weeks! Just give me three weeks of reasonable sunrise and sunset!
This cursed Moon! You mean, Williams, next daylight."

"Hah! He's inventing a Lunar language. You'll be a Moon-man yet, if you
live here long enough."

Olaf Swenson, the big blond fellow from the Scandia fiords, came and
flung himself down by Grantline.

"Ay tank they bane without not enough to do, Commander. If the ore yust
would not give out--"

"Three weeks--it isn't very long, Ollie."

"No. Maybe not."

From across the room somebody was saying, "If the _Comet_ hadn't smashed
on us, damn me but I'd ask the Commander to let some of us take her
back. The discarded equipment could go."

"Shut up, Billy. She is smashed."

The little _Comet_, cruising in search of the ore, had come to grief
just as the ore was found. It lay now on the crater floor with its nose
bashed into an upflung spire of rock. Wrecked beyond repair. Save for
the pre-arrangement with the _Planetara_, the Grantline party would have
been helpless here on the Moon. Knowledge of that--although no one ever
suspected but that the _Planetara_ would come safely--served to add to
the men's depression. They were cut off, virtually helpless on a strange
world. Their signalling devices were inadequate even to reach Earth.
Grantline's power batteries were running low.[F] He could not attempt
wide-flung signals without jeopardizing the power necessary for the
routine of his camp in the event of the _Planetara_ being delayed. Nor
was his electro-telescope adequate to pick small objects at any great
distance.[G]

All of Grantline's effort, in truth, had gone into equipment for the
finding and gathering of the treasure. The safety of the expedition had
to that extent been neglected.

Swenson was mentioning that now.

"You all agreed to it," Johnny said shortly. "Every man here voted that,
above everything, what we wanted was to get the radium."


[F] The Gravely storage tanks--the power used by the Grantline
expedition--were heavy and bulky affairs. Economy of space on the Comet
allowed but few of them.

[G] Electro-telescopes of most modern use and power were too large and
used too much power to be available to Grantline.

* * * * *

A dynamic little fellow, this Johnny Grantline. Short of temper
sometimes, but always just, and a perfect leader of men. In stature he
was almost as small as Snap. But he was thick-set, with a smooth shaven,
keen-eyed, square-jawed face, and a shock of brown tousled hair. A man
of thirty-five, though the decision of his manner, the quiet dominance
of his voice, mode him seem older. He stood up now, surveying the
blue-lit glassite room with its low ceiling close overhead. He was
bowlegged; in movement he seemed to roll with a stiff-legged gait like
some sea captain of former days on the deck of his swaying ship.
Queer-looking figure! Heavy flannel shirt and trousers, boots heavily
weighted, and bulky metal-loaded belt strapped about his waist.

He grinned at Swenson. "When we divide this treasure, everyone will be
happy, Ollie."

The treasure was estimated by Grantline to be the equivalent of ninety
millions in gold-leaf. A hundred and ten millions in the gross as it now
stood, with twenty millions to be deducted by the Federated Refiners for
reducing it to the standard purity of commercial radium. Ninety
millions, with only a million and a half to come off for expedition
expenses, and the _Planetara_ Company's share another million. A nice
little stake.

Grantline strode across the room with his rolling gait.

"Cheer up, boys. Who's winning there? I say, you fellows--"

An audiphone buzzer interrupted him, a call from the duty man in the
instrument room of the nearby building.

Grantline clicked the receiver. The room fell into silence. Any call was
unusual--nothing ever happened here in the camp.

The duty man's voice sounded over the room.

"Signals coming! Not clear. Will you come over, Commander?"

Signals!

* * * * *

It was never Grantline's way to enforce needless discipline. He offered
no objection when every man in the camp rushed through the connecting
passages. They crowded the instrument room where the tense duty man sat
bending over his helio receivers. The mirrors were swaying.

The duty man looked up and met Grantline's gaze.

"I ran it up to the highest intensity. Commander. We ought to get
it--not let it pass."

"Low scale, Peter?"

"Yes. Weakest infra-red. I'm bringing it up, even though it uses too
much of our power." The duty man was apologetic.

"Get it," said Grantline shortly.

"I had a swing a minute ago. I think it's the _Planetara_."

"_Planetara!_" The crowding group of men chorused it. How could it be
the _Planetara_?

But it was. The call presently came in clear. Unmistakably the
_Planetara_, turned back now from her course to Ferrok-Shahn.

"How far away, Peter?"

The duty man consulted the needles of his dial scale. "Close! Very weak
infra-red. But close. Around thirty thousand miles, maybe. It's Snap
Dean calling."

The _Planetara_ here within thirty thousand miles! Excitement and
pleasure swept the room. The _Planetara's_ coming had for so long been
awaited so eagerly!

The excitement communicated to Grantline. It was unlike him to be
incautious; yet now with no thought save that some unforeseen and
pleasing circumstance had brought the _Planetara_ ahead of time;
incautious Grantline certainly was.

"Raise the ore-barrage."

"I'll go! My suit is here."

* * * * *

A willing volunteer rushed out to the ore-shed. The Gamma rays, which in
the helio-room of the _Planetara_ came so unwelcome to Snap and me, were
loosed.

"Can you send, Peter?" Grantline demanded.

"Yes, with more power."

"Use it."

Johnny dictated the message of his location which we received. In his
incautious excitement he ignored the secret code.

An interval passed. The ore was occulted again. No message had come from
us--just Snap's routine signal in the weak infra-red, which we hoped
Grantline would not get.

The men crowding Grantline's instrument room waited in tense silence.
Then Grantline tried the telescope. Its current weakened the lights with
the drain upon the distributors, and cooled the room with a sudden
deadly chill as the Erentz insulating system slowed down.

The duty man looked suddenly frightened. "You'll bulge out our walls,
Commander. The internal pressure--"

"We'll chance it."

They picked up the image of the _Planetara_! It came from the telescope
and shone clear on the grid--the segment of star-field with a tiny,
cigar-shaped blob. Clear enough to be unmistakable. The _Planetara_!
Here now over the Moon, almost directly overhead, poised at what the
altimeter scale showed to be a fraction under thirty thousand miles.

The men gazed in awed silence. The _Planetara_ coming....

But the altimeter needle was motionless. The _Planetara_ was hanging
poised.

A sudden gasp went about the room. The men stood with whitening faces,
gazing at the _Planetara's_ image. And at the altimeter needle. It was
moving. The _Planetara_ was descending. But not with an orderly swoop.

The image showed the ship clearly. The bow tilted up, then dipped down.
But then in a moment it swung up again. The ship turned partly over.
Righted itself. Then swayed again, drunkenly.

The watching men were stricken into horrified silence. The _Planetara's_
image momentarily, horribly, grew larger. Swaying. Then turning
completely over, rotating slowly end over end.

The _Planetara_, out of control, was falling!




CHAPTER XXI

_The Wreck of the_ Planetara


On the _Planetara_, in the helio-room, Snap and I stood with Moa's
weapon upon us. Miko held Anita. Triumphant. Possessive. Then as she
struggled, a gentleness came to this strange Martian giant. Perhaps he
really loved her. Looking back on it, I sometimes think so.

"Anita, do not fear me." He held her away from him. "I would not harm
you. I want your love." Irony came to him. "And I thought I had killed
you! But it was only your brother."

He partly turned. I was aware of how alert was his attention. He
grinned. "Hold them, Moa--don't let them do anything foolish. So, Anita,
you were masquerading to spy upon me? That was wrong of you." He was
again ironic.

Anita had not spoken. She held herself tensely away from Miko; she had
flashed me a look--just one. What horrible mischance to have brought
this catastrophe!

The completion of Grantline's message had come unnoticed by us all.

"Look! Grantline again!" Snap said abruptly.

But the mirrors were steadying. We had no recording-tape apparatus; the
rest of the message was lost. The mirrors pulsed and then steadied.

No further message came. There was an interval while Miko waited. He
held Anita in the hollow of his great arm.

"Quiet, little bird. Do not fear me. I have work to do, Anita--this is
our great adventure. We will be rich, you and I. All the luxuries three
worlds can offer, all for us when this is over. Careful, Moa! This
Haljan has no wit."

Well could he say it! I, who had been so witless to let this come upon
us! Moa's weapon prodded me. Her voice hissed at me with all the venom
of a reptile enraged. "So that was your game, Gregg Haljan! And I was so
graceless to admit love for you!"

* * * * *

Snap murmured in my ear, "Don't move, Gregg! She's reckless."

She heard it. She whirled on him. "We have lost George Prince, it seems.
Well, we will survive without his ore knowledge. And you, Dean--and this
Haljan--mark me, I will kill you both if you cause trouble!"

Miko was gloating. "Don't kill them yet, Moa. What was it Grantline
said? Near the crater of Archimedes? Ring us down, Haljan! We'll land."

He signaled the turret. Gave Coniston the Grantline message, and
audiphoned it below to Hahn. The news spread about the ship. The bandits
were jubilant.

"We'll land now, Haljan. Ring us down. Come, Anita and I will go with
you to the turret."

I found my voice. "To what destination?"

"Near Archimedes. The Apennine side. Keep well away from the Grantline
camp. We will probably sight it as we descend."

There was no trajectory needed. We were almost over Archimedes now. I
could drop us with a visible, instrumental course. My mind was whirling
with a confusion of thoughts. What could we do? What could we dare
attempt to do? I met Snap's gaze.

"Ring us down, Gregg," he said quietly.

I nodded. I pushed Moa's weapon away. "You don't need that. I obey
orders."

* * * * *

We went to the turret. Moa watched me and Snap, a grim, cold Amazon. She
avoided looking at Anita, whom Miko helped down the ladders with a
strange mixture of courtierlike grace and amused irony. Coniston gazed
at Anita with falling jaw.

"I say! Not George Prince? The girl--"

"No time for argument now," Miko commanded. "It's the girl, masquerading
as her brother. Get below, Coniston. Haljan takes us down."

The astounded Englishman continued gazing at Anita. "I mean to say,
where to on the Moon? Not to encounter Grantline at once, Miko? Our
equipment is not ready."

"Of course not. We will land well away. He won't be suspicious--we can
signal him again after we land. We will have time to plan, to assemble
the equipment. Get below, I told you."

The reluctant Coniston left us. I took the controls. Miko, still holding
Anita as though she were a child, sat beside me. "We will watch him,
little Anita. A skilled fellow at this sort of work."

I rang my signals for the shifting of the gravity plates. The answer
should have come from below within a second or two. But it did not. Miko
regarded me with his great bushy eyebrows upraised.

"Ring again, Haljan."

I duplicated. No answer. The silence was frightening. Ominous.

Miko muttered, "That accursed Hahn. Ring again!"

I sent the imperative emergency demand.

* * * * *

No answer. A second or two. Then all of us in the turret were startled.
Transfixed. From below came a sudden hiss. It sounded in the turret: it
came from shifting-room call-grid. The hissing of the pneumatic valves
of the plate-shifters in the lower control room. The valves were
opening; the plates automatically shifting into neutral, and
disconnecting!

An instant of startled silence. Miko may have realized the significance
of what had happened. Certainly Snap and I did. The hissing ceased. I
gripped the emergency plate-shifter switch which hung over my head. Its
disc was dead! The plates were dead in neutral. In the positions they
were only placed while in port! And their shifting mechanisms were
imperative!

I was on my feet. "Snap! Good God, we're in neutral!"

Miko, if he had not realized it before, was aware if it now. The
Moon-disc moved visibly as the _Planetara_ lurched. The vault of the
heavens was slowly swinging.

Miko ripped out a heavy oath. "Haljan! What is this?"

He stood up, still holding Anita. But there was nothing that he could do
in this emergency. "Haljan--what--"

The heavens turned with a giant swoop. The Moon was over us. It swung in
dizzying arc. Overhead, then back past our stern; under us, then
appearing over our bow.

The _Planetara_ had turned over. Upending. Rotating, end over end.

For a moment or two I think all of us in that turret stood and clung.
The Moon-disc, the Earth, Sun and all the stars were swinging past our
windows. So horribly dizzying. The _Planetara_ seemed lurching and
tumbling. But it was an optical effect only. I stared with grim
determination at my feet. The turret seemed to steady.

Then I looked again. That horrible swoop of all the heavens! And the
Moon, as it went past, seemed expanded. We were falling! Out of control,
with the Moon-gravity pulling us inexorably down!

"That accursed Hahn--" Miko, stricken with his lack of knowledge of
these controls, was wholly confused.

* * * * *

A moment only had passed. My fancy that the Moon-disc was enlarged was
merely the horror of my imagination. We had not fallen far enough yet
for that.

But we were falling. Unless I could do something, we would crash upon
the Lunar surface.

Anita, killed in this _Planetara_ turret. The end of everything for us.

Action came to me. I gasped, "Miko, you stay here! The controls are
dead! You stay here--hold Anita."

I ignored Moa's weapon which she was still clutching mechanically. Snap
thrust her away.

"Sit back! Let us alone! We're falling! Don't you understand?"

This deadly danger, to level us all! No longer were we captors and
captured. Not brigands for this moment. No thought of Grantline's
treasure! Trapped humans only! Leveled by the common, instinct of
self-preservation. Trapped here together, fighting for our lives.

Miko gasped. "Can you--check us? What happened?"

"I don't know. I'll try."

I stood clinging. This dizzying whirl! From the audiphone grid
Coniston's voice sounded.

"I say, Haljan, something's wrong! Hahn doesn't signal."

The look-out in the forward tower was clinging to his window. On the
deck below our turret a member of the crew appeared, stood lurching for
a moment, then shouted, and turned and ran, swaying, aimless. From the
lower hull-corridors our grids sounded with the tramping of running
steps. Panic among the crew was spreading over the ship. A chaos below
decks.

* * * * *

I pulled at the emergency switch again. Dead....

But down below there was the manual controls.

"Snap, we must get down. The signals."

"Yes."

Coniston's voice came like a scream from the grid. "Hahn is dead--the
controls are broken! Hahn is dead!"

We barely heard him. I shouted, "Miko--hold Anita! Come on, Snap!"

We clung to the ladders. Snap was behind me. "Careful, Gregg! Good God!"

This dizzying whirl. I tried not to look. The deck under me was now a
blurred kaleidoscope of swinging patches of moonlight and shadow.

We reached the deck. Ran, swaying, lurching.

It seemed that from the turret Anita's voice followed us. "Be careful!"

Within the ship our senses steadied. With the rotating, reeling, heavens
shut out, there were only the shouts and tramping steps of the
panic-stricken crew to mark that anything was amiss. That, and a
pseudo-sensation of lurching caused by the pulsing of gravity--a pull
when the Moon was beneath our hull to combine its force with our
magnetizers; a lightening when it was overhead. A throbbing, pendulum
lurch--that was all.

We ran down to the corridor incline. A white-faced member of the crew,
came running up.

"What's happened? Haljan, what's happened?"

"We're falling!" I gripped him. "Get below. Come on with us!"

But he jerked away from me. "Falling?"

A steward came running. "Falling? My God!"

Snap swung at them. "Get ahead of us! The manual controls--our only
chance--we need all you men at the compressor pumps!"

But it was an instinct to try and get on deck, as though here below we
were rats caught in a trap. The men tore away from me and ran. Their
shouts of panic resounded through the dim, blue-lit corridors.

* * * * *

Coniston came lurching from the control room. "I say--falling! Haljan,
my God, look at him!"

Hahn was sprawled at the gravity-plate switchboard. Sprawled,
head-down. Dead. Killed by something? Or a suicide?

I bent over him. His hands gripped the main switch. He had ripped it
loose. And his left hand had reached and broken the fragile line of
tubes that intensified the current of the pneumatic plate-shifters. A
suicide? With his last frenzy determined to kill us all?

Then I saw that Hahn had been killed! Not a suicide! In his hand he
gripped a small segment of black fabric, a piece torn from an invisible
cloak? Was it?

The questions were swept away by the necessity for action. Snap was
rigging the hand-compressors. If he could get the pressure back in the
tanks....

I swung on Coniston. "You armed?"

"Yes." He was white-faced and confused, but not in a panic. He showed me
his heat-ray cylinder. "What do you want me to do?"

"Round up the crew. Get all you can. Bring them here to man these
pumps."

He dashed away. Snap shouted after him. "Kill them down if they argue!"

Miko's voice sounded from the turret call grid: "Falling! Haljan, you
can see it now! Check us!"

I did not answer that. I pumped with Snap.

Desperate moments. Or was it an hour? Coniston brought the men. He stood
over them with menacing weapon.

We had all the pumps going. The pressure rose a little in the tanks.
Enough to shift a bow-plate. I tried it. The plate slowly clicked into a
new combination. A gravity repulsion just in the bow-tip.

* * * * *

I signaled Miko. "Have we stopped swinging?"

"No. But slower."

I could feel it, that lurch of the gravity. But not steady now. A limp.
The tendency of our bow was to stay up.

"More pressure, Snap."

"Yes."

One of the crew rebelled, tried to bolt from the room. "God, we'll
crash, caught in here!"

Coniston shot him down.

I shifted another bow-plate. Then two in the stern. The stern-plates
seemed to move more readily than the others.

"Run all the stern-plates," Snap advised.

I tried it. The lurching stopped. Miko called. "We're bow down.
Falling!"

But not falling free. The Moon-gravity pull upon us was more than half
neutralized.

"I'll go up, Snap, and try the engines. You don't mind staying down?
Executing my signals?"

"You idiot!" He gripped my shoulders. His eyes were gleaming, his face
haggard, but his pale lips twitched with a smile.

"Maybe it's good-by, Gregg. We'll fall--fighting."

"Yes. Fighting. Coniston, you keep the pressure up."

With the broken set-tubes it took nearly all the pressure to maintain
the few plates I had shifted. One slipped back to neutral. Then the
pumps gained on it, and it shifted again.

I dashed up to the deck. Ah, the Moon was so close now! So horribly
close! The deck shadows were still. Through the forward bow windows the
Moon surface glared up at us.

* * * * *

I reached the turret. The _Planetara_ was steady. Pitched bow-down, half
falling, half sliding like a rocket downward. The scarred surface of the
Moon spread wide under us.

These last horrible minutes were a blur. And there was always Anita's
face. She left Miko. Faced with death, he sat clinging. Ignoring her,
Moa, too, sat apart. Staring--

And Anita crept to me. "Gregg, dear one. The end...."

I tried the electronic engines from the stern, setting them in the
reverse. The streams of their light glowed from the stern, forward
along our hull, and flared down from our bow toward the Lunar surface.
But no atmosphere was here to give resistance. Perhaps the electronic
streams checked our fall a little. The pumps gave us pressure, just in
the last minutes, to slide a few of the hull-plates. But our bow stayed
down. We slid, like a spent rocket falling.

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.

A phantasmagoria of uprushing crags. Black and gray. Spires tinged with
Earth-light.

"Gregg, dear one--good-by."

Her gentle arms around 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.
Good old Snap....

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.

An impact....




CHAPTER XXII

_The Hiss of Death_


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. Very queer! 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 am not dead. Anita--

She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in this silent
blur--a soft, mellow Earth-light 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 Earth-light glowed on her pale face; but her eyes opened
and she faintly smiled.

"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive."

I held her as though all life's turgid danger 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 her clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"

* * * * *

For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our embrace.
But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken--or cracked--and
our precious air was hissing out.

Full reality came to me at last. I was not seriously injured. I found
that 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
blood.

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 the
_Planetara's_ deck. 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 look-out.

So this was the end of the brigands' adventure! The _Planetara's_ last
voyage! How small and futile are human struggles! Miko's daring
enterprise--so villainous, inhuman--brought all in a few moments to this
silent tragedy. The _Planetara_ had 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. The _Planetara_ lay 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!"

I thought I was fully alert now. I recalled that the brigands had spoken
of having partly assembled their Moon equipment. If only we could find
suits and helmets!

"We must get out," I repeated. "Get to Grantline's camp."

"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg. I saw them
there."

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 lock-exit."

If only the exit locks would operate! We must get out of here, but find
Snap first. 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. The
_Planetara's_ gravity-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--!"

"And get out. We've got to rush it. Get out and find the Grantline
camp."

* * * * *

But how far? Which way? I must remember to take food and water. If the
helmets were equipped with admission ports. If we could find Snap. If
the exit locks would work to let us out.

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 were 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 the 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 upon
everything. And our walls were bulging. The silence and the deadly chill
of death would soon be here in these wrecked corridors. The end of the
_Planetara_. I wondered vaguely if the walls would explode.

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 now."

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 hood. An invisible
cloak! I saw a white face with opened eyes regarding me. The face of a
girl.

Venza!

I bent down. "You!"

Anita cried, "Venza!"

Venza here? Why--how--my thoughts swept away. Venza here, dying? Her
eyes closed. But she murmured to Anita. "Where is he? I want him."

Dying? 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. And it 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 the shock, confused
in the dim, wrecked ship with the chill of death coming--even here she
could make a 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? Why, 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, rarifying so that I could feel the grasp of it in my
lungs and the pin-pricks of my burning 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 recalled 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 the _Planetara_. 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. 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.

"Yes. I understand."

* * * * *

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 admission 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
signed 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 blessed warmth and pure air were
good.

We reached the hull port-locks. They operated! We went through in the
light of the head-lamps over our foreheads.

I closed the locks after us. An instinct to keep the air in the ship for
the other trapped humans lying there.

We slid down the sloping side of the _Planetara_. We were unweighted,
irrationally agile with the 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 Earth-light. The
Earth hung amid the stars in the blackness overhead like a huge section
of 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 the _Planetara_. She lay broken, wedged
between spires of upstanding rock. A few of her lights still gleamed.
The end of the _Planetara_!

The three grotesque figures of Anita, Venza and Snap had started 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
skilful. They were soon leading us. The Earth-shadows of their figures
leaped beside them. The _Planetara_ faded into the distance behind us.
Archimedes stood back there. Ahead, the mountains came closer.

An hour perhaps. I lost count 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
the _Planetara_ fall 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 the _Planetara_
had shocked us, marked us.

We stood trembling. And Grantline and his men came bounding up.

A helmeted figure touched me. I saw through the helmet-pane the visage
of a stern-faced, square-jawed, youngish 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 had realized its existence. As though the
wreck of the _Planetara_ were foreordained by an all-wise Providence,
the brigands' adventure had come to tragedy.

We stood for a 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 the Lunar desolation, with the
blessed Earth-light on us, I sent up a prayer of thankfulness. Not that
a hundred millions of treasure were 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 the _Planetara_. Might find some
of them alive."

Grantline touched me. "It's only humanity."

"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.

The _Planetara_ came 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 illumined with Earth-light straggling through
the windows.

This littered tomb! Already cold and silent with death. We stumbled over
a fallen figure. A member of the crew.

* * * * *

Grantline straightened from examining him.

"Dead."

Earth-light 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 dome had not exploded,
but the air up here had almost all hissed away.

Again Grantline touched me. "That the turret?"

"Yes."

No wonder he asked! The wreckage was all so formless.

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 look-out 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 his 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 had gone out.

* * * * *

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
steward-crew.

We did not find them outside. They were hiding near here, no doubt, more
willing to take their chances than to yield now to us. 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 or me!

I told Grantline now. His eyes through the visor stared at me blankly.

"What!"

I told him again. It would be here in eight days. Fully manned and
armed.

"But Haljan, we have almost no weapons! All my _Comet's_ space was taken
with mining equipment and the mechanisms for my camp. I can't signal
Earth! I was depending on the _Planetara_!"

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 non-arrival of the _Planetara_
would 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 with our
treasure!

(_To be continued._)


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