Brigands of the Moon

Brigands of the Moon

(The Book of Gregg Haljan)

CONCLUSION OF A FOUR PART NOVEL.

_By Ray Cummings_

CHAPTER XXXIV

_The First Encounters_

[Illustration: Like feathers we were blown with it.]

[Sidenote: The besieged Earth-men wage grim, ultra-scientific war with
Martian bandits in a last great struggle for their radium-ore--and
their lives.]


It seemed, with that first shot from the enemy, that a great relief
came to me--an apprehension fallen away. We had anticipated this
moment for so long, dreaded it. I think all our men felt it. A shout
went up:

"Harmless!"

It was not that. But our building withstood it better than I had
feared. It was a flash from a large electronic projector mounted on
the deck of the brigand ship. It stabbed up from the shadows across
the valley at the foot of the opposite crater-wall, a beam of vaguely
fluorescent light. Simultaneously the search-light vanished.

The stream of electrons caught the front face of our main building in
a six-foot circle. It held a few seconds, vanished; then stabbed
again, and still again. Three bolts. A total, I suppose, of nine or
ten seconds.

I was standing with Grantline at a front window. We had rigged an
oblong of insulated fabric like a curtain: we stood peering, holding
the curtain cautiously aside. The ray struck some twenty feet away
from us.

"Harmless!"

The men in the room shouted it with derision. But Grantline swung on
them.

"Don't think that!"

An interior signal-panel was beside Grantline. He called the duty-men
in the instrument room.

"It's over. What are your readings?"

* * * * *

The bombarding electrons had passed through the outer shell of the
building's double-wall, and been absorbed in the rarefied, magnetized
air-current of the Erentz circulation. Like poison in a man's veins,
reaching his heart, the free alien electrons had disturbed the motors.
They accelerated, then retarded. Pulsed unevenly, and drew added power
from the reserve tanks. But they had normalized at once when the shot
was past. The duty-man's voice sounded from the grid in answer to
Grantline's question:

"Five degrees colder in your building. Can't you feel it?"

The disturbed, weakened Erentz circulation had allowed the outer cold
to radiate through a trifle. The walls had had a trifle extra
explosive pressure from the room-air. A strain--but that was all.

"It's probably their most powerful single weapon, Gregg." Grantline
said.

I nodded. "Yes. I think so."

I had smashed the real giant, with its ten-mile range. The ship was
only two miles from us, but it seemed as though this projector were
exerted to its distance limit. I had noticed on the deck only one of
this type. The others, paralyzing-rays and heat rays, were less
deadly.

Grantline commented: "We can withstand a lot of that bombardment. If
we stay inside--"

That ray, striking a man outside, would penetrate his Erentz suit
within a few seconds, we could not doubt. We had, however, no
intention of going out unless for dire necessity.

"Even so," said Grantline. "A hand-shield would hold it off for a
certain length of time."

* * * * *

We had an opportunity a moment later to test our insulated shields.
The bolt came again. It darted along the front face of the building,
caught our window and clung. The double window-shells were our weakest
points. The sheet of flashing Erentz current was transparent: we could
see through it as though it were glass. It moved faster, but was
thinner at the windows than in the walls. We feared the bombarding
electrons might cross it, penetrate the inner shell and, like a
lightning bolt, enter the room.

We dropped the curtain corner. The radiance of the bolt was dimly
visible. A few seconds, then it vanished again, and behind the shield
we had not felt a tingle.

"Harmless!"

But our power had been drained nearly an aeron, to neutralize the
shock to the Erentz current. Grantline said:

"If they kept that up, it would be a question of whose power supply
would last longest. And it would not be ours.... You saw our lights
fade down while the bolt was striking?"

But the brigands did not know we were short of power. And to fire the
projector with a continuous bolt would, in thirty minutes, perhaps,
have exhausted their own power-reserve.

This strange warfare! It was new to all of us, for there had been no
wars on any of the three inhabited worlds for many years. Silent,
electronic conflict! Not a question of men in battle. A man at a
switch on the brigand ship was the sole actor so far in this assault.
And the results were visible only in the movement of the needle-dials
on our instrument panels. A struggle, so far, not of man's bravery, or
skill, or strategy, but merely of electronic power supply.

* * * * *

Yet warfare, however modern, can never transcend the human element.
Before this insult was ended I was to have many demonstrations of
that!

"I won't answer them," Grantline declared. "Our game is to sit
defensive. Conserve everything. Let them make the leading moves."

We waited half an hour, but no other shot came. The valley floor was
patched with Earthlight and shadow. We could see the vague outline of
the brigand ship backed up at the foot of the opposite crater-wall.
The form of its dome over the illumined deck was visible, and the line
of its tiny hull ovals.

On the rocks near the ship, helmet-lights of prowling brigands
occasionally showed.

Whatever activity was going on down there we could not see with the
naked eye. Grantline did not use our telescope at first. To connect
it, even for local range, drew on our precious ammunition of power.
Some of the men urged that we search the sky with the telescope. Was
our rescue ship from Earth coming? But Grantline refused. We were in
no trouble yet. And every delay was to our advantage.

"Commander, where shall I put these helmets?"

A man came wheeling a pile of helmets on a little truck.

"At the manual porte--other building."

Our weapons and outside equipment were massed at the main exit-locks
of the large building. But we might want to sally out through the
smaller locks also. Grantline sent helmets there; suits were not
needed, as most of us were garbed in them now, but without the
helmets.

* * * * *

Snap was still in the workshop. I went there during this first
half-hour of the attack. Ten of our men were busy there with the
little flying platforms and the fabric shields.

"How is it, Snap?"

"Almost all ready."

He had six of the platforms, including the one we had already used,
and more than a dozen hand-shields. At a squeeze, all of us could ride
on these six little vehicles. We might have to ride them! We planned
that, in the event of disaster to the buildings, we could at least
escape in this fashion. Food supplies and water were now being placed
at the portes.

Depressing preparations! Our buildings uninhabitable, a rush out and
away, abandoning the treasure.... Grantline had never mentioned such a
contingency, but I noticed, nevertheless, that preparations were being
made.

"Only that one shot, Gregg?"

Snap's voice was raised over the clang of the workmen bolting the
little gravity-plates of the last platform.

"Four blasts. But just the one projector. Their strongest."

He grinned. He wore no Erentz suit as yet. He stood in torn grimy
work-trousers and a bedraggled shirt, with the inevitable red eyeshade
holding back his unruly hair. Around his waist was the weighted belt
and there were weights on his shoes for gravity stability.

"Didn't hurt us much."

"No."

"When I get the tube-panels in this thing I'll be finished. It'll take
another half-hour. I'll join you. Where are you stationed?"

* * * * *

I shrugged. "I was at a front window with Johnny. Nothing to do as
yet."

Snap went back to his work. "Well, the longer they delay, the better
for us. If only your signal got through, Gregg! We'll have a rescue
ship here in a few hours more."

Ah, that "if!"

I turned away. "Can't help you, Snap?"

"No. Take those shields," he added to one of the men.

"Take them where?"

"To Grantline. The front admission porte, or the back. He'll tell you
which."

The shields were wheeled away on a little cart. I followed it.
Grantline sent it to the back exit.

"No other move from them yet, Johnny?"

"No. All quiet."

"Snap's almost finished."

The brigands presently made another play. A giant heat-ray beam came
across the valley. It clung to our front wall for nearly a minute.

Grantline got the reports from the instrument room. He laughed.

"That helped rather than hurt us. Heated the outer wall. Frank took
advantage of it and eased up the motors."

We wondered if Miko knew that. Doubtless he did, for another interval
passed and the heat-ray was not used again.

* * * * *

Then came a zed-ray. I stood at the window, watching it, faint sheen
of beam in the dimness. It crept with sinister deliberation along our
front building-wall, clung momentarily to our shielded windows and
pried with its revealing glow into Snap's workshop.

"Looking us over," Grantline commented. "I hope they like what they
see."

I knew he did not feel the bravado that was in his tone. We had
nothing but small hand weapons: heat-rays, electronic projectors, and
bullet projectors. All for very short-range fighting. If Miko had not
known that before, he could at least make a good guess at it after the
careful zed-ray inspection. With his ship down there two miles away,
we were powerless to reach him.

It seemed that Miko was now testing the use of all his mechanisms. A
light-flare went up from the dome-peak of the ship. It rose in a slow
arc over the valley, and burst. For a few seconds the two-mile circle
of crags was brilliantly illumined. I stared, but I had to shield my
eyes against the dazzling actinic glare, and I could see nothing. Was
Miko making a zed-ray photograph of our interiors? We had no way of
knowing.

He was testing his short-range projectors now. With my eyes again
accustomed to the normal Earthlight in the valley, I could see the
stabs of little electronic beams, the Martian paralyzing-rays and
heat-beams. They darted out like flashing swords from the rocks near
the ship.

Then the whole ship and the crater-wall behind it seemed to shift
sidewise as a Benson curve-light spread its glow about the ship, with
a projector curve-beam coming up and touching the window through which
I was peering.

"Haljan, come look at these damn girls! Commander--shall I stop them?
They'll kill themselves, or kill us--or smash something!"

* * * * *

We followed the man into the building's broad central corridor. Anita
and Venza were riding a midget flying platform! Anita, in her boyish
black garb; Venza with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the
tiny, six-foot oblong of metal, one manipulating its side shields, the
other at the controls. As we arrived, the platform came sliding down
the narrow confines of the corridor, lurching, barely missing a
door-grid projection. Up to skim the low vaulted ceiling, then down to
the floor.

It sailed past our heads, rising over us as we ducked. Anita waved her
hand.

Grantline gasped, "By the infernal!"

I shouted, "Anita, stop!"

But they only waved at us, skimming down the length of the corridor,
seeming to avoid a smash a dozen times by the smallest margin of
chance, stopping miraculously at the further end, hanging poised in
mid-air, wheeling, coming back, undulating up and down.

Grantline clung to me. "By the gods of the airways!"

In spite of my astonished horror I could not but share Grantline's
obvious admiration. Three of four other men were watching. The girls
were amazingly skillful, no doubt of that. There was not a man among
us who could have handled that gravity-platform indoors, not one who
would have had the brash temerity to try it.

The platform landed with the grace of a humming bird at our feet, the
girls dexterously balancing so that it came to rest swiftly, without
the least bump.

I confronted them. "Anita, what are you doing?"

She stood up, flushed and smiling.

"Practising."

Imperturbable girls! The product of their age. Oblivious to the
brigand attack, they were in here practising!

"What for?" I demanded.

Venza's roguish eyes twinkled at me. Her hands went to her slim hips
with a gesture of defiance.

She asked, "Are you speaking for yourself or the commander?"

* * * * *

I ignored her. "What for?" I reiterated.

"Because we're good at it," Anita retorted. "Better than any of you
men. If you should need us...."

"We don't. We won't." I said shortly.

"But if you should...."

Venza put in, "If Snap and I hadn't come for you, you wouldn't be
here, Gregg Haljan. I didn't notice you were so horrified to see me
holding that shield up over you!"

It silenced me.

She added, "Commander, let us alone. We won't smash anything."

Grantline laughed, "I hope you won't!"

A warning call took us back to the front window. The brigand's
search-beam was again being used. It swept slowly along the length of
the cliff. Its circle went down the cliff steps to the valley floor,
and came sweeping up again. Then it went up to the observatory
platform at the summit above us, then back and crept over to the
ore-sheds.

We had no men outside, if that was what the brigand wanted to
determine. The search-beam presently vanished. It was replaced
immediately by a zed-ray, which darted at once to our treasure sheds
and clung.

That stung Grantline into his first action. We flung our own zed-ray
down across the valley. It reached the brigand ship; this zed-ray and
a search-light were our only two projectors of long range.

The brigand ray vanished when ours flashed on. I was with Grantline at
an image grid in the instrument room. We saw the deck of the brigand
ship and the blurred interior of the cabins.

"Try the search-beam, Franck. We don't need the other."

The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our search-light which clung to
the dome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there.

"The telescope," Grantline ordered.

* * * * *

The little dynamos hummed. The telescope-finder glowed and clarified.
On the deck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the
assembling of ore-carts. A deck landing-porte was open. The ore-carts
were being carried out through a porte-lock and down a landing
incline. And on the rocks outside, we saw several of the carts--and
rail-sections and the sections of an ore-shute.

Miko was unloading his mining apparatus! He was making ready to come
up for the treasure!

The discovery, startling as it was, nevertheless was far overshadowed
by an imperative danger alarm from our main building. Brigands were
outside on our ledge! Miko's search-beam, sweeping the ledge a moment
before, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done just
for that purpose, no doubt--making us sure that the ledge was
unoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making a search.

But there was a brigand group here close outside our walls! By the
merest chance the radiating glow from our search-ray had shown the
helmeted figures scurrying for shelter.

Grantline leaped to his feet.

We rushed for the rear exit-porte which was nearest us. The giant
bloated figures had been seen running along the outside of the
connecting corridor, in this direction. But before we ever got there,
a new alarm came. A brigand was crouching at a front corner of the
main building! His hydrogen heat-torch had already opened a rift in
the wall!


CHAPTER XXXV

_Desperate Offensive_

"In with you!" ordered Grantline. "Get your helmets on! How many? Six?
Enough--get back there, Williams--you were last. The lock won't hold
any more."

I was one of the six who jammed into the manual exit lock. We went
through it: in a moment we were outside. It was less than three
minutes since the prowling brigands had been seen.

Grantline touched me just as we emerged. "Don't wait for orders! Get
them!"

"That fellow with the torch, the most dangerous--"

"Yes! I'm with you."

We went out with a rush. We had already discarded our shoe and belt
weights. I leaped, regardless of my companions.

The scurrying Martians had disappeared. Through my visor bull's-eye I
could see only the Earthlit rocky surface of the ledge. Beside me
stretched the dark wall of our building.

I bounded toward the front. The brigand with the torch had been at
this front corner. I could not see him from here: he had been
crouching just around the angle.

I had a tiny bullet projector, the best weapon for short range
outdoors. I was aware of Grantline close behind me.

It took only a few of my giant leaps. I landed at the corner,
recovered my balance, and whirled around to the front.

The Martian was here, a giant misshapen lump as he crouched. His torch
was a little stab of blue in the deep shadow enveloping him. Intent
upon his work, he did not see me. Perhaps he thought his fellows had
broken our exits by now.

* * * * *

I landed like a leopard upon his back and fired, my weapon muzzle
ramming him. His torch fell hissing with a silent rain of blue fire
upon the rocks.

As my grip upon him made audiphone contact, his agonized scream
rattled the diaphragms of my ear-grids with horrible, deafening
intensity.

He lay writhing under me, then was still. His scream choked into
silence. His suit deflated within my encircling grip. He was dead; my
leaden, steel-tipped pellet had punctured the double surface of his
Erentz-fabric, penetrated his chest.

Grantline's following leap landed him over me.

"Dead?"

"Yes."

I climbed from the inert body. The torch had hissed itself out.
Grantline swung on our building corner, and I leaned down with him to
examine it. The torch had fused and scarred the surface of the wall,
burned almost through. A pressure-rift had opened. We could see it, a
curving gash in the metal wall-plate like a crack in a glass
window-pane.

I went cold. This was serious damage! The rarefied Erentz-air would
seep out. It was leaking now: we could see the magnetic radiance of it
all up the length of the ten-foot crack. The leak would change the
pressure of the Erentz system, constantly lower it, demanding steady
renewal. The Erentz motors would overheat; some might go bad from the
strain.

Grantline stood gripping me.

"Damn bad!"

"Yes. Can't we repair it, Johnny?"

"No. Have to take that whole plate-section out, shut off the Erentz
plant and exhaust the interior air of all this bulkhead of the
building. Day's job--maybe more."

* * * * *

And the crack would get worse, I knew. It would gradually spread and
widen. The Erentz circulation would fail. All our power would be
drained struggling to maintain it. This brigand who had unwittingly
committed suicide by his daring act had accomplished more than he
perhaps had realized. I could envisage our weapons, useless from lack
of power. The air in our buildings turning fetid and frigid: ourselves
forced to the helmets. A rush out to abandon the camp and escape. The
buildings exploding--scattering into a litter on the ledge like a
child's broken toy. The treasure abandoned, with the brigands coming
up and loading it on their ship.

Our defeat. In a few hours now--or minutes. This crack could slowly
widen, or it could break suddenly at any time. Disaster, come now so
abruptly upon us at the very start of the brigand attack....

Grantline's voice in my audiphone broke my despairing rush of
thoughts. "Bad. Come on, Gregg; nothing to do here."

We were aware that our other four men had run along the building's
other side. They emerged now--with the running brigands in front of
them, rushing out toward the staircase on the ledge. Three giant
Martian figures in flight, with our four men chasing.

A bullet projector spat, with its queer stab of exploding powder fed
by the burning oxygen fumes of its artificial air-chamber--one of our
men firing. A brigand fell to the rocks by the brink of the ledge. The
others reached the descending staircase, tumbled down it with reckless
leaps.

Our men turned back. Before we could join them, the enemy ship down in
the valley sent up a cautious search-beam which located its returning
men. Then the beam swung up to the ledge, landed upon us.

We stood confused, blinded by the brilliant glare. Grantline stumbled
against me.

"Run, Gregg! They'll be firing at us."

We dashed away. Our companions joined us, rushing back for the porte.
I saw it open, reinforcements coming out to help us--half a dozen
figures carrying a ten-foot insulated shield. They could barely get it
out through the porte.

* * * * *

The Martian search-ray abruptly vanished. Then almost instantly the
electronic ray came with its deadly stab. Missed us at first, as we
ran for the shield. It vanished, and stabbed again. It caught us, but
now we were behind the shield, carrying it back to the porte, hiding
behind it.

The ray stabbed once or twice more.

Whether Miko's instruments showed him how serious that damage was to
our front wall, we never knew. But I think that he realized. His
search-beam clung to it, and his red-ray pried into our interiors.

The brigand ship was active now. We were desperate: we used our
telescope freely for observation. And used our red-ray and
search-light. Miko's ore-carts and mining apparatus were unloaded on
the rocks. The rail-sections were being carried a mile out, nearly to
the center of the valley. A subsidiary camp was being established
there, only a mile from the base of our cliff, but still far beyond
reach of our weapons. We could see the brigand lights down there.

Then the ore-shute sections were brought over. We could see Miko's men
carrying some of the giant projectors, mounting them in the new
position. Power tanks and cables. Light-flare catapults--little
mechanical cannons for throwing the bombs.

The enemy search-light constantly raked our vicinity. Occasionally the
giant electronic projector flung up its bolt as though warning us not
to dare leave our buildings.

* * * * *

Half an hour went by. Our situation was even worse than Miko could
know. The Erentz motors were running hot--our power draining, the
crack widening. When it would break we could not tell; but the danger
was like a sword over us.

An anxious thirty minutes for us, this second interlude. Grantline
called a meeting of all our little force, with every man having his
say. Inactivity was no longer a feasible policy. We recklessly used
our power to search the sky. Our rescue ship might be up there; but we
could not see it with our disabled instruments. No signals came. We
could not--or, at least, did not--receive them.

"They wouldn't signal," Grantline protested. "They'd know the Martians
would be more likely to get the signal than us. Of what use to warn
Miko?"

But he did not dare wait for a rescue ship that might or might not be
coming! Miko was playing the waiting game now--making ready for a
quick loading of the ore when we were forced to abandon our buildings.

The brigand ship suddenly moved its position! It rose up in a low flat
arc, came forward and settled in the center of the valley where the
carts and rail-sections were piled, and the outside projectors newly
mounted on the rocks. But the projectors only shot at us occasionally.

The brigands now began laying the rails from the ship toward the base
of our cliff. The chute would bring the ore down from the ledge, and
the carts would take it to the ship.

The laying of the rails was done under cover of occasional stabs from
the electronic projector.

And then we discovered that Miko had made still another move. The
brigand rays, fired from the depths of the valley, could strike our
front building, but could not reach all our ledge. And from the ship's
new and nearer position this disadvantage was intensified. Then
abruptly we realized that under cover of darkness-bombs an electronic
projector and search-ray had been carried to the top of the
crater-rim, diagonally across and only half a mile from us. Their
beams shot down, raking all our vicinity from this new angle.

* * * * *

I was on the little flying platform which sallied out as a test to
attack these isolated projectors. Snap and I and one other volunteer
went. He and I held the shield; Snap handled the controls.

Our exit-porte was on the lee side of the building from the hostile
search-beam. We got out unobserved and sailed upward; but soon a light
from the ship caught us. And the projector bolts came up....

Our sortie only lasted a few minutes. To me, it was a confusion of
crossing beams, with the stars overhead, the swaying little platform
under me, and the shield tingling in my hands when the blasts struck
us. Moments of blurred terror....

The voice of the man beside me sounded in my ears: "Now, Haljan, give
them one!"

We were up over the peak of the rim with the hostile projectors under
us. I gauged our movement, and dropped an explosive powder bomb.

It missed. It flared with a puff on the rocks, twenty feet from where
the two projectors were mounted. I saw that two helmeted figures were
down there. They tried to swing their grids upward, but could not get
them vertical to reach us. The ship was firing at us, but it was far
away. And Grantline's search-beam was going full-power, clinging to
the ship to dazzle them.

Snap circled us. As we came back I dropped another bomb. Its silent
puff seemed littered with flying fragments of the two projectors and
the bodies of the men.

We flew swiftly back and got in.

* * * * *

It decided Grantline. For an hour past Snap and I had been urging our
plan to use the gravity platforms. To remain inactive was sure defeat
now. Even if our buildings did not explode--if we thought to huddle in
them, helmeted in the failing air--then Miko could readily ignore us
and proceed with his loading of the treasure under our helpless gaze.
He could do that now with safety--if we refused to sally out--for we
could not fire our weapons through our windows.[1]

[Footnote 1: To fire a projector through the walls or windows would at
once wreck the protective Erentz system. The enemy ship has pressure
portes, constructed for the emission of the weapon-rays. Grantline's
only weapons thus mounted were his search-beam and zed-ray.]

To remain defensive would end inevitably in our defeat. We all knew it
now; it was obvious. The waiting game was Miko's--not ours! And he was
playing it.

The success of our attack upon the distant isolated projectors
heartened us. Yet it was a desperate offensive indeed upon which we
now decided!

We prepared our little expedition at the larger of the exit portes.
Miko's zed-ray was watching all our interior movements. We made a
brave show of activity in our workship with abandoned ore-carts which
were stored there. We got them out, started to recondition them.

It seemed to fool Miko. His zed-ray clung to the workshop, watching
us. And at the distant porte we gathered the little platforms, the
shields, helmets, bombs, and a few hand-projectors.

There were six platforms--three of us upon each. It left four people
to remain indoors.

* * * * *

I need not describe the emotion with which Snap and I listened to
Venza and Anita pleading to be allowed to accompany us. They urged it
upon Grantline, and we took no part. It was too important a decision.
The treasure--the life or death of all these men--hung now upon the
fate of our venture. Snap and I could not intrude our personal
feelings.

And the girls won. Both were undeniably more skilful at handling the
midget platforms than any of us men. Two of the six platforms could be
guided by them. That was a third of our little force! And of what use
to go out and be defeated, leaving the girls here to meet death almost
immediately afterward?

We gathered at the porte. A last minute change made Grantline order
six of his men to remain guarding the buildings. The instruments--the
Erentz system--all the appliances had to be attended.

It left four platforms, each with three men, with Grantline at the
controls of one of them. And upon the other two of the six Venza rode
with Snap, and I with Anita.

We crouched in the shadows outside the porte. So small an army,
sallying out to bomb this enemy vessel or be killed in the attempt!
Only sixteen of us. And thirty or so brigands.

I envisaged then this tiny Moon-crater, the scene of this battle we
were waging. Struggling humans, desperately trying to kill. Alone here
on this globe. Around us, the wide reaches of Lunar desolation. In all
this world, every human being was gathered here, struggling to kill!

Anita drew me down to the platform. "Ready, Gregg."

The others were rising. We lifted, moved slowly out and away from the
protective shadows of the building.

In a tiny queue the six little platforms sailed out over the valley
toward the brigand ship.


CHAPTER XXXVI

_The Battle in the Crater_

Grantline led us. We held about level. Five hundred feet beneath us
the brigand ship lay, cradled on the rocks. When it was still a mile
away from us I could see all its outline fairly clearly in the
dimness. Its tiny hull-windows were now dark; but the blurred shape of
the hull was visible and above it the rounded cap of dome, with a dim
radiance beneath it.

We followed Grantline's platform. It was rising, drawing the others
after it like a tail. I touched Anita where she lay beside me with her
head half in the small hooded control-bank.

"Going too high."

She nodded, but followed the line nevertheless. It was Grantline's
command.

I lay crouched, holding the inner tips of the flexible side-shields.
The bottom of the platform was covered with the insulated fabric.
There were two side-shields. They extended upward some two feet,
flexible so that I could hold them out to see over them, or draw them
up and in to cover us.

They afforded a measure of protection against the hostile rays, though
just how much we were not sure. With the platform level, a bolt from
beneath could not harm us unless it continued for a considerable time.
But the platform, except upon direct flight, was seldom level, for it
was a frail, unstable little vehicle! To handle it was more than a
question of the controls. We balanced, and helped to guide it, with
the movement of our bodies--shifting our weight sidewise, or back, or
forward to make it dip as the controls altered the gravity-pull in its
tiny plate-sections.

Like a bird, wheeling, soaring, swooping. To me, it was a precarious
business.

* * * * *

But now we were in straight flight diagonally upward. The outline of
the brigand ship came under us. I crouched tense, breathless; every
moment it seemed that the brigands must discover us and loose their
bolts.

They may have seen us for some moments before they fired. I peered
over the side-shield down at our mark, then up ahead to get
Grantline's firing signal. It seemed long delayed. We were almost over
the ship. An added glow down there must have warned Grantline that a
shot was coming. The tiny red light flared bright on his platform.

I hissed on our Benson curve-light radiance. We had been dark, but a
soft glow now enveloped us. Its sheen went down to the ship to reveal
us. But its curving path showed us falsely placed. I saw the little
line of platforms ahead of us seem to move suddenly sidewise.

It was everyone for himself now; none of us could tell where the other
platforms actually were placed or headed. Anita swooped us sharply
down to avoid a possible collision.

"Gregg--?"

"Yes. I'm aiming."

I was making ready to drop the little explosive globe-bomb. Our
search-light ray at the camp, answering Grantline's signal, shot down
and bathed the ship in a white glare, revealing it for our aim.
Simultaneously the brigand bolts came up at us.

I held my bomb out over the shield, calculating the angle to throw it
down. The brigand rays flashed around me. They were horribly close;
Miko had understood our sudden visible shift and aimed, not where we
appeared to be, but where we had been a moment before.

* * * * *

I dropped my bomb hastily at the glowing white ship. The touch of a
hostile ray would have exploded it in my hand. I could see its
blue-sizzling fuse as it fell. I saw the others also dropping from our
nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in a confusion of
the white glare--and a cloud of black light-mist as the brigands out
on the rocks used their occulting darkness bombs.

We swept past in a blur of leaping hostile beams. Silent battle of
lights! Darkness bombs down at the ship struggling to bar our camp
search-ray. The Benson radiance-rays from our passing platforms
curving down to mingle with the confusion. The electronic rays sending
up their bolts....

Our platforms dropped some ten dynamitrine bombs in that first
passage over the ship. As we sped by, I dimmed the Benson's radiance.
I peered. We had not hit the ship. Or if we had, the damage was
inconclusive. But on the rocks I could see a pile of ore-carts
scattered--broken wreckage, in which the litter of two or three
projectors seemed strewn. And the gruesome deflated forms of several
helmeted figures. Others seemed, to be running, scattering--hiding in
the rocks and pit-holes. Twenty brigands at least were outside the
ship. Some were running over toward the base of our camp-ledge. The
darkness bombs were spreading like a curtain over the valley floor;
but it seemed that some of the figures were dragging their projectors
away.

We sailed off toward the opposite crater-rim. I remember passing over
the broken wreckage of Grantline's little space-ship, the _Comet_.
Miko's bolts momentarily had vanished. We had hit some of his outside
projectors; the others were abandoned, or being dragged to safer
positions.

* * * * *

After a mile we wheeled and went back. I suddenly realized that only
four platforms were in the re-formed line ahead of us. One was
missing! I saw it now, wavering down, close over the ship. A bolt
leaped up diagonally from a distant angle on the rocks and caught the
disabled platform. It fell, whirling, glowing red--disappeared into
the blur of darkness like a bit of heated metal plunged into water.

One out of six of our platforms already lost! Three men of our little
force gone!

But Grantline led us desperately back. Anita caught his signal to
break our line. The five platforms scattered, dipping and wheeling
like frightened birds--blurring shapes, shifting unnaturally in flight
as the Benson curve-angles were altered.

Anita now took our platform in a long swoop downward. Her tense,
murmured voice sounded in my ears:

"Hold off: I'll take us low."

A melee. Passing platform shapes. The darting bolts, crossing like
ancient rapiers. Falling blue points of fuse-lights as we threw our
bombs.

Down in a swoop. Then rising. Away, and then back. This silent warfare
of lights! It seemed that around me must be bursting a pandemonium of
sound. Yet I heard nothing. Silent, blurred melee, infinitely
frightening. A bolt struck us, clung for an instant; but we weathered
it. The light was blinding. Through my gloves I could feel the tingle
of the over-charged shield as it caught and absorbed the hostile
bombardment. Under me the platform seemed heated. My little Erentz
motors ran with ragged pulse. I got too much oxygen; my head roared
with it. Spots danced before my closed eyes. Then not enough oxygen. I
was dully smothering....

Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. I
shifted over.

"Anita! Anita, dear!"

"Yes. Gregg. All right."

* * * * *

The melee went on. The brigand ship and all its vicinity was enveloped
in darkness-mist now--a turgid sable curtain, made more dense by the
dissipating heavy fumes of our exploding bombs which settled low over
the ship and the rocks nearby. The search-light from our camp strove
futilely to penetrate the cloud.

Our platforms were separated. One went by high over us; I saw another
dart close beneath my shield.

"God, Anita!"

"Too close! I did not mean that--I didn't see it."

Almost a collision.

"Oh, Gregg, haven't we broken the ship's dome yet?"

It seemed not. I had dropped nearly all my bombs. This could not go on
much longer. Had it been only five minutes? Only that? Reason told me
so, yet it seemed an eternity of horror.

Another swoop. My last bomb. Anita had brought us into position to
fling it. But I could not. A bolt stabbed up from the gloom and
caught us. We huddled, pulling the shields up and over us.

Blurred darkness again. Too much to the side now. I had to wait while
Anita swung us back. Then we seemed too high.

We swooped. But not too low! Down in the darkness-mist we would
immediately have lost direction, and crashed.

I waited with my last bomb. The other platforms were occasionally
dropping them: I had been too hasty, too prodigal.

Had we broken the ship's dome with a direct hit? It seemed not.

* * * * *

The brigands were occasionally sending up catapulted light-flares.
They came from positions on the rocks outside the ship. They mounted
in lazy curves and burst over us. The concealing darkness, broken only
by the flares of our explosions, enveloped the enemy. Our camp
search-light was still struggling with it. But overhead, where the few
little platforms were circling and swooping, the flares gave an almost
continuous glare. It was dazzling, blinding. Even through the smoked
pane which I adjusted to my visor I could not stand it.

But there were thoughts of comparative dimness. In a patch where the
Earthlight struck through the darkness of the rocks, I saw another of
our fallen platforms! Snap and Venza! Dear God....

It was not they, but three figures of our men. One was dead. Two had
survived the fall. They stood up, staggering. And in that instant,
before the turgid black curtain closed over them, I saw two brigands
come rushing. Their hand projectors stabbed at close range. Our men
crumpled and fell.

And now I saw why probably we had never yet hit the ship.

Its outline was revealed. "Now, Gregg--can you fling it from here?"

We were in position again. I flung my last missile, watched its light
as it dropped. On the dome-roof two of Miko's men were crouching. My
bomb was truly aimed--perhaps one of the few in all our bombardment
which would have landed directly on the dome-roof. But the waiting
marksmen fired at it with short-range heat projectors and exploded it
harmlessly while it was still above them.

We swung up and away. I saw, high above us, Grantline's platform,
recognizing its red signal light. There seemed a lull. The enemy fire
had died down to only a very occasional bolt. In the confusion of my
whirling impressions I wondered if Miko were in distress? Not that! We
had not hit his ship; perhaps we had done little damage indeed! It was
we who were in distress. Two of our platforms had fallen--two out of
six. Or more, of which I did not know.

* * * * *

I saw one rising off to the side of us. Grantline was over us. Well,
we were at least three. And then I saw the fourth.

"Grantline is calling us up, Gregg."

"Yes."

Grantline's signal-light was summoning us from the attack. He was a
thousand or two thousand feet above.

I was suddenly shocked with horror. The search-ray from our camp
abruptly vanished! Anita wheeled us to face the distant ledge. The
camp-lights showed, and over one of the buildings was a distress
light!

Had the crack in our front wall broken, threatening explosion of all
the buildings? The wild thoughts swept me. But it was not that. I
could see light-stabs from the cliff outside the main building. Miko
had dared to send some of his men to attack our almost abandoned camp!

Grantline realized it. His red helmet-light semaphored the command to
follow him. His platform soared away, heading for the camp, with the
other two behind him.

Anita lifted us to follow. But I checked her.

"No! Off to the right, across the valley."

"But Gregg!"

"Do as I say, Anita."

She swung us diagonally away from both the camp and the brigand ship.
I prayed that we might not be noticed by the brigands.

"Anita, listen: I've an idea!"

The attack on the brigand ship was over. It lay enveloped in the
darkness of the powder-gas cloud and its own darkness bombs. But it
was uninjured.

Miko had answered us with our own tactics. He had practically unmanned
the ship, no doubt, and had sent his men to our buildings. The fight
had shifted. But I was now without ammunition, save for two or three
small bullet projectors.

Of what use for our platform to rush back? Miko expected that. His
attack on the camp was undoubtedly made just for that purpose.

"Anita, if we can get down on the rocks somewhere near the ship, and
creep up on it unobserved in that blackness...."

* * * * *

I might be able to open its manual hull-lock, rip it open and let the
air out. If I could get into its pressure chamber and unseal the inner
slide....

"It would wreck the ship, Anita, exhaust all its air. Shall we try
it?"

"Whatever you say, Gregg."

We seemed to be unobserved. We skimmed close to the valley floor, a
mile from the ship. We headed slowly toward it, sailing low over the
rocks.

Then we landed, left the platform.

"Let me go first, Anita."

I held a bullet projector. With slow, cautious leaps, we advanced.
Anita was behind me. I had wanted to leave her with the platform, but
she would not stay. And to be with me seemed at least equally safe.

The rocks were deserted. I thought there was very little chance that
any of the enemy would lurk here. We clambered over the pitted,
scarred surface. The higher crags, etched with Earthlight, stood like
sentinels in the gloom.

The brigand ship with its surrounding darkness was not far from us.
Then we entered the cloud.

No one was out here. We passed the wreckage of broken projectors, and
gruesome, shattered human forms.

We prowled closer. The hull of the ship loomed ahead of us. All dark.

We came at last close against the sleek metal hull-side, slid along it
toward where I was sure the manual-porte was located.

Abruptly I realized that Anita was not behind me! Then I saw her at a
little distance, struggling in the grip of a giant helmeted figure!
The brigand lifted her--turned, and, carrying her, ran the other way!

I did not dare fire. I bounded after them along the hull-side, around
under the curve of the pointed bow, down along the other side.

I had mistaken the hull-porte location. It was here. The running,
bounding figure reached it, slid the panel. I was only fifty feet
away--not much more than a single leap. I saw Anita being shoved into
the pressure lock. The Martian flung himself after her.

I fired at him, but missed. I came with a rush. And as I reached the
porte it slid closed in my face, barring me!


CHAPTER XXXVII

_In the Pressure Lock._

With puny fists I pounded the panel. A small pane in it was
transparent. Within the lock I could see the blurred figures of Anita
and her captor--and, it seemed, another figure. The lock was some ten
feet square, with a low ceiling. It glowed with a dim tube-light.

I pounded, thumped with futile, silent blows. The mechanism was here
to open this manual; but it was now clasped from within and would not
operate.

A few seconds only, while I stood there in a panic of confusion,
raging to get in. This disaster had come so suddenly! I did not plan;
I had no thought save to batter my way in and rescue Anita. I recall
that I beat on the glassite pane with my bullet projector until the
weapon was bent and useless; and I flung it with a wild, despairing
rage at my feet.

They were letting the ship's air-pressure into this lock. Soon they
would open the inner panel, step into the secondary chamber--and in a
moment more would be within the ship's hull corridor. Anita, lost to
me!

The outer panel suddenly opened! I had lunged against it with my
shoulder; the giant figure inside slid it. I was taken by surprise! I
half-fell inward.

Huge arms went around me. The goggled face of the helmet peered into
mine.

"So it is you, Haljan! I thought I recognized that little device over
your helmet-bracket. And there is my little Anita, come back to me
again!"

Miko!

* * * * *

This was he. His great bloated arms encircling me, bending me
backward, holding me almost helpless. I saw over his shoulder that
Anita was clutched in the grip of another helmeted figure. No giant,
but tall for an Earthman--almost as tall as myself. Then the
tube-light in the room illumined the visor. I saw the face, recognized
it. Moa!

I gasped, "So--I've--got you, Miko--"

"Got me! You're a fool to the last, Gregg Haljan! A fool to the last!
But you were always a fool."

I could scarcely move in his grip. My arms were pinned. As he slowly
bent me backward, I wound my legs around one of his; it was as
unyielding as a steel pillar. He had closed the outer panel; the
air-pressure in the lock was rising. I could feel it against my suit.

My helmeted head was being forced backward; Miko's left arm held me.
In his gloved right hand as it came slowly up over my throat I saw a
knife-blade, its naked, sharpened metal glistening blue-white in the
light from overhead.

I seized his wrist. But my puny strength could not hold him. The
knife, against all my efforts, came slowly down.

A moment of this slow deadly combat--the end of everything for me.

I was aware of the helmeted figure of Moa casting off Anita--and then
the two girls leaping together upon Miko. It threw him off his
balance, and my hanging weight made him topple forward. He took a step
to recover himself; his hand with the knife was flung up with an
instinctive, involuntary balancing gesture. And as it came swiftly
down again, I forced the knife-blade to graze his throat. Its point
caught in the fabric of his suit.

His startled oath jangled in my ears. The girls were clawing at him;
we were all four scrambling, swaying. With despairing strength I
twisted at his waist. The knife went into his throat. I plunged it
deeper.

* * * * *

His suit went flabby. He crumpled over me and fell, knocking me to the
floor. His voice, with the horrible gurgling rasp of death in it,
rattled my ear-grids.

"Not such a fool--are you, Haljan--"

Moa's helmeted head was close over us. I saw that she had seized the
knife, jerked it from her brother's throat. She leaped backward,
waving it.

I twisted from under Miko's inert, lifeless body. As I got to my feet,
Anita flung herself to shield me. Moa was across the lock, backed up
against its wall. The knife in her hand went up. She stood for the
briefest instant regarding Anita and me holding each other. I thought
that she was about to leap upon us; but before I could move, the knife
came down and plunged into her breast. She fell forward, her
grotesque helmet striking the floor-grid almost at my feet.

"Gregg!"

"She's dead."

"No! She moved! Get her helmet of! There's enough air here."

My helmet pressure-indicator was faintly buzzing to show that a safe
pressure was in the room. I shut off Moa's Erentz motors, unfastened
her helmet, raised it off. We gently turned her body. She lay with
closed eyes, her pallid face blue-cast from the light in the lock.

With our own helmets off, we knelt over her.

"Oh. Gregg, is she dead?"

"No. Not quite--but dying."

"Oh Gregg, I don't want her to die! She was trying to help you there
at the last."

She opened her eyes; the film of death was glazing them. But she saw
me, recognized me.

"Gregg--"

"Yes, Moa, I'm here."

* * * * *

Her livid lips were faintly drawn in a smile. "I'm--so glad--you took
the helmets off, Gregg. I'm--going--you know."

"No!"

"Going--back to Mars--to rest with the fire-makers--where I came from.
I was thinking--maybe you would kiss me, Gregg--?"

Anita gently pushed me down. I pressed the white, faintly smiling lips
with mine. She sighed, and it ended with a rattle in her throat.

"Thank you--Gregg--closer--I can't talk so loudly--"

One of her gloved hands struggled to touch me, but she had no strength
and it fell back. Her words were the faintest of whispers:

"There was no use living--without your love. But I want you to
see--now--that a Martian girl can--die with a smile--"

Her eyelids fluttered down: it seemed that she sighed and then was not
breathing. But on her livid face the faint smile still lingered to
show me how a Martian girl could die.

We had forgotten for the moment where we were. As I glanced up I saw
that through the inner panel, past the secondary lock, the ship's
hull-corridor was visible, and along its length a group of Martians
were advancing! They saw us, and came running.

"Anita! Look! We've got to get out of here!"

The secondary lock was open to the corridor. We jammed on our helmets.
The unhelmeted brigands by then were fumbling at the inner panel. I
pulled at the lever of the outer panel. The brigands were hurrying,
thinking they could be in time to stop me. One of the more cautious
fumbled with a helmet.

"Anita, run! Try and keep your feet."

I slid the outer panel and pushed at Anita. Simultaneously the
brigands opened the inner porte.

The air came with a tempestuous rush. A blast through the inner
porte--through the little pressure-lock--a wild rush out to the
airless Moon. All the air in the ship madly rushing to escape....

Like feathers we were blown with it. I recall an impression of the
hurtling brigand figures and swift-flying rocks under me. A silent
crash as I struck.

Then soundless, empty blackness.


CHAPTER XXXVIII

_Triumph!_

"Is he conscious? We'd better take him back, get his helmet off."

"It's over. We can get back now. Venza, dear, we've won--it's over."

"He hears us!"

"Gregg!"

"He hears us--he's all right!"

I opened my eyes. I lay on the rocks. Over my helmet other helmets
were peering, and faint, familiar voices mingled with the roaring in
my ears.

"--back to the camp and get his helmet off."

"Are his motors smooth? Keep them right, Snap--he must have good air."

I seemed unhurt. But Anita....

She was here. "Gregg, dear one!"

Anita safe! All four of us here on the Earthlit rocks, close outside
the brigand ship.

"Anita!"

She held me, lifted me. I was uninjured. I could stand; I staggered up
and stood swaying. The brigand ship, a hundred feet away, loomed dark
and silent, a lifeless bulk, already empty of air, drained in that mad
blast outward. Like the wreck of the _Planetara_--a dead, pulseless
hulk already.

We four stood together, triumphant. The battle was over. The brigands
were worsted, almost the last man of them dead or dying. No more than
ten or fifteen had been available for that final assault upon the camp
buildings. Miko's last strategy. I think perhaps he had intended, with
his few remaining men, to take the ship and make away, deserting his
fellows.

All on the ship, caught unhelmeted by the explosion, were dead long
since.

I stood listening to Snap's triumphant account. It had not been
difficult for the flying platforms to hunt down the attacking brigands
on the open rocks. We had only lost one more platform.

Human hearts beat sometimes with very selfish emotions. It was a
triumphant ending for us, and we hardly gave a thought that half of
Grantline's little group had perished.

We huddled on Snap's platform. It rose, lurching drunkenly, barely
carrying us.

And as we headed for the Grantline buildings, where still the rift in
the wall had not quite broken, there came the final triumph. Miko had
been aware of it, and knew he had lost. Grantline's search-light
leaped upward, swept the sky, caught its sought-for object--a huge
silver cylinder, bathed brightly in the white search-beam glare.

The police-ship from Earth!


CHAPTER XXXIX

_My Exit_

My narrative lies now in this permanently recorded form before you,
and I prepare my exit bow with the humble hope that I may have given
you pleasure. If so, I do beg you to tell me of it. There are some who
already have flashed their approval of my discs; I thank them most
earnestly and gratefully.

My errors of recording unquestionably are many; and for them I ask
your indulgence. There have been, I can readily see, errors of
omission. I have not mentioned, for instance, the final rescue of the
_Planetara's_ marooned passengers on the asteroid. You will bear with
me, since the disc-space has its technical limitations, that such
omissions have been unavoidable.

Since the passage of the Earth-law by the Federated Board of
Education, forcing narrative fiction to cling so closely to sworn
facts of actual happening, I need offer no assurance of the truth of
my narrative. My witnesses have filed their corroborating
declarations. Indeed, the _Planetara's_ wreck and the brigands' attack
upon the Moon-treasure were given the widest news-casters' publicity,
as you all know. Yet I, who was unwittingly involved in those stirring
events, may have added a more personal note, making the scenes more
vivid to your imagination. I have tried to do that. I do hope that in
some measure you will think I have succeeded.

There are many foolish girls now who say that they would like to know
Gregg Haljan. They doubtless would be very disappointed. I really
crave no more publicity. And the girls of all the Universe have no
charm for me. There is only one, for me--an Earth-girl.

I think that life has very beautifully endowed me with its blessings.