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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brigands of the Moon, by Ray Cummings
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brigands of the Moon
+
+Author: Ray Cummings
+
+Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #19066]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIGANDS OF THE MOON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Jason Isbell, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+       Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
+       copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+
+                        _BRIGANDS of the MOON_
+
+
+
+                                  by
+
+                             RAY CUMMINGS
+
+
+
+
+                           ACE BOOKS, INC.
+
+               23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
+
+
+
+                   Copyright, 1931, by Ray Cummings
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Our ship, the space-flyer, _Planetara_, whose home port was Greater
+New York, carried mail and passenger traffic to and from both Venus
+and Mars. Of astronomical necessity, our flights were irregular. The
+spring of 2070, with both planets close to the Earth, we were making
+two complete round trips. We had just arrived in Greater New York, one
+May evening, from Grebhar, Venus Free State. With only five hours in
+port here, we were departing the same night at the zero hour for
+Ferrok-Shahn, capital of the Martian Union.
+
+We were no sooner at the landing stage than I found a code flash
+summoning Dan Dean and me to Divisional Detective Headquarters. Dan
+"Snap" Dean was one of my closest friends. He was electron-radio
+operator of the _Planetara_. A small, wiry, red-headed chap, with a
+quick, ready laugh and the kind of wit that made everyone like him.
+
+The summons to Detective-Colonel Halsey's office surprised us. Dean
+eyed me.
+
+"You haven't been opening any treasure vaults, have you, Gregg?"
+
+"He wants you, also," I retorted.
+
+He laughed. "Well, he can roar at me like a traffic switch-man and my
+private life will remain my own."
+
+We could not think why we should be wanted. It was the darkness of
+mid-evening when we left the _Planetara_ for Halsey's office. It was
+not a long trip. We went on the upper monorail, descending into the
+subterranean city at Park Circle 30.
+
+We had never been to Halsey's office before. Now we found it to be a
+gloomy, vaultlike place in one of the deepest corridors. The door
+lifted.
+
+"Gregg Haljan and Daniel Dean."
+
+The guard stood aside. "Come in."
+
+I own that my heart was unduly thumping as we entered. The door
+dropped behind us. It was a small blue-lit apartment--a steel-lined
+room like a vault.
+
+Colonel Halsey sat at his desk. And the big, heavy-set, florid Captain
+Carter--our commander on the _Planetara_--was here. That surprised us:
+we had not seen him leave the ship.
+
+Halsey smiled at us gravely. Captain Carter spoke with an ominous
+calmness: "Sit down, lads."
+
+We took the seats. There was an alarming solemnity about this. If I
+had been guilty of anything that I could think of, it would have been
+frightening. But Halsey's words reassured me.
+
+"It's about the Grantline Moon Expedition. In spite of our secrecy,
+the news has gotten out. We want to know how. Can you tell us?"
+
+Captain Carter's huge bulk--he was about as tall as I am--towered over
+us as we sat before Halsey's desk. "If you lads have told anyone--said
+anything--let _slip_ the slightest hint about it...."
+
+Snap smiled with relief; but he turned solemn at once. "I haven't. Not
+a word!"
+
+"Nor have I!" I declared.
+
+The Grantline Moon Expedition! We had not thought of that as a reason
+for this summons. Johnny Grantline was a close friend of ours. He had
+organized an exploring expedition to the Moon. Uninhabited, with its
+bleak, forbidding, airless, waterless surface, the Moon--even though
+so close to the Earth--was seldom visited. No regular ship ever
+stopped there. A few exploring parties of recent years had come to
+grief.
+
+But there was a persistent rumor that upon the Moon, mineral riches of
+fabulous wealth were awaiting discovery. The thing had already caused
+some interplanetary complications. The aggressive Martians would be
+only too glad to explore the Moon. But the United States of the World,
+which came into being in 2067, definitely warned them away. The Moon
+was Earth territory, we announced, and we would protect it as such.
+
+There was, nevertheless, a realization by our government, that
+whatever riches might be upon the Moon should be seized at once and
+held by some reputable Earth Company. And when John Grantline applied,
+with his father's wealth and his own scientific record of attainment,
+the government was glad to grant him its writ.
+
+The Grantline Expedition had started six months ago. The Martian
+government had acquiesced to our ultimatum, yet brigands have been
+known to be financed under cover of a government disavowal. And so our
+expedition was kept secret.
+
+My words need give no offence to any Martian who comes upon them. I
+refer to the history of our Earth only. The Grantline Expedition was
+on the Moon now. No word had come from it. One could not flash helios
+even in code without letting all the universe know that explorers were
+on the Moon. And why they were there, anyone could easily guess.
+
+And now Colonel Halsey was telling us that the news was abroad!
+Captain Carter eyed us closely; his flashing eyes under the white
+bushy brows would pry a secret from anyone.
+
+"You're sure? A girl of Venus, perhaps, with her cursed, seductive
+lure! A chance word, with you lads befuddled by alcolite?"
+
+We assured him that we had been careful. By the heavens, I know that I
+had been. Not a whisper, even to Snap, of the name Grantline in six
+months or more.
+
+Captain Carter added abruptly, "We're insulated here, Halsey?"
+
+"Yes. Talk as freely as you like. An eavesdropping ray will never get
+through to us."
+
+They questioned us. They were satisfied at last that, though the
+secret had escaped, we had not given it away. Hearing it discussed, it
+occurred to me to wonder why Carter was concerned. I was not aware
+that he knew of Grantline's venture. I learned now the reason why the
+_Planetara_, upon each of her last voyages, had managed to pass fairly
+close to the Moon. It had been arranged with Grantline that if he
+wanted help or had any important message, he was to flash it locally
+to our passing ship. And this Snap knew, and had never mentioned it,
+even to me.
+
+Halsey was saying, "Well, apparently we can't blame you: but the
+secret is out."
+
+Snap and I regarded each other. What could anyone do? What would
+anyone dare do?
+
+Captain Carter said abruptly, "Look here, lads, this is my chance now
+to talk plainly to you. Outside, anywhere outside these walls, an
+eavesdropping ray may be upon us. You know that? One may never even
+dare to whisper since that accursed ray was developed."
+
+Snap opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. My heart was
+pounding.
+
+Captain Carter went on: "I know I can trust you two more than anyone
+under me on the _Planetara_."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" I demanded. "What--"
+
+He interrupted me. "Just what I said."
+
+Halsey smiled grimly. "What he means, Haljan, is that things are not
+always what they seem these days. One cannot always tell a friend from
+an enemy. The _Planetara_ is a public vessel. You have--how many is
+it, Carter?--thirty or forty passengers this trip tonight?"
+
+"Thirty-eight," said Carter.
+
+"There are thirty-eight people listed for the flight to Ferrok-Shahn
+tonight," Halsey said slowly. "And some may not be what they seem." He
+raised his thin dark hand. "We have information...." He paused. "I
+confess, we know almost nothing--hardly more than enough to alarm us."
+
+Captain Carter interjected, "I want you and Dean to be on your guard.
+Once on the _Planetara_ it is difficult for us to talk openly, but be
+watchful. I will arrange for us to be doubly armed."
+
+Vague, perturbing words! Halsey said, "They tell me George Prince is
+listed for the voyage. I am suggesting, Haljan, that you keep your eye
+especially on him. Your duties on the _Planetara_ leave you
+comparatively free, don't they?"
+
+"Yes," I agreed. With the first and second officers on duty, and the
+Captain aboard, my routine was more or less that of an understudy.
+
+I said, "George Prince? Who is he?"
+
+"A mechanical engineer," said Halsey. "An underofficial of the Earth
+Federated Catalyst Corporation. But he associates with bad
+companions--particularly Martians."
+
+I had never heard of this George Prince, though I was familiar with
+the Federated Catalyst Corporation, of course. A semigovernment trust,
+which controlled virtually the entire Earth supply of radiactum, the
+catalyst mineral which was revolutionizing industry.
+
+"He was in the Automotive Department," Carter put in. "You've heard of
+the Federated Radiactum Motor?"
+
+We had, of course. It was a recent Earth discovery and invention. An
+engine of a new type, using radiactum as its fuel.
+
+Snap demanded, "What in the stars has this got to do with Johnny
+Grantline?"
+
+"Much," said Halsey quietly, "or perhaps nothing. But George Prince
+some years ago mixed in rather unethical transactions. We had him in
+custody once. He is known as unusually friendly with several Martians
+in Greater New York of bad reputation."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What you don't know," Halsey said, "is that Grantline expects to find
+radiactum on the Moon."
+
+We gasped.
+
+"Exactly," said Halsey. "The ill-fated Ballon Expedition thought they
+had found it on the Moon, shortly after its merit was discovered. A
+new type of ore--a lode of it is there somewhere, without doubt."
+
+He added vehemently, "Do you understand now why we should be
+suspicious of this George Prince? He has a criminal record. He has a
+thorough technical knowledge of radium ores. He associates with
+Martians of bad reputation. A large Martian company has recently
+developed a radiactum engine to compete with our Earth motor. There is
+very little radiactum available on Mars, and our government will not
+allow our own supply to be exported. What do you suppose that company
+on Mars would pay for a few tons of richly radioactive radiactum such
+as Grantline may have found on the Moon?"
+
+"But," I objected, "That is a reputable Martian company. It's backed
+by the government of the Martian Union. The government of Mars would
+not dare--"
+
+"Of course not!" Captain Carter exclaimed sardonically. "Not openly!
+But if Martian Brigands had a supply of radiactum I don't imagine
+where it came from would make much difference. The Martian company
+would buy it, and you know that as well as I do!"
+
+Halsey added, "And George Prince, my agents inform me, seems to know
+that Grantline is on the Moon. Put it all together, lads. Little
+sparks show the hidden current.
+
+"More than that: George Prince knows that we have arranged to have the
+_Planetara_ stop at the Moon and bring back Grantline's ore.... This
+is your last voyage this year. You'll hear from Grantline this time,
+we're convinced. He'll probably give you the signal as you pass the
+Moon on your way out. Coming back, you'll stop at the Moon and
+transport whatever radiactum ore Grantline has ready. The Grantline
+Flyer is too small for ore transportation."
+
+Halsey's voice turned grimly sarcastic. "Doesn't it seem queer that
+George Prince and a few of his Martian friends happen to be listed as
+passengers for this voyage?"
+
+In the silence that followed, Snap and I regarded each other. Halsey
+added abruptly:
+
+"We had George Prince typed that time we arrested him four years ago.
+I'll show him to you."
+
+He snapped open an alcove, and said to his waiting attendant "Flash on
+the type of George Prince."
+
+Almost at once, the image glowed on the grids before us. He stood
+smiling sourly before us as he repeated the official formula:
+
+"My name is George Prince. I was born in Greater New York twenty-five
+years ago."
+
+I gazed at this televised image of George Prince. He stood somber in
+the black detention uniform, silhouetted sharply against the
+regulation backdrop of vivid scarlet. A dark, almost femininely
+handsome fellow, well below medium height--the rod checking him showed
+five foot four inches. Slim and slight. Long, wavy black hair, falling
+about his ears. A pale, clean-cut, really handsome face, almost
+beardless. I regarded it closely. A face that would have been
+beautiful without its masculine touch of heavy black brows and firmly
+set jaw. His voice as he spoke was low and soft; but at the end, with
+the concluding words, "I am innocent!" it flashed into strong
+masculinity. His eyes, shaded with long girlish black lashes, by
+chance met mine. "I am innocent." His curving sensuous lips drew down
+into a grim sneer....
+
+Halsey snapped a button. He turned back to Snap and me as his
+attendant drew the curtain, hiding the black grid.
+
+"Well, there he is. We have nothing tangible against him now. But I'll
+say this: he's a clever fellow, one to be afraid of. I would not blare
+it from the newscasters' stadium, but if he is hatching any plot, he
+has been too clever for my agents!"
+
+We talked for another half-hour, and then Captain Carter dismissed us.
+We left Halsey's office with Carter's final words ringing in our ears.
+"Whatever comes, lads, remember I trust you...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Snap and I decided to walk part of the way back to the ship. It was
+barely more than a mile through this subterranean corridor to where we
+could get the vertical lift direct to the landing stage.
+
+We started off on the lower level. Once outside the insulation of
+Halsey's office we did not dare talk of this thing. Not only
+electrical ears, but every possible eavesdropping device might be upon
+us. The corridor was two hundred feet or more below the ground level.
+At this hour of the night the business section was comparatively
+deserted. The stores and office arcades were all closed.
+
+Our footfall echoed on the metal grids as we hurried along. I felt
+depressed and oppressed. As though prying eyes were upon me. We walked
+for a time in silence, each of us busy with memory of what had
+transpired at Halsey's office.
+
+Suddenly Snap gripped me. "What's that?"
+
+"Where?" I whispered.
+
+We stopped at a corner. An entryway was here. Snap pulled me into it.
+I could feel him quivering with excitement.
+
+"What is it?" I demanded in a whisper.
+
+"We're being followed. Did you hear anything?"
+
+"No!" Yet I thought now that I could hear something. Vague footfalls.
+A rustling. And a microscopic whine, as though some device were within
+range of us.
+
+Snap was fumbling in his pocket. "Wait! I've got a pair of low-scale
+detectors."
+
+He put the little grids against his ears. I could hear the sharp
+intake of his breath. Then he seized me, pulled me down to the metal
+floor of the entryway.
+
+"Back, Gregg! Get back!" I could barely hear his whisper. We crouched
+as far back into the doorway as we could get. I was armed. My official
+permit for the carrying of the pencil heat ray allowed me always to
+have it with me. I drew it now. But there was nothing to shoot at. I
+felt Snap clamping the grids on my ears. And now I heard something! An
+intensification of the vague footsteps I had thought I heard before.
+
+There was something following us! Something out in the corridor there
+now! The corridor was dim, but plainly visible, and as far as I could
+see it was empty. But there was something there. Something invisible!
+I could hear it moving. Creeping toward us. I pulled the grids off my
+ears.
+
+Snap murmured, "You've got a local phone?"
+
+"Yes. I'll get them to give us the street glare!"
+
+I pressed the danger signal, giving our location to the operator. In a
+second we got the light. The street in all this neighborhood burst
+into a brilliant actinic glare. The thing menacing us was revealed! A
+figure in a black cloak, crouching thirty feet away across the
+corridor.
+
+Snap was unarmed but he flung his hands out menacingly. The figure,
+which may perhaps not have been aware of our city safeguard, was taken
+wholly by surprise. A human figure, seven feet tall at the least, and
+therefore, I judged, a Martian man. The black cloak covered his head.
+He took a step toward us, hesitated, and then turned in confusion.
+
+Snap's shrill voice was bringing help. The whine of a street guard's
+alarm whistle nearby sounded. The figure was making off! My pencil ray
+was in my hand and I pressed its switch. The tiny heat ray stabbed
+through the air, but I missed. The figure stumbled but did not fall. I
+saw a bare gray arm come from the cloak, flung up to maintain its
+balance. Or perhaps my pencil ray had seared his arm. The gray-skinned
+arm of a Martian.
+
+Snap was shouting, "Give him another!" But the figure passed beyond
+the actinic glare and vanished.
+
+We were detained in the turmoil of the corridor for ten minutes or
+more with official explanations. Then a message from Halsey released
+us. The Martian who had been following us in his invisible cloak was
+never caught.
+
+We escaped from the crowd at last and made our way back to the
+_Planetara_, where the passengers were already assembling for the
+outward Martian voyage.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I stood on the turret balcony of the _Planetara_ with Captain Carter
+and Dr. Frank, the ship surgeon, watching the arriving passengers. It
+was close to the zero hour; the level of the stage was a turmoil of
+confusion. The escalators, with the last of the freight aboard, were
+folded back. But the stage was jammed with incoming passenger luggage,
+the interplanetary customs and tax officials with their x-ray and
+zed-ray paraphernalia and the passengers themselves, lined up for the
+export inspection.
+
+At this height, the city lights lay spread in a glare of blue and
+yellow beneath us. The individual local planes came dropping like
+birds to our stage. Thirty-eight passengers to Mars for this voyage,
+but that accursed desire of every friend and relative to speed the
+departing voyager brought a hundred or more extra people to crowd our
+girders and add to everybody's troubles.
+
+Carter was too absorbed in his duties to stay with us long. But here
+in the turret Dr. Frank and I found ourselves at the moment with
+nothing much to do but watch.
+
+Dr. Frank was a thin, dark, rather smallish man of fifty, trim in his
+blue and white uniform. I knew him well: we had made several flights
+together. An American--I fancy of Jewish ancestry. A likable man, and
+a skillful doctor and surgeon. He and I had always been good friends.
+
+"Crowded," he said. "Johnson says thirty-eight. I hope they're
+experienced travelers. This pressure sickness is a rotten
+nuisance--keeps me dashing around all night assuring frightened women
+they're not going to die. Last voyage, coming out of the Venus
+atmosphere--"
+
+He plunged into a lugubrious account of his troubles with space sick
+voyagers. But I was in no mood to listen to him. My gaze was down on
+the spider incline, up which, over the bend of the ship's sleek,
+silvery body, the passengers and their friends were coming in little
+groups. The upper deck was already jammed with them.
+
+The _Planetara_, as flyers go, was not a large vessel. Cylindrical of
+body, forty feet maximum beam, and two hundred and seventy-five feet
+in length. The passenger superstructure--no more than a hundred feet
+long--was set amidships. A narrow deck, metallically enclosed, and
+with large bull's-eye windows, encircled the superstructure. Some of
+the cabins opened directly onto the deck. Others had doors to the
+interior corridors. There were half a dozen small but luxurious public
+rooms.
+
+The rest of the vessel was given to freight storage and the mechanism
+and control compartments. Forward of the passenger structure the deck
+level continued under the cylindrical dome roof to the bow. The
+forward watch tower observatory was here, officers' cabins, Captain
+Carter's navigating rooms and Dr. Frank's office. Similarly, under the
+stern dome, was the stern watch tower and a series of power
+compartments.
+
+Above the superstructure a confusion of spider bridges, ladders and
+balconies were laced like a metal network. The turret in which Dr.
+Frank and I now stood was perched here. Fifty feet away, like a bird's
+nest, Snap's instrument room stood clinging to the metal bridge. The
+dome roof, with the glassite windows rolled back now, rose in a mound
+peak to cover the highest middle portion of the vessel.
+
+Below, in the main hull, blue lit metal corridors ran the entire
+length of the ship. Freight storage compartments; gravity control
+rooms; the air renewal system; heater and ventilators and pressure
+mechanisms--all were located there. And the kitchens, stewards'
+compartments, and the living quarters of the crew. We carried a crew
+of sixteen, this voyage, exclusive of the navigating officers, the
+purser, Snap Dean, and Dr. Frank.
+
+The passengers coming aboard seemed a fair representation of what we
+usually had for the outward voyage to Ferrok-Shahn. Most were Earth
+people--and returning Martians. Dr. Frank pointed out one. A huge
+Martian in a grey cloak. A seven foot fellow.
+
+"His name is _Set_ Miko," Dr. Frank remarked. "Ever heard of him?"
+
+"No," I said. "Should I?"
+
+"Well--" The doctor suddenly checked himself, as though he were sorry
+he had spoken.
+
+"I never heard of him," I repeated slowly.
+
+An awkward silence fell between us.
+
+There were a few Venus passengers. I saw one of them presently coming
+up the incline, and recognized her. A girl traveling alone. We had
+brought her from Grebhar, last voyage but one. I remembered her. An
+alluring sort of girl, as most of them are. Her name was Venza. She
+spoke English well. A singer and dancer who had been imported to
+Greater New York to fill some theatrical engagement. She'd made quite
+a hit on the Great White Way.
+
+She came up the incline with the carrier ahead of her. Gazing up, she
+saw Dr. Frank and me at the turret window, smiled and waved her white
+arm in greeting.
+
+Dr. Frank laughed. "By the gods of the airways, there's Alta Venza!
+You saw that look, Gregg? That was for me, not you."
+
+"Reasonable enough," I retorted. "But I doubt it--the Venza is nothing
+if not impartial."
+
+I wondered what could be taking Venza now to Mars. I was glad to see
+her. She was diverting. Educated. Well traveled. Spoke English with a
+colloquial, theatrical manner more characteristic of Greater New York
+than of Venus. And for all her light banter, I would rather put my
+trust in her than any Venus girl I had ever met.
+
+The hum of the departing siren was sounding. Friends and relatives of
+the passengers were crowding the exit incline. The deck was clearing.
+I had not seen George Prince come aboard. And then I thought I saw him
+down on the landing stage, just arrived from a private tube car. A
+small, slight figure. The customs men were around him. I could only
+see his head and shoulders. Pale, girlishly handsome face; long, black
+hair to the base of his neck. He was bare-headed, with the hood of his
+traveling cloak pushed back.
+
+I stared, and I saw that Dr. Frank was also gazing down. But neither
+of us spoke.
+
+Then I said upon impulse, "Suppose we go down to the deck, Doctor?"
+
+He acquiesced. We descended to the lower room of the turret and
+clambered down the spider ladder to the upper deck level. The head of
+the arriving incline was near us. Preceded by two carriers who were
+littered with hand luggage, George Prince was coming up the incline.
+He was closer now. I recognized him from the type we had seen in
+Halsey's office.
+
+And then, with a shock, I saw it was not so. This was a girl coming
+aboard. An arc light over the incline showed her clearly when she was
+half way up. A girl with her hood pushed back; her face framed in
+thick black hair. I saw now it was not a man's cut of hair; but long
+braids coiled up under the dangling hood.
+
+Dr. Frank must have remarked my amazed expression. "Little beauty,
+isn't she?"
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+We were standing back against the wall of the superstructure. A
+passenger was near us--the Martian whom Dr. Frank had called Miko. He
+was loitering here, quite evidently watching this girl come aboard.
+But as I glanced at him, he looked away and casually sauntered off.
+
+The girl came up and reached the deck. "I am in A22," she told the
+carrier. "My brother came aboard a couple of hours ago."
+
+Dr. Frank answered my whisper. "That's Anita Prince."
+
+She was passing quite close to us on the deck, following the carrier,
+when she stumbled and very nearly fell. I was nearest to her. I leaped
+forward and caught her as she nearly went down.
+
+With my arm about her, I raised her up and set her upon her feet
+again. She had twisted her ankle. She balanced herself upon it. The
+pain of it eased up in a moment.
+
+"I'm all right--thank you!"
+
+In the dimness of the blue lit deck I met her eyes. I was holding her
+with my encircling arm. She was small and soft against me. Her face,
+framed in the thick, black hair, smiled up at me. Small, oval
+face--beautiful--yet firm of chin, and stamped with the mark of its
+own individuality. No empty-headed beauty, this.
+
+"I'm all right, thank you very much--"
+
+I became conscious that I had not released her. I felt her hands
+pushing at me. And then it seemed that for an instant she yielded and
+was clinging. And I met her startled upflung gaze. Eyes like a purple
+night with the sheen of misty starlight in them.
+
+I heard myself murmuring, "I beg your pardon. Yes, of course!" I
+released her.
+
+She thanked me again and followed the carriers along the deck. She was
+limping slightly.
+
+An instant she had clung to me. A brief flash of something, from her
+eyes to mine--from mine back to hers. The poets write that love can be
+born of such a glance. The first meeting, across all the barriers of
+which love springs unsought, unbidden--defiant, sometimes. And the
+troubadours of old would sing: "A fleeting glance; a touch; two wildly
+beating hearts--and love was born."
+
+I think, with Anita and me, it must have been like that.
+
+I stood, gazing after her, unconscious of Dr. Frank, who was watching
+me with his quizzical smile. And presently, no more than a quarter
+beyond the zero hour, the _Planetara_ got away. With the dome windows
+battened tightly, we lifted from the landing stage and soared over the
+glowing city. The phosphorescence of the electronic tubes was like a
+comet's tail behind us as we slid upward.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+At six A.M., Earth Eastern time, which we were still carrying, Snap
+Dean and I were alone in his instrument room, perched in the network
+over the _Planetara's_ deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; it
+rounded like a great observatory window some twenty feet above the
+ceiling of this little metal cubbyhole.
+
+The _Planetara_ was still in Earth's shadow. The firmament--black,
+interstellar space with its blazing white, red and yellow stars--lay
+spread around us. The Moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung,
+a great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side,
+Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigar in the blackness.
+The Earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible--a giant sphere,
+etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon one
+limb a touch of sunlight hung on the mountain tops with a crescent
+red-yellow sheen.
+
+And then we plunged from the cone shadow. The Sun with the leaping
+corona, burst through the blackness behind us. The Earth lighted into
+a huge, thin crescent with hooked cusps.
+
+To Snap and me, the glories of the heavens were too familiar to be
+remarked. And upon this voyage particularly we were in no mood to
+consider them. I had been in the radio room several hours. When the
+_Planetara_ started, and my few routine duties were over, I could
+think of nothing save Halsey's and Carter's admonition: "Be on your
+guard. And particularly--watch George Prince."
+
+I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter
+and Halsey had not bothered to mention. My heart was still pounding
+with the memory.
+
+Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure sick
+passengers. The _Planetara's_ equalizers were fairly efficient.
+Prowling through the silent metal lounges and passages, I went to the
+door of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse passage
+just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the
+letters: _Anita Prince_. I stood in my short white trousers and white
+silk shirt, like a cabin steward staring. Anita Prince! I had never
+heard the name until this night. But there was magic music in it now,
+as I murmured it.
+
+She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. It
+seemed as though that little oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland
+of my dreams.
+
+I turned away. Thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me.
+George Prince--Anita's brother--he whom I had been warned to watch.
+This renegade--associate of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.
+
+I saw, upon the adjoining door, A20, _George Prince_. I listened. In
+the humming stillness of the ship's interior there was no sound from
+these cabins. A20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had a
+window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge,
+out its arch and walked the deck length. The deck door and window of
+A22 were closed and dark.
+
+The deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs were
+here but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching dome
+a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. At
+the corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a figure
+lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.
+
+I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side.
+There was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high
+in the bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turret
+balcony almost directly over me.
+
+As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the
+direction of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson.
+
+He greeted me. "Cooling off, Gregg?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+He passed me and went into the smoking room door nearby.
+
+I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and
+for no reason at all I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one
+for his regular sleep--it was wholly unlike him to be roaming about
+the ship at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told myself it
+was nonsense. I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage.
+
+I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart room
+which stood in the center of the narrowing open deck space near the
+bow. I joined him at once.
+
+"Who was that?" he half whispered.
+
+"Johnson."
+
+"Oh, yes." He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck.
+"Gregg--take this." He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at
+once into my shirt.
+
+"An insulator," he added swiftly. "Snap is in his office. Take it to
+him, Gregg. Stay with him--you'll have a measure of security--and you
+can help him to make the photographs." He was barely whispering. "I
+won't be with you--no use making it look as though we were doing
+anything unusual. If your graphs show anything--or if Snap picks up
+any message--bring it to me." He added aloud, "Well, it will be cool
+enough presently, Gregg."
+
+He sauntered away toward his chart room.
+
+"By heavens, what a relief!" Snap murmured as the current went on. We
+had wired his cubby with the insulator; within its barrage we could at
+least talk with a degree of freedom.
+
+"You've seen George Prince, Gregg?"
+
+"No. He's assigned A20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever
+mentioned--"
+
+Snap had heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for
+this voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a
+decent girl to have a brother like that."
+
+I could agree with him there....
+
+It was now six A.M. Snap had been busy all night with routine
+cosmos-radios from the Earth, following our departure. He had a pile
+of them beside him.
+
+"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested.
+
+"No. Not a thing."
+
+We were at this time no more than sixty-five thousand miles from the
+Moon's surface. The _Planetara_ presently would swing upon her direct
+course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger
+comment in this close passing of the Moon; normally we used the
+satellite's attraction to give us additional starting speed.
+
+It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He was
+supposed to be upon the Earthward side of the Moon. While Snap had
+rushed through with his routine, I searched the Moon's surface with
+our glass.
+
+But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The
+heights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas
+were etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding
+desolation, this unchanging Moon. In romance, moonlight may shimmer
+and sparkle to light a lover's smile; but the reality of the Moon is
+cold and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the
+intrepid Grantline might be.
+
+"Nothing at all, Snap."
+
+And Snap's instruments, attuned for an hour now to pick up the
+faintest signal, were motionless.
+
+"If he has concentrated any appreciable amount of ore," said Snap. "We
+should get an impulse from its rays."
+
+But our receiving shield was dark, untouched. Our mirror grid gave the
+magnified images; the spectro, with its wave length selection,
+pictured the mountain levels and slowly descended into the deepest
+seas.
+
+There was nothing.
+
+Yet in those Moon caverns--a million million recesses amid the crags
+of that tumbled, barren surface--the pin point of movement which might
+have been Grantline's expedition could so easily be hiding! Could he
+have the ore insulated, fearing its rays would betray its presence to
+hostile watchers?
+
+Or might disaster have come to him? He might not be on this hemisphere
+of the Moon at all....
+
+My imagination, sharpened by fancy of a lurking menace which seemed
+everywhere about the _Planetara_ this voyage, ran rife with fears for
+Johnny Grantline. He had promised to communicate this voyage. It was
+now, or perhaps never.
+
+Six-thirty came and passed. We were well beyond the Earth's shadow
+now. The firmament blazed with its vivid glories; the Sun behind us
+was a ball of yellow-red leaping flames. The Earth hung, a huge, dull
+red half sphere.
+
+We were within forty thousand miles of the Moon. A giant white
+ball--all of its disc visible to the naked eye. It poised over the
+bow, and presently, as the _Planetara_ swung upon its course for Mars,
+it shifted sidewise. The light of it glared white and dazzling in our
+windows.
+
+Snap, with his habitual red celluloid eyeshade shoved high on his
+forehead, worked over our instruments.
+
+"Gregg!"
+
+The receiving shield was glowing a trifle. Rays were bombarding it! It
+glowed, gleamed phosphorescent, and the audible recorder began
+sounding its tiny tinkling murmurs.
+
+Gamma rays! Snap sprang to the dials. The direction and strength were
+soon obvious. A richly radioactive ore body was concentrated upon this
+hemisphere of the Moon! It was unmistakable.
+
+"He's got it, Gregg! He's--"
+
+The tiny grids began quivering. Snap exclaimed triumphantly, "Here he
+comes! By God, the message at last!"
+
+Snap decoded it.
+
+_Success! Stop for ore on your return voyage. Will give you our
+location later. Success beyond wildest hopes._
+
+Snap murmured, "That's all. He's got the ore!"
+
+We were sitting in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that across
+our open window, where the insulation barrage was flung, the air was
+faintly hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple
+sparks. Someone--some hostile ray from the deck beneath us, or from
+the spider bridge that led to our little room--someone out there was
+trying to pry in!
+
+Snap impulsively reached for the absorbers to let in the outside
+light. But I checked him.
+
+"Wait!" I cut off our barrage, opened our door and stepped to the
+narrow metal bridge.
+
+"You stay there, Snap!" I whispered. Then I added aloud, "Well, Snap,
+I'm going to bed. Glad you've cleaned up that batch of work."
+
+I banged the door upon him. The lacework of metal bridges seemed
+empty. I gazed up to the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet
+beneath me was the metal roof of the cabin superstructure. Below it,
+both sides of the deck showed. All patched with moonlight.
+
+No one visible down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty.
+But in the silence something was moving! Footsteps moving away from me
+down the deck! I followed; and suddenly I was running. Chasing
+something I could hear, but could not see. It turned into the smoking
+room.
+
+I burst in. And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser
+was sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that
+his cigar held a long frail ash. It could not have been him I was
+chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavy
+fellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly now.
+
+He sat up in amazement at my wild-eyed appearance, and the ash jarred
+from his cigar.
+
+"Gregg! What in the devil--"
+
+I tried to grin. "I'm on my way to bed--worked all night helping
+Snap."
+
+I went past him, out the door into the main corridor. It was the only
+way the invisible prowler could have gone. But I was too late now--I
+could hear nothing. I dashed forward into the main lounge. It was
+empty, dim and silent, a silence broken presently by a faint click, a
+stateroom door hastily closing. I swung and found myself in a tiny
+transverse passage. The twin doors of A20 and A22 were before me.
+
+The invisible eavesdropper had gone into one of these rooms! I
+listened at each of the panels, but there was only silence within.
+
+The interior of the ship was suddenly singing with the steward's
+siren--the call to awaken the passengers. It startled me. I moved
+swiftly away. But as the siren shut off, in the silence I heard a
+soft, musical voice:
+
+"Wake up, Anita, I think that's the breakfast call."
+
+And her answer, "All right, George."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I did not appear at that morning meal. I was exhausted and drugged
+with lack of sleep. I had a moment with Snap to tell him what had
+occurred. Then I sought out Carter. He had his little chart room
+insulated. And we were cautious. I told him what Snap and I had
+learned: the rays from the Moon, proving that Grantline had
+concentrated a considerable ore body. I also told him of Grantline's
+message.
+
+"We'll stop on the way back, as he directs, Gregg." He bent closer to
+me. "At Ferrok-Shahn I'm going to bring back a cordon of
+Interplanetary Police. The secret will be out, of course, when we stop
+at the Moon. We have no right, even now, to be flying this vessel as
+unguarded as it is."
+
+He was very solemn. And he was grim when I told him of the invisible
+eavesdropper.
+
+"You think he overheard Grantline's message? Who was it? You seem to
+feel it was George Prince?"
+
+I told him I was convinced the prowler went into A20. When I mentioned
+the purser, who seemed to have been watching me earlier in the night,
+and again was sitting in the smoking room when the eavesdropper fled
+past, Carter looked startled.
+
+"Johnson is all right, Gregg."
+
+"Does he know anything about this Grantline affair?"
+
+"No--no," said Carter hastily. "You haven't mentioned it, have you?"
+
+"Of course I haven't. But why didn't Johnson hear that eavesdropper?
+And what was he doing there, anyway, at that hour of the morning?"
+
+The Captain ignored my questions. "I'm going to have that Prince
+suite searched--we can't be too careful.... Go to bed, Gregg, you need
+rest."
+
+I went to my cabin. It was located aft, on the stern deck, near the
+stern watch tower. A small metal room with a chair, a desk and a bunk.
+I made sure no one was in it. I sealed the lattice grill and the door,
+set the alarm trigger against any opening of them, and went to bed.
+
+The siren for the midday meal awakened me. I had slept heavily. I felt
+refreshed.
+
+I found the passengers already assembled at my table when I arrived in
+the dining salon. It was a low vaulted metal room with blue and yellow
+tube lights. At its sides the oval windows showed the deck, with its
+ports on the dome side, through which a vista of the starry firmament
+was visible. We were well on our course to Mars. The Moon had dwindled
+to a pin point of light beside the crescent Earth. And behind them our
+Sun blazed, visually the largest orb in the heavens. It was some
+sixty-eight million miles from the Earth to Mars. A flight,
+ordinarily, of some ten days.
+
+There were five tables in the dining salon, each with eight seats.
+Snap and I had one of the tables. We sat at the ends, with the
+passengers on each of the sides.
+
+Snap was in his seat when I arrived. He eyed me down the length of the
+table. In a gay mood, he introduced me to the three men already
+seated:
+
+"This is our third officer, Gregg Haljan. Big, handsome fellow, isn't
+he? And as pleasant as he is good-looking. Gregg, this is Sero Ob
+Hahn."
+
+I met the keen, somber gaze of a Venus man of middle age. A small,
+slim graceful man, with sleek black hair. His pointed face,
+accentuated by the pointed beard, was pallid. He wore a white and
+purple robe; upon his breast was a huge platinum ornament, a device
+like a star and cross entwined.
+
+"I am happy to meet you, sir." His voice was soft and deep.
+
+"Ob Hahn," I repeated. "I should have heard of you, no doubt, but--"
+
+A smile plucked at his thin, gray lips. "That is an error of mine, not
+yours. My mission is that all the universe shall hear of me."
+
+"He's preaching the religion of the Venus mystics," Snap explained.
+
+"And this enlightened gentleman," said Ob Hahn ironically, nodding to
+the man, "has just termed it fetishism. The ignorance--"
+
+"Oh, I say!" protested the man at Ob Hahn's side. "I mean, you seem to
+think I meant something offensive. And as a matter of fact--"
+
+"We've an argument, Gregg," laughed Snap. "This is Sir Arthur
+Coniston, an English gentleman, lecturer and sky-trotter--that is, he
+will be a sky-trotter; he tells us he plans a number of voyages."
+
+The tall Englishman, in his white linen suit, bowed acknowledgement.
+"My compliments, Mr. Haljan. I hope you have no strong religious
+convictions, else we will make your table here very miserable!"
+
+The third passenger had evidently kept out of the argument. Snap
+introduced him as Rance Rankin. An American--a quiet, blond fellow of
+thirty-five or forty.
+
+I ordered my breakfast and let the argument go on.
+
+"Won't make me miserable," said Snap. "I love an argument. You said,
+Sir Arthur--"
+
+"I mean to say, I think I said too much. Mr. Rankin, you are more
+diplomatic."
+
+Rankin laughed. "I am a magician," he said to me. "A theatrical
+entertainer. I deal in tricks--how to fool an audience--" His keen,
+amused gaze was on Ob Hahn. "This gentleman from Venus and I have too
+much in common to argue."
+
+"A nasty one!" the Englishman exclaimed. "By Jove! Really, Mr. Rankin,
+you're a bit too cruel!"
+
+I could see we were doomed to have turbulent meals this voyage. I
+like to eat in quiet; arguing passengers always annoy me. There were
+still three seats vacant at our table; I wondered who would occupy
+them. I soon learned the answer--for one seat at least. Rankin said
+calmly:
+
+"Where is the little Venus girl this meal?" His glance went to the
+empty seat at my right hand. "The Venza, isn't that her name? She and
+I are destined for the same theater in Ferrok-Shahn."
+
+So Venza was to sit beside me. It was good news. Ten days of a
+religious argument three times a day would be intolerable. But the
+cheerful Venza would help.
+
+"She never eats the midday meal," said Snap. "She's on the deck,
+having orange juice. I guess it's the old gag about diet, eh?"
+
+My attention wandered about the salon. Most of the seats were
+occupied. At the Captain's table I saw the objects of my search:
+George Prince and his sister, one on each side of the Captain. I saw
+George Prince in the life now as a man who looked hardly twenty-five.
+He was at this moment evidently in a gay mood. His clean-cut, handsome
+profile, with its poetic dark curls, was turned toward me. There
+seemed little of the villain about him.
+
+And I saw Anita Prince now as a dark-haired, black-eyed little beauty,
+in feature resembling her brother very strongly. She presently
+finished her meal. She rose, with him after her. She was dressed in
+Earth-fashion--white blouse and dark jacket, wide, knee-length
+trousers of gray, with a red sash her only touch of color. She went
+past me, flashed me a smile.
+
+My heart was pounding. I answered her greeting, and met George
+Prince's casual gaze. He, too, smiled, as though to signify that his
+sister had told him of the service I had done her. Or was his smile an
+ironical memory of how he had eluded me this morning when I chased
+him?
+
+I gazed after his small white-suited figure as he followed Anita from
+the salon. And thinking of her, I prayed that Carter and Halsey might
+be wrong. Whatever plotting against the Grantline Expedition might be
+going on, I hoped that George Prince was innocent of it. Yet I knew in
+my heart it was a futile hope. Prince had been the eavesdropper
+outside the radio room. I could not doubt it. But that his sister must
+be ignorant of what he was doing, I was sure.
+
+My attention was brought suddenly back to the reality of our table. I
+heard Ob Hahn's silky voice. "We passed quite close to the Moon last
+night, Mr. Dean."
+
+"Yes," said Snap. "We did, didn't we? Always do--it's a technical
+problem of the exigencies of interstellar navigation. Explain it to
+them, Gregg. You're an expert."
+
+I waved it away with a laugh. There was a brief silence. I could not
+help noticing Sir Arthur Coniston's queer look, and I have never seen
+so keen a glance as Rance Rankin shot at me. Were all three people
+aware of Grantline's treasure on the Moon? It suddenly seemed so. I
+wished fervently at that instant that the ten days of this voyage were
+over. Captain Carter was right. Coming back we should have a cordon of
+Interplanetary Police aboard.
+
+Sir Arthur broke the awkward silence. "Magnificent sight, the Moon,
+from so close--though I was too much afraid of pressure sickness to be
+up to see it."
+
+I had nearly finished my hasty meal when another incident shocked me.
+The two other passengers at our table came in and took their seats. A
+Martian girl and man. The girl had the seat at my left, with the man
+beside her. All Martians are tall. The girl was about my own height.
+That is, six feet, two inches. The man was seven feet or more. Both
+wore the Martian outer robe. The girl flung hers back. Her limbs were
+encased in pseudomail. She looked, as all Martians like to look, a
+very warlike Amazon. But she was a pretty girl. She smiled at me with
+a keen-eyed, direct gaze.
+
+"Mr. Dean said at breakfast that you were big and handsome. You are."
+
+They were brother and sister, these Martians. Snap introduced them as
+_Set_ Miko and _Setta_ Moa--the Martian equivalent of Mr. and Miss.
+
+This Miko was, from our Earth standards, a tremendous, brawny giant.
+Not spindly, like most Martians, this fellow, for all his seven feet
+in height was almost heavy set. He wore a plaited leather jerkin
+beneath his robe and knee pants of leather out of which his lower legs
+showed as gray, hairy pillars of strength. He had come into the salon
+with a swagger, his sword ornament clanking.
+
+"A pleasant voyage so far," he said to me as he started his meal. His
+voice had the heavy, throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. He
+spoke perfect English--both Martians and Venus people are by heritage
+extraordinary linguists. Miko and his sister Moa, had a touch of
+Martian accent, worn almost away by living for some years in Greater
+New York.
+
+The shock to me came within a few minutes. Miko, absorbed in attacking
+his meal, inadvertently pushed back his robe to bare his forearm. An
+instant only, then it dropped to his wrist. But in that instant I had
+seen, upon the gray flesh, a thin sear turned red. A very recent
+burn--as though a pencil ray of heat had caught his arm.
+
+My mind flung back. Only last night in the city corridor, Snap and I
+had been followed by a Martian. I had shot at him with a heat ray: I
+thought I had hit him on the arm. Was this the mysterious Martian who
+had followed us from Halsey's office?
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Shortly after that midday meal I encountered Venza sitting on the
+starlit deck. I had been in the bow observatory; taken my routine
+castings of our position and worked them out. I was, I think, of the
+_Planetara's_ officers the most expert handler of the mathematical
+calculators. The locating of our position and charting the trajectory
+of our course was, under ordinary circumstances, about all I had to
+do. And it took only a few minutes every twelve hours.
+
+I had a moment with Carter in the isolation of his chart room.
+
+"This voyage! Gregg, I'm getting like you--too fanciful. We've a normal
+group of passengers apparently, but I don't like the look of any of
+them. That Ob Hahn, at your table--"
+
+"Snaky looking fellow," I commented. "He and the Englishman are great
+on arguments. Did you have Princes' cabin searched?"
+
+My breath hung on his answer.
+
+"Yes. Nothing unusual among his things. We searched both his room and
+his sister's."
+
+I did not follow that up. Instead I told him about the burn on Miko's
+thick arm.
+
+He stared. "I wish we were at Ferrok-Shahn. Gregg, tonight when the
+passengers are asleep, come here to me. Snap will be here, and Dr.
+Frank. We can trust him."
+
+"He knows about--about the Grantline treasure?"
+
+"Yes. And so do Balch and Blackstone." Balch and Blackstone were our
+first and second officers.
+
+"We'll all meet here, Gregg--say about the zero hour. We must take
+some precautions."
+
+Then he dismissed me.
+
+I found Venza seated alone in a starlit corner of the secluded deck. A
+porthole, with the black heavens and the blazing stars was before her.
+There was an empty seat nearby.
+
+She greeted me with the Venus form of jocular, intimate greeting:
+
+"Hola-lo, Gregg! Sit here with me. I have been wondering when you
+would come after me."
+
+I sat down beside her. "Why are you going to Mars, Venza? I'm glad to
+see you."
+
+"Many thanks. But I am glad to see you, Gregg. So handsome a man. Do
+you know, from Venus to Earth, and I have no doubt on all of Mars, no
+man will please me more."
+
+"Glib tongue," I laughed. "Born to flatter the male--every girl of
+your world." And I added seriously, "You don't answer my question.
+What takes you to Mars?"
+
+"Contract. By the stars, what else? Of course, a chance to make a
+voyage with you--"
+
+"Don't be silly, Venza."
+
+I enjoyed her. I gazed at her small, slim figure reclining in the deck
+chair. Her long, gray robe parted by design, I have no doubt, to
+display her shapely, satin-sheathed legs. Her black hair was coiled in
+a heavy knot at the back of her neck; her carmine lips were parted
+with a mocking, alluring smile. The exotic perfume of her enveloped
+me.
+
+She glanced at me sidewise from beneath her sweeping black lashes.
+
+"Be serious," I added.
+
+"I am serious. Sober. Intoxicated by you, but sober."
+
+I said, "What sort of a contract?"
+
+"A theater in Ferrok-Shahn. Good money, Gregg. I'll be there a year."
+She sat up to face me. "There's a fellow here on the _Planetara_,
+Rance Rankin, he calls himself. At our table--a big, good-looking
+blond American. He says he is a magician. Ever hear of him?"
+
+"That's what he told me. No, I never heard of him."
+
+"Nor did I. And I thought I had heard of everyone of importance. He is
+listed for the same theater I am. Nice sort of fellow." She paused,
+then added, "If he's a professional entertainer, I'm a motor oiler."
+
+It startled me. "Why do you say that?"
+
+Instinctively my gaze swept the deck. An Earth woman and child and a
+small Venus man were in sight, but not within earshot.
+
+"Why do you look so furtive?" she retorted. "Gregg, there's something
+strange about this voyage. I'm no fool, nor you, so you must know it
+as well as I do."
+
+"Rance Rankin--" I prompted.
+
+She leaned closer toward me. "He could fool you. But not me--I've
+known too many magicians." She grinned. "I challenged him to trick
+me. You should have seen him evading!"
+
+"Do you know Ob Hahn?" I interrupted.
+
+She shook her head. "Never heard of him. But he told me plenty at
+breakfast. By Satan, what a flow of words that devil driver can
+muster! He and the Englishman don't mesh very well, do they?"
+
+She stared at me. I had not answered her grin; my mind was too busy
+with queer fancies. Halsey's words: "Things are not always what they
+seem--" Were these passengers masqueraders? Were they put here by
+George Prince? And then I thought of Miko the Martian, and the burn
+upon his arm.
+
+"Come back, Gregg! Don't go wandering off like that!" She dropped her
+voice to a whisper. "I'll be serious. I want to know what in hell is
+going on aboard this ship. I'm a woman and I'm curious. You tell me."
+
+"What do you mean?" I parried.
+
+"I mean a lot of things. What we've just been talking about. And what
+was the excitement you were in just before breakfast this morning?"
+
+"Excitement?"
+
+"Gregg, you may trust me." For the first time she was wholly serious.
+Her gaze made sure no one was within hearing. She put her hand on my
+arm. I could barely hear her whisper: "I know they might have a ray
+upon us. I'll be careful."
+
+"They?"
+
+"Anyone. Something's going on. You know it. You are in it. I saw you
+this morning, Gregg. Wild-eyed, chasing a phantom--"
+
+"You?"
+
+"And I heard the phantom! A man's footsteps. A magnetic, deflecting,
+invisible cloak. You couldn't fool an audience with that, it's too
+commonplace. If Rance Rankin tried--"
+
+I gripped her. "Don't ramble, Venza! You saw me?"
+
+"Yes. My stateroom door was open. I was sitting with a cigarette. I
+saw the purser in the smoking room. He was visible from--"
+
+"Wait! Venza, that prowler went through the smoking room!"
+
+"I know he did. I could hear him."
+
+"Did the purser hear him?"
+
+"Of course. The purser looked up, followed the sound with his gaze. I
+thought that was queer. He never made a move. And then you came along
+and he acted innocent. Why? What's going on, that's what I want to
+know?"
+
+I held my breath. "Venza, where did the prowler run to? Can you--"
+
+She whispered calmly, "Into A20. I saw the door open and close. I even
+thought I could see his blurred outline." She added, "Why should
+George Prince be sneaking around with you after him? And the purser
+acting innocent? And who is this George Prince, anyway?"
+
+The huge Martian, Miko, with his sister Moa came strolling along the
+deck. They nodded as they passed us.
+
+I whispered, "I can't explain anything now. But you're right, Venza:
+there is something going on. Listen! Whatever you learn--whatever you
+encounter which looks unusual--will you tell me? I ... well, I do
+trust you. Really I do, but the whole thing isn't mine to tell."
+
+The somber pools of her eyes were shining. "You are very lovable,
+Gregg. I won't question you." She was trembling with excitement.
+"Whatever it is, I want to be in on it. Here's something I can tell
+you now. We've two high class gold leaf gamblers aboard. Do you know
+that?"
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Shac and Dud Ardley. Every detective in Greater New York knows them.
+They had a wonderful game with that Englishman, Sir Arthur, this
+morning. Stripped him of half a pound of eight-inch leaves--a neat
+little stack. A crooked game, of course. Those fellows are more
+nimble-fingered than Rance Rankin ever dared to be!"
+
+I sat staring at her. She was a mine of information, this girl.
+
+"And Gregg, I tried my charms on Shac and Dud. Nice men, but dumb.
+Whatever's going on, they're not in it. They wanted to know what kind
+of a ship this was. Why? Because Shac has a cute little eavesdropping
+microphone of his own. He had it working last night. He overheard
+George Prince and that giant Miko arguing about the Moon!"
+
+I gasped, "Venza! Softer--"
+
+Against all propriety of this public deck she pretended to drape
+herself upon me. Her hair smothered my face as her lips almost touched
+my ear.
+
+"Something about treasure on the Moon. Shac couldn't understand what.
+And they mentioned you. Then the purser joined them." Her whispered
+words tumbled over one another. "A hundred pounds of gold leaf--that's
+the purser's price. He's with them--whatever it is. He promised to do
+something or other for them."
+
+She stopped. "Well?" I prompted.
+
+"That's all. Shac's current was interrupted."
+
+"Tell him to try it again, Venza! I'll talk with him. No! I'd better
+let him alone. Can you get him to keep his mouth shut?"
+
+"I think he might do anything I told him. He's a man!"
+
+"Find out what you can."
+
+She drew away from me abruptly. "There's Anita and George Prince."
+
+They came to the corner of the deck, but turned back. Venza caught my
+look. And understood it.
+
+"You do love Anita Prince, Gregg?" Venza was smiling. "I wish you....
+I wish some man handsome as you would gaze after me like that." She
+turned solemn. "You may be interested to know, she loves you. I could
+see it. I knew it when I mentioned you to her this morning."
+
+"Me? Why we've hardly spoken!"
+
+"Is it necessary? I never heard that it was."
+
+I could not see Venza's face; she stood up suddenly. And when I rose
+beside her, she whispered, "We should not be seen talking so long.
+I'll find out what I can."
+
+I stared after her slight robed figure as she turned into the lounge
+archway and vanished.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Captain Carter was grim. "So they've bought him off, have they? Go
+bring him in here, Gregg. We'll have it out with him now."
+
+Snap, Dr. Frank, Balch, our first officer, and I were in the Captain's
+chart room. It was four P.M. Earth time. We were sixteen hours upon
+our voyage.
+
+I found Johnson in his office in the lounge. "Captain wants to see
+you. Close up."
+
+He closed his window upon an American woman passenger who was
+demanding the details of Martian currency, and followed me forward.
+"What is it, Gregg?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Captain Carter banged the slide upon us. The chart room was insulated.
+The hum of the current was obvious. Johnson noticed it. He stared at
+the hostile faces of the surgeon and Balch. And he tried to bluster.
+
+"What's this? Something wrong?"
+
+Carter wasted no words. "We have information, Johnson, that there's
+some undercover plot aboard. I want to know what it is. Suppose you
+tell us."
+
+The purser looked blank. "What do you mean? We've gamblers aboard, if
+that's--"
+
+"To hell with that," growled Balch. "You had a secret interview with
+that Martian, _Set_ Miko, and with George Prince!"
+
+Johnson scowled from under his heavy brows, and then raised them in
+surprise. "Did I? You mean changing their money? I don't like your
+tone, Balch. I'm not your under-officer!"
+
+"But you're under me!" roared the Captain. "By God, I'm master here!"
+
+"Well, I'm not disputing that," said the purser mildly. "This
+fellow--"
+
+"We're in no mood for argument," Dr. Frank cut in. "Clouding the
+issue...."
+
+"I won't let it be clouded," the Captain exclaimed.
+
+I had never seen Carter so choleric. He added:
+
+"Johnson, you've been acting suspiciously. I don't give a damn whether
+I've proof of it or not. Did you or did you not meet George Prince and
+that Martian, last night?"
+
+"No, I did not. And I don't mind telling you, Captain Carter, that
+your tone also is offensive!"
+
+"Is it?" Carter seized him. They were both big men. Johnson's heavy
+face went purplish red.
+
+"Take your hands--!" They were struggling. Carter's hands were
+fumbling at the purser's pockets. I leaped, flung an arm around
+Johnson's neck, pinning him.
+
+"Easy there! We've got you, Johnson!"
+
+Snap tried to help me. "Go on! Bang him on the head, Gregg. Now's your
+chance!"
+
+We searched him. A heat ray cylinder--that was legitimate. But we
+found a small battery and eavesdropping device similar to the one
+Venza had mentioned that Shac the gambler was carrying.
+
+"What are you doing with that?" the Captain demanded.
+
+"None of your business! Is it criminal? Carter, I'll have the line
+officials dismiss you for this! Take your hands off me--all of you!"
+
+"Look at this!" exclaimed Dr. Frank.
+
+From Johnson's breast pocket the surgeon drew a folded document. It
+was a scale drawing of the _Planetara_ interior corridors, the lower
+control rooms and mechanisms. It was always kept in Johnson's safe.
+And with it, another document: the ship's clearance papers--the secret
+code passwords for this voyage, to be used if we should be challenged
+by any Interplanetary Police ship.
+
+Snap gasped, "My God, that was in my radio room strong box! I'm the
+only one on this vessel except the Captain who's entitled to know
+those passwords!"
+
+Out of the silence, Balch demanded, "Well, what about it, Johnson?"
+
+The purser was still defiant. "I won't answer your questions, Balch.
+At the proper time, I'll explain--Gregg Haljan, you're choking me!"
+
+I eased up. But I shook him. "You'd better talk."
+
+He was exasperatingly silent.
+
+"Enough!" exploded Carter. "He can explain when we get to port.
+Meanwhile I'll put him where he'll do no more harm. Gregg, lock him in
+the cage."
+
+We ignored his violent protestations. The cage--in the old days of sea
+vessels on Earth, they called it the brig--was the ship's jail. A
+steel-lined, windowless room located under the deck in the peak of the
+bow. I dragged the struggling Johnson there, with the amazed watcher
+looking down from the observatory window at our lunging starlit forms.
+
+"Shut up, Johnson! If you know what's good for you--"
+
+He was making a fearful commotion. Behind us, where the deck narrowed
+at the superstructure, half a dozen passengers were gazing in
+surprise.
+
+"I'll have you thrown out of the service, Gregg Haljan!"
+
+I shut him up finally. And flung him down the ladder into the cage and
+sealed the deck trap door upon him. I was headed back for the chart
+room when from the observatory came the lookout's voice:
+
+"An asteroid, Haljan! Officer Blackstone wants you."
+
+I hurried to the turret bridge. An asteroid was in sight. We had
+nearly attained our maximum speed now. An asteroid was approaching, so
+dangerously close that our trajectory would have to be altered. I
+heard Blackstone's signals ringing in the control rooms; and met
+Carter as he ran to the bridge with me.
+
+"That scoundrel! We'll get more out of him, Gregg. By God, I'll put
+the chemicals on him--torture him--illegal or not!"
+
+We had no time for further discussion. The asteroid was rapidly
+approaching. Already, under the glass, it was a magnificent sight. I
+had never seen this tiny world before--asteroids are not numerous
+between the Earth and Mars, or in toward Venus.
+
+At a speed of nearly a hundred miles a second the asteroid swept into
+view. With the naked eye, at first it was a tiny speck of star-dust
+unnoticeable in the gem-strewn black velvet of space. A speck. Then a
+gleaming dot, silver white, with the light of our Sun upon it.
+
+I stood with Carter and Blackstone on the turret bridge. It was
+obvious, that unless we altered our course, the asteroid would pass
+too close for safety. Already we were feeling its attraction; from the
+control rooms came the report that our trajectory was disturbed by
+this new mass so near.
+
+"Better make your calculations now, Gregg," Blackstone urged.
+
+I cast up the rough elements from the observational instruments in the
+turret. When I had us upon our new course, with the attractive and
+repulsive plates in the _Planetara's_ hull set in their altered
+combinations, I went to the bridge again.
+
+The asteroid hung over our bow quarter. No more than twenty or thirty
+thousand miles away. A giant ball now, filling all that quadrant of
+the heavens. The configurations of its mountains, its land and water
+areas, were plainly visible.
+
+"Perfectly habitable," Blackstone said. "But I've searched all over
+the hemisphere with the glass. No sign of human life--certainly
+nothing civilized--nothing in the fashion of cities."
+
+A fair little world, by the look of it. A tiny globe, come from the
+region beyond Neptune. We swept past the asteroid. The passengers were
+all gathered to view the passing little world. I saw, not far from me,
+Anita, standing with her brother; and the giant figure of Miko with
+them. Half an hour since this wandering little world had showed
+itself, it swiftly passed, began to dwindle behind us. A huge half
+moon. A thinner, smaller quadrant. A tiny crescent, like a silver
+barpin to adorn some lady's breast. And then it was a dot, a point of
+light indistinguishable among the myriad others hovering in this great
+black void.
+
+The incident of the passing of the asteroid was over. I turned from
+the deck window. My heart leaped. The moment for which all day I had
+been subconsciously longing was at hand. Anita was sitting in a deck
+chair, momentarily alone. Her gaze was on me as I glanced her way, and
+she smiled an invitation for me to join her.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+"But, Miss Prince, why are you and your brother going to Ferrok-Shahn?
+His business--"
+
+Even as I voiced it, I hated myself for such a question. So nimble in
+the humble mind that mingled with my rhapsodies of love, was my need
+for information of George Prince.
+
+"Oh," she said. "This is pleasure, not business, for George." It
+seemed to me that a shadow crossed her face. But it was gone in an
+instant, and she smiled. "We have always wanted to travel. We are
+alone in the world, you know--our parents died when we were children."
+
+I filled in her pause. "You will like Mars. So many interesting things
+to see."
+
+She nodded. "Yes, I understand so. Our Earth is so much the same all
+over, cast all in one mould."
+
+"But a hundred or more years ago, it was not, Miss Prince. I have read
+how the picturesque Orient, differing from ... well, Greater New York
+or London, for instance--"
+
+"Transportation did that," she interrupted eagerly. "Made everything
+the same--the people all look alike ... dress alike."
+
+We discussed it. She had an alert, eager mind, childlike with its
+curiosity, yet strangely matured. And her manner was naïvely earnest.
+Yet this was no clinging vine, this Anita Prince. There was a
+firmness, a hint of masculine strength in her chin and in her manner.
+
+"If I were a man, what wonders I could achieve in this marvelous age!"
+Her sense of humor made her laugh at herself. "Easy for a girl to say
+that," she added.
+
+"You have greater wonders to achieve, Miss Prince," I said
+impulsively.
+
+"Yes? What are they?" She had a very frank and level gaze, devoid of
+coquetry.
+
+My heart was pounding. "The wonders of the next generation. A little
+son, cast in your own gentle image--"
+
+What madness, this clumsy, brash talk! I choked it off.
+
+But she took no offense. The dark rose-petals of her cheeks were
+mantled deeper red, but she laughed.
+
+"That is true." She turned abruptly serious. "I should not laugh. The
+wonders of the next generation--conquering humans marching on...." Her
+voice trailed away. My hand went to her arm. Strange tingling
+something which poets call love! It burned and surged through my
+trembling fingers into the flesh of her forearm.
+
+The starlight glowed in her eyes. She seemed to be gazing, not at the
+silver-lit deck, but away into distant reaches of the future.
+
+Our moment. Just a breathless moment given us as we sat there with my
+hand burning her arm, as though we both might be seeing ourselves
+joined in a new individual--a little son, cast in his mother's gentle
+image and with the strength of his father. Our moment, and then it was
+over. A step sounded. I sat back. The giant gray figure of Miko came
+past, his great cloak swaying, with his clanking sword ornament
+beneath it. His bullet head, with its close-clipped hair, was hatless.
+He gazed at us, swaggering past, and turned the deck corner.
+
+Our moment was gone. Anita said conventionally, "It has been pleasant
+to talk with you, Mr. Haljan."
+
+"But we'll have many more," I said. "Ten days--"
+
+"You think we'll reach Ferrok-Shahn on schedule?"
+
+"Yes. I think so.... As I was saying, Miss Prince, you'll enjoy Mars.
+A strange, aggressively forward-looking people."
+
+An oppression seemed on her. She stirred in her chair.
+
+"Yes they are," she said vaguely. "My brother and I know many Martians
+in Greater New York." She checked herself abruptly. Was she sorry she
+had said that? It seemed so.
+
+Miko was coming back. He stopped this time. "Your brother would see
+you, Anita. He sent me to bring you to his room."
+
+The glance he shot me had a touch of insolence. I stood up and he
+towered a head over me.
+
+Anita said, "Oh yes. I'll come."
+
+I bowed. "I will see you again, Miss Prince. I thank you for a
+pleasant half-hour."
+
+The Martian led her away. Her little figure was like a child with a
+giant. It seemed, as they passed the length of the deck, with me
+staring after them, that he took her arm roughly. And that she shrank
+from him in fear.
+
+And they did not go inside. As though to show me that he had merely
+taken her from me, he stopped at a distant deck window and stood
+talking to her. Once he picked her up as one would pick up a child to
+show it some distant object through the window.
+
+Was Anita afraid of this Martian's wooing? Yet was held to him by some
+power he might have over her brother? The vagrant thought struck me.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The rest of that afternoon and evening were a blank confusion to me.
+Anita's words, the touch of my hand on her arm, that vast realm of
+what might be for us, like the glimpse of a magic land of happiness
+which I had seen in her eyes, and perhaps she had seen in mine--all
+this surged within me.
+
+After wandering about the ship, I had a brief consultation with
+Captain Carter. He was genuinely apprehensive now. The _Planetara_
+carried only a half-dozen of the heat-ray projectors, no long range
+weapons, a few side arms, and some old-fashioned, practically
+antiquated weapons of explosives, plus hand projectors with the new
+Benson curve light.
+
+The weapons were all in Carter's chart room, save the few we officers
+always carried. Carter was afraid, but of what, he was not sure. He
+had not thought that our plan to stop at the Moon could affect this
+outward voyage. He had thought that any danger would occur on the way
+back, and then the _Planetara_ would have been adequately guarded and
+manned with police-soldiers.
+
+But now we were practically defenseless. I had a moment with Venza,
+but she had nothing new to communicate. And for half an hour I chatted
+with George Prince. He seemed a gay, pleasant young man. I could
+almost have fancied I liked him. Or was it because he was Anita's
+brother? He told me how he looked forward to traveling with her on
+Mars. No, he had never been there before, he said.
+
+He had a measure of Anita's earnest naïve personality. Or was he a
+very clever scoundrel, with irony lurking in his soft voice, and a
+chuckle that could so befool me?
+
+"Well talk again, Haljan. You interest me--I've enjoyed it."
+
+He sauntered away from me, joining the saturnine Ob Hahn, with whom
+presently I heard him discussing religion.
+
+The arrest of Johnson had caused considerable discussion among the
+passengers. A few had seen me drag him forward to the cage. The
+incident had been the subject of discussion all afternoon. Captain
+Carter had posted a notice to the effect that Johnson's accounts had
+been found in serious error, and that Dr. Frank for this voyage would
+act in his stead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was near midnight when Snap and I closed and sealed the radio room
+and started for the chart room, where we were to meet with Captain
+Carter and the other officers. The passengers had nearly all retired.
+A game was in progress in the smoking room, but the deck was almost
+deserted.
+
+Snap and I were passing along one of the interior corridors. The
+stateroom doors were all closed. The metal grid of the floor echoed
+our footsteps. Snap was in advance of me. His body suddenly rose in
+the air. He went like a balloon to the ceiling, struck it gently, and
+all in a heap came floating down and landed on the floor!
+
+"What in the infernal--"
+
+He was laughing as he picked himself up. But it was a brief laugh. We
+knew what had happened: the artificial gravity controls in the base of
+the ship, which by magnetic force gave us normality aboard, were being
+tampered with! For just this instant, this particular small section of
+this corridor had been cut off. The slight bulk of the _Planetara_,
+floating in space, had no appreciable gravity pull on Snap's body, and
+the impulse of his step as he came to the unmagnetized area of the
+corridor had thrown him to the ceiling. The area was normal now. Snap
+and I tested it gingerly.
+
+He gripped me. "That never went wrong by accident, Gregg! Someone--"
+
+We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room
+the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were
+here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There
+should have been a night operator, but he was gone.
+
+Than we saw him lying nearby, sprawled, face down on the floor! In the
+silence and dim, lurid glow of the fluorescent tubes, we stood holding
+our breaths, peering and listening. No one here.
+
+The guard was not dead. He lay unconscious from a blow on the head. A
+brawny fellow. We had him revived in a few moments. A broadcast flash
+of the call buzz brought Dr. Frank from the chart room.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Someone was here," I said hastily, "experimenting with the magnetic
+switches. Evidently unfamiliar with them--pulling one or another to
+test their workings and so see their reactions on the dials."
+
+We told him what had happened to Snap in the corridor; the guard here
+was no worse off for the episode, save a lump on the head by an
+invisible assailant. We left him nursing his head, sitting belligerent
+at his post, alert to any danger and armed now with my heat-ray
+cylinder.
+
+"Strange doings this voyage," he told us. "All the crew knows it. I'll
+stick it out now, but when we get back home I'm done with this star
+travelin'. I belong on the sea anyway."
+
+We hurried back to the upper level. We would indeed have to plan
+something at this chart room conference. This was the first tangible
+attack our adversaries had made.
+
+We were on the passenger deck headed for the chart room when all three
+of us stopped short, frozen with horror. Through the silent passenger
+quarters a scream rang out! A girl's shuddering, gasping scream.
+Terror in it. Horror. Or a scream of agony. In the silence of the
+dully vibrating ship it was utterly horrible.... It lasted an
+instant--a single long scream; then was abruptly stilled.
+
+And with blood pounding my temples and rushing like ice through my
+veins, I recognized it.
+
+Anita!
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+"Good God, what was that?" Dr. Frank's face had gone white. Snap stood
+like a statue of horror.
+
+The deck here was patched as always, with silver radiance from the
+deck ports. The empty deck chairs stood about. The scream was stilled,
+but now we heard a commotion inside--the rasp of opening cabin doors;
+questions from frightened passengers.
+
+I found my voice. "Anita! Anita Prince!"
+
+"Come on!" shouted Snap. "In her stateroom, A22!" He was dashing for
+the lounge archway.
+
+Dr. Frank and I followed. I realized that we passed the deck door and
+window of A22. But they were dark, and evidently sealed on the inside.
+The dim lounge was in a turmoil; passengers standing at their cabin
+doors.
+
+I shouted, "Go back to your rooms! We want order here--keep back!"
+
+We came to the twin doors of A22 and A20. Both were closed. Dr. Frank
+was in advance of Snap and me now. He paused at the sound of Captain
+Carter's voice behind us.
+
+"Was it from in there? Wait a moment!"
+
+Carter dashed up. He had a large heat-ray projector in his hand. He
+shoved us aside. "Let me in first. Is the door sealed? Gregg, keep
+those passengers back!"
+
+The door was not sealed. Carter burst into the room. I heard him gasp,
+"Good God!"
+
+Snap and I shoved back three or four passengers. And in that instant
+Dr. Frank had been in the room and out again.
+
+"There's been an accident! Get back, Gregg! Snap, help me keep the
+crowd away." He shoved me forcibly.
+
+From within, Carter was shouting, "Keep them out! Where are you,
+Frank? Come back here! Send a flash for Balch!"
+
+Dr. Frank went back into the room and banged the cabin door upon Snap
+and me. I was unarmed. Weapon in hand, Snap forced the panic-stricken
+passengers back to their rooms.
+
+Snap reassured them glibly; but he knew no more about the facts than
+I. Moa, with a nightrobe drawn tight around her thin, tall figure,
+edged up to me.
+
+"What has happened, _Set_ Haljan?"
+
+I gazed around for her brother Miko, but did not see him.
+
+"An accident," I said shortly. "Go back to your room. Captain's
+orders."
+
+She eyed me and then retreated. Snap was threatening everybody with
+his cylinder. Balch dashed up. "What in hell! Where is Carter?"
+
+"In there." I pounded on A22. It opened cautiously. I could see only
+Carter, but I heard the murmuring voice of Dr. Frank through the
+interior connecting door to A20.
+
+The Captain rasped, "Get out, Haljan! Oh, is that you, Balch? Come
+in." He admitted the older officer and slammed the door upon me again.
+And immediately reopened it.
+
+"Gregg, keep the passengers quieted. Tell them everything's all right.
+Miss Prince got frightened--that's all. Then go to the turret. Tell
+Blackstone what's happened."
+
+"But I don't know what's happened."
+
+Carter was grim and white. He whispered, "I think it may turn out to
+be murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet.... Dr. Frank is trying ... don't
+stand there like an ass, man. Get to the turret! Verify our
+trajectory--no--wait...."
+
+The Captain was almost incoherent. "Wait a minute. I don't mean that!
+Tell Snap to watch his radio room. Arm yourselves and guard our
+weapons."
+
+I stammered, "If ... if she dies ... will you flash us word?"
+
+He stared at me strangely. "I'll be there presently, Gregg."
+
+He slammed the door upon me.
+
+I followed his orders but it was like a dream of horror. The turmoil
+of the ship gradually quieted. Snap went to the radio room; Blackstone
+and I sat in the tiny chart room; how much time passed, I do not know.
+I was confused. Anita hurt! She might die ... murdered.... But why? By
+whom? Had George Prince been in his own room when the attack came? I
+thought now I recalled hearing the low murmur of his voice in there
+with Dr. Frank.
+
+Where was Miko? It stabbed at me. I had not seen him among the
+passengers in the lounge.
+
+Carter came into the chart room. "Gregg, you get to bed. You look like
+a ghost."
+
+"But--"
+
+"She's not dead. She may live. Dr. Frank and her brother are with
+her. They're doing all they can." He told us what had happened. Anita
+and George Prince had both been asleep, each in his respective room.
+Someone unknown had opened Anita's corridor door.
+
+"Wasn't it sealed?"
+
+"Yes. But the intruder opened it."
+
+"Burst it? I didn't think it was broken."
+
+"It wasn't broken. The assailant opened it somehow, and assaulted Miss
+Prince--shot her in the chest with a heat ray. Her left lung."
+
+"Shot her?"
+
+"Yes. But she did not see who did it. Nor did Prince. Her scream
+awakened him, but the intruder evidently fled out the corridor door of
+A22, the way he entered."
+
+I stood weak and shaken at the chart room entrance. Anita--dying,
+perhaps; and all my dreams were fading into a memory of what might
+have been.
+
+I was glad enough to get away. I would lie down for an hour and then
+go to Anita's stateroom. I'd demand that Dr. Frank let me see her.
+
+I went to the stern deck where my cubby was located. My mind was
+confused but some instinct within me made me verify the seals of my
+door and window. They were intact. I entered cautiously, switched on
+the dimmer of the tube lights, and searched the room. It had only a
+bunk, my tiny desk, a chair and clothes robe. There was no evidence of
+any intruder here. I set my door and window alarm. Then I audiphoned
+to the radio room.
+
+"Snap?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I told him about Anita. Carter cut in on us from the chart room. "Stop
+that, you fools!"
+
+We cut off. Fully dressed, I flung myself on my bed. Anita might
+die....
+
+I must have fallen into a tortured sleep, I was awakened by the sound
+of my alarm buzzer. Someone was tampering with my door! Then the
+buzzer ceased; the marauder outside must have found a way of
+silencing it. But it had done its work--awakened me.
+
+I had switched off the light; my cubby was Stygian black. A heat
+cylinder was in the bunk-bracket over my head. I searched for it,
+pried it loose softly.
+
+I was fully awake. Alert. I could hear a faint sizzling--someone
+outside trying to unseal the door. In the darkness, cylinder in hand,
+I crept softly from the bunk. Crouched at the door. This time I would
+capture or kill this night prowler.
+
+The sizzling was faintly audible. My door seal was breaking. Upon
+impulse I reached for the door, jerked it open.
+
+No one there! The starlit segment of deck was empty. But I leaped and
+struck a solid body, crouching in the doorway. A giant man. Miko!
+
+His electronized metallic robe burned my hands. I lunged against
+him--I was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heat
+evidently missed him. The shock of my encounter, short-circuited his
+robe; he materialized in the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. He
+struck the weapon from my hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, and
+tried to grip me. But I twisted away from his hold.
+
+"So it's you!"
+
+"Quiet, Gregg Haljan! I only want to talk."
+
+Without warning, a stab of radiance shot from a weapon in his hand. It
+caught me. Ran like ice through my veins. Seized and numbed my limbs.
+
+I fell helpless to the deck. Nerves and muscles paralyzed. My tongue
+was thick and inert. I could not speak, nor move. But I could see Miko
+bending over me, and hear him:
+
+"I don't want to kill you, Haljan. We need you."
+
+He gathered me up like a bundle in his huge arms; carried me swiftly
+across the deserted deck.
+
+Snap's radio room in the network under the dome was diagonally
+overhead. A white actinic light shot from it--caught us, bathed us.
+Snap had been awake; had heard the commotion of our encounter.
+
+His voice rang shrilly: "Stop! I'll shoot!" His warning siren rang out
+to alert the ship. His spotlight clung to us.
+
+Miko ran with me a few steps. Then he cursed and dropped me; fled
+away. I fell like a sack of carbide to the deck. My senses faded into
+blackness....
+
+"He's all right now."
+
+I was in the chart room with Captain Carter, Snap and Dr. Frank
+bending over me. The surgeon said,
+
+"Can you speak now, Gregg?"
+
+I tried it. My tongue was thick, but it moved. "Yes." I was soon
+revived. I sat up, with Dr. Frank vigorously rubbing me.
+
+"I'm all right." I told them what had happened.
+
+Captain Carter said, "Yes, we know that. And it was Miko also who
+killed Anita Prince. She told us before she died."
+
+"Died!..." I leaped to my feet. "She ... died...."
+
+"Yes, Gregg. An hour ago. Miko got into her stateroom and tried to
+force his love upon her. She repulsed him. He killed her...."
+
+It struck me blank. And then with a rush came the thought, "He says
+Miko killed her"....
+
+I heard myself stammering, "Why--why we must get him!" I gathered my
+wits; a surge of hate swept me; a wild desire for vengeance.
+
+"Why, by God, where is he? Why don't you go get him? I'll get
+him--I'll kill him!"
+
+"Easy, Gregg!" Dr. Frank gripped me.
+
+The Captain said gently. "We know how you feel, Gregg. She told us
+before she died."
+
+"I'll bring him in here to you! But I'll kill him, I tell you!"
+
+"No you won't, lad. We don't want him killed, not attacked, even. Not
+yet. We'll explain later."
+
+They sat me down, calming me....
+
+Anita dead. The door of the shining garden was closed. A brief glimpse
+given to me and to her of what might have been. And now she was
+dead....
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+I had not been able at first to understand why Captain Carter wanted
+Miko left at liberty. Within me there was that cry of vengeance, as
+though to strike Miko down would somehow lessen my own grief. Whatever
+Carter's purpose, Snap had not known it. But Balch and Dr. Frank were
+in the Captain's confidence--all three of them working on some plan of
+action.
+
+It was obvious that at least two of our passengers were plotting with
+Miko and George Prince; trying on this voyage to learn what they could
+about Grantline's activities on the Moon--scheming doubtless to seize
+the treasure when the _Planetara_ stopped at the Moon on the return
+voyage. I thought I could name those masquerading passengers. Ob Hahn,
+supposedly a Venus mystic. And Rance Rankin, who called himself an
+American magician. Those two, Snap and I agreed, seemed most
+suspicious. And there was the purser.
+
+I sat for a time on the deck outside the chart room with Snap. Then
+Carter summoned us back, and we sat listening while he, Balch and Dr.
+Frank went on with their conference. Listening to them, I could not
+but agree that our best plan was to secure evidence which would
+incriminate all who were concerned in the plot. Miko, we were
+convinced, had been the Martian who followed Snap and me from Halsey's
+office in Greater New York. George Prince had doubtless been the
+invisible eavesdropper outside the radio room. He knew, and had told
+the others that Grantline had found that priceless metal on the Moon
+and that the _Planetara_ would stop there on the way home.
+
+But we could not incarcerate George Prince for being an eavesdropper.
+Nor had we the faintest possible evidence against Ob Hahn or Rankin.
+And even the purser would probably be released by the Interplanetary
+Court of Ferrok-Shahn when it heard our evidence.
+
+There was only Miko. We could arrest him for the murder of Anita. But
+if we did that now, the others would be put on their guard. It was
+Carter's idea to let Miko remain at liberty for a time and see if we
+could identify and incriminate his fellows. The murder of Anita
+obviously had nothing to do with any plot against Grantline Moon
+treasure.
+
+"Why," exclaimed Balch, "there might be--probably are--huge Martian
+interests concerned in this thing. These men aboard are only
+emissaries, making this voyage to learn what they can. When they get
+to Ferrok-Shahn, they'll make their report, and then we'll have a real
+danger on our hands. Why, an outlaw ship could be launched from
+Ferrok-Shahn that would beat us back to the Moon--and Grantline is
+entirely without warning of any danger!"
+
+It seemed obvious. Unscrupulous criminals in Ferrok-Shahn would be
+dangerous indeed, once these details of Grantline were given them. So
+now it was decided that in the remaining nine days of our outward
+voyage, we would attempt to secure enough evidence to arrest all these
+plotters.
+
+"I'll have them all in the cage when we land," declared Carter grimly.
+"They'll make no report to their principals!"
+
+Ah, the futile plans of men!
+
+Yet, at the time, we thought it practical. We were all doubly armed
+now. Bullet projectors and heat ray cylinders. And we had several
+eavesdropping microphones which we planned to use whenever occasion
+offered.
+
+Only twenty-eight hours of this eventful voyage had passed. The
+_Planetara_ was some six million miles from the Earth; it blazed
+behind us, a tremendous giant.
+
+The body of Anita was being made ready for burial. George Prince was
+still in his stateroom. Glutz, effeminate little hairdresser, who
+waxed rich acting as beauty doctor for the women passengers, and who,
+in his youth, had been an undertaker, had gone with Dr. Frank to
+prepare the body.
+
+Gruesome details. I tried not to think of them. I sat, numbed, in the
+chart room.
+
+An astronomical burial--there was little precedent for it. I dragged
+myself to the stern deck where, at five A.M., the ceremony took place.
+
+We were a solemn little group, gathered there in the checkered
+starlight with the great vault of the heavens around us. A dismantled
+electronic projector--necessary when a long range gun was mounted--had
+been rigged up in one of the deck ports.
+
+They brought out the body. I stood apart, gazing reluctantly at the
+small bundle, wrapped like a mummy in a dark metallic screen-cloth. A
+patch of black silk rested over her face. Four cabin stewards carried
+her; and beside her walked George Prince. A long black robe covered
+him, but his head was bare. And suddenly he reminded me of the ancient
+play-character of Hamlet. His black, wavy hair; his finely chiseled,
+pallid face, set now in a stern patrician cast. And staring, I
+realized that however much of the villain this man might be, at this
+instant, walking beside the body of his dead sister, he was stricken
+with grief. He loved that sister with whom he had lived since
+childhood; and to see him now no one could doubt it.
+
+The little procession stopped in a patch of starlight by the port.
+They rested the body on a bank of chairs. The black-robed chaplain,
+roused from his bed and still trembling from excitement of this
+sudden, inexplicable death on board, said a brief, solemn little
+prayer. An appeal: That the Almighty Ruler of all these blazing worlds
+might guard the soul of this gentle girl whose mortal remains were now
+to be returned to Him.
+
+Ah, if ever God seemed hovering close, it was now at this instant, on
+this starlit deck floating in the black void of space.
+
+Then Carter for just a moment removed the black shroud from her face.
+I saw her brother gaze silently; saw him stoop and implant a
+kiss--and turn away. I did not want to look, but I found myself moving
+slowly forward.
+
+She lay, so beautiful. Her face, white and calm and peaceful in death.
+My sight blurred.
+
+"Easy Gregg," Snap was whispering to me. He had his arm around me.
+"Come on away."
+
+They tied the shroud over her face. I did not see them as they put the
+body in the tube, sent it through the exhaust chamber and dropped it.
+
+But a moment later I saw it, a small black, oblong bundle hovering
+beside us. It was perhaps a hundred feet away, circling us. Held by
+the _Planetara's_ bulk, it had momentarily become our satellite. It
+swung around us like a moon. Gruesome satellite, by nature's laws
+forever to follow us.
+
+Then from another tube at the bow, Blackstone operated a small
+zed-co-ray projector. Its dull light caught the floating bundle,
+neutralizing its metallic wrappings.
+
+It swung off at a tangent. Speeding. Falling free in the dome of the
+heavens. A rotating black oblong. But in a moment distance dwindled it
+to a speck. A dull silver dot with the sunlight on it. A speck of
+human Earth dust, falling free....
+
+It vanished. Anita--gone.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+I turned from the deck. Miko was near me! So he had dared show himself
+here among us! But I realized he could not be aware we knew he was the
+murderer. George Prince had been asleep, had not seen Miko with Anita.
+Miko, with impulsive rage had shot the girl and escaped. No doubt now
+he was cursing himself for having done it. And he could very well
+assume that Anita had died without regaining consciousness to tell who
+had killed her.
+
+He gazed at me now. I thought for an instant he was coming over to
+talk with me. Though he probably considered he was not suspected of
+the murder of Anita, he realized, of course, that his attack on me was
+known. He must have wondered what action would be taken.
+
+But he did not approach me. He moved away and went inside. Moa had
+been near him; and as though by prearrangement with him she now
+accosted me.
+
+"I want to speak to you, _Set_ Haljan."
+
+"Go ahead."
+
+I felt an instinctive aversion to this Martian girl. Yet she was not
+unattractive. Over six feet tall, straight and slim. Sleek blond hair.
+Rather a handsome face; not gray, like the burly Miko, but pink and
+white; stern lipped, but feminine, too. She was smiling gravely now.
+Her blue eyes regarded me keenly. She said gently:
+
+"A sad occurrence, Gregg Haljan. And mysterious. I would not question
+you--"
+
+"Is that all you have to say?" I demanded.
+
+"No. You are a handsome man, Gregg--attractive to women--to any
+Martian woman."
+
+She said it impulsively. Admiration for me was on her face, in her
+eyes--a man cannot miss it.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"I mean, I would be your friend. My brother Miko is so sorry about
+what happened between you and him this morning. He only wanted to talk
+to you, and he came to your cubby door--"
+
+"With a torch to break its seal," I interjected.
+
+She waved that away. "He was afraid you would not admit him. He told
+you he would not harm you."
+
+"And so he struck me with one of your Martian paralyzing rays!"
+
+"He is sorry...."
+
+She seemed gauging me, trying, no doubt, to find out what reprisal
+would be taken against her brother. I felt sure that Moa was as active
+as a man in any plan that was under way to capture the Grantline
+treasure. Miko, with his ungovernable temper, was doing things that
+put their plans in jeopardy.
+
+I demanded, "What did your brother want to talk to me about?"
+
+"Me," she said surprisingly. "I sent him. A Martian girl goes after
+what she wants. Did you know that?"
+
+She swung on her heel and left me. I puzzled over it. Was that why
+Miko struck me down and was carrying me off? I did not think so. I
+could not believe that all these incidents were so unrelated to what I
+knew was the main undercurrent They wanted me, had tried to capture me
+for something else.
+
+Dr. Frank found me mooning alone. "Go to bed, Gregg. You look awful."
+
+"I don't want to go to bed."
+
+"Where's Snap?"
+
+"I don't know. He was here a little while ago." I had not seen him
+since the burial of Anita.
+
+"The Captain wants him," he said.
+
+Within an hour the morning siren would arouse the passengers. I was
+seated in a secluded corner of the deck, when George Prince came
+along. He went past me, a slight, somber, dark-robed figure. He had on
+high, thick boots. A hood was over his head, but as he saw me he
+pushed it back and dropped down beside me.
+
+For a moment he did not speak. His face showed pallid in the dim
+starlight.
+
+"She said you loved her." His soft voice was throaty with emotion.
+
+"Yes." I said it almost against my will. There seemed a bond springing
+between this bereaved brother and me. He added, so softly I could
+barely hear him: "That makes you, I think, almost my friend. And you
+thought you were my enemy."
+
+I held my answer. An incautious tongue running under emotion is a
+dangerous thing. And I was sure of nothing.
+
+He went on, "Almost my friend. Because--we both loved her, and she
+loved us both." He was hardly more than whispering. "And there is
+aboard one whom we both hate."
+
+"Miko!" It burst from me.
+
+"Yes. But do not say it."
+
+Another silence fell between us. He brushed back the black curls from
+his forehead. "Have you an eavesdropping microphone, Haljan?"
+
+I hesitated. "Yes."
+
+"I was thinking...." He leaned closer. "If, in half an hour, you could
+use it upon Miko's cabin--I would rather tell you than anyone else.
+The cabin will be insulated, but I shall find a way of cutting off
+that insulation so that you can hear."
+
+So George Prince had turned with us. The shock of his sister's
+death--himself allied with her murderer--had been too much for him. He
+was with us!
+
+Yet his help must be given secretly. Miko would kill him instantly if
+it became known. He had been watchful of the deck. He stood up now.
+
+"I think that is all."
+
+As he turned away, I murmured, "But I do thank you...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The name _Set_ Miko glowed upon the door. It was in a transverse
+corridor similar to A22. The corridor was forward of the lounge: it
+opened off the small circular library.
+
+The library was unoccupied and unlighted, dim with only the reflected
+lights from the nearby passages. I crouched behind a cylinder case.
+The door of Miko's room was in sight.
+
+I waited perhaps five minutes. No one entered. Then I realized that
+doubtless the conspirators were already there. I set my tiny
+eavesdropper on the library floor beside me; connected its little
+battery; focused its projector. Was Miko's room insulated? I could not
+tell. There was a small ventilating grid above the door. Across its
+opening, if the room was insulated, a blue sheen of radiance would be
+showing. And there would be a faint hum. But from this distance I
+could not see or hear such details, and I was afraid to approach
+closer. Once in the transverse corridor, I would have no place to
+hide, no way of escape. If anyone approached Miko's door, I would be
+trapped.
+
+I threw the current into my apparatus. I prayed, if it met
+interference, that the slight sound would pass unnoticed. George
+Prince had said that he would make opportunity to disconnect the
+room's insulation. He had evidently done so. I picked up the interior
+sounds at once; my headphone vibrated with them. And with trembling
+fingers on the little dial between my knees as I crouched in the
+darkness behind the cylinder case, I synchronized.
+
+"Johnson is a fool." It was Miko's voice. "We must have the
+passwords."
+
+"He got them from the radio room." A man's voice: I puzzled over it at
+first, then recognized it. Rance Rankin.
+
+Miko said, "He is a fool. Walking around this ship as though with
+letters blazoned on his forehead, 'Watch me.... I need watching.' Hah!
+No wonder they apprehended him!"
+
+Rankin's voice said: "He would have turned the papers over to us. I
+would not blame him too much. What harm--"
+
+"Oh, I'll release him," Miko declared. "What harm? That braying ass
+did us plenty of harm. He has lost the passwords. Better he had left
+them in the radio room."
+
+Moa was in the room. Her voice said, "We've got to have them. The
+_Planetara_, upon such an important voyage as this, might be watched."
+
+"No doubt it is," Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have the
+passwords. When we are in control of this ship...."
+
+It sent a shiver through me. Were they planning to try and seize the
+_Planetara_? Now? It seemed so.
+
+"Johnson undoubtedly memorized them," Moa was saying. "When we get him
+out--"
+
+"Hahn is to do that, at the signal." Miko added, "George could do it
+better, perhaps."
+
+And then I heard George Prince for the first time, "I'll try."
+
+"No need," Miko said unexpectedly.
+
+I could not see what had happened. A look, perhaps, which Prince
+could not avoid giving this man he had come to hate. Miko doubtless
+saw it, and the Martian's hot anger leaped.
+
+Rankin said hurriedly, "Stop that!"
+
+And Moa, "Let him alone, you fool! Sit down!"
+
+I could hear the sound of a scuffle. A blow--a cry, half suppressed,
+from George Prince.
+
+Then Miko: "I will not hurt him. Craven coward! Look at him! Hating
+me--frightened!"
+
+I could fancy George Prince sitting there with murder in his heart,
+and Miko taunting him:
+
+"Hates me now, because I shot his sister!"
+
+Moa: "Hush!"
+
+"I will not! Why should I not say it? I will tell you something else,
+George Prince. It was not Anita I shot at, but you! I meant nothing
+for her but love. If you had not interfered--"
+
+This was different from what we had figured. George Prince had come in
+from his own room, had tried to rescue his sister, and in the scuffle,
+Anita had taken the shot instead of George.
+
+"I did not even know I had hit her," Miko was saying. "Not until I
+heard she was dead." He added sardonically, "I hoped it was you I had
+hit, George. And I will tell you this: you hate me no more than I hate
+you. If it were not for your knowledge of ores--"
+
+"Is this to be a personal wrangle?" Rankin interrupted. "I thought we
+were here to plan--"
+
+"It is planned," Miko said shortly. "I give orders, I do not plan. I
+am waiting now for the moment--" He checked himself.
+
+Moa said, "Does Rankin understand that no harm is to come to Gregg
+Haljan?"
+
+"Yes," Rankin said. "And Dean. We need them, of course. But you cannot
+make Dean send messages if he refuses, nor make Haljan navigate."
+
+"I know enough to check on them," Miko said grimly. "They will not
+fool me. And they will obey me, have no fear. A little touch of
+sulphuric--" His laugh was gruesome. "It makes the most stubborn, very
+willing."
+
+"I wish," said Moa, "we had Haljan safely hidden. If he is
+hurt--killed--"
+
+So that was why Miko had tried to capture me? To keep me safe so that
+I might navigate the ship.
+
+It occurred to me that I should get Carter at once. A plot to seize
+the _Planetara_--but when?
+
+I froze with startled horror.
+
+The diaphragms at my ears rang with Miko's words: "I have set the time
+for now--two minutes--"
+
+It seemed to startle Rankin and George Prince as much as it did me.
+Both exclaimed: "No!"
+
+"No? Why not? Everyone is at his post!"
+
+Prince repeated, "No!"
+
+And Rankin, "But can we trust them? The stewards--the crew?"
+
+"Eight of them are our own men! You didn't know that, Rankin? They've
+been aboard the _Planetara_ for several voyages. Oh, this is no
+quickly planned affair, even though we let you in on it so recently.
+You and Johnson.... By God!"
+
+There was a commotion in the stateroom. I crouched, tense. Miko had
+discovered that his insulation had been cut off! He had evidently
+leaped to his feet. I heard a chair overturn. And the Martian's roar:
+"It's off! Did you do that, Prince? By God, if I thought--"
+
+My apparatus went suddenly dead as Miko flung on his insulation. I
+lost my wits in the confusion: I should have instantly taken off my
+vibrations. There was interference: it showed in the dark space of the
+ventilator grid over Miko's doorway, a snapping in the air, there--a
+swirl of sparks.
+
+I heard with my unaided ears Miko's roar over his insulation: "By God,
+they're listening!"
+
+The scream of hand sirens sounded from his stateroom. It rang over the
+ship. His signal! I heard it answered from some distant point. And
+then a shot: a commotion in the lower corridors....
+
+The attack upon the _Planetara_ had begun!
+
+I was on my feet. The shouts of startled passengers sounded, a turmoil
+beginning everywhere.
+
+I stood momentarily transfixed. The door of Miko's stateroom burst
+open. He stood there, with Rankin, Moa and George Prince crowding him.
+
+He saw me. "You, Gregg Haljan!"
+
+He came leaping at me.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+I was taken wholly by surprise. There was an instant when I stood
+numbed, fumbling for a weapon at my belt, undecided whether to run or
+stand my ground. Miko was no more than twenty feet from me. He checked
+his forward rush. The light from an overhead tube was on him: I saw in
+his hand the cylinder projector of his paralyzing ray.
+
+I plucked my heat cylinder from my belt, and fired without taking aim.
+My tiny heat beam flashed. I must have grazed Miko's hand. His roar of
+anger and pain rang out over the turmoil. He dropped his weapon; then
+stooped to pick it up. But Moa forestalled him. She leaped and seized
+it.
+
+"Careful! Fool, you promised not to harm him!"
+
+A confusion of swift action. Rankin had turned and darted away. I saw
+George Prince stumbling half in front of the struggling Miko and Moa.
+And I heard footsteps beside me. A hand gripped me, jerked at me.
+
+Over the turmoil, Prince's voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan!"
+
+I recall that I had the impression that Prince was frightened; he had
+half fallen in front of Miko. And there was Miko's voice: "Let go of
+me!"
+
+It was Balch gripping me. "Gregg! This way--run! Get out of here!
+He'll kill you with that ray!"
+
+Miko's ray flashed, but George Prince had knocked his arm. I did not
+dare fire again. Prince was in the way. Balch, who was unarmed, shoved
+me violently back.
+
+"Gregg! The chart room!"
+
+I turned and ran, with Balch after me. Prince had fallen or been
+felled by Miko. A flash followed me from Miko's weapon, but again it
+missed. He did not pursue me. Instead he ran the other way, through
+the portside door of the library.
+
+Balch and I found ourselves in the library. Shouting, frightened
+passengers were everywhere. The place was in wild confusion, the whole
+ship ringing now with shouts.
+
+"To the chart room, Gregg!"
+
+I called to the passengers, "Go back to your rooms!"
+
+I followed Balch. We ran through the archway to the deck. In the
+starlight I saw figures scurrying aft, but none were near us. The deck
+forward was dim with heavy shadows. The oval windows and door of the
+chart room were blue-yellow from the tube lights inside. No one seemed
+on the deck there. And then as we approached, I saw further forward in
+the bow, the trap door to the cage standing open. Johnson had been
+released.
+
+From one of the chart room windows a heat ray sizzled. It barely
+missed us. Balch shouted, "Carter--don't!"
+
+The Captain called, "Oh you, Balch--and Haljan--"
+
+He came out on the deck as we rushed up. His left arm was dangling
+limp.
+
+"God--this--" He got no further. From the turret overhead a tiny
+search beam came down and disclosed us. Blackstone was supposed to be
+on duty up there, with a course master at the controls. But, glancing
+up, I saw, illumined by the turret lights, the figure of Ob Hahn in
+his purple-white robe, and Johnson, the purser. And on the turret
+balcony, two fallen men--Blackstone and the course master.
+
+Johnson was training the spotlight on us. And Hahn fired a Martian
+ray. It struck Balch beside me. He dropped.
+
+Carter was shouting, "Inside--Gregg! Get inside!"
+
+I stopped to raise up Balch. Another beam came down. A heat ray this
+time. It caught the fallen Balch full on the chest, piercing him
+through. The smell of his burning flesh rose to sicken me. He was
+dead. I dropped his body. Carter shoved me into the chart room.
+
+In the small, steel-lined room, Carter and I slid the door closed. We
+were alone here. The thing had come so quickly it had taken Captain
+Carter, like us all, wholly unawares. We had anticipated spying
+eavesdroppers, but not this open brigandage. No more than a minute or
+two had passed since Miko's siren in his stateroom had given the
+signal for attack. Carter had been in the chart room. Blackstone was
+in the turret. At the outbreak of confusion, Carter dashed out to see
+Hahn releasing Johnson from the cage. From the forward chart room
+window now I could see where Hahn with a torch had broken the cage
+seal. The torch lay on the deck. There had been an exchange of shots;
+Carter's arm was paralyzed; Johnson and Hahn had escaped.
+
+Carter was as confused as I. There had simultaneously been an
+encounter up in the turret. Blackstone and the course master were
+killed. The lookout had been shot from his post in the forward
+observatory. The body dangled now, twisted half in and half out the
+window.
+
+We could see several of Miko's men--erstwhile members of our crew and
+steward corps--scurrying from the turret along the upper bridge toward
+the dark and silent radio room. Snap was up there. But was he? The
+radio room glowed suddenly with dim light, but there was no evidence
+of a fight there. The fighting seemed mostly below the deck, down in
+the hull corridors. A blended horror of sounds came up to us. Screams,
+shouts and the hissing and snapping of ray weapons. Our crew--such of
+them as were loyal--were making a stand below. But it was brief.
+Within a minute it died away. The passengers, amidships in the
+superstructure, were still shouting. Then above them Miko's roar
+sounded.
+
+"Be quiet! Go in your rooms--you will not be harmed."
+
+The brigands in these few minutes were in control of the ship. All but
+this little chart room, where, with most of the ship's weapons, Carter
+and I were entrenched.
+
+"God, Gregg, that this should come upon us!"
+
+Carter was fumbling with the chart room weapons. "Here, Gregg. Help
+me. What have you got? Heat ray? That's all I had ready."
+
+It struck me then as I helped him make the connections that Carter in
+this crisis was at best an inefficient commander. His red face had
+gone splotchy purple; his hands were trembling. Skilled as Captain of
+a peaceful liner, he was at a loss now. But I could not blame him. It
+is easy to say we might have taken warning, done this or that, and
+come triumphant through the attack. But only the fool looks backward
+and says, "I would have done better."
+
+I tried to summon my wits. The ship was lost to us unless Carter and I
+could do something. Our futile weapons! They were all here--four or
+five heat ray hand projectors that could send a pencil ray a hundred
+feet or so. I shot one diagonally up at the turret where Johnson was
+leering down at our rear window, but he saw my gesture and dropped
+back out of sight. The heat beam flashed harmlessly up and struck the
+turret room. Then across the turret window came a sheen of
+radiance--an electrobarrage. And behind it, Hahn's suave, evil face
+appeared. He shouted down:
+
+"We have orders to spare you, Gregg Haljan--or you would have been
+killed long ago!"
+
+My answering shot hit his barrage with a shower of sparks, behind
+which he stood unmoved.
+
+Carter handed me another weapon. "Gregg, try this."
+
+I leveled the old explosive projector; Carter crouched beside me. But
+before I could press the trigger, from somewhere down the starlit deck
+an electro beam hit me. The little rifle exploded, broke its breech. I
+sank back to the floor, tingling from the shock of the hostile
+current. My hands were blackened from the exploded powder.
+
+Carter seized me. "No use. Hurt?"
+
+"No."
+
+The stars through the dome windows were swinging. A long swing--the
+shadows and patterns on the starlit deck were all shifting. The
+_Planetara_ was turning. The heavens revolved in a great round sweep
+of movement, then settled as we took our new course.
+
+Hahn at the turret controls had swung us. The Earth and the Sun showed
+over our bow quarter. The sunlight mingled red-yellow with the
+brilliant starlight. Hahn's signals were sounding; I heard them
+answered from the mechanism rooms down below. Brigands there--in full
+control. The gravity plates were being set to the new positions: We
+were on our new course. Headed a point or two off the Earthline. Not
+headed for the Moon? I wondered.
+
+Carter and I were planning nothing. What was there to plan? We were
+under observation. A Martian paralyzing ray--or an electronic beam,
+far more deadly than our own puny weapons--would have struck us the
+instant we tried to leave the chart room.
+
+My thoughts were interrupted by a shout from down the deck. At a
+corner of the cabin superstructure some fifty feet from our windows
+the figure of Miko appeared. A radiance barrage hung about him like a
+shimmering mantle. His voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan, do you yield?"
+
+Carter leaped up from where he and I were crouching. Against all
+reason of safety he leaned from the low window, waving his hamlike
+fist.
+
+"Yield? No! I am in command here, you pirate! Brigand--murderer!"
+
+I dragged him back sharply. "For God's sake--"
+
+He was spluttering; and over it Miko's sardonic laugh sounded. "Shall
+we argue about it?"
+
+I stood up. "What do you want to say, Miko?"
+
+Behind him the tall, thin figure of his sister showed. She was
+plucking at him. He turned violently. "I won't harm him! Gregg
+Haljan--is this a truce? You will not shoot?" He was shielding Moa.
+
+"No," I called. "For a moment, no. A truce. What is it you want to
+say?"
+
+I could hear the babble of passengers who were herded in the cabin
+with brigands guarding them. George Prince, bare-headed, but shrouded
+in his cloak, showed in a patch of light behind Moa. He looked my way
+and then retreated.
+
+Miko called, "You must yield. We want you, Haljan."
+
+"No doubt," I jeered.
+
+"Alive. It is easy to kill you."
+
+I could not doubt that. Carter and I were little more than rats in a
+trap. But Miko wanted to take me alive: that was not so simple. He
+added persuasively:
+
+"We want you to navigate us. Will you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Will you help us, Captain Carter? Tell your cub, this Haljan, to
+yield."
+
+Carter roared, "Get back from there. There is no truce!"
+
+I shoved aside his leveled projector. "Wait a minute, Miko. Navigate
+where?"
+
+"That is our business. When you come out here, I will give you the
+course."
+
+I realized that all this parley was a ruse of Miko's to take me alive.
+He had made a gesture. Hahn, watching him from the turret window,
+doubtless flashed a signal down to the hull corridors. The magnetizer
+control under the chart room was altered, our artificial gravity cut
+off. I felt the sudden lightness: I gripped the window casement and
+clung. Carter was startled into incautious movement. It flung him out
+into the room, his arms and legs flailing.
+
+And across the chart room, in the opposite window, I felt rather than
+saw the shape of something. A figure, almost invisible but not quite,
+was trying to climb in! I flung the empty rifle I was holding. It hit
+something solid in the window. In a flare of sparks a blackhooded
+figure materialized. A man climbing in! His weapon spat. There was a
+tiny electronic flash, deadly silent. The intruder had shot at Carter:
+struck him. Carter gave one queer scream. He had floated to the floor;
+his convulsive movement when he was hit hurled him to the ceiling. His
+body struck; twitched; bounced back and sank inert on the floor grid
+almost at my feet.
+
+I clung to the casement. Across the room of the weightless room the
+hooded intruder was also clinging. His hood fell back. It was Johnson.
+
+"Killed him, the bully! Now for you, Mr. Third Officer Haljan!"
+
+But he did not dare fire at me. Miko had forbidden it. I saw him reach
+under his robe, doubtless for a low-powered paralyzing ray. But he
+never got it out. I had no weapon within reach. I leaned into the
+room, still holding the casement, and doubled my legs under me. I
+kicked out from the window.
+
+The force catapulted me across the space across the room like a
+volplane. I struck the purser. We gripped. Our locked, struggling
+bodies bounced out into the room. We struck the floor, surged up like
+balloons to the ceiling, struck it with a flailing arm or leg and
+floated back.
+
+Grotesque, abnormal combat! Like fighting in weightless water. Johnson
+clutched his weapon, but I twisted his wrist, held his arm
+outstretched so that he could not aim it. I was aware of Miko's voice
+shouting on the deck outside.
+
+Johnson's left hand was gouging at my face, his fingers digging at my
+eyes. We lunged down.
+
+I twisted his wrists. He dropped the weapon and it sank away, I tried
+to reach it but could not.... Then I had him by the throat. I was
+stronger than he, and more agile. I tried choking him, I had his thick
+bull neck within my fingers. He kicked, scrambled, tore and gouged at
+me. Tried to shout, but it ended in a gurgle. And then, as he felt his
+breath stopped, his hands came up in an effort to tear mine loose.
+
+We sank again to the floor. We were momentarily upright. I felt my
+feet touch. I bent my knees. We sank further. And then I kicked
+violently upward. Our locked bodies shot to the ceiling. Johnson's
+head was above me. It struck the steel roof of the chart room. A
+violent blow. I felt him go suddenly limp. I cast him off and,
+doubling my body, I kicked at the ceiling. It sent me diagonally
+downward to the window, where I clung.
+
+And I saw Miko standing on the deck with a weapon leveled at me!
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+"Haljan! Yield or I'll fire! Moa, give me the smaller one."
+
+He had in his hand too large a projector. Its ray would kill me. If he
+wanted to take me alive, he would not fire. I chanced it.
+
+"No!" I tried to draw myself beneath the window. An automatic
+projector was on the floor where Carter had dropped it. I pulled
+myself down. Miko did not fire. I reached the weapon. The bodies of
+the Captain and Johnson had drifted together on the floor in the
+center of the room.
+
+I hitched myself back to the window. With upraised weapon I gazed
+cautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line of
+vision, was empty.
+
+But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement,
+ready upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in a
+shadow along the deck. Then a figure rose up.
+
+"Don't fire, Haljan!"
+
+The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger. It
+was the tall, lanky Englishman. Sir Arthur Coniston, he as called
+himself. So he too, was one of Miko's band! The light through a dome
+window fell full on him.
+
+"If you fire, Haljan, and kill me--Miko will kill you then, surely."
+
+From where he had been crouching he could not command my window. But
+now, upon the heels of his placating words, he abruptly shot. The
+low-powered ray, had it struck, would have felled me without killing
+me. But it went over my head as I dropped. Its aura made my senses
+reel.
+
+Coniston shouted, "Haljan!"
+
+I did not answer. I wonder if he would dare approach to see if I had
+been hit. A minute passed. Then another. I thought I heard Miko's
+voice on the deck outside. But it was an aerial, microscopic whisper
+close beside me.
+
+"We see you, Haljan. You must yield!"
+
+Their eavesdropping vibrations, with audible projection, were upon me.
+I retorted loudly, "Come and get me! You cannot take me alive!"
+
+I do protest if this action of mine in the chart room may seem
+bravado. I had no wish to die. There was within me a very healthy
+desire for life. But I felt, by holding out, that some chance might
+come wherewith I might turn events against these brigands. Yet reason
+told me it was hopeless. Our loyal members of the crew were killed, no
+doubt. Captain Carter and Balch were dead. The lookouts and course
+masters, also. And Blackstone.
+
+There remained only Dr. Frank and Snap. Their fate I did not yet know.
+And there was George Prince. He, perhaps, would help me if he could.
+But, at best, he was a dubious ally.
+
+"You are very foolish, Haljan," murmured Miko's voice. And then I
+heard Coniston:
+
+"See here, why would not a hundred pounds of gold leaf tempt you? The
+code words which were taken from Johnson--I mean to say, why not tell
+us where they are?"
+
+So that was one of the brigands' new difficulties! Snap had taken the
+code word sheet that time we sealed the purser in the cage.
+
+I said, "You'll never find them. And when a police ship sights us,
+what will you do then?"
+
+The chances of a police ship were slight indeed, but the brigands
+evidently did not know that. I wondered again what had become of Snap.
+Was he captured or still holding them off?
+
+I was watching my windows; for at any moment, under the cover of talk,
+I might be assailed.
+
+Gravity came suddenly to the room. Miko's voice said: "We mean well by
+you, Haljan. There is your normality. Join us. We need you to chart
+our course."
+
+"And a hundred pounds of gold leaf," urged Coniston. "Or more. Why,
+this treasure--"
+
+I could hear an oath from Miko. And then his ironic voice. "We will
+not bother you, Haljan. There is no hurry. You will be hungry in good
+time. And sleepy. Then we will come and get you. And a little acid
+will help you to think differently about us...."
+
+His vibrations died away. The pull of gravity in the room was normal.
+I was alone in the dim silence, with the bodies of Carter and Johnson
+huddled on the grid. I bent to examine them. Both were dead.
+
+My isolation was not ruse this time. The outlaws made no further
+attack. Half an hour passed. The deck outside, what I could see of it,
+was vacant. Balch lay dead close outside the chart room door. The
+bodies of Blackstone and the course master had been removed from the
+turret window. As a forward lookout, one of Miko's men was on duty in
+the nearby tower. Hahn was at the turret's controls. The ship was
+under orderly handling, heading back upon a new course. For the Earth?
+The Moon? It did not seem so.
+
+I found, in the chart room, a Benson curve light projector which poor
+Captain Carter had nearly assembled. I worked on it, trained it
+through my rear window along the empty deck; bent it into the lounge
+archway. Upon my grid the image of the lounge interior presently
+focused. The passengers in the lounge were huddled in a group.
+Disheveled, frightened, with Moa standing watching them. Stewards were
+serving them with a meal.
+
+Upon a bench, bodies were lying. Some were dead. I saw Rance Rankin.
+Others were evidently only injured. Dr. Frank was moving among them,
+attending them. Venza was there, unharmed. And I saw the gamblers,
+Shac and Dud, sitting white-faced, whispering together. And Glutz's
+little beribboned, becurled figure on a stool.
+
+George Prince was there, standing against the wall, shrouded in his
+mourning cloak, watching the scene with alert, roving eyes. And by the
+opposite doorway, the huge towering figure of Miko stood on guard. But
+Snap was missing.
+
+A brief glimpse. Miko saw my Benson light. I could have equipped a
+heat ray and fired along the curved Benson light into that lounge. But
+Miko gave me no time.
+
+He slid the lounge door closed, and Moa leaped to close the one on my
+side. My grid showed only the blank deck and door.
+
+Another interval. I had made plans. Futile plans! I could get into the
+turret perhaps, and kill Hahn. I had the invisible cloak which Johnson
+was wearing. I took it from his body. Its mechanism could be repaired.
+Why, with it I could creep about the ship, kill these brigands one by
+one, perhaps. George Prince would be with me. The brigands who had
+been posing as the stewards and crew members were unable to navigate;
+they would obey my orders. There were only Miko, Coniston and Hahn to
+kill.
+
+From my window I could gaze up to the radio room. And now, abruptly, I
+heard Snap's voice: "No! I tell you--no!"
+
+And Miko, "Very well, then. We'll try this."
+
+So Snap was captured but not killed. Relief swept me. He was in the
+radio room and Miko was with him. But my relief was short-lived. After
+a brief interval, there came a moan from Snap. It floated down the
+silence overhead and made me shudder.
+
+My Benson beam shot into the radio room. It showed me Snap lying there
+on the floor. He was bound with wire. His torso had been stripped. His
+livid face was ghastly plain in my light.
+
+Miko was bending over him. Miko with a heat cylinder no longer than a
+finger. Its needle beam played upon Snap's naked chest. I could see
+the gruesome little trail of smoke rising; and as Snap twisted and
+jerked, there on his flesh was the red and blistered trail of the
+violet ray.
+
+"Now will you tell?"
+
+"No!"
+
+Miko laughed. "No? Then I shall write my name a little deeper...."
+
+A black sear now--a trail etched in the quivering flesh.
+
+"Oh!" Snap's face went white as chalk as he pressed his lips together.
+
+"Or a little acid? This fire-writing does not really hurt? Tell me
+what you did with those code words!"
+
+"No!"
+
+In his absorption Miko did not notice my light. Nor did I have the wit
+to try and fire along it. I was trembling. Snap under torture!
+
+As the beam went deeper. Snap suddenly screamed. But he ended, "No! I
+will send no message for you--"
+
+It had been only a moment. In the chart room window beside me again a
+figure appeared! No image. A solid, living person, undisguised by any
+cloak of invisibility. George Prince had chanced my fire and crept
+upon me.
+
+"Haljan! Don't attack me."
+
+I dropped my light connections. As impulsively I stood up, I saw
+through the window the figure of Coniston on the deck watching the
+result of Prince's venture.
+
+"Haljan--yield."
+
+Prince no more than whispered it. He stood outside on the deck; the
+low window casement touched his waist. He leaned over it.
+
+"He's torturing Snap! Call out that you will yield."
+
+The thought had already been in my mind. Another scream from Snap
+filled me with horror. I shouted, "Miko! Stop!"
+
+I rushed to the window and Prince gripped me. "Louder!"
+
+I called louder: "Miko! Stop!" My upflung voice mingled with Snap's
+agony of protest. Then Miko heard me. His head and shoulders showed up
+there at the radio room oval.
+
+"You--Haljan?"
+
+Prince shouted, "I have made him yield. He will obey you if you stop
+that torture."
+
+I think that poor Snap must have fainted. He was silent. I called,
+"Stop! I will do what you command."
+
+Miko jeered, "That is good. A bargain, if you and Dean obey me. Disarm
+him, Prince, and bring him out."
+
+Miko moved back into the radio room. On the deck, Coniston was
+advancing, but cautiously mistrustful of me.
+
+"Gregg."
+
+George Prince flung a leg over the casement and leaped lightly into
+the dim chart room. His small slender figure stood beside me, clung to
+me.
+
+A moment, while we stood there together. No ray was upon us. Coniston
+could not see us, nor could he hear our whispers.
+
+"Gregg."
+
+A different voice; its throaty, husky quality gone. A soft pleading.
+"Gregg--Gregg, don't you know me? Gregg, dear...."
+
+Why, what was this? Not George Prince? A masquerader, yet so like
+George Prince.
+
+"Gregg don't you know me?"
+
+Clinging to me. A soft touch upon my arm. Fingers, clinging. A surge
+of warm, tingling current was flowing between us.
+
+My sweep of instant thoughts. A speck of human Earth dust falling
+free. That was George Prince who had been killed. George Prince's
+body, disguised by the scheming Carter and Dr. Frank, buried in the
+guise of his sister. And this black-robed figure who was trying to
+help me....
+
+"Anita! Anita darling--"
+
+"Gregg, dear one!"
+
+"Anita!" My arms went around her, my lips pressed hers, and felt her
+tremulous eager answer.
+
+The form of Coniston showed at our window. She cast me off. She said,
+with her throaty swagger of amused, masculinity:
+
+"I have him, Sir Arthur. He will obey us."
+
+I sensed her warning glance. She shoved me toward the window. She
+said ironically, "Have no fear, Haljan. You will not be tortured, you
+and Dean, if you obey our commands."
+
+Coniston gripped me. "You fool! You caused us a lot of trouble. Move
+along there!"
+
+He jerked me roughly through the window. Marched me the length of the
+deck, out to the stern space, opened the door of my cubby, flung me in
+and sealed the door upon me.
+
+"Miko will come presently."
+
+I stood in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to his retreating
+footsteps. But my mind was not upon him.
+
+All the universe, in that instant, had changed for me. Anita was
+alive!
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+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 bare-headed; 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 on 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 Greater 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 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."
+
+"You are modest." He fumbled at a pocket of his jacket, produced a
+scroll-sheaf. I recognized it. Blackstone's figures. The calculation
+Blackstone made 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 knocked me back to
+my bunk.
+
+"You dare?" Then he smiled. "Let us not come to blows!"
+
+In truth, physical violence could get me nothing. 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? This
+great adventure of mine is progressing perfectly. A tremendous stake,
+Haljan. A hundred million dollars in gold leaf. There will be fabulous
+riches for all of us--"
+
+"But where are we going?"
+
+"To that asteroid," he said. "I must get rid of these passengers. I am
+no murderer."
+
+With a half-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 perfectly safe and 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 our encountering
+one are very slim." He grinned at me. "You know that as well as I do.
+And we now have those code passwords--I forced Dean to tell me where
+he had hidden them. If we should be challenged, our password 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 them 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; he gazed at 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 science is valuable to
+us."
+
+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. 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 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 he took from Johnson?"
+
+"Yes. There was a fool, for you! That Johnson! You blame me, Haljan,
+for the death of Carter? You need not. Johnson offered to try and
+capture you, take you both alive. He killed Carter because he was
+angry with him. A stupid, vengeful fool! He is dead and I'm 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 play the fool," 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, Coniston, Hahn--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_ so 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 for that."
+
+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."
+
+"Suppose you let me have a talk with Prince? I have some scientific
+knowledge myself about the powers of this catalyst. Prince's knowledge
+and mine--we might be able to come to a calculation on the value of
+Grantline's treasure. You don't know. You are only assuming."
+
+I paused after this glib outburst. 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 to the asteroid?"
+
+"Yes. And 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 on Grantline's possibilities."
+
+I shot Miko a foxy look as he stood by the door. I added, "You think
+you are clever. There is plenty you don't know. Our first night out
+from 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 hundred
+million, or two hundred million--it would make a big difference,
+Miko."
+
+"I will think about it." He backed out and sealed the door upon me.
+
+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?"
+
+"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.
+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 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.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+A moment when, beyond the thought of the nearby brigand--or the
+possibility of an eavesdropping ray trained now upon my 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 Grantline's findings!" I said aloud. "In his 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, 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 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--put masculinity here.
+
+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 his love for his sister. Some years ago he had fallen into
+evil ways. Been arrested, and then been discharged from his position
+with the Federated Corporation. He had taken up with evil companions
+in Greater 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. But 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, and incautiously she had 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 didn't know that poor George had fallen into
+such evil ways."
+
+She whispered, "But I love you, Gregg. I want to be the first to say
+it: I love you--I love you."
+
+We had the sanity to try and plan.
+
+"Anita, tell Miko we discussed the multiple powers of the catalyst.
+Discussed how carefully it would have to be transported; how to gauge
+its worth. You'll have to be careful, clever. Don't say too much. Tell
+him we estimate the value at about a hundred and thirty millions."
+
+I repeated what Miko had told me of his plans. She knew all that. And
+Snap knew it. She had a few moments alone with Snap and 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, that 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
+about 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 radio 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 and try to get the weapons."
+
+"Where is Snap?"
+
+"Still in the radio room. One of the crew guards him."
+
+Coniston was roaming the ship. He was still loitering on the deck,
+watching my 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 others. My thoughts leaped to it. We would strike down the
+guard in the radio 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. In good time Miko will trust you with your liberty. You'll be
+rich like all of us. 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?
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+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 in a low whisper.
+
+I held her for an instant, kissed her. But she pushed me away with
+quick hands. She was breathless.
+
+"Yes, 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 smaller size: it would paralyze but not kill.
+
+"Only one, Anita?"
+
+"Yes. And this--"
+
+The invisible cloak. We laid it on my grid, and I adjusted its
+mechanism. I donned it and drew its hood, and threw on its current.
+
+"All right, Anita?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can you see me?"
+
+"No." She had stepped back a foot or two. "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 unnoticed.
+
+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 lookouts
+in the forward and stern watch towers, and a guard upon Snap in the
+radio room.
+
+"Is he inside the room, Anita?"
+
+"Snap? Yes."
+
+"No--the guard."
+
+"The guard was sitting on 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.
+
+"Coniston is the sharpest, Gregg. He will be the hardest to get near."
+
+"Where is Miko?"
+
+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 whispered. "And get
+the other weapons. Are they still there?"
+
+"Yes. But the forward deck is very bright, Gregg."
+
+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 nonappearance 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 to
+release Snap.
+
+We were ready. Anita slid my door open. 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 lookout sat in his little tower. He gazed
+down at Anita.
+
+Amidships, high over the cabin superstructure, the radio 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 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 light
+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, Miss. 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 can 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 short-circuited my robe. There was a hiss. My current
+burned out the tiny fuses.
+
+My invisibility was gone! I stood, a tall, blackhooded 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 not I boldly start an assault?
+
+"Gregg, we must get you back to your cubby!" She was clinging to me in
+panic.
+
+"No. You run! Get away from me! Don't you understand? George Prince
+has no business here with me! They'll kill you!"
+
+"Gregg, let's get back to the deck."
+
+I pushed at her, both of us in 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-cloaked shape of him was in the
+nearby doorway. He stood stricken with 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 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. 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 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, 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!
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+"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 tense and alert, fearful
+still of what Anita's emotion might betray her into doing.
+
+"Not so loyal," Miko repeated. "And a fool!"
+
+"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 approached the
+asteroid."
+
+"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 lookouts," Anita said. "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 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 said 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 thought he could seize this 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.
+
+"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 chill 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. "Moa wants to try and put sense in your head--I
+hope she does it. Bring him to the lounge when you have finished.
+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."
+
+She came and sat down beside me. "If you should attempt to leave this
+room, the stern lookout has orders to bore you through."
+
+"I have no intention of leaving this 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 heedless?"
+
+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--"
+
+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 on 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.
+
+"Well, why don't you tell me?" I said. "If I am to help...."
+
+"Gregg, I want you with us. Don't you understand. And we are not many,
+really. 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?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "And the other ship--how fast is it?"
+
+"Quite fast. In eight days--perhaps nine, it will reach the Moon."
+
+She seemed willing enough to talk. There was indeed, no reason why she
+shouldn't: I could not, she naturally felt, turn the knowledge to
+account. Certainly my position seemed desperately helpless.
+
+"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 tomorrow--where is our
+equipment?"
+
+The Moon, with its lack of atmosphere, needed special equipment. I had
+never heard Captain 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
+Greater New York on this voyage without our own apparatus. My brother
+and Coniston and Prince--all of us snipped 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
+intense.
+
+"Gregg, I told you once a Martian girl goes after what she wants. It
+is you I want--"
+
+Not for me to play upon a woman's emotions! "Moa, you flatter me."
+
+"I love you." She held me off, gazing at me. "Gregg--"
+
+I must have smiled. Abruptly she released me.
+
+"So you think it amusing?"
+
+"No. But on Earth--"
+
+"We are not on 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?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+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?"
+
+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 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 were 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 Earth and you a girl
+of Mars."
+
+"Is that reason why we should not love?"
+
+"No. But our instincts are different. Men of 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 while 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."
+
+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 lookout, who was
+alertly watching the stern watchtower.
+
+I stepped out, and followed her forward along the deck, which now was
+bright with the radiance of the nearby asteroid.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+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 vantage point, all of the little
+globe's disc was visible. 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 girl seemed to see
+in my uniform a mark of authority. She left her mother and ran to me.
+
+"You--please, will you 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 on this ill-fated
+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, and was the first
+to speak.
+
+"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 five bodies. Rankin, who had been
+killed by Blackstone in the fight; a man passenger killed; a woman and
+a man wounded, as well.
+
+Miko added, "Dr. Frank will take his medical supplies and 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 eying me. I said:
+
+"You have nothing to fear. I will guarantee you the best equipment we
+can spare." I turned to Miko. "You will give them apparatus with which
+to signal?"
+
+"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 a word
+with me.
+
+I stood before the terrified woman while the child 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 go ashore."
+
+"Why? Of course you will have food, Mrs. Francis."
+
+"Never mind details! 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?"
+
+"Yes. I am no more anxious for a crash than you are, Hahn."
+
+He sighed with relief. "That is true, of course. I am no expert at
+atmospheric entry."
+
+"Have no fear. Sit down, Moa."
+
+I waved to the lookout in the forward watch tower, and got his routine
+gesture. I rang the corridor bells, and the normal signals came
+promptly back.
+
+I turned to Hahn. "Get along, won't you? 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 radio 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 seem 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 rarefied 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 verdurous 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, verdurous 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 had 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 thoughts 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 be 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.
+
+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 radio room doorway. But his guard
+was alert with upraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in his
+position, 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, a clanking
+chain connected them. They came like a line of convicts, marching
+forward, and stopped on the open deck 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 searchbeams 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 some
+last minute desperate purposes?
+
+I determined I would do what she said. Shout, or mis-order the lights.
+That would be easy.
+
+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 probable 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 long 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 lookouts 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."
+
+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, disheveled, half-clothed men of these
+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 gaze upon me. Her knife gleamed in the turret light.
+
+She murmured again, "In a few moments you can bring 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
+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 forward
+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 wondered 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.
+
+She fought me as I tried to reach the switch. I saw down on the deck.
+Miko was 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 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 all. And the course masters and those of our crew who had
+been killed.
+
+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 radio 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 began shifting 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 mingling 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 up gently, bow first, with a repulsion of the bow plates. And
+started the central electronic engine. Its thrust from the 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 world.
+
+With the three engines going, we slid smoothly upward. The forest
+dropped, a purple spread of treetops edged with starlight and
+Earthlight. The sharply curving horizon seemed to follow us upward. 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."
+
+"I didn'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 back 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
+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
+missed my cue? Whatever my part, it seemed now that I must have
+horribly misacted 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 on our course to the Moon. My mind flung ahead. Grantline
+with his treasure, unsuspecting this brigand ship. And suddenly,
+beyond all thought of Grantline, 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. 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 a fool, never thought of that! Had let her remain
+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.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+"Try again. By the infernal, Snap Dean, if you do anything to balk us,
+you die!"
+
+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 radio
+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. A silver quadrant. The sunset caught the Lunar
+mountains, flung slanting shadows over the Lunar plains. All the disc
+was plainly visible. The mellow Earthlight 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.
+
+Miko for a time had been at my side in the turret. I had not seen
+Coniston or Hahn of recent hours. I had slept, awakened refreshed, and
+had a meal. Coniston and Hahn remained below, one or 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 radio
+room.
+
+"You are skillful, Haljan." A measure of grim approval was in his
+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 makeshift 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 radio room. Moa was
+here, close beside me. I felt always her watchful gaze, so that even
+the play of my emotions 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 sullen. This
+is how they thought of Anita.
+
+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 window. 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
+earlier on the voyage. But he grinned at the brigand's words, and
+pushed his straggling hair closer under the red eyeshade.
+
+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 grids 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
+thumbnail mirror here which would bring an answer.
+
+Would some Earth telescope be able to see us? I doubted it. The
+pinpoint of the _Planetara's_ infinitesimal bulk would be beyond
+vision.
+
+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 spectro. 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 ray mirrors? If the treasure lies exposed--"
+
+This Martian's knowledge was far greater than we believed. He grinned
+sardonically at Anita. "If our treasure is here on this hemisphere,
+Prince, we should pick up its rays. Don't you think so? Or is
+Grantline too cautious to leave it exposed?"
+
+Anita spoke in a careful, throaty drawl. "The rays came through 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?"
+
+"It might," Snap agreed. "You think he may be on the northern inner
+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."
+
+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 several times Snap endeavored 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-ray--a gray
+cathedral shaft crossing the room and falling upon the opposite wall.
+An unreality there, as the zed-ray 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 was undoubtedly 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 ore.
+
+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 off nearest Apennine range."
+
+The message broke off. But even its importance was overshadowed. Miko
+stood in the center of the radio room, triumphantly reading the little
+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 over 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 spectro, 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!"
+
+Again Miko stood staring. 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, Hamlet-like face. Dear God, the
+zed-ray light 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 now. 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 at us.
+
+Then Miko leaped at Anita like a giant gray leopard pouncing.
+
+"Away with that cloak, Prince!"
+
+I stood cold and numbed. And realization came at last. The faint
+zed-light had fallen by chance upon Anita's face. Penetrating the
+flesh; exposed, faintly glowing, the bone line of her jaw. Unmasked
+the art of Glutz.
+
+Miko seized her wrists, 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 on 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 grids were swaying again with a
+message from Grantline. But it was ignored.
+
+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!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Moonlight upon Earth so gently shines to make romantic a lover's
+smile! But the reality of the Lunar night is cold beyond human belief.
+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 midway 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
+Earthlight tinged the spires and crags with yellow sheen; and on the
+shelf, like a huddled group of birds' nests, Grantline's domes hung
+and gazed down upon the inner valley.
+
+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 capacity. The chemistry of manufactured air, the pressure
+equalizers, renewers, respirators, the lighting and temperature
+maintenance of a space-flyer was here.
+
+There was this main Grantline building, stretched low and rectangular
+along the front edge of the ledge. Within it were living rooms, mess
+hall 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 bores had dug into the cliff.
+Braced tunnels were here, penetrating back and downward into the vein
+of rock.
+
+The work was over. 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. Trucks 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 catalytic 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 hiding 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, unknown to Grantline and his 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.
+
+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.
+
+He stopped presently and disconnected metal weights which were upon
+his shoes.
+
+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 of 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.
+
+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.
+
+"All as usual. This cursed Moon! When I get home--if I ever do--"
+
+"Say your say, Wilks. But you'll spend your share of the gold leaf and
+thank your constellations that you had your chance to make it."
+
+"Let him alone! Come on, Wilks, take a hand here. This game is not any
+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!"
+
+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--this doing nothing."
+
+"He's been struck by Earthlight," 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, blazing stars and flaming
+Sun, with no atmosphere to diffuse 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 beloved Earth disc hanging poised
+up near the zenith. From thinnest crescent to full Earth, then back 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 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
+the premonition strong within him. Unreasonably, ominous depression!
+Barring the accident which had disabled his little spaceship when they
+reached this small crater hole, his expedition had gone well. His
+instruments, and the information he had from the former explorers, had
+enabled him to pick up the catalyst vein with only one month of
+search.
+
+The vein had now been exhausted; but the treasure was here--enough to
+supply every need on his Earth! Nothing was left but to wait for the
+_Planetara_. The men were talking of that now.
+
+"She ought to be well midway from 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."
+
+"Ha! He's inventing a Lunar language. You'll be a Moon man yet."
+
+Olaf Swenson, the big blond fellow from the Scandia fiords, came and
+flung himself down beside Grantline.
+
+"Ay tank they bane without enough to do, Commander ----"
+
+"Three weeks isn't very long, Ole."
+
+"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."
+
+"Shut up, Billy. She _is_ smashed."
+
+"You all agreed to things as they are," Johnny said shortly. "We all
+took the same chances--voluntarily."
+
+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 made him seem older. He stood up now,
+surveying the blue lit glassite room with its low ceiling close
+overhead. He was bow-legged; in movement he seemed to roll with a
+stiff-legged gait like some sea captains of former days on the deck of
+his swaying ship. Odd looking figure! Heavy flannel shirt and
+trousers, boots heavily weighted, and bulky metal-loaded belt strapped
+about his waist.
+
+He grinned at Swenson. "When the time comes to divide this treasure,
+everyone will be happy, Ole."
+
+The treasure was estimated 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 for commercial use. Ninety
+millions, with only a million and a half to come off for expedition
+expenses, and the _Planetara'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 radio 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--"
+
+"Low scale, Peter?"
+
+"Yes. Weakest infra-red. I'm bringing it up, even though it uses too
+much of our power."
+
+"Get it," said Grantline shortly.
+
+"I got one slight television swing a minute ago--then it faded. I
+think it's the _Planetara_."
+
+"_Planetara_!" The crowding group of men chorused. How could it be the
+_Planetara_?
+
+But it was. The call came in presently. 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_ had for so long been awaited
+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 barrage."
+
+"I'll go. My suit is here."
+
+A willing volunteer rushed out to the shed.
+
+"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. 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 television again. 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 frightened. "You'll bulge out our walls,
+Commander. The internal pressure--"
+
+"We'll chance it."
+
+They picked up the image of the _Planetara_. It 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's needle. It
+was moving now. The _Planetara_ was descending. But not with an
+orderly swoop.
+
+The grid 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 in 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!
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+On the _Planetara_, in the radio 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,
+little Anita, you were masquerading to spy on me? That was wrong of
+you."
+
+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
+on this catastrophe!
+
+The completion of Grantline's message had come unnoticed by us all. We
+remained tense.
+
+"Look! Grantline again!" Snap said abruptly.
+
+But the mirrors were steadying. We had no recording mechanism; the
+rest of the message was lost.
+
+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
+these 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 as 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 as 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 scientific 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. 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? 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--"
+
+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
+stared at Anita.
+
+"I say, not George Prince? The girl--"
+
+"No time for explanations," Miko commanded. "It's the girl,
+masquerading as her brother. Get below, Coniston. Haljan takes us
+down."
+
+The astounded Englishman continued to gaze at Anita. But he said, "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--"
+
+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, 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 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 the 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 position they were placed only in port! And their shifting
+mechanisms were imperative!
+
+I was on my feet. "We're in neutral!"
+
+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?"
+
+The heavens turned with a giant swoop. The Moon was over us. It swung
+in a 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 I think all of us in the 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 down!
+
+"That accursed Hahn--"
+
+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 for
+that.
+
+But we were falling. Unless I could do something, we would crash upon
+the Lunar surface.
+
+Anita, killed in this turret: the end of everything--every hope.
+
+Action came to me. I gasped, "Miko, you stay here! The controls are
+dead! You stay here and hold Anita--"
+
+I ignored Moa's weapon. Snap thrust her away.
+
+"We're falling, you fool--let us alone!"
+
+Miko gasped, "Can you--check us? What happened?"
+
+"I don't know--"
+
+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 lookout in the forward tower was clinging to our window. On the
+deck below our turret a member of the crew appeared, stood lurching
+for a moment, then shouted 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 deck.
+
+I pulled at the emergency switch again. Dead....
+
+"Snap, we must get down. The signals."
+
+Coniston's voice came like a scream from the grid. "Hahn is dead. The
+controls are broken!"
+
+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. It seemed that from the turret Anita's voice
+followed us. "Be careful!"
+
+Once inside 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 there was anything 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 forces with our
+magnetizers; a lightening, when it was overhead. A throbbing, pendulum
+lurch!
+
+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 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 instinct to try and get on deck, as though here below we
+were rats caught in a trap. The men tore away from us 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!"
+
+Hahn was sprawled at the gravity plate switchboard. Sprawled, head
+down. Dead. Killed? 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? Why?
+
+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!
+
+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 the
+pumps."
+
+He dashed away. Snap called after him, "Kill them if they argue!"
+
+Miko's voice sounded from the turret call grid: "Falling! Haljan, you
+can see it now! Check us!"
+
+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."
+
+One of the crew rebelled, tried to bolt from the room.
+
+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 on us was more than half
+neutralized.
+
+"I'll go up, Snap, and try the engines. You don't mind staying down
+here? 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-bye, Gregg. We'll fall--fighting."
+
+"Yes. Fighting. Coniston, you keep the pressure up."
+
+With the broken 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. Oh, 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.
+
+Those last horrible minutes were a blur. And there was always Anita's
+face. She left Miko. Faced with death, he sat clinging. 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
+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.
+
+"Gregg, dear one--good-bye."
+
+Her gentle arms about me. The end of everything for us. I recall
+murmuring, "Not falling free, Anita. Some hull plates are set."
+
+My dials showed another plate shifting, checking us a little further.
+Good old Snap!
+
+I calculated the next best plate to shift. I tried it. Slid it over.
+
+Then everything faded but the feeling of Anita's arms around me.
+
+"Gregg, dear one--"
+
+The end of everything for us....
+
+There was an up-rush of gray-black rock.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt--a pain
+shooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not
+seem to move my left arm. Then I moved it and it hurt. I was lying
+twisted. I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was over. I
+was not dead. Anita--
+
+She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in the silent
+blur--a soft mellow Earthlight filtering in the window. The weight on
+me was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way across
+my lap.
+
+Not dead! Thank God, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, and
+I lifted her. The Earthlight glowed on her pale face.
+
+"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive."
+
+I held her as though all of life's turgid dangers were powerless to
+touch us.
+
+But in the silence my floating senses were brought back to reality by
+a faint sound forcing itself upon me. A little hiss. The faintest
+murmuring breath like a hiss. Escaping air!
+
+I cast off Anita's clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"
+
+For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our
+embrace. But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken and
+our precious air was hissing out.
+
+Full reality came to me. I was not seriously injured. I found I could
+move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, but
+they were better in a moment.
+
+And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not her
+own.
+
+Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giant
+figure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. A
+widening pool.
+
+Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. This
+soundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its two
+motionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I were
+ghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to 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 lookout.
+
+So this was the end of the brigands' adventure. The _Planetara's_ last
+voyage! How small and futile are humans' struggles. Miko's daring
+enterprise--so villainous--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!"
+
+"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg."
+
+She was staring at the fallen Miko and Moa. She shuddered and turned
+away and gripped me. "In the forward storage room, by the port of the
+emergency exit."
+
+If only the exit locks would operate! We must find Snap and get out of
+here. Good old Snap! Would we find him lying dead?
+
+We climbed from the slanting, fallen turret, over the wreckage of the
+littered deck. It was not difficult. A lightness was upon us. 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!"
+
+With a fifteen foot leap we cleared a pile of broken deck chairs. A
+man lay groaning near them. I went back with a rush. Not Snap! A
+steward. He had been a brigand, but he was a steward to me now.
+
+"Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here The air is
+escaping!"
+
+But he sank back and lay still. No time to find if I could help him:
+there was Anita and Snap to save.
+
+We found a broken entrance to one of the descending passages. I flung
+the debris aside and cleared it. Like a giant of strength with only
+this Moon gravity holding me, I raised a broken segment of
+superstructure and heaved it back.
+
+Anita and I dropped ourselves down the sloping passage. The interior
+of the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage light
+was still burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckage
+everywhere but the double dome and hull shell had withstood the shock.
+Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat,
+like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling on
+everything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would soon be
+here in these wrecked corridors. The end of the _Planetara_.
+
+We prowled like ghouls. We did not see Coniston. Snap had been by the
+shifter pumps. We found him in the oval doorway. He lay sprawled.
+Dead? No, he moved. He sat up before we could get to him. He seemed
+confused, but his senses clarified with the movement of our figures
+over him.
+
+"Gregg! Why, Anita!"
+
+"Snap! You're all right? We struck--the air is escaping."
+
+He pushed me away. He tried to stand. "I'm all right. I was up a
+minute ago. Gregg, it's getting cold. Where is she? I had her
+here--she wasn't killed. I spoke to her."
+
+Irrational!
+
+"Snap!" I held him. Shook him. "Snap, old fellow!"
+
+He said normally, "Easy, Gregg. I'm all right."
+
+Anita gripped him. "Who, Snap?"
+
+"She--there she is...."
+
+Another figure was here! On the grid floor by the door oval. A figure
+partly shrouded in a broken invisible cloak and hook. An invisible
+cloak! I saw a white face with opened eyes regarding me.
+
+"Venza!" I bent down. "You!"
+
+Venza here? Why ... how ... my thoughts swept on. Venza here--dying?
+Her eyes closed. But she murmured to Anita, "Where is he? I want him."
+
+I murmured impulsively, "Here I am, Venza dear." Gently, as one would
+speak with gentle sympathy to humor the dying. "Here I am, Venza."
+
+But it was only the confusion of the shock upon her. 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 shock,
+confused in the dim, wrecked ship with the chill of death coming--even
+here she could jest. Her pale lips smiled.
+
+"You, Gregg. I'm not hurt--I don't think I'm hurt." She managed to get
+herself up on one elbow. "Did you think I wanted you with my dying
+breath? What conceit! Not you, Handsome Haljan! I was calling Snap."
+
+He was down to her. "We're all right, Venza. It's over. We must get
+out of the ship. The air is escaping."
+
+We gathered in the oval doorway. We fought the confusion of panic.
+
+"The exit port is this way."
+
+Or was it? I answered Snap, "Yes, I think so."
+
+The ship suddenly seemed a stranger to me. So cold. So vibrationless.
+Broken lights. These slanting wrecked corridors. With the ventilating
+fans stilled, the air was turning fetid. Chilling. And thinning, with
+escaping pressure, rarefying so that I could feel the grasp of it in
+my lungs and the pin-pricks in my cheeks.
+
+We started off. Four of us, still alive in this silent ship of death.
+My blurred thoughts tried to cope with it all. Venza here. I
+remembered how she had bade me create a diversion when the women
+passengers were landing on the asteroid. She had carried out her
+purpose! In the confusion she had not gone ashore. A stowaway here.
+She had secured the cloak. Prowling, to try and help us, she had come
+upon Hahn. Had seized his ray cylinder and struck him down, and been
+herself knocked unconscious by his dying lunge, which also had broken
+the tubes and wrecked 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 to which she referred.
+We located four suits and helmets and the mechanisms to operate them.
+
+"More are in the chart room," Anita said.
+
+But we needed no others. I robed Anita and showed her the mechanisms.
+Snap was helping Venza. We were all stiff from the cold; but within
+the suits and their pulsing currents, the blessed warmth came again.
+
+The helmets had ports through which food and drink could be taken. I
+stood with my helmet ready. Anita, Venza and Snap were bloated and
+grotesque beside me. We had found food and water here, assembled in
+portable cases which the brigands had prepared. Snap lifted them, and
+signaled to me he was ready.
+
+My helmet shut out all sounds save my own breathing, my pounding
+heart, and the murmur of the mechanism. The warmth and pure air were
+good.
+
+We reached the hull port locks. They operated! We went through in the
+light of the headlamps over our foreheads.
+
+I closed the locks after us: an instinct to keep the air in the ship
+for the other trapped humans lying in there.
+
+We slid down the sloping side of the _Planetara_. We were unweighted,
+irrationally agile with this slight gravity. I fell a dozen feet and
+landed with barely a jar.
+
+We were out on the Lunar surface. A great sloping ramp of crags
+stretched down before us. Gray-black rock tinged with Earthlight. The
+Earth hung amid the stars in the blackness overhead like a huge
+section of a glowing yellow ball.
+
+This grim, desolate, silent landscape! Beyond the ramp, fifty feet
+below us, a tumbled naked plain stretched away into blurred distance.
+But I could see mountains off there. Behind us, the towering, frowning
+rampart-wall of Archimedes loomed against the sky.
+
+I had turned to look back at 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
+skillful. 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 track of time. Occasionally we stopped to
+rest. Were we going toward the Grantline camp? Would they see our tiny
+waving headlights?
+
+Another interval. Then far ahead of us on the ragged plain, lights
+showed! Moving, tiny spots of light! Headlights on helmeted figures!
+
+We ran, monstrously leaping. A group of figures were off there.
+Grantline's party? Snap gripped me.
+
+"Grantline! We're safe, Gregg! Safe!"
+
+He took his bulb light from his helmet; we stood in a group while he
+waved it. A semaphore signal.
+
+"_Grantline?_"
+
+And the answer came, "_Yes. You, Dean?_"
+
+Their personal code. No doubt of this--it was Grantline, who had seen
+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, weird, inflated figures.
+
+A helmeted figure touched me. I saw through the helmetpane the visage
+of a stern-faced, square-jawed young man.
+
+"Grantline? Johnny Grantline?"
+
+"Yes," said his voice at my ear-grid. "I'm Grantline. You're Haljan?
+Gregg Haljan?"
+
+They crowded around us. Gripped us, to hear our explanations.
+
+Brigands! It was amazing to Johnny Grantline. But the menace was over
+now, over as soon as Grantline realized its existence.
+
+We stood for a brief time discussing it. Then I drew apart, leaving
+Snap with Grantline. And Anita joined me. I held her arm so that we
+had audiphone contact.
+
+"Anita, mine."
+
+"Gregg--dear one!"
+
+Murmured nothings which mean so much to lovers!
+
+As we stood in the fantastic gloom of Lunar desolation, with the
+blessed Earthlight on us, I sent up a prayer of thankfulness. Not that
+the enormous treasure was saved. Not that the attack upon Grantline
+had been averted. But only that Anita was given back to me. In moments
+of greatest emotion the human mind individualizes. To me, there was
+only Anita.
+
+Life is very strange! The gate to the shining garden of our love
+seemed swinging wide to let us in. Yet I recall that a vague fear
+still lay on me. A premonition?
+
+I felt a touch on my arm. A bloated helmet visor was thrust near my
+own. I saw Snap's face peering at me.
+
+"Grantline thinks we should return to the _Planetara_. Might find some
+of them alive."
+
+Grantline touched me. "It's only human--"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+We went back. Some ten of us--a line of grotesque figures bounding
+with slow, easy strides over the jagged, rock-strewn plain. Our lights
+danced before us.
+
+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 with Earthlight straggling through the
+windows.
+
+This littered tomb. Cold and silent with death. We stumbled over a
+fallen figure. A member of the crew. Grantline straightened from
+examining it.
+
+"Dead," he said.
+
+Earthlight fell on the horrible face. Puffed flesh, bloated red from
+the blood which had oozed from its pores in the thinning air. I looked
+away.
+
+We prowled further. Hahn lay dead in the pump room. The body of
+Coniston should have been near here. We did not see it. We climbed up
+to the slanting, littered deck. The air up here had all almost hissed
+away.
+
+Again Grantline touched me. "That the turret?"
+
+No wonder he asked me! The wreckage was all so formless.
+
+"Yes."
+
+We climbed after Snap into the broken turret room. We passed the body
+of that steward who just at the end had appealed to me and I had left
+dying. The legs of the forward lookout still poked grotesquely up from
+the wreckage of the observatory tower where it lay smashed down
+against the roof of the chart room.
+
+We shoved ourselves into the turret. What was this? No bodies here!
+The giant Miko was gone! The pool of blood lay congealed into a frozen
+dark splotch on the metal grid.
+
+And Moa was gone! They had not been dead. Had dragged themselves out
+of here, fighting desperately for life. We would find them somewhere
+around here.
+
+But we did not. Nor Coniston. I recalled what Anita had said: other
+suits and helmets had been here in the nearby chart room. The brigands
+had taken them, and food and water doubtless, and escaped from the
+ship, following us through the lower admission ports only a few
+minutes after we were gone.
+
+We made careful search of the entire ship. Eight of the bodies which
+should have been here were missing: Miko, Moa, Coniston and five of
+the crew.
+
+We did not find them outside. They were hiding near here, no doubt,
+more willing to take their chances than to yield to us now. But how,
+in all this Lunar desolation, could we hope to locate them?
+
+"No use," said Grantline. "Let them go. If they want death, well, they
+deserve it."
+
+But we were saved. Then, as I stood there, realization leaped at me.
+Saved? Were we not indeed fatuous fools?
+
+In all these emotion-swept moments since we had encountered Grantline,
+memory of that brigand ship coming from Mars had never once occurred
+to Snap and me!
+
+I told Grantline now. He stared at me.
+
+"What!"
+
+I told him again. It would be here in eight days. Fully manned and
+armed.
+
+"But Haljan, we have almost no weapons! All my _Comet's_ space was
+taken with 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 nonarrival 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!
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+"Try it again," Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise some
+Earth station! Chance it! Use the power--run it up full. Chance it!"
+
+We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty man, with
+blanched grim face, sat at his senders. The Grantline crew shoved
+close around us. There were very few observers in the high-powered
+Earth stations who knew that an exploring party was on the Moon.
+Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had sanctioned the
+expedition and Halsey and his confrères in the Detective Bureau were
+not anticipating trouble at this point. The _Planetara_ was supposed
+to be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn. It was when she was due to
+return that Halsey would be alert.
+
+Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of safety. He cut down
+the lights; the telescope intensifiers and television were completely
+disconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so that the
+air here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew fetid. All,
+to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might survive.
+
+Even so, it was strained to the danger point. Our heat was radiating
+away; the deadly chill of space crept in.
+
+"Again!" ordered Grantline.
+
+The duty man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence,
+the tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating
+prisms, intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible
+beam, it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead
+dome and into space.
+
+"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for
+now."
+
+It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath in
+the chill darkness. The lights came on again; the Erentz motors
+accelerated to normal. The strain on the walls eased up, and the room
+began warming.
+
+Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power to
+find out. Our receivers were disconnected. If an answering signal
+came, we could not know it. One of the men said:
+
+"Let's assume they read us." He laughed, but it was a high-pitched,
+tense laugh. "We don't dare even use the telescope or television. Or
+electron radio. Our rescue ship might be right overhead, visible to
+the naked eye, before we see it. Three days more--that's what I'll
+give it."
+
+But the three days passed and no rescue ship came. The Earth was
+almost at the full. We tried signaling again. Perhaps it got
+through--we did not know. But our power was weaker now. The wall of
+one of the rooms sprang a leak, and the men were hours repairing it. I
+did not say so, but never once did I feel that our signals were read
+on Earth. Those cursed clouds! The Earth almost everywhere seemed to
+have poor visibility.
+
+Four of our eight days of grace were all too soon passed. The brigand
+ship must be half way here by now.
+
+They were busy days for us. If we could have captured Miko and his
+band, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasure
+insulated, and our camp in darkness, the arriving brigand ship might
+never find us. But Miko knew our location; he would signal his
+oncoming ship when it was close and lead it to us.
+
+During those three days--and the days which followed them--Grantline
+sent out searching parties. But it was unavailing. Miko, Moa and
+Coniston, with their five underlings, could not be found.
+
+We had at first hoped that the brigands might have perished. But that
+was soon dispelled! I went--about the third day--with the party that
+was sent to the _Planetara_. We wanted to salvage some of its
+equipment, its unbroken power units. And Snap and I had worked out an
+idea which we thought might be of service. We needed some of the
+_Planetara's_ smaller gravity plate sections. Those in Grantline's
+wrecked little _Comet_ had stood so long that their radiations had
+gone dead. But the _Planetara's_ were still working.
+
+Our hope that Miko might have perished was dashed. He too had returned
+to the _Planetara_! The evidence was clear before us. The vessel was
+stripped of all its power units save those which were dead and
+useless. The last of the food and water stores were taken. The weapons
+in the chart room--the Benson curve lights, projectors and heat
+rays--had vanished!
+
+Other days passed. Earth reached the full and was waning. The fourteen
+day Lunar night was in its last half. No rescue ship came from Earth.
+We had ceased our efforts to signal, for we needed all our power to
+maintain ourselves. The camp would be in a state of siege before long.
+That was the best we could hope for. We had a few short-range weapons,
+such as Bensons, heat-rays and projectors. A few hundred feet of
+effective range was the most any of them could obtain. The
+heat-rays--in giant form one of the most deadly weapons on Earth--were
+only slowly efficacious on the airless Moon. Striking an intensely
+cold surface, their warming radiations were slow to act. Even in a
+blasting heat beam a man in his Erentz helmet-suit could withstand the
+ray for several minutes.
+
+We were, however, well equipped with explosives. Grantline had brought
+a large supply for his mining operations, and much of it was still
+unused. We had, also, an ample stock of oxygen fuses, and a variety of
+oxygen light flares in small, fragile glass globes.
+
+It was to use these explosives against the brigands that Snap and I
+were working out our scheme with the gravity plates. The brigand ship
+would come with giant projectors and some thirty men. If we could hold
+out against them for a time, the fact that the _Planetara_ was missing
+would bring us help from Earth.
+
+Another day. A tenseness was upon all of us, despite the absorption of
+our feverish activities. To conserve power, the camp was almost dark,
+we lived in dim, chill rooms, with just a few weak spots of light
+outside to mark the watchmen on their rounds. We did not use the
+telescope, but there was scarcely an hour when one or the other of the
+men was not sitting on a cross-piece up in the dome of the little
+instrument room, casting a tense, searching gaze through his glasses
+into the black, starry firmament. A ship might appear at any time
+now--a rescue ship from Earth, or the brigands from Mars.
+
+Anita and Venza through these days could aid us very little save by
+their cheering words. They moved about the rooms, trying to inspire
+us; so that all the men, when they might have been humanly sullen and
+cursing their fate, were turned to grim activity, or grim laughter,
+making a joke of the coming siege. The morale of the camp now was
+perfect. An improvement indeed over the inactivity of their former
+peaceful weeks!
+
+Grantline mentioned it to me. "Well put up a good fight, Haljan. These
+fellows from Mars will know they've had a task before they ever sail
+off with the treasure."
+
+I had many moments alone with Anita. I need not mention them. It
+seemed that our love was crossed by the stars, with an adverse fate
+dooming it. And Snap and Venza must have felt the same. Among the men,
+we were always quietly, grimly active. But alone.... I came upon Snap
+once with his arms around the little Venus girl. I heard him say:
+
+"Accursed luck! That you and I should find each other too late, Venza.
+We could have a lot of fun in Greater New York together."
+
+"Snap, we will!"
+
+As I turned away, I murmured, "And pray God, so will Anita and I."
+
+The girls slept together in a small room of the main building. Often
+during the time of sleep, when the camp was stilled except for the
+night watch, Snap and I would sit in the corridor near the girls'
+door, talking of that time when we would all be back on our blessed
+Earth.
+
+Our eight days of grace were passed. The brigand ship was due--now,
+tomorrow, or the next day.
+
+I recall, that night, my sleep was fitfully uneasy. Snap and I had a
+cubby together. We talked, and made futile plans. I went to sleep, but
+awakened after a few hours. Impending disaster lay heavily upon me.
+But there was nothing abnormal nor unusual in that!
+
+Snap was asleep. I was restless, but I did not have the heart to
+awaken him. He needed what little repose he could get. I dressed, left
+our cubby and wandered out into the corridor of the main building.
+
+It was cold in the corridor, and gloomy with the weak blue light. An
+interior watchman passed me.
+
+"All as usual, Haljan."
+
+"Nothing in sight?"
+
+"No. They're watching."
+
+I went through the connecting corridor to the adjacent building. In
+the instrument room several of the men were gathered, scanning the
+vault overhead.
+
+"Nothing, Haljan."
+
+I stayed with them awhile, then wandered away. An outside man met me
+near the admission lock chambers of the main building. The duty man
+here sat at his controls, raising the air pressure in the locks
+through which the outside watchman was coming. The relief sat here in
+his bloated suit, with his helmet on his knees. It was Wilks.
+
+"Nothing yet, Haljan. I'm going up to the peak of the crater to see if
+anything is in sight. I wish that damnable brigand ship would come and
+get it over with."
+
+Instinctively we all spoke in half whispers, the tenseness bearing in
+on us.
+
+The outside man was white and grim, but he grinned at Wilks. He tried
+the familiar jest: "Don't let the Earthlight get you!"
+
+Wilks went out through the ports--a process of no more than a minute.
+I wandered away again through the corridors.
+
+I suppose it was half an hour later that I chanced to be gazing
+through a corridor window. The lights along the rocky cliff were tiny
+blue spots. The head of the stairway leading down to the abyss of the
+crater floor was visible. The bloated figure of Wilks was just coming
+up. I watched him for a moment making his rounds. He did not stop to
+inspect the lights. That was routine. I thought it odd that he passed
+them.
+
+Another minute passed. The figure of Wilks went with slow bounds over
+toward the back of the ledge where the glassite shelter housed the
+treasure. It was all dark off there. Wilks went into the gloom, but
+before I lost sight of him, he came back. As though he had changed his
+mind, he headed for the foot of the staircase which led up the cliff
+to where, at the peak of the little crater, five hundred feet above
+us, the narrow observatory was perched. He climbed with easy bounds,
+the light on his helmet bobbing in the gloom.
+
+I stood watching. I could not tell why there seemed to be something
+queer about Wilks' actions. But I was struck with it, nevertheless. I
+watched him disappear over the summit.
+
+Another minute went by. Wilks did not reappear. I thought I could make
+out his light on the platform up there. Then abruptly a tiny white
+beam was waving from the observatory platform! It flashed once or
+twice, then was extinguished. And now I saw Wilks plainly, standing in
+the Earthlight, gazing down.
+
+Queer actions! Had the Earthlight touched him? Or was that a local
+signal call which he sent out? Why should Wilks be signaling? What was
+he doing with a hand helio? Our watchmen, I knew, had no reason to
+carry one.
+
+And to whom could Wilks be signaling? To whom, across this Lunar
+desolation? The answer stabbed at me: to Miko's band!
+
+I waited less than a moment. No further light. Wilks was still up
+there!
+
+I went back to the lock entrance. Spare helmets and suits were here
+beside the keeper. He gazed at me inquiringly.
+
+"I'm going out, Franck. Just for a minute." It struck me that perhaps
+I was a meddlesome fool. Wilks, of all of Grantline's men, was, I
+knew, most in his commander's trust. The signal could have been some
+part of this night's ordinary routine, for all I knew.
+
+I was hastily donning an Erentz suit. I added, "Let me out. I just got
+the idea Wilks is acting strangely." I laughed. "Maybe the Earthlight
+has touched him."
+
+With my helmet on, I went through the locks. Once outside, with the
+outer panel closed behind me, I dropped the weights from my belt and
+shoes and extinguished my helmet light.
+
+Wilks was still up there. Apparently he had not moved. I bounded off
+across the ledge to the foot of the ascending stairs. Did Wilks see me
+coming? I could not tell. As I approached the stairs the platform was
+cut off from my line of vision.
+
+I mounted with bounding leaps. In my flexible gloved hand I carried my
+only weapon, a small projector with firing caps for use in this
+outside near-vacuum.
+
+I held the weapon behind me. I would talk to Wilks first. I went
+slowly up the last hundred feet. Was Wilks still up there? The summit
+was bathed in Earthlight. The little metal observatory platform came
+into view above my head.
+
+Wilks was not there. Then I saw him standing on the rocks nearby,
+motionless. But in a moment he saw me coming.
+
+I waved my left hand with a gesture of greeting. It seemed to me that
+he started, made as though to leap away, and then changed his mind. I
+sailed from the head of the staircase with a twenty foot leap and
+landed lightly beside him. I gripped his arm for audiphone contact.
+
+"Wilks!"
+
+Through my visor his face was visible. I saw him and he saw me. And I
+heard his voice:
+
+"You, Haljan. How nice!"
+
+It was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+The duty man at the exit locks stood at his window and watched me
+curiously. He saw me go up the spider stairs. He could see the figure
+he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw me join Wilks, saw
+us locked together in combat.
+
+For a brief instant the duty man stood amazed. There were two
+fantastic figures, fighting at the very brink of the cliff. They were
+small, dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed
+in and out of the shadows. The duty man could not tell one from the
+other. To him it was Haljan and Wilks, fighting to the death!
+
+The duty man sprang into action. An interior siren call was on the
+instrument panel near him. He rang it frantically.
+
+The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them.
+
+"What's this? Good God, Franck!"
+
+They had seen the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff.
+
+Grantline stood stricken with amazement. "That's Wilks!"
+
+"And Haljan," the duty man gasped. "He went out--something wrong with
+Wilks' actions--"
+
+The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men, awakened from
+sleep, ran out into the corridors shouting questions.
+
+"An attack?"
+
+"Is it an attack?"
+
+"The brigands?"
+
+But it was Wilks and Haljan in a fight up there on the cliff. The men
+crowded at the bull's-eye windows.
+
+And over all the confusion the alarm siren, with no one thinking to
+shut it off, was screaming.
+
+Grantline, momentarily stricken, stood gazing. One of the figures
+broke away from the other, bounded up to the summit from the stair
+platform to which they had both fallen. The other followed. They
+locked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed that
+they would go over; then they surged back, momentarily out of sight.
+
+Grantline found his wits. "Stop them! I'll go out and stop them! What
+fools!"
+
+He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits. "Cut off that siren!"
+
+Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty man called from the
+window, "Still at it, the fools. By the infernal--they'll kill
+themselves!"
+
+"Franck, let me out."
+
+"I'll go with you, Commander." But the volunteer was not equipped.
+Grantline would not wait.
+
+The duty man turned to his panel. The volunteer shoved a weapon at
+Grantline.
+
+Grantline jammed on his helmet, took the weapon.
+
+He moved the few steps into the air chamber which was the first of the
+three pressure locks. Its interior door panel swung open for him. But
+the door did not close after him!
+
+Cursing the man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he turned to
+the corridor. The duty man came running.
+
+Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell--"
+
+"Broken! Dead!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Smashed from outside," gasped the duty man. "Look there--my tubes--"
+
+The control tubes of the ports had flashed into a short circuit and
+burned out. The admission ports would not open!
+
+"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside!"
+
+There was no way now of getting through the pressure locks. The doors,
+the entire pressure lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered with
+from outside?
+
+As if to answer Grantline's question there came a chorus of shouts
+from the men at the corridor windows.
+
+"Commander! By God--look!"
+
+A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and
+helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking
+at the port entrance, had ripped out the wires there.
+
+It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made
+off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it
+vanish around the building corner.
+
+It was a giant figure, larger than an Earth man. A Martian?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still
+fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.
+
+A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever,
+Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some
+of the other suits, and called for some of the hand projectors.
+
+But he could not get out through these main admission ports. He could
+have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure changing
+mechanism broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A
+rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was, no
+one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.
+
+Grantline was shouting, "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside!
+The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to
+go with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit."
+
+But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was
+there. It was a smaller two-lock gateway of manual control, so that
+the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at
+the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The
+lever would not open the panels!
+
+Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? A
+traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the
+skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?
+
+The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The
+news spread. The camp was a prison! No one could get out!
+
+And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and
+Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on
+the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again.
+Crazily swaying, bouncing, striking the rail.
+
+They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks,
+and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the
+other.
+
+They rolled unheeding to the brink. Here, beyond the midway ledge
+which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on down
+to the crater floor.
+
+The figures were rolling; then one shook himself loose; rose up,
+seized the other and, with desperate strength, shoved him--
+
+The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling
+down into the shadows past the camp level--down out of sight in the
+darkness of the crater floor.
+
+Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the window gasped, "God!
+Was that Gregg who fell?"
+
+No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp ledge, another
+helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main
+building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast,
+bounding toward the spider staircase. It began mounting.
+
+And now still another figure became visible--the giant Martian again.
+He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He
+evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was
+standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw too, no doubt, the
+second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window
+through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his back to the
+building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps
+toward the ascending staircase.
+
+Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the
+stairs? And was the third figure Miko?
+
+Grantline's mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn from
+them, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridor
+was ringing with shouts.
+
+"We're imprisoned! Can't get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands are
+outside!"
+
+And then an interior audiphone blared a calling for Grantline. Someone
+in the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking.
+
+"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed--"
+
+But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news.
+
+"Commander! The brigand ship!"
+
+Miko's reinforcements had come.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Not Wilks, but Coniston! His drawling, British voice:
+
+"You, Gregg Haljan! How nice!"
+
+His voice broke off as he jerked his arm from me. My hand with the
+projector came up, but with a sweeping blow he struck my wrist. The
+weapon dropped to the rocks.
+
+I fought instinctively, those first moments; my mind was whirling with
+the shock of surprise. This was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.
+
+It was an eerie combat. We swayed; shoving, kicking, wrestling. His
+hold around my middle shut off the Erentz circulation; the warning
+buzz rang in my ears, to mingle with the rasp of his curses. I flung
+him off, and my Erentz motors recovered. He staggered away, but in a
+great leap came at me again.
+
+I was taller, heavier and far stronger than Coniston. But I found him
+crafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, he seemed
+more skillfully agile.
+
+I became aware that we were on the twenty foot square grid of the
+observatory platform. It had a low metal railing. We surged against
+it. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as we
+bounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashed
+against mine, striking as though butting with the side of his head to
+puncture my visor panel. His gloved fingers were clutching at my
+throat.
+
+As we regained our feet, I flung him off, and bounded like a diver,
+head first, into him. He went backward, but skillfully kept his feet
+under him, gripped me again and shoved me.
+
+I was tottering at the head of the staircase--falling. But I clutched
+at him. We fell some twenty or thirty feet to be next lower spider
+landing. The impact must have dazed us both. I recall my vague idea
+that we must have fallen down the cliff.... My air shut off--then it
+came again. The roaring in my ears was stilled; my head cleared, and I
+found that we were on the landing, fighting.
+
+He presently broke away from me, bounded to the summit with me after
+him. In the close confines of the suit I was bathed in sweat and
+gasping. I had no thought to increase the oxygen control. I could not
+find it; or it would not operate.
+
+I realized that I was fighting sluggishly, almost aimlessly. But so
+was Coniston!
+
+It seemed dreamlike. A phantasmagoria of blows and staggering steps. A
+nightmare with only the horrible vision of this goggled helmet always
+before my eyes.
+
+It seemed that we were rolling on the ground, back on the summit. The
+unshadowed Earthlight was clear and bright. The abyss was beside me.
+Coniston, rolling, was now on top, now under me, trying to shove me
+over the brink. It was all like a dream--as though I were asleep,
+dreaming that I did not have enough air.
+
+I strove to keep my senses. He was struggling to roll me over the
+brink. God, that would not do! But I was so tired. One cannot fight
+without oxygen!
+
+I suddenly knew that I had shaken him off and gained my feet. He rose,
+swaying. He was as tired, confused, as nearly asphyxiated as I.
+
+The brink of the abyss was behind us. I lunged, desperately shoving,
+avoiding his clutch.
+
+He went over, and fell soundlessly, his body whirling end over end
+down into the shadows, far below.
+
+I drew back. My senses faded as I sank panting to the rocks. But with
+inactivity, my heart quieted. My respiration slowed. The Erentz
+circulation gained on my poisoned air. It purified.
+
+That blessed oxygen! My head cleared. Strength came. I felt better.
+
+Coniston had fallen to his death. I was victor. I went to the brink
+cautiously, for I was still dizzy. I could see, far down there on the
+crater floor, a little patch of Earthlight in which a mashed human
+figure was lying.
+
+I staggered back again. A moment or two must have passed while I stood
+there on the summit, with my senses clearing and my strength renewed
+as the blood stream cleared in my veins.
+
+I was victor. Coniston was dead. I saw now, down on the lower
+staircase below the camp ledge, another goggled figure lying huddled.
+That was Wilks, no doubt. Coniston had probably caught him there,
+surprised him, killed him.
+
+My attention, as I stood gazing, went down to the camp buildings.
+Another figure was outside! It bounded along the ledge, reached the
+foot of the stairs at the top of which I was standing. With agile
+leaps, it came mounting at me!
+
+Another brigand! Miko? No, it was not large enough to be Miko. I was
+still confused. I thought of Hahn. But that was absurd: Hahn was in
+the wreck of the _Planetara_. One of the stewards then....
+
+The figure came up the staircase recklessly, to assail me. I took a
+step backward, bracing myself to receive this new antagonist. And then
+I looked further down and saw Miko! Unquestionably he, for there was
+no mistaking his giant figure. He was down on the camp ledge, running
+toward the foot of the stairs.
+
+I thought of my revolver. I turned to try and find it. I was aware
+that the first of my assailants was at the stairhead. I swung back to
+see what this oncoming brigand was doing. He was on the summit: with a
+sailing leap he launched for me. I could have bounded away, but with a
+last look to locate the revolver, I braced myself for the shock.
+
+The figure hit me. It was small and light in my clutching arms. I
+recall I saw that Miko was halfway up the stairs. I gripped my
+assailant. The audiphone contact brought a voice.
+
+"Gregg, is it you?"
+
+It was Anita!
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+"Gregg, you're safe!"
+
+She had heard the camp corridors resounding with the shouts that Wilks
+and Haljan were fighting. She had come upon a suit and helmet by the
+manual emergency lock, had run out through the lock, confused, with
+her only idea to stop Wilks and me from fighting. Then she had seen
+one of us killed. Impulsively, barely knowing what she was doing, she
+mounted the stairs, frantic to find if I were alive.
+
+"Anita!"
+
+Miko was coming fast! She had not seen him; for she had no thought of
+brigands--only the belief that either Wilks or I had been killed.
+
+But now, as we stood together on the rocks near the observatory
+platform, I could see the towering figure of Miko nearing the top of
+the stairs.
+
+"Anita, that's Miko! We must run!"
+
+Then I saw my projector. It lay in a bowl-like depression quite near
+us. I jumped for it. And as I tore loose from Anita, she leaped down
+after me. It was a broken bowl in the rocks, some six feet deep. It
+was open on the side facing the stairs--a narrow, ravinelike gully,
+full of gray, broken, tumbled rock masses. The little gully was
+littered with crags and boulders. But I could see out through it.
+
+Miko had come to the head of the stairs. He stopped there, his great
+figure etched sharply by the Earthlight. I think he must have known
+that Coniston was the one who had fallen over the cliff, as my helmet
+and Coniston's were different enough for him to recognize which was
+which. He did not know who I was, but he did know me for an enemy.
+
+He stood now at the summit, peering to see where we had gone. He was
+no more than fifty feet from us.
+
+"Anita, lie down."
+
+I pulled her down on the rocks. I took aim with my projector. But I
+had forgotten our helmet lights. Miko must have seen them just as I
+pulled the trigger. He jumped sidewise and dropped, but I could see
+him moving in the shadows to where a jutting rock gave him shelter. I
+fired, missing him again.
+
+I had stood up to take aim. Anita pulled me sharply down beside her.
+
+"Gregg, he's armed!"
+
+It was his turn to fire. It came--the familiar vague flash of the
+paralyzing ray. It spat its tint of color on the rocks near us, but
+did not reach us.
+
+A moment later, Miko bounded to another rock.
+
+Time passed--only a few seconds. I could not see Miko momentarily.
+Perhaps he was crouching; perhaps he had moved away again. He was, or
+had been, on slightly higher ground than the bottom of our bowl. It
+was dim down here where we were lying, but I feared that any moment
+Miko might appear and strike at us. His ray at any short range would
+penetrate our visor panes, even though our suits might temporarily
+resist it.
+
+"Anita, it's too dangerous here!"
+
+Had I been alone, I might perhaps have leapt up to lure Miko. But with
+Anita I did not dare chance it.
+
+"We've got to get back to camp," I told her.
+
+"Perhaps he has gone--"
+
+But he had not. We saw him again, out in a distant patch of
+Earthlight. He was further from us than before, but on still higher
+ground. We had extinguished our small helmet lights. But he knew we
+were here and possibly he could see us. His projector flashed again.
+He was a hundred feet or more away now, and his weapon was of no
+longer range than mine. I did not answer his fire, for I could not
+hope to hit him at such a distance, and the flash of my weapon would
+help him to locate us.
+
+I murmured to Anita, "We must get away."
+
+Yet how did I dare take Anita from these concealing shadows? Miko
+could reach us so easily as we bounded away in plain view in the
+Earthlight of the open summit! We were caught, at bay in this little
+bowl.
+
+The camp was not visible from here. But out through the broken gully,
+a white beam of light suddenly came up from below.
+
+_Haljan._ It spelled the signal.
+
+It was coming from the Grantline instrument room, I knew.
+
+I could answer it with my helmet light, but I did not dare.
+
+"Try it," urged Anita.
+
+We crouched where we thought we might be safe from Miko's fire. My
+little light beam shot up from the bowl. It was undoubtedly visible to
+the camp.
+
+_Yes, I am Haljan. Send us help._
+
+I did not mention Anita. Miko doubtless could read these signals. They
+answered, _Cannot_--
+
+I lost the rest of it. There came a flash from Miko's weapon. It gave
+us confidence: he was unable to reach us at this distance.
+
+The Grantline beam repeated:
+
+_Cannot come out. Ports broken. You cannot get in. Stay where you are
+for an hour or two. We may be able to repair ports._
+
+I extinguished my light. What use was it to tell Grantline anything
+further? Besides, my light was endangering us. But the Grantline beam
+spelled another message:
+
+_Brigand ship is coming. It will be here before we can get out to you.
+No lights. We will try and hide our location._
+
+And the signal beam brought a last appeal:
+
+_Miko and his men will divulge where we are unless you can stop them._
+
+The beam vanished. The lights of the Grantline camp made a faint glow
+that showed above the crater edge. The glow died, as the camp now was
+plunged into darkness.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+We crouched in the shadows, the Earthlight filtering down to us. The
+skulking figure of Miko had vanished; but I was sure he was out there
+somewhere on the crags, lurking, maneuvering to where he could strike
+us with his ray. Anita's metal-gloved hand was on my arm; in my
+ear-diaphragm her voice sounded eager:
+
+"What was the signal, Gregg?"
+
+I told her everything.
+
+"Oh Gregg! The Martian ship coming!"
+
+Her mind clung to that as the most important thing. But not so myself.
+To me there was only the realization that Anita was caught out here,
+almost at the mercy of Miko's ray. Grantline's men could not get out
+to help us, nor could I get Anita into the camp.
+
+She added, "Where do you suppose the ship is?"
+
+"Twenty or thirty thousand miles up, probably."
+
+The stars and the Earth were visible over us. Somewhere up there,
+disclosed by Grantline's instruments but not yet discernible to the
+naked eye, Miko's reinforcements were hovering.
+
+We lay for a moment in silence. It was horribly nerve straining. Miko
+could be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire?
+Creeping--or would he make a swift, unexpected rush?
+
+The feeling that he was upon us abruptly swept me. I jumped to my
+feet, against Anita's effort to hold me. Where was he now? Was my
+imagination playing me tricks?...
+
+I sank back. "That ship should be here in a few hours."
+
+I told her what Grantline's signal had suggested; the ship was
+hovering overhead. It must be fairly close; for Grantline's telescope
+had revealed its identity as an outlaw flyer, unmarked by any of the
+standard code identification lights. It was doubtless too far away as
+yet to have located the whereabouts of Grantline's camp. The Martian
+brigands knew that we were in the vicinity of Archimedes, but no more
+than that. Searching this glowing Moon surface, our tiny local
+semaphore beams would certainly pass unnoticed.
+
+But as the brigand ship approached now--dropping close to Archimedes
+as it probably would--our danger was that Miko and his men would then
+signal it, join it, and reveal the camp's location. And the brigand
+attack would be upon us!
+
+I told this now to Anita. "The signal from Grantline said, '_Unless
+you can stop them._'"
+
+It was an appeal to me. But how could I stop them? What could I do,
+alone out here with Anita, to cope with this enemy?
+
+Anita made no comment.
+
+I added, "That ship will land near Archimedes, within an hour or two.
+If Grantline can repair the ports, and I can get you inside...."
+
+Again she made no comment. Then suddenly she gripped me. "Gregg, look
+there!"
+
+Out through the gully break in our bowl the figure of Miko showed! He
+was running. But not at us. Circling the summit, leaping to keep
+himself behind the upstanding crags. He passed the head of the
+staircase; he did not descend it, but headed off along the summit of
+the crater rim.
+
+I stood up to watch him. "Where's he going!"
+
+I let Anita stand up beside me, cautiously at first, for it occurred
+to me it might be a ruse to cover some other of Miko's men who might
+be lurking near.
+
+But the summit seemed clear. The figure of Miko was a thousand feet
+away now. We could see the tiny blob of it bobbing over the rocks.
+Then it plunged down--not into the crater valley, but out toward the
+open Moon surface.
+
+Miko had abandoned his attack on us. The reason seemed plain. He had
+come here from his encampment with Coniston ahead to lure and kill
+Wilks. When this was done, Coniston had flashed his signal to Miko,
+who was hiding nearby.
+
+It was not like the brigand leader to remain in the background. Miko
+was no coward. But Coniston could impersonate Wilks, whereas Miko's
+giant stature at once would reveal his identity. Miko had been engaged
+in smashing the ports. He had looked up and seen me kill Coniston. He
+had come to assail me. And then he had read Grantline's message to me.
+It was his first knowledge that his ship was at hand. With the camp
+exits inoperative, Grantline and his men were imprisoned. Miko had
+made an effort to kill me. He did not know my companion was Anita. But
+the effort was taking too long; with his ship at hand, it was Miko's
+best move to return to his own camp, rejoin his men, and await their
+opportunity to signal the ship.
+
+At least, so I reasoned it. Anita and I stood alone. What could we do?
+
+We went to the brink of the cliff. The unlighted Grantline buildings
+showed vaguely in the Earthlight.
+
+I said, "We'll go down. I'll leave you there. You can wait at the
+port. They'll repair it soon."
+
+"And what will you do, Gregg?"
+
+I did not intend to tell her. "Hurry, Anita!"
+
+"Gregg, let me go with you."
+
+She jerked away from me and bounded back up the stairs. I caught her
+on the summit.
+
+"Anita!"
+
+"I'm going with you."
+
+"You're going to stay here."
+
+"I'm not!"
+
+This exasperating controversy!
+
+"Anita, please."
+
+"I'll be safer with you than waiting here, Gregg." And she added,
+"Besides, I won't stay and you can't make me."
+
+We ran along the crater top. At its distant edge the lower plain
+spread before us. Far down, and far away on the distant broken
+surface, the leaping figure of Miko showed. He plunged down the broken
+outer slope, reached the level. Soon, as we ran, the little Grantline
+crater faded behind us.
+
+Anita ran more skillfully than I. Ten minutes or so passed. We had
+seen Miko and the direction he was taking, but down here on the plain
+we could no longer see him. It struck me that our chase was
+purposeless and dangerous. Suppose Miko were to see us following him?
+Suppose he stopped and lay in ambush to fire at us as we came leaping
+heedlessly by?
+
+"Anita, wait!"
+
+I drew her down amid a group of tumbled boulders. And then abruptly
+she clung to me.
+
+"Gregg, I know what we can do! Gregg, don't tell me you won't let me
+try it!"
+
+I listened to her plan. Incredible! Incredibly dangerous. Yet, as I
+pondered it, the very daring of the scheme seemed the measure of its
+possible success. The brigands would never imagine we could be so
+rash!
+
+"But Anita--"
+
+"Gregg, you're stupid!" It was her turn to be exasperated.
+
+But I was in no mood for daring. My mind was obsessed with Anita's
+safety. I had been planning that we might see the glow of Miko's
+encampment and decide on some course of action.
+
+"But, Gregg, the safety of the treasure--of all the Grantline men...."
+
+"To the infernal with that! It's you, your safety--"
+
+"My safety, then! If you put me in the camp and the brigands attack it
+and I am killed--what then? But this plan of mine, if we can do it,
+Gregg, will mean safety in the end for all of us."
+
+And it seemed possible. We crouched, discussing it. So daring a thing!
+
+The brigand ship would come down near Archimedes. That was fifty miles
+from Grantline. The brigands from Mars would not have seen the dark
+Grantline buildings hidden in the little crater pit. They would wait
+for Miko and his men to make their whereabouts known.
+
+Miko's encampment was ahead of us now, undoubtedly. We had been
+following him toward the Mare Imbrium. Or at least, we hoped so. He
+would signal his ship. But Anita and I, closer to it, would also
+signal it; and, posing as brigands, would join it!
+
+"Remember, Gregg, I remain Anita Prince, George's sister." Her voice
+trembled as she mentioned her dead brother. "They know that George was
+in Miko's pay, and I as his sister, will help to convince them."
+
+This daring scheme! If we could join the ship, we might be able to
+persuade its leader that Miko's distant signals were merely a ruse of
+Grantline to lure the brigands in that direction. A long range
+projector from the ship would kill Miko and his men as they came
+forward to join it! And then we would falsely direct the brigands,
+lead them away from Grantline and the treasure.
+
+"Gregg, we must try it."
+
+Heaven help me, I yielded to her persuasion!
+
+We turned at right angles and ran toward where the distant frowning
+walls of Archimedes loomed against the starlit sky.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+The broken, shaggy ramparts of the giant crater rose above us. We
+toiled upward, out of the foothills, clinging now to the crags and
+pitted terraces of the main ascent. An hour had passed since we turned
+from the borders of Mare Imbrium. Or was it two hours? I could not
+tell. I only know that we ran with desperate, frantic haste.
+
+Anita would not admit that she was tired. She was more skillful than I
+in this leaping over the broken rock masses. Yet I felt that her
+slight strength must give out. It seemed miles up the undulating
+slopes of the foothills with the black and white ramparts of the
+crater close before us.
+
+And then the main ascent. There were places where, like smooth black
+frozen ice, the walls rose sheer. We avoided them, toiling aside,
+plunging into gullies, crossing pits where sometimes, perforce, we
+went downwards, and then up again. Or sometimes we stood, hot and
+breathless, upon ledges, recovering our strength, selecting the best
+route upward.
+
+In tumbled mass of rock, honeycombed everywhere with caves and
+passages leading into impenetrable darkness, there were pits into
+which we might so easily have fallen; ravines to span, sometimes with
+a leap, sometimes by a long and arduous detour.
+
+Endless climb. We came to the ledge with the plains of the Mare
+Imbrium stretching out beneath us. We might have been upon this main
+ascent for an hour; the plains were far down, the broken surface down
+there smoothed now by the perspective of height. And yet still above
+us the brooding circular wall went up into the sky. Ten thousand feet
+above us.
+
+"You're tired, Anita. We'd better stay here."
+
+"No. If we could only get to the top--the ship may land on the other
+side--they would see us."
+
+There was as yet no sign of the brigand ship. With every stop for
+rest we searched the starry vault. The Earth hung over us, flattened
+beyond the full. The stars blazed to mingle with the Earthlight and
+illumine these massive crags of the Archimedes walls. But no speck
+appeared to tell us that the ship was up there.
+
+We were on the curving side of the Archimedes wall which fronted the
+Mare Imbrium to the north. The plains lay Like a great frozen sea,
+congealed ripples shining in the light of the Earth, with dark patches
+to mark the hollows. Somewhere down there--six or eight thousand feet
+below us now--Miko's encampment lay concealed. We searched for lights
+of it, but could see none.
+
+Had Miko rejoined his party, left his camp and come here like
+ourselves to climb Archimedes? Or was our assumption wholly wrong:
+perhaps the brigand ship would not land near here at all!
+
+Sweeping around from the Mare Imbrium, the plains were less smooth.
+The little crater which concealed the Grantline camp was off in the
+crater-scarred region beyond which the distant Apennines raised their
+terraced walls. There was nothing to mark it from here.
+
+"Gregg, do you see anything up there?" She added, "There seems to be a
+blur."
+
+Her sight, sharper than mine, had picked it out. The descending
+brigand ship! A faintest, tiny blur against the stars, a few of them
+occulted as though an invisible shadow were upon them. A growing
+shadow, materializing into a blur--a blob, a shape faintly defined.
+Then sharper until we were sure of what we saw. It was the brigand
+ship. It was dropping slowly, silently down.
+
+We crouched on the little ledge. A cave mouth was behind us. A gully
+was beside us, a break in the ledge; and at our feet the sheer wall
+dropped.
+
+We had extinguished our lights. We crouched, silently gazing up into
+the stars.
+
+The ship, when we first distinguished it, was centered over
+Archimedes. We thought for a while that it might descend into the
+crater. But it did not; it came sailing forward.
+
+I whispered into the audiphone, "It's coming over the crater."
+
+Her hand pressed my arm in answer.
+
+I recalled that when, from the _Planetara_, Miko had forced Snap to
+signal this brigand band on Mars, Miko's only information as to the
+whereabouts of the Grantline camp was that it lay between Archimedes
+and the Apennines. The brigands now were following that information.
+
+A tense interval passed. We could see the ship plainly above us now, a
+gray-black shape among the stars up beyond the shaggy, towering crater
+rim. The vessel came upon a level keel, hull down. Slowly circling,
+looking for Miko's signal, no doubt, or for possible lights from
+Grantline's camp. They might also be picking a landing place.
+
+We saw it soon as a cylindrical, cigarlike shape, rather smaller than
+the _Planetara_, but similar of design. It bore lights now. The ports
+of its hull were tiny rows of illumination, and the glow of light
+under its rounding upper dome was faintly visible.
+
+A bandit ship, no doubt of that. Its identification keel plate was
+empty of official pass code lights. These brigands had not attempted
+to secure official sailing lights when leaving Ferrok-Shahn. It was
+unmistakably an outlaw ship. And here upon the deserted Moon there was
+no need for secrecy. Its lights were openly displayed, that Miko might
+see it and join it.
+
+It went slowly past us, only a few thousand feet higher than our
+level. We could see the whole outline of its pointed cylinder hull,
+with the rounded dome on top. And under the dome was its open deck
+with a little cabin superstructure in the center.
+
+I thought for a moment that by some unfortunate chance it might land
+quite near us. But it went past. And then I saw that it was heading
+for a level, plateaulike surface a few miles further on. It dropped,
+cautiously floating down.
+
+There was still no sign of Miko. But I realized that haste was
+necessary. We must be the first to join the brigand ship.
+
+I lifted Anita to her feet. "I don't think we should signal from
+here."
+
+"No. Miko might see it."
+
+We could not tell where he was. Down on the plains, perhaps? Or up
+here, somewhere in these miles of towering rocks?
+
+"Are you ready, Anita?"
+
+"Yes, Gregg."
+
+I stared through the visors at her white solemn face.
+
+"Yes, I'm ready," she repeated.
+
+Her hand pressure seemed to me suddenly like a farewell. We were
+plunging rashly into what was destined to mean our death? Was this a
+farewell?
+
+An instinct told me not to do this thing. Why, in a few hours I could
+have Anita back to the comparative safety of the Grantline camp. The
+exit ports would doubtless be repaired by now. I could get her inside.
+
+She had bounded away from me, leaped down some thirty feet into the
+broken gully, to cross it and then up on the other side. I stood for
+an instant watching her fantastic shape, with the great rounded,
+goggled, trunked helmet and the lump on her shoulders which held the
+little Erentz motors. Then I hurried after her.
+
+It did not take us long--two or three miles of circling along the
+giant wall. The ship lay only a few hundred feet above our level.
+
+We stood at last on a buttelike pinnacle. The lights of the ship were
+close over us. And there were moving lights up there, tiny moving
+spots on the adjacent rocks. The brigands had come out, prowling about
+to investigate their location.
+
+No signal yet from Miko. But it might come at any moment.
+
+"I'll flash now," I whispered.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the lamp from my
+helmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by a
+shot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship?
+
+Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with my
+torch and flung its switch. My puny light beam shot up. I waved it,
+touched the ship with its faint glowing circle of illumination.
+
+They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there.
+
+I semaphored:
+
+_I am from Miko. Do not fire._
+
+I used open universal code. In Martian first, and then in English.
+
+There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again.
+
+_This is Haljan, one of the_ Planetara. _George Prince's sister is
+with me. There has been disaster to Miko._
+
+A small light beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliff
+beside the ship.
+
+_Continue._
+
+I went steadily on: _Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killed
+but me and Prince's sister. We want to join you._
+
+I flashed off my light. The answer came:
+
+_Where is the Grantline Camp?_
+
+_Near here. The Mare Imbrium._
+
+As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, some ten
+miles or so from the crater base, a tiny signal light shot up. Anita
+saw it and gripped me.
+
+"There is Miko's light!"
+
+It spelled in Martian, _Come down. Land Mare Imbrium._
+
+Miko had seen the signaling up here and had joined it! He repeated,
+_Land Mare Imbrium._
+
+I flashed a protest up to the ship: _Beware. That is Grantline!
+Trickery._
+
+From the ship the summons came, _Come up._
+
+We had won this first encounter! Miko must have realized his
+disadvantage. His distant light went out.
+
+"Come, Anita."
+
+There was no retreat now. But again I seemed to feel in the pressure
+of her hand that vague farewell. Her voice whispered, "We must do our
+best, act our best to be convincing."
+
+In the white glow of a searchbeam we climbed the crags, reached the
+broad upper ledge. Helmeted figures rushed at us, searched us for
+weapons, seized our helmet lights. The evil face of a giant Martian
+peered at me through the visors. Two other monstrous, towering figures
+seized Anita.
+
+We were shoved toward the port locks at the base of the ship's hull.
+Above the hull bulge I could see the grids of projectors mounted on
+the dome side, and the figures of men standing on the deck, peering
+down at us.
+
+We went through the admission locks into a hull corridor, up an
+incline passage, and reached the lighted deck. The Martian brigands
+crowded around us.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+Anita's words echoed in my memory: "We must do our best to be
+convincing." It was not her ability that I doubted, as much as my own.
+She had played the part of George Prince cleverly, unmasked only by an
+evil chance.
+
+I steeled myself to face the searching glances of the brigands as they
+shoved around us. This was a desperate game into which we had plunged.
+For all our acting, how easy it would be for some small chance thing
+abruptly to undo us! I realized it, and now, as I gazed into the
+peering faces of these men from Mars, I cursed myself for the witless
+rashness which had brought Anita into this!
+
+The brigands--some ten or fifteen of them here on deck--stood in a
+ring around us. They were all big men, nearly of a seven-foot average,
+dressed in leather jerkins and short leather breeches, with bare knees
+and flaring leather boots. Piratical swaggering fellows, knife-blades
+mingled with small hand projectors fastened to their belts. Gray,
+heavy faces, some with scraggly, unshaven beards. They plucked at us,
+jabbering in Martian.
+
+One of them seemed the leader. I said sharply, "Are you the commander
+here? You speak the Earth English?"
+
+"Yes," he said readily. "I am commander here." He spoke English with
+the same freedom and accent as Miko. "Is this George Prince's sister?"
+
+"Yes. Her name is Anita Prince. Tell your men to take their hands off
+her."
+
+He waved his men away. They all seemed more interested in Anita than
+in me. He added:
+
+"I am _Set_ Potan." He addressed Anita. "George Prince's sister? You
+are called Anita? I have heard of you. I knew your brother--indeed,
+you look very much like him."
+
+He swept his plumed hat to the grid with a swaggering gesture of
+homage. A courtierlike fellow this, debonair as a Venus cavalier!
+
+He accepted us. I realized that Anita's presence was extremely
+valuable in making us convincing. Yet there was about this Potan--as
+with Miko--a disturbing suggestion of irony. I could not make him out.
+I decided that we had fooled him. Then I remarked the steely glitter
+of his eyes as he turned to me.
+
+"You were an officer of the _Planetara_?"
+
+The insignia of my rank was visible on my white jacket collar which
+showed beneath the Erentz suit now that my helmet was off.
+
+"Yes. I was supposed to be. But a year ago I embarked upon this
+adventure with Miko."
+
+He was leading us to his cabin. "The _Planetara_ wrecked? Miko dead?"
+
+"And Hahn and Coniston. George Prince too. We are the only survivors."
+
+While we divested ourselves of the Erentz suits, at his command, I
+told him briefly of the _Planetara's_ fall. All had been killed on
+board, save Anita and me. We had escaped, awaited his coming. The
+treasure was here; we had located the Grantline camp, and were ready
+to lead him to it.
+
+Did he believe me? He listened quietly. He seemed not shocked at the
+death of his comrades. Nor yet pleased: merely imperturbable.
+
+I added with a sly, sidelong glance, "There were too many of us on the
+_Planetara_. The purser had joined us and many of the crew. And there
+was Miko's sister, the _Setta_ Moa--too many. The treasure divides
+better among less."
+
+An amused smile played on his thin gray lips. But he nodded. The fear
+which had leaped at me was allayed by his next words.
+
+"True enough, Haljan. He was a domineering fellow, Miko. A third of it
+all was for him alone. But now...."
+
+The third would go to this sub-leader, Potan! The implication was
+obvious.
+
+I said, "Before we go any further, I can trust you for my share?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+I figured that my very boldness in bargaining so prematurely would
+convince him. I insisted, "Miss Prince will have her brother's share?"
+
+Clever Anita! She put in swiftly, "Oh, I give no information until you
+promise! We know the location of the Grantline camp, its weapons, its
+defences, the amount and location of the treasure. I warn you, if you
+do not play us fair...."
+
+He laughed heartily. He seemed to like us. He spread his huge legs as
+he lounged in his settle, and drank of the bowl which one of his men
+set before him.
+
+"Little tigress! Fear me not--I play fair!" He pushed two of the bowls
+across the table. "Drink, Haljan. All is well with us and I am glad to
+know it. Miss Prince, drink my health as your leader."
+
+I waved it away from Anita. "We need all our wits; your strong Martian
+drinks are dangerous. Look here, I'll tell you just how the situation
+stands--"
+
+I plunged into a glib account of our supposed wanderings to find the
+Grantline camp: its location off the Mare Imbrium--hidden in a
+cavern there. Potan, with the drink, and under the gaze of Anita's
+eyes, was in high good humor. He laughed when I told him that we had
+dared to invade the Grantline camp, had smashed its exit ports, had
+even gotten up to have a look where the treasure was piled.
+
+"Well done, Haljan. You're a fellow to my liking!" But his gaze was on
+Anita. "You dress like a man or a charming boy."
+
+She still wore the dark clothes of her brother. She said, "I am used
+to action. Man's garb pleases me. You shall treat me like a man and
+give me my share of gold leaf."
+
+He had already demanded the reason for the signal from the Mare
+Imbrium. Miko's signal! It had not come again, though any moment I
+feared it. I told him that Grantline doubtless had repaired his
+damaged ports and sallied out to assail me in reprisal. And, seeing
+the brigand ship landing on Archimedes, had tried to lure him into a
+trap.
+
+I wondered if my explanation was convincing: it did not sound so. But
+he was flushed now with drink, and Anita added:
+
+"Grantline knows the territory near his camp very well. But he is
+equipped only for short range fighting."
+
+I took it up. "It's like this, Potan: if he could get you to land
+unsuspectingly near his cavern--"
+
+I pictured how Grantline might have figured on a sudden surprise
+attack upon the ship. It was his only chance to catch it unprepared.
+
+We were all three in friendly, intimate mood now. Potan said, "We'll
+land down there right enough! But I need a few hours for my
+assembling."
+
+"He will not dare advance," I said.
+
+Anita put in, smiling, "He knows by now that we have unmasked his
+lure. Haljan and I, joining you--that silenced him. His light went out
+very promptly, didn't it?"
+
+She flashed me a side gaze. Were we acting convincingly? But if Miko
+started up his signals again, they might so quickly betray us!
+Anita's thoughts were upon that, for she added:
+
+"Grantline will not dare show his light! If he does, _Set_ Potan, we
+can blast him from here with a ray. Can't we?"
+
+"Yes," Potan agreed. "If he comes within ten miles, I have one
+powerful enough. We are assembling it now."
+
+"And we have thirty men?" Anita persisted. "When we sail down to
+attack him, it should not be difficult to kill all the Grantline
+party."
+
+"By heaven, Haljan, this girl of yours is small, but very
+bloodthirsty!"
+
+"And I'm glad Miko is dead," Anita added.
+
+I explained, "That accursed Miko murdered her brother."
+
+Acting! And never once did we dare relax. If only Miko's signals would
+hold off and give us time!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We may have talked for half an hour. We were in a small steel-lined
+cubby, located in the forward deck of the ship. The dome was over it.
+I could see from where I sat at the table that there was a forward
+observatory tower under the dome quite near here. The ship was laid
+out in rather similar fashion to the _Planetara_, though considerably
+smaller.
+
+Potan had dismissed his men from the cubby so as to be alone with us.
+Out on the deck I could see them dragging apparatus about, bringing
+the mechanisms of giant projectors up from below and beginning to
+assemble them. Occasionally some of the men would come to our cubby
+windows to peer in curiously.
+
+My mind was roaming as I talked. For all my manner of casualness, I
+knew that haste was necessary. Whatever Anita and I were to do must be
+quickly done.
+
+But to win this fellow's utter confidence first was necessary, so that
+we might have the freedom of the ship, might move about unnoticed,
+unwatched.
+
+I was horribly tense inside. Through the dome windows across the deck
+from the cubby, the rocks of the Lunar landscape were visible. I could
+see the brink of this ledge upon which the ship lay, the descending
+crags down the precipitous wall of Archimedes to the Earthlit plains
+far below. Miko, Moa, and a few of the _Planetara's_ crew were down
+there somewhere.
+
+Anita and I had a fairly definite plan. We were now in Potan's
+confidence; this interview at an end, I felt that our status among the
+brigands would be established. We would be free to move about the
+ship, join in its activities. It ought to be possible to locate the
+signal room, get friendly with the operator there.
+
+Perhaps we could find a secret opportunity to flash a signal to Earth.
+This ship, I was confident, would have the power for a long range
+signal, if not of too sustained a length. It would be a desperate
+thing to attempt, but our whole procedure was desperate! Anita could
+lure the duty man from the signal room, I might send a single flash or
+two that would reach the Earth. Just a distress signal, signed
+"Grantline." If I could do that and not get caught!
+
+Anita was engaging Potan in talking of his plans. The brigand leader
+was boasting of them: of his well equipped ship, the daring of his
+men. And questioning her about the size of the treasure. My thoughts
+were free to roam.
+
+While we were making friends with this brigand, the longest range
+electronic projector was being assembled. Miko then could flash his
+signal and be damned to him! I would be on the deck with that
+projector. Its operator and I would turn it upon Miko--one flash of it
+and he and his little band would be wiped out.
+
+But there was our escape to be thought of. We could not remain very
+long with these brigands. We could tell them that the Grantline camp
+was on the Mare Imbrium. It would delay them for a time, but our lie
+would soon be discovered. We must escape from them, get away and back
+to Grantline. With Miko dead, a distress signal to Earth, and Potan in
+ignorance of Grantline's location, the treasure would be safe until
+help arrived from Earth.
+
+"By the infernal, little Anita, you look like a dove, but you're a
+tigress! A comrade after my own heart--bloodthirsty as a
+fire-worshipper!"
+
+Her laugh rang out to mingle with his. "Oh no, _Set_ Potan! I am
+treasure-thirsty."
+
+"We'll get the treasure. Never fear, little Anita."
+
+"With you to lead us, I'm sure we will."
+
+A man entered the cubby. Potan looked frowningly around. "What is it,
+Argle?"
+
+The fellow answered in Martian, leered at Anita and withdrew.
+
+Potan stood up. I noticed that he was unsteady with the drink.
+
+"They want me with the work at the projectors."
+
+"Go ahead," I said.
+
+He nodded. We were comrades now. "Amuse yourself, Haljan. Or come out
+on deck if you wish. I will tell my men you are one of us."
+
+"And tell them to keep their hands off Miss Prince."
+
+He stared at me. "I had not thought of that: a woman among so many
+men!"
+
+His own gaze at Anita was as offensive as any of his men could have
+given. He said, "Have no fear, little tigress."
+
+Anita laughed. "I'm afraid of nothing."
+
+But when he had lurched from the cabin, she touched me. Smiled with
+her mannish swagger, for fear we were still observed, and murmured:
+
+"Oh Gregg, I am afraid!"
+
+We stayed in the cubby a few moments, whispering and planning.
+
+"You think the signal room is in the tower, Gregg? This tower outside
+our window here?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"Shall we go out and see?"
+
+"Yes. Keep near me always."
+
+"Oh Gregg, I will!"
+
+We deposited our Erentz suits carefully in a corner of the cubby. We
+might need them so suddenly! Then we swaggered out to join the
+brigands working on the deck.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The deck glowed lurid in the queer blue-greenish glare of Martian
+electro-fuse lights. It was in a bustle of ordered activity. Some
+twenty of the crew were scattered about, working in little groups.
+Apparatus was being brought up from below to be assembled. There was a
+pile of Erentz suits and helmets, of Martian pattern, but still very
+similar to those with which Grantline's expedition was equipped. There
+were giant projectors of several kinds, some familiar to me, others of
+a fashion I had never seen before. It seemed there were six or eight
+of them, still dismantled, with a litter of their attendant batteries
+and coils and tube amplifiers.
+
+They were to be mounted here on the deck, I surmised; I saw in the
+dome side one or two of them already rolled into position.
+
+Anita and I stood outside Potan's cubby, gazing around us curiously.
+The men looked at us but none of them spoke.
+
+"Let's watch from here a moment," I whispered. She nodded, standing
+with her hand on my arm. I felt that we were very small, here in the
+midst of these seven foot Martian men. I was all in white, the costume
+used in the warm interior of Grantline's camp. Bareheaded, white silk
+_Planetara_ uniform jacket, broad belt and tight-laced trousers. Anita
+was a slim black figure beside me, somber as Hamlet, with her pale
+boyish face and wavy black hair.
+
+The gravity being maintained here on the ship we had found to be
+stronger than that of the Moon and rather more like Mars.
+
+"There are the heat rays, Gregg."
+
+A pile of them was visible down the deck length. And I saw caskets of
+fragile glass globes, bombs of different styles, hand projectors of
+the paralyzing ray; search beams of several varieties; the Benson
+curve light, and a few side arms of ancient Earth design--swords and
+dirks, and small bullet projectors.
+
+There seemed to be some mining equipment also. Far along the deck,
+beyond the central cabin in the open space of the stern, steel rails
+were stacked; half a dozen tiny-wheeled ore carts; a tiny motor engine
+for hauling them and what looked as though it might be the dismembered
+sections of an ore chute.
+
+The whole deck was presently strewn with this mass of equipment.
+
+Potan moved about, directing the different groups of workers. The news
+had spread that we knew the location of the treasure. The brigands
+were jubilant. In a few hours the ship's armament would be ready, and
+it would advance.
+
+I saw many glances cast out the dome side windows toward the distant
+plains of the Mare Imbrium. The brigands believed that the Grantline
+camp lay in that direction.
+
+Anita whispered, "Which is their giant electronic projector, Gregg?"
+
+I could see it amidships of the deck. It was already in place. Potan
+was there now, superintending the men who were connecting it. The most
+powerful weapon on the ship. It had, Potan said, an effective range of
+some ten miles. I wondered what it would do to a Grantline building!
+The Erentz double walls would withstand it for a time, I was sure. But
+it would blast an Erentz fabric suit, no doubt of that. Like a
+lightning bolt, it would kill--its flashing free stream of electrons
+shocking the heart, bringing instant death.
+
+I whispered, "We must smash that before we leave! But first turn it on
+Miko, if he signals now."
+
+I was tensely watchful for that signal. The electronic projector
+obviously was not ready. But when it was connected, I must be near it,
+to persuade its duty man to fire it on Miko. With this done we would
+have more time to plan our other tasks. I did not think Potan would be
+ready for his attack before another time of sleep here in the ship's
+routine. Things would be quieter then; I would watch my chance to send
+a signal to Earth, and then we would escape.
+
+With my thoughts roving, we had been standing quietly at the cubby
+door for about fifteen minutes. My hand in my side pouch clutched the
+little bullet projector. The brigands had taken it from me and given
+it to Potan. He had placed it on the settle with my Erentz suit; and
+when we gained his confidence he had forgotten it and left it there. I
+had it now, and the feel of its cool sleek handle gave me a measure of
+comfort. Things could go wrong so easily. But if they did, I was
+determined to sell my life as dearly as possible. And a vague thought
+was in my mind: I must not use the last bullet. That would be for
+Anita.
+
+"That electronic projector is remote controlled. Look, Anita, that's
+the signal room over us. The giant projector will be aimed and fired
+from up there."
+
+A thirty foot skeleton tower stood on the deck near us, with a spiral
+ladder leading up to a small, square, steel cubby at the top. Through
+the cubby window I could see instrument panels. A single Martian was
+up there; he had called down to Potan concerning the electronic
+projector.
+
+The roof of this little tower room was close under the dome--a space
+of no more than four feet. A pressure lock exit in the dome was up
+there, with a few steps leading up to it from the roof of the tower
+signal room.
+
+We could escape that way, perhaps. In the event of dire necessity it
+might be possible. But only as a desperate resort, for it would put us
+on the top of the glassite dome, with a sheer hundred feet or more
+down its sleek bulging exterior side, and down the outside bulge of
+the ship's hull, to the rocks below. There might be a spider ladder
+outside leading downward, but I saw no evidence of it. If Anita and I
+were forced to escape that way, I wondered how we could manage a
+hundred foot jump to the rocks, and land safely. Even with the slight
+gravity of the Moon, it would be a dangerous fall.
+
+"You are Gregg Haljan?"
+
+I stared as one of the brigands, coming up behind, addressed me.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Commander Potan tells me you were chief navigator of the
+_Planetara_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You shall pilot us when we advance upon the Grantline camp. I am
+control-commander here--Brotow, my name."
+
+He smiled. A giant fellow, but spindly. He spoke good English. He
+seemed anxious to be friendly.
+
+"We are glad to have you and George Prince's sister with us." He shot
+Anita an admiring glance. "I will show you our controls, Haljan."
+
+"All right," I said. "Whatever I can do to help...."
+
+"But not now. It will be some hours before we are ready."
+
+I nodded, and he wandered away. Anita whispered: "Did he mean that
+signal room up in the tower? Oh Gregg, maybe it's only the control
+room."
+
+"Suppose we go up and see? Miko's signals might start any minute."
+
+And the electronic projector seemed about ready. It was time for me to
+act. But a reluctant instinct was upon me. Our Erentz suits were close
+behind us in Potan's cubby. I hated to leave them. If anything
+happened, and we had to make a sudden dash, there would be no time to
+garb ourselves in the suits. To adjust the helmets would be bad
+enough.
+
+I whispered swiftly, "We must get into our suits--find some pretext."
+I drew her back through the cubby doorway where we would be more
+secluded.
+
+"Anita, listen. I've been a fool not to plan our escape more
+carefully. We're in too great a danger here!"
+
+Suddenly it seemed to me that we were in desperate plight! Was it
+premonition?
+
+"Anita, listen: if anything happens and we have to make a dash--"
+
+"Up through that dome lock, Gregg? It's a manual control; you can see
+the levers."
+
+"Yes. It's a manual. But once up there how would we get down?"
+
+She was far calmer than I. "There may be an outside ladder, Gregg."
+
+"I don't think so. I haven't seen it."
+
+"Then we can get out the way they brought us in. The hull port--it's a
+manual, too."
+
+"Yes, I think I can find our way down through the hull corridors."
+
+"There are guards outside on the rocks."
+
+We had seen them through the dome windows. But there were not many,
+only two or three. I was armed and a surprise rush would do the trick.
+
+We donned our Erentz suits.
+
+"What will we do with the helmets?" demanded Anita. "Leave them here?"
+
+"No, take them with us. I'm not going to get separated from them!"
+
+"We'll look strange going up to that signal room equipped like this."
+
+"I can't help it, Anita. We'll explain it, somehow."
+
+She stood before me, a queer-looking little figure in the now
+deflated, bagging suit with her slim neck and head protruding above
+it.
+
+"Carry your helmet, Anita. Ill take mine."
+
+We could adjust the helmets and start the motors all within a few
+seconds.
+
+"I'm ready, Gregg."
+
+"Come on, then. Let me go first."
+
+I had the bullet projector in an outer pouch of the suit where I could
+instantly reach it. This was more rational; we had a fighting chance
+now. The fear which had swept me began to recede.
+
+"We'll climb the tower to the signal room," I whispered. "Do it
+boldly."
+
+We stepped from the cubby. Potan was not in sight; perhaps he was on
+the further deck beyond the central cabin structure.
+
+On the deck, we were immediately accosted. This was different--our
+appearance in the Erentz suits!
+
+"Where are you going?" This fellow spoke in Martian.
+
+I answered in English, "Up there."
+
+He stood before us, towering over me. I saw a group of nearby workers
+stop to regard us. In a moment we would be causing a commotion, and it
+was the last thing I desired.
+
+I said in Martian, "Commander Potan told me, what I wish I can do.
+From the dome we look around to see where is the Grantline camp from
+here. I am pilot of this ship to go there."
+
+The man who had called himself Brotow passed near us. I appealed to
+him.
+
+"We put on our suits. After our experience, we feel safer that way. If
+I'm to pilot the ship...."
+
+He hesitated, his glance sweeping the deck as though to ask Potan.
+Someone said in Martian:
+
+"The Commander is down in the stern storeroom."
+
+It decided Brotow. He waved away the Martian who had stopped me.
+
+"Let them pass."
+
+Anita and I gave him our most friendly smiles.
+
+"Thanks."
+
+He bowed to Anita with a sweeping gesture. "I will show you over the
+control room presently."
+
+His gaze went to the peak of the bow.
+
+The little hooded cubby there was the control room, then. Satisfaction
+swept me. Then above us in the tower, must surely be the signal room.
+Would Brotow follow us up? I hoped not. I wanted to be alone with the
+duty man up there, giving me a chance to get at the projector controls
+if Miko's signal should come.
+
+I drew Anita past Brotow, who had stood aside. "Thanks," I repeated.
+"We won't be long."
+
+We mounted the little ladder.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+"Hurry, Anita!"
+
+I feared that Potan might come up from the hull at any moment and stop
+us. The duty man over us gazed down, his huge head and shoulders
+blocking the small signal room window. Brotow called up in Martian,
+telling him to let us come. He scowled, but when we reached the trap
+in the room floor grid, we found him standing aside to admit us.
+
+I flung a swift glance around. It was a metallic cubby, not much over
+fifteen feet square, with an eight foot arched ceiling. There were
+instrument panels. The range finder for the giant projector was here;
+its telescope with the trajectory apparatus and the firing switch were
+unmistakable. And the signaling apparatus was here! Not a Martian set,
+but a fully powerful Botz ultra-violet sender with its attendant
+receiving mirrors. The _Planetara_ had used the Botz system, so I was
+thoroughly familiar with it.
+
+I saw too, what seemed to be weapons: a row of small fragile glass
+globes, hanging on clips along the wall--bombs, each the size of a
+man's fist. And a broad belt with bombs in its padded compartments.
+
+My heart was pounding as my first quick glance took in these details.
+I saw also that the room had four small oval window openings. They
+were breast high above the floor; from the deck below I knew that the
+angle of vision was such that the men down there could not see into
+this room except to glimpse its upper portion near the ceiling. And
+the helio set was banked on a low table near the floor.
+
+In a corner of the room a small ladder led through a ceiling trap to
+the cubby roof. This upper trap was open. Four feet above the room's
+roof was the arch of the dome, with the entrance to the exit-lock
+directly above us. The weapons and the belt of bombs were near the
+ascending ladder, evidently placed here as equipment for use from the
+top of the dome.
+
+I turned to the solitary duty man. I must gain his confidence at once.
+Anita had laid her helmet aside. She spoke first.
+
+"We were with _Set_ Miko," she said smilingly, "in the wreck of the
+_Planetara_. You heard of it? We know where the treasure is."
+
+This duty man was a full seven feet tall, and the most heavy-set
+Martian I had ever seen. A tremendous, beetle-browed, scowling fellow.
+He stood with hands on his hips, his leather-garbed legs spread wide;
+and as I confronted him, I felt like a child.
+
+He was silent, glaring down at me as I drew his attention from Anita.
+
+"You speak English?" I asked. "We are not skilled with Martian."
+
+I wondered if at the next time of sleep this fellow would be on duty
+here. I hoped not: it would not be easy to trick him and find an
+opportunity to flash a signal. But that task was some hours away as
+yet; I would worry about it when the time came. Just now I was
+concerned with Miko and his little band, who at any moment might
+arrive in sight. If we could persuade this duty man to turn the
+projector on them!
+
+He answered me in ready English:
+
+"You are the man Gregg Haljan? And this is the sister of George
+Prince--what do you want up here?"
+
+"I am a navigator. Brotow wants me to pilot the ship when we advance
+to attack Grantline."
+
+"This is not the control room."
+
+"No, I know it isn't."
+
+I put my helmet carefully on the floor beside Anita's. I straightened
+to find the brigand gazing at her. He did not speak: he was still
+scowling. But in the dim blue glow of the cubby, I caught the look in
+his eyes.
+
+I said hastily, "Grantline knows your ship has landed here on
+Archimedes. His camp is off there on the Mare Imbrium. He sent up a
+signal--you saw it, didn't you?--just before Miss Prince and I came
+aboard. He was trying to pretend he was your Earth party, Miko and
+Coniston."
+
+"Why?"
+
+The fellow turned his scowl on me, but Anita brought his gaze back to
+her. She put in quickly:
+
+"Grantline, as brother always said, has no great cunning. I believe
+now he plans to creep up on us unawares, by pretending that he is
+Miko."
+
+"If he does that," I said, "we will turn this electronic projector on
+him and his party and annihilate them. You have its firing mechanism
+here."
+
+"Who told you so?" he shot at me.
+
+I gestured. "I see it here. It's obvious: I'm skilled at trajectory
+firing. If Grantline appears down there now, I'll help you."
+
+"Is it connected?" Anita demanded boldly.
+
+"Yes," he said. "You have on your Erentz suits: are you going to the
+dome roof? Then go."
+
+But that was what we did not want to do. Anita's glance seemed to tell
+me to let her handle this. I turned toward one of the cubby windows.
+
+She said sweetly, "Are you in charge of this room? Show me how the
+projector is operated. I know it will be invincible against the
+Grantline camp."
+
+I had my back to them for a moment. Through the breast-high oval I
+could see down across the deck-space and out through the side dome
+windows. And my heart suddenly leaped into my throat. It seemed that
+down there in the Earthlit shadows, where the spreading base of the
+giant crater joined the plains, a light was bobbing. I gazed,
+stricken. Miko's lights? Was he advancing, preparing to signal? I
+tried to gauge the distance; it was not over two miles from here.
+
+Or was it not a light at all? With the naked eye, I could not be sure.
+Perhaps there was a telescope finder here in the cubby....
+
+I was subconsciously aware of the voices of Anita and the duty man
+behind me. Then abruptly I heard Anita's low cry. I whirled around.
+
+The giant Martian had gathered her into his huge arms, his heavy
+jowled gray face, with a leering grin, close to hers!
+
+He saw me coming. He held her with one arm! his other flung at me,
+caught me, knocked me backward. He rasped:
+
+"Get out of here! Go up to the dome--"
+
+Anita was silently struggling with her little hands at his thick
+throat. His blow flung me against a settle. But I held my feet. I was
+partly behind him. I leaped again, and as he tried to disengage
+himself from Anita to front me, her clutching fingers impeded him.
+
+My projector was in my hand. But in that second as I leaped, I had the
+sense to realize I should not fire it because its noise would alarm
+the ship. I grasped its barrel, reached upward and struck with its
+heavy metal butt. The blow caught the Martian on the skull, and
+simultaneously my body struck him.
+
+We went down together, falling partly upon Anita. But the giant had
+not cried out, and as I gripped him now, I felt his body go limp. I
+lay panting. Anita squirmed silently from under us. Blood from the
+giant's head was welling out, hot and sticky against my face as I lay
+sprawled on him.
+
+I cast him off. He was dead, his fragile Martian skull split open by
+my blow.
+
+There had been no alarm. The slight noise we made had not been heard
+down on the busy deck. Anita and I crouched by the floor. From the
+deck all this part of the room could not be seen.
+
+"Dead."
+
+"Oh Gregg--"
+
+It forced our hand. I could not wait now for Miko to come. But I could
+flash the Earth signal now, and then we would have to make our run to
+escape.
+
+Then I remembered that light down by the base! I kept Anita out of
+sight down on the floor and went cautiously to a window. The deck was
+in turmoil with brigands moving about excitedly. Not because of what
+had happened in our tower signal room: they were unaware of that.
+
+Miko's signals were showing! I could see them now plainly, down at the
+crater base. A group of hand lights and small waving helio beam.
+
+And they were being answered from the ship! Potan was on the deck--a
+babble of voices, above which his rose with roars of command. At one
+of the dome windows a brigand with a hand searchbeam was sending its
+answering light. And I saw that Potan was working over a deck
+telescope finder.
+
+It had all come so suddenly that I was stunned. But I did not wait to
+read the signals. I swung back at Anita, who stared helplessly at me.
+
+"It's Miko! And they are answering him! Get your helmet: I'll try
+firing the projector."
+
+Or would I instead try and send a brief flash signal to Earth? There
+would be no time to do both: we must escape out of here. The route up
+through the dome was the only feasible one now.
+
+This range mechanism of the projector was reasonably familiar, and I
+felt that I could operate it. The range-finder and the switch were on
+a ledge at one of the windows. I rushed to it. As I swung the
+telescope, training it down on Miko's lights, I could see the huge
+projector on the deck swinging similarly. Its movement surprised the
+men who were attending it. One of them called up to me, but I ignored
+him.
+
+Then Potan looked up and saw me. He shouted in Martian at the duty
+man, whom he doubtless thought was behind me: "Be ready! We may fire
+on them. I'll give you the word."
+
+The signals were proceeding. It had only been a moment. I caught
+something like, "_Haljan is imposter_."
+
+I was aiming the projector. I was aware of Anita at my elbow. I pushed
+her back.
+
+"Put on your helmet!"
+
+I had the range. I flung the firing switch.
+
+At the deck window the giant projector spat its deadly electronic
+stream. The men down there leaped away from it in surprise. I heard
+Potan's voice, his shout of protest and anger.
+
+But down in the Earth glow at the crater base, Miko's lights had not
+vanished! I had missed! An error in the range? Abruptly I knew it was
+not that. Miko's lights were still there. His signals still coming.
+And I noticed now a faint distortion about them, the glow of his
+little group of hand lights faintly distorted and vaguely shot with a
+greenish cast. Benson curve lights!
+
+My thoughts whirled in the few seconds while I stood there at the
+tower window. Miko had feared he might be summarily fired on. He had
+gone back to his camp, equipped all his lights with the Benson curve.
+He was somewhere at the crater base now. But not where I thought I saw
+him! The Benson curve light changed the path of the light rays
+traveling from him to me, I could not even approximate his true
+position!
+
+Anita was plucking at me. "Gregg, come."
+
+"I can't hit him," I gasped.
+
+Should I try the flash signal to Earth? Did we dare linger here? I
+stood another few seconds at the window. I saw Potan down in the
+confusion of the deck, training a telescope. He had shouted up
+violently at his duty man here not to fire again.
+
+And now he let out a roar. "I can see them! It's Miko! By the
+Almighty--his giant stature--Brotow, look! That's not an Earth man!"
+
+He flung aside his telescope finder. "Disconnect that projector! It's
+Miko down there! This Haljan is a trickster! Where is he?
+Braile--Braile, you accursed fool! Are Haljan and the girl up there
+with you?"
+
+But the duty man lay in his blood at our feet.
+
+I had dropped back from the window. Anita and I crouched for an
+instant in confusion, fumbling with our helmets.
+
+The ship rang with the alarm. And amid the turmoil we could hear the
+shouts of the infuriated brigands swarming up the tower ladder after
+us!
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+I was only inactive a moment. I had thought Anita would have on her
+helmet. But she was reluctant, or confused.
+
+"Anita, we've got to get out of here! Up through the overhead locks to
+the dome."
+
+"Yes." She fumbled with her helmet. The climbing men on the ladder
+were audible. They were already nearing the top. The trap door was
+closed; Anita and I were crouching on it. There was a thick metal bar
+set in a depressed groove for the grid. I slid it in place; it would
+seal the trap for a short time.
+
+A degree of confidence came to me. We had a few moments before there
+could be any hand-to-hand conflict. The giant electronic projector
+would eventually be used against Grantline; it was the brigands' most
+powerful weapon. Its controls were here, by Heaven, I would smash
+them? That at least I could do!
+
+I jumped for the window. Miko's signals had stopped, but I caught a
+glimpse of his distant moving curve lights.
+
+A flash came up at me, as in the window I became visible to the
+brigands on the ship's deck. It was a small hand projector, hastily
+fired, for it went wide of the window. It was followed by a rain of
+small beams, but I was warned and dropped my head beneath the sill.
+The rays flashed dangerously upward through the oval opening, hissed
+against our vaulted roof. The air snapped and tingled with a shower
+of blue-red sparks, and the acrid odor of the released gases settled
+down upon us.
+
+The trajectory controls of the projector were beside me. I seized
+them, ripped and tore at them. There was a roar down on the deck. The
+projector had exploded. A man's agonizing scream split the confusion
+of sounds.
+
+It silenced the brigands on the deck. Under our floor grid, those on
+the ladder had been pounding at the trap door. They stopped, evidently
+to see what had happened. The bombardment of our windows stopped
+momentarily.
+
+I cautiously peered out the window again. In the wreck of the
+projector, three men were lying. One of them was screaming horribly.
+The dome side was damaged. Potan and other men were frantically
+investigating to see if the ship's air was hissing out.
+
+A triumph swept over me. They had not found me so meek and inoffensive
+as they might have thought!
+
+Anita clutched me. She still had not donned her helmet.
+
+"Put on your helmet!"
+
+"But Gregg--"
+
+"Put it on!"
+
+"I.... I don't want to put it on until you put yours on."
+
+"I've smashed the projector! We've stopped them coming up for a
+while."
+
+But they were still on the ladder under our floor. They heard our
+voices: they began thumping again. Then pounding. They seemed now to
+have heavy implements. They rammed against the trap.
+
+The floor seemed holding. The square of metal grid trembled, yielded a
+little. But it was good for a few minutes longer.
+
+I called down, "The first one who comes through will be shot!" My
+words mingled with their oaths. There was a moment's pause, then the
+ramming went on. The dying man on the deck was still screaming.
+
+I whispered, "I'll try an Earth signal."
+
+She nodded. Pale, tense, but calm. "Yes, Gregg. And I was thinking--"
+
+"It won't take a minute. Have your helmet ready."
+
+"I was thinking--" She hurried across the room.
+
+I swung on the Botz signaling apparatus. It was connected. Within a
+moment I had it humming. The fluorescent tubes lighted with their
+lurid glare; they painted purple the body of the giant duty man who
+lay sprawled at my feet. I drew on all the ship's power. The tube
+lights in the room quivered and went dim.
+
+I would have to hurry. Potan could shut this off from the main hull
+control room. I could see, through the room's upper trap, the primary
+sending mirror mounted in the peak of the dome. It was quivering,
+radiant with its light energy. I sent the flash.
+
+The flattened past full Earth was up there. I knew that the Western
+Hemisphere faced the Moon at this hour. I flashed in English, with the
+open Universal Earth code:
+
+_Help. Grantline._
+
+And again: _Help. Archimedes region near Apennines. Attacked by
+brigands._
+
+_Send help at once. Grantline._
+
+If only it would be received! I flung off the current. Anita stood
+watching me intently. "Gregg, look!"
+
+I saw that she had taken some of the glass globe-bombs which lay by
+the foot of the ascending ladder. "Gregg, I threw some of them."
+
+At the window we gazed down. The globes she flung had shattered on the
+deck. They were darkness bombs.
+
+Through the blackness of the deck, the shouts of the brigands came up.
+They were stumbling about. But the ramming of our trap went on, and I
+saw that it was beginning to yield.
+
+"We've got to go, Anita!"
+
+From out of the darkness which hung like a shroud over the deck an
+occasional flash came up, unaimed, wide of our windows. But the
+darkness was dissipating. I could see now the dim glow of the deck
+lights, blurred as through a heavy fog.
+
+I dropped another of the bombs.
+
+"Put on your helmet."
+
+"Yes--yes, I will. You put yours on."
+
+We had them adjusted in a moment. Our Erentz motors were pumping.
+
+I gripped her. "Put out your helmet light."
+
+She extinguished it. I handed her my projector.
+
+"Hold it a moment. I'm going to take that belt of bombs."
+
+The trap door was all but broken under the ramming blows of the men. I
+leaped over the body of the dead duty man, seized the belt of bombs
+and strapped it around my waist.
+
+"Give me the projector."
+
+She handed it to me. The trap door burst upward! A man's head and
+shoulders appeared. I fired a bullet into him--the leaden pellet
+singing down through the yellow powder flash that spat from the
+projector's muzzle.
+
+The brigand screamed, and dropped back out of sight. There was
+confusion at the ladder top. I flung a bomb at the broken trap. A tiny
+heat ray came wavering up through the opening, but went wide of us.
+
+The instrument room was in darkness. I clung to Anita.
+
+"Hold on to my hand. You go first--here is the ladder!"
+
+We found it in the blackness, mounted it and went through the cubby's
+roof-trap.
+
+I took another look and dropped another bomb beside us. The four foot
+space up here between the cubby roof and the overhead dome, went
+black. We were momentarily concealed.
+
+Anita located the manual levers of the lock-entrance.
+
+"Here, Gregg."
+
+I shoved at them. Fear leaped in me that they would not operate. But
+they swung. The tiny port opened wide to receive us. We clambered into
+the small air-chamber; the door slid closed, just as a flash from
+below struck at it. The brigands had seen our cloud of darkness and
+were firing up through it.
+
+In a moment we were out on the dome top. A sleek, rounded spread of
+glassite, with broad aluminite girders. There were cross ribs which
+gave us a footing, and occasionally projections--streamline fin-tips,
+the casings of the upper rudder shafts, and the upstanding stubby
+funnels into which helicopters were folded.
+
+We moved along the central footpath and crouched by a six-foot casing.
+The stars and the glowing Earth were over us. The curving dome top--a
+hundred feet or so in length, and bulging thirty feet wide beneath
+us--glistened in the Earthlight. It was a sheer drop and down these
+curving sides past the ship's hull, a hundred feet to the rocks on
+which the vessel rested. The towering wall of Archimedes was beside
+us; and beyond the brink of the ledge the thousands of feet down to
+the plains.
+
+I saw the lights of Miko's band down there. He had stopped signaling.
+His little lights were spread out, bobbing as he and his men advanced
+up the crater's foothills, coming to join the ship.
+
+I had an instant's glimpse. Anita and I could not stay here. The
+brigands would follow us up in a moment. I saw no exterior ladder. We
+would have to take our chances and jump.
+
+There were brigands down there on the rocks. I saw three or four
+helmeted figures, and they saw us! A bullet whizzed by us, and then
+came the flash of a hand ray.
+
+I touched Anita. "Can you make the leap? Anita dear...."
+
+Again it seemed that this must be farewell.
+
+"Gregg, dear one, we've got to do it!"
+
+Those waiting figures would pounce on us.
+
+"Anita, lie here a moment."
+
+I jumped up and ran twenty feet toward the bow; then back toward the
+stern, flinging down the last of my bombs. The darkness was like a
+cloud down there, enveloping the outer brigands. But up there we were
+above it, etched by the starlight and Earthglow.
+
+I came back to Anita. "We'll have to chance it now."
+
+"Gregg...."
+
+"Good-bye, dear. I'll jump first, down this side, you follow."
+
+To leap into that black patch, with the rocks under it....
+
+"Gregg--"
+
+She was trying to tell me to look overhead. She gestured, "Gregg,
+see!"
+
+I saw it, out over the plains, a little speck amid the stars. A moving
+speck, coming toward us!
+
+"Gregg, what is it?"
+
+I gazed, held my breath. A moving speck out there. A blob now. And
+then I realized it was not a large object, far away, but small, and
+already very close--only a few hundred feet off, dropping toward the
+top of our dome. A narrow, flat, ten foot object, like a wingless
+volplane. There were no lights on it, but in the Earthlight I could
+see two crouching, helmeted figures riding it.
+
+"Anita! Don't you remember!"
+
+I was swept with dawning comprehension. Back in the Grantline camp
+Snap and I had discussed how to use the _Planetara's_ gravity plates.
+We had gone to the wreck and secured them, had rigged this little
+volplane flyer....
+
+The brigands on the rocks saw it now. A flash went up at it. One of
+the figures crouching on it opened a flexible fabric like a wing over
+its side. I saw another flash from below, harmlessly striking the
+insulated shield.
+
+I gasped to Anita, "Light your helmet! It's from Grantline! Let them
+see us!"
+
+I stood erect. The little flying platform went over us, fifty feet up,
+circling, dropping to the dome top.
+
+I waved my helmet light. The exit lock from below--up which we had
+come--was near us. The advancing brigands were already in it! I had
+forgotten to demolish the manuals. And I saw that the darkness down on
+the rocks was almost gone now, dissipating in the airless night. The
+brigands down there began firing up at us.
+
+It was a confusion of flashing lights. I clutched at Anita.
+
+"Come this way--run!"
+
+The platform barely missed our heads. It sailed lengthwise of the dome
+top, and crashed silently on the central runway near the stern tip.
+Anita and I ran to it.
+
+The two helmeted figures seized us, shoved us prone on the metal
+platform. It was barely four feet wide; a low railing, handles with
+which to cling, and a tiny hooded cubby in front.
+
+"Gregg!"
+
+"You, Snap!"
+
+It was Snap and Venza. She seized Anita, held her crouching in place.
+Snap flung himself face down at the controls.
+
+The brigands were out on the dome now. I took a last shot as we
+lifted. My bullet punctured one of them: he slid, fell scrambling off
+the rounded dome and dropped out of sight.
+
+Light rays and silent flashes seemed to envelope us. Venza held the
+side shields higher.
+
+We tilted, swayed crazily, and then steadied.
+
+The ship's dome dropped away beneath us. The rocks of the open ledge
+were beneath us. Then the abyss, with the moving, climbing specks of
+Miko's lights far down.
+
+I saw, over the side shield, the already distant brigand ship resting
+on the ledge with the massive Archimedes' wall behind it. A confusion
+back there of futile flashing rays.
+
+It all faded into a remote glow as we sailed smoothly up into the
+starlight and away, heading for the Grantline camp.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+"Wake up. Gregg! They're coming!"
+
+I forced myself to consciousness. "Coming--"
+
+I leaped from my bunk, followed Snap with a rush into the corridor.
+
+We had returned safely to the Grantline camp. Anita and I found
+ourselves exhausted from lack of sleep, our arduous climb of
+Archimedes and that tense time on the brigand ship. On the flight
+back, Snap had explained how the landing of the ship on Archimedes was
+observed through the Grantline telescope. They had read with amazement
+my signals to the brigands. Snap had rushed to completion the first of
+our flying platforms. Then he had seen Miko's signals from the crater
+base, seen the lights and the fight to capture Anita and me, and had
+come to rescue us.
+
+Back at the camp we were given food, and Grantline forced me to try to
+sleep.
+
+"They'll be on us in a few hours, Gregg. Miko wall have joined them by
+now. He'll lead them to us. You must rest, for we need everyone at his
+best."
+
+And surprisingly, in the midst of the camp's turmoil of last minute
+activities, I slept soundly until Snap called me, telling me the ship
+was coming.
+
+The corridor echoed with the tramp of Grantline's busy crew. But there
+was no confusion; a grim calmness had settled on everyone.
+
+Anita and Venza rushed up to join us. "It's in sight!"
+
+There was no need of going to the instrument room. From the windows
+fronting the brink of the cliff the brigand ship was plainly visible.
+It came sailing from Archimedes, a dark shape blurring the stars. All
+its lights were extinguished save a single white search beam in the
+bow peak, slanting diagonally down.
+
+The beam presently caught our group of buildings; its glare shone in
+the windows as it clung for a moment. I could envisage the triumphant
+curiosity of Potan and his men up there, gazing along the beam.
+
+We had dimmed the lights to conserve our power, and to enable the
+Erentz motors to run at full capacity. Our buildings would have to
+withstand the brigands' rays which soon would be upon us.
+
+Outside on our dim, Earthlit cliff, the tiny lights showed where our
+few guards were lurking. As I stood at the window watching the
+incoming ship, Grantline's voice sounded:
+
+"Call in those men! Ring the call-lights, Franck!"
+
+The siren buzzed over the camp's interior; the warning call-lights on
+the roof brought in the outer guards. They came running to the
+admission ports, which had been repaired after Miko disabled them.
+
+The guards came in. We dimmed our lights further. The treasure sheds
+were black against the cliff behind us. No need for guards there--we
+reasoned the brigands would not attempt to move it until our buildings
+were captured. But, if they should try it, we were prepared to defend
+it.
+
+In the dim light we crouched. A silence was upon us save for the
+clanging in the workshop down the corridor. Most of us wore our Erentz
+suits, with helmets ready, though I am sure there was not a man of us
+but who prayed he might not have to go out. At many of the
+windows--our weakest points to withstand the rays--insulated fabric
+sheets were hung like curtains.
+
+The brigand ship slowly advanced. It was soon over the opposite rim of
+our little crater. Its searchbeam swung about the rim and down the
+valley.
+
+My thoughts ran like a turgid stream as I stood tensely watching.
+
+Four hours ago I had sent that flash signal to Earth. If it was
+received, a patrol ship could come to our rescue and arrive here in
+another eight hours--or perhaps even less.
+
+Ah, that "if!" _If_ the signal was received! _If_ the patrol ship were
+immediately available. _If_ it started at once....
+
+Eight hours at the very least. I tried to assure myself that we could
+hold out that long.
+
+The brigand ship crossed the opposite crater rim. It dropped lower. It
+seemed poised over the crater valley, almost at our own level and less
+than two miles from us. Its searchbeam vanished. For a moment it
+hung, a sleek, cylindrical silver shape, gleaming in the Earthlight.
+
+Snap looked at me and murmured, "It's descending."
+
+It slowly settled, cautiously picked its landing place amid the crags
+and pits of the tumbled, scarred valley floor. It came to rest, a
+vague, menacing silver shape lurking in the lower shadows, close at
+the foot of the inner opposite crater wall.
+
+A few moments of tense waiting passed. Soon tiny lights were moving
+down there, some out on the rocks near the ship, others up under its
+deck dome.
+
+A stab of searchlight shot across the valley, swung along our ledge
+and clung with its glaring ten foot circle to the front of our main
+building. Then a ray flashed.
+
+The assault had begun!
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+It seemed, with that first shot from the enemy, that a great relief
+came to us--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 searchlight 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 shouted it with derision.
+
+But Grantline swung on them: "Don't get that idea!"
+
+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
+aircurrent 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 system had allowed the outer cold to
+radiate through a trifle. The walls had had a trifle extra explosive
+pressure from the air. A strain--but that was all.
+
+"It's probably their most powerful single weapon, Gregg," said
+Grantline.
+
+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 shelves 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 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 longer. And it would not be ours.... You saw our lights
+fade when 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.
+
+"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 illuminated 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 small truck.
+
+"At the manual port--in the other building."
+
+Our weapons and outside equipment were massed at the main exit locks
+of the large building. But we might want to go out through smaller
+locks too. Grantline sent helmets there; suits were not needed, as
+most of us were garbed in them now.
+
+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 goes 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 event of disaster to the buildings, we could at least escape
+in this fashion. Food supplies and water were now being placed at the
+ports.
+
+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.
+
+Snap's voice was raised over the clang of the workmen bolting the
+gravity plates of the last platform:
+
+"Only that one projector, Gregg?"
+
+"They gave us 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. Then 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. He'll tell you where to put them."
+
+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 report from the instrument room. He laughed.
+
+"That helped rather than hurt us. Heated the outer wall. Franck took
+advantage of it and eased up the motors."
+
+We wondered if Miko knew that. Doubtless he did, for 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 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 that 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
+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 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 platform! Anita, in her boyish black
+garb; Venza, with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the tiny six
+foot long 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
+projection. Up to the low vaulted ceiling, then down to the floor.
+
+It sailed over 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
+admiration. Three or 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. "Practicing."
+
+"What for?"
+
+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?"
+
+"Because we're good at it," Anita retorted. "Better than any of you
+men. If you should need us, we're ready...."
+
+"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 brigands'
+searchlight 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 over to the ore sheds.
+
+We had no men outside, if that was what the brigands wanted to
+determine. The searchbeam 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 and the blurred
+interior of the cabins.
+
+"Try the searchbeam, Franck."
+
+The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our searchlight which clung to the
+dome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there.
+
+"The telescope," Grantline ordered.
+
+The dynamos hummed. The telescope finder glowed and clarified. On the
+deck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the assembling of
+tiny ore carts. A deck landing port was open. The ore carts were being
+carried out through a port lock and down a landing incline. And on the
+rock outside, we saw several of the carts, tiny rail sections and the
+section of an ore chute.
+
+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 searchbeam, sweeping the ledge a moment
+before, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done just
+for that purpose, no doubt--to make us feel sure the ledge was
+unoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making the search.
+
+But there was a brigand group close outside our walls! By the merest
+chance the radiating glow from our searchray had shown the helmeted
+figures scurrying for shelter.
+
+Grantline leaped to his feet.
+
+We rushed from the rear port exit 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!
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+"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 brigand had been seen.
+
+Grantline touched me just as we emerged. "Don't wait for orders? Get
+him."
+
+"That fellow with the torch--"
+
+"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 the
+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 handed 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 fellow men
+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 had leaped, landing beside me. "Dead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I climbed from the inert body. The torch had hissed itself out.
+Grantline swung to our building corner, and I leaned down with him to
+examine it. The torch had fused and scarred 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. Would have to take that whole plaster section out, shut off the
+Erentz plant and exhaust the interior air of all this bulkhead. 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 had
+perhaps realized. I could envisage our weapons, useless from the lack
+of power. The air in our buildings turned fetid and frigid; ourselves
+forced to the helmets. A rush out to abandon the camp and escape. The
+building 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 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 stairs on the ledge. Three giant Martian
+figures in flight, with our four men chasing.
+
+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 searchbeam which located its returning
+men. Then the beam swung up to the ledge, landing 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 port. 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
+through the port.
+
+The Martian searchray vanished. Then almost instantly the electronic
+ray came with its deadly stab. Missed us at first, as we ran for the
+shield, carrying it back to the port, hiding behind it.
+
+The ray stabbed once or twice more.
+
+Whether Miko's instruments showed him how badly damaged our front wall
+was, we never knew. But I think that he realized. His searchbeam clung
+to it, and his zed-ray pried into our interiors.
+
+The brigand ship was active now. We were desperate; we used our
+telescope freely for observation. 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 chute 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--small
+mechanical cannons for throwing illuminating bombs.
+
+The enemy searchlight constantly raked our vicinity. Occasionally the
+giant electronic projector flung out 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 now 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.
+
+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 depth of the valley, could strike our
+front building, but could not reach all our ledge. And from the ship's
+newer and nearer position this disadvantage to us was intensified.
+Then abruptly we realized that under cover of darkness bombs, an
+electronic projector and searchray 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 port was on the lee side of the building from the hostile
+searchbeam. 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 searchbeam was going full power, clinging to the
+ship to dazzle them.
+
+Snap circled them. 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 swiftly flew back to our base.
+
+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 accept the
+challenge--for we could not fire through the windows and must go out
+to meet this threat.
+
+To remain defensive would end inevitably in our defeat. We all knew it
+now. The waiting game was Miko's--not ours.
+
+The success of our attack upon the distant isolated projectors,
+heartened us. Yet it was a desperate offensive upon which we decided!
+
+We prepared our little expedition at the larger of the exit ports.
+Miko's zed-ray was watching all our interior movements. We made a
+brave show of activity in our workshop 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 port we gathered the platforms, 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 skillful 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 port. A last minute change made Grantline order six
+of his men to remain to guard the buildings. The instruments, the
+Erentz system, all the appliances had to be attended.
+
+It left four platforms, each with three men--Grantline at the controls
+of one of them. And upon two of the others, Venza rode with Snap and I
+with Anita.
+
+We crouched in the shadows outside the port. 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 well armed.
+
+I envisioned then this tiny Moon crater, the scene of this battle we
+were waging. Struggling humans, desperately trying to kill!
+
+Anita drew me down on the platform. "Ready, Gregg."
+
+The others were rising. We lifted, moved slowly out and away from the
+protective shadows of the building.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+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 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 directly 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. An added glow down
+there must have warned Grantline that a shot was coming from there.
+The tiny red light flared bright on his platform.
+
+I turned 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. They seemed 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 small explosive globe bomb. Our search
+light ray at the camp, answering Grantline's signal, shot down and
+bathed the enemy 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 approximately where we had been 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 saw others dropping
+also from our nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in a
+confusion of the white glare--and a cloud of black mist as the
+brigands out on the rocks used their 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
+searchray. 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 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 spaceship, 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 small
+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 lights 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 there was none. 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. I was dully
+smothering....
+
+Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. I
+shifted over.
+
+"Anita! Anita, dear, are you all right?"
+
+"Yes, Gregg. All right."
+
+The melee went on. The brigand ship and all its vicinity were
+enveloped in dark 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 searchlight 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 didn't see it."
+
+Almost a collision.
+
+"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 about 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.
+
+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 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 explosions, enveloped the enemy. Our camp searchlight 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 these 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?
+
+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....
+
+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 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."
+
+Grantline's signal light was summoning us from the attack. He was a
+thousand feet or more above us.
+
+I was suddenly shocked with horror. The searchray from our camp
+suddenly 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 thought 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 men to attack our almost deserted 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 got 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
+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: to lure
+us back there.
+
+"Anita, if we can get down on the rocks somewhere near the ship, and
+creep up unobserved in that blackness...."
+
+I might be able to reach the 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 that 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. 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
+to where I was sure the manual lock would be 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 ran.
+
+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 port 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 in desperation, but missed. I came with a rush. And as
+I reached the port, it slid closed in my face, barring me!
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+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 there. The lock was some
+ten feet square, with a low ceiling. It glowed with a dim tube-light.
+
+I strained at it with futile, silent effort. The mechanism was here to
+open this manual; but it was now clasped from within so would not
+operate.
+
+A few seconds, 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
+finally 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. It was taken by surprise! I
+half fell forward.
+
+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 here is my little Anita, come back to me
+again!"
+
+Miko!
+
+This was he. His great bloated arms encircling me, bending me
+backward, holding me helpless. I saw over his shoulder that Anita was
+clutched in the grip of another helmeted figure. No giant, but tall
+for an Earth man--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, 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 of 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 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 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 wrist. 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 beneath Miko's lifeless, inert body. As I got to my
+feet, Anita flung herself to shield me. Moa was across the lock, back
+up against the 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 grid-floor almost at my feet.
+
+"Gregg!"
+
+"She's dead."
+
+"No! She moved! Get her helmet off! 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 and raised it off. We gently turned her body. She lay with
+closed eyes, her pallid face blue. With our own helmets off, we knelt
+over her.
+
+"Oh, Gregg--is she dead?"
+
+"No. Not quite--but dying."
+
+"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 vivid 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
+through the inner panel, past the secondary lock, that the hull's
+corridor was visible. And along its length a group of Martians was
+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 that 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 port.
+
+The air came with a tempestuous rush. A blast through the inner
+port--through the small 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.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+"Is he conscious? We'd better take him back: get his helmet off."
+
+"It's over. We can get back to the camp now. Venza dear, we've
+won--it's over."
+
+"He hears us!"
+
+"Gregg!"
+
+"He hears us. He'll be 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 hulk, already empty of air, drained in the mad
+blast outward. Like the wreck of the _Planetara_--a dead, useless,
+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 men had perished.
+
+We huddled on Snap's platform. It rose, lurching drunkenly barely
+carrying us.
+
+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 searchlight leaped
+upward, swept the sky, caught its sought-for object--a huge silver
+cylinder, bathed brightly in the white searchbeam glare.
+
+The police ship from Earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TWO PLANETS CLASH FOR LUNAR TREASURE
+
+
+Gregg Haljan was aware that there was a certain danger in having the
+giant spaceship _Planetara_ stop off at the moon to pick up
+Grantline's special cargo of moon ore. For that rare metal--invaluable
+in keeping Earth's technology running--was the target of many greedy
+eyes.
+
+But nevertheless he hadn't figured on the special twist the clever
+Martian brigands would use. So when he found both the ship and himself
+suddenly in their hands, he knew that there was only one way in which
+he could hope to save that cargo and his own secret--that would be by
+turning space-pirate himself and paying the BRIGANDS OF THE MOON back
+in their own interplanetary coin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here is a science-fiction classic, as exciting and ingenious as only a
+master of super-science could write.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When RAY CUMMINGS took leave of this planet early in 1957, the world
+of modern science-fiction lost one of its genuine founding fathers.
+For the imagination of this talented writer supplied a great many of
+the most basic themes upon which the present superstructure of
+science-fiction is based. Following the lead of Jules Verne and H. G.
+Wells, Cummings successfully bridged the gap between the early dawning
+of science-fiction in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century and
+the full flowering of the field in these middle decades of the
+Twentieth.
+
+Born in 1887, Cummings acquired insight into the vast possibilities of
+future science by a personal association with Thomas Alva Edison.
+During the 1920's and 1930's, he thrilled millions of readers with his
+vivid tales of space and time. The infinite and the infinitesimal were
+all parts of his canvas, and past, present, and future, the
+interplanetary and the extra-dimensional, all made their initial
+impact on the reading public through his many stories and novels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Previously published in an ACE edition is his novel,
+_The Man Who Mastered Time_ (D-173).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Brigands of the Moon, by Ray Cummings
+
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+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Brigands of the Moon, by Ray Cummings
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brigands of the Moon, by Ray Cummings
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brigands of the Moon
+
+Author: Ray Cummings
+
+Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #19066]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIGANDS OF THE MOON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Jason Isbell, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<p class="tr">
+                 Transcriber's Note:<br />
+<br />
+        Extensive research did not uncover any<br />
+
+        evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/image_001.jpg" alt="Cover" width="600" height="430" /></div>
+
+
+<h1><i>BRIGANDS of the MOON</i></h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h3>by</h3>
+
+<h2>RAY CUMMINGS</h2>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h3>ACE BOOKS, INC.</h3>
+<h3>23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.</h3>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1931, by Ray Cummings</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p>
+<h2>I</h2>
+
+
+<p>Our ship, the space-flyer, <i>Planetara</i>, whose home port was Greater
+New York, carried mail and passenger traffic to and from both Venus
+and Mars. Of astronomical necessity, our flights were irregular. The
+spring of 2070, with both planets close to the Earth, we were making
+two complete round trips. We had just arrived in Greater New York, one
+May evening, from Grebhar, Venus Free State. With only five hours in
+port here, we were departing the same night at the zero hour for
+Ferrok-Shahn, capital of the Martian Union.</p>
+
+<p>We were no sooner at the landing stage than I found a code flash
+summoning Dan Dean and me to Divisional Detective Headquarters. Dan
+"Snap" Dean was one of my closest friends. He was electron-radio
+operator of the <i>Planetara</i>. A small, wiry, red-headed chap, with a
+quick, ready laugh and the kind of wit that made everyone like him.</p>
+
+<p>The summons to Detective-Colonel Halsey's office surprised us. Dean
+eyed me.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't been opening any treasure vaults, have you, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"He wants you, also," I retorted.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "Well, he can roar at me like a traffic switch-man and my
+private life will remain my own."</p>
+
+<p>We could not think why we should be wanted. It was the darkness of
+mid-evening when we left the <i>Planetara</i> for Halsey's office. It was
+not a long trip. We went on the upper monorail, descending into the
+subterranean city at Park Circle 30.</p>
+
+<p>We had never been to Halsey's office before. Now we found it to be a
+gloomy, vaultlike place in one of the deepest corridors. The door
+lifted.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg Haljan and Daniel Dean."</p>
+
+<p>The guard stood aside. "Come in."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I own that my heart was unduly thumping as we entered. The door
+dropped behind us. It was a small blue-lit apartment&mdash;a steel-lined
+room like a vault.</p>
+
+<p>Colonel Halsey sat at his desk. And the big, heavy-set, florid Captain
+Carter&mdash;our commander on the <i>Planetara</i>&mdash;was here. That surprised us:
+we had not seen him leave the ship.</p>
+
+<p>Halsey smiled at us gravely. Captain Carter spoke with an ominous
+calmness: "Sit down, lads."</p>
+
+<p>We took the seats. There was an alarming solemnity about this. If I
+had been guilty of anything that I could think of, it would have been
+frightening. But Halsey's words reassured me.</p>
+
+<p>"It's about the Grantline Moon Expedition. In spite of our secrecy,
+the news has gotten out. We want to know how. Can you tell us?"</p>
+
+<p>Captain Carter's huge bulk&mdash;he was about as tall as I am&mdash;towered over
+us as we sat before Halsey's desk. "If you lads have told anyone&mdash;said
+anything&mdash;let <i>slip</i> the slightest hint about it...."</p>
+
+<p>Snap smiled with relief; but he turned solemn at once. "I haven't. Not
+a word!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor have I!" I declared.</p>
+
+<p>The Grantline Moon Expedition! We had not thought of that as a reason
+for this summons. Johnny Grantline was a close friend of ours. He had
+organized an exploring expedition to the Moon. Uninhabited, with its
+bleak, forbidding, airless, waterless surface, the Moon&mdash;even though
+so close to the Earth&mdash;was seldom visited. No regular ship ever
+stopped there. A few exploring parties of recent years had come to
+grief.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a persistent rumor that upon the Moon, mineral riches of
+fabulous wealth were awaiting discovery. The thing had already caused
+some interplanetary complications. The aggressive Martians would be
+only too glad to explore the Moon. But the United States of the World,
+which came into being in 2067, definitely warned them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> away. The Moon
+was Earth territory, we announced, and we would protect it as such.</p>
+
+<p>There was, nevertheless, a realization by our government, that
+whatever riches might be upon the Moon should be seized at once and
+held by some reputable Earth Company. And when John Grantline applied,
+with his father's wealth and his own scientific record of attainment,
+the government was glad to grant him its writ.</p>
+
+<p>The Grantline Expedition had started six months ago. The Martian
+government had acquiesced to our ultimatum, yet brigands have been
+known to be financed under cover of a government disavowal. And so our
+expedition was kept secret.</p>
+
+<p>My words need give no offence to any Martian who comes upon them. I
+refer to the history of our Earth only. The Grantline Expedition was
+on the Moon now. No word had come from it. One could not flash helios
+even in code without letting all the universe know that explorers were
+on the Moon. And why they were there, anyone could easily guess.</p>
+
+<p>And now Colonel Halsey was telling us that the news was abroad!
+Captain Carter eyed us closely; his flashing eyes under the white
+bushy brows would pry a secret from anyone.</p>
+
+<p>"You're sure? A girl of Venus, perhaps, with her cursed, seductive
+lure! A chance word, with you lads befuddled by alcolite?"</p>
+
+<p>We assured him that we had been careful. By the heavens, I know that I
+had been. Not a whisper, even to Snap, of the name Grantline in six
+months or more.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Carter added abruptly, "We're insulated here, Halsey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Talk as freely as you like. An eavesdropping ray will never get
+through to us."</p>
+
+<p>They questioned us. They were satisfied at last that, though the
+secret had escaped, we had not given it away. Hearing it discussed, it
+occurred to me to wonder why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> Carter was concerned. I was not aware
+that he knew of Grantline's venture. I learned now the reason why the
+<i>Planetara</i>, upon each of her last voyages, had managed to pass fairly
+close to the Moon. It had been arranged with Grantline that if he
+wanted help or had any important message, he was to flash it locally
+to our passing ship. And this Snap knew, and had never mentioned it,
+even to me.</p>
+
+<p>Halsey was saying, "Well, apparently we can't blame you: but the
+secret is out."</p>
+
+<p>Snap and I regarded each other. What could anyone do? What would
+anyone dare do?</p>
+
+<p>Captain Carter said abruptly, "Look here, lads, this is my chance now
+to talk plainly to you. Outside, anywhere outside these walls, an
+eavesdropping ray may be upon us. You know that? One may never even
+dare to whisper since that accursed ray was developed."</p>
+
+<p>Snap opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. My heart was
+pounding.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Carter went on: "I know I can trust you two more than anyone
+under me on the <i>Planetara</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by that?" I demanded. "What&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He interrupted me. "Just what I said."</p>
+
+<p>Halsey smiled grimly. "What he means, Haljan, is that things are not
+always what they seem these days. One cannot always tell a friend from
+an enemy. The <i>Planetara</i> is a public vessel. You have&mdash;how many is
+it, Carter?&mdash;thirty or forty passengers this trip tonight?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thirty-eight," said Carter.</p>
+
+<p>"There are thirty-eight people listed for the flight to Ferrok-Shahn
+tonight," Halsey said slowly. "And some may not be what they seem." He
+raised his thin dark hand. "We have information...." He paused. "I
+confess, we know almost nothing&mdash;hardly more than enough to alarm us."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Carter interjected, "I want you and Dean to be on your guard.
+Once on the <i>Planetara</i> it is difficult for us to talk openly, but be
+watchful. I will arrange for us to be doubly armed."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Vague, perturbing words! Halsey said, "They tell me George Prince is
+listed for the voyage. I am suggesting, Haljan, that you keep your eye
+especially on him. Your duties on the <i>Planetara</i> leave you
+comparatively free, don't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I agreed. With the first and second officers on duty, and the
+Captain aboard, my routine was more or less that of an understudy.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "George Prince? Who is he?"</p>
+
+<p>"A mechanical engineer," said Halsey. "An underofficial of the Earth
+Federated Catalyst Corporation. But he associates with bad
+companions&mdash;particularly Martians."</p>
+
+<p>I had never heard of this George Prince, though I was familiar with
+the Federated Catalyst Corporation, of course. A semigovernment trust,
+which controlled virtually the entire Earth supply of radiactum, the
+catalyst mineral which was revolutionizing industry.</p>
+
+<p>"He was in the Automotive Department," Carter put in. "You've heard of
+the Federated Radiactum Motor?"</p>
+
+<p>We had, of course. It was a recent Earth discovery and invention. An
+engine of a new type, using radiactum as its fuel.</p>
+
+<p>Snap demanded, "What in the stars has this got to do with Johnny
+Grantline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Much," said Halsey quietly, "or perhaps nothing. But George Prince
+some years ago mixed in rather unethical transactions. We had him in
+custody once. He is known as unusually friendly with several Martians
+in Greater New York of bad reputation."</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"What you don't know," Halsey said, "is that Grantline expects to find
+radiactum on the Moon."</p>
+
+<p>We gasped.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," said Halsey. "The ill-fated Ballon Expedition thought they
+had found it on the Moon, shortly after its merit was discovered. A
+new type of ore&mdash;a lode of it is there somewhere, without doubt."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He added vehemently, "Do you understand now why we should be
+suspicious of this George Prince? He has a criminal record. He has a
+thorough technical knowledge of radium ores. He associates with
+Martians of bad reputation. A large Martian company has recently
+developed a radiactum engine to compete with our Earth motor. There is
+very little radiactum available on Mars, and our government will not
+allow our own supply to be exported. What do you suppose that company
+on Mars would pay for a few tons of richly radioactive radiactum such
+as Grantline may have found on the Moon?"</p>
+
+<p>"But," I objected, "That is a reputable Martian company. It's backed
+by the government of the Martian Union. The government of Mars would
+not dare&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not!" Captain Carter exclaimed sardonically. "Not openly!
+But if Martian Brigands had a supply of radiactum I don't imagine
+where it came from would make much difference. The Martian company
+would buy it, and you know that as well as I do!"</p>
+
+<p>Halsey added, "And George Prince, my agents inform me, seems to know
+that Grantline is on the Moon. Put it all together, lads. Little
+sparks show the hidden current.</p>
+
+<p>"More than that: George Prince knows that we have arranged to have the
+<i>Planetara</i> stop at the Moon and bring back Grantline's ore.... This
+is your last voyage this year. You'll hear from Grantline this time,
+we're convinced. He'll probably give you the signal as you pass the
+Moon on your way out. Coming back, you'll stop at the Moon and
+transport whatever radiactum ore Grantline has ready. The Grantline
+Flyer is too small for ore transportation."</p>
+
+<p>Halsey's voice turned grimly sarcastic. "Doesn't it seem queer that
+George Prince and a few of his Martian friends happen to be listed as
+passengers for this voyage?"</p>
+
+<p>In the silence that followed, Snap and I regarded each other. Halsey
+added abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"We had George Prince typed that time we arrested him four years ago.
+I'll show him to you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He snapped open an alcove, and said to his waiting attendant "Flash on
+the type of George Prince."</p>
+
+<p>Almost at once, the image glowed on the grids before us. He stood
+smiling sourly before us as he repeated the official formula:</p>
+
+<p>"My name is George Prince. I was born in Greater New York twenty-five
+years ago."</p>
+
+<p>I gazed at this televised image of George Prince. He stood somber in
+the black detention uniform, silhouetted sharply against the
+regulation backdrop of vivid scarlet. A dark, almost femininely
+handsome fellow, well below medium height&mdash;the rod checking him showed
+five foot four inches. Slim and slight. Long, wavy black hair, falling
+about his ears. A pale, clean-cut, really handsome face, almost
+beardless. I regarded it closely. A face that would have been
+beautiful without its masculine touch of heavy black brows and firmly
+set jaw. His voice as he spoke was low and soft; but at the end, with
+the concluding words, "I am innocent!" it flashed into strong
+masculinity. His eyes, shaded with long girlish black lashes, by
+chance met mine. "I am innocent." His curving sensuous lips drew down
+into a grim sneer....</p>
+
+<p>Halsey snapped a button. He turned back to Snap and me as his
+attendant drew the curtain, hiding the black grid.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there he is. We have nothing tangible against him now. But I'll
+say this: he's a clever fellow, one to be afraid of. I would not blare
+it from the newscasters' stadium, but if he is hatching any plot, he
+has been too clever for my agents!"</p>
+
+<p>We talked for another half-hour, and then Captain Carter dismissed us.
+We left Halsey's office with Carter's final words ringing in our ears.
+"Whatever comes, lads, remember I trust you...."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Snap and I decided to walk part of the way back to the ship. It was
+barely more than a mile through this subterranean corridor to where we
+could get the vertical lift direct to the landing stage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We started off on the lower level. Once outside the insulation of
+Halsey's office we did not dare talk of this thing. Not only
+electrical ears, but every possible eavesdropping device might be upon
+us. The corridor was two hundred feet or more below the ground level.
+At this hour of the night the business section was comparatively
+deserted. The stores and office arcades were all closed.</p>
+
+<p>Our footfall echoed on the metal grids as we hurried along. I felt
+depressed and oppressed. As though prying eyes were upon me. We walked
+for a time in silence, each of us busy with memory of what had
+transpired at Halsey's office.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Snap gripped me. "What's that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where?" I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped at a corner. An entryway was here. Snap pulled me into it.
+I could feel him quivering with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" I demanded in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"We're being followed. Did you hear anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" Yet I thought now that I could hear something. Vague footfalls.
+A rustling. And a microscopic whine, as though some device were within
+range of us.</p>
+
+<p>Snap was fumbling in his pocket. "Wait! I've got a pair of low-scale
+detectors."</p>
+
+<p>He put the little grids against his ears. I could hear the sharp
+intake of his breath. Then he seized me, pulled me down to the metal
+floor of the entryway.</p>
+
+<p>"Back, Gregg! Get back!" I could barely hear his whisper. We crouched
+as far back into the doorway as we could get. I was armed. My official
+permit for the carrying of the pencil heat ray allowed me always to
+have it with me. I drew it now. But there was nothing to shoot at. I
+felt Snap clamping the grids on my ears. And now I heard something! An
+intensification of the vague footsteps I had thought I heard before.</p>
+
+<p>There was something following us! Something out in the corridor there
+now! The corridor was dim, but plainly vis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>ible, and as far as I could
+see it was empty. But there was something there. Something invisible!
+I could hear it moving. Creeping toward us. I pulled the grids off my
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>Snap murmured, "You've got a local phone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'll get them to give us the street glare!"</p>
+
+<p>I pressed the danger signal, giving our location to the operator. In a
+second we got the light. The street in all this neighborhood burst
+into a brilliant actinic glare. The thing menacing us was revealed! A
+figure in a black cloak, crouching thirty feet away across the
+corridor.</p>
+
+<p>Snap was unarmed but he flung his hands out menacingly. The figure,
+which may perhaps not have been aware of our city safeguard, was taken
+wholly by surprise. A human figure, seven feet tall at the least, and
+therefore, I judged, a Martian man. The black cloak covered his head.
+He took a step toward us, hesitated, and then turned in confusion.</p>
+
+<p>Snap's shrill voice was bringing help. The whine of a street guard's
+alarm whistle nearby sounded. The figure was making off! My pencil ray
+was in my hand and I pressed its switch. The tiny heat ray stabbed
+through the air, but I missed. The figure stumbled but did not fall. I
+saw a bare gray arm come from the cloak, flung up to maintain its
+balance. Or perhaps my pencil ray had seared his arm. The gray-skinned
+arm of a Martian.</p>
+
+<p>Snap was shouting, "Give him another!" But the figure passed beyond
+the actinic glare and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>We were detained in the turmoil of the corridor for ten minutes or
+more with official explanations. Then a message from Halsey released
+us. The Martian who had been following us in his invisible cloak was
+never caught.</p>
+
+<p>We escaped from the crowd at last and made our way back to the
+<i>Planetara</i>, where the passengers were already assembling for the
+outward Martian voyage.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>II</h2>
+
+
+<p>I stood on the turret balcony of the <i>Planetara</i> with Captain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> Carter
+and Dr. Frank, the ship surgeon, watching the arriving passengers. It
+was close to the zero hour; the level of the stage was a turmoil of
+confusion. The escalators, with the last of the freight aboard, were
+folded back. But the stage was jammed with incoming passenger luggage,
+the interplanetary customs and tax officials with their x-ray and
+zed-ray paraphernalia and the passengers themselves, lined up for the
+export inspection.</p>
+
+<p>At this height, the city lights lay spread in a glare of blue and
+yellow beneath us. The individual local planes came dropping like
+birds to our stage. Thirty-eight passengers to Mars for this voyage,
+but that accursed desire of every friend and relative to speed the
+departing voyager brought a hundred or more extra people to crowd our
+girders and add to everybody's troubles.</p>
+
+<p>Carter was too absorbed in his duties to stay with us long. But here
+in the turret Dr. Frank and I found ourselves at the moment with
+nothing much to do but watch.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank was a thin, dark, rather smallish man of fifty, trim in his
+blue and white uniform. I knew him well: we had made several flights
+together. An American&mdash;I fancy of Jewish ancestry. A likable man, and
+a skillful doctor and surgeon. He and I had always been good friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Crowded," he said. "Johnson says thirty-eight. I hope they're
+experienced travelers. This pressure sickness is a rotten
+nuisance&mdash;keeps me dashing around all night assuring frightened women
+they're not going to die. Last voyage, coming out of the Venus
+atmosphere&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He plunged into a lugubrious account of his troubles with space sick
+voyagers. But I was in no mood to listen to him. My gaze was down on
+the spider incline, up which, over the bend of the ship's sleek,
+silvery body, the passengers and their friends were coming in little
+groups. The upper deck was already jammed with them.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Planetara</i>, as flyers go, was not a large vessel. Cylindrical of
+body, forty feet maximum beam, and two hundred and seventy-five feet
+in length. The passenger superstructure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>&mdash;no more than a hundred feet
+long&mdash;was set amidships. A narrow deck, metallically enclosed, and
+with large bull's-eye windows, encircled the superstructure. Some of
+the cabins opened directly onto the deck. Others had doors to the
+interior corridors. There were half a dozen small but luxurious public
+rooms.</p>
+
+<p>The rest of the vessel was given to freight storage and the mechanism
+and control compartments. Forward of the passenger structure the deck
+level continued under the cylindrical dome roof to the bow. The
+forward watch tower observatory was here, officers' cabins, Captain
+Carter's navigating rooms and Dr. Frank's office. Similarly, under the
+stern dome, was the stern watch tower and a series of power
+compartments.</p>
+
+<p>Above the superstructure a confusion of spider bridges, ladders and
+balconies were laced like a metal network. The turret in which Dr.
+Frank and I now stood was perched here. Fifty feet away, like a bird's
+nest, Snap's instrument room stood clinging to the metal bridge. The
+dome roof, with the glassite windows rolled back now, rose in a mound
+peak to cover the highest middle portion of the vessel.</p>
+
+<p>Below, in the main hull, blue lit metal corridors ran the entire
+length of the ship. Freight storage compartments; gravity control
+rooms; the air renewal system; heater and ventilators and pressure
+mechanisms&mdash;all were located there. And the kitchens, stewards'
+compartments, and the living quarters of the crew. We carried a crew
+of sixteen, this voyage, exclusive of the navigating officers, the
+purser, Snap Dean, and Dr. Frank.</p>
+
+<p>The passengers coming aboard seemed a fair representation of what we
+usually had for the outward voyage to Ferrok-Shahn. Most were Earth
+people&mdash;and returning Martians. Dr. Frank pointed out one. A huge
+Martian in a grey cloak. A seven foot fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"His name is <i>Set</i> Miko," Dr. Frank remarked. "Ever heard of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," I said. "Should I?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;" The doctor suddenly checked himself, as though he were sorry
+he had spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"I never heard of him," I repeated slowly.</p>
+
+<p>An awkward silence fell between us.</p>
+
+<p>There were a few Venus passengers. I saw one of them presently coming
+up the incline, and recognized her. A girl traveling alone. We had
+brought her from Grebhar, last voyage but one. I remembered her. An
+alluring sort of girl, as most of them are. Her name was Venza. She
+spoke English well. A singer and dancer who had been imported to
+Greater New York to fill some theatrical engagement. She'd made quite
+a hit on the Great White Way.</p>
+
+<p>She came up the incline with the carrier ahead of her. Gazing up, she
+saw Dr. Frank and me at the turret window, smiled and waved her white
+arm in greeting.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank laughed. "By the gods of the airways, there's Alta Venza!
+You saw that look, Gregg? That was for me, not you."</p>
+
+<p>"Reasonable enough," I retorted. "But I doubt it&mdash;the Venza is nothing
+if not impartial."</p>
+
+<p>I wondered what could be taking Venza now to Mars. I was glad to see
+her. She was diverting. Educated. Well traveled. Spoke English with a
+colloquial, theatrical manner more characteristic of Greater New York
+than of Venus. And for all her light banter, I would rather put my
+trust in her than any Venus girl I had ever met.</p>
+
+<p>The hum of the departing siren was sounding. Friends and relatives of
+the passengers were crowding the exit incline. The deck was clearing.
+I had not seen George Prince come aboard. And then I thought I saw him
+down on the landing stage, just arrived from a private tube car. A
+small, slight figure. The customs men were around him. I could only
+see his head and shoulders. Pale, girlishly handsome face; long, black
+hair to the base of his neck. He was bare-headed, with the hood of his
+traveling cloak pushed back.</p>
+
+<p>I stared, and I saw that Dr. Frank was also gazing down. But neither
+of us spoke.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then I said upon impulse, "Suppose we go down to the deck, Doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>He acquiesced. We descended to the lower room of the turret and
+clambered down the spider ladder to the upper deck level. The head of
+the arriving incline was near us. Preceded by two carriers who were
+littered with hand luggage, George Prince was coming up the incline.
+He was closer now. I recognized him from the type we had seen in
+Halsey's office.</p>
+
+<p>And then, with a shock, I saw it was not so. This was a girl coming
+aboard. An arc light over the incline showed her clearly when she was
+half way up. A girl with her hood pushed back; her face framed in
+thick black hair. I saw now it was not a man's cut of hair; but long
+braids coiled up under the dangling hood.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank must have remarked my amazed expression. "Little beauty,
+isn't she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she?"</p>
+
+<p>We were standing back against the wall of the superstructure. A
+passenger was near us&mdash;the Martian whom Dr. Frank had called Miko. He
+was loitering here, quite evidently watching this girl come aboard.
+But as I glanced at him, he looked away and casually sauntered off.</p>
+
+<p>The girl came up and reached the deck. "I am in A22," she told the
+carrier. "My brother came aboard a couple of hours ago."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank answered my whisper. "That's Anita Prince."</p>
+
+<p>She was passing quite close to us on the deck, following the carrier,
+when she stumbled and very nearly fell. I was nearest to her. I leaped
+forward and caught her as she nearly went down.</p>
+
+<p>With my arm about her, I raised her up and set her upon her feet
+again. She had twisted her ankle. She balanced herself upon it. The
+pain of it eased up in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all right&mdash;thank you!"</p>
+
+<p>In the dimness of the blue lit deck I met her eyes. I was holding her
+with my encircling arm. She was small and soft<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> against me. Her face,
+framed in the thick, black hair, smiled up at me. Small, oval
+face&mdash;beautiful&mdash;yet firm of chin, and stamped with the mark of its
+own individuality. No empty-headed beauty, this.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all right, thank you very much&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I became conscious that I had not released her. I felt her hands
+pushing at me. And then it seemed that for an instant she yielded and
+was clinging. And I met her startled upflung gaze. Eyes like a purple
+night with the sheen of misty starlight in them.</p>
+
+<p>I heard myself murmuring, "I beg your pardon. Yes, of course!" I
+released her.</p>
+
+<p>She thanked me again and followed the carriers along the deck. She was
+limping slightly.</p>
+
+<p>An instant she had clung to me. A brief flash of something, from her
+eyes to mine&mdash;from mine back to hers. The poets write that love can be
+born of such a glance. The first meeting, across all the barriers of
+which love springs unsought, unbidden&mdash;defiant, sometimes. And the
+troubadours of old would sing: "A fleeting glance; a touch; two wildly
+beating hearts&mdash;and love was born."</p>
+
+<p>I think, with Anita and me, it must have been like that.</p>
+
+<p>I stood, gazing after her, unconscious of Dr. Frank, who was watching
+me with his quizzical smile. And presently, no more than a quarter
+beyond the zero hour, the <i>Planetara</i> got away. With the dome windows
+battened tightly, we lifted from the landing stage and soared over the
+glowing city. The phosphorescence of the electronic tubes was like a
+comet's tail behind us as we slid upward.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>III</h2>
+
+
+<p>At six <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, Earth Eastern time, which we were still carrying, Snap
+Dean and I were alone in his instrument room, perched in the network
+over the <i>Planetara's</i> deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; it
+rounded like a great observatory win<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>dow some twenty feet above the
+ceiling of this little metal cubbyhole.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Planetara</i> was still in Earth's shadow. The firmament&mdash;black,
+interstellar space with its blazing white, red and yellow stars&mdash;lay
+spread around us. The Moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung,
+a great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side,
+Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigar in the blackness.
+The Earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible&mdash;a giant sphere,
+etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon one
+limb a touch of sunlight hung on the mountain tops with a crescent
+red-yellow sheen.</p>
+
+<p>And then we plunged from the cone shadow. The Sun with the leaping
+corona, burst through the blackness behind us. The Earth lighted into
+a huge, thin crescent with hooked cusps.</p>
+
+<p>To Snap and me, the glories of the heavens were too familiar to be
+remarked. And upon this voyage particularly we were in no mood to
+consider them. I had been in the radio room several hours. When the
+<i>Planetara</i> started, and my few routine duties were over, I could
+think of nothing save Halsey's and Carter's admonition: "Be on your
+guard. And particularly&mdash;watch George Prince."</p>
+
+<p>I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter
+and Halsey had not bothered to mention. My heart was still pounding
+with the memory.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure sick
+passengers. The <i>Planetara's</i> equalizers were fairly efficient.
+Prowling through the silent metal lounges and passages, I went to the
+door of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse passage
+just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the
+letters: <i>Anita Prince</i>. I stood in my short white trousers and white
+silk shirt, like a cabin steward staring. Anita Prince! I had never
+heard the name until this night. But there was magic music in it now,
+as I murmured it.</p>
+
+<p>She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> door. It
+seemed as though that little oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland
+of my dreams.</p>
+
+<p>I turned away. Thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me.
+George Prince&mdash;Anita's brother&mdash;he whom I had been warned to watch.
+This renegade&mdash;associate of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.</p>
+
+<p>I saw, upon the adjoining door, A20, <i>George Prince</i>. I listened. In
+the humming stillness of the ship's interior there was no sound from
+these cabins. A20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had a
+window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge,
+out its arch and walked the deck length. The deck door and window of
+A22 were closed and dark.</p>
+
+<p>The deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs were
+here but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching dome
+a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. At
+the corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a figure
+lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.</p>
+
+<p>I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side.
+There was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high
+in the bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turret
+balcony almost directly over me.</p>
+
+<p>As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the
+direction of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>He greeted me. "Cooling off, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said.</p>
+
+<p>He passed me and went into the smoking room door nearby.</p>
+
+<p>I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and
+for no reason at all I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one
+for his regular sleep&mdash;it was wholly unlike him to be roaming about
+the ship at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told myself it
+was nonsense. I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart room
+which stood in the center of the narrowing open deck space near the
+bow. I joined him at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was that?" he half whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes." He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck.
+"Gregg&mdash;take this." He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at
+once into my shirt.</p>
+
+<p>"An insulator," he added swiftly. "Snap is in his office. Take it to
+him, Gregg. Stay with him&mdash;you'll have a measure of security&mdash;and you
+can help him to make the photographs." He was barely whispering. "I
+won't be with you&mdash;no use making it look as though we were doing
+anything unusual. If your graphs show anything&mdash;or if Snap picks up
+any message&mdash;bring it to me." He added aloud, "Well, it will be cool
+enough presently, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>He sauntered away toward his chart room.</p>
+
+<p>"By heavens, what a relief!" Snap murmured as the current went on. We
+had wired his cubby with the insulator; within its barrage we could at
+least talk with a degree of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>"You've seen George Prince, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. He's assigned A20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever
+mentioned&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Snap had heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for
+this voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a
+decent girl to have a brother like that."</p>
+
+<p>I could agree with him there....</p>
+
+<p>It was now six <span class="smcap">a.m.</span> Snap had been busy all night with routine
+cosmos-radios from the Earth, following our departure. He had a pile
+of them beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Not a thing."</p>
+
+<p>We were at this time no more than sixty-five thousand miles from the
+Moon's surface. The <i>Planetara</i> presently would swing upon her direct
+course for Mars. There was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> nothing which could cause passenger
+comment in this close passing of the Moon; normally we used the
+satellite's attraction to give us additional starting speed.</p>
+
+<p>It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He was
+supposed to be upon the Earthward side of the Moon. While Snap had
+rushed through with his routine, I searched the Moon's surface with
+our glass.</p>
+
+<p>But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The
+heights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas
+were etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding
+desolation, this unchanging Moon. In romance, moonlight may shimmer
+and sparkle to light a lover's smile; but the reality of the Moon is
+cold and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the
+intrepid Grantline might be.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing at all, Snap."</p>
+
+<p>And Snap's instruments, attuned for an hour now to pick up the
+faintest signal, were motionless.</p>
+
+<p>"If he has concentrated any appreciable amount of ore," said Snap. "We
+should get an impulse from its rays."</p>
+
+<p>But our receiving shield was dark, untouched. Our mirror grid gave the
+magnified images; the spectro, with its wave length selection,
+pictured the mountain levels and slowly descended into the deepest
+seas.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in those Moon caverns&mdash;a million million recesses amid the crags
+of that tumbled, barren surface&mdash;the pin point of movement which might
+have been Grantline's expedition could so easily be hiding! Could he
+have the ore insulated, fearing its rays would betray its presence to
+hostile watchers?</p>
+
+<p>Or might disaster have come to him? He might not be on this hemisphere
+of the Moon at all....</p>
+
+<p>My imagination, sharpened by fancy of a lurking menace which seemed
+everywhere about the <i>Planetara</i> this voyage, ran rife with fears for
+Johnny Grantline. He had promised to communicate this voyage. It was
+now, or perhaps never.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Six-thirty came and passed. We were well beyond the Earth's shadow
+now. The firmament blazed with its vivid glories; the Sun behind us
+was a ball of yellow-red leaping flames. The Earth hung, a huge, dull
+red half sphere.</p>
+
+<p>We were within forty thousand miles of the Moon. A giant white
+ball&mdash;all of its disc visible to the naked eye. It poised over the
+bow, and presently, as the <i>Planetara</i> swung upon its course for Mars,
+it shifted sidewise. The light of it glared white and dazzling in our
+windows.</p>
+
+<p>Snap, with his habitual red celluloid eyeshade shoved high on his
+forehead, worked over our instruments.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg!"</p>
+
+<p>The receiving shield was glowing a trifle. Rays were bombarding it! It
+glowed, gleamed phosphorescent, and the audible recorder began
+sounding its tiny tinkling murmurs.</p>
+
+<p>Gamma rays! Snap sprang to the dials. The direction and strength were
+soon obvious. A richly radioactive ore body was concentrated upon this
+hemisphere of the Moon! It was unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>"He's got it, Gregg! He's&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The tiny grids began quivering. Snap exclaimed triumphantly, "Here he
+comes! By God, the message at last!"</p>
+
+<p>Snap decoded it.</p>
+
+<p><i>Success! Stop for ore on your return voyage. Will give you our
+location later. Success beyond wildest hopes.</i></p>
+
+<p>Snap murmured, "That's all. He's got the ore!"</p>
+
+<p>We were sitting in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that across
+our open window, where the insulation barrage was flung, the air was
+faintly hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple
+sparks. Someone&mdash;some hostile ray from the deck beneath us, or from
+the spider bridge that led to our little room&mdash;someone out there was
+trying to pry in!</p>
+
+<p>Snap impulsively reached for the absorbers to let in the outside
+light. But I checked him.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait!" I cut off our barrage, opened our door and stepped to the
+narrow metal bridge.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You stay there, Snap!" I whispered. Then I added aloud, "Well, Snap,
+I'm going to bed. Glad you've cleaned up that batch of work."</p>
+
+<p>I banged the door upon him. The lacework of metal bridges seemed
+empty. I gazed up to the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet
+beneath me was the metal roof of the cabin superstructure. Below it,
+both sides of the deck showed. All patched with moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>No one visible down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty.
+But in the silence something was moving! Footsteps moving away from me
+down the deck! I followed; and suddenly I was running. Chasing
+something I could hear, but could not see. It turned into the smoking
+room.</p>
+
+<p>I burst in. And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser
+was sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that
+his cigar held a long frail ash. It could not have been him I was
+chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavy
+fellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly now.</p>
+
+<p>He sat up in amazement at my wild-eyed appearance, and the ash jarred
+from his cigar.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg! What in the devil&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I tried to grin. "I'm on my way to bed&mdash;worked all night helping
+Snap."</p>
+
+<p>I went past him, out the door into the main corridor. It was the only
+way the invisible prowler could have gone. But I was too late now&mdash;I
+could hear nothing. I dashed forward into the main lounge. It was
+empty, dim and silent, a silence broken presently by a faint click, a
+stateroom door hastily closing. I swung and found myself in a tiny
+transverse passage. The twin doors of A20 and A22 were before me.</p>
+
+<p>The invisible eavesdropper had gone into one of these rooms! I
+listened at each of the panels, but there was only silence within.</p>
+
+<p>The interior of the ship was suddenly singing with the steward's
+siren&mdash;the call to awaken the passengers. It<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> startled me. I moved
+swiftly away. But as the siren shut off, in the silence I heard a
+soft, musical voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Wake up, Anita, I think that's the breakfast call."</p>
+
+<p>And her answer, "All right, George."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>IV</h2>
+
+
+<p>I did not appear at that morning meal. I was exhausted and drugged
+with lack of sleep. I had a moment with Snap to tell him what had
+occurred. Then I sought out Carter. He had his little chart room
+insulated. And we were cautious. I told him what Snap and I had
+learned: the rays from the Moon, proving that Grantline had
+concentrated a considerable ore body. I also told him of Grantline's
+message.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll stop on the way back, as he directs, Gregg." He bent closer to
+me. "At Ferrok-Shahn I'm going to bring back a cordon of
+Interplanetary Police. The secret will be out, of course, when we stop
+at the Moon. We have no right, even now, to be flying this vessel as
+unguarded as it is."</p>
+
+<p>He was very solemn. And he was grim when I told him of the invisible
+eavesdropper.</p>
+
+<p>"You think he overheard Grantline's message? Who was it? You seem to
+feel it was George Prince?"</p>
+
+<p>I told him I was convinced the prowler went into A20. When I mentioned
+the purser, who seemed to have been watching me earlier in the night,
+and again was sitting in the smoking room when the eavesdropper fled
+past, Carter looked startled.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson is all right, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>"Does he know anything about this Grantline affair?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no," said Carter hastily. "You haven't mentioned it, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I haven't. But why didn't Johnson hear that eavesdropper?
+And what was he doing there, anyway, at that hour of the morning?"</p>
+
+<p>The Captain ignored my questions. "I'm going to have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> that Prince
+suite searched&mdash;we can't be too careful.... Go to bed, Gregg, you need
+rest."</p>
+
+<p>I went to my cabin. It was located aft, on the stern deck, near the
+stern watch tower. A small metal room with a chair, a desk and a bunk.
+I made sure no one was in it. I sealed the lattice grill and the door,
+set the alarm trigger against any opening of them, and went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>The siren for the midday meal awakened me. I had slept heavily. I felt
+refreshed.</p>
+
+<p>I found the passengers already assembled at my table when I arrived in
+the dining salon. It was a low vaulted metal room with blue and yellow
+tube lights. At its sides the oval windows showed the deck, with its
+ports on the dome side, through which a vista of the starry firmament
+was visible. We were well on our course to Mars. The Moon had dwindled
+to a pin point of light beside the crescent Earth. And behind them our
+Sun blazed, visually the largest orb in the heavens. It was some
+sixty-eight million miles from the Earth to Mars. A flight,
+ordinarily, of some ten days.</p>
+
+<p>There were five tables in the dining salon, each with eight seats.
+Snap and I had one of the tables. We sat at the ends, with the
+passengers on each of the sides.</p>
+
+<p>Snap was in his seat when I arrived. He eyed me down the length of the
+table. In a gay mood, he introduced me to the three men already
+seated:</p>
+
+<p>"This is our third officer, Gregg Haljan. Big, handsome fellow, isn't
+he? And as pleasant as he is good-looking. Gregg, this is Sero Ob
+Hahn."</p>
+
+<p>I met the keen, somber gaze of a Venus man of middle age. A small,
+slim graceful man, with sleek black hair. His pointed face,
+accentuated by the pointed beard, was pallid. He wore a white and
+purple robe; upon his breast was a huge platinum ornament, a device
+like a star and cross entwined.</p>
+
+<p>"I am happy to meet you, sir." His voice was soft and deep.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Ob Hahn," I repeated. "I should have heard of you, no doubt, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>A smile plucked at his thin, gray lips. "That is an error of mine, not
+yours. My mission is that all the universe shall hear of me."</p>
+
+<p>"He's preaching the religion of the Venus mystics," Snap explained.</p>
+
+<p>"And this enlightened gentleman," said Ob Hahn ironically, nodding to
+the man, "has just termed it fetishism. The ignorance&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say!" protested the man at Ob Hahn's side. "I mean, you seem to
+think I meant something offensive. And as a matter of fact&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We've an argument, Gregg," laughed Snap. "This is Sir Arthur
+Coniston, an English gentleman, lecturer and sky-trotter&mdash;that is, he
+will be a sky-trotter; he tells us he plans a number of voyages."</p>
+
+<p>The tall Englishman, in his white linen suit, bowed acknowledgement.
+"My compliments, Mr. Haljan. I hope you have no strong religious
+convictions, else we will make your table here very miserable!"</p>
+
+<p>The third passenger had evidently kept out of the argument. Snap
+introduced him as Rance Rankin. An American&mdash;a quiet, blond fellow of
+thirty-five or forty.</p>
+
+<p>I ordered my breakfast and let the argument go on.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't make me miserable," said Snap. "I love an argument. You said,
+Sir Arthur&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to say, I think I said too much. Mr. Rankin, you are more
+diplomatic."</p>
+
+<p>Rankin laughed. "I am a magician," he said to me. "A theatrical
+entertainer. I deal in tricks&mdash;how to fool an audience&mdash;" His keen,
+amused gaze was on Ob Hahn. "This gentleman from Venus and I have too
+much in common to argue."</p>
+
+<p>"A nasty one!" the Englishman exclaimed. "By Jove! Really, Mr. Rankin,
+you're a bit too cruel!"</p>
+
+<p>I could see we were doomed to have turbulent meals this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> voyage. I
+like to eat in quiet; arguing passengers always annoy me. There were
+still three seats vacant at our table; I wondered who would occupy
+them. I soon learned the answer&mdash;for one seat at least. Rankin said
+calmly:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the little Venus girl this meal?" His glance went to the
+empty seat at my right hand. "The Venza, isn't that her name? She and
+I are destined for the same theater in Ferrok-Shahn."</p>
+
+<p>So Venza was to sit beside me. It was good news. Ten days of a
+religious argument three times a day would be intolerable. But the
+cheerful Venza would help.</p>
+
+<p>"She never eats the midday meal," said Snap. "She's on the deck,
+having orange juice. I guess it's the old gag about diet, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>My attention wandered about the salon. Most of the seats were
+occupied. At the Captain's table I saw the objects of my search:
+George Prince and his sister, one on each side of the Captain. I saw
+George Prince in the life now as a man who looked hardly twenty-five.
+He was at this moment evidently in a gay mood. His clean-cut, handsome
+profile, with its poetic dark curls, was turned toward me. There
+seemed little of the villain about him.</p>
+
+<p>And I saw Anita Prince now as a dark-haired, black-eyed little beauty,
+in feature resembling her brother very strongly. She presently
+finished her meal. She rose, with him after her. She was dressed in
+Earth-fashion&mdash;white blouse and dark jacket, wide, knee-length
+trousers of gray, with a red sash her only touch of color. She went
+past me, flashed me a smile.</p>
+
+<p>My heart was pounding. I answered her greeting, and met George
+Prince's casual gaze. He, too, smiled, as though to signify that his
+sister had told him of the service I had done her. Or was his smile an
+ironical memory of how he had eluded me this morning when I chased
+him?</p>
+
+<p>I gazed after his small white-suited figure as he followed Anita from
+the salon. And thinking of her, I prayed that Carter and Halsey might
+be wrong. Whatever plotting against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> the Grantline Expedition might be
+going on, I hoped that George Prince was innocent of it. Yet I knew in
+my heart it was a futile hope. Prince had been the eavesdropper
+outside the radio room. I could not doubt it. But that his sister must
+be ignorant of what he was doing, I was sure.</p>
+
+<p>My attention was brought suddenly back to the reality of our table. I
+heard Ob Hahn's silky voice. "We passed quite close to the Moon last
+night, Mr. Dean."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Snap. "We did, didn't we? Always do&mdash;it's a technical
+problem of the exigencies of interstellar navigation. Explain it to
+them, Gregg. You're an expert."</p>
+
+<p>I waved it away with a laugh. There was a brief silence. I could not
+help noticing Sir Arthur Coniston's queer look, and I have never seen
+so keen a glance as Rance Rankin shot at me. Were all three people
+aware of Grantline's treasure on the Moon? It suddenly seemed so. I
+wished fervently at that instant that the ten days of this voyage were
+over. Captain Carter was right. Coming back we should have a cordon of
+Interplanetary Police aboard.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Arthur broke the awkward silence. "Magnificent sight, the Moon,
+from so close&mdash;though I was too much afraid of pressure sickness to be
+up to see it."</p>
+
+<p>I had nearly finished my hasty meal when another incident shocked me.
+The two other passengers at our table came in and took their seats. A
+Martian girl and man. The girl had the seat at my left, with the man
+beside her. All Martians are tall. The girl was about my own height.
+That is, six feet, two inches. The man was seven feet or more. Both
+wore the Martian outer robe. The girl flung hers back. Her limbs were
+encased in pseudomail. She looked, as all Martians like to look, a
+very warlike Amazon. But she was a pretty girl. She smiled at me with
+a keen-eyed, direct gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Dean said at breakfast that you were big and handsome. You are."</p>
+
+<p>They were brother and sister, these Martians. Snap in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>troduced them as
+<i>Set</i> Miko and <i>Setta</i> Moa&mdash;the Martian equivalent of Mr. and Miss.</p>
+
+<p>This Miko was, from our Earth standards, a tremendous, brawny giant.
+Not spindly, like most Martians, this fellow, for all his seven feet
+in height was almost heavy set. He wore a plaited leather jerkin
+beneath his robe and knee pants of leather out of which his lower legs
+showed as gray, hairy pillars of strength. He had come into the salon
+with a swagger, his sword ornament clanking.</p>
+
+<p>"A pleasant voyage so far," he said to me as he started his meal. His
+voice had the heavy, throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. He
+spoke perfect English&mdash;both Martians and Venus people are by heritage
+extraordinary linguists. Miko and his sister Moa, had a touch of
+Martian accent, worn almost away by living for some years in Greater
+New York.</p>
+
+<p>The shock to me came within a few minutes. Miko, absorbed in attacking
+his meal, inadvertently pushed back his robe to bare his forearm. An
+instant only, then it dropped to his wrist. But in that instant I had
+seen, upon the gray flesh, a thin sear turned red. A very recent
+burn&mdash;as though a pencil ray of heat had caught his arm.</p>
+
+<p>My mind flung back. Only last night in the city corridor, Snap and I
+had been followed by a Martian. I had shot at him with a heat ray: I
+thought I had hit him on the arm. Was this the mysterious Martian who
+had followed us from Halsey's office?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>V</h2>
+
+
+<p>Shortly after that midday meal I encountered Venza sitting on the
+starlit deck. I had been in the bow observatory; taken my routine
+castings of our position and worked them out. I was, I think, of the
+<i>Planetara's</i> officers the most expert handler of the mathematical
+calculators. The locating of our position and charting the trajectory
+of our course was,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> under ordinary circumstances, about all I had to
+do. And it took only a few minutes every twelve hours.</p>
+
+<p>I had a moment with Carter in the isolation of his chart room.</p>
+
+<p>"This voyage! Gregg, I'm getting like you&mdash;too fanciful. We've a normal
+group of passengers apparently, but I don't like the look of any of
+them. That Ob Hahn, at your table&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Snaky looking fellow," I commented. "He and the Englishman are great
+on arguments. Did you have Princes' cabin searched?"</p>
+
+<p>My breath hung on his answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Nothing unusual among his things. We searched both his room and
+his sister's."</p>
+
+<p>I did not follow that up. Instead I told him about the burn on Miko's
+thick arm.</p>
+
+<p>He stared. "I wish we were at Ferrok-Shahn. Gregg, tonight when the
+passengers are asleep, come here to me. Snap will be here, and Dr.
+Frank. We can trust him."</p>
+
+<p>"He knows about&mdash;about the Grantline treasure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And so do Balch and Blackstone." Balch and Blackstone were our
+first and second officers.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll all meet here, Gregg&mdash;say about the zero hour. We must take
+some precautions."</p>
+
+<p>Then he dismissed me.</p>
+
+<p>I found Venza seated alone in a starlit corner of the secluded deck. A
+porthole, with the black heavens and the blazing stars was before her.
+There was an empty seat nearby.</p>
+
+<p>She greeted me with the Venus form of jocular, intimate greeting:</p>
+
+<p>"Hola-lo, Gregg! Sit here with me. I have been wondering when you
+would come after me."</p>
+
+<p>I sat down beside her. "Why are you going to Mars, Venza? I'm glad to
+see you."</p>
+
+<p>"Many thanks. But I am glad to see you, Gregg. So handsome a man. Do
+you know, from Venus to Earth, and I have no doubt on all of Mars, no
+man will please me more."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Glib tongue," I laughed. "Born to flatter the male&mdash;every girl of
+your world." And I added seriously, "You don't answer my question.
+What takes you to Mars?"</p>
+
+<p>"Contract. By the stars, what else? Of course, a chance to make a
+voyage with you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be silly, Venza."</p>
+
+<p>I enjoyed her. I gazed at her small, slim figure reclining in the deck
+chair. Her long, gray robe parted by design, I have no doubt, to
+display her shapely, satin-sheathed legs. Her black hair was coiled in
+a heavy knot at the back of her neck; her carmine lips were parted
+with a mocking, alluring smile. The exotic perfume of her enveloped
+me.</p>
+
+<p>She glanced at me sidewise from beneath her sweeping black lashes.</p>
+
+<p>"Be serious," I added.</p>
+
+<p>"I am serious. Sober. Intoxicated by you, but sober."</p>
+
+<p>I said, "What sort of a contract?"</p>
+
+<p>"A theater in Ferrok-Shahn. Good money, Gregg. I'll be there a year."
+She sat up to face me. "There's a fellow here on the <i>Planetara</i>,
+Rance Rankin, he calls himself. At our table&mdash;a big, good-looking
+blond American. He says he is a magician. Ever hear of him?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what he told me. No, I never heard of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor did I. And I thought I had heard of everyone of importance. He is
+listed for the same theater I am. Nice sort of fellow." She paused,
+then added, "If he's a professional entertainer, I'm a motor oiler."</p>
+
+<p>It startled me. "Why do you say that?"</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively my gaze swept the deck. An Earth woman and child and a
+small Venus man were in sight, but not within earshot.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you look so furtive?" she retorted. "Gregg, there's something
+strange about this voyage. I'm no fool, nor you, so you must know it
+as well as I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Rance Rankin&mdash;" I prompted.</p>
+
+<p>She leaned closer toward me. "He could fool you. But not me&mdash;I've
+known too many magicians." She grinned. "I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> challenged him to trick
+me. You should have seen him evading!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know Ob Hahn?" I interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "Never heard of him. But he told me plenty at
+breakfast. By Satan, what a flow of words that devil driver can
+muster! He and the Englishman don't mesh very well, do they?"</p>
+
+<p>She stared at me. I had not answered her grin; my mind was too busy
+with queer fancies. Halsey's words: "Things are not always what they
+seem&mdash;" Were these passengers masqueraders? Were they put here by
+George Prince? And then I thought of Miko the Martian, and the burn
+upon his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Come back, Gregg! Don't go wandering off like that!" She dropped her
+voice to a whisper. "I'll be serious. I want to know what in hell is
+going on aboard this ship. I'm a woman and I'm curious. You tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" I parried.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean a lot of things. What we've just been talking about. And what
+was the excitement you were in just before breakfast this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"Excitement?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, you may trust me." For the first time she was wholly serious.
+Her gaze made sure no one was within hearing. She put her hand on my
+arm. I could barely hear her whisper: "I know they might have a ray
+upon us. I'll be careful."</p>
+
+<p>"They?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anyone. Something's going on. You know it. You are in it. I saw you
+this morning, Gregg. Wild-eyed, chasing a phantom&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"And I heard the phantom! A man's footsteps. A magnetic, deflecting,
+invisible cloak. You couldn't fool an audience with that, it's too
+commonplace. If Rance Rankin tried&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I gripped her. "Don't ramble, Venza! You saw me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. My stateroom door was open. I was sitting with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> cigarette. I
+saw the purser in the smoking room. He was visible from&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Wait! Venza, that prowler went through the smoking room!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know he did. I could hear him."</p>
+
+<p>"Did the purser hear him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. The purser looked up, followed the sound with his gaze. I
+thought that was queer. He never made a move. And then you came along
+and he acted innocent. Why? What's going on, that's what I want to
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>I held my breath. "Venza, where did the prowler run to? Can you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She whispered calmly, "Into A20. I saw the door open and close. I even
+thought I could see his blurred outline." She added, "Why should
+George Prince be sneaking around with you after him? And the purser
+acting innocent? And who is this George Prince, anyway?"</p>
+
+<p>The huge Martian, Miko, with his sister Moa came strolling along the
+deck. They nodded as they passed us.</p>
+
+<p>I whispered, "I can't explain anything now. But you're right, Venza:
+there is something going on. Listen! Whatever you learn&mdash;whatever you
+encounter which looks unusual&mdash;will you tell me? I ... well, I do
+trust you. Really I do, but the whole thing isn't mine to tell."</p>
+
+<p>The somber pools of her eyes were shining. "You are very lovable,
+Gregg. I won't question you." She was trembling with excitement.
+"Whatever it is, I want to be in on it. Here's something I can tell
+you now. We've two high class gold leaf gamblers aboard. Do you know
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who are they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shac and Dud Ardley. Every detective in Greater New York knows them.
+They had a wonderful game with that Englishman, Sir Arthur, this
+morning. Stripped him of half a pound of eight-inch leaves&mdash;a neat
+little stack. A crooked game, of course. Those fellows are more
+nimble-fingered than Rance Rankin ever dared to be!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I sat staring at her. She was a mine of information, this girl.</p>
+
+<p>"And Gregg, I tried my charms on Shac and Dud. Nice men, but dumb.
+Whatever's going on, they're not in it. They wanted to know what kind
+of a ship this was. Why? Because Shac has a cute little eavesdropping
+microphone of his own. He had it working last night. He overheard
+George Prince and that giant Miko arguing about the Moon!"</p>
+
+<p>I gasped, "Venza! Softer&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Against all propriety of this public deck she pretended to drape
+herself upon me. Her hair smothered my face as her lips almost touched
+my ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Something about treasure on the Moon. Shac couldn't understand what.
+And they mentioned you. Then the purser joined them." Her whispered
+words tumbled over one another. "A hundred pounds of gold leaf&mdash;that's
+the purser's price. He's with them&mdash;whatever it is. He promised to do
+something or other for them."</p>
+
+<p>She stopped. "Well?" I prompted.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all. Shac's current was interrupted."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell him to try it again, Venza! I'll talk with him. No! I'd better
+let him alone. Can you get him to keep his mouth shut?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he might do anything I told him. He's a man!"</p>
+
+<p>"Find out what you can."</p>
+
+<p>She drew away from me abruptly. "There's Anita and George Prince."</p>
+
+<p>They came to the corner of the deck, but turned back. Venza caught my
+look. And understood it.</p>
+
+<p>"You do love Anita Prince, Gregg?" Venza was smiling. "I wish you....
+I wish some man handsome as you would gaze after me like that." She
+turned solemn. "You may be interested to know, she loves you. I could
+see it. I knew it when I mentioned you to her this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Why we've hardly spoken!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it necessary? I never heard that it was."</p>
+
+<p>I could not see Venza's face; she stood up suddenly. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> when I rose
+beside her, she whispered, "We should not be seen talking so long.
+I'll find out what I can."</p>
+
+<p>I stared after her slight robed figure as she turned into the lounge
+archway and vanished.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>VI</h2>
+
+
+<p>Captain Carter was grim. "So they've bought him off, have they? Go
+bring him in here, Gregg. We'll have it out with him now."</p>
+
+<p>Snap, Dr. Frank, Balch, our first officer, and I were in the Captain's
+chart room. It was four <span class="smcap">p.m.</span> Earth time. We were sixteen hours upon
+our voyage.</p>
+
+<p>I found Johnson in his office in the lounge. "Captain wants to see
+you. Close up."</p>
+
+<p>He closed his window upon an American woman passenger who was
+demanding the details of Martian currency, and followed me forward.
+"What is it, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>Captain Carter banged the slide upon us. The chart room was insulated.
+The hum of the current was obvious. Johnson noticed it. He stared at
+the hostile faces of the surgeon and Balch. And he tried to bluster.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this? Something wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>Carter wasted no words. "We have information, Johnson, that there's
+some undercover plot aboard. I want to know what it is. Suppose you
+tell us."</p>
+
+<p>The purser looked blank. "What do you mean? We've gamblers aboard, if
+that's&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"To hell with that," growled Balch. "You had a secret interview with
+that Martian, <i>Set</i> Miko, and with George Prince!"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson scowled from under his heavy brows, and then raised them in
+surprise. "Did I? You mean changing their money? I don't like your
+tone, Balch. I'm not your under-officer!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"But you're under me!" roared the Captain. "By God, I'm master here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not disputing that," said the purser mildly. "This
+fellow&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We're in no mood for argument," Dr. Frank cut in. "Clouding the
+issue...."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't let it be clouded," the Captain exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>I had never seen Carter so choleric. He added:</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson, you've been acting suspiciously. I don't give a damn whether
+I've proof of it or not. Did you or did you not meet George Prince and
+that Martian, last night?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I did not. And I don't mind telling you, Captain Carter, that
+your tone also is offensive!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it?" Carter seized him. They were both big men. Johnson's heavy
+face went purplish red.</p>
+
+<p>"Take your hands&mdash;!" They were struggling. Carter's hands were
+fumbling at the purser's pockets. I leaped, flung an arm around
+Johnson's neck, pinning him.</p>
+
+<p>"Easy there! We've got you, Johnson!"</p>
+
+<p>Snap tried to help me. "Go on! Bang him on the head, Gregg. Now's your
+chance!"</p>
+
+<p>We searched him. A heat ray cylinder&mdash;that was legitimate. But we
+found a small battery and eavesdropping device similar to the one
+Venza had mentioned that Shac the gambler was carrying.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing with that?" the Captain demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"None of your business! Is it criminal? Carter, I'll have the line
+officials dismiss you for this! Take your hands off me&mdash;all of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at this!" exclaimed Dr. Frank.</p>
+
+<p>From Johnson's breast pocket the surgeon drew a folded document. It
+was a scale drawing of the <i>Planetara</i> interior corridors, the lower
+control rooms and mechanisms. It was always kept in Johnson's safe.
+And with it, another document: the ship's clearance papers&mdash;the secret
+code passwords for this voyage, to be used if we should be challenged
+by any Interplanetary Police ship.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Snap gasped, "My God, that was in my radio room strong box! I'm the
+only one on this vessel except the Captain who's entitled to know
+those passwords!"</p>
+
+<p>Out of the silence, Balch demanded, "Well, what about it, Johnson?"</p>
+
+<p>The purser was still defiant. "I won't answer your questions, Balch.
+At the proper time, I'll explain&mdash;Gregg Haljan, you're choking me!"</p>
+
+<p>I eased up. But I shook him. "You'd better talk."</p>
+
+<p>He was exasperatingly silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough!" exploded Carter. "He can explain when we get to port.
+Meanwhile I'll put him where he'll do no more harm. Gregg, lock him in
+the cage."</p>
+
+<p>We ignored his violent protestations. The cage&mdash;in the old days of sea
+vessels on Earth, they called it the brig&mdash;was the ship's jail. A
+steel-lined, windowless room located under the deck in the peak of the
+bow. I dragged the struggling Johnson there, with the amazed watcher
+looking down from the observatory window at our lunging starlit forms.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up, Johnson! If you know what's good for you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was making a fearful commotion. Behind us, where the deck narrowed
+at the superstructure, half a dozen passengers were gazing in
+surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have you thrown out of the service, Gregg Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>I shut him up finally. And flung him down the ladder into the cage and
+sealed the deck trap door upon him. I was headed back for the chart
+room when from the observatory came the lookout's voice:</p>
+
+<p>"An asteroid, Haljan! Officer Blackstone wants you."</p>
+
+<p>I hurried to the turret bridge. An asteroid was in sight. We had
+nearly attained our maximum speed now. An asteroid was approaching, so
+dangerously close that our trajectory would have to be altered. I
+heard Blackstone's signals ringing in the control rooms; and met
+Carter as he ran to the bridge with me.</p>
+
+<p>"That scoundrel! We'll get more out of him, Gregg. By<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> God, I'll put
+the chemicals on him&mdash;torture him&mdash;illegal or not!"</p>
+
+<p>We had no time for further discussion. The asteroid was rapidly
+approaching. Already, under the glass, it was a magnificent sight. I
+had never seen this tiny world before&mdash;asteroids are not numerous
+between the Earth and Mars, or in toward Venus.</p>
+
+<p>At a speed of nearly a hundred miles a second the asteroid swept into
+view. With the naked eye, at first it was a tiny speck of star-dust
+unnoticeable in the gem-strewn black velvet of space. A speck. Then a
+gleaming dot, silver white, with the light of our Sun upon it.</p>
+
+<p>I stood with Carter and Blackstone on the turret bridge. It was
+obvious, that unless we altered our course, the asteroid would pass
+too close for safety. Already we were feeling its attraction; from the
+control rooms came the report that our trajectory was disturbed by
+this new mass so near.</p>
+
+<p>"Better make your calculations now, Gregg," Blackstone urged.</p>
+
+<p>I cast up the rough elements from the observational instruments in the
+turret. When I had us upon our new course, with the attractive and
+repulsive plates in the <i>Planetara's</i> hull set in their altered
+combinations, I went to the bridge again.</p>
+
+<p>The asteroid hung over our bow quarter. No more than twenty or thirty
+thousand miles away. A giant ball now, filling all that quadrant of
+the heavens. The configurations of its mountains, its land and water
+areas, were plainly visible.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly habitable," Blackstone said. "But I've searched all over
+the hemisphere with the glass. No sign of human life&mdash;certainly
+nothing civilized&mdash;nothing in the fashion of cities."</p>
+
+<p>A fair little world, by the look of it. A tiny globe, come from the
+region beyond Neptune. We swept past the asteroid. The passengers were
+all gathered to view the passing little world. I saw, not far from me,
+Anita, standing with her brother; and the giant figure of Miko with
+them. Half an hour since this wandering little world had showed
+itself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> it swiftly passed, began to dwindle behind us. A huge half
+moon. A thinner, smaller quadrant. A tiny crescent, like a silver
+barpin to adorn some lady's breast. And then it was a dot, a point of
+light indistinguishable among the myriad others hovering in this great
+black void.</p>
+
+<p>The incident of the passing of the asteroid was over. I turned from
+the deck window. My heart leaped. The moment for which all day I had
+been subconsciously longing was at hand. Anita was sitting in a deck
+chair, momentarily alone. Her gaze was on me as I glanced her way, and
+she smiled an invitation for me to join her.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>VII</h2>
+
+
+<p>"But, Miss Prince, why are you and your brother going to Ferrok-Shahn?
+His business&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Even as I voiced it, I hated myself for such a question. So nimble in
+the humble mind that mingled with my rhapsodies of love, was my need
+for information of George Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said. "This is pleasure, not business, for George." It
+seemed to me that a shadow crossed her face. But it was gone in an
+instant, and she smiled. "We have always wanted to travel. We are
+alone in the world, you know&mdash;our parents died when we were children."</p>
+
+<p>I filled in her pause. "You will like Mars. So many interesting things
+to see."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. "Yes, I understand so. Our Earth is so much the same all
+over, cast all in one mould."</p>
+
+<p>"But a hundred or more years ago, it was not, Miss Prince. I have read
+how the picturesque Orient, differing from ... well, Greater New York
+or London, for instance&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Transportation did that," she interrupted eagerly. "Made everything
+the same&mdash;the people all look alike ... dress alike."</p>
+
+<p>We discussed it. She had an alert, eager mind, childlike with its
+curiosity, yet strangely matured. And her manner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> was na&iuml;vely earnest.
+Yet this was no clinging vine, this Anita Prince. There was a
+firmness, a hint of masculine strength in her chin and in her manner.</p>
+
+<p>"If I were a man, what wonders I could achieve in this marvelous age!"
+Her sense of humor made her laugh at herself. "Easy for a girl to say
+that," she added.</p>
+
+<p>"You have greater wonders to achieve, Miss Prince," I said
+impulsively.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes? What are they?" She had a very frank and level gaze, devoid of
+coquetry.</p>
+
+<p>My heart was pounding. "The wonders of the next generation. A little
+son, cast in your own gentle image&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>What madness, this clumsy, brash talk! I choked it off.</p>
+
+<p>But she took no offense. The dark rose-petals of her cheeks were
+mantled deeper red, but she laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That is true." She turned abruptly serious. "I should not laugh. The
+wonders of the next generation&mdash;conquering humans marching on...." Her
+voice trailed away. My hand went to her arm. Strange tingling
+something which poets call love! It burned and surged through my
+trembling fingers into the flesh of her forearm.</p>
+
+<p>The starlight glowed in her eyes. She seemed to be gazing, not at the
+silver-lit deck, but away into distant reaches of the future.</p>
+
+<p>Our moment. Just a breathless moment given us as we sat there with my
+hand burning her arm, as though we both might be seeing ourselves
+joined in a new individual&mdash;a little son, cast in his mother's gentle
+image and with the strength of his father. Our moment, and then it was
+over. A step sounded. I sat back. The giant gray figure of Miko came
+past, his great cloak swaying, with his clanking sword ornament
+beneath it. His bullet head, with its close-clipped hair, was hatless.
+He gazed at us, swaggering past, and turned the deck corner.</p>
+
+<p>Our moment was gone. Anita said conventionally, "It has been pleasant
+to talk with you, Mr. Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>"But we'll have many more," I said. "Ten days&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You think we'll reach Ferrok-Shahn on schedule?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I think so.... As I was saying, Miss Prince, you'll enjoy Mars.
+A strange, aggressively forward-looking people."</p>
+
+<p>An oppression seemed on her. She stirred in her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes they are," she said vaguely. "My brother and I know many Martians
+in Greater New York." She checked herself abruptly. Was she sorry she
+had said that? It seemed so.</p>
+
+<p>Miko was coming back. He stopped this time. "Your brother would see
+you, Anita. He sent me to bring you to his room."</p>
+
+<p>The glance he shot me had a touch of insolence. I stood up and he
+towered a head over me.</p>
+
+<p>Anita said, "Oh yes. I'll come."</p>
+
+<p>I bowed. "I will see you again, Miss Prince. I thank you for a
+pleasant half-hour."</p>
+
+<p>The Martian led her away. Her little figure was like a child with a
+giant. It seemed, as they passed the length of the deck, with me
+staring after them, that he took her arm roughly. And that she shrank
+from him in fear.</p>
+
+<p>And they did not go inside. As though to show me that he had merely
+taken her from me, he stopped at a distant deck window and stood
+talking to her. Once he picked her up as one would pick up a child to
+show it some distant object through the window.</p>
+
+<p>Was Anita afraid of this Martian's wooing? Yet was held to him by some
+power he might have over her brother? The vagrant thought struck me.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>VIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>The rest of that afternoon and evening were a blank confusion to me.
+Anita's words, the touch of my hand on her arm, that vast realm of
+what might be for us, like the glimpse of a magic land of happiness
+which I had seen in her eyes, and perhaps she had seen in mine&mdash;all
+this surged within me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>After wandering about the ship, I had a brief consultation with
+Captain Carter. He was genuinely apprehensive now. The <i>Planetara</i>
+carried only a half-dozen of the heat-ray projectors, no long range
+weapons, a few side arms, and some old-fashioned, practically
+antiquated weapons of explosives, plus hand projectors with the new
+Benson curve light.</p>
+
+<p>The weapons were all in Carter's chart room, save the few we officers
+always carried. Carter was afraid, but of what, he was not sure. He
+had not thought that our plan to stop at the Moon could affect this
+outward voyage. He had thought that any danger would occur on the way
+back, and then the <i>Planetara</i> would have been adequately guarded and
+manned with police-soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>But now we were practically defenseless. I had a moment with Venza,
+but she had nothing new to communicate. And for half an hour I chatted
+with George Prince. He seemed a gay, pleasant young man. I could
+almost have fancied I liked him. Or was it because he was Anita's
+brother? He told me how he looked forward to traveling with her on
+Mars. No, he had never been there before, he said.</p>
+
+<p>He had a measure of Anita's earnest na&iuml;ve personality. Or was he a
+very clever scoundrel, with irony lurking in his soft voice, and a
+chuckle that could so befool me?</p>
+
+<p>"Well talk again, Haljan. You interest me&mdash;I've enjoyed it."</p>
+
+<p>He sauntered away from me, joining the saturnine Ob Hahn, with whom
+presently I heard him discussing religion.</p>
+
+<p>The arrest of Johnson had caused considerable discussion among the
+passengers. A few had seen me drag him forward to the cage. The
+incident had been the subject of discussion all afternoon. Captain
+Carter had posted a notice to the effect that Johnson's accounts had
+been found in serious error, and that Dr. Frank for this voyage would
+act in his stead.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was near midnight when Snap and I closed and sealed the radio room
+and started for the chart room, where we were to meet with Captain
+Carter and the other officers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> The passengers had nearly all retired.
+A game was in progress in the smoking room, but the deck was almost
+deserted.</p>
+
+<p>Snap and I were passing along one of the interior corridors. The
+stateroom doors were all closed. The metal grid of the floor echoed
+our footsteps. Snap was in advance of me. His body suddenly rose in
+the air. He went like a balloon to the ceiling, struck it gently, and
+all in a heap came floating down and landed on the floor!</p>
+
+<p>"What in the infernal&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was laughing as he picked himself up. But it was a brief laugh. We
+knew what had happened: the artificial gravity controls in the base of
+the ship, which by magnetic force gave us normality aboard, were being
+tampered with! For just this instant, this particular small section of
+this corridor had been cut off. The slight bulk of the <i>Planetara</i>,
+floating in space, had no appreciable gravity pull on Snap's body, and
+the impulse of his step as he came to the unmagnetized area of the
+corridor had thrown him to the ceiling. The area was normal now. Snap
+and I tested it gingerly.</p>
+
+<p>He gripped me. "That never went wrong by accident, Gregg! Someone&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room
+the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were
+here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There
+should have been a night operator, but he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Than we saw him lying nearby, sprawled, face down on the floor! In the
+silence and dim, lurid glow of the fluorescent tubes, we stood holding
+our breaths, peering and listening. No one here.</p>
+
+<p>The guard was not dead. He lay unconscious from a blow on the head. A
+brawny fellow. We had him revived in a few moments. A broadcast flash
+of the call buzz brought Dr. Frank from the chart room.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Someone was here," I said hastily, "experimenting with the magnetic
+switches. Evidently unfamiliar with them&mdash;pulling one or another to
+test their workings and so see their reactions on the dials."</p>
+
+<p>We told him what had happened to Snap in the corridor; the guard here
+was no worse off for the episode, save a lump on the head by an
+invisible assailant. We left him nursing his head, sitting belligerent
+at his post, alert to any danger and armed now with my heat-ray
+cylinder.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange doings this voyage," he told us. "All the crew knows it. I'll
+stick it out now, but when we get back home I'm done with this star
+travelin'. I belong on the sea anyway."</p>
+
+<p>We hurried back to the upper level. We would indeed have to plan
+something at this chart room conference. This was the first tangible
+attack our adversaries had made.</p>
+
+<p>We were on the passenger deck headed for the chart room when all three
+of us stopped short, frozen with horror. Through the silent passenger
+quarters a scream rang out! A girl's shuddering, gasping scream.
+Terror in it. Horror. Or a scream of agony. In the silence of the
+dully vibrating ship it was utterly horrible.... It lasted an
+instant&mdash;a single long scream; then was abruptly stilled.</p>
+
+<p>And with blood pounding my temples and rushing like ice through my
+veins, I recognized it.</p>
+
+<p>Anita!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>IX</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Good God, what was that?" Dr. Frank's face had gone white. Snap stood
+like a statue of horror.</p>
+
+<p>The deck here was patched as always, with silver radiance from the
+deck ports. The empty deck chairs stood about. The scream was stilled,
+but now we heard a commotion inside&mdash;the rasp of opening cabin doors;
+questions from frightened passengers.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I found my voice. "Anita! Anita Prince!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come on!" shouted Snap. "In her stateroom, A22!" He was dashing for
+the lounge archway.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank and I followed. I realized that we passed the deck door and
+window of A22. But they were dark, and evidently sealed on the inside.
+The dim lounge was in a turmoil; passengers standing at their cabin
+doors.</p>
+
+<p>I shouted, "Go back to your rooms! We want order here&mdash;keep back!"</p>
+
+<p>We came to the twin doors of A22 and A20. Both were closed. Dr. Frank
+was in advance of Snap and me now. He paused at the sound of Captain
+Carter's voice behind us.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it from in there? Wait a moment!"</p>
+
+<p>Carter dashed up. He had a large heat-ray projector in his hand. He
+shoved us aside. "Let me in first. Is the door sealed? Gregg, keep
+those passengers back!"</p>
+
+<p>The door was not sealed. Carter burst into the room. I heard him gasp,
+"Good God!"</p>
+
+<p>Snap and I shoved back three or four passengers. And in that instant
+Dr. Frank had been in the room and out again.</p>
+
+<p>"There's been an accident! Get back, Gregg! Snap, help me keep the
+crowd away." He shoved me forcibly.</p>
+
+<p>From within, Carter was shouting, "Keep them out! Where are you,
+Frank? Come back here! Send a flash for Balch!"</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank went back into the room and banged the cabin door upon Snap
+and me. I was unarmed. Weapon in hand, Snap forced the panic-stricken
+passengers back to their rooms.</p>
+
+<p>Snap reassured them glibly; but he knew no more about the facts than
+I. Moa, with a nightrobe drawn tight around her thin, tall figure,
+edged up to me.</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened, <i>Set</i> Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>I gazed around for her brother Miko, but did not see him.</p>
+
+<p>"An accident," I said shortly. "Go back to your room. Captain's
+orders."</p>
+
+<p>She eyed me and then retreated. Snap was threatening<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> everybody with
+his cylinder. Balch dashed up. "What in hell! Where is Carter?"</p>
+
+<p>"In there." I pounded on A22. It opened cautiously. I could see only
+Carter, but I heard the murmuring voice of Dr. Frank through the
+interior connecting door to A20.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain rasped, "Get out, Haljan! Oh, is that you, Balch? Come
+in." He admitted the older officer and slammed the door upon me again.
+And immediately reopened it.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, keep the passengers quieted. Tell them everything's all right.
+Miss Prince got frightened&mdash;that's all. Then go to the turret. Tell
+Blackstone what's happened."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't know what's happened."</p>
+
+<p>Carter was grim and white. He whispered, "I think it may turn out to
+be murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet.... Dr. Frank is trying ... don't
+stand there like an ass, man. Get to the turret! Verify our
+trajectory&mdash;no&mdash;wait...."</p>
+
+<p>The Captain was almost incoherent. "Wait a minute. I don't mean that!
+Tell Snap to watch his radio room. Arm yourselves and guard our
+weapons."</p>
+
+<p>I stammered, "If ... if she dies ... will you flash us word?"</p>
+
+<p>He stared at me strangely. "I'll be there presently, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>He slammed the door upon me.</p>
+
+<p>I followed his orders but it was like a dream of horror. The turmoil
+of the ship gradually quieted. Snap went to the radio room; Blackstone
+and I sat in the tiny chart room; how much time passed, I do not know.
+I was confused. Anita hurt! She might die ... murdered.... But why? By
+whom? Had George Prince been in his own room when the attack came? I
+thought now I recalled hearing the low murmur of his voice in there
+with Dr. Frank.</p>
+
+<p>Where was Miko? It stabbed at me. I had not seen him among the
+passengers in the lounge.</p>
+
+<p>Carter came into the chart room. "Gregg, you get to bed. You look like
+a ghost."</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"She's not dead. She may live. Dr. Frank and her brother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> are with
+her. They're doing all they can." He told us what had happened. Anita
+and George Prince had both been asleep, each in his respective room.
+Someone unknown had opened Anita's corridor door.</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't it sealed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But the intruder opened it."</p>
+
+<p>"Burst it? I didn't think it was broken."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't broken. The assailant opened it somehow, and assaulted Miss
+Prince&mdash;shot her in the chest with a heat ray. Her left lung."</p>
+
+<p>"Shot her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But she did not see who did it. Nor did Prince. Her scream
+awakened him, but the intruder evidently fled out the corridor door of
+A22, the way he entered."</p>
+
+<p>I stood weak and shaken at the chart room entrance. Anita&mdash;dying,
+perhaps; and all my dreams were fading into a memory of what might
+have been.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad enough to get away. I would lie down for an hour and then
+go to Anita's stateroom. I'd demand that Dr. Frank let me see her.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the stern deck where my cubby was located. My mind was
+confused but some instinct within me made me verify the seals of my
+door and window. They were intact. I entered cautiously, switched on
+the dimmer of the tube lights, and searched the room. It had only a
+bunk, my tiny desk, a chair and clothes robe. There was no evidence of
+any intruder here. I set my door and window alarm. Then I audiphoned
+to the radio room.</p>
+
+<p>"Snap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>I told him about Anita. Carter cut in on us from the chart room. "Stop
+that, you fools!"</p>
+
+<p>We cut off. Fully dressed, I flung myself on my bed. Anita might
+die....</p>
+
+<p>I must have fallen into a tortured sleep, I was awakened by the sound
+of my alarm buzzer. Someone was tampering with my door! Then the
+buzzer ceased; the marauder out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>side must have found a way of
+silencing it. But it had done its work&mdash;awakened me.</p>
+
+<p>I had switched off the light; my cubby was Stygian black. A heat
+cylinder was in the bunk-bracket over my head. I searched for it,
+pried it loose softly.</p>
+
+<p>I was fully awake. Alert. I could hear a faint sizzling&mdash;someone
+outside trying to unseal the door. In the darkness, cylinder in hand,
+I crept softly from the bunk. Crouched at the door. This time I would
+capture or kill this night prowler.</p>
+
+<p>The sizzling was faintly audible. My door seal was breaking. Upon
+impulse I reached for the door, jerked it open.</p>
+
+<p>No one there! The starlit segment of deck was empty. But I leaped and
+struck a solid body, crouching in the doorway. A giant man. Miko!</p>
+
+<p>His electronized metallic robe burned my hands. I lunged against
+him&mdash;I was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heat
+evidently missed him. The shock of my encounter, short-circuited his
+robe; he materialized in the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. He
+struck the weapon from my hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, and
+tried to grip me. But I twisted away from his hold.</p>
+
+<p>"So it's you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Quiet, Gregg Haljan! I only want to talk."</p>
+
+<p>Without warning, a stab of radiance shot from a weapon in his hand. It
+caught me. Ran like ice through my veins. Seized and numbed my limbs.</p>
+
+<p>I fell helpless to the deck. Nerves and muscles paralyzed. My tongue
+was thick and inert. I could not speak, nor move. But I could see Miko
+bending over me, and hear him:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to kill you, Haljan. We need you."</p>
+
+<p>He gathered me up like a bundle in his huge arms; carried me swiftly
+across the deserted deck.</p>
+
+<p>Snap's radio room in the network under the dome was diagonally
+overhead. A white actinic light shot from it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>&mdash;caught us, bathed us.
+Snap had been awake; had heard the commotion of our encounter.</p>
+
+<p>His voice rang shrilly: "Stop! I'll shoot!" His warning siren rang out
+to alert the ship. His spotlight clung to us.</p>
+
+<p>Miko ran with me a few steps. Then he cursed and dropped me; fled
+away. I fell like a sack of carbide to the deck. My senses faded into
+blackness....</p>
+
+<p>"He's all right now."</p>
+
+<p>I was in the chart room with Captain Carter, Snap and Dr. Frank
+bending over me. The surgeon said,</p>
+
+<p>"Can you speak now, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>I tried it. My tongue was thick, but it moved. "Yes." I was soon
+revived. I sat up, with Dr. Frank vigorously rubbing me.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all right." I told them what had happened.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Carter said, "Yes, we know that. And it was Miko also who
+killed Anita Prince. She told us before she died."</p>
+
+<p>"Died!..." I leaped to my feet. "She ... died...."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Gregg. An hour ago. Miko got into her stateroom and tried to
+force his love upon her. She repulsed him. He killed her...."</p>
+
+<p>It struck me blank. And then with a rush came the thought, "He says
+Miko killed her"....</p>
+
+<p>I heard myself stammering, "Why&mdash;why we must get him!" I gathered my
+wits; a surge of hate swept me; a wild desire for vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, by God, where is he? Why don't you go get him? I'll get
+him&mdash;I'll kill him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Easy, Gregg!" Dr. Frank gripped me.</p>
+
+<p>The Captain said gently. "We know how you feel, Gregg. She told us
+before she died."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bring him in here to you! But I'll kill him, I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"No you won't, lad. We don't want him killed, not attacked, even. Not
+yet. We'll explain later."</p>
+
+<p>They sat me down, calming me....<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Anita dead. The door of the shining garden was closed. A brief glimpse
+given to me and to her of what might have been. And now she was
+dead....</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>X</h2>
+
+
+<p>I had not been able at first to understand why Captain Carter wanted
+Miko left at liberty. Within me there was that cry of vengeance, as
+though to strike Miko down would somehow lessen my own grief. Whatever
+Carter's purpose, Snap had not known it. But Balch and Dr. Frank were
+in the Captain's confidence&mdash;all three of them working on some plan of
+action.</p>
+
+<p>It was obvious that at least two of our passengers were plotting with
+Miko and George Prince; trying on this voyage to learn what they could
+about Grantline's activities on the Moon&mdash;scheming doubtless to seize
+the treasure when the <i>Planetara</i> stopped at the Moon on the return
+voyage. I thought I could name those masquerading passengers. Ob Hahn,
+supposedly a Venus mystic. And Rance Rankin, who called himself an
+American magician. Those two, Snap and I agreed, seemed most
+suspicious. And there was the purser.</p>
+
+<p>I sat for a time on the deck outside the chart room with Snap. Then
+Carter summoned us back, and we sat listening while he, Balch and Dr.
+Frank went on with their conference. Listening to them, I could not
+but agree that our best plan was to secure evidence which would
+incriminate all who were concerned in the plot. Miko, we were
+convinced, had been the Martian who followed Snap and me from Halsey's
+office in Greater New York. George Prince had doubtless been the
+invisible eavesdropper outside the radio room. He knew, and had told
+the others that Grantline had found that priceless metal on the Moon
+and that the <i>Planetara</i> would stop there on the way home.</p>
+
+<p>But we could not incarcerate George Prince for being an eavesdropper.
+Nor had we the faintest possible evidence<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> against Ob Hahn or Rankin.
+And even the purser would probably be released by the Interplanetary
+Court of Ferrok-Shahn when it heard our evidence.</p>
+
+<p>There was only Miko. We could arrest him for the murder of Anita. But
+if we did that now, the others would be put on their guard. It was
+Carter's idea to let Miko remain at liberty for a time and see if we
+could identify and incriminate his fellows. The murder of Anita
+obviously had nothing to do with any plot against Grantline Moon
+treasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," exclaimed Balch, "there might be&mdash;probably are&mdash;huge Martian
+interests concerned in this thing. These men aboard are only
+emissaries, making this voyage to learn what they can. When they get
+to Ferrok-Shahn, they'll make their report, and then we'll have a real
+danger on our hands. Why, an outlaw ship could be launched from
+Ferrok-Shahn that would beat us back to the Moon&mdash;and Grantline is
+entirely without warning of any danger!"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed obvious. Unscrupulous criminals in Ferrok-Shahn would be
+dangerous indeed, once these details of Grantline were given them. So
+now it was decided that in the remaining nine days of our outward
+voyage, we would attempt to secure enough evidence to arrest all these
+plotters.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have them all in the cage when we land," declared Carter grimly.
+"They'll make no report to their principals!"</p>
+
+<p>Ah, the futile plans of men!</p>
+
+<p>Yet, at the time, we thought it practical. We were all doubly armed
+now. Bullet projectors and heat ray cylinders. And we had several
+eavesdropping microphones which we planned to use whenever occasion
+offered.</p>
+
+<p>Only twenty-eight hours of this eventful voyage had passed. The
+<i>Planetara</i> was some six million miles from the Earth; it blazed
+behind us, a tremendous giant.</p>
+
+<p>The body of Anita was being made ready for burial. George Prince was
+still in his stateroom. Glutz, effeminate little hairdresser, who
+waxed rich acting as beauty doctor for the women passengers, and who,
+in his youth, had been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> an undertaker, had gone with Dr. Frank to
+prepare the body.</p>
+
+<p>Gruesome details. I tried not to think of them. I sat, numbed, in the
+chart room.</p>
+
+<p>An astronomical burial&mdash;there was little precedent for it. I dragged
+myself to the stern deck where, at five <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>, the ceremony took place.</p>
+
+<p>We were a solemn little group, gathered there in the checkered
+starlight with the great vault of the heavens around us. A dismantled
+electronic projector&mdash;necessary when a long range gun was mounted&mdash;had
+been rigged up in one of the deck ports.</p>
+
+<p>They brought out the body. I stood apart, gazing reluctantly at the
+small bundle, wrapped like a mummy in a dark metallic screen-cloth. A
+patch of black silk rested over her face. Four cabin stewards carried
+her; and beside her walked George Prince. A long black robe covered
+him, but his head was bare. And suddenly he reminded me of the ancient
+play-character of Hamlet. His black, wavy hair; his finely chiseled,
+pallid face, set now in a stern patrician cast. And staring, I
+realized that however much of the villain this man might be, at this
+instant, walking beside the body of his dead sister, he was stricken
+with grief. He loved that sister with whom he had lived since
+childhood; and to see him now no one could doubt it.</p>
+
+<p>The little procession stopped in a patch of starlight by the port.
+They rested the body on a bank of chairs. The black-robed chaplain,
+roused from his bed and still trembling from excitement of this
+sudden, inexplicable death on board, said a brief, solemn little
+prayer. An appeal: That the Almighty Ruler of all these blazing worlds
+might guard the soul of this gentle girl whose mortal remains were now
+to be returned to Him.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, if ever God seemed hovering close, it was now at this instant, on
+this starlit deck floating in the black void of space.</p>
+
+<p>Then Carter for just a moment removed the black shroud from her face.
+I saw her brother gaze silently; saw him stoop<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> and implant a
+kiss&mdash;and turn away. I did not want to look, but I found myself moving
+slowly forward.</p>
+
+<p>She lay, so beautiful. Her face, white and calm and peaceful in death.
+My sight blurred.</p>
+
+<p>"Easy Gregg," Snap was whispering to me. He had his arm around me.
+"Come on away."</p>
+
+<p>They tied the shroud over her face. I did not see them as they put the
+body in the tube, sent it through the exhaust chamber and dropped it.</p>
+
+<p>But a moment later I saw it, a small black, oblong bundle hovering
+beside us. It was perhaps a hundred feet away, circling us. Held by
+the <i>Planetara's</i> bulk, it had momentarily become our satellite. It
+swung around us like a moon. Gruesome satellite, by nature's laws
+forever to follow us.</p>
+
+<p>Then from another tube at the bow, Blackstone operated a small
+zed-co-ray projector. Its dull light caught the floating bundle,
+neutralizing its metallic wrappings.</p>
+
+<p>It swung off at a tangent. Speeding. Falling free in the dome of the
+heavens. A rotating black oblong. But in a moment distance dwindled it
+to a speck. A dull silver dot with the sunlight on it. A speck of
+human Earth dust, falling free....</p>
+
+<p>It vanished. Anita&mdash;gone.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XI</h2>
+
+
+<p>I turned from the deck. Miko was near me! So he had dared show himself
+here among us! But I realized he could not be aware we knew he was the
+murderer. George Prince had been asleep, had not seen Miko with Anita.
+Miko, with impulsive rage had shot the girl and escaped. No doubt now
+he was cursing himself for having done it. And he could very well
+assume that Anita had died without regaining consciousness to tell who
+had killed her.</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at me now. I thought for an instant he was coming over to
+talk with me. Though he probably considered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> he was not suspected of
+the murder of Anita, he realized, of course, that his attack on me was
+known. He must have wondered what action would be taken.</p>
+
+<p>But he did not approach me. He moved away and went inside. Moa had
+been near him; and as though by prearrangement with him she now
+accosted me.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to speak to you, <i>Set</i> Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>I felt an instinctive aversion to this Martian girl. Yet she was not
+unattractive. Over six feet tall, straight and slim. Sleek blond hair.
+Rather a handsome face; not gray, like the burly Miko, but pink and
+white; stern lipped, but feminine, too. She was smiling gravely now.
+Her blue eyes regarded me keenly. She said gently:</p>
+
+<p>"A sad occurrence, Gregg Haljan. And mysterious. I would not question
+you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that all you have to say?" I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"No. You are a handsome man, Gregg&mdash;attractive to women&mdash;to any
+Martian woman."</p>
+
+<p>She said it impulsively. Admiration for me was on her face, in her
+eyes&mdash;a man cannot miss it.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, I would be your friend. My brother Miko is so sorry about
+what happened between you and him this morning. He only wanted to talk
+to you, and he came to your cubby door&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"With a torch to break its seal," I interjected.</p>
+
+<p>She waved that away. "He was afraid you would not admit him. He told
+you he would not harm you."</p>
+
+<p>"And so he struck me with one of your Martian paralyzing rays!"</p>
+
+<p>"He is sorry...."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed gauging me, trying, no doubt, to find out what reprisal
+would be taken against her brother. I felt sure that Moa was as active
+as a man in any plan that was under way to capture the Grantline
+treasure. Miko, with his ungovern<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>able temper, was doing things that
+put their plans in jeopardy.</p>
+
+<p>I demanded, "What did your brother want to talk to me about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me," she said surprisingly. "I sent him. A Martian girl goes after
+what she wants. Did you know that?"</p>
+
+<p>She swung on her heel and left me. I puzzled over it. Was that why
+Miko struck me down and was carrying me off? I did not think so. I
+could not believe that all these incidents were so unrelated to what I
+knew was the main undercurrent They wanted me, had tried to capture me
+for something else.</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank found me mooning alone. "Go to bed, Gregg. You look awful."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Snap?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. He was here a little while ago." I had not seen him
+since the burial of Anita.</p>
+
+<p>"The Captain wants him," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Within an hour the morning siren would arouse the passengers. I was
+seated in a secluded corner of the deck, when George Prince came
+along. He went past me, a slight, somber, dark-robed figure. He had on
+high, thick boots. A hood was over his head, but as he saw me he
+pushed it back and dropped down beside me.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he did not speak. His face showed pallid in the dim
+starlight.</p>
+
+<p>"She said you loved her." His soft voice was throaty with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." I said it almost against my will. There seemed a bond springing
+between this bereaved brother and me. He added, so softly I could
+barely hear him: "That makes you, I think, almost my friend. And you
+thought you were my enemy."</p>
+
+<p>I held my answer. An incautious tongue running under emotion is a
+dangerous thing. And I was sure of nothing.</p>
+
+<p>He went on, "Almost my friend. Because&mdash;we both loved her, and she
+loved us both." He was hardly more than whis<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>pering. "And there is
+aboard one whom we both hate."</p>
+
+<p>"Miko!" It burst from me.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But do not say it."</p>
+
+<p>Another silence fell between us. He brushed back the black curls from
+his forehead. "Have you an eavesdropping microphone, Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking...." He leaned closer. "If, in half an hour, you could
+use it upon Miko's cabin&mdash;I would rather tell you than anyone else.
+The cabin will be insulated, but I shall find a way of cutting off
+that insulation so that you can hear."</p>
+
+<p>So George Prince had turned with us. The shock of his sister's
+death&mdash;himself allied with her murderer&mdash;had been too much for him. He
+was with us!</p>
+
+<p>Yet his help must be given secretly. Miko would kill him instantly if
+it became known. He had been watchful of the deck. He stood up now.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that is all."</p>
+
+<p>As he turned away, I murmured, "But I do thank you...."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The name <i>Set</i> Miko glowed upon the door. It was in a transverse
+corridor similar to A22. The corridor was forward of the lounge: it
+opened off the small circular library.</p>
+
+<p>The library was unoccupied and unlighted, dim with only the reflected
+lights from the nearby passages. I crouched behind a cylinder case.
+The door of Miko's room was in sight.</p>
+
+<p>I waited perhaps five minutes. No one entered. Then I realized that
+doubtless the conspirators were already there. I set my tiny
+eavesdropper on the library floor beside me; connected its little
+battery; focused its projector. Was Miko's room insulated? I could not
+tell. There was a small ventilating grid above the door. Across its
+opening, if the room was insulated, a blue sheen of radiance would be
+showing. And there would be a faint hum. But from this distance I
+could not see or hear such details, and I was afraid to approach
+closer. Once in the transverse corridor, I would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> no place to
+hide, no way of escape. If anyone approached Miko's door, I would be
+trapped.</p>
+
+<p>I threw the current into my apparatus. I prayed, if it met
+interference, that the slight sound would pass unnoticed. George
+Prince had said that he would make opportunity to disconnect the
+room's insulation. He had evidently done so. I picked up the interior
+sounds at once; my headphone vibrated with them. And with trembling
+fingers on the little dial between my knees as I crouched in the
+darkness behind the cylinder case, I synchronized.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson is a fool." It was Miko's voice. "We must have the
+passwords."</p>
+
+<p>"He got them from the radio room." A man's voice: I puzzled over it at
+first, then recognized it. Rance Rankin.</p>
+
+<p>Miko said, "He is a fool. Walking around this ship as though with
+letters blazoned on his forehead, 'Watch me.... I need watching.' Hah!
+No wonder they apprehended him!"</p>
+
+<p>Rankin's voice said: "He would have turned the papers over to us. I
+would not blame him too much. What harm&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll release him," Miko declared. "What harm? That braying ass
+did us plenty of harm. He has lost the passwords. Better he had left
+them in the radio room."</p>
+
+<p>Moa was in the room. Her voice said, "We've got to have them. The
+<i>Planetara</i>, upon such an important voyage as this, might be watched."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt it is," Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have the
+passwords. When we are in control of this ship...."</p>
+
+<p>It sent a shiver through me. Were they planning to try and seize the
+<i>Planetara</i>? Now? It seemed so.</p>
+
+<p>"Johnson undoubtedly memorized them," Moa was saying. "When we get him
+out&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hahn is to do that, at the signal." Miko added, "George could do it
+better, perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>And then I heard George Prince for the first time, "I'll try."</p>
+
+<p>"No need," Miko said unexpectedly.</p>
+
+<p>I could not see what had happened. A look, perhaps,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> which Prince
+could not avoid giving this man he had come to hate. Miko doubtless
+saw it, and the Martian's hot anger leaped.</p>
+
+<p>Rankin said hurriedly, "Stop that!"</p>
+
+<p>And Moa, "Let him alone, you fool! Sit down!"</p>
+
+<p>I could hear the sound of a scuffle. A blow&mdash;a cry, half suppressed,
+from George Prince.</p>
+
+<p>Then Miko: "I will not hurt him. Craven coward! Look at him! Hating
+me&mdash;frightened!"</p>
+
+<p>I could fancy George Prince sitting there with murder in his heart,
+and Miko taunting him:</p>
+
+<p>"Hates me now, because I shot his sister!"</p>
+
+<p>Moa: "Hush!"</p>
+
+<p>"I will not! Why should I not say it? I will tell you something else,
+George Prince. It was not Anita I shot at, but you! I meant nothing
+for her but love. If you had not interfered&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This was different from what we had figured. George Prince had come in
+from his own room, had tried to rescue his sister, and in the scuffle,
+Anita had taken the shot instead of George.</p>
+
+<p>"I did not even know I had hit her," Miko was saying. "Not until I
+heard she was dead." He added sardonically, "I hoped it was you I had
+hit, George. And I will tell you this: you hate me no more than I hate
+you. If it were not for your knowledge of ores&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Is this to be a personal wrangle?" Rankin interrupted. "I thought we
+were here to plan&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It is planned," Miko said shortly. "I give orders, I do not plan. I
+am waiting now for the moment&mdash;" He checked himself.</p>
+
+<p>Moa said, "Does Rankin understand that no harm is to come to Gregg
+Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Rankin said. "And Dean. We need them, of course. But you cannot
+make Dean send messages if he refuses, nor make Haljan navigate."</p>
+
+<p>"I know enough to check on them," Miko said grimly.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> "They will not
+fool me. And they will obey me, have no fear. A little touch of
+sulphuric&mdash;" His laugh was gruesome. "It makes the most stubborn, very
+willing."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish," said Moa, "we had Haljan safely hidden. If he is
+hurt&mdash;killed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>So that was why Miko had tried to capture me? To keep me safe so that
+I might navigate the ship.</p>
+
+<p>It occurred to me that I should get Carter at once. A plot to seize
+the <i>Planetara</i>&mdash;but when?</p>
+
+<p>I froze with startled horror.</p>
+
+<p>The diaphragms at my ears rang with Miko's words: "I have set the time
+for now&mdash;two minutes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to startle Rankin and George Prince as much as it did me.
+Both exclaimed: "No!"</p>
+
+<p>"No? Why not? Everyone is at his post!"</p>
+
+<p>Prince repeated, "No!"</p>
+
+<p>And Rankin, "But can we trust them? The stewards&mdash;the crew?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eight of them are our own men! You didn't know that, Rankin? They've
+been aboard the <i>Planetara</i> for several voyages. Oh, this is no
+quickly planned affair, even though we let you in on it so recently.
+You and Johnson.... By God!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a commotion in the stateroom. I crouched, tense. Miko had
+discovered that his insulation had been cut off! He had evidently
+leaped to his feet. I heard a chair overturn. And the Martian's roar:
+"It's off! Did you do that, Prince? By God, if I thought&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>My apparatus went suddenly dead as Miko flung on his insulation. I
+lost my wits in the confusion: I should have instantly taken off my
+vibrations. There was interference: it showed in the dark space of the
+ventilator grid over Miko's doorway, a snapping in the air, there&mdash;a
+swirl of sparks.</p>
+
+<p>I heard with my unaided ears Miko's roar over his insulation: "By God,
+they're listening!"</p>
+
+<p>The scream of hand sirens sounded from his stateroom. It rang over the
+ship. His signal! I heard it answered from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> some distant point. And
+then a shot: a commotion in the lower corridors....</p>
+
+<p>The attack upon the <i>Planetara</i> had begun!</p>
+
+<p>I was on my feet. The shouts of startled passengers sounded, a turmoil
+beginning everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>I stood momentarily transfixed. The door of Miko's stateroom burst
+open. He stood there, with Rankin, Moa and George Prince crowding him.</p>
+
+<p>He saw me. "You, Gregg Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>He came leaping at me.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XII</h2>
+
+
+<p>I was taken wholly by surprise. There was an instant when I stood
+numbed, fumbling for a weapon at my belt, undecided whether to run or
+stand my ground. Miko was no more than twenty feet from me. He checked
+his forward rush. The light from an overhead tube was on him: I saw in
+his hand the cylinder projector of his paralyzing ray.</p>
+
+<p>I plucked my heat cylinder from my belt, and fired without taking aim.
+My tiny heat beam flashed. I must have grazed Miko's hand. His roar of
+anger and pain rang out over the turmoil. He dropped his weapon; then
+stooped to pick it up. But Moa forestalled him. She leaped and seized
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Careful! Fool, you promised not to harm him!"</p>
+
+<p>A confusion of swift action. Rankin had turned and darted away. I saw
+George Prince stumbling half in front of the struggling Miko and Moa.
+And I heard footsteps beside me. A hand gripped me, jerked at me.</p>
+
+<p>Over the turmoil, Prince's voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>I recall that I had the impression that Prince was frightened; he had
+half fallen in front of Miko. And there was Miko's voice: "Let go of
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Balch gripping me. "Gregg! This way&mdash;run! Get out of here!
+He'll kill you with that ray!"</p>
+
+<p>Miko's ray flashed, but George Prince had knocked his arm.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> I did not
+dare fire again. Prince was in the way. Balch, who was unarmed, shoved
+me violently back.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg! The chart room!"</p>
+
+<p>I turned and ran, with Balch after me. Prince had fallen or been
+felled by Miko. A flash followed me from Miko's weapon, but again it
+missed. He did not pursue me. Instead he ran the other way, through
+the portside door of the library.</p>
+
+<p>Balch and I found ourselves in the library. Shouting, frightened
+passengers were everywhere. The place was in wild confusion, the whole
+ship ringing now with shouts.</p>
+
+<p>"To the chart room, Gregg!"</p>
+
+<p>I called to the passengers, "Go back to your rooms!"</p>
+
+<p>I followed Balch. We ran through the archway to the deck. In the
+starlight I saw figures scurrying aft, but none were near us. The deck
+forward was dim with heavy shadows. The oval windows and door of the
+chart room were blue-yellow from the tube lights inside. No one seemed
+on the deck there. And then as we approached, I saw further forward in
+the bow, the trap door to the cage standing open. Johnson had been
+released.</p>
+
+<p>From one of the chart room windows a heat ray sizzled. It barely
+missed us. Balch shouted, "Carter&mdash;don't!"</p>
+
+<p>The Captain called, "Oh you, Balch&mdash;and Haljan&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He came out on the deck as we rushed up. His left arm was dangling
+limp.</p>
+
+<p>"God&mdash;this&mdash;" He got no further. From the turret overhead a tiny
+search beam came down and disclosed us. Blackstone was supposed to be
+on duty up there, with a course master at the controls. But, glancing
+up, I saw, illumined by the turret lights, the figure of Ob Hahn in
+his purple-white robe, and Johnson, the purser. And on the turret
+balcony, two fallen men&mdash;Blackstone and the course master.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson was training the spotlight on us. And Hahn fired a Martian
+ray. It struck Balch beside me. He dropped.</p>
+
+<p>Carter was shouting, "Inside&mdash;Gregg! Get inside!"</p>
+
+<p>I stopped to raise up Balch. Another beam came down. A heat ray this
+time. It caught the fallen Balch full on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> chest, piercing him
+through. The smell of his burning flesh rose to sicken me. He was
+dead. I dropped his body. Carter shoved me into the chart room.</p>
+
+<p>In the small, steel-lined room, Carter and I slid the door closed. We
+were alone here. The thing had come so quickly it had taken Captain
+Carter, like us all, wholly unawares. We had anticipated spying
+eavesdroppers, but not this open brigandage. No more than a minute or
+two had passed since Miko's siren in his stateroom had given the
+signal for attack. Carter had been in the chart room. Blackstone was
+in the turret. At the outbreak of confusion, Carter dashed out to see
+Hahn releasing Johnson from the cage. From the forward chart room
+window now I could see where Hahn with a torch had broken the cage
+seal. The torch lay on the deck. There had been an exchange of shots;
+Carter's arm was paralyzed; Johnson and Hahn had escaped.</p>
+
+<p>Carter was as confused as I. There had simultaneously been an
+encounter up in the turret. Blackstone and the course master were
+killed. The lookout had been shot from his post in the forward
+observatory. The body dangled now, twisted half in and half out the
+window.</p>
+
+<p>We could see several of Miko's men&mdash;erstwhile members of our crew and
+steward corps&mdash;scurrying from the turret along the upper bridge toward
+the dark and silent radio room. Snap was up there. But was he? The
+radio room glowed suddenly with dim light, but there was no evidence
+of a fight there. The fighting seemed mostly below the deck, down in
+the hull corridors. A blended horror of sounds came up to us. Screams,
+shouts and the hissing and snapping of ray weapons. Our crew&mdash;such of
+them as were loyal&mdash;were making a stand below. But it was brief.
+Within a minute it died away. The passengers, amidships in the
+superstructure, were still shouting. Then above them Miko's roar
+sounded.</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet! Go in your rooms&mdash;you will not be harmed."</p>
+
+<p>The brigands in these few minutes were in control of the ship. All but
+this little chart room, where, with most of the ship's weapons, Carter
+and I were entrenched.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"God, Gregg, that this should come upon us!"</p>
+
+<p>Carter was fumbling with the chart room weapons. "Here, Gregg. Help
+me. What have you got? Heat ray? That's all I had ready."</p>
+
+<p>It struck me then as I helped him make the connections that Carter in
+this crisis was at best an inefficient commander. His red face had
+gone splotchy purple; his hands were trembling. Skilled as Captain of
+a peaceful liner, he was at a loss now. But I could not blame him. It
+is easy to say we might have taken warning, done this or that, and
+come triumphant through the attack. But only the fool looks backward
+and says, "I would have done better."</p>
+
+<p>I tried to summon my wits. The ship was lost to us unless Carter and I
+could do something. Our futile weapons! They were all here&mdash;four or
+five heat ray hand projectors that could send a pencil ray a hundred
+feet or so. I shot one diagonally up at the turret where Johnson was
+leering down at our rear window, but he saw my gesture and dropped
+back out of sight. The heat beam flashed harmlessly up and struck the
+turret room. Then across the turret window came a sheen of
+radiance&mdash;an electrobarrage. And behind it, Hahn's suave, evil face
+appeared. He shouted down:</p>
+
+<p>"We have orders to spare you, Gregg Haljan&mdash;or you would have been
+killed long ago!"</p>
+
+<p>My answering shot hit his barrage with a shower of sparks, behind
+which he stood unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>Carter handed me another weapon. "Gregg, try this."</p>
+
+<p>I leveled the old explosive projector; Carter crouched beside me. But
+before I could press the trigger, from somewhere down the starlit deck
+an electro beam hit me. The little rifle exploded, broke its breech. I
+sank back to the floor, tingling from the shock of the hostile
+current. My hands were blackened from the exploded powder.</p>
+
+<p>Carter seized me. "No use. Hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>The stars through the dome windows were swinging. A long swing&mdash;the
+shadows and patterns on the starlit deck<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> were all shifting. The
+<i>Planetara</i> was turning. The heavens revolved in a great round sweep
+of movement, then settled as we took our new course.</p>
+
+<p>Hahn at the turret controls had swung us. The Earth and the Sun showed
+over our bow quarter. The sunlight mingled red-yellow with the
+brilliant starlight. Hahn's signals were sounding; I heard them
+answered from the mechanism rooms down below. Brigands there&mdash;in full
+control. The gravity plates were being set to the new positions: We
+were on our new course. Headed a point or two off the Earthline. Not
+headed for the Moon? I wondered.</p>
+
+<p>Carter and I were planning nothing. What was there to plan? We were
+under observation. A Martian paralyzing ray&mdash;or an electronic beam,
+far more deadly than our own puny weapons&mdash;would have struck us the
+instant we tried to leave the chart room.</p>
+
+<p>My thoughts were interrupted by a shout from down the deck. At a
+corner of the cabin superstructure some fifty feet from our windows
+the figure of Miko appeared. A radiance barrage hung about him like a
+shimmering mantle. His voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan, do you yield?"</p>
+
+<p>Carter leaped up from where he and I were crouching. Against all
+reason of safety he leaned from the low window, waving his hamlike
+fist.</p>
+
+<p>"Yield? No! I am in command here, you pirate! Brigand&mdash;murderer!"</p>
+
+<p>I dragged him back sharply. "For God's sake&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He was spluttering; and over it Miko's sardonic laugh sounded. "Shall
+we argue about it?"</p>
+
+<p>I stood up. "What do you want to say, Miko?"</p>
+
+<p>Behind him the tall, thin figure of his sister showed. She was
+plucking at him. He turned violently. "I won't harm him! Gregg
+Haljan&mdash;is this a truce? You will not shoot?" He was shielding Moa.</p>
+
+<p>"No," I called. "For a moment, no. A truce. What is it you want to
+say?"</p>
+
+<p>I could hear the babble of passengers who were herded in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> the cabin
+with brigands guarding them. George Prince, bare-headed, but shrouded
+in his cloak, showed in a patch of light behind Moa. He looked my way
+and then retreated.</p>
+
+<p>Miko called, "You must yield. We want you, Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt," I jeered.</p>
+
+<p>"Alive. It is easy to kill you."</p>
+
+<p>I could not doubt that. Carter and I were little more than rats in a
+trap. But Miko wanted to take me alive: that was not so simple. He
+added persuasively:</p>
+
+<p>"We want you to navigate us. Will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you help us, Captain Carter? Tell your cub, this Haljan, to
+yield."</p>
+
+<p>Carter roared, "Get back from there. There is no truce!"</p>
+
+<p>I shoved aside his leveled projector. "Wait a minute, Miko. Navigate
+where?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is our business. When you come out here, I will give you the
+course."</p>
+
+<p>I realized that all this parley was a ruse of Miko's to take me alive.
+He had made a gesture. Hahn, watching him from the turret window,
+doubtless flashed a signal down to the hull corridors. The magnetizer
+control under the chart room was altered, our artificial gravity cut
+off. I felt the sudden lightness: I gripped the window casement and
+clung. Carter was startled into incautious movement. It flung him out
+into the room, his arms and legs flailing.</p>
+
+<p>And across the chart room, in the opposite window, I felt rather than
+saw the shape of something. A figure, almost invisible but not quite,
+was trying to climb in! I flung the empty rifle I was holding. It hit
+something solid in the window. In a flare of sparks a blackhooded
+figure materialized. A man climbing in! His weapon spat. There was a
+tiny electronic flash, deadly silent. The intruder had shot at Carter:
+struck him. Carter gave one queer scream. He had floated to the floor;
+his convulsive movement when he was hit hurled him to the ceiling. His
+body struck; twitched;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> bounced back and sank inert on the floor grid
+almost at my feet.</p>
+
+<p>I clung to the casement. Across the room of the weightless room the
+hooded intruder was also clinging. His hood fell back. It was Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Killed him, the bully! Now for you, Mr. Third Officer Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>But he did not dare fire at me. Miko had forbidden it. I saw him reach
+under his robe, doubtless for a low-powered paralyzing ray. But he
+never got it out. I had no weapon within reach. I leaned into the
+room, still holding the casement, and doubled my legs under me. I
+kicked out from the window.</p>
+
+<p>The force catapulted me across the space across the room like a
+volplane. I struck the purser. We gripped. Our locked, struggling
+bodies bounced out into the room. We struck the floor, surged up like
+balloons to the ceiling, struck it with a flailing arm or leg and
+floated back.</p>
+
+<p>Grotesque, abnormal combat! Like fighting in weightless water. Johnson
+clutched his weapon, but I twisted his wrist, held his arm
+outstretched so that he could not aim it. I was aware of Miko's voice
+shouting on the deck outside.</p>
+
+<p>Johnson's left hand was gouging at my face, his fingers digging at my
+eyes. We lunged down.</p>
+
+<p>I twisted his wrists. He dropped the weapon and it sank away, I tried
+to reach it but could not.... Then I had him by the throat. I was
+stronger than he, and more agile. I tried choking him, I had his thick
+bull neck within my fingers. He kicked, scrambled, tore and gouged at
+me. Tried to shout, but it ended in a gurgle. And then, as he felt his
+breath stopped, his hands came up in an effort to tear mine loose.</p>
+
+<p>We sank again to the floor. We were momentarily upright. I felt my
+feet touch. I bent my knees. We sank further. And then I kicked
+violently upward. Our locked bodies shot to the ceiling. Johnson's
+head was above me. It struck the steel roof of the chart room. A
+violent blow. I felt him go<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> suddenly limp. I cast him off and,
+doubling my body, I kicked at the ceiling. It sent me diagonally
+downward to the window, where I clung.</p>
+
+<p>And I saw Miko standing on the deck with a weapon leveled at me!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Haljan! Yield or I'll fire! Moa, give me the smaller one."</p>
+
+<p>He had in his hand too large a projector. Its ray would kill me. If he
+wanted to take me alive, he would not fire. I chanced it.</p>
+
+<p>"No!" I tried to draw myself beneath the window. An automatic
+projector was on the floor where Carter had dropped it. I pulled
+myself down. Miko did not fire. I reached the weapon. The bodies of
+the Captain and Johnson had drifted together on the floor in the
+center of the room.</p>
+
+<p>I hitched myself back to the window. With upraised weapon I gazed
+cautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line of
+vision, was empty.</p>
+
+<p>But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement,
+ready upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in a
+shadow along the deck. Then a figure rose up.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't fire, Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger. It
+was the tall, lanky Englishman. Sir Arthur Coniston, he as called
+himself. So he too, was one of Miko's band! The light through a dome
+window fell full on him.</p>
+
+<p>"If you fire, Haljan, and kill me&mdash;Miko will kill you then, surely."</p>
+
+<p>From where he had been crouching he could not command my window. But
+now, upon the heels of his placating words, he abruptly shot. The
+low-powered ray, had it struck, would have felled me without killing
+me. But it went over my head as I dropped. Its aura made my senses
+reel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Coniston shouted, "Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>I did not answer. I wonder if he would dare approach to see if I had
+been hit. A minute passed. Then another. I thought I heard Miko's
+voice on the deck outside. But it was an aerial, microscopic whisper
+close beside me.</p>
+
+<p>"We see you, Haljan. You must yield!"</p>
+
+<p>Their eavesdropping vibrations, with audible projection, were upon me.
+I retorted loudly, "Come and get me! You cannot take me alive!"</p>
+
+<p>I do protest if this action of mine in the chart room may seem
+bravado. I had no wish to die. There was within me a very healthy
+desire for life. But I felt, by holding out, that some chance might
+come wherewith I might turn events against these brigands. Yet reason
+told me it was hopeless. Our loyal members of the crew were killed, no
+doubt. Captain Carter and Balch were dead. The lookouts and course
+masters, also. And Blackstone.</p>
+
+<p>There remained only Dr. Frank and Snap. Their fate I did not yet know.
+And there was George Prince. He, perhaps, would help me if he could.
+But, at best, he was a dubious ally.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very foolish, Haljan," murmured Miko's voice. And then I
+heard Coniston:</p>
+
+<p>"See here, why would not a hundred pounds of gold leaf tempt you? The
+code words which were taken from Johnson&mdash;I mean to say, why not tell
+us where they are?"</p>
+
+<p>So that was one of the brigands' new difficulties! Snap had taken the
+code word sheet that time we sealed the purser in the cage.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "You'll never find them. And when a police ship sights us,
+what will you do then?"</p>
+
+<p>The chances of a police ship were slight indeed, but the brigands
+evidently did not know that. I wondered again what had become of Snap.
+Was he captured or still holding them off?</p>
+
+<p>I was watching my windows; for at any moment, under the cover of talk,
+I might be assailed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Gravity came suddenly to the room. Miko's voice said: "We mean well by
+you, Haljan. There is your normality. Join us. We need you to chart
+our course."</p>
+
+<p>"And a hundred pounds of gold leaf," urged Coniston. "Or more. Why,
+this treasure&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I could hear an oath from Miko. And then his ironic voice. "We will
+not bother you, Haljan. There is no hurry. You will be hungry in good
+time. And sleepy. Then we will come and get you. And a little acid
+will help you to think differently about us...."</p>
+
+<p>His vibrations died away. The pull of gravity in the room was normal.
+I was alone in the dim silence, with the bodies of Carter and Johnson
+huddled on the grid. I bent to examine them. Both were dead.</p>
+
+<p>My isolation was not ruse this time. The outlaws made no further
+attack. Half an hour passed. The deck outside, what I could see of it,
+was vacant. Balch lay dead close outside the chart room door. The
+bodies of Blackstone and the course master had been removed from the
+turret window. As a forward lookout, one of Miko's men was on duty in
+the nearby tower. Hahn was at the turret's controls. The ship was
+under orderly handling, heading back upon a new course. For the Earth?
+The Moon? It did not seem so.</p>
+
+<p>I found, in the chart room, a Benson curve light projector which poor
+Captain Carter had nearly assembled. I worked on it, trained it
+through my rear window along the empty deck; bent it into the lounge
+archway. Upon my grid the image of the lounge interior presently
+focused. The passengers in the lounge were huddled in a group.
+Disheveled, frightened, with Moa standing watching them. Stewards were
+serving them with a meal.</p>
+
+<p>Upon a bench, bodies were lying. Some were dead. I saw Rance Rankin.
+Others were evidently only injured. Dr. Frank was moving among them,
+attending them. Venza was there, unharmed. And I saw the gamblers,
+Shac and Dud, sitting white-faced, whispering together. And Glutz's
+little beribboned, becurled figure on a stool.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>George Prince was there, standing against the wall, shrouded in his
+mourning cloak, watching the scene with alert, roving eyes. And by the
+opposite doorway, the huge towering figure of Miko stood on guard. But
+Snap was missing.</p>
+
+<p>A brief glimpse. Miko saw my Benson light. I could have equipped a
+heat ray and fired along the curved Benson light into that lounge. But
+Miko gave me no time.</p>
+
+<p>He slid the lounge door closed, and Moa leaped to close the one on my
+side. My grid showed only the blank deck and door.</p>
+
+<p>Another interval. I had made plans. Futile plans! I could get into the
+turret perhaps, and kill Hahn. I had the invisible cloak which Johnson
+was wearing. I took it from his body. Its mechanism could be repaired.
+Why, with it I could creep about the ship, kill these brigands one by
+one, perhaps. George Prince would be with me. The brigands who had
+been posing as the stewards and crew members were unable to navigate;
+they would obey my orders. There were only Miko, Coniston and Hahn to
+kill.</p>
+
+<p>From my window I could gaze up to the radio room. And now, abruptly, I
+heard Snap's voice: "No! I tell you&mdash;no!"</p>
+
+<p>And Miko, "Very well, then. We'll try this."</p>
+
+<p>So Snap was captured but not killed. Relief swept me. He was in the
+radio room and Miko was with him. But my relief was short-lived. After
+a brief interval, there came a moan from Snap. It floated down the
+silence overhead and made me shudder.</p>
+
+<p>My Benson beam shot into the radio room. It showed me Snap lying there
+on the floor. He was bound with wire. His torso had been stripped. His
+livid face was ghastly plain in my light.</p>
+
+<p>Miko was bending over him. Miko with a heat cylinder no longer than a
+finger. Its needle beam played upon Snap's naked chest. I could see
+the gruesome little trail of smoke rising; and as Snap twisted and
+jerked, there on his flesh was the red and blistered trail of the
+violet ray.</p>
+
+<p>"Now will you tell?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>Miko laughed. "No? Then I shall write my name a little deeper...."</p>
+
+<p>A black sear now&mdash;a trail etched in the quivering flesh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Snap's face went white as chalk as he pressed his lips together.</p>
+
+<p>"Or a little acid? This fire-writing does not really hurt? Tell me
+what you did with those code words!"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>In his absorption Miko did not notice my light. Nor did I have the wit
+to try and fire along it. I was trembling. Snap under torture!</p>
+
+<p>As the beam went deeper. Snap suddenly screamed. But he ended, "No! I
+will send no message for you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>It had been only a moment. In the chart room window beside me again a
+figure appeared! No image. A solid, living person, undisguised by any
+cloak of invisibility. George Prince had chanced my fire and crept
+upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"Haljan! Don't attack me."</p>
+
+<p>I dropped my light connections. As impulsively I stood up, I saw
+through the window the figure of Coniston on the deck watching the
+result of Prince's venture.</p>
+
+<p>"Haljan&mdash;yield."</p>
+
+<p>Prince no more than whispered it. He stood outside on the deck; the
+low window casement touched his waist. He leaned over it.</p>
+
+<p>"He's torturing Snap! Call out that you will yield."</p>
+
+<p>The thought had already been in my mind. Another scream from Snap
+filled me with horror. I shouted, "Miko! Stop!"</p>
+
+<p>I rushed to the window and Prince gripped me. "Louder!"</p>
+
+<p>I called louder: "Miko! Stop!" My upflung voice mingled with Snap's
+agony of protest. Then Miko heard me. His head and shoulders showed up
+there at the radio room oval.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>Prince shouted, "I have made him yield. He will obey you if you stop
+that torture."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I think that poor Snap must have fainted. He was silent. I called,
+"Stop! I will do what you command."</p>
+
+<p>Miko jeered, "That is good. A bargain, if you and Dean obey me. Disarm
+him, Prince, and bring him out."</p>
+
+<p>Miko moved back into the radio room. On the deck, Coniston was
+advancing, but cautiously mistrustful of me.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>George Prince flung a leg over the casement and leaped lightly into
+the dim chart room. His small slender figure stood beside me, clung to
+me.</p>
+
+<p>A moment, while we stood there together. No ray was upon us. Coniston
+could not see us, nor could he hear our whispers.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>A different voice; its throaty, husky quality gone. A soft pleading.
+"Gregg&mdash;Gregg, don't you know me? Gregg, dear...."</p>
+
+<p>Why, what was this? Not George Prince? A masquerader, yet so like
+George Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg don't you know me?"</p>
+
+<p>Clinging to me. A soft touch upon my arm. Fingers, clinging. A surge
+of warm, tingling current was flowing between us.</p>
+
+<p>My sweep of instant thoughts. A speck of human Earth dust falling
+free. That was George Prince who had been killed. George Prince's
+body, disguised by the scheming Carter and Dr. Frank, buried in the
+guise of his sister. And this black-robed figure who was trying to
+help me....</p>
+
+<p>"Anita! Anita darling&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, dear one!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anita!" My arms went around her, my lips pressed hers, and felt her
+tremulous eager answer.</p>
+
+<p>The form of Coniston showed at our window. She cast me off. She said,
+with her throaty swagger of amused, masculinity:</p>
+
+<p>"I have him, Sir Arthur. He will obey us."</p>
+
+<p>I sensed her warning glance. She shoved me toward the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> window. She
+said ironically, "Have no fear, Haljan. You will not be tortured, you
+and Dean, if you obey our commands."</p>
+
+<p>Coniston gripped me. "You fool! You caused us a lot of trouble. Move
+along there!"</p>
+
+<p>He jerked me roughly through the window. Marched me the length of the
+deck, out to the stern space, opened the door of my cubby, flung me in
+and sealed the door upon me.</p>
+
+<p>"Miko will come presently."</p>
+
+<p>I stood in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to his retreating
+footsteps. But my mind was not upon him.</p>
+
+<p>All the universe, in that instant, had changed for me. Anita was
+alive!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>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 bare-headed; the light from one of my tubes fell upon his
+grinning, leering gray face.</p>
+
+<p>"So, Gregg Haljan? You have come to your senses at last. You do not
+wish me to write my name on your chest? I would not have done that to
+Dean; he forced me. Sit back."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"True. You did that, Haljan, in Greater New York. But I bear you no
+malice. I want to talk to you now."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now we can talk."</p>
+
+<p>I remained silent. Alert. Yet my thoughts were whirling. Anita was
+alive. Masquerading as her brother. And, with the joy of it, came a
+shudder. Above everything, Miko must not know.</p>
+
+<p>"A great adventure we are upon, Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>My thoughts came back. Miko was talking with an assumption of friendly
+comradeship. "All is well&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"You are modest." He fumbled at a pocket of his jacket, produced a
+scroll-sheaf. I recognized it. Blackstone's figures. The calculation
+Blackstone made of the asteroid we had passed.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;see, like this."</p>
+
+<p>He handed me the scrolls. He watched me keenly as I glanced over them.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" I said.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sparing of words, Haljan. By the devils of the airways, I
+could make you talk! But I want to be friendly."</p>
+
+<p>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 knocked me back to
+my bunk.</p>
+
+<p>"You dare?" Then he smiled. "Let us not come to blows!"</p>
+
+<p>In truth, physical violence could get me nothing. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Hahn may not be much of a mathematician," I sug<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>gested. "But there is
+your Sir Arthur Coniston." I managed a sarcastic grin. "Is that his
+name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Almost. Haljan, will you verify these figures?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But why? Where are we going?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "You are afraid I will not tell you! Why should I? This
+great adventure of mine is progressing perfectly. A tremendous stake,
+Haljan. A hundred million dollars in gold leaf. There will be fabulous
+riches for all of us&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But where are we going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To that asteroid," he said. "I must get rid of these passengers. I am
+no murderer."</p>
+
+<p>With a half-dozen killings in the recent fight this was hardly
+convincing. But he was obviously wholly serious. He seemed to read my
+thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"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 perfectly safe and finished with our adventure, a
+police ship no doubt will rescue them."</p>
+
+<p>"And then, from the asteroid," I suggested, "we are going&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"You have me."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I have you. I would have killed you long ago&mdash;I am an impulsive
+fellow&mdash;but my sister restrained me."</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at me slyly. "Moa seems strangely to like you, Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," I said. "I'm flattered."</p>
+
+<p>"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...."</p>
+
+<p>He paused. I was trying cautiously to gauge him, to get from him all
+the information I could. I said, with another<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> 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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"There are not many," he declared. "The chances of our encountering
+one are very slim." He grinned at me. "You know that as well as I do.
+And we now have those code passwords&mdash;I forced Dean to tell me where
+he had hidden them. If we should be challenged, our password answer
+will relieve suspicion."</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Planetara</i>," I objected, "being overdue at Ferrok-Shahn, will
+cause alarm. You'll have a covey of patrol ships after you."</p>
+
+<p>"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 them 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."</p>
+
+<p>He was idly fingering his cylinder; he gazed at 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&mdash;his knowledge of science is valuable to
+us."</p>
+
+<p>My heart was pounding but I strove not to show it. He went on calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>There was a note of real concern in his voice. He added, "That is
+done&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>I said abruptly, "I don't know whether your promise means anything or
+not, Miko. But Prince said you would use no more torture."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't. Not if you and Dean obey me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You tell Dean I have agreed to that. You say he gave you the code
+words he took from Johnson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. There was a fool, for you! That Johnson! You blame me, Haljan,
+for the death of Carter? You need not. Johnson offered to try and
+capture you, take you both alive. He killed Carter because he was
+angry with him. A stupid, vengeful fool! He is dead and I'm glad of
+it."</p>
+
+<p>My mind was on Miko's plans. I ventured, "This treasure on the
+Moon&mdash;did you say it was on the Moon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't play the fool," he retorted. "I know as much about Grantline as
+you do."</p>
+
+<p>"That's very little."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you know more, Miko. The Moon is a big place. Where, for
+instance, is Grantline located?"</p>
+
+<p>I held my breath. Would he tell me that? A score of questions&mdash;vague
+plans were in my mind. How skilled at mathematics were these brigands?
+Miko, Coniston, Hahn&mdash;could I fool them? If I could learn Grantline's
+location on the Moon, and keep the <i>Planetara</i> away from it. A
+pretended error of charting. Time lost&mdash;and perhaps Snap could find an
+opportunity to signal Earth, get help.</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Planetara</i> so 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 for that."</p>
+
+<p>I strove to hold my voice calm. "If I should join you, Miko&mdash;my word,
+if I ever gave it, you would find dependable&mdash;I would say George
+Prince is very valuable to us. You should<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> rein your temper. He is
+half your size&mdash;you might some time, without intention, do him
+injury."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "Moa says so. But have no fear&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking," I persisted. "I'd like to have a talk with George
+Prince."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps there would be."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you let me have a talk with Prince? I have some scientific
+knowledge myself about the powers of this catalyst. Prince's knowledge
+and mine&mdash;we might be able to come to a calculation on the value of
+Grantline's treasure. You don't know. You are only assuming."</p>
+
+<p>I paused after this glib outburst. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>He was no fool, this brigand leader.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I agreed. "You want a true course to the asteroid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And by the gods, I warn you, I can check up on you!"</p>
+
+<p>I said meekly, "Very well. But you ask Prince if he wants my
+calculations on Grantline's possibilities."</p>
+
+<p>I shot Miko a foxy look as he stood by the door. I added, "You think
+you are clever. There is plenty you don't know. Our first night out
+from Earth&mdash;Grantline's signals&mdash;didn't it ever occur to you that I
+might have some figures on his treasure?"</p>
+
+<p>It startled him. "Where are they?"</p>
+
+<p>I tapped my forehead. "You don't suppose I was foolish enough to
+record them. You ask Prince if he wants to talk to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> me. A hundred
+million, or two hundred million&mdash;it would make a big difference,
+Miko."</p>
+
+<p>"I will think about it." He backed out and sealed the door upon me.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>I did not think it wise to ask him about Prince.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hungry, Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The time of sleep was nearly passed. My chronometer marked five <span class="smcap">a.m.</span>
+original Earth starting time. The seal of my cubby door hissed. The
+door slowly opened.</p>
+
+<p>Anita!</p>
+
+<p>She stood there with her cloak around her. A distance away on the
+shadowed deck Coniston was loitering.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita!" I whispered it.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>She turned and gestured to the watching brigand. "I will not be long,
+Coniston."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I stepped back where he could not see us. "Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>She flung herself into my opened arms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XV</h2>
+
+
+<p>A moment when, beyond the thought of the nearby brigand&mdash;or the
+possibility of an eavesdropping ray trained now upon my cubby&mdash;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!</p>
+
+<p>Then it was she whose wits brought us back from the shining fairyland
+of our love, into the sinister reality of the <i>Planetara</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, if they are listening&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"But Grantline's findings!" I said aloud. "In his message&mdash;see here,
+Prince&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," I whispered, and she clung to me&mdash;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 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&mdash;put masculinity here.</p>
+
+<p>She was whispering: "It was&mdash;was poor George whom Miko shot."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 his love for his sister. Some years ago he had fallen into
+evil ways. Been arrested, and then been discharged from his position
+with the Federated Corporation. He had taken up with evil companions
+in Greater 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.</p>
+
+<p>Of all this, Anita had been unaware. She had never liked Miko. Feared
+him. But it seemed that the Martian had some hold upon her brother,
+which puzzled and frightened Anita.</p>
+
+<p>Then Miko had fallen in love with her. George had not liked it. And
+that night on the <i>Planetara</i>, Miko had come and knocked upon Anita's
+door, and incautiously she had opened it. He forced himself in. And
+when she repulsed him, struggled with him, George had been awakened.</p>
+
+<p>She was whispering to me now. "My room was dark. We were all three
+struggling. George was holding me&mdash;the shot came&mdash;and I screamed."</p>
+
+<p>And Miko had fled, not knowing whom his shot had hit in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"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 didn't know that poor George had fallen into
+such evil ways."</p>
+
+<p>She whispered, "But I love you, Gregg. I want to be the first to say
+it: I love you&mdash;I love you."</p>
+
+<p>We had the sanity to try and plan.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, tell Miko we discussed the multiple powers of the catalyst.
+Discussed how carefully it would have to be transported; how to gauge
+its worth. You'll have to be careful, clever. Don't say too much. Tell
+him we estimate the value at about a hundred and thirty millions."</p>
+
+<p>I repeated what Miko had told me of his plans. She knew all that. And
+Snap knew it. She had a few moments alone<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> with Snap and gave me now a
+message from him, "We'll pull out of this, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;recapture the ship....</p>
+
+<p>I sat listening to Anita's eager whispers. It seemed feasible. Miko
+did not altogether trust George Prince; Anita was now unarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"But I can make opportunity! I can get one of their ray cylinders, and
+an invisible cloak equipment."</p>
+
+<p>That cloak, that 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+about 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 radio 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.</p>
+
+<p>"But it should be done at once, Anita. In a few hours we will be at
+the asteroid."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I will go now and try to get the weapons."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Snap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Still in the radio room. One of the crew guards him."</p>
+
+<p>Coniston was roaming the ship. He was still loitering on the deck,
+watching my 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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> had calculated. Six of them were in Miko's pay. The
+other three&mdash;our own men who had not been killed in the fighting&mdash;had
+joined the brigands.</p>
+
+<p>"And Dr. Frank, Anita?"</p>
+
+<p>He was in the lounge. All the passengers were herded there, with Miko
+and Moa alternating on guard.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 others. My thoughts leaped to it. We would strike down the
+guard in the radio room. Release Snap. At the turret we could assail
+Hahn, and replace him with Snap.</p>
+
+<p>Coniston's voice outside broke in upon us. "Prince."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>She whispered, "Gregg dear, I'll be back soon. We can do it&mdash;be
+ready!"</p>
+
+<p>"Anita&mdash;be careful of yourself! If they should suspect you...."</p>
+
+<p>"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. In good time Miko will trust you with your liberty. You'll be
+rich like all of us. Never fear."</p>
+
+<p>She swaggered out upon the deck, waved at the brigand, and banged my
+cubby door in my face.</p>
+
+<p>I sat upon my bunk. Waiting. Would she come back? Would she be
+successful?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Prince?" I did not dare say "Anita."</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You got it?" I asked in a low whisper.</p>
+
+<p>I held her for an instant, kissed her. But she pushed me away with
+quick hands. She was breathless.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have it. Give us a little light&mdash;we must hurry!"</p>
+
+<p>In the blue dimness I saw that she was holding one of the Martian
+cylinders. The smaller size: it would paralyze but not kill.</p>
+
+<p>"Only one, Anita?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. And this&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The invisible cloak. We laid it on my grid, and I adjusted its
+mechanism. I donned it and drew its hood, and threw on its current.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Anita?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you see me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." She had stepped back a foot or two. "Not from here. But you must
+let no one approach too close."</p>
+
+<p>Then she came forward, put out her hand, fumbled until she found me.</p>
+
+<p>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 unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You're sure of that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so, Gregg. I was careful."</p>
+
+<p>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 lookouts
+in the forward and stern watch towers, and a guard upon Snap in the
+radio room.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he inside the room, Anita?"</p>
+
+<p>"Snap? Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;the guard."</p>
+
+<p>"The guard was sitting on the spider bridge at the door."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Coniston is the sharpest, Gregg. He will be the hardest to get near."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Miko?"</p>
+
+<p>The brigand leader had gone below a few moments ago, down into the
+hull corridor. Anita had seized the opportunity to come to me.</p>
+
+<p>"We can attack Hahn in the chart room first," I whispered. "And get
+the other weapons. Are they still there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. But the forward deck is very bright, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We decided to go down into the hull corridors. Locate Miko. Fell him
+and hide him. His nonappearance 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 to
+release Snap.</p>
+
+<p>We were ready. Anita slid my door open. She stepped through, with me
+soundlessly scurrying after her. The empty,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 lookout sat in his little tower. He gazed
+down at Anita.</p>
+
+<p>Amidships, high over the cabin superstructure, the radio room hung
+dark and silent. The guard on its bridge was visible. He too, looked
+down.</p>
+
+<p>A tense instant. Then I breathed again. There was no alarm. The two
+guards answered Anita's gesture.</p>
+
+<p>Anita said aloud into my empty cubby: "Miko will come for you
+presently, Haljan. He told me that he wants you at the turret controls
+to land us on the asteroid."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The humming of the ship was more apparent here. It drowned the light
+humming of my cloak. I crept after Anita; my hand under the cloak
+clutched the ray weapon.</p>
+
+<p>A steward passed us. I shrank aside to avoid him.</p>
+
+<p>Anita spoke to him. "Where is Miko, Ellis?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the ventilator room, Miss. Prince. There was difficulty with the
+air renewal."</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>But it seemed needless. I let him go, and he turned into a nearby door
+which led to the galley.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>What little things can 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" She exclaimed it involuntarily. Her outflung hand had
+unwittingly gripped my wrist, caught the electrode there. The touch
+burned her, and short-circuited my robe. There was a hiss. My current
+burned out the tiny fuses.</p>
+
+<p>My invisibility was gone! I stood, a tall, blackhooded figure,
+revealed to the gaze of anyone who might be near!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita! Run!"</p>
+
+<p>If I were seen with her, then her own disguise would probably be
+discovered. That above everything, would be disaster.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, get away from me! I must try it alone!"</p>
+
+<p>I could hide somewhere, repair the cloak perhaps. Or, since now I was
+armed, why could not I boldly start an assault?</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, we must get you back to your cubby!" She was clinging to me in
+panic.</p>
+
+<p>"No. You run! Get away from me! Don't you understand? George Prince
+has no business here with me! They'll kill you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, let's get back to the deck."</p>
+
+<p>I pushed at her, both of us in confusion.</p>
+
+<p>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-cloaked shape of him was in the
+nearby doorway. He stood stricken with surprise at seeing me. And then
+turned to run.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I fired my paralyzing cylinder through my cloak. Got him! He fell. I
+shoved Anita violently.</p>
+
+<p>"Run! Tell Miko to come&mdash;tell him you heard a shout. He won't suspect
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Gregg&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"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 again."</p>
+
+<p>It decided her. She scurried down the corridor. I whirled the other
+way. The steward's shout might not have been heard.</p>
+
+<p>Then realization flashed to me. That steward would be revived. He was
+one of Miko's men. He would be revived and tell what he had seen and
+heard. Anita's disguise would be revealed.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>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 bullet projector was leveled. It spat at
+me. But Anita had pulled at his arm.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Miko was struggling with Anita. "Prince, you idiot!"</p>
+
+<p>"Miko, it's Haljan! Don't kill him&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I might have fought my way out. Or Miko might have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> shot me. But there
+was the danger that, in her horror, Anita would betray herself.</p>
+
+<p>I backed against the wall. "Don't kill me! See, I will not fight!"</p>
+
+<p>I flung up my arms. And the crew, emboldened and courageous under
+Miko's gaze, leaped on me and bore me down.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>"So, Gregg Haljan, you are not as loyal as you pretend!"</p>
+
+<p>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 tense and alert, fearful
+still of what Anita's emotion might betray her into doing.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so loyal," Miko repeated. "And a fool!"</p>
+
+<p>"How did he get out of here? Prince, you came in here!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;and to be ready to take the controls when we approached the
+asteroid."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, how did he get out?"</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"But did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course he did," Moa put in.</p>
+
+<p>"Ask your lookouts," Anita said. "They saw me&mdash;I waved to them just as
+I sealed the door."</p>
+
+<p>I ventured, "I have been taught to open doors." I man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>aged a sly,
+lugubrious smile. "I shall not try it again, Miko."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>A glance passed between Miko and his sister. Miko said abruptly, "You
+seem to realize it is not my purpose to kill you. And you presume upon
+it."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;not now, certainly.</p>
+
+<p>Moa was saying, "I think I may make you understand, Gregg. We have
+tremendous riches within our grasp."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," I said with sudden thought. "But there are many with whom
+to divide this treasure...."</p>
+
+<p>Miko caught my intended implication. "By the infernal, this fellow may
+have thought he could seize this treasure for himself! Because he is a
+navigator!"</p>
+
+<p>Moa said vehemently, "Do not be an idiot, Gregg! You could not do it!
+There will be fighting with Grantline!"</p>
+
+<p>My purpose was accomplished. They seemed to see me a willing outlaw
+like themselves. As though it were a bond between us.</p>
+
+<p>"Leave me with him," said Moa.</p>
+
+<p>Miko acquiesced. "For a few minutes only." He proffered a heat ray
+cylinder but she refused it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not afraid of him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Miko swung on me. "Within an hour we will be nearing the atmosphere.
+Will you take the controls?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>His calm words set a sudden chill over me. I checked my smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>He held his huge fist before my face. "With these fingers I will twist
+your neck! Do you believe it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." I did indeed.</p>
+
+<p>He swung on his heel. "Moa wants to try and put sense in your head&mdash;I
+hope she does it. Bring him to the lounge when you have finished.
+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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit where you are, Gregg." She turned and closed the door upon us. "I
+am not afraid of you. Should I be?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>She came and sat down beside me. "If you should attempt to leave this
+room, the stern lookout has orders to bore you through."</p>
+
+<p>"I have no intention of leaving this room," I retorted. "I do not want
+to commit suicide."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I thought you did. You seem minded in such a fashion. Gregg, why are
+you so heedless?"</p>
+
+<p>I said carefully, "This treasure&mdash;you are many who will divide it. You
+have all these men on the <i>Planetara</i>. And in Ferrok-Shahn, others&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 on 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Moa was saying, "I would like to tell you our plans, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>Her gaze was on my face. Keen eyes, but they were luminous now&mdash;an
+emotion in them sweeping her. But outwardly she was calm.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, why don't you tell me?" I said. "If I am to help...."</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, I want you with us. Don't you understand. And we are not many,
+really. My brother and I are guiding this affair. With your help, I
+would feel differently."</p>
+
+<p>"The ship at Ferrok-Shahn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>My fears were realized. She said, "I think our signals reached it.
+Dean tried and Coniston was checking him."</p>
+
+<p>"You think the ship is coming?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Where will it join us?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"At the Moon. We will be there in thirty hours. Your figures gave
+that, did they not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said. "And the other ship&mdash;how fast is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite fast. In eight days&mdash;perhaps nine, it will reach the Moon."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed willing enough to talk. There was indeed, no reason why she
+shouldn't: I could not, she naturally felt, turn the knowledge to
+account. Certainly my position seemed desperately helpless.</p>
+
+<p>"Manned&mdash;" I prompted.</p>
+
+<p>"About forty men."</p>
+
+<p>"And armed? Long range projectors?"</p>
+
+<p>"You ask very avid questions, Gregg!"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;which
+you don't&mdash;I might show more interest in joining you?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, I will see that you get your share. Riches for you and me."</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking, Moa&mdash;when we land at the Moon tomorrow&mdash;where is our
+equipment?"</p>
+
+<p>The Moon, with its lack of atmosphere, needed special equipment. I had
+never heard Captain Carter mention what apparatus the <i>Planetara</i> was
+carrying.</p>
+
+<p>Moa laughed. "We have located air suits and helmets&mdash;a variety of
+suitable apparatus, Gregg. But we were not foolish enough to leave
+Greater New York on this voyage without our own apparatus. My brother
+and Coniston and Prince&mdash;all of us snipped crates of freight consigned
+to Ferrok-Shahn; and Rankin had special baggage marked 'theatrical
+apparatus.'"</p>
+
+<p>I understood it now. These brigands had boarded the <i>Planetara</i> with
+their own Moon equipment, disguised as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> freight and personal baggage.
+Shipped in bond, to be inspected by the tax officials of Mars.</p>
+
+<p>"It is on board now. We will open it when we leave the asteroid,
+Gregg. We are well equipped."</p>
+
+<p>She bent toward me. And suddenly her long, lean fingers were gripping
+my shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, look at me!"</p>
+
+<p>I gazed into her eyes. There was passion there; and her voice was
+intense.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, I told you once a Martian girl goes after what she wants. It
+is you I want&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Not for me to play upon a woman's emotions! "Moa, you flatter me."</p>
+
+<p>"I love you." She held me off, gazing at me. "Gregg&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I must have smiled. Abruptly she released me.</p>
+
+<p>"So you think it amusing?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But on Earth&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We are not on 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I am like my brother: I do not understand you, Gregg Haljan. Perhaps
+you think you are clever?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment of silence. "Gregg, I said I loved you. Have you no
+answer?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"You think you love someone else? Is that it?"</p>
+
+<p>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?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>But I hardly deceived her. "Sacred to her memory! Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> ratlike little
+face, soft voice like a purring, sniveling cat! Is that what you're
+remembering, Gregg Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>I tried to laugh. "What nonsense!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it? Then why are you cold under my touch? Am I, a girl descended
+from the Martian flame-workers, impotent to awaken a man?"</p>
+
+<p>A woman scorned! In all the universe there could be no more dangerous
+an enemy. An incredible venom shot from her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"That miserable mouselike creature! Well for her that my brother
+killed her."</p>
+
+<p>It struck me cold. If Anita were unmasked, beyond all the menace of
+Miko's wooing, I knew that the venom of Moa's jealousy was a greater
+danger.</p>
+
+<p>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 Earth and you a girl
+of Mars."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that reason why we should not love?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. But our instincts are different. Men of Earth are born to the
+chase."</p>
+
+<p>I was smiling. With thought of Anita's danger I could find it readily
+in my heart to dupe this Amazon.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me time, Moa. You attract me."</p>
+
+<p>"You lie!"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what to think, Gregg Haljan...."</p>
+
+<p>I held my grip. "Think what you like. Men of Earth have been known to
+kill the thing they love."</p>
+
+<p>"You want me to fear you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled scornfully. "That is absurd."</p>
+
+<p>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."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Her venomous expression was softening. "I think that is true, Gregg!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you need my navigating skill. Even now I should be in the
+turret."</p>
+
+<p>I stood up. I half expected she would stop me, but she did not. I
+added, "Shall we go?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood beside me. Her height brought her face level with mine.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you will cause no more trouble, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. I am not wholly witless."</p>
+
+<p>"You have been."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is over." I hesitated. Then I added, "A man of Earth does
+not yield to love while there is work to do. This treasure&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I think that of everything I said, this last most convinced her.</p>
+
+<p>She interrupted, "That I understand." Her eyes were smoldering. "When
+it is over&mdash;when we are rich&mdash;then I will claim you, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>She turned from me. "Are you ready?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. No! I must get that sheet of Hahn's last figures."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they checked?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." I picked the sheet up from my desk. "Hahn is fairly accurate,
+Moa."</p>
+
+<p>"A fool, nevertheless. An apprehensive fool."</p>
+
+<p>A comradeship seemed coming between us. It was my purpose to establish
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Are we going to maroon Dr. Frank with the passengers?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"But he may be of use to us."</p>
+
+<p>Moa shook her head decisively. "My brother has decided not. We will be
+well rid of Dr. Frank. Are you ready, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>She opened the door. Her gesture reassured the lookout, who was
+alertly watching the stern watchtower.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I stepped out, and followed her forward along the deck, which now was
+bright with the radiance of the nearby asteroid.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>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 vantage point, all of the little
+globe's disc was visible. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Miko?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the lounge, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can we stop there?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;a
+young widow&mdash;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 girl seemed to see
+in my uniform a mark of authority. She left her mother and ran to me.</p>
+
+<p>"You&mdash;please, will you help us? My Moms is crying."</p>
+
+<p>I sent her gently back. But there came upon me then a compassion for
+these innocent passengers, fated to have embarked on this ill-fated
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span>
+Miko. He stood with a nonchalant grace, lounging against the wall with
+a cylinder dangling in his hand. He anticipated me, and was the first
+to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I said, "No more trouble from me, Miko. But these passengers&mdash;what
+preparation are you making for them on the asteroid?"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;they will be picked up in a few weeks."</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Frank was here. I caught his gaze but he did not speak. On the
+lounge couches there still lay the five bodies. Rankin, who had been
+killed by Blackstone in the fight; a man passenger killed; a woman and
+a man wounded, as well.</p>
+
+<p>Miko added, "Dr. Frank will take his medical supplies and 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."</p>
+
+<p>The passengers were all eying me. I said:</p>
+
+<p>"You have nothing to fear. I will guarantee you the best equipment we
+can spare." I turned to Miko. "You will give them apparatus with which
+to signal?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Get to the turret."</p>
+
+<p>I turned away, with Moa after me. Again the little girl ran forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Come ... speak to my Moms; she is crying."</p>
+
+<p>It was across the cabin from Miko. Coniston had appeared from the
+deck; it created a slight diversion. He joined Miko.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait," I said to Moa. "She is afraid of you. This is humanity."</p>
+
+<p>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 a word
+with me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I stood before the terrified woman while the child clung to my legs.</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>I was between Venza and the open cabin. Venza whispered swiftly, "When
+we are landing, Gregg, I want you to make a commotion&mdash;anything&mdash;just
+as the women go ashore."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Of course you will have food, Mrs. Francis."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind details! An instant&mdash;just confusion. Go, Gregg&mdash;don't
+speak now!"</p>
+
+<p>I raised the child. "You take care of Mother." I kissed her.</p>
+
+<p>From across the cabin, Miko's sardonic voice made me turn. "Touching
+sentimentality, Haljan! Get to your post in the turret!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>Hahn was at the controls when Moa and I reached the turret.</p>
+
+<p>"You will land us safely, Haljan?" he demanded anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>I pushed him away. "Miko wants you in the lounge."</p>
+
+<p>"You take command here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I am no more anxious for a crash than you are, Hahn."</p>
+
+<p>He sighed with relief. "That is true, of course. I am no expert at
+atmospheric entry."</p>
+
+<p>"Have no fear. Sit down, Moa."</p>
+
+<p>I waved to the lookout in the forward watch tower, and got his routine
+gesture. I rang the corridor bells, and the normal signals came
+promptly back.</p>
+
+<p>I turned to Hahn. "Get along, won't you? Tell Miko that things are all
+right here."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Moa, where is Snap? By the infernal&mdash;if he has been injured&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Up on the radio 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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>At a hundred and fifty thousand feet I shifted the gravity plates to
+the landing combinations, and started the electronic engines.</p>
+
+<p>"All safe, Gregg?" Moa sat at my elbow; her eyes, with what seem a
+glow of admiration in them, followed my busy routine activities.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. The crew works well."</p>
+
+<p>The electronic streams flowed out like a rocket tail behind us. The
+<i>Planetara</i> caught their impetus. In the rarefied 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.</p>
+
+<p>A little sea was now beneath us. A shadowed sea, deep purple in the
+night down there. Occasional verdurous 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, verdurous ranks. The sunlight edged the distant mountains;
+and presently this rapidly turning little world brought the sunlight
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> plants, with giant pods and vivid orchidlike
+blossoms.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;as time might be measured astronomically, it was no more than
+yesterday&mdash;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 had sprung.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Sternward on the deck, by the lounge oval, I could see Miko standing.
+And occasionally the roar of his voice at the passengers, sounded.</p>
+
+<p>My vagrant thoughts 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 be put ashore, marooned upon some fair desert
+island of the tropic Spanish main.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Hahn came mounting our turret incline. "All is well, Gregg Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>"Get to your work," Moa told him sharply.</p>
+
+<p>He retreated, joining the bustle and confusion which now was beginning
+on the deck. It struck me&mdash;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 radio room doorway. But his guard
+was alert with upraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in his
+position, commanded all the deck.</p>
+
+<p>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, a clanking
+chain connected them. They came like a line of convicts, marching
+forward, and stopped on the open deck near the base of the turret. Dr.
+Frank's grim face gazed up at me.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;this is a very small
+world."</p>
+
+<p>I flung on the landing lights; the deck glowed with the blue radiance;
+the searchbeams 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.</p>
+
+<p>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 some
+last minute desperate purposes?</p>
+
+<p>I determined I would do what she said. Shout, or mis-order the lights.
+That would be easy.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> nothing I could think of to do which would
+avail us anything more than a probable swift death under Miko's anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, Gregg!" said Moa.</p>
+
+<p>I cut off the last of the propellers. With scarcely a perceptible jar,
+the <i>Planetara</i> 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&mdash;of necessity
+mere mathematical approximations&mdash;proved fairly accurate. In
+temperature and pressure there was no radical change as the dome
+windows slid back.</p>
+
+<p>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 long thin knife blade.</p>
+
+<p>She murmured tensely, "You have done your part, Gregg. Well and
+skillfully done. Now we will sit here quietly and watch them land."</p>
+
+<p>Snap's guard was standing, keenly watching. The lookouts 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.</p>
+
+<p>The incline went over the hull side and touched the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough!" Miko roared. "The men first. Hahn, move the women back!
+Coniston, pile those caskets to the side. Get out of the way, Prince."</p>
+
+<p>Anita was down there. I saw her at the edge of the group of women.
+Venza was near her.</p>
+
+<p>Miko shoved her. "Get out of the way, Prince. You can help Coniston.
+Have the things ready to throw off."</p>
+
+<p>Five of the steward crew were at the head of the incline. Miko shouted
+up at me:</p>
+
+<p>"Haljan, hold our shipboard gravity normal."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Motley procession! Twenty odd, disheveled, half-clothed men of these
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Now the women."</p>
+
+<p>Miko was shoving the women to the head of the incline. I could feel
+Moa's gaze upon me. Her knife gleamed in the turret light.</p>
+
+<p>She murmured again, "In a few moments you can bring us away, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;floated down to the ground, with
+flailing arms and legs, landing in the dark ferns unharmed. Its
+terrified wail came up.</p>
+
+<p>There was a confusion on the incline. Venza, still on the deck, seemed
+to send a look of appeal to the turret. My cue?</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;would she plunge that knife into me?</p>
+
+<p>The silence of the darkened deck was broken with a con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>fusion of
+sounds. A babble of voices; a woman passenger's scream; shuffling
+feet; and above it all, Miko's roar:</p>
+
+<p>"Stand quiet! Everyone! No movement!"</p>
+
+<p>On the descending incline there was chaos. The disembarking women were
+clinging to the gang rail; some of them had evidently surged forward
+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.</p>
+
+<p>Miko roared: "Light those tubes! Gregg Haljan! By the Almighty, Moa,
+are you up there? What is wrong? The light tubes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dark drama of unknown plot! I wondered 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.</p>
+
+<p>I think twenty seconds would have covered it all. I had not moved. I
+thought, "Is Snap concerned with this?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The deck abruptly sprang into light again. Moa had found the switch
+and threw it back.</p>
+
+<p>She fought me as I tried to reach the switch. I saw down on the deck.
+Miko was gazing up at us. Moa panted, "Gregg&mdash;stop! If he sees you
+doing this, he'll kill you."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I had stopped struggling with Moa. She sat back, panting. And then she
+called:</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, Miko. It will not happen again."</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> Earth pounds, sailed in an arc and dropped near
+the swaying line of men.</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>The frightened stewards were lifting the boxes, square metal storage
+chests each as long as a man, packed with food, tools, and equipment.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, get out of my way! All of you!"</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Planetara's</i>
+gravity area, it sailed in a long flat arc over the forest glade and
+crashed into the purple underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me another!"</p>
+
+<p>The stewards pushed another at him. Like an angry Titan, he flung it.
+And another. One by one the chests sailed out and crashed.</p>
+
+<p>"There is your food. Go pick it up! Haljan, make ready to ring us
+away!"</p>
+
+<p>On the deck lay the dead body of Rance Rankin, which the stewards had
+carried out. Miko seized it: flung it.</p>
+
+<p>"There! Go to your last resting place!"</p>
+
+<p>And the other bodies, Balch, Blackstone, Captain Carter, Johnson&mdash;Miko
+flung them all. And the course masters and those of our crew who had
+been killed.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Ready, Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>Moa prompted me. "Tell him yes!"</p>
+
+<p>I called, "Yes!" Had Venza failed in her unknown pur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>pose? It seemed
+so. On the radio room bridge Snap and his guard stood like silent
+statues in the blue lit gloom.</p>
+
+<p>The disembarkation was over.</p>
+
+<p>"Close the ports!" Miko commanded.</p>
+
+<p>The incline came folding up with a clatter. The port and dome windows
+slid closed. Moa hissed against my ear:</p>
+
+<p>"If you want life, Gregg Haljan, you will start your duties!"</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;only a swaying, huddled group was visible. But my fancy
+pictured this last sight of them, Dr. Frank, Venza, Shac and Dud
+Ardley.</p>
+
+<p>They were gone. There were left only Snap, Anita and myself.</p>
+
+<p>I was mechanically ringing us away. I heard my sirens sounding down
+below, with the answering clangs here in the turret. The <i>Planetara's</i>
+respiratory controls started; the pressure equalizers began operating;
+and the gravity plates began shifting into lifting combinations.</p>
+
+<p>The ship was hissing and quivering with it, combined with the grating
+of the last of the dome ports. And Miko's command:</p>
+
+<p>"Lift, Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>Hahn had been mingling 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Lift, Haljan!"</p>
+
+<p>I lifted up gently, bow first, with a repulsion of the bow plates. And
+started the central electronic engine. Its thrust from the stern moved
+us diagonally over the purple forest trees.</p>
+
+<p>The glade slid downward and away. I caught a last vague<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> glimpse of
+the huddled group of marooned passengers, staring up at us. Left to
+their fate, alone on this deserted world.</p>
+
+<p>With the three engines going, we slid smoothly upward. The forest
+dropped, a purple spread of treetops edged with starlight and
+Earthlight. The sharply curving horizon seemed to follow us upward. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>I said, "An error&mdash;yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn'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."</p>
+
+<p>Her passion-filled eyes bored into me. Love? Hate? The venom of a
+woman scorned&mdash;a mingling of turgid emotions....</p>
+
+<p>I twisted back 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
+instruments on the board before me.</p>
+
+<p>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
+missed my cue? Whatever my part, it seemed now that I must have
+horribly misacted it.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We were on our course to the Moon. My mind flung a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>head. Grantline
+with his treasure, unsuspecting this brigand ship. And suddenly,
+beyond all thought of Grantline, 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. 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?</p>
+
+<p>But no! I had, like a fool, never thought of that! Had let her remain
+here on board at the mercy of these outlaws.</p>
+
+<p>And I swore now, that beyond everything, I would protect her.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Try again. By the infernal, Snap Dean, if you do anything to balk us,
+you die!"</p>
+
+<p>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 radio
+room, watching Snap. Could Miko be fooled? Snap, I knew, was trying to
+fool him.</p>
+
+<p>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. A silver quadrant. The sunset caught the Lunar
+mountains, flung slanting shadows over the Lunar plains. All the disc
+was plainly visible. The mellow Earthlight glowed serene and pale to
+illumine the Lunar night.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Planetara</i> was bathed in silver. A brilliant silver glare swept
+the forward deck, clean white and splashed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> with black shadows. We had
+partly circled the Moon so as now to approach it from the Earthward
+side.</p>
+
+<p>Miko for a time had been at my side in the turret. I had not seen
+Coniston or Hahn of recent hours. I had slept, awakened refreshed, and
+had a meal. Coniston and Hahn remained below, one or 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 radio
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"You are skillful, Haljan." A measure of grim approval was in his
+voice. "You evidently have no wish to try and fool me in this
+navigation."</p>
+
+<p>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 makeshift crew we could easily have
+come upon real difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the
+Sun over our stern quarter. With forward velocity almost checked, we
+poised, and Snap began his signals to the unsuspecting Grantline.</p>
+
+<p>My work momentarily was over. I sat watching the radio room. Moa was
+here, close beside me. I felt always her watchful gaze, so that even
+the play of my emotions needed reining.</p>
+
+<p>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 sullen. This
+is how they thought of Anita.</p>
+
+<p>Miko repeated: "By the infernal, if you try to fool me, Snap Dean!"</p>
+
+<p>The small metal room, with its grid floor and low arched ceiling,
+glared with moonlight through its window. The moving figures of Snap
+and Miko were aped by the grotesque, misshapen shadows of them on the
+walls. Miko gigantic&mdash;a great menacing ogre. Snap small and alert&mdash;a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>
+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
+earlier on the voyage. But he grinned at the brigand's words, and
+pushed his straggling hair closer under the red eyeshade.</p>
+
+<p>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 grids 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.</p>
+
+<p>Would some Earth station pick it up? I prayed so. There was a
+thumbnail mirror here which would bring an answer.</p>
+
+<p>Would some Earth telescope be able to see us? I doubted it. The
+pinpoint of the <i>Planetara's</i> infinitesimal bulk would be beyond
+vision.</p>
+
+<p>Long silences, broken only by the faint hiss and murmur of Snap's
+instruments.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I try the graphs, Miko?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>I helped him with the spectro. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Miko bent over a plate. "Something here? Is there?"</p>
+
+<p>An abnormality upon the frowning ragged cliffs of Tycho? We thought
+so. But then it seemed not.</p>
+
+<p>Another hour. No signal came from Earth. If Snap's calls were getting
+through we had no evidence of it. A<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>bruptly 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are your ray mirrors? If the treasure lies exposed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>This Martian's knowledge was far greater than we believed. He grinned
+sardonically at Anita. "If our treasure is here on this hemisphere,
+Prince, we should pick up its rays. Don't you think so? Or is
+Grantline too cautious to leave it exposed?"</p>
+
+<p>Anita spoke in a careful, throaty drawl. "The rays came through enough
+when we passed here on the way out."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;my
+patience is shortening. Shall we go closer, Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it would help," I said.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. "Perhaps not. Are we checked?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." We were poised very nearly motionless. "If you wish an advance,
+I can ring it. But we need a surface destination now."</p>
+
+<p>"True, Haljan." He stood thinking. "Would a zed-ray penetrate those
+crater cliffs? Tycho, for instance, at this angle?"</p>
+
+<p>"It might," Snap agreed. "You think he may be on the northern inner
+Tycho?"</p>
+
+<p>"He may be anywhere," said Miko shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"If you think that," Snap persisted, "suppose we swing the <i>Planetara</i>
+over the South Pole. Tycho, viewed from there&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"And take another quarter day of time?" Miko sneered.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> "Flash on your
+zed-ray; help him hook it up, Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>My accursed, witless incapacity! If only I had taken warning!</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I recall that several times Snap endeavored to touch me significantly.
+Oh, if only I had taken warning!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"The same interval, Snap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Beside me, I was aware of a faint reflection of the zed-ray&mdash;a gray
+cathedral shaft crossing the room and falling upon the opposite wall.
+An unreality there, as the zed-ray faintly strove to penetrate the
+metal room side.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "Shall I make the exposure?"</p>
+
+<p>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 was undoubtedly an intensified receiving
+equipment which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> 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 <i>Planetara</i>, and had released
+his occulting screens surrounding the ore.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And Miko decoded it triumphantly aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"Surprised but pleased your return. Approach Mid-Northern Hemisphere
+region of Archimedes, forty thousand off nearest Apennine range."</p>
+
+<p>The message broke off. But even its importance was overshadowed. Miko
+stood in the center of the radio room, triumphantly reading the little
+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 over him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 spectro, where the zed-ray
+connections were still humming.</p>
+
+<p>But, with a leap, Miko flung him away. "Off with you! Moa, watch him!
+Haljan, don't move!"</p>
+
+<p>Again Miko stood staring. I saw now that he was staring at Anita!</p>
+
+<p>"Why, George Prince! How strange you look!"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Move just a little, Prince. Let the zed-ray light fall more fully."</p>
+
+<p>Anita's head was bare. That pale, Hamlet-like face. Dear God, the
+zed-ray light lay gray and penetrating upon it!</p>
+
+<p>Miko took another step. Peering. Grinning. "How amazing, George
+Prince! Why, I can hardly believe it!"</p>
+
+<p>Moa was armed with an electronic cylinder now. For all her
+amazement&mdash;what turgid emotions sweeping her I can only guess&mdash;she
+never took her eyes from Snap and me.</p>
+
+<p>"Back! Don't move either of you!" she hissed at us.</p>
+
+<p>Then Miko leaped at Anita like a giant gray leopard pouncing.</p>
+
+<p>"Away with that cloak, Prince!"</p>
+
+<p>I stood cold and numbed. And realization came at last. The faint
+zed-light had fallen by chance upon Anita's face. Penetrating the
+flesh; exposed, faintly glowing, the bone line of her jaw. Unmasked
+the art of Glutz.</p>
+
+<p>Miko seized her wrists, 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!</p>
+
+<p>And as Miko gazed at them, all his calm triumph swept away.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>I heard Moa mutter, "So that is it?" A venomous flashing look&mdash;a shaft
+from me to Anita and back again. "So that is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg!" Snap's warning, and his grip on 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 grids were swaying again with a
+message from Grantline. But it was ignored.</p>
+
+<p>In the glare of moonlight by the forward window, Miko<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> held Anita, his
+great hands pawing her with triumphant possessive caresses.</p>
+
+<p>"So, little Anita, you are given back to me!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XX</h2>
+
+
+<p>Moonlight upon Earth so gently shines to make romantic a lover's
+smile! But the reality of the Lunar night is cold beyond human belief.
+Cold and darkly silent. Grim desolation. Awesome. Majestic. A frowning
+majesty that even to the most intrepid human beholder is inconceivably
+forbidding.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The Grantline camp stood midway 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
+Earthlight tinged the spires and crags with yellow sheen; and on the
+shelf, like a huddled group of birds' nests, Grantline's domes hung
+and gazed down upon the inner valley.</p>
+
+<p>The air here on the Moon surface was negligible&mdash;a scant one
+five-thousandth of the atmospheric pressure at the sea level on Earth.
+But within the glassite shelter, a normal<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> 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 capacity. The chemistry of manufactured air, the pressure
+equalizers, renewers, respirators, the lighting and temperature
+maintenance of a space-flyer was here.</p>
+
+<p>There was this main Grantline building, stretched low and rectangular
+along the front edge of the ledge. Within it were living rooms, mess
+hall 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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;gray snakes upon the
+porous, gray Lunar rock.</p>
+
+<p>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 bores had dug into the cliff.
+Braced tunnels were here, penetrating back and downward into the vein
+of rock.</p>
+
+<p>The work was over. 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. Trucks 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.</p>
+
+<p>But now all that was finished. The catalytic ore was sufficiently
+concentrated. It lay&mdash;this treasure&mdash;in a seventy<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> foot pile behind
+the glassite lean-to, with a cage of wires over it and an insulation
+barrage hiding its presence.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the outer aspect of the Grantline Treasure Camp near the
+beginning of this Lunar night, when, unknown to Grantline and his men,
+the <i>Planetara</i> 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped presently and disconnected metal weights which were upon
+his shoes.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>He went the length of the ledge with his twenty foot strides,
+inspected the lights, and made adjustments. Came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> back, and climbed
+with agile, bounding leaps up the spider ladder to the dome of the
+crater top. A light flashed on up there. Then it was extinguished.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The lock opened. The figure went inside.</p>
+
+<p>It was early evening. After the dinner hour and before the time of
+sleep according to the camp routine Grantline was maintaining. Nine
+<span class="smcap">p.m.</span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"All as usual. This cursed Moon! When I get home&mdash;if I ever do&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Say your say, Wilks. But you'll spend your share of the gold leaf and
+thank your constellations that you had your chance to make it."</p>
+
+<p>"Let him alone! Come on, Wilks, take a hand here. This game is not any
+good with three."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>A laugh went up at the sharp look Johnny Grantline flung from where he
+sat reading in a corner of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Commander's orders. No gambling gold leafers tolerated here."</p>
+
+<p>"Play the game, Wilks," Grantline said quietly. "We all know it's
+infernal&mdash;this doing nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"He's been struck by Earthlight," another man laughed. "Commander, I
+told you not to let that guy Wilks out at night."</p>
+
+<p>A rough but good-natured lot of men. Jolly and raucous by nature in
+their leisure hours. But there was too much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> 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, blazing stars and flaming
+Sun, with no atmosphere to diffuse 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 beloved Earth disc hanging poised
+up near the zenith. From thinnest crescent to full Earth, then back to
+crescent.</p>
+
+<p>All so abnormal, irrational, disturbing to human senses.</p>
+
+<p>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 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
+the premonition strong within him. Unreasonably, ominous depression!
+Barring the accident which had disabled his little spaceship when they
+reached this small crater hole, his expedition had gone well. His
+instruments, and the information he had from the former explorers, had
+enabled him to pick up the catalyst vein with only one month of
+search.</p>
+
+<p>The vein had now been exhausted; but the treasure was here&mdash;enough to
+supply every need on his Earth! Nothing was left but to wait for the
+<i>Planetara</i>. The men were talking of that now.</p>
+
+<p>"She ought to be well midway from Ferrok-Shahn by now. When do you
+figure she'll be back here and signal us?"</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>"Three weeks. Just give me three weeks of reasonable<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span> sunrise and
+sunset! This cursed Moon! You mean, Williams, next daylight."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! He's inventing a Lunar language. You'll be a Moon man yet."</p>
+
+<p>Olaf Swenson, the big blond fellow from the Scandia fiords, came and
+flung himself down beside Grantline.</p>
+
+<p>"Ay tank they bane without enough to do, Commander &mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Three weeks isn't very long, Ole."</p>
+
+<p>"No. Maybe not."</p>
+
+<p>From across the room somebody was saying, "If the <i>Comet</i> hadn't
+smashed on us, damn me but I'd ask the Commander to let some of us
+take her back."</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up, Billy. She <i>is</i> smashed."</p>
+
+<p>"You all agreed to things as they are," Johnny said shortly. "We all
+took the same chances&mdash;voluntarily."</p>
+
+<p>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 made him seem older. He stood up now,
+surveying the blue lit glassite room with its low ceiling close
+overhead. He was bow-legged; in movement he seemed to roll with a
+stiff-legged gait like some sea captains of former days on the deck of
+his swaying ship. Odd looking figure! Heavy flannel shirt and
+trousers, boots heavily weighted, and bulky metal-loaded belt strapped
+about his waist.</p>
+
+<p>He grinned at Swenson. "When the time comes to divide this treasure,
+everyone will be happy, Ole."</p>
+
+<p>The treasure was estimated 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 for commercial use. Ninety
+millions, with only a million and a half to come off for expedition
+expenses, and the <i>Planetara's</i> share another million. A nice little
+stake.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Grantline strode across the room with his rolling gait.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer up, boys. Who's winning there? I say, you fellows&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>An audiphone buzzer interrupted him, a call from the duty man in the
+instrument room of the nearby building.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline clicked the receiver. The room fell into silence. Any call
+was unusual&mdash;nothing ever happened here in the camp.</p>
+
+<p>The duty man's voice sounded over the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Signals coming! Not clear. Will you come over, Commander?"</p>
+
+<p>Signals!</p>
+
+<p>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 radio receivers. The mirrors were
+swaying.</p>
+
+<p>The duty man looked up and met Grantline's gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"I ran it up to the highest intensity, Commander. We ought to get
+it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Low scale, Peter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Weakest infra-red. I'm bringing it up, even though it uses too
+much of our power."</p>
+
+<p>"Get it," said Grantline shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"I got one slight television swing a minute ago&mdash;then it faded. I
+think it's the <i>Planetara</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Planetara</i>!" The crowding group of men chorused. How could it be the
+<i>Planetara</i>?</p>
+
+<p>But it was. The call came in presently. Unmistakably the <i>Planetara</i>,
+turned back now from her course to Ferrok-Shahn.</p>
+
+<p>"How far away, Peter?"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Planetara</i> here within thirty thousand miles! Excitement and
+pleasure swept the room. The <i>Planetara</i> had for so long been awaited
+eagerly!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 <i>Planetara</i> ahead of time;
+incautious, Grantline certainly was!</p>
+
+<p>"Raise the barrage."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go. My suit is here."</p>
+
+<p>A willing volunteer rushed out to the shed.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you send, Peter?" Grantline demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. With more power."</p>
+
+<p>"Use it."</p>
+
+<p>Johnny dictated the message of his location which we received. In his
+incautious excitement he ignored the secret code.</p>
+
+<p>An interval passed. No message had come from us&mdash;just Snap's routine
+signal in the weak infra-red, which we hoped Grantline would not get.</p>
+
+<p>The men crowding Grantline's instrument room waited in tense silence.
+Then Grantline tried the television again. 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.</p>
+
+<p>The duty man looked frightened. "You'll bulge out our walls,
+Commander. The internal pressure&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll chance it."</p>
+
+<p>They picked up the image of the <i>Planetara</i>. It shone clear on the
+grid&mdash;the segment of star-field with a tiny cigar-shaped blob. Clear
+enough to be unmistakable. The <i>Planetara</i>! Here now, over the Moon,
+almost directly overhead, poised at what the altimeter scale showed to
+be a fraction under thirty thousand miles.</p>
+
+<p>The men gazed in awed silence. The <i>Planetara</i> coming....</p>
+
+<p>But the altimeter needle was motionless. The <i>Planetara</i> was hanging
+poised.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden gasp went about the room. The men stood with whitening faces,
+gazing at the <i>Planetara's</i> image. And at the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> altimeter's needle. It
+was moving now. The <i>Planetara</i> was descending. But not with an
+orderly swoop.</p>
+
+<p>The grid 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.</p>
+
+<p>The watching men were stricken in horrified silence. The <i>Planetara's</i>
+image momentarily, horribly, grew larger. Swaying. Then turning
+completely over, rotating slowly end over end.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Planetara</i>, out of control, was falling!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXI</h2>
+
+
+<p>On the <i>Planetara</i>, in the radio 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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,
+little Anita, you were masquerading to spy on me? That was wrong of
+you."</p>
+
+<p>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
+on this catastrophe!</p>
+
+<p>The completion of Grantline's message had come unnoticed by us all. We
+remained tense.</p>
+
+<p>"Look! Grantline again!" Snap said abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>But the mirrors were steadying. We had no recording mechanism; the
+rest of the message was lost.</p>
+
+<p>No further message came. There was an interval while<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> Miko waited. He
+held Anita in the hollow of his great arm.</p>
+
+<p>"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
+these worlds can offer&mdash;all for us when this is over. Careful, Moa!
+This Haljan has no wit."</p>
+
+<p>Well could he say it. I, who had been so witless as 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 as to admit love for you!"</p>
+
+<p>Snap murmured in my ear, "Don't move, Gregg! She's reckless."</p>
+
+<p>She heard it. She whirled on him. "We have lost George Prince, it
+seems. Well, we will survive without his scientific knowledge. And
+you, Dean&mdash;and this Haljan, mark me&mdash;I will kill you both if you cause
+trouble!"</p>
+
+<p>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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll land now, Haljan. Come, Anita and I will go with you to the
+turret."</p>
+
+<p>I found my voice. "To what destination?"</p>
+
+<p>"Near Archimedes. The Apennine side. Keep well away from the Grantline
+camp. We will probably sight it as we descend."</p>
+
+<p>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? I met Snap's
+gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Ring us down, Gregg," he said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>I nodded. I pushed Moa's weapon away. "You don't need that&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>We went to the turret. Moa watched me and Snap, a grim, cold Amazon.
+She avoided looking at Anita, whom<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> Miko helped down the ladders with
+a strange mixture of courtierlike grace and amused irony. Coniston
+stared at Anita.</p>
+
+<p>"I say, not George Prince? The girl&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No time for explanations," Miko commanded. "It's the girl,
+masquerading as her brother. Get below, Coniston. Haljan takes us
+down."</p>
+
+<p>The astounded Englishman continued to gaze at Anita. But he said, "I
+mean to say, where to on the Moon? Not to encounter Grantline at once,
+Miko? Our equipment is not ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not. We will land well away&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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, Anita. A skilled fellow at this sort of work."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Ring again, Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>I duplicated. No answer. The silence was ominous.</p>
+
+<p>Miko muttered, "That accursed Hahn. Ring again!"</p>
+
+<p>I sent the imperative emergency demand.</p>
+
+<p>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 the 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!</p>
+
+<p>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 position they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> were placed only in port! And their shifting
+mechanisms were imperative!</p>
+
+<p>I was on my feet. "We're in neutral!"</p>
+
+<p>The Moon disc moved visibly as the <i>Planetara</i> lurched. The vault of
+the heavens was slowly swinging.</p>
+
+<p>Miko ripped out a heavy oath. "Haljan! What is this?"</p>
+
+<p>The heavens turned with a giant swoop. The Moon was over us. It swung
+in a dizzying arc. Overhead, then back past our stern; under us, then
+appearing over our bow.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Planetara</i> had turned over. Upending. Rotating, end over end.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I think all of us in the turret stood and clung. The Moon
+disc, the Earth, Sun and all the stars were swinging past our windows.
+So horribly dizzying. The <i>Planetara</i> seemed lurching and tumbling.
+But it was an optical effect only. I stared with grim determination at
+my feet. The turret seemed to steady.</p>
+
+<p>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 down!</p>
+
+<p>"That accursed Hahn&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 for
+that.</p>
+
+<p>But we were falling. Unless I could do something, we would crash upon
+the Lunar surface.</p>
+
+<p>Anita, killed in this turret: the end of everything&mdash;every hope.</p>
+
+<p>Action came to me. I gasped, "Miko, you stay here! The controls are
+dead! You stay here and hold Anita&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I ignored Moa's weapon. Snap thrust her away.</p>
+
+<p>"We're falling, you fool&mdash;let us alone!"</p>
+
+<p>Miko gasped, "Can you&mdash;check us? What happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I stood clinging. This dizzying whirl. From the audiphone grid
+Coniston's voice sounded.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I say, Haljan, something's wrong. Hahn doesn't signal."</p>
+
+<p>The lookout in the forward tower was clinging to our window. On the
+deck below our turret a member of the crew appeared, stood lurching
+for a moment, then shouted 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 deck.</p>
+
+<p>I pulled at the emergency switch again. Dead....</p>
+
+<p>"Snap, we must get down. The signals."</p>
+
+<p>Coniston's voice came like a scream from the grid. "Hahn is dead. The
+controls are broken!"</p>
+
+<p>I shouted, "Miko, hold Anita! Come on, Snap!"</p>
+
+<p>We clung to the ladders. Snap was behind me. "Careful, Gregg! Good
+God!"</p>
+
+<p>This dizzying whirl. I tried not to look. The deck under me was now a
+blurred kaleidoscope of swinging patches of moonlight and shadow.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the deck. It seemed that from the turret Anita's voice
+followed us. "Be careful!"</p>
+
+<p>Once inside 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 there was anything amiss. That, and a
+pseudo sensation of lurching caused by the pulsing of gravity&mdash;a pull
+when the Moon was beneath our hull to combine its forces with our
+magnetizers; a lightening, when it was overhead. A throbbing, pendulum
+lurch!</p>
+
+<p>We ran down to the corridor incline. A white-faced member of the crew
+came running up.</p>
+
+<p>"What's happened, Haljan? What's happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're falling!" I gripped him. "Get below. Come with us."</p>
+
+<p>But he jerked away from me. "Falling?"</p>
+
+<p>A steward came running. "Falling? My God!"</p>
+
+<p>Snap swung at them. "Get ahead of us! The manual con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>trols&mdash;our only
+chance&mdash;we need all you men at the compressor pumps!"</p>
+
+<p>But it was instinct to try and get on deck, as though here below we
+were rats caught in a trap. The men tore away from us and ran. Their
+shouts of panic resounded through the dim, blue lit corridors.</p>
+
+<p>Coniston came lurching from the control room. "I say&mdash;falling! Haljan,
+my God, look!"</p>
+
+<p>Hahn was sprawled at the gravity plate switchboard. Sprawled, head
+down. Dead. Killed? Or a suicide?</p>
+
+<p>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? Why?</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>Snap was rigging the hand compressors. If he could get the pressure
+back in the tanks....</p>
+
+<p>I swung on Coniston. "You armed?"</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Round up the crew. Get all you can. Bring them here to man the
+pumps."</p>
+
+<p>He dashed away. Snap called after him, "Kill them if they argue!"</p>
+
+<p>Miko's voice sounded from the turret call grid: "Falling! Haljan, you
+can see it now! Check us!"</p>
+
+<p>Desperate moments. Or was it an hour? Coniston brought the men. He
+stood over them with menacing weapon.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I signaled Miko. "Have we stopped swinging?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No. But slower."</p>
+
+<p>I could feel it, that lurch of the gravity. But not steady now. A
+limp. The tendency of our bow was to stay up.</p>
+
+<p>"More pressure, Snap."</p>
+
+<p>One of the crew rebelled, tried to bolt from the room.</p>
+
+<p>Coniston shot him down.</p>
+
+<p>I shifted another bow plate. Then two in the stern. The stern plates
+seemed to move more readily than the others.</p>
+
+<p>"Run all the stern plates," Snap advised.</p>
+
+<p>I tried it. The lurching stopped. Miko called, "We're bow down.
+Falling!"</p>
+
+<p>But not falling free. The Moon gravity pull on us was more than half
+neutralized.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go up, Snap, and try the engines. You don't mind staying down
+here? Executing my signals?"</p>
+
+<p>"You idiot!" He gripped my shoulders. His eyes were gleaming, his face
+haggard, but his pale lips twitched with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe it's good-bye, Gregg. We'll fall&mdash;fighting."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Fighting. Coniston, you keep the pressure up."</p>
+
+<p>With the broken 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.</p>
+
+<p>I dashed up to the deck. Oh, 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.</p>
+
+<p>Those last horrible minutes were a blur. And there was always Anita's
+face. She left Miko. Faced with death, he sat clinging. Moa too, sat
+apart&mdash;staring.</p>
+
+<p>And Anita crept to me. "Gregg, dear one. The end...."</p>
+
+<p>I tried the electronic engines from the stern, setting them in
+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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> minutes, to slide a few of the hull plates. But our bow
+stayed down. We slid, like a spent rocket falling.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, dear one&mdash;good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>Her gentle arms about me. The end of everything for us. I recall
+murmuring, "Not falling free, Anita. Some hull plates are set."</p>
+
+<p>My dials showed another plate shifting, checking us a little further.
+Good old Snap!</p>
+
+<p>I calculated the next best plate to shift. I tried it. Slid it over.</p>
+
+<p>Then everything faded but the feeling of Anita's arms around me.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, dear one&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The end of everything for us....</p>
+
+<p>There was an up-rush of gray-black rock.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXII</h2>
+
+
+<p>I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt&mdash;a pain
+shooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not
+seem to move my left arm. Then I moved it and it hurt. I was lying
+twisted. I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was over. I
+was not dead. Anita&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in the silent
+blur&mdash;a soft mellow Earthlight filtering in the window. The weight on
+me was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way across
+my lap.</p>
+
+<p>Not dead! Thank God, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, and
+I lifted her. The Earthlight glowed on her pale face.</p>
+
+<p>"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I held her as though all of life's turgid dangers were powerless to
+touch us.</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>I cast off Anita's clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"</p>
+
+<p>For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our
+embrace. But air was escaping! The <i>Planetara's</i> dome was broken and
+our precious air was hissing out.</p>
+
+<p>Full reality came to me. I was not seriously injured. I found I could
+move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, but
+they were better in a moment.</p>
+
+<p>And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not her
+own.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>Planetara's</i> deck. It lay dashed against the dome side.</p>
+
+<p>The deck was aslant. A litter of wreckage! A broken human figure
+showed&mdash;one of the crew who, at the last, must have come running up.
+The forward observation tower was down on the chart room roof: in its
+metal tangle I thought I could see the legs of the tower lookout.</p>
+
+<p>So this was the end of the brigands' adventure. The <i>Planetara's</i> last
+voyage! How small and futile are humans' struggles. Miko's daring
+enterprise&mdash;so villainous&mdash;brought all in a few moments to this silent
+tragedy. The <i>Planetara</i> had fallen thirty thousand miles. But why?
+What had happened to Hahn? And where was Coniston, down in this broken
+hull?</p>
+
+<p>And Snap! I thought suddenly of Snap.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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
+<i>Planetara</i> lay bow down, wedged in a jagged cradle of Lunar rock. A
+miracle that the hull and dome had held together.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, we must get out of here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>She was staring at the fallen Miko and Moa. She shuddered and turned
+away and gripped me. "In the forward storage room, by the port of the
+emergency exit."</p>
+
+<p>If only the exit locks would operate! We must find Snap and get out of
+here. Good old Snap! Would we find him lying dead?</p>
+
+<p>We climbed from the slanting, fallen turret, over the wreckage of the
+littered deck. It was not difficult. A lightness was upon us. The
+<i>Planetara's</i> gravity-magnetizers were dead; this was only the light
+Moon gravity pulling us.</p>
+
+<p>"Careful, Anita. Don't jump too freely."</p>
+
+<p>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!</p>
+
+<p>"Snap&mdash;" I murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gregg, I pray we may find him alive!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here The air is
+escaping!"</p>
+
+<p>But he sank back and lay still. No time to find if I could help him:
+there was Anita and Snap to save.</p>
+
+<p>We found a broken entrance to one of the descending passages. I flung
+the debris aside and cleared it. Like a giant of strength with only
+this Moon gravity holding me, I raised a broken segment of
+superstructure and heaved it back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Anita and I dropped ourselves down the sloping passage. The interior
+of the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage light
+was still burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckage
+everywhere but the double dome and hull shell had withstood the shock.
+Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat,
+like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling on
+everything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would soon be
+here in these wrecked corridors. The end of the <i>Planetara</i>.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg! Why, Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>"Snap! You're all right? We struck&mdash;the air is escaping."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;she wasn't killed. I spoke to her."</p>
+
+<p>Irrational!</p>
+
+<p>"Snap!" I held him. Shook him. "Snap, old fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>He said normally, "Easy, Gregg. I'm all right."</p>
+
+<p>Anita gripped him. "Who, Snap?"</p>
+
+<p>"She&mdash;there she is...."</p>
+
+<p>Another figure was here! On the grid floor by the door oval. A figure
+partly shrouded in a broken invisible cloak and hook. An invisible
+cloak! I saw a white face with opened eyes regarding me.</p>
+
+<p>"Venza!" I bent down. "You!"</p>
+
+<p>Venza here? Why ... how ... my thoughts swept on. Venza here&mdash;dying?
+Her eyes closed. But she murmured to Anita, "Where is he? I want him."</p>
+
+<p>I murmured impulsively, "Here I am, Venza dear." Gently, as one would
+speak with gentle sympathy to humor the dying. "Here I am, Venza."</p>
+
+<p>But it was only the confusion of the shock upon her. And<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> 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 shock,
+confused in the dim, wrecked ship with the chill of death coming&mdash;even
+here she could jest. Her pale lips smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Gregg. I'm not hurt&mdash;I don't think I'm hurt." She managed to get
+herself up on one elbow. "Did you think I wanted you with my dying
+breath? What conceit! Not you, Handsome Haljan! I was calling Snap."</p>
+
+<p>He was down to her. "We're all right, Venza. It's over. We must get
+out of the ship. The air is escaping."</p>
+
+<p>We gathered in the oval doorway. We fought the confusion of panic.</p>
+
+<p>"The exit port is this way."</p>
+
+<p>Or was it? I answered Snap, "Yes, I think so."</p>
+
+<p>The ship suddenly seemed a stranger to me. So cold. So vibrationless.
+Broken lights. These slanting wrecked corridors. With the ventilating
+fans stilled, the air was turning fetid. Chilling. And thinning, with
+escaping pressure, rarefying so that I could feel the grasp of it in
+my lungs and the pin-pricks in my cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>We started off. Four of us, still alive in this silent ship of death.
+My blurred thoughts tried to cope with it all. Venza here. I
+remembered how she had bade me create a diversion when the women
+passengers were landing on the asteroid. She had carried out her
+purpose! In the confusion she had not gone ashore. A stowaway here.
+She had secured the cloak. Prowling, to try and help us, she had come
+upon Hahn. Had seized his ray cylinder and struck him down, and been
+herself knocked unconscious by his dying lunge, which also had broken
+the tubes and wrecked the <i>Planetara</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"It's here, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>Snap and I lifted the pile of Moon equipment to which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> she referred.
+We located four suits and helmets and the mechanisms to operate them.</p>
+
+<p>"More are in the chart room," Anita said.</p>
+
+<p>But we needed no others. I robed Anita and showed her the mechanisms.
+Snap was helping Venza. We were all stiff from the cold; but within
+the suits and their pulsing currents, the blessed warmth came again.</p>
+
+<p>The helmets had ports through which food and drink could be taken. I
+stood with my helmet ready. Anita, Venza and Snap were bloated and
+grotesque beside me. We had found food and water here, assembled in
+portable cases which the brigands had prepared. Snap lifted them, and
+signaled to me he was ready.</p>
+
+<p>My helmet shut out all sounds save my own breathing, my pounding
+heart, and the murmur of the mechanism. The warmth and pure air were
+good.</p>
+
+<p>We reached the hull port locks. They operated! We went through in the
+light of the headlamps over our foreheads.</p>
+
+<p>I closed the locks after us: an instinct to keep the air in the ship
+for the other trapped humans lying in there.</p>
+
+<p>We slid down the sloping side of the <i>Planetara</i>. We were unweighted,
+irrationally agile with this slight gravity. I fell a dozen feet and
+landed with barely a jar.</p>
+
+<p>We were out on the Lunar surface. A great sloping ramp of crags
+stretched down before us. Gray-black rock tinged with Earthlight. The
+Earth hung amid the stars in the blackness overhead like a huge
+section of a glowing yellow ball.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I had turned to look back at the <i>Planetara</i>. She lay broken, wedged
+between spires of upstanding rock. A few of her lights still gleamed.
+The end of the <i>Planetara</i>!</p>
+
+<p>The three grotesque figures of Anita, Venza and Snap had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> started off.
+Hunchback figures with the tanks mounted on their shoulders. I bounded
+and caught them. I touched Snap. We made audiphone contact.</p>
+
+<p>"Which way do you think?" I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"I think this way, down the ramp. Away from Archimedes, toward the
+mountains. It shouldn't be too far."</p>
+
+<p>"You run with Venza. I'll hold Anita."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. "But we must keep together, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>We could soon run freely. Down the ramp, out over the tumbled plain.
+Bounding, grotesque, leaping strides. The girls were more agile, more
+skillful. They were soon leading us. The Earth shadows of their
+figures leaped beside them. The <i>Planetara</i> faded into the distance
+behind us. Archimedes stood back there. Ahead, the mountains came
+closer.</p>
+
+<p>An hour perhaps. I lost track of time. Occasionally we stopped to
+rest. Were we going toward the Grantline camp? Would they see our tiny
+waving headlights?</p>
+
+<p>Another interval. Then far ahead of us on the ragged plain, lights
+showed! Moving, tiny spots of light! Headlights on helmeted figures!</p>
+
+<p>We ran, monstrously leaping. A group of figures were off there.
+Grantline's party? Snap gripped me.</p>
+
+<p>"Grantline! We're safe, Gregg! Safe!"</p>
+
+<p>He took his bulb light from his helmet; we stood in a group while he
+waved it. A semaphore signal.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Grantline?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>And the answer came, "<i>Yes. You, Dean?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Their personal code. No doubt of this&mdash;it was Grantline, who had seen
+the <i>Planetara</i> fall and had come to help us.</p>
+
+<p>I stood then with my hand holding Anita. And I whispered, "It's
+Grantline! We're safe, Anita, my darling!"</p>
+
+<p>Death had been so close! Those horrible last minutes on the
+<i>Planetara</i> had shocked us, marked us. We stood trembling. And
+Grantline and his men came bounding up, weird, inflated figures.</p>
+
+<p>A helmeted figure touched me. I saw through the helmet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>pane the visage
+of a stern-faced, square-jawed young man.</p>
+
+<p>"Grantline? Johnny Grantline?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said his voice at my ear-grid. "I'm Grantline. You're Haljan?
+Gregg Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>They crowded around us. Gripped us, to hear our explanations.</p>
+
+<p>Brigands! It was amazing to Johnny Grantline. But the menace was over
+now, over as soon as Grantline realized its existence.</p>
+
+<p>We stood for a brief time discussing it. Then I drew apart, leaving
+Snap with Grantline. And Anita joined me. I held her arm so that we
+had audiphone contact.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, mine."</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg&mdash;dear one!"</p>
+
+<p>Murmured nothings which mean so much to lovers!</p>
+
+<p>As we stood in the fantastic gloom of Lunar desolation, with the
+blessed Earthlight on us, I sent up a prayer of thankfulness. Not that
+the enormous treasure was saved. Not that the attack upon Grantline
+had been averted. But only that Anita was given back to me. In moments
+of greatest emotion the human mind individualizes. To me, there was
+only Anita.</p>
+
+<p>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?</p>
+
+<p>I felt a touch on my arm. A bloated helmet visor was thrust near my
+own. I saw Snap's face peering at me.</p>
+
+<p>"Grantline thinks we should return to the <i>Planetara</i>. Might find some
+of them alive."</p>
+
+<p>Grantline touched me. "It's only human&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," I said.</p>
+
+<p>We went back. Some ten of us&mdash;a line of grotesque figures bounding
+with slow, easy strides over the jagged, rock-strewn plain. Our lights
+danced before us.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>Planetara</i> 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,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> unbreathing. The lights on her were
+extinguished. The Erentz system had ceased to pulse&mdash;the heart of the
+dying ship, for a while beating faintly, but now at rest.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It was dark inside the wrecked ship. The corridors were black. The
+hull control rooms were dimly with Earthlight straggling through the
+windows.</p>
+
+<p>This littered tomb. Cold and silent with death. We stumbled over a
+fallen figure. A member of the crew. Grantline straightened from
+examining it.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Earthlight fell on the horrible face. Puffed flesh, bloated red from
+the blood which had oozed from its pores in the thinning air. I looked
+away.</p>
+
+<p>We prowled further. Hahn lay dead in the pump room. The body of
+Coniston should have been near here. We did not see it. We climbed up
+to the slanting, littered deck. The air up here had all almost hissed
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Again Grantline touched me. "That the turret?"</p>
+
+<p>No wonder he asked me! The wreckage was all so formless.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>We climbed after Snap into the broken turret room. We passed the body
+of that steward who just at the end had appealed to me and I had left
+dying. The legs of the forward lookout still poked grotesquely up from
+the wreckage of the observatory tower where it lay smashed down
+against the roof of the chart room.</p>
+
+<p>We shoved ourselves into the turret. What was this? No bodies here!
+The giant Miko was gone! The pool of blood lay congealed into a frozen
+dark splotch on the metal grid.</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>But we did not. Nor Coniston. I recalled what Anita had said: other
+suits and helmets had been here in the nearby chart room. The brigands
+had taken them, and food and water doubtless, and escaped from the
+ship, following us through the lower admission ports only a few
+minutes after we were gone.</p>
+
+<p>We made careful search of the entire ship. Eight of the bodies which
+should have been here were missing: Miko, Moa, Coniston and five of
+the crew.</p>
+
+<p>We did not find them outside. They were hiding near here, no doubt,
+more willing to take their chances than to yield to us now. But how,
+in all this Lunar desolation, could we hope to locate them?</p>
+
+<p>"No use," said Grantline. "Let them go. If they want death, well, they
+deserve it."</p>
+
+<p>But we were saved. Then, as I stood there, realization leaped at me.
+Saved? Were we not indeed fatuous fools?</p>
+
+<p>In all these emotion-swept moments since we had encountered Grantline,
+memory of that brigand ship coming from Mars had never once occurred
+to Snap and me!</p>
+
+<p>I told Grantline now. He stared at me.</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>I told him again. It would be here in eight days. Fully manned and
+armed.</p>
+
+<p>"But Haljan, we have almost no weapons! All my <i>Comet's</i> space was
+taken with equipment and the mechanisms for my camp. I can't signal
+Earth! I was depending on the <i>Planetara</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>It surged upon us. The brigand menace past? We were blindly
+congratulating ourselves on our safety! But it would be eight days or
+more before in distant Ferrok-Shahn the nonarrival of the <i>Planetara</i>
+would cause any real comment. No one was searching for us&mdash;no one was
+worried over us.</p>
+
+<p>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!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And we were helpless. Almost unarmed. Marooned here on the Moon!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Try it again," Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise some
+Earth station! Chance it! Use the power&mdash;run it up full. Chance it!"</p>
+
+<p>We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty man, with
+blanched grim face, sat at his senders. The Grantline crew shoved
+close around us. There were very few observers in the high-powered
+Earth stations who knew that an exploring party was on the Moon.
+Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had sanctioned the
+expedition and Halsey and his confr&egrave;res in the Detective Bureau were
+not anticipating trouble at this point. The <i>Planetara</i> was supposed
+to be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn. It was when she was due to
+return that Halsey would be alert.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of safety. He cut down
+the lights; the telescope intensifiers and television were completely
+disconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so that the
+air here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew fetid. All,
+to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might survive.</p>
+
+<p>Even so, it was strained to the danger point. Our heat was radiating
+away; the deadly chill of space crept in.</p>
+
+<p>"Again!" ordered Grantline.</p>
+
+<p>The duty man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence,
+the tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating
+prisms, intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible
+beam, it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead
+dome and into space.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for
+now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath in
+the chill darkness. The lights came on again; the Erentz motors
+accelerated to normal. The strain on the walls eased up, and the room
+began warming.</p>
+
+<p>Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power to
+find out. Our receivers were disconnected. If an answering signal
+came, we could not know it. One of the men said:</p>
+
+<p>"Let's assume they read us." He laughed, but it was a high-pitched,
+tense laugh. "We don't dare even use the telescope or television. Or
+electron radio. Our rescue ship might be right overhead, visible to
+the naked eye, before we see it. Three days more&mdash;that's what I'll
+give it."</p>
+
+<p>But the three days passed and no rescue ship came. The Earth was
+almost at the full. We tried signaling again. Perhaps it got
+through&mdash;we did not know. But our power was weaker now. The wall of
+one of the rooms sprang a leak, and the men were hours repairing it. I
+did not say so, but never once did I feel that our signals were read
+on Earth. Those cursed clouds! The Earth almost everywhere seemed to
+have poor visibility.</p>
+
+<p>Four of our eight days of grace were all too soon passed. The brigand
+ship must be half way here by now.</p>
+
+<p>They were busy days for us. If we could have captured Miko and his
+band, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasure
+insulated, and our camp in darkness, the arriving brigand ship might
+never find us. But Miko knew our location; he would signal his
+oncoming ship when it was close and lead it to us.</p>
+
+<p>During those three days&mdash;and the days which followed them&mdash;Grantline
+sent out searching parties. But it was unavailing. Miko, Moa and
+Coniston, with their five underlings, could not be found.</p>
+
+<p>We had at first hoped that the brigands might have perished. But that
+was soon dispelled! I went&mdash;about the third day&mdash;with the party that
+was sent to the <i>Planetara</i>. We wanted to salvage some of its
+equipment, its unbroken power<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> units. And Snap and I had worked out an
+idea which we thought might be of service. We needed some of the
+<i>Planetara's</i> smaller gravity plate sections. Those in Grantline's
+wrecked little <i>Comet</i> had stood so long that their radiations had
+gone dead. But the <i>Planetara's</i> were still working.</p>
+
+<p>Our hope that Miko might have perished was dashed. He too had returned
+to the <i>Planetara</i>! The evidence was clear before us. The vessel was
+stripped of all its power units save those which were dead and
+useless. The last of the food and water stores were taken. The weapons
+in the chart room&mdash;the Benson curve lights, projectors and heat
+rays&mdash;had vanished!</p>
+
+<p>Other days passed. Earth reached the full and was waning. The fourteen
+day Lunar night was in its last half. No rescue ship came from Earth.
+We had ceased our efforts to signal, for we needed all our power to
+maintain ourselves. The camp would be in a state of siege before long.
+That was the best we could hope for. We had a few short-range weapons,
+such as Bensons, heat-rays and projectors. A few hundred feet of
+effective range was the most any of them could obtain. The
+heat-rays&mdash;in giant form one of the most deadly weapons on Earth&mdash;were
+only slowly efficacious on the airless Moon. Striking an intensely
+cold surface, their warming radiations were slow to act. Even in a
+blasting heat beam a man in his Erentz helmet-suit could withstand the
+ray for several minutes.</p>
+
+<p>We were, however, well equipped with explosives. Grantline had brought
+a large supply for his mining operations, and much of it was still
+unused. We had, also, an ample stock of oxygen fuses, and a variety of
+oxygen light flares in small, fragile glass globes.</p>
+
+<p>It was to use these explosives against the brigands that Snap and I
+were working out our scheme with the gravity plates. The brigand ship
+would come with giant projectors and some thirty men. If we could hold
+out against them for a time, the fact that the <i>Planetara</i> was missing
+would bring us help from Earth.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another day. A tenseness was upon all of us, despite the absorption of
+our feverish activities. To conserve power, the camp was almost dark,
+we lived in dim, chill rooms, with just a few weak spots of light
+outside to mark the watchmen on their rounds. We did not use the
+telescope, but there was scarcely an hour when one or the other of the
+men was not sitting on a cross-piece up in the dome of the little
+instrument room, casting a tense, searching gaze through his glasses
+into the black, starry firmament. A ship might appear at any time
+now&mdash;a rescue ship from Earth, or the brigands from Mars.</p>
+
+<p>Anita and Venza through these days could aid us very little save by
+their cheering words. They moved about the rooms, trying to inspire
+us; so that all the men, when they might have been humanly sullen and
+cursing their fate, were turned to grim activity, or grim laughter,
+making a joke of the coming siege. The morale of the camp now was
+perfect. An improvement indeed over the inactivity of their former
+peaceful weeks!</p>
+
+<p>Grantline mentioned it to me. "Well put up a good fight, Haljan. These
+fellows from Mars will know they've had a task before they ever sail
+off with the treasure."</p>
+
+<p>I had many moments alone with Anita. I need not mention them. It
+seemed that our love was crossed by the stars, with an adverse fate
+dooming it. And Snap and Venza must have felt the same. Among the men,
+we were always quietly, grimly active. But alone.... I came upon Snap
+once with his arms around the little Venus girl. I heard him say:</p>
+
+<p>"Accursed luck! That you and I should find each other too late, Venza.
+We could have a lot of fun in Greater New York together."</p>
+
+<p>"Snap, we will!"</p>
+
+<p>As I turned away, I murmured, "And pray God, so will Anita and I."</p>
+
+<p>The girls slept together in a small room of the main building. Often
+during the time of sleep, when the camp was stilled except for the
+night watch, Snap and I would sit in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> the corridor near the girls'
+door, talking of that time when we would all be back on our blessed
+Earth.</p>
+
+<p>Our eight days of grace were passed. The brigand ship was due&mdash;now,
+tomorrow, or the next day.</p>
+
+<p>I recall, that night, my sleep was fitfully uneasy. Snap and I had a
+cubby together. We talked, and made futile plans. I went to sleep, but
+awakened after a few hours. Impending disaster lay heavily upon me.
+But there was nothing abnormal nor unusual in that!</p>
+
+<p>Snap was asleep. I was restless, but I did not have the heart to
+awaken him. He needed what little repose he could get. I dressed, left
+our cubby and wandered out into the corridor of the main building.</p>
+
+<p>It was cold in the corridor, and gloomy with the weak blue light. An
+interior watchman passed me.</p>
+
+<p>"All as usual, Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing in sight?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. They're watching."</p>
+
+<p>I went through the connecting corridor to the adjacent building. In
+the instrument room several of the men were gathered, scanning the
+vault overhead.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>I stayed with them awhile, then wandered away. An outside man met me
+near the admission lock chambers of the main building. The duty man
+here sat at his controls, raising the air pressure in the locks
+through which the outside watchman was coming. The relief sat here in
+his bloated suit, with his helmet on his knees. It was Wilks.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing yet, Haljan. I'm going up to the peak of the crater to see if
+anything is in sight. I wish that damnable brigand ship would come and
+get it over with."</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively we all spoke in half whispers, the tenseness bearing in
+on us.</p>
+
+<p>The outside man was white and grim, but he grinned at Wilks. He tried
+the familiar jest: "Don't let the Earthlight get you!"</p>
+
+<p>Wilks went out through the ports&mdash;a process of no more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> than a minute.
+I wandered away again through the corridors.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose it was half an hour later that I chanced to be gazing
+through a corridor window. The lights along the rocky cliff were tiny
+blue spots. The head of the stairway leading down to the abyss of the
+crater floor was visible. The bloated figure of Wilks was just coming
+up. I watched him for a moment making his rounds. He did not stop to
+inspect the lights. That was routine. I thought it odd that he passed
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Another minute passed. The figure of Wilks went with slow bounds over
+toward the back of the ledge where the glassite shelter housed the
+treasure. It was all dark off there. Wilks went into the gloom, but
+before I lost sight of him, he came back. As though he had changed his
+mind, he headed for the foot of the staircase which led up the cliff
+to where, at the peak of the little crater, five hundred feet above
+us, the narrow observatory was perched. He climbed with easy bounds,
+the light on his helmet bobbing in the gloom.</p>
+
+<p>I stood watching. I could not tell why there seemed to be something
+queer about Wilks' actions. But I was struck with it, nevertheless. I
+watched him disappear over the summit.</p>
+
+<p>Another minute went by. Wilks did not reappear. I thought I could make
+out his light on the platform up there. Then abruptly a tiny white
+beam was waving from the observatory platform! It flashed once or
+twice, then was extinguished. And now I saw Wilks plainly, standing in
+the Earthlight, gazing down.</p>
+
+<p>Queer actions! Had the Earthlight touched him? Or was that a local
+signal call which he sent out? Why should Wilks be signaling? What was
+he doing with a hand helio? Our watchmen, I knew, had no reason to
+carry one.</p>
+
+<p>And to whom could Wilks be signaling? To whom, across this Lunar
+desolation? The answer stabbed at me: to Miko's band!</p>
+
+<p>I waited less than a moment. No further light. Wilks was still up
+there!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I went back to the lock entrance. Spare helmets and suits were here
+beside the keeper. He gazed at me inquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going out, Franck. Just for a minute." It struck me that perhaps
+I was a meddlesome fool. Wilks, of all of Grantline's men, was, I
+knew, most in his commander's trust. The signal could have been some
+part of this night's ordinary routine, for all I knew.</p>
+
+<p>I was hastily donning an Erentz suit. I added, "Let me out. I just got
+the idea Wilks is acting strangely." I laughed. "Maybe the Earthlight
+has touched him."</p>
+
+<p>With my helmet on, I went through the locks. Once outside, with the
+outer panel closed behind me, I dropped the weights from my belt and
+shoes and extinguished my helmet light.</p>
+
+<p>Wilks was still up there. Apparently he had not moved. I bounded off
+across the ledge to the foot of the ascending stairs. Did Wilks see me
+coming? I could not tell. As I approached the stairs the platform was
+cut off from my line of vision.</p>
+
+<p>I mounted with bounding leaps. In my flexible gloved hand I carried my
+only weapon, a small projector with firing caps for use in this
+outside near-vacuum.</p>
+
+<p>I held the weapon behind me. I would talk to Wilks first. I went
+slowly up the last hundred feet. Was Wilks still up there? The summit
+was bathed in Earthlight. The little metal observatory platform came
+into view above my head.</p>
+
+<p>Wilks was not there. Then I saw him standing on the rocks nearby,
+motionless. But in a moment he saw me coming.</p>
+
+<p>I waved my left hand with a gesture of greeting. It seemed to me that
+he started, made as though to leap away, and then changed his mind. I
+sailed from the head of the staircase with a twenty foot leap and
+landed lightly beside him. I gripped his arm for audiphone contact.</p>
+
+<p>"Wilks!"</p>
+
+<p>Through my visor his face was visible. I saw him and he saw me. And I
+heard his voice:<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You, Haljan. How nice!"</p>
+
+<p>It was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>The duty man at the exit locks stood at his window and watched me
+curiously. He saw me go up the spider stairs. He could see the figure
+he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw me join Wilks, saw
+us locked together in combat.</p>
+
+<p>For a brief instant the duty man stood amazed. There were two
+fantastic figures, fighting at the very brink of the cliff. They were
+small, dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed
+in and out of the shadows. The duty man could not tell one from the
+other. To him it was Haljan and Wilks, fighting to the death!</p>
+
+<p>The duty man sprang into action. An interior siren call was on the
+instrument panel near him. He rang it frantically.</p>
+
+<p>The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this? Good God, Franck!"</p>
+
+<p>They had seen the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline stood stricken with amazement. "That's Wilks!"</p>
+
+<p>"And Haljan," the duty man gasped. "He went out&mdash;something wrong with
+Wilks' actions&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men, awakened from
+sleep, ran out into the corridors shouting questions.</p>
+
+<p>"An attack?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is it an attack?"</p>
+
+<p>"The brigands?"</p>
+
+<p>But it was Wilks and Haljan in a fight up there on the cliff. The men
+crowded at the bull's-eye windows.</p>
+
+<p>And over all the confusion the alarm siren, with no one thinking to
+shut it off, was screaming.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Grantline, momentarily stricken, stood gazing. One of the figures
+broke away from the other, bounded up to the summit from the stair
+platform to which they had both fallen. The other followed. They
+locked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed that
+they would go over; then they surged back, momentarily out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline found his wits. "Stop them! I'll go out and stop them! What
+fools!"</p>
+
+<p>He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits. "Cut off that siren!"</p>
+
+<p>Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty man called from the
+window, "Still at it, the fools. By the infernal&mdash;they'll kill
+themselves!"</p>
+
+<p>"Franck, let me out."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go with you, Commander." But the volunteer was not equipped.
+Grantline would not wait.</p>
+
+<p>The duty man turned to his panel. The volunteer shoved a weapon at
+Grantline.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline jammed on his helmet, took the weapon.</p>
+
+<p>He moved the few steps into the air chamber which was the first of the
+three pressure locks. Its interior door panel swung open for him. But
+the door did not close after him!</p>
+
+<p>Cursing the man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he turned to
+the corridor. The duty man came running.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Broken! Dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Smashed from outside," gasped the duty man. "Look there&mdash;my tubes&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The control tubes of the ports had flashed into a short circuit and
+burned out. The admission ports would not open!</p>
+
+<p>"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no way now of getting through the pressure locks. The doors,
+the entire pressure lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered with
+from outside?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>As if to answer Grantline's question there came a chorus of shouts
+from the men at the corridor windows.</p>
+
+<p>"Commander! By God&mdash;look!"</p>
+
+<p>A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and
+helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking
+at the port entrance, had ripped out the wires there.</p>
+
+<p>It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made
+off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it
+vanish around the building corner.</p>
+
+<p>It was a giant figure, larger than an Earth man. A Martian?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still
+fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.</p>
+
+<p>A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever,
+Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some
+of the other suits, and called for some of the hand projectors.</p>
+
+<p>But he could not get out through these main admission ports. He could
+have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure changing
+mechanism broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A
+rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was, no
+one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline was shouting, "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside!
+The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to
+go with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit."</p>
+
+<p>But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was
+there. It was a smaller two-lock gateway of manual control, so that
+the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at
+the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The
+lever would not open the panels!</p>
+
+<p>Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>isms after him? A
+traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the
+skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?</p>
+
+<p>The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The
+news spread. The camp was a prison! No one could get out!</p>
+
+<p>And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and
+Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on
+the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again.
+Crazily swaying, bouncing, striking the rail.</p>
+
+<p>They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks,
+and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>They rolled unheeding to the brink. Here, beyond the midway ledge
+which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on down
+to the crater floor.</p>
+
+<p>The figures were rolling; then one shook himself loose; rose up,
+seized the other and, with desperate strength, shoved him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling
+down into the shadows past the camp level&mdash;down out of sight in the
+darkness of the crater floor.</p>
+
+<p>Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the window gasped, "God!
+Was that Gregg who fell?"</p>
+
+<p>No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp ledge, another
+helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main
+building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast,
+bounding toward the spider staircase. It began mounting.</p>
+
+<p>And now still another figure became visible&mdash;the giant Martian again.
+He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He
+evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was
+standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw too, no doubt, the
+second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window
+through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> back to the
+building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps
+toward the ascending staircase.</p>
+
+<p>Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the
+stairs? And was the third figure Miko?</p>
+
+<p>Grantline's mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn from
+them, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridor
+was ringing with shouts.</p>
+
+<p>"We're imprisoned! Can't get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands are
+outside!"</p>
+
+<p>And then an interior audiphone blared a calling for Grantline. Someone
+in the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking.</p>
+
+<p>"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news.</p>
+
+<p>"Commander! The brigand ship!"</p>
+
+<p>Miko's reinforcements had come.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXV</h2>
+
+
+<p>Not Wilks, but Coniston! His drawling, British voice:</p>
+
+<p>"You, Gregg Haljan! How nice!"</p>
+
+<p>His voice broke off as he jerked his arm from me. My hand with the
+projector came up, but with a sweeping blow he struck my wrist. The
+weapon dropped to the rocks.</p>
+
+<p>I fought instinctively, those first moments; my mind was whirling with
+the shock of surprise. This was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.</p>
+
+<p>It was an eerie combat. We swayed; shoving, kicking, wrestling. His
+hold around my middle shut off the Erentz circulation; the warning
+buzz rang in my ears, to mingle with the rasp of his curses. I flung
+him off, and my Erentz motors recovered. He staggered away, but in a
+great leap came at me again.</p>
+
+<p>I was taller, heavier and far stronger than Coniston. But I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> found him
+crafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, he seemed
+more skillfully agile.</p>
+
+<p>I became aware that we were on the twenty foot square grid of the
+observatory platform. It had a low metal railing. We surged against
+it. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as we
+bounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashed
+against mine, striking as though butting with the side of his head to
+puncture my visor panel. His gloved fingers were clutching at my
+throat.</p>
+
+<p>As we regained our feet, I flung him off, and bounded like a diver,
+head first, into him. He went backward, but skillfully kept his feet
+under him, gripped me again and shoved me.</p>
+
+<p>I was tottering at the head of the staircase&mdash;falling. But I clutched
+at him. We fell some twenty or thirty feet to be next lower spider
+landing. The impact must have dazed us both. I recall my vague idea
+that we must have fallen down the cliff.... My air shut off&mdash;then it
+came again. The roaring in my ears was stilled; my head cleared, and I
+found that we were on the landing, fighting.</p>
+
+<p>He presently broke away from me, bounded to the summit with me after
+him. In the close confines of the suit I was bathed in sweat and
+gasping. I had no thought to increase the oxygen control. I could not
+find it; or it would not operate.</p>
+
+<p>I realized that I was fighting sluggishly, almost aimlessly. But so
+was Coniston!</p>
+
+<p>It seemed dreamlike. A phantasmagoria of blows and staggering steps. A
+nightmare with only the horrible vision of this goggled helmet always
+before my eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed that we were rolling on the ground, back on the summit. The
+unshadowed Earthlight was clear and bright. The abyss was beside me.
+Coniston, rolling, was now on top, now under me, trying to shove me
+over the brink. It was all like a dream&mdash;as though I were asleep,
+dreaming that I did not have enough air.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I strove to keep my senses. He was struggling to roll me over the
+brink. God, that would not do! But I was so tired. One cannot fight
+without oxygen!</p>
+
+<p>I suddenly knew that I had shaken him off and gained my feet. He rose,
+swaying. He was as tired, confused, as nearly asphyxiated as I.</p>
+
+<p>The brink of the abyss was behind us. I lunged, desperately shoving,
+avoiding his clutch.</p>
+
+<p>He went over, and fell soundlessly, his body whirling end over end
+down into the shadows, far below.</p>
+
+<p>I drew back. My senses faded as I sank panting to the rocks. But with
+inactivity, my heart quieted. My respiration slowed. The Erentz
+circulation gained on my poisoned air. It purified.</p>
+
+<p>That blessed oxygen! My head cleared. Strength came. I felt better.</p>
+
+<p>Coniston had fallen to his death. I was victor. I went to the brink
+cautiously, for I was still dizzy. I could see, far down there on the
+crater floor, a little patch of Earthlight in which a mashed human
+figure was lying.</p>
+
+<p>I staggered back again. A moment or two must have passed while I stood
+there on the summit, with my senses clearing and my strength renewed
+as the blood stream cleared in my veins.</p>
+
+<p>I was victor. Coniston was dead. I saw now, down on the lower
+staircase below the camp ledge, another goggled figure lying huddled.
+That was Wilks, no doubt. Coniston had probably caught him there,
+surprised him, killed him.</p>
+
+<p>My attention, as I stood gazing, went down to the camp buildings.
+Another figure was outside! It bounded along the ledge, reached the
+foot of the stairs at the top of which I was standing. With agile
+leaps, it came mounting at me!</p>
+
+<p>Another brigand! Miko? No, it was not large enough to be Miko. I was
+still confused. I thought of Hahn. But that was absurd: Hahn was in
+the wreck of the <i>Planetara</i>. One of the stewards then....</p>
+
+<p>The figure came up the staircase recklessly, to assail me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> I took a
+step backward, bracing myself to receive this new antagonist. And then
+I looked further down and saw Miko! Unquestionably he, for there was
+no mistaking his giant figure. He was down on the camp ledge, running
+toward the foot of the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>I thought of my revolver. I turned to try and find it. I was aware
+that the first of my assailants was at the stairhead. I swung back to
+see what this oncoming brigand was doing. He was on the summit: with a
+sailing leap he launched for me. I could have bounded away, but with a
+last look to locate the revolver, I braced myself for the shock.</p>
+
+<p>The figure hit me. It was small and light in my clutching arms. I
+recall I saw that Miko was halfway up the stairs. I gripped my
+assailant. The audiphone contact brought a voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, is it you?"</p>
+
+<p>It was Anita!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Gregg, you're safe!"</p>
+
+<p>She had heard the camp corridors resounding with the shouts that Wilks
+and Haljan were fighting. She had come upon a suit and helmet by the
+manual emergency lock, had run out through the lock, confused, with
+her only idea to stop Wilks and me from fighting. Then she had seen
+one of us killed. Impulsively, barely knowing what she was doing, she
+mounted the stairs, frantic to find if I were alive.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>Miko was coming fast! She had not seen him; for she had no thought of
+brigands&mdash;only the belief that either Wilks or I had been killed.</p>
+
+<p>But now, as we stood together on the rocks near the observatory
+platform, I could see the towering figure of Miko nearing the top of
+the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, that's Miko! We must run!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then I saw my projector. It lay in a bowl-like depression quite near
+us. I jumped for it. And as I tore loose from Anita, she leaped down
+after me. It was a broken bowl in the rocks, some six feet deep. It
+was open on the side facing the stairs&mdash;a narrow, ravinelike gully,
+full of gray, broken, tumbled rock masses. The little gully was
+littered with crags and boulders. But I could see out through it.</p>
+
+<p>Miko had come to the head of the stairs. He stopped there, his great
+figure etched sharply by the Earthlight. I think he must have known
+that Coniston was the one who had fallen over the cliff, as my helmet
+and Coniston's were different enough for him to recognize which was
+which. He did not know who I was, but he did know me for an enemy.</p>
+
+<p>He stood now at the summit, peering to see where we had gone. He was
+no more than fifty feet from us.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, lie down."</p>
+
+<p>I pulled her down on the rocks. I took aim with my projector. But I
+had forgotten our helmet lights. Miko must have seen them just as I
+pulled the trigger. He jumped sidewise and dropped, but I could see
+him moving in the shadows to where a jutting rock gave him shelter. I
+fired, missing him again.</p>
+
+<p>I had stood up to take aim. Anita pulled me sharply down beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, he's armed!"</p>
+
+<p>It was his turn to fire. It came&mdash;the familiar vague flash of the
+paralyzing ray. It spat its tint of color on the rocks near us, but
+did not reach us.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, Miko bounded to another rock.</p>
+
+<p>Time passed&mdash;only a few seconds. I could not see Miko momentarily.
+Perhaps he was crouching; perhaps he had moved away again. He was, or
+had been, on slightly higher ground than the bottom of our bowl. It
+was dim down here where we were lying, but I feared that any moment
+Miko might appear and strike at us. His ray at any short range would
+penetrate our visor panes, even though our suits might temporarily
+resist it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Anita, it's too dangerous here!"</p>
+
+<p>Had I been alone, I might perhaps have leapt up to lure Miko. But with
+Anita I did not dare chance it.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to get back to camp," I told her.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he has gone&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>But he had not. We saw him again, out in a distant patch of
+Earthlight. He was further from us than before, but on still higher
+ground. We had extinguished our small helmet lights. But he knew we
+were here and possibly he could see us. His projector flashed again.
+He was a hundred feet or more away now, and his weapon was of no
+longer range than mine. I did not answer his fire, for I could not
+hope to hit him at such a distance, and the flash of my weapon would
+help him to locate us.</p>
+
+<p>I murmured to Anita, "We must get away."</p>
+
+<p>Yet how did I dare take Anita from these concealing shadows? Miko
+could reach us so easily as we bounded away in plain view in the
+Earthlight of the open summit! We were caught, at bay in this little
+bowl.</p>
+
+<p>The camp was not visible from here. But out through the broken gully,
+a white beam of light suddenly came up from below.</p>
+
+<p><i>Haljan.</i> It spelled the signal.</p>
+
+<p>It was coming from the Grantline instrument room, I knew.</p>
+
+<p>I could answer it with my helmet light, but I did not dare.</p>
+
+<p>"Try it," urged Anita.</p>
+
+<p>We crouched where we thought we might be safe from Miko's fire. My
+little light beam shot up from the bowl. It was undoubtedly visible to
+the camp.</p>
+
+<p><i>Yes, I am Haljan. Send us help.</i></p>
+
+<p>I did not mention Anita. Miko doubtless could read these signals. They
+answered, <i>Cannot</i>&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>I lost the rest of it. There came a flash from Miko's weapon. It gave
+us confidence: he was unable to reach us at this distance.</p>
+
+<p>The Grantline beam repeated:</p>
+
+<p><i>Cannot come out. Ports broken. You cannot get in. Stay<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> where you are
+for an hour or two. We may be able to repair ports.</i></p>
+
+<p>I extinguished my light. What use was it to tell Grantline anything
+further? Besides, my light was endangering us. But the Grantline beam
+spelled another message:</p>
+
+<p><i>Brigand ship is coming. It will be here before we can get out to you.
+No lights. We will try and hide our location.</i></p>
+
+<p>And the signal beam brought a last appeal:</p>
+
+<p><i>Miko and his men will divulge where we are unless you can stop them.</i></p>
+
+<p>The beam vanished. The lights of the Grantline camp made a faint glow
+that showed above the crater edge. The glow died, as the camp now was
+plunged into darkness.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>We crouched in the shadows, the Earthlight filtering down to us. The
+skulking figure of Miko had vanished; but I was sure he was out there
+somewhere on the crags, lurking, maneuvering to where he could strike
+us with his ray. Anita's metal-gloved hand was on my arm; in my
+ear-diaphragm her voice sounded eager:</p>
+
+<p>"What was the signal, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>I told her everything.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Gregg! The Martian ship coming!"</p>
+
+<p>Her mind clung to that as the most important thing. But not so myself.
+To me there was only the realization that Anita was caught out here,
+almost at the mercy of Miko's ray. Grantline's men could not get out
+to help us, nor could I get Anita into the camp.</p>
+
+<p>She added, "Where do you suppose the ship is?"</p>
+
+<p>"Twenty or thirty thousand miles up, probably."</p>
+
+<p>The stars and the Earth were visible over us. Somewhere up there,
+disclosed by Grantline's instruments but not yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> discernible to the
+naked eye, Miko's reinforcements were hovering.</p>
+
+<p>We lay for a moment in silence. It was horribly nerve straining. Miko
+could be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire?
+Creeping&mdash;or would he make a swift, unexpected rush?</p>
+
+<p>The feeling that he was upon us abruptly swept me. I jumped to my
+feet, against Anita's effort to hold me. Where was he now? Was my
+imagination playing me tricks?...</p>
+
+<p>I sank back. "That ship should be here in a few hours."</p>
+
+<p>I told her what Grantline's signal had suggested; the ship was
+hovering overhead. It must be fairly close; for Grantline's telescope
+had revealed its identity as an outlaw flyer, unmarked by any of the
+standard code identification lights. It was doubtless too far away as
+yet to have located the whereabouts of Grantline's camp. The Martian
+brigands knew that we were in the vicinity of Archimedes, but no more
+than that. Searching this glowing Moon surface, our tiny local
+semaphore beams would certainly pass unnoticed.</p>
+
+<p>But as the brigand ship approached now&mdash;dropping close to Archimedes
+as it probably would&mdash;our danger was that Miko and his men would then
+signal it, join it, and reveal the camp's location. And the brigand
+attack would be upon us!</p>
+
+<p>I told this now to Anita. "The signal from Grantline said, '<i>Unless
+you can stop them.</i>'"</p>
+
+<p>It was an appeal to me. But how could I stop them? What could I do,
+alone out here with Anita, to cope with this enemy?</p>
+
+<p>Anita made no comment.</p>
+
+<p>I added, "That ship will land near Archimedes, within an hour or two.
+If Grantline can repair the ports, and I can get you inside...."</p>
+
+<p>Again she made no comment. Then suddenly she gripped me. "Gregg, look
+there!"</p>
+
+<p>Out through the gully break in our bowl the figure of Miko showed! He
+was running. But not at us. Circling the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> summit, leaping to keep
+himself behind the upstanding crags. He passed the head of the
+staircase; he did not descend it, but headed off along the summit of
+the crater rim.</p>
+
+<p>I stood up to watch him. "Where's he going!"</p>
+
+<p>I let Anita stand up beside me, cautiously at first, for it occurred
+to me it might be a ruse to cover some other of Miko's men who might
+be lurking near.</p>
+
+<p>But the summit seemed clear. The figure of Miko was a thousand feet
+away now. We could see the tiny blob of it bobbing over the rocks.
+Then it plunged down&mdash;not into the crater valley, but out toward the
+open Moon surface.</p>
+
+<p>Miko had abandoned his attack on us. The reason seemed plain. He had
+come here from his encampment with Coniston ahead to lure and kill
+Wilks. When this was done, Coniston had flashed his signal to Miko,
+who was hiding nearby.</p>
+
+<p>It was not like the brigand leader to remain in the background. Miko
+was no coward. But Coniston could impersonate Wilks, whereas Miko's
+giant stature at once would reveal his identity. Miko had been engaged
+in smashing the ports. He had looked up and seen me kill Coniston. He
+had come to assail me. And then he had read Grantline's message to me.
+It was his first knowledge that his ship was at hand. With the camp
+exits inoperative, Grantline and his men were imprisoned. Miko had
+made an effort to kill me. He did not know my companion was Anita. But
+the effort was taking too long; with his ship at hand, it was Miko's
+best move to return to his own camp, rejoin his men, and await their
+opportunity to signal the ship.</p>
+
+<p>At least, so I reasoned it. Anita and I stood alone. What could we do?</p>
+
+<p>We went to the brink of the cliff. The unlighted Grantline buildings
+showed vaguely in the Earthlight.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "We'll go down. I'll leave you there. You can wait at the
+port. They'll repair it soon."</p>
+
+<p>"And what will you do, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>I did not intend to tell her. "Hurry, Anita!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, let me go with you."</p>
+
+<p>She jerked away from me and bounded back up the stairs. I caught her
+on the summit.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going with you."</p>
+
+<p>"You're going to stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not!"</p>
+
+<p>This exasperating controversy!</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, please."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be safer with you than waiting here, Gregg." And she added,
+"Besides, I won't stay and you can't make me."</p>
+
+<p>We ran along the crater top. At its distant edge the lower plain
+spread before us. Far down, and far away on the distant broken
+surface, the leaping figure of Miko showed. He plunged down the broken
+outer slope, reached the level. Soon, as we ran, the little Grantline
+crater faded behind us.</p>
+
+<p>Anita ran more skillfully than I. Ten minutes or so passed. We had
+seen Miko and the direction he was taking, but down here on the plain
+we could no longer see him. It struck me that our chase was
+purposeless and dangerous. Suppose Miko were to see us following him?
+Suppose he stopped and lay in ambush to fire at us as we came leaping
+heedlessly by?</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, wait!"</p>
+
+<p>I drew her down amid a group of tumbled boulders. And then abruptly
+she clung to me.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, I know what we can do! Gregg, don't tell me you won't let me
+try it!"</p>
+
+<p>I listened to her plan. Incredible! Incredibly dangerous. Yet, as I
+pondered it, the very daring of the scheme seemed the measure of its
+possible success. The brigands would never imagine we could be so
+rash!</p>
+
+<p>"But Anita&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, you're stupid!" It was her turn to be exasperated.</p>
+
+<p>But I was in no mood for daring. My mind was obsessed with Anita's
+safety. I had been planning that we might see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> the glow of Miko's
+encampment and decide on some course of action.</p>
+
+<p>"But, Gregg, the safety of the treasure&mdash;of all the Grantline men...."</p>
+
+<p>"To the infernal with that! It's you, your safety&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"My safety, then! If you put me in the camp and the brigands attack it
+and I am killed&mdash;what then? But this plan of mine, if we can do it,
+Gregg, will mean safety in the end for all of us."</p>
+
+<p>And it seemed possible. We crouched, discussing it. So daring a thing!</p>
+
+<p>The brigand ship would come down near Archimedes. That was fifty miles
+from Grantline. The brigands from Mars would not have seen the dark
+Grantline buildings hidden in the little crater pit. They would wait
+for Miko and his men to make their whereabouts known.</p>
+
+<p>Miko's encampment was ahead of us now, undoubtedly. We had been
+following him toward the Mare Imbrium. Or at least, we hoped so. He
+would signal his ship. But Anita and I, closer to it, would also
+signal it; and, posing as brigands, would join it!</p>
+
+<p>"Remember, Gregg, I remain Anita Prince, George's sister." Her voice
+trembled as she mentioned her dead brother. "They know that George was
+in Miko's pay, and I as his sister, will help to convince them."</p>
+
+<p>This daring scheme! If we could join the ship, we might be able to
+persuade its leader that Miko's distant signals were merely a ruse of
+Grantline to lure the brigands in that direction. A long range
+projector from the ship would kill Miko and his men as they came
+forward to join it! And then we would falsely direct the brigands,
+lead them away from Grantline and the treasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, we must try it."</p>
+
+<p>Heaven help me, I yielded to her persuasion!</p>
+
+<p>We turned at right angles and ran toward where the distant frowning
+walls of Archimedes loomed against the starlit sky.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>The broken, shaggy ramparts of the giant crater rose above us. We
+toiled upward, out of the foothills, clinging now to the crags and
+pitted terraces of the main ascent. An hour had passed since we turned
+from the borders of Mare Imbrium. Or was it two hours? I could not
+tell. I only know that we ran with desperate, frantic haste.</p>
+
+<p>Anita would not admit that she was tired. She was more skillful than I
+in this leaping over the broken rock masses. Yet I felt that her
+slight strength must give out. It seemed miles up the undulating
+slopes of the foothills with the black and white ramparts of the
+crater close before us.</p>
+
+<p>And then the main ascent. There were places where, like smooth black
+frozen ice, the walls rose sheer. We avoided them, toiling aside,
+plunging into gullies, crossing pits where sometimes, perforce, we
+went downwards, and then up again. Or sometimes we stood, hot and
+breathless, upon ledges, recovering our strength, selecting the best
+route upward.</p>
+
+<p>In tumbled mass of rock, honeycombed everywhere with caves and
+passages leading into impenetrable darkness, there were pits into
+which we might so easily have fallen; ravines to span, sometimes with
+a leap, sometimes by a long and arduous detour.</p>
+
+<p>Endless climb. We came to the ledge with the plains of the Mare
+Imbrium stretching out beneath us. We might have been upon this main
+ascent for an hour; the plains were far down, the broken surface down
+there smoothed now by the perspective of height. And yet still above
+us the brooding circular wall went up into the sky. Ten thousand feet
+above us.</p>
+
+<p>"You're tired, Anita. We'd better stay here."</p>
+
+<p>"No. If we could only get to the top&mdash;the ship may land on the other
+side&mdash;they would see us."</p>
+
+<p>There was as yet no sign of the brigand ship. With every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> stop for
+rest we searched the starry vault. The Earth hung over us, flattened
+beyond the full. The stars blazed to mingle with the Earthlight and
+illumine these massive crags of the Archimedes walls. But no speck
+appeared to tell us that the ship was up there.</p>
+
+<p>We were on the curving side of the Archimedes wall which fronted the
+Mare Imbrium to the north. The plains lay Like a great frozen sea,
+congealed ripples shining in the light of the Earth, with dark patches
+to mark the hollows. Somewhere down there&mdash;six or eight thousand feet
+below us now&mdash;Miko's encampment lay concealed. We searched for lights
+of it, but could see none.</p>
+
+<p>Had Miko rejoined his party, left his camp and come here like
+ourselves to climb Archimedes? Or was our assumption wholly wrong:
+perhaps the brigand ship would not land near here at all!</p>
+
+<p>Sweeping around from the Mare Imbrium, the plains were less smooth.
+The little crater which concealed the Grantline camp was off in the
+crater-scarred region beyond which the distant Apennines raised their
+terraced walls. There was nothing to mark it from here.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, do you see anything up there?" She added, "There seems to be a
+blur."</p>
+
+<p>Her sight, sharper than mine, had picked it out. The descending
+brigand ship! A faintest, tiny blur against the stars, a few of them
+occulted as though an invisible shadow were upon them. A growing
+shadow, materializing into a blur&mdash;a blob, a shape faintly defined.
+Then sharper until we were sure of what we saw. It was the brigand
+ship. It was dropping slowly, silently down.</p>
+
+<p>We crouched on the little ledge. A cave mouth was behind us. A gully
+was beside us, a break in the ledge; and at our feet the sheer wall
+dropped.</p>
+
+<p>We had extinguished our lights. We crouched, silently gazing up into
+the stars.</p>
+
+<p>The ship, when we first distinguished it, was centered over
+Archimedes. We thought for a while that it might descend<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> into the
+crater. But it did not; it came sailing forward.</p>
+
+<p>I whispered into the audiphone, "It's coming over the crater."</p>
+
+<p>Her hand pressed my arm in answer.</p>
+
+<p>I recalled that when, from the <i>Planetara</i>, Miko had forced Snap to
+signal this brigand band on Mars, Miko's only information as to the
+whereabouts of the Grantline camp was that it lay between Archimedes
+and the Apennines. The brigands now were following that information.</p>
+
+<p>A tense interval passed. We could see the ship plainly above us now, a
+gray-black shape among the stars up beyond the shaggy, towering crater
+rim. The vessel came upon a level keel, hull down. Slowly circling,
+looking for Miko's signal, no doubt, or for possible lights from
+Grantline's camp. They might also be picking a landing place.</p>
+
+<p>We saw it soon as a cylindrical, cigarlike shape, rather smaller than
+the <i>Planetara</i>, but similar of design. It bore lights now. The ports
+of its hull were tiny rows of illumination, and the glow of light
+under its rounding upper dome was faintly visible.</p>
+
+<p>A bandit ship, no doubt of that. Its identification keel plate was
+empty of official pass code lights. These brigands had not attempted
+to secure official sailing lights when leaving Ferrok-Shahn. It was
+unmistakably an outlaw ship. And here upon the deserted Moon there was
+no need for secrecy. Its lights were openly displayed, that Miko might
+see it and join it.</p>
+
+<p>It went slowly past us, only a few thousand feet higher than our
+level. We could see the whole outline of its pointed cylinder hull,
+with the rounded dome on top. And under the dome was its open deck
+with a little cabin superstructure in the center.</p>
+
+<p>I thought for a moment that by some unfortunate chance it might land
+quite near us. But it went past. And then I saw that it was heading
+for a level, plateaulike surface a few miles further on. It dropped,
+cautiously floating down.</p>
+
+<p>There was still no sign of Miko. But I realized that haste<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> was
+necessary. We must be the first to join the brigand ship.</p>
+
+<p>I lifted Anita to her feet. "I don't think we should signal from
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"No. Miko might see it."</p>
+
+<p>We could not tell where he was. Down on the plains, perhaps? Or up
+here, somewhere in these miles of towering rocks?</p>
+
+<p>"Are you ready, Anita?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>I stared through the visors at her white solemn face.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm ready," she repeated.</p>
+
+<p>Her hand pressure seemed to me suddenly like a farewell. We were
+plunging rashly into what was destined to mean our death? Was this a
+farewell?</p>
+
+<p>An instinct told me not to do this thing. Why, in a few hours I could
+have Anita back to the comparative safety of the Grantline camp. The
+exit ports would doubtless be repaired by now. I could get her inside.</p>
+
+<p>She had bounded away from me, leaped down some thirty feet into the
+broken gully, to cross it and then up on the other side. I stood for
+an instant watching her fantastic shape, with the great rounded,
+goggled, trunked helmet and the lump on her shoulders which held the
+little Erentz motors. Then I hurried after her.</p>
+
+<p>It did not take us long&mdash;two or three miles of circling along the
+giant wall. The ship lay only a few hundred feet above our level.</p>
+
+<p>We stood at last on a buttelike pinnacle. The lights of the ship were
+close over us. And there were moving lights up there, tiny moving
+spots on the adjacent rocks. The brigands had come out, prowling about
+to investigate their location.</p>
+
+<p>No signal yet from Miko. But it might come at any moment.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll flash now," I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> lamp from my
+helmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by a
+shot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship?</p>
+
+<p>Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with my
+torch and flung its switch. My puny light beam shot up. I waved it,
+touched the ship with its faint glowing circle of illumination.</p>
+
+<p>They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there.</p>
+
+<p>I semaphored:</p>
+
+<p><i>I am from Miko. Do not fire.</i></p>
+
+<p>I used open universal code. In Martian first, and then in English.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again.</p>
+
+<p><i>This is Haljan, one of the</i> Planetara. <i>George Prince's sister is
+with me. There has been disaster to Miko.</i></p>
+
+<p>A small light beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliff
+beside the ship.</p>
+
+<p><i>Continue.</i></p>
+
+<p>I went steadily on: <i>Disaster&mdash;the</i> Planetara <i>is wrecked. All killed
+but me and Prince's sister. We want to join you.</i></p>
+
+<p>I flashed off my light. The answer came:</p>
+
+<p><i>Where is the Grantline Camp?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Near here. The Mare Imbrium.</i></p>
+
+<p>As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, some ten
+miles or so from the crater base, a tiny signal light shot up. Anita
+saw it and gripped me.</p>
+
+<p>"There is Miko's light!"</p>
+
+<p>It spelled in Martian, <i>Come down. Land Mare Imbrium.</i></p>
+
+<p>Miko had seen the signaling up here and had joined it! He repeated,
+<i>Land Mare Imbrium.</i></p>
+
+<p>I flashed a protest up to the ship: <i>Beware. That is Grantline!
+Trickery.</i></p>
+
+<p>From the ship the summons came, <i>Come up.</i></p>
+
+<p>We had won this first encounter! Miko must have realized his
+disadvantage. His distant light went out.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Anita."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was no retreat now. But again I seemed to feel in the pressure
+of her hand that vague farewell. Her voice whispered, "We must do our
+best, act our best to be convincing."</p>
+
+<p>In the white glow of a searchbeam we climbed the crags, reached the
+broad upper ledge. Helmeted figures rushed at us, searched us for
+weapons, seized our helmet lights. The evil face of a giant Martian
+peered at me through the visors. Two other monstrous, towering figures
+seized Anita.</p>
+
+<p>We were shoved toward the port locks at the base of the ship's hull.
+Above the hull bulge I could see the grids of projectors mounted on
+the dome side, and the figures of men standing on the deck, peering
+down at us.</p>
+
+<p>We went through the admission locks into a hull corridor, up an
+incline passage, and reached the lighted deck. The Martian brigands
+crowded around us.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXIX</h2>
+
+
+<p>Anita's words echoed in my memory: "We must do our best to be
+convincing." It was not her ability that I doubted, as much as my own.
+She had played the part of George Prince cleverly, unmasked only by an
+evil chance.</p>
+
+<p>I steeled myself to face the searching glances of the brigands as they
+shoved around us. This was a desperate game into which we had plunged.
+For all our acting, how easy it would be for some small chance thing
+abruptly to undo us! I realized it, and now, as I gazed into the
+peering faces of these men from Mars, I cursed myself for the witless
+rashness which had brought Anita into this!</p>
+
+<p>The brigands&mdash;some ten or fifteen of them here on deck&mdash;stood in a
+ring around us. They were all big men, nearly of a seven-foot average,
+dressed in leather jerkins and short leather breeches, with bare knees
+and flaring leather boots. Piratical swaggering fellows, knife-blades
+mingled with small hand projectors fastened to their belts. Gray,
+heavy faces,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> some with scraggly, unshaven beards. They plucked at us,
+jabbering in Martian.</p>
+
+<p>One of them seemed the leader. I said sharply, "Are you the commander
+here? You speak the Earth English?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said readily. "I am commander here." He spoke English with
+the same freedom and accent as Miko. "Is this George Prince's sister?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Her name is Anita Prince. Tell your men to take their hands off
+her."</p>
+
+<p>He waved his men away. They all seemed more interested in Anita than
+in me. He added:</p>
+
+<p>"I am <i>Set</i> Potan." He addressed Anita. "George Prince's sister? You
+are called Anita? I have heard of you. I knew your brother&mdash;indeed,
+you look very much like him."</p>
+
+<p>He swept his plumed hat to the grid with a swaggering gesture of
+homage. A courtierlike fellow this, debonair as a Venus cavalier!</p>
+
+<p>He accepted us. I realized that Anita's presence was extremely
+valuable in making us convincing. Yet there was about this Potan&mdash;as
+with Miko&mdash;a disturbing suggestion of irony. I could not make him out.
+I decided that we had fooled him. Then I remarked the steely glitter
+of his eyes as he turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>"You were an officer of the <i>Planetara</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>The insignia of my rank was visible on my white jacket collar which
+showed beneath the Erentz suit now that my helmet was off.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I was supposed to be. But a year ago I embarked upon this
+adventure with Miko."</p>
+
+<p>He was leading us to his cabin. "The <i>Planetara</i> wrecked? Miko dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"And Hahn and Coniston. George Prince too. We are the only survivors."</p>
+
+<p>While we divested ourselves of the Erentz suits, at his command, I
+told him briefly of the <i>Planetara's</i> fall. All had been killed on
+board, save Anita and me. We had escaped, awaited his coming. The
+treasure was here; we had located<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span> the Grantline camp, and were ready
+to lead him to it.</p>
+
+<p>Did he believe me? He listened quietly. He seemed not shocked at the
+death of his comrades. Nor yet pleased: merely imperturbable.</p>
+
+<p>I added with a sly, sidelong glance, "There were too many of us on the
+<i>Planetara</i>. The purser had joined us and many of the crew. And there
+was Miko's sister, the <i>Setta</i> Moa&mdash;too many. The treasure divides
+better among less."</p>
+
+<p>An amused smile played on his thin gray lips. But he nodded. The fear
+which had leaped at me was allayed by his next words.</p>
+
+<p>"True enough, Haljan. He was a domineering fellow, Miko. A third of it
+all was for him alone. But now...."</p>
+
+<p>The third would go to this sub-leader, Potan! The implication was
+obvious.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "Before we go any further, I can trust you for my share?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>I figured that my very boldness in bargaining so prematurely would
+convince him. I insisted, "Miss Prince will have her brother's share?"</p>
+
+<p>Clever Anita! She put in swiftly, "Oh, I give no information until you
+promise! We know the location of the Grantline camp, its weapons, its
+defences, the amount and location of the treasure. I warn you, if you
+do not play us fair...."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed heartily. He seemed to like us. He spread his huge legs as
+he lounged in his settle, and drank of the bowl which one of his men
+set before him.</p>
+
+<p>"Little tigress! Fear me not&mdash;I play fair!" He pushed two of the bowls
+across the table. "Drink, Haljan. All is well with us and I am glad to
+know it. Miss Prince, drink my health as your leader."</p>
+
+<p>I waved it away from Anita. "We need all our wits; your strong Martian
+drinks are dangerous. Look here, I'll tell you just how the situation
+stands&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I plunged into a glib account of our supposed wanderings to find the
+Grantline camp: its location off the Mare Imbrium<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>&mdash;hidden in a
+cavern there. Potan, with the drink, and under the gaze of Anita's
+eyes, was in high good humor. He laughed when I told him that we had
+dared to invade the Grantline camp, had smashed its exit ports, had
+even gotten up to have a look where the treasure was piled.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done, Haljan. You're a fellow to my liking!" But his gaze was on
+Anita. "You dress like a man or a charming boy."</p>
+
+<p>She still wore the dark clothes of her brother. She said, "I am used
+to action. Man's garb pleases me. You shall treat me like a man and
+give me my share of gold leaf."</p>
+
+<p>He had already demanded the reason for the signal from the Mare
+Imbrium. Miko's signal! It had not come again, though any moment I
+feared it. I told him that Grantline doubtless had repaired his
+damaged ports and sallied out to assail me in reprisal. And, seeing
+the brigand ship landing on Archimedes, had tried to lure him into a
+trap.</p>
+
+<p>I wondered if my explanation was convincing: it did not sound so. But
+he was flushed now with drink, and Anita added:</p>
+
+<p>"Grantline knows the territory near his camp very well. But he is
+equipped only for short range fighting."</p>
+
+<p>I took it up. "It's like this, Potan: if he could get you to land
+unsuspectingly near his cavern&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>I pictured how Grantline might have figured on a sudden surprise
+attack upon the ship. It was his only chance to catch it unprepared.</p>
+
+<p>We were all three in friendly, intimate mood now. Potan said, "We'll
+land down there right enough! But I need a few hours for my
+assembling."</p>
+
+<p>"He will not dare advance," I said.</p>
+
+<p>Anita put in, smiling, "He knows by now that we have unmasked his
+lure. Haljan and I, joining you&mdash;that silenced him. His light went out
+very promptly, didn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>She flashed me a side gaze. Were we acting convincingly? But if Miko
+started up his signals again, they might so<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> quickly betray us!
+Anita's thoughts were upon that, for she added:</p>
+
+<p>"Grantline will not dare show his light! If he does, <i>Set</i> Potan, we
+can blast him from here with a ray. Can't we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Potan agreed. "If he comes within ten miles, I have one
+powerful enough. We are assembling it now."</p>
+
+<p>"And we have thirty men?" Anita persisted. "When we sail down to
+attack him, it should not be difficult to kill all the Grantline
+party."</p>
+
+<p>"By heaven, Haljan, this girl of yours is small, but very
+bloodthirsty!"</p>
+
+<p>"And I'm glad Miko is dead," Anita added.</p>
+
+<p>I explained, "That accursed Miko murdered her brother."</p>
+
+<p>Acting! And never once did we dare relax. If only Miko's signals would
+hold off and give us time!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>We may have talked for half an hour. We were in a small steel-lined
+cubby, located in the forward deck of the ship. The dome was over it.
+I could see from where I sat at the table that there was a forward
+observatory tower under the dome quite near here. The ship was laid
+out in rather similar fashion to the <i>Planetara</i>, though considerably
+smaller.</p>
+
+<p>Potan had dismissed his men from the cubby so as to be alone with us.
+Out on the deck I could see them dragging apparatus about, bringing
+the mechanisms of giant projectors up from below and beginning to
+assemble them. Occasionally some of the men would come to our cubby
+windows to peer in curiously.</p>
+
+<p>My mind was roaming as I talked. For all my manner of casualness, I
+knew that haste was necessary. Whatever Anita and I were to do must be
+quickly done.</p>
+
+<p>But to win this fellow's utter confidence first was necessary, so that
+we might have the freedom of the ship, might move about unnoticed,
+unwatched.</p>
+
+<p>I was horribly tense inside. Through the dome windows across the deck
+from the cubby, the rocks of the Lunar landscape were visible. I could
+see the brink of this ledge<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> upon which the ship lay, the descending
+crags down the precipitous wall of Archimedes to the Earthlit plains
+far below. Miko, Moa, and a few of the <i>Planetara's</i> crew were down
+there somewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Anita and I had a fairly definite plan. We were now in Potan's
+confidence; this interview at an end, I felt that our status among the
+brigands would be established. We would be free to move about the
+ship, join in its activities. It ought to be possible to locate the
+signal room, get friendly with the operator there.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps we could find a secret opportunity to flash a signal to Earth.
+This ship, I was confident, would have the power for a long range
+signal, if not of too sustained a length. It would be a desperate
+thing to attempt, but our whole procedure was desperate! Anita could
+lure the duty man from the signal room, I might send a single flash or
+two that would reach the Earth. Just a distress signal, signed
+"Grantline." If I could do that and not get caught!</p>
+
+<p>Anita was engaging Potan in talking of his plans. The brigand leader
+was boasting of them: of his well equipped ship, the daring of his
+men. And questioning her about the size of the treasure. My thoughts
+were free to roam.</p>
+
+<p>While we were making friends with this brigand, the longest range
+electronic projector was being assembled. Miko then could flash his
+signal and be damned to him! I would be on the deck with that
+projector. Its operator and I would turn it upon Miko&mdash;one flash of it
+and he and his little band would be wiped out.</p>
+
+<p>But there was our escape to be thought of. We could not remain very
+long with these brigands. We could tell them that the Grantline camp
+was on the Mare Imbrium. It would delay them for a time, but our lie
+would soon be discovered. We must escape from them, get away and back
+to Grantline. With Miko dead, a distress signal to Earth, and Potan in
+ignorance of Grantline's location, the treasure would be safe until
+help arrived from Earth.</p>
+
+<p>"By the infernal, little Anita, you look like a dove, but<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> you're a
+tigress! A comrade after my own heart&mdash;bloodthirsty as a
+fire-worshipper!"</p>
+
+<p>Her laugh rang out to mingle with his. "Oh no, <i>Set</i> Potan! I am
+treasure-thirsty."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get the treasure. Never fear, little Anita."</p>
+
+<p>"With you to lead us, I'm sure we will."</p>
+
+<p>A man entered the cubby. Potan looked frowningly around. "What is it,
+Argle?"</p>
+
+<p>The fellow answered in Martian, leered at Anita and withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>Potan stood up. I noticed that he was unsteady with the drink.</p>
+
+<p>"They want me with the work at the projectors."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead," I said.</p>
+
+<p>He nodded. We were comrades now. "Amuse yourself, Haljan. Or come out
+on deck if you wish. I will tell my men you are one of us."</p>
+
+<p>"And tell them to keep their hands off Miss Prince."</p>
+
+<p>He stared at me. "I had not thought of that: a woman among so many
+men!"</p>
+
+<p>His own gaze at Anita was as offensive as any of his men could have
+given. He said, "Have no fear, little tigress."</p>
+
+<p>Anita laughed. "I'm afraid of nothing."</p>
+
+<p>But when he had lurched from the cabin, she touched me. Smiled with
+her mannish swagger, for fear we were still observed, and murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Gregg, I am afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>We stayed in the cubby a few moments, whispering and planning.</p>
+
+<p>"You think the signal room is in the tower, Gregg? This tower outside
+our window here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think so."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we go out and see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Keep near me always."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Gregg, I will!"</p>
+
+<p>We deposited our Erentz suits carefully in a corner of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> the cubby. We
+might need them so suddenly! Then we swaggered out to join the
+brigands working on the deck.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXX</h2>
+
+
+<p>The deck glowed lurid in the queer blue-greenish glare of Martian
+electro-fuse lights. It was in a bustle of ordered activity. Some
+twenty of the crew were scattered about, working in little groups.
+Apparatus was being brought up from below to be assembled. There was a
+pile of Erentz suits and helmets, of Martian pattern, but still very
+similar to those with which Grantline's expedition was equipped. There
+were giant projectors of several kinds, some familiar to me, others of
+a fashion I had never seen before. It seemed there were six or eight
+of them, still dismantled, with a litter of their attendant batteries
+and coils and tube amplifiers.</p>
+
+<p>They were to be mounted here on the deck, I surmised; I saw in the
+dome side one or two of them already rolled into position.</p>
+
+<p>Anita and I stood outside Potan's cubby, gazing around us curiously.
+The men looked at us but none of them spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's watch from here a moment," I whispered. She nodded, standing
+with her hand on my arm. I felt that we were very small, here in the
+midst of these seven foot Martian men. I was all in white, the costume
+used in the warm interior of Grantline's camp. Bareheaded, white silk
+<i>Planetara</i> uniform jacket, broad belt and tight-laced trousers. Anita
+was a slim black figure beside me, somber as Hamlet, with her pale
+boyish face and wavy black hair.</p>
+
+<p>The gravity being maintained here on the ship we had found to be
+stronger than that of the Moon and rather more like Mars.</p>
+
+<p>"There are the heat rays, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>A pile of them was visible down the deck length. And I saw caskets of
+fragile glass globes, bombs of different styles, hand projectors of
+the paralyzing ray; search beams of sev<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>eral varieties; the Benson
+curve light, and a few side arms of ancient Earth design&mdash;swords and
+dirks, and small bullet projectors.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to be some mining equipment also. Far along the deck,
+beyond the central cabin in the open space of the stern, steel rails
+were stacked; half a dozen tiny-wheeled ore carts; a tiny motor engine
+for hauling them and what looked as though it might be the dismembered
+sections of an ore chute.</p>
+
+<p>The whole deck was presently strewn with this mass of equipment.</p>
+
+<p>Potan moved about, directing the different groups of workers. The news
+had spread that we knew the location of the treasure. The brigands
+were jubilant. In a few hours the ship's armament would be ready, and
+it would advance.</p>
+
+<p>I saw many glances cast out the dome side windows toward the distant
+plains of the Mare Imbrium. The brigands believed that the Grantline
+camp lay in that direction.</p>
+
+<p>Anita whispered, "Which is their giant electronic projector, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>I could see it amidships of the deck. It was already in place. Potan
+was there now, superintending the men who were connecting it. The most
+powerful weapon on the ship. It had, Potan said, an effective range of
+some ten miles. I wondered what it would do to a Grantline building!
+The Erentz double walls would withstand it for a time, I was sure. But
+it would blast an Erentz fabric suit, no doubt of that. Like a
+lightning bolt, it would kill&mdash;its flashing free stream of electrons
+shocking the heart, bringing instant death.</p>
+
+<p>I whispered, "We must smash that before we leave! But first turn it on
+Miko, if he signals now."</p>
+
+<p>I was tensely watchful for that signal. The electronic projector
+obviously was not ready. But when it was connected, I must be near it,
+to persuade its duty man to fire it on Miko. With this done we would
+have more time to plan our other tasks. I did not think Potan would be
+ready for his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> attack before another time of sleep here in the ship's
+routine. Things would be quieter then; I would watch my chance to send
+a signal to Earth, and then we would escape.</p>
+
+<p>With my thoughts roving, we had been standing quietly at the cubby
+door for about fifteen minutes. My hand in my side pouch clutched the
+little bullet projector. The brigands had taken it from me and given
+it to Potan. He had placed it on the settle with my Erentz suit; and
+when we gained his confidence he had forgotten it and left it there. I
+had it now, and the feel of its cool sleek handle gave me a measure of
+comfort. Things could go wrong so easily. But if they did, I was
+determined to sell my life as dearly as possible. And a vague thought
+was in my mind: I must not use the last bullet. That would be for
+Anita.</p>
+
+<p>"That electronic projector is remote controlled. Look, Anita, that's
+the signal room over us. The giant projector will be aimed and fired
+from up there."</p>
+
+<p>A thirty foot skeleton tower stood on the deck near us, with a spiral
+ladder leading up to a small, square, steel cubby at the top. Through
+the cubby window I could see instrument panels. A single Martian was
+up there; he had called down to Potan concerning the electronic
+projector.</p>
+
+<p>The roof of this little tower room was close under the dome&mdash;a space
+of no more than four feet. A pressure lock exit in the dome was up
+there, with a few steps leading up to it from the roof of the tower
+signal room.</p>
+
+<p>We could escape that way, perhaps. In the event of dire necessity it
+might be possible. But only as a desperate resort, for it would put us
+on the top of the glassite dome, with a sheer hundred feet or more
+down its sleek bulging exterior side, and down the outside bulge of
+the ship's hull, to the rocks below. There might be a spider ladder
+outside leading downward, but I saw no evidence of it. If Anita and I
+were forced to escape that way, I wondered how we could manage a
+hundred foot jump to the rocks, and land safely. Even with the slight
+gravity of the Moon, it would be a dangerous fall.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You are Gregg Haljan?"</p>
+
+<p>I stared as one of the brigands, coming up behind, addressed me.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Commander Potan tells me you were chief navigator of the
+<i>Planetara</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall pilot us when we advance upon the Grantline camp. I am
+control-commander here&mdash;Brotow, my name."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. A giant fellow, but spindly. He spoke good English. He
+seemed anxious to be friendly.</p>
+
+<p>"We are glad to have you and George Prince's sister with us." He shot
+Anita an admiring glance. "I will show you our controls, Haljan."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," I said. "Whatever I can do to help...."</p>
+
+<p>"But not now. It will be some hours before we are ready."</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, and he wandered away. Anita whispered: "Did he mean that
+signal room up in the tower? Oh Gregg, maybe it's only the control
+room."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we go up and see? Miko's signals might start any minute."</p>
+
+<p>And the electronic projector seemed about ready. It was time for me to
+act. But a reluctant instinct was upon me. Our Erentz suits were close
+behind us in Potan's cubby. I hated to leave them. If anything
+happened, and we had to make a sudden dash, there would be no time to
+garb ourselves in the suits. To adjust the helmets would be bad
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>I whispered swiftly, "We must get into our suits&mdash;find some pretext."
+I drew her back through the cubby doorway where we would be more
+secluded.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, listen. I've been a fool not to plan our escape more
+carefully. We're in too great a danger here!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly it seemed to me that we were in desperate plight! Was it
+premonition?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Anita, listen: if anything happens and we have to make a dash&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Up through that dome lock, Gregg? It's a manual control; you can see
+the levers."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. It's a manual. But once up there how would we get down?"</p>
+
+<p>She was far calmer than I. "There may be an outside ladder, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. I haven't seen it."</p>
+
+<p>"Then we can get out the way they brought us in. The hull port&mdash;it's a
+manual, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think I can find our way down through the hull corridors."</p>
+
+<p>"There are guards outside on the rocks."</p>
+
+<p>We had seen them through the dome windows. But there were not many,
+only two or three. I was armed and a surprise rush would do the trick.</p>
+
+<p>We donned our Erentz suits.</p>
+
+<p>"What will we do with the helmets?" demanded Anita. "Leave them here?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, take them with us. I'm not going to get separated from them!"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll look strange going up to that signal room equipped like this."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't help it, Anita. We'll explain it, somehow."</p>
+
+<p>She stood before me, a queer-looking little figure in the now
+deflated, bagging suit with her slim neck and head protruding above
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Carry your helmet, Anita. Ill take mine."</p>
+
+<p>We could adjust the helmets and start the motors all within a few
+seconds.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm ready, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, then. Let me go first."</p>
+
+<p>I had the bullet projector in an outer pouch of the suit where I could
+instantly reach it. This was more rational; we had a fighting chance
+now. The fear which had swept me began to recede.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We'll climb the tower to the signal room," I whispered. "Do it
+boldly."</p>
+
+<p>We stepped from the cubby. Potan was not in sight; perhaps he was on
+the further deck beyond the central cabin structure.</p>
+
+<p>On the deck, we were immediately accosted. This was different&mdash;our
+appearance in the Erentz suits!</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you going?" This fellow spoke in Martian.</p>
+
+<p>I answered in English, "Up there."</p>
+
+<p>He stood before us, towering over me. I saw a group of nearby workers
+stop to regard us. In a moment we would be causing a commotion, and it
+was the last thing I desired.</p>
+
+<p>I said in Martian, "Commander Potan told me, what I wish I can do.
+From the dome we look around to see where is the Grantline camp from
+here. I am pilot of this ship to go there."</p>
+
+<p>The man who had called himself Brotow passed near us. I appealed to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"We put on our suits. After our experience, we feel safer that way. If
+I'm to pilot the ship...."</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, his glance sweeping the deck as though to ask Potan.
+Someone said in Martian:</p>
+
+<p>"The Commander is down in the stern storeroom."</p>
+
+<p>It decided Brotow. He waved away the Martian who had stopped me.</p>
+
+<p>"Let them pass."</p>
+
+<p>Anita and I gave him our most friendly smiles.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks."</p>
+
+<p>He bowed to Anita with a sweeping gesture. "I will show you over the
+control room presently."</p>
+
+<p>His gaze went to the peak of the bow.</p>
+
+<p>The little hooded cubby there was the control room, then. Satisfaction
+swept me. Then above us in the tower, must surely be the signal room.
+Would Brotow follow us up? I hoped not. I wanted to be alone with the
+duty man up there, giving me a chance to get at the projector controls
+if Miko's signal should come.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I drew Anita past Brotow, who had stood aside. "Thanks," I repeated.
+"We won't be long."</p>
+
+<p>We mounted the little ladder.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXXI</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Hurry, Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>I feared that Potan might come up from the hull at any moment and stop
+us. The duty man over us gazed down, his huge head and shoulders
+blocking the small signal room window. Brotow called up in Martian,
+telling him to let us come. He scowled, but when we reached the trap
+in the room floor grid, we found him standing aside to admit us.</p>
+
+<p>I flung a swift glance around. It was a metallic cubby, not much over
+fifteen feet square, with an eight foot arched ceiling. There were
+instrument panels. The range finder for the giant projector was here;
+its telescope with the trajectory apparatus and the firing switch were
+unmistakable. And the signaling apparatus was here! Not a Martian set,
+but a fully powerful Botz ultra-violet sender with its attendant
+receiving mirrors. The <i>Planetara</i> had used the Botz system, so I was
+thoroughly familiar with it.</p>
+
+<p>I saw too, what seemed to be weapons: a row of small fragile glass
+globes, hanging on clips along the wall&mdash;bombs, each the size of a
+man's fist. And a broad belt with bombs in its padded compartments.</p>
+
+<p>My heart was pounding as my first quick glance took in these details.
+I saw also that the room had four small oval window openings. They
+were breast high above the floor; from the deck below I knew that the
+angle of vision was such that the men down there could not see into
+this room except to glimpse its upper portion near the ceiling. And
+the helio set was banked on a low table near the floor.</p>
+
+<p>In a corner of the room a small ladder led through a ceil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>ing trap to
+the cubby roof. This upper trap was open. Four feet above the room's
+roof was the arch of the dome, with the entrance to the exit-lock
+directly above us. The weapons and the belt of bombs were near the
+ascending ladder, evidently placed here as equipment for use from the
+top of the dome.</p>
+
+<p>I turned to the solitary duty man. I must gain his confidence at once.
+Anita had laid her helmet aside. She spoke first.</p>
+
+<p>"We were with <i>Set</i> Miko," she said smilingly, "in the wreck of the
+<i>Planetara</i>. You heard of it? We know where the treasure is."</p>
+
+<p>This duty man was a full seven feet tall, and the most heavy-set
+Martian I had ever seen. A tremendous, beetle-browed, scowling fellow.
+He stood with hands on his hips, his leather-garbed legs spread wide;
+and as I confronted him, I felt like a child.</p>
+
+<p>He was silent, glaring down at me as I drew his attention from Anita.</p>
+
+<p>"You speak English?" I asked. "We are not skilled with Martian."</p>
+
+<p>I wondered if at the next time of sleep this fellow would be on duty
+here. I hoped not: it would not be easy to trick him and find an
+opportunity to flash a signal. But that task was some hours away as
+yet; I would worry about it when the time came. Just now I was
+concerned with Miko and his little band, who at any moment might
+arrive in sight. If we could persuade this duty man to turn the
+projector on them!</p>
+
+<p>He answered me in ready English:</p>
+
+<p>"You are the man Gregg Haljan? And this is the sister of George
+Prince&mdash;what do you want up here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am a navigator. Brotow wants me to pilot the ship when we advance
+to attack Grantline."</p>
+
+<p>"This is not the control room."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I know it isn't."</p>
+
+<p>I put my helmet carefully on the floor beside Anita's. I straightened
+to find the brigand gazing at her. He did not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> speak: he was still
+scowling. But in the dim blue glow of the cubby, I caught the look in
+his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>I said hastily, "Grantline knows your ship has landed here on
+Archimedes. His camp is off there on the Mare Imbrium. He sent up a
+signal&mdash;you saw it, didn't you?&mdash;just before Miss Prince and I came
+aboard. He was trying to pretend he was your Earth party, Miko and
+Coniston."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?"</p>
+
+<p>The fellow turned his scowl on me, but Anita brought his gaze back to
+her. She put in quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"Grantline, as brother always said, has no great cunning. I believe
+now he plans to creep up on us unawares, by pretending that he is
+Miko."</p>
+
+<p>"If he does that," I said, "we will turn this electronic projector on
+him and his party and annihilate them. You have its firing mechanism
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"Who told you so?" he shot at me.</p>
+
+<p>I gestured. "I see it here. It's obvious: I'm skilled at trajectory
+firing. If Grantline appears down there now, I'll help you."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it connected?" Anita demanded boldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said. "You have on your Erentz suits: are you going to the
+dome roof? Then go."</p>
+
+<p>But that was what we did not want to do. Anita's glance seemed to tell
+me to let her handle this. I turned toward one of the cubby windows.</p>
+
+<p>She said sweetly, "Are you in charge of this room? Show me how the
+projector is operated. I know it will be invincible against the
+Grantline camp."</p>
+
+<p>I had my back to them for a moment. Through the breast-high oval I
+could see down across the deck-space and out through the side dome
+windows. And my heart suddenly leaped into my throat. It seemed that
+down there in the Earthlit shadows, where the spreading base of the
+giant crater joined the plains, a light was bobbing. I gazed,
+stricken. Miko's lights? Was he advancing, preparing to signal? I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span>
+tried to gauge the distance; it was not over two miles from here.</p>
+
+<p>Or was it not a light at all? With the naked eye, I could not be sure.
+Perhaps there was a telescope finder here in the cubby....</p>
+
+<p>I was subconsciously aware of the voices of Anita and the duty man
+behind me. Then abruptly I heard Anita's low cry. I whirled around.</p>
+
+<p>The giant Martian had gathered her into his huge arms, his heavy
+jowled gray face, with a leering grin, close to hers!</p>
+
+<p>He saw me coming. He held her with one arm! his other flung at me,
+caught me, knocked me backward. He rasped:</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of here! Go up to the dome&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Anita was silently struggling with her little hands at his thick
+throat. His blow flung me against a settle. But I held my feet. I was
+partly behind him. I leaped again, and as he tried to disengage
+himself from Anita to front me, her clutching fingers impeded him.</p>
+
+<p>My projector was in my hand. But in that second as I leaped, I had the
+sense to realize I should not fire it because its noise would alarm
+the ship. I grasped its barrel, reached upward and struck with its
+heavy metal butt. The blow caught the Martian on the skull, and
+simultaneously my body struck him.</p>
+
+<p>We went down together, falling partly upon Anita. But the giant had
+not cried out, and as I gripped him now, I felt his body go limp. I
+lay panting. Anita squirmed silently from under us. Blood from the
+giant's head was welling out, hot and sticky against my face as I lay
+sprawled on him.</p>
+
+<p>I cast him off. He was dead, his fragile Martian skull split open by
+my blow.</p>
+
+<p>There had been no alarm. The slight noise we made had not been heard
+down on the busy deck. Anita and I crouched by the floor. From the
+deck all this part of the room could not be seen.</p>
+
+<p>"Dead."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Gregg&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It forced our hand. I could not wait now for Miko to come. But I could
+flash the Earth signal now, and then we would have to make our run to
+escape.</p>
+
+<p>Then I remembered that light down by the base! I kept Anita out of
+sight down on the floor and went cautiously to a window. The deck was
+in turmoil with brigands moving about excitedly. Not because of what
+had happened in our tower signal room: they were unaware of that.</p>
+
+<p>Miko's signals were showing! I could see them now plainly, down at the
+crater base. A group of hand lights and small waving helio beam.</p>
+
+<p>And they were being answered from the ship! Potan was on the deck&mdash;a
+babble of voices, above which his rose with roars of command. At one
+of the dome windows a brigand with a hand searchbeam was sending its
+answering light. And I saw that Potan was working over a deck
+telescope finder.</p>
+
+<p>It had all come so suddenly that I was stunned. But I did not wait to
+read the signals. I swung back at Anita, who stared helplessly at me.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Miko! And they are answering him! Get your helmet: I'll try
+firing the projector."</p>
+
+<p>Or would I instead try and send a brief flash signal to Earth? There
+would be no time to do both: we must escape out of here. The route up
+through the dome was the only feasible one now.</p>
+
+<p>This range mechanism of the projector was reasonably familiar, and I
+felt that I could operate it. The range-finder and the switch were on
+a ledge at one of the windows. I rushed to it. As I swung the
+telescope, training it down on Miko's lights, I could see the huge
+projector on the deck swinging similarly. Its movement surprised the
+men who were attending it. One of them called up to me, but I ignored
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Then Potan looked up and saw me. He shouted in Martian at the duty
+man, whom he doubtless thought was behind me: "Be ready! We may fire
+on them. I'll give you the word."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The signals were proceeding. It had only been a moment. I caught
+something like, "<i>Haljan is imposter</i>."</p>
+
+<p>I was aiming the projector. I was aware of Anita at my elbow. I pushed
+her back.</p>
+
+<p>"Put on your helmet!"</p>
+
+<p>I had the range. I flung the firing switch.</p>
+
+<p>At the deck window the giant projector spat its deadly electronic
+stream. The men down there leaped away from it in surprise. I heard
+Potan's voice, his shout of protest and anger.</p>
+
+<p>But down in the Earth glow at the crater base, Miko's lights had not
+vanished! I had missed! An error in the range? Abruptly I knew it was
+not that. Miko's lights were still there. His signals still coming.
+And I noticed now a faint distortion about them, the glow of his
+little group of hand lights faintly distorted and vaguely shot with a
+greenish cast. Benson curve lights!</p>
+
+<p>My thoughts whirled in the few seconds while I stood there at the
+tower window. Miko had feared he might be summarily fired on. He had
+gone back to his camp, equipped all his lights with the Benson curve.
+He was somewhere at the crater base now. But not where I thought I saw
+him! The Benson curve light changed the path of the light rays
+traveling from him to me, I could not even approximate his true
+position!</p>
+
+<p>Anita was plucking at me. "Gregg, come."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't hit him," I gasped.</p>
+
+<p>Should I try the flash signal to Earth? Did we dare linger here? I
+stood another few seconds at the window. I saw Potan down in the
+confusion of the deck, training a telescope. He had shouted up
+violently at his duty man here not to fire again.</p>
+
+<p>And now he let out a roar. "I can see them! It's Miko! By the
+Almighty&mdash;his giant stature&mdash;Brotow, look! That's not an Earth man!"</p>
+
+<p>He flung aside his telescope finder. "Disconnect that projector! It's
+Miko down there! This Haljan is a trickster!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> Where is he?
+Braile&mdash;Braile, you accursed fool! Are Haljan and the girl up there
+with you?"</p>
+
+<p>But the duty man lay in his blood at our feet.</p>
+
+<p>I had dropped back from the window. Anita and I crouched for an
+instant in confusion, fumbling with our helmets.</p>
+
+<p>The ship rang with the alarm. And amid the turmoil we could hear the
+shouts of the infuriated brigands swarming up the tower ladder after
+us!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXXII</h2>
+
+
+<p>I was only inactive a moment. I had thought Anita would have on her
+helmet. But she was reluctant, or confused.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, we've got to get out of here! Up through the overhead locks to
+the dome."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." She fumbled with her helmet. The climbing men on the ladder
+were audible. They were already nearing the top. The trap door was
+closed; Anita and I were crouching on it. There was a thick metal bar
+set in a depressed groove for the grid. I slid it in place; it would
+seal the trap for a short time.</p>
+
+<p>A degree of confidence came to me. We had a few moments before there
+could be any hand-to-hand conflict. The giant electronic projector
+would eventually be used against Grantline; it was the brigands' most
+powerful weapon. Its controls were here, by Heaven, I would smash
+them? That at least I could do!</p>
+
+<p>I jumped for the window. Miko's signals had stopped, but I caught a
+glimpse of his distant moving curve lights.</p>
+
+<p>A flash came up at me, as in the window I became visible to the
+brigands on the ship's deck. It was a small hand projector, hastily
+fired, for it went wide of the window. It was followed by a rain of
+small beams, but I was warned and dropped my head beneath the sill.
+The rays flashed dangerously upward through the oval opening, hissed
+against our vaulted roof. The air snapped and tingled with a shower<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>
+of blue-red sparks, and the acrid odor of the released gases settled
+down upon us.</p>
+
+<p>The trajectory controls of the projector were beside me. I seized
+them, ripped and tore at them. There was a roar down on the deck. The
+projector had exploded. A man's agonizing scream split the confusion
+of sounds.</p>
+
+<p>It silenced the brigands on the deck. Under our floor grid, those on
+the ladder had been pounding at the trap door. They stopped, evidently
+to see what had happened. The bombardment of our windows stopped
+momentarily.</p>
+
+<p>I cautiously peered out the window again. In the wreck of the
+projector, three men were lying. One of them was screaming horribly.
+The dome side was damaged. Potan and other men were frantically
+investigating to see if the ship's air was hissing out.</p>
+
+<p>A triumph swept over me. They had not found me so meek and inoffensive
+as they might have thought!</p>
+
+<p>Anita clutched me. She still had not donned her helmet.</p>
+
+<p>"Put on your helmet!"</p>
+
+<p>"But Gregg&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Put it on!"</p>
+
+<p>"I.... I don't want to put it on until you put yours on."</p>
+
+<p>"I've smashed the projector! We've stopped them coming up for a
+while."</p>
+
+<p>But they were still on the ladder under our floor. They heard our
+voices: they began thumping again. Then pounding. They seemed now to
+have heavy implements. They rammed against the trap.</p>
+
+<p>The floor seemed holding. The square of metal grid trembled, yielded a
+little. But it was good for a few minutes longer.</p>
+
+<p>I called down, "The first one who comes through will be shot!" My
+words mingled with their oaths. There was a moment's pause, then the
+ramming went on. The dying man on the deck was still screaming.</p>
+
+<p>I whispered, "I'll try an Earth signal."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>She nodded. Pale, tense, but calm. "Yes, Gregg. And I was thinking&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It won't take a minute. Have your helmet ready."</p>
+
+<p>"I was thinking&mdash;" She hurried across the room.</p>
+
+<p>I swung on the Botz signaling apparatus. It was connected. Within a
+moment I had it humming. The fluorescent tubes lighted with their
+lurid glare; they painted purple the body of the giant duty man who
+lay sprawled at my feet. I drew on all the ship's power. The tube
+lights in the room quivered and went dim.</p>
+
+<p>I would have to hurry. Potan could shut this off from the main hull
+control room. I could see, through the room's upper trap, the primary
+sending mirror mounted in the peak of the dome. It was quivering,
+radiant with its light energy. I sent the flash.</p>
+
+<p>The flattened past full Earth was up there. I knew that the Western
+Hemisphere faced the Moon at this hour. I flashed in English, with the
+open Universal Earth code:</p>
+
+<p><i>Help. Grantline.</i></p>
+
+<p>And again: <i>Help. Archimedes region near Apennines. Attacked by
+brigands.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Send help at once. Grantline.</i></p>
+
+<p>If only it would be received! I flung off the current. Anita stood
+watching me intently. "Gregg, look!"</p>
+
+<p>I saw that she had taken some of the glass globe-bombs which lay by
+the foot of the ascending ladder. "Gregg, I threw some of them."</p>
+
+<p>At the window we gazed down. The globes she flung had shattered on the
+deck. They were darkness bombs.</p>
+
+<p>Through the blackness of the deck, the shouts of the brigands came up.
+They were stumbling about. But the ramming of our trap went on, and I
+saw that it was beginning to yield.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to go, Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>From out of the darkness which hung like a shroud over the deck an
+occasional flash came up, unaimed, wide of our windows. But the
+darkness was dissipating. I could see now<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> the dim glow of the deck
+lights, blurred as through a heavy fog.</p>
+
+<p>I dropped another of the bombs.</p>
+
+<p>"Put on your helmet."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;yes, I will. You put yours on."</p>
+
+<p>We had them adjusted in a moment. Our Erentz motors were pumping.</p>
+
+<p>I gripped her. "Put out your helmet light."</p>
+
+<p>She extinguished it. I handed her my projector.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold it a moment. I'm going to take that belt of bombs."</p>
+
+<p>The trap door was all but broken under the ramming blows of the men. I
+leaped over the body of the dead duty man, seized the belt of bombs
+and strapped it around my waist.</p>
+
+<p>"Give me the projector."</p>
+
+<p>She handed it to me. The trap door burst upward! A man's head and
+shoulders appeared. I fired a bullet into him&mdash;the leaden pellet
+singing down through the yellow powder flash that spat from the
+projector's muzzle.</p>
+
+<p>The brigand screamed, and dropped back out of sight. There was
+confusion at the ladder top. I flung a bomb at the broken trap. A tiny
+heat ray came wavering up through the opening, but went wide of us.</p>
+
+<p>The instrument room was in darkness. I clung to Anita.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on to my hand. You go first&mdash;here is the ladder!"</p>
+
+<p>We found it in the blackness, mounted it and went through the cubby's
+roof-trap.</p>
+
+<p>I took another look and dropped another bomb beside us. The four foot
+space up here between the cubby roof and the overhead dome, went
+black. We were momentarily concealed.</p>
+
+<p>Anita located the manual levers of the lock-entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>I shoved at them. Fear leaped in me that they would not operate. But
+they swung. The tiny port opened wide to receive us. We clambered into
+the small air-chamber; the door slid closed, just as a flash from
+below struck at it. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> brigands had seen our cloud of darkness and
+were firing up through it.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment we were out on the dome top. A sleek, rounded spread of
+glassite, with broad aluminite girders. There were cross ribs which
+gave us a footing, and occasionally projections&mdash;streamline fin-tips,
+the casings of the upper rudder shafts, and the upstanding stubby
+funnels into which helicopters were folded.</p>
+
+<p>We moved along the central footpath and crouched by a six-foot casing.
+The stars and the glowing Earth were over us. The curving dome top&mdash;a
+hundred feet or so in length, and bulging thirty feet wide beneath
+us&mdash;glistened in the Earthlight. It was a sheer drop and down these
+curving sides past the ship's hull, a hundred feet to the rocks on
+which the vessel rested. The towering wall of Archimedes was beside
+us; and beyond the brink of the ledge the thousands of feet down to
+the plains.</p>
+
+<p>I saw the lights of Miko's band down there. He had stopped signaling.
+His little lights were spread out, bobbing as he and his men advanced
+up the crater's foothills, coming to join the ship.</p>
+
+<p>I had an instant's glimpse. Anita and I could not stay here. The
+brigands would follow us up in a moment. I saw no exterior ladder. We
+would have to take our chances and jump.</p>
+
+<p>There were brigands down there on the rocks. I saw three or four
+helmeted figures, and they saw us! A bullet whizzed by us, and then
+came the flash of a hand ray.</p>
+
+<p>I touched Anita. "Can you make the leap? Anita dear...."</p>
+
+<p>Again it seemed that this must be farewell.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, dear one, we've got to do it!"</p>
+
+<p>Those waiting figures would pounce on us.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, lie here a moment."</p>
+
+<p>I jumped up and ran twenty feet toward the bow; then back toward the
+stern, flinging down the last of my bombs. The darkness was like a
+cloud down there, enveloping the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span> outer brigands. But up there we were
+above it, etched by the starlight and Earthglow.</p>
+
+<p>I came back to Anita. "We'll have to chance it now."</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg...."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye, dear. I'll jump first, down this side, you follow."</p>
+
+<p>To leap into that black patch, with the rocks under it....</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She was trying to tell me to look overhead. She gestured, "Gregg,
+see!"</p>
+
+<p>I saw it, out over the plains, a little speck amid the stars. A moving
+speck, coming toward us!</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>I gazed, held my breath. A moving speck out there. A blob now. And
+then I realized it was not a large object, far away, but small, and
+already very close&mdash;only a few hundred feet off, dropping toward the
+top of our dome. A narrow, flat, ten foot object, like a wingless
+volplane. There were no lights on it, but in the Earthlight I could
+see two crouching, helmeted figures riding it.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita! Don't you remember!"</p>
+
+<p>I was swept with dawning comprehension. Back in the Grantline camp
+Snap and I had discussed how to use the <i>Planetara's</i> gravity plates.
+We had gone to the wreck and secured them, had rigged this little
+volplane flyer....</p>
+
+<p>The brigands on the rocks saw it now. A flash went up at it. One of
+the figures crouching on it opened a flexible fabric like a wing over
+its side. I saw another flash from below, harmlessly striking the
+insulated shield.</p>
+
+<p>I gasped to Anita, "Light your helmet! It's from Grantline! Let them
+see us!"</p>
+
+<p>I stood erect. The little flying platform went over us, fifty feet up,
+circling, dropping to the dome top.</p>
+
+<p>I waved my helmet light. The exit lock from below&mdash;up which we had
+come&mdash;was near us. The advancing brigands were already in it! I had
+forgotten to demolish the manuals. And I saw that the darkness down on
+the rocks was almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> gone now, dissipating in the airless night. The
+brigands down there began firing up at us.</p>
+
+<p>It was a confusion of flashing lights. I clutched at Anita.</p>
+
+<p>"Come this way&mdash;run!"</p>
+
+<p>The platform barely missed our heads. It sailed lengthwise of the dome
+top, and crashed silently on the central runway near the stern tip.
+Anita and I ran to it.</p>
+
+<p>The two helmeted figures seized us, shoved us prone on the metal
+platform. It was barely four feet wide; a low railing, handles with
+which to cling, and a tiny hooded cubby in front.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg!"</p>
+
+<p>"You, Snap!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Snap and Venza. She seized Anita, held her crouching in place.
+Snap flung himself face down at the controls.</p>
+
+<p>The brigands were out on the dome now. I took a last shot as we
+lifted. My bullet punctured one of them: he slid, fell scrambling off
+the rounded dome and dropped out of sight.</p>
+
+<p>Light rays and silent flashes seemed to envelope us. Venza held the
+side shields higher.</p>
+
+<p>We tilted, swayed crazily, and then steadied.</p>
+
+<p>The ship's dome dropped away beneath us. The rocks of the open ledge
+were beneath us. Then the abyss, with the moving, climbing specks of
+Miko's lights far down.</p>
+
+<p>I saw, over the side shield, the already distant brigand ship resting
+on the ledge with the massive Archimedes' wall behind it. A confusion
+back there of futile flashing rays.</p>
+
+<p>It all faded into a remote glow as we sailed smoothly up into the
+starlight and away, heading for the Grantline camp.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXXIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Wake up. Gregg! They're coming!"</p>
+
+<p>I forced myself to consciousness. "Coming&mdash;"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I leaped from my bunk, followed Snap with a rush into the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>We had returned safely to the Grantline camp. Anita and I found
+ourselves exhausted from lack of sleep, our arduous climb of
+Archimedes and that tense time on the brigand ship. On the flight
+back, Snap had explained how the landing of the ship on Archimedes was
+observed through the Grantline telescope. They had read with amazement
+my signals to the brigands. Snap had rushed to completion the first of
+our flying platforms. Then he had seen Miko's signals from the crater
+base, seen the lights and the fight to capture Anita and me, and had
+come to rescue us.</p>
+
+<p>Back at the camp we were given food, and Grantline forced me to try to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>"They'll be on us in a few hours, Gregg. Miko wall have joined them by
+now. He'll lead them to us. You must rest, for we need everyone at his
+best."</p>
+
+<p>And surprisingly, in the midst of the camp's turmoil of last minute
+activities, I slept soundly until Snap called me, telling me the ship
+was coming.</p>
+
+<p>The corridor echoed with the tramp of Grantline's busy crew. But there
+was no confusion; a grim calmness had settled on everyone.</p>
+
+<p>Anita and Venza rushed up to join us. "It's in sight!"</p>
+
+<p>There was no need of going to the instrument room. From the windows
+fronting the brink of the cliff the brigand ship was plainly visible.
+It came sailing from Archimedes, a dark shape blurring the stars. All
+its lights were extinguished save a single white search beam in the
+bow peak, slanting diagonally down.</p>
+
+<p>The beam presently caught our group of buildings; its glare shone in
+the windows as it clung for a moment. I could envisage the triumphant
+curiosity of Potan and his men up there, gazing along the beam.</p>
+
+<p>We had dimmed the lights to conserve our power, and to enable the
+Erentz motors to run at full capacity. Our<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> buildings would have to
+withstand the brigands' rays which soon would be upon us.</p>
+
+<p>Outside on our dim, Earthlit cliff, the tiny lights showed where our
+few guards were lurking. As I stood at the window watching the
+incoming ship, Grantline's voice sounded:</p>
+
+<p>"Call in those men! Ring the call-lights, Franck!"</p>
+
+<p>The siren buzzed over the camp's interior; the warning call-lights on
+the roof brought in the outer guards. They came running to the
+admission ports, which had been repaired after Miko disabled them.</p>
+
+<p>The guards came in. We dimmed our lights further. The treasure sheds
+were black against the cliff behind us. No need for guards there&mdash;we
+reasoned the brigands would not attempt to move it until our buildings
+were captured. But, if they should try it, we were prepared to defend
+it.</p>
+
+<p>In the dim light we crouched. A silence was upon us save for the
+clanging in the workshop down the corridor. Most of us wore our Erentz
+suits, with helmets ready, though I am sure there was not a man of us
+but who prayed he might not have to go out. At many of the
+windows&mdash;our weakest points to withstand the rays&mdash;insulated fabric
+sheets were hung like curtains.</p>
+
+<p>The brigand ship slowly advanced. It was soon over the opposite rim of
+our little crater. Its searchbeam swung about the rim and down the
+valley.</p>
+
+<p>My thoughts ran like a turgid stream as I stood tensely watching.</p>
+
+<p>Four hours ago I had sent that flash signal to Earth. If it was
+received, a patrol ship could come to our rescue and arrive here in
+another eight hours&mdash;or perhaps even less.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, that "if!" <i>If</i> the signal was received! <i>If</i> the patrol ship were
+immediately available. <i>If</i> it started at once....</p>
+
+<p>Eight hours at the very least. I tried to assure myself that we could
+hold out that long.</p>
+
+<p>The brigand ship crossed the opposite crater rim. It dropped lower. It
+seemed poised over the crater valley, almost at our own level and less
+than two miles from us. Its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> searchbeam vanished. For a moment it
+hung, a sleek, cylindrical silver shape, gleaming in the Earthlight.</p>
+
+<p>Snap looked at me and murmured, "It's descending."</p>
+
+<p>It slowly settled, cautiously picked its landing place amid the crags
+and pits of the tumbled, scarred valley floor. It came to rest, a
+vague, menacing silver shape lurking in the lower shadows, close at
+the foot of the inner opposite crater wall.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments of tense waiting passed. Soon tiny lights were moving
+down there, some out on the rocks near the ship, others up under its
+deck dome.</p>
+
+<p>A stab of searchlight shot across the valley, swung along our ledge
+and clung with its glaring ten foot circle to the front of our main
+building. Then a ray flashed.</p>
+
+<p>The assault had begun!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXXIV</h2>
+
+
+<p>It seemed, with that first shot from the enemy, that a great relief
+came to us&mdash;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:</p>
+
+<p>"Harmless!"</p>
+
+<p>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 searchlight vanished.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I was standing with Grantline at a front window. We had rigged an
+oblong of insulated fabric like a curtain; we stood<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> peering, holding
+the curtain cautiously aside. The ray struck some twenty feet away
+from us.</p>
+
+<p>"Harmless!" The men shouted it with derision.</p>
+
+<p>But Grantline swung on them: "Don't get that idea!"</p>
+
+<p>An interior signal panel was beside Grantline. He called the duty men
+in the instrument room.</p>
+
+<p>"It's over. What are your readings?"</p>
+
+<p>The bombarding electrons had passed through the outer shell of the
+building's double wall, and been absorbed in the rarefied, magnetized
+aircurrent 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:</p>
+
+<p>"Five degrees colder in your building. Can't you feel it?"</p>
+
+<p>The disturbed, weakened Erentz system had allowed the outer cold to
+radiate through a trifle. The walls had had a trifle extra explosive
+pressure from the air. A strain&mdash;but that was all.</p>
+
+<p>"It's probably their most powerful single weapon, Gregg," said
+Grantline.</p>
+
+<p>I nodded, "Yes, I think so."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline commented: "We can withstand a lot of that bombardment. If
+we stay inside&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Even so," said Grantline, "a hand shield would hold it off for a
+certain length of time."</p>
+
+<p>We had an opportunity a moment later to test our in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>sulated shields.
+The bolt came again. It darted along the front face of the building,
+caught our window, and clung. The double window shelves 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 the walls. We feared the bombarding
+electrons might cross it, penetrate the inner shell and, like a
+lightning bolt, enter the room.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Harmless!"</p>
+
+<p>But our power had been drained nearly an aeron, to neutralize the
+shock to the Erentz current. Grantline said:</p>
+
+<p>"If they kept that up, it would be a question of whose power supply
+would last longer. And it would not be ours.... You saw our lights
+fade when the bolt was striking?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't answer them," Grantline declared. "Our game is to sit
+defensive. Conserve everything. Let them make the leading moves."</p>
+
+<p>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 illuminated deck was visible, and the
+line of its tiny hull ovals.</p>
+
+<p>On the rocks near the ship, helmet lights of prowling brigands
+occasionally showed.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Commander, where shall I put these helmets?"</p>
+
+<p>A man came wheeling a pile of helmets on a small truck.</p>
+
+<p>"At the manual port&mdash;in the other building."</p>
+
+<p>Our weapons and outside equipment were massed at the main exit locks
+of the large building. But we might want to go out through smaller
+locks too. Grantline sent helmets there; suits were not needed, as
+most of us were garbed in them now.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"How goes it, Snap?"</p>
+
+<p>"Almost all ready."</p>
+
+<p>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 <i>have</i> to ride them! We planned
+that, in event of disaster to the buildings, we could at least escape
+in this fashion. Food supplies and water were now being placed at the
+ports.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Snap's voice was raised over the clang of the workmen bolting the
+gravity plates of the last platform:</p>
+
+<p>"Only that one projector, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"They gave us four blasts; but just the one projector. Their
+strongest."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Didn't hurt us much."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"When I get the tube panels in this thing I'll be finished. It'll take
+another half-hour. Then I'll join you. Where are you stationed?"</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged. "I was at a front window with Johnny. Nothing to do as
+yet."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>Ah, that <i>if</i>!</p>
+
+<p>I turned away. "Can't help you, Snap?"</p>
+
+<p>"No.... Take those shields," he added to one of the men.</p>
+
+<p>"Take them where?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Grantline. He'll tell you where to put them."</p>
+
+<p>The shields were wheeled away on a little cart. I followed it.
+Grantline sent it to the back exit.</p>
+
+<p>"No other move from them yet, Johnny?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. All quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"Snap's almost finished."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline got the report from the instrument room. He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"That helped rather than hurt us. Heated the outer wall. Franck took
+advantage of it and eased up the motors."</p>
+
+<p>We wondered if Miko knew that. Doubtless he did, for the heat-ray was
+not used again.</p>
+
+<p>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 wall, clung momentarily to our shielded windows, and pried with
+its revealing glow into Snap's workshop.</p>
+
+<p>"Looking us over," Grantline commented. "I hope they like what they
+see."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I knew that 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
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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 electronic beams, the Martian paralyzing rays and heat beams.
+They darted out like flashing swords from the rocks near the ship.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Haljan, come look at these damn girls! Commander&mdash;shall I stop them?
+They'll kill themselves, or kill us&mdash;or smash something!"</p>
+
+<p>We followed the man into the building's broad central corridor. Anita
+and Venza were riding a midget platform! Anita, in her boyish black
+garb; Venza, with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the tiny six
+foot long 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
+projection. Up to the low vaulted ceiling, then down to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>It sailed over our heads, rising over us as we ducked. Anita waved her
+hand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Grantline gasped, "By the infernal!"</p>
+
+<p>I shouted, "Anita, stop!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline clung to me. "By the gods of the airways!"</p>
+
+<p>In spite of my astonished horror, I could not but share Grantline's
+admiration. Three or 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I confronted them. "Anita, what are you doing?"</p>
+
+<p>She stood up, flushed and smiling. "Practicing."</p>
+
+<p>"What for?"</p>
+
+<p>Venza's roguish eyes twinkled at me. Her hands went to her slim hips
+with a gesture of defiance.</p>
+
+<p>She asked, "Are you speaking for yourself or the Commander?"</p>
+
+<p>I ignored her. "What for?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because we're good at it," Anita retorted. "Better than any of you
+men. If you should need us, we're ready...."</p>
+
+<p>"We won't!" I said shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"But if you should...."</p>
+
+<p>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!"</p>
+
+<p>It silenced me.</p>
+
+<p>She added, "Commander, let us alone. We won't smash anything."</p>
+
+<p>Grantline laughed. "I hope you won't!"</p>
+
+<p>A warning call took us back to the front window. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> brigands'
+searchlight 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 over to the ore sheds.</p>
+
+<p>We had no men outside, if that was what the brigands wanted to
+determine. The searchbeam presently vanished. It was replaced
+immediately by a zed-ray, which darted at once to our treasure sheds
+and clung.</p>
+
+<p>That stung Grantline into his first action. We flung our own zed-ray
+down across the valley. It reached the brigand ship and the blurred
+interior of the cabins.</p>
+
+<p>"Try the searchbeam, Franck."</p>
+
+<p>The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our searchlight which clung to the
+dome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there.</p>
+
+<p>"The telescope," Grantline ordered.</p>
+
+<p>The dynamos hummed. The telescope finder glowed and clarified. On the
+deck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the assembling of
+tiny ore carts. A deck landing port was open. The ore carts were being
+carried out through a port lock and down a landing incline. And on the
+rock outside, we saw several of the carts, tiny rail sections and the
+section of an ore chute.</p>
+
+<p>Miko was unloading his mining apparatus! He was making ready to come
+up for the treasure!</p>
+
+<p>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 searchbeam, sweeping the ledge a moment
+before, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done just
+for that purpose, no doubt&mdash;to make us feel sure the ledge was
+unoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making the search.</p>
+
+<p>But there was a brigand group close outside our walls! By the merest
+chance the radiating glow from our searchray had shown the helmeted
+figures scurrying for shelter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Grantline leaped to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>We rushed from the rear port exit 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!</p>
+
+<p>His hydrogen heat torch had already opened a rift in the wall!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXXV</h2>
+
+
+<p>"In with you!" ordered Grantline. "Get your helmets on! How many? Six.
+Enough&mdash;get back there, Williams&mdash;you were last. The lock won't hold
+any more."</p>
+
+<p>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 brigand had been seen.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline touched me just as we emerged. "Don't wait for orders? Get
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"That fellow with the torch&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'm with you."</p>
+
+<p>We went out with a rush. We had already discarded our shoe and belt
+weights. I leaped, regardless of my companions.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I bounded toward the front. The brigand with the torch had been at the
+front corner. I could not see him from here; he had been crouching
+just around the angle.</p>
+
+<p>I had a tiny bullet projector, the best weapon for short range
+outdoors. I was aware of Grantline close behind me.</p>
+
+<p>It took only a few of my giant leaps. I handed at the corner,
+recovered my balance and whirled around to the front.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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 fellow men
+had broken our exits by now.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>As my grip upon him made audiphone contact, his agonized scream
+rattled the diaphragms of my ear grids with horrible, deafening
+intensity.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline had leaped, landing beside me. "Dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>I climbed from the inert body. The torch had hissed itself out.
+Grantline swung to our building corner, and I leaned down with him to
+examine it. The torch had fused and scarred 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Grantline stood gripping me. "Damn bad."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Can't we repair it, Johnny?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Would have to take that whole plaster section out, shut off the
+Erentz plant and exhaust the interior air of all this bulkhead. Day's
+job&mdash;maybe more."</p>
+
+<p>And the crack would get worse, I knew. It would gradual<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>ly 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 had
+perhaps realized. I could envisage our weapons, useless from the lack
+of power. The air in our buildings turned fetid and frigid; ourselves
+forced to the helmets. A rush out to abandon the camp and escape. The
+building 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.</p>
+
+<p>Our defeat. In a few hours now&mdash;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....</p>
+
+<p>Grantline's voice in my audiphone broke my despairing thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"Bad. Come on, Gregg. Nothing to do here."</p>
+
+<p>We were aware that our other four men had run along the building's
+other side. They emerged now&mdash;with the running brigands in front of
+them, rushing out toward the stairs on the ledge. Three giant Martian
+figures in flight, with our four men chasing.</p>
+
+<p>A brigand fell to the rocks by the brink of the ledge. The others
+reached the descending staircase, tumbled down it with reckless leaps.</p>
+
+<p>Our men turned back. Before we could join them, the enemy ship down in
+the valley sent up a cautious searchbeam which located its returning
+men. Then the beam swung up to the ledge, landing upon us.</p>
+
+<p>We stood confused, blinded by the brilliant glare. Grantline stumbled
+against me.</p>
+
+<p>"Run, Gregg! They'll be firing at us."</p>
+
+<p>We dashed away. Our companions joined us, rushing back for the port. I
+saw it open, reinforcements coming out to help us&mdash;half a dozen
+figures carrying a ten foot insulated shield. They could barely get it
+through the port.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Martian searchray vanished. Then almost instantly the electronic
+ray came with its deadly stab. Missed us at first, as we ran for the
+shield, carrying it back to the port, hiding behind it.</p>
+
+<p>The ray stabbed once or twice more.</p>
+
+<p>Whether Miko's instruments showed him how badly damaged our front wall
+was, we never knew. But I think that he realized. His searchbeam clung
+to it, and his zed-ray pried into our interiors.</p>
+
+<p>The brigand ship was active now. We were desperate; we used our
+telescope freely for observation. 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.</p>
+
+<p>Then the ore chute 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&mdash;small
+mechanical cannons for throwing illuminating bombs.</p>
+
+<p>The enemy searchlight constantly raked our vicinity. Occasionally the
+giant electronic projector flung out its bolt as though warning us not
+to dare leave our buildings.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour went by. Our situation was even worse than Miko could
+know. The Erentz motors were running hot&mdash;our power draining, the
+crack widening. When it would break, we could not tell; but the danger
+was like a sword over us.</p>
+
+<p>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 now disabled instruments. No signals came.
+We could not&mdash;or, at least, did not&mdash;receive them.</p>
+
+<p>"They wouldn't signal," Grantline protested. "They'd<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> know the
+Martians would be more likely to get the signal than us. Of what use
+to warn Miko?"</p>
+
+<p>But he did not dare wait for a rescue ship that might or might not be
+coming! Miko was playing the waiting game now&mdash;making ready for a
+quick loading of the ore when we were forced to abandon our buildings.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>And then we discovered that Miko had made still another move. The
+brigand rays, fired from the depth of the valley, could strike our
+front building, but could not reach all our ledge. And from the ship's
+newer and nearer position this disadvantage to us was intensified.
+Then abruptly we realized that under cover of darkness bombs, an
+electronic projector and searchray 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Our exit port was on the lee side of the building from the hostile
+searchbeam. We got out unobserved and sailed upward; but soon a light
+from the ship caught us. And the projector bolts came up....</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> my hands when the blasts struck
+us. Moments of blurred terror....</p>
+
+<p>The voice of the man beside me sounded in my ears: "Now, Haljan, give
+them one!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 searchbeam was going full power, clinging to the
+ship to dazzle them.</p>
+
+<p>Snap circled them. 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.</p>
+
+<p>We swiftly flew back to our base.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;if we thought to huddle in
+them, helmeted in the failing air&mdash;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&mdash;if we refused to accept the
+challenge&mdash;for we could not fire through the windows and must go out
+to meet this threat.</p>
+
+<p>To remain defensive would end inevitably in our defeat. We all knew it
+now. The waiting game was Miko's&mdash;not ours.</p>
+
+<p>The success of our attack upon the distant isolated projectors,
+heartened us. Yet it was a desperate offensive upon which we decided!</p>
+
+<p>We prepared our little expedition at the larger of the exit ports.
+Miko's zed-ray was watching all our interior movements. We made a
+brave show of activity in our workshop with abandoned ore carts which
+were stored there. We got them out, started to recondition them.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It seemed to fool Miko. His zed-ray clung to the workshop, watching
+us. And at the distant port we gathered the platforms, shields,
+helmets, bombs, and a few hand projectors.</p>
+
+<p>There were six platforms&mdash;three of us upon each. It left four people
+to remain indoors.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;the life or death of all these men&mdash;hung now upon the
+fate of our venture. Snap and I could not intrude our personal
+feelings.</p>
+
+<p>And the girls won. Both were undeniably more skillful 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?</p>
+
+<p>We gathered at the port. A last minute change made Grantline order six
+of his men to remain to guard the buildings. The instruments, the
+Erentz system, all the appliances had to be attended.</p>
+
+<p>It left four platforms, each with three men&mdash;Grantline at the controls
+of one of them. And upon two of the others, Venza rode with Snap and I
+with Anita.</p>
+
+<p>We crouched in the shadows outside the port. 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 well armed.</p>
+
+<p>I envisioned then this tiny Moon crater, the scene of this battle we
+were waging. Struggling humans, desperately trying to kill!</p>
+
+<p>Anita drew me down on the platform. "Ready, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>The others were rising. We lifted, moved slowly out and away from the
+protective shadows of the building.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXXVI</h2>
+
+
+<p>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 dark; but the blurred shape of the
+hull was visible, and above it the rounded cap of dome, with a dim
+radiance beneath it.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Going too high."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, but followed the line nevertheless. It was Grantline's
+command.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;shifting our weight sidewise, or back, or
+forward to make it dip as the controls altered the gravity pull in its
+tiny plate sections.</p>
+
+<p>Like a bird, wheeling, soaring, swooping. To me, it was a precarious
+business.</p>
+
+<p>But now we were in straight flight diagonally upward. The outline of
+the brigand ship came directly under us. I crouched tense, breathless;
+every moment it seemed that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> the brigands must discover us and loose
+their bolts.</p>
+
+<p>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. An added glow down
+there must have warned Grantline that a shot was coming from there.
+The tiny red light flared bright on his platform.</p>
+
+<p>I turned 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. They seemed to move suddenly sidewise.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'm aiming."</p>
+
+<p>I was making ready to drop the small explosive globe bomb. Our search
+light ray at the camp, answering Grantline's signal, shot down and
+bathed the enemy ship in a white glare, revealing it for our aim.
+Simultaneously the brigand bolts came up at us.</p>
+
+<p>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 approximately where we had been before.</p>
+
+<p>I dropped my bomb hastily at the glowing white ship. The touch of a
+hostile ray would have exploded it in my hand. I saw others dropping
+also from our nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in a
+confusion of the white glare&mdash;and a cloud of black mist as the
+brigands out on the rocks used their darkness bombs.</p>
+
+<p>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
+searchray. The Benson radiance rays from our passing platforms,
+curving down to mingle with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> confusion. The electronic rays
+sending up their bolts....</p>
+
+<p>Our platforms dropped some ten dynamitrine bombs in that first passage
+over the ship. As we sped by, I dimmed the Benson 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&mdash;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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>We sailed off toward the opposite crater rim. I remember passing over
+the broken wreckage of Grantline's little spaceship, the <i>Comet</i>.
+Miko's bolts momentarily had vanished. We had hit some of his outside
+projectors; the others were abandoned, or being dragged to safer
+positions.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;disappeared into
+the blur of darkness like a bit of heated metal plunged into water.</p>
+
+<p>One out of six of our platforms already lost! Three men of our small
+force gone!</p>
+
+<p>But Grantline led us desperately back. Anita caught his signal to
+break our line. The five platforms scattered, dipping and wheeling
+like frightened birds&mdash;blurring shapes, shifting unnaturally in flight
+as the Benson curve lights were altered.</p>
+
+<p>Anita now took our platform in a long swoop downward. Her tense,
+murmured voice sounded in my ears:</p>
+
+<p>"Hold off; I'll take us low."</p>
+
+<p>A melee. Passing platform shapes. The darting bolts, cross<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>ing like
+ancient rapiers. Falling blue points of fuse lights as we threw our
+bombs.</p>
+
+<p>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 there was none. 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. I was dully
+smothering....</p>
+
+<p>Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. I
+shifted over.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita! Anita, dear, are you all right?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Gregg. All right."</p>
+
+<p>The melee went on. The brigand ship and all its vicinity were
+enveloped in dark mist now&mdash;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 searchlight from our camp
+strove futilely to penetrate the cloud.</p>
+
+<p>Our platforms were separated. One went by, high over us. I saw another
+dart close beneath my shield.</p>
+
+<p>"God, Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>"Too close! I didn't see it."</p>
+
+<p>Almost a collision.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, haven't we broken the ship's dome yet?"</p>
+
+<p>It seemed not. I had dropped nearly all my bombs. This could not go on
+much longer. Had it been only about five minutes? Only that? Reason
+told me so, yet it seemed an eternity of horror.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Blurred darkness again. Too much to the side now. I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> to wait while
+Anita swung us back. Then we seemed too high.</p>
+
+<p>I waited with my last bomb. The other platforms were occasionally
+dropping them: I had been too hasty, too prodigal.</p>
+
+<p>Had we broken the ship's dome with a direct hit? It seemed not.</p>
+
+<p>The brigands were 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 explosions, enveloped the enemy. Our camp searchlight 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.</p>
+
+<p>But these 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?</p>
+
+<p>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....</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;perhaps one of the few in all our bombardment
+which 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.</p>
+
+<p>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<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> were in distress. Two of our platforms had fallen&mdash;two out
+of six. Or more, of which I did not know.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Grantline is calling us up, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>Grantline's signal light was summoning us from the attack. He was a
+thousand feet or more above us.</p>
+
+<p>I was suddenly shocked with horror. The searchray from our camp
+suddenly vanished! Anita wheeled us to face the distant ledge. The
+camp lights showed, and over one of the buildings was a distress
+light!</p>
+
+<p>Had the crack in our front wall broken, threatening explosion of all
+the buildings? The wild thought 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 men to attack our almost deserted camp!</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Anita lifted us to follow. But I checked her.</p>
+
+<p>"No! Off to the right, across the valley."</p>
+
+<p>"But Gregg!"</p>
+
+<p>"Do as I say, Anita."</p>
+
+<p>She swung us diagonally away from both the camp and the brigand ship.
+I prayed that we might not be noticed by the brigands.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, listen: I've got an idea!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+bullet projectors.</p>
+
+<p>Of what use for our platform to rush back? Miko expected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> that. His
+attack on the camp was undoubtedly made just for that purpose: to lure
+us back there.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, if we can get down on the rocks somewhere near the ship, and
+creep up unobserved in that blackness...."</p>
+
+<p>I might be able to reach the manual hull lock, rip it open and let the
+air out. If I could get into its pressure chamber and unseal the inner
+slide....</p>
+
+<p>"It would wreck the ship, Anita: exhaust all its air. Shall we try
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever you say, Gregg."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Then we landed, left the platform. "Let me go first, Anita."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>The rocks were deserted. I thought that 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.</p>
+
+<p>The brigand ship with its surrounding darkness was not far from us. No
+one was out here. We passed the wreckage of broken projectors, and
+gruesome, shattered human forms.</p>
+
+<p>We prowled closer. The hull of the ship loomed ahead of us. All dark.</p>
+
+<p>We came at last close against the sleek metal hull side, slid along it
+to where I was sure the manual lock would be located.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;turned, and ran.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I had mistaken the hull port location. It was here. The run<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>ning,
+bounding figure reached it, slid the panel. I was only fifty feet
+away&mdash;not much more than a single leap. I saw Anita being shoved into
+the pressure lock. The Martian flung himself after her.</p>
+
+<p>I fired at him in desperation, but missed. I came with a rush. And as
+I reached the port, it slid closed in my face, barring me!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXXVII</h2>
+
+
+<p>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&mdash;and it seemed, another figure there. The lock was some
+ten feet square, with a low ceiling. It glowed with a dim tube-light.</p>
+
+<p>I strained at it with futile, silent effort. The mechanism was here to
+open this manual; but it was now clasped from within so would not
+operate.</p>
+
+<p>A few seconds, 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
+finally 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.</p>
+
+<p>They were letting the ship's air-pressure into this lock. Soon they
+would open the inner panel, step into the secondary chamber&mdash;and in a
+moment more would be within the ship's hull corridor. Anita, lost to
+me!</p>
+
+<p>The outer panel suddenly opened! I had lunged against it with my
+shoulder; the giant figure inside slid it. It was taken by surprise! I
+half fell forward.</p>
+
+<p>Huge arms went around me. The goggled face of the helmet peered into
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is you, Haljan! I thought I recognized that little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> device over
+your helmet bracket. And here is my little Anita, come back to me
+again!"</p>
+
+<p>Miko!</p>
+
+<p>This was he. His great bloated arms encircling me, bending me
+backward, holding me helpless. I saw over his shoulder that Anita was
+clutched in the grip of another helmeted figure. No giant, but tall
+for an Earth man&mdash;almost as tall as myself. Then the tube light in the
+room illumined the visor. I saw the face, recognized it. Moa!</p>
+
+<p>I gasped, "So&mdash;I've got you&mdash;Miko&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Got me! You're a fool to the last, Haljan! A fool to the last! But
+you were always a fool."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I seized his wrist. But my puny strength could not hold him. The
+knife, against all of my efforts, came slowly down.</p>
+
+<p>A moment of this slow, deadly combat&mdash;the end of everything for me.</p>
+
+<p>I was aware of the helmeted figure of Moa casting off Anita&mdash;and then
+the two girls leaping 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 down again, I forced the
+knife-blade to graze his throat. Its point caught in the fabric of his
+suit.</p>
+
+<p>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 wrist. The knife went into his throat. I plunged it
+deeper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Not such a fool&mdash;are you, Haljan&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>I twisted from beneath Miko's lifeless, inert body. As I got to my
+feet, Anita flung herself to shield me. Moa was across the lock, back
+up against the 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 grid-floor almost at my feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg!"</p>
+
+<p>"She's dead."</p>
+
+<p>"No! She moved! Get her helmet off! There's enough air here."</p>
+
+<p>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 and raised it off. We gently turned her body. She lay with
+closed eyes, her pallid face blue. With our own helmets off, we knelt
+over her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gregg&mdash;is she dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Not quite&mdash;but dying."</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg, I don't want her to die! She was trying to help you there at
+the last."</p>
+
+<p>She opened her eyes. The film of death was glazing them. But she saw
+me, recognized me.</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Moa. I'm here."</p>
+
+<p>Her vivid lips were faintly drawn in a smile. "I'm&mdash;so glad&mdash;you took
+the helmets off, Gregg. I'm&mdash;going&mdash;you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>"Going&mdash;back to Mars&mdash;to rest with the fire-makers&mdash;where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> I came
+from. I was thinking&mdash;maybe you would kiss me, Gregg?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you&mdash;Gregg&mdash;closer&mdash;I can't talk so loudly&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"There was no use living&mdash;without your love. But I want you to
+see&mdash;now&mdash;that a Martian girl can die with a smile&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>We had forgotten for the moment where we were. As I glanced up I saw
+through the inner panel, past the secondary lock, that the hull's
+corridor was visible. And along its length a group of Martians was
+advancing! They saw us, and came running.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita! Look! We've got to get out of here!"</p>
+
+<p>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 that they could be in time to stop me. One of the more
+cautious fumbled with a helmet.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita, run! Try and keep your feet."</p>
+
+<p>I slid the outer panel and pushed at Anita. Simultaneously the
+brigands opened the inner port.</p>
+
+<p>The air came with a tempestuous rush. A blast through the inner
+port&mdash;through the small pressure lock&mdash;a wild rush, out to the airless
+Moon. All the air in the ship madly rushing to escape....</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Then soundless, empty blackness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>XXXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<p>"Is he conscious? We'd better take him back: get his helmet off."</p>
+
+<p>"It's over. We can get back to the camp now. Venza dear, we've
+won&mdash;it's over."</p>
+
+<p>"He hears us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Gregg!"</p>
+
+<p>"He hears us. He'll be all right!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;back to the camp and get his helmet off."</p>
+
+<p>"Are his motors smooth? Keep them right, Snap&mdash;he must have good air."</p>
+
+<p>I seemed unhurt. But Anita....</p>
+
+<p>She was here. "Gregg, dear one!"</p>
+
+<p>Anita safe! All four of us here on the Earthlit rocks, close outside
+the brigand ship.</p>
+
+<p>"Anita!"</p>
+
+<p>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 hulk, already empty of air, drained in the mad
+blast outward. Like the wreck of the <i>Planetara</i>&mdash;a dead, useless,
+pulseless hulk already.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>All on the ship, caught unhelmeted by the explosion, were dead long
+since.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 men had perished.</p>
+
+<p>We huddled on Snap's platform. It rose, lurching drunkenly barely
+carrying us.</p>
+
+<p>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 searchlight leaped
+upward, swept the sky, caught its sought-for object&mdash;a huge silver
+cylinder, bathed brightly in the white searchbeam glare.</p>
+
+<p>The police ship from Earth.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<h3>TWO PLANETS CLASH FOR LUNAR TREASURE</h3>
+<p>Gregg Haljan was aware that there was a certain danger in having the
+giant spaceship <i>Planetara</i> stop off at the moon to pick up
+Grantline's special cargo of moon ore. For that rare metal&mdash;invaluable
+in keeping Earth's technology running&mdash;was the target of many greedy
+eyes.</p>
+
+
+<p>But nevertheless he hadn't figured on the special twist the clever
+Martian brigands would use. So when he found both the ship and himself
+suddenly in their hands, he knew that there was only one way in which
+he could hope to save that cargo and his own secret&mdash;that would be by
+turning space-pirate himself and paying the BRIGANDS OF THE MOON back
+in their own interplanetary coin.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Here is a science-fiction classic, as exciting and ingenious as only a
+master of super-science could write.</p>
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+<p>When <b>RAY CUMMINGS</b> took leave of this planet early in 1957, the world
+of modern science-fiction lost one of its genuine founding fathers.
+For the imagination of this talented writer supplied a great many of
+the most basic themes upon which the present superstructure of
+science-fiction is based. Following the lead of Jules Verne and H. G.
+Wells, Cummings successfully bridged the gap between the early dawning
+of science-fiction in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century and
+the full flowering of the field in these middle decades of the
+Twentieth.</p>
+
+
+<p>Born in 1887, Cummings acquired insight into the vast possibilities of
+future science by a personal association with Thomas Alva Edison.
+During the 1920's and 1930's, he thrilled millions of readers with his
+vivid tales of space and time. The infinite and the infinitesimal were
+all parts of his canvas, and past, present, and future, the
+interplanetary and the extra-dimensional, all made their initial
+impact on the reading public through his many stories and novels.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Previously published in an ACE edition is his novel, </p>
+<p><i>The Man Who Mastered Time</i> (D-173).</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Brigands of the Moon, by Ray Cummings
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Brigands of the Moon, by Ray Cummings
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Brigands of the Moon
+
+Author: Ray Cummings
+
+Release Date: August 16, 2006 [EBook #19066]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIGANDS OF THE MOON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Jason Isbell, Sankar Viswanathan,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+       Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
+       copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+
+
+
+                        _BRIGANDS of the MOON_
+
+
+
+                                  by
+
+                             RAY CUMMINGS
+
+
+
+
+                           ACE BOOKS, INC.
+
+               23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y.
+
+
+
+                   Copyright, 1931, by Ray Cummings
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Our ship, the space-flyer, _Planetara_, whose home port was Greater
+New York, carried mail and passenger traffic to and from both Venus
+and Mars. Of astronomical necessity, our flights were irregular. The
+spring of 2070, with both planets close to the Earth, we were making
+two complete round trips. We had just arrived in Greater New York, one
+May evening, from Grebhar, Venus Free State. With only five hours in
+port here, we were departing the same night at the zero hour for
+Ferrok-Shahn, capital of the Martian Union.
+
+We were no sooner at the landing stage than I found a code flash
+summoning Dan Dean and me to Divisional Detective Headquarters. Dan
+"Snap" Dean was one of my closest friends. He was electron-radio
+operator of the _Planetara_. A small, wiry, red-headed chap, with a
+quick, ready laugh and the kind of wit that made everyone like him.
+
+The summons to Detective-Colonel Halsey's office surprised us. Dean
+eyed me.
+
+"You haven't been opening any treasure vaults, have you, Gregg?"
+
+"He wants you, also," I retorted.
+
+He laughed. "Well, he can roar at me like a traffic switch-man and my
+private life will remain my own."
+
+We could not think why we should be wanted. It was the darkness of
+mid-evening when we left the _Planetara_ for Halsey's office. It was
+not a long trip. We went on the upper monorail, descending into the
+subterranean city at Park Circle 30.
+
+We had never been to Halsey's office before. Now we found it to be a
+gloomy, vaultlike place in one of the deepest corridors. The door
+lifted.
+
+"Gregg Haljan and Daniel Dean."
+
+The guard stood aside. "Come in."
+
+I own that my heart was unduly thumping as we entered. The door
+dropped behind us. It was a small blue-lit apartment--a steel-lined
+room like a vault.
+
+Colonel Halsey sat at his desk. And the big, heavy-set, florid Captain
+Carter--our commander on the _Planetara_--was here. That surprised us:
+we had not seen him leave the ship.
+
+Halsey smiled at us gravely. Captain Carter spoke with an ominous
+calmness: "Sit down, lads."
+
+We took the seats. There was an alarming solemnity about this. If I
+had been guilty of anything that I could think of, it would have been
+frightening. But Halsey's words reassured me.
+
+"It's about the Grantline Moon Expedition. In spite of our secrecy,
+the news has gotten out. We want to know how. Can you tell us?"
+
+Captain Carter's huge bulk--he was about as tall as I am--towered over
+us as we sat before Halsey's desk. "If you lads have told anyone--said
+anything--let _slip_ the slightest hint about it...."
+
+Snap smiled with relief; but he turned solemn at once. "I haven't. Not
+a word!"
+
+"Nor have I!" I declared.
+
+The Grantline Moon Expedition! We had not thought of that as a reason
+for this summons. Johnny Grantline was a close friend of ours. He had
+organized an exploring expedition to the Moon. Uninhabited, with its
+bleak, forbidding, airless, waterless surface, the Moon--even though
+so close to the Earth--was seldom visited. No regular ship ever
+stopped there. A few exploring parties of recent years had come to
+grief.
+
+But there was a persistent rumor that upon the Moon, mineral riches of
+fabulous wealth were awaiting discovery. The thing had already caused
+some interplanetary complications. The aggressive Martians would be
+only too glad to explore the Moon. But the United States of the World,
+which came into being in 2067, definitely warned them away. The Moon
+was Earth territory, we announced, and we would protect it as such.
+
+There was, nevertheless, a realization by our government, that
+whatever riches might be upon the Moon should be seized at once and
+held by some reputable Earth Company. And when John Grantline applied,
+with his father's wealth and his own scientific record of attainment,
+the government was glad to grant him its writ.
+
+The Grantline Expedition had started six months ago. The Martian
+government had acquiesced to our ultimatum, yet brigands have been
+known to be financed under cover of a government disavowal. And so our
+expedition was kept secret.
+
+My words need give no offence to any Martian who comes upon them. I
+refer to the history of our Earth only. The Grantline Expedition was
+on the Moon now. No word had come from it. One could not flash helios
+even in code without letting all the universe know that explorers were
+on the Moon. And why they were there, anyone could easily guess.
+
+And now Colonel Halsey was telling us that the news was abroad!
+Captain Carter eyed us closely; his flashing eyes under the white
+bushy brows would pry a secret from anyone.
+
+"You're sure? A girl of Venus, perhaps, with her cursed, seductive
+lure! A chance word, with you lads befuddled by alcolite?"
+
+We assured him that we had been careful. By the heavens, I know that I
+had been. Not a whisper, even to Snap, of the name Grantline in six
+months or more.
+
+Captain Carter added abruptly, "We're insulated here, Halsey?"
+
+"Yes. Talk as freely as you like. An eavesdropping ray will never get
+through to us."
+
+They questioned us. They were satisfied at last that, though the
+secret had escaped, we had not given it away. Hearing it discussed, it
+occurred to me to wonder why Carter was concerned. I was not aware
+that he knew of Grantline's venture. I learned now the reason why the
+_Planetara_, upon each of her last voyages, had managed to pass fairly
+close to the Moon. It had been arranged with Grantline that if he
+wanted help or had any important message, he was to flash it locally
+to our passing ship. And this Snap knew, and had never mentioned it,
+even to me.
+
+Halsey was saying, "Well, apparently we can't blame you: but the
+secret is out."
+
+Snap and I regarded each other. What could anyone do? What would
+anyone dare do?
+
+Captain Carter said abruptly, "Look here, lads, this is my chance now
+to talk plainly to you. Outside, anywhere outside these walls, an
+eavesdropping ray may be upon us. You know that? One may never even
+dare to whisper since that accursed ray was developed."
+
+Snap opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. My heart was
+pounding.
+
+Captain Carter went on: "I know I can trust you two more than anyone
+under me on the _Planetara_."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" I demanded. "What--"
+
+He interrupted me. "Just what I said."
+
+Halsey smiled grimly. "What he means, Haljan, is that things are not
+always what they seem these days. One cannot always tell a friend from
+an enemy. The _Planetara_ is a public vessel. You have--how many is
+it, Carter?--thirty or forty passengers this trip tonight?"
+
+"Thirty-eight," said Carter.
+
+"There are thirty-eight people listed for the flight to Ferrok-Shahn
+tonight," Halsey said slowly. "And some may not be what they seem." He
+raised his thin dark hand. "We have information...." He paused. "I
+confess, we know almost nothing--hardly more than enough to alarm us."
+
+Captain Carter interjected, "I want you and Dean to be on your guard.
+Once on the _Planetara_ it is difficult for us to talk openly, but be
+watchful. I will arrange for us to be doubly armed."
+
+Vague, perturbing words! Halsey said, "They tell me George Prince is
+listed for the voyage. I am suggesting, Haljan, that you keep your eye
+especially on him. Your duties on the _Planetara_ leave you
+comparatively free, don't they?"
+
+"Yes," I agreed. With the first and second officers on duty, and the
+Captain aboard, my routine was more or less that of an understudy.
+
+I said, "George Prince? Who is he?"
+
+"A mechanical engineer," said Halsey. "An underofficial of the Earth
+Federated Catalyst Corporation. But he associates with bad
+companions--particularly Martians."
+
+I had never heard of this George Prince, though I was familiar with
+the Federated Catalyst Corporation, of course. A semigovernment trust,
+which controlled virtually the entire Earth supply of radiactum, the
+catalyst mineral which was revolutionizing industry.
+
+"He was in the Automotive Department," Carter put in. "You've heard of
+the Federated Radiactum Motor?"
+
+We had, of course. It was a recent Earth discovery and invention. An
+engine of a new type, using radiactum as its fuel.
+
+Snap demanded, "What in the stars has this got to do with Johnny
+Grantline?"
+
+"Much," said Halsey quietly, "or perhaps nothing. But George Prince
+some years ago mixed in rather unethical transactions. We had him in
+custody once. He is known as unusually friendly with several Martians
+in Greater New York of bad reputation."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"What you don't know," Halsey said, "is that Grantline expects to find
+radiactum on the Moon."
+
+We gasped.
+
+"Exactly," said Halsey. "The ill-fated Ballon Expedition thought they
+had found it on the Moon, shortly after its merit was discovered. A
+new type of ore--a lode of it is there somewhere, without doubt."
+
+He added vehemently, "Do you understand now why we should be
+suspicious of this George Prince? He has a criminal record. He has a
+thorough technical knowledge of radium ores. He associates with
+Martians of bad reputation. A large Martian company has recently
+developed a radiactum engine to compete with our Earth motor. There is
+very little radiactum available on Mars, and our government will not
+allow our own supply to be exported. What do you suppose that company
+on Mars would pay for a few tons of richly radioactive radiactum such
+as Grantline may have found on the Moon?"
+
+"But," I objected, "That is a reputable Martian company. It's backed
+by the government of the Martian Union. The government of Mars would
+not dare--"
+
+"Of course not!" Captain Carter exclaimed sardonically. "Not openly!
+But if Martian Brigands had a supply of radiactum I don't imagine
+where it came from would make much difference. The Martian company
+would buy it, and you know that as well as I do!"
+
+Halsey added, "And George Prince, my agents inform me, seems to know
+that Grantline is on the Moon. Put it all together, lads. Little
+sparks show the hidden current.
+
+"More than that: George Prince knows that we have arranged to have the
+_Planetara_ stop at the Moon and bring back Grantline's ore.... This
+is your last voyage this year. You'll hear from Grantline this time,
+we're convinced. He'll probably give you the signal as you pass the
+Moon on your way out. Coming back, you'll stop at the Moon and
+transport whatever radiactum ore Grantline has ready. The Grantline
+Flyer is too small for ore transportation."
+
+Halsey's voice turned grimly sarcastic. "Doesn't it seem queer that
+George Prince and a few of his Martian friends happen to be listed as
+passengers for this voyage?"
+
+In the silence that followed, Snap and I regarded each other. Halsey
+added abruptly:
+
+"We had George Prince typed that time we arrested him four years ago.
+I'll show him to you."
+
+He snapped open an alcove, and said to his waiting attendant "Flash on
+the type of George Prince."
+
+Almost at once, the image glowed on the grids before us. He stood
+smiling sourly before us as he repeated the official formula:
+
+"My name is George Prince. I was born in Greater New York twenty-five
+years ago."
+
+I gazed at this televised image of George Prince. He stood somber in
+the black detention uniform, silhouetted sharply against the
+regulation backdrop of vivid scarlet. A dark, almost femininely
+handsome fellow, well below medium height--the rod checking him showed
+five foot four inches. Slim and slight. Long, wavy black hair, falling
+about his ears. A pale, clean-cut, really handsome face, almost
+beardless. I regarded it closely. A face that would have been
+beautiful without its masculine touch of heavy black brows and firmly
+set jaw. His voice as he spoke was low and soft; but at the end, with
+the concluding words, "I am innocent!" it flashed into strong
+masculinity. His eyes, shaded with long girlish black lashes, by
+chance met mine. "I am innocent." His curving sensuous lips drew down
+into a grim sneer....
+
+Halsey snapped a button. He turned back to Snap and me as his
+attendant drew the curtain, hiding the black grid.
+
+"Well, there he is. We have nothing tangible against him now. But I'll
+say this: he's a clever fellow, one to be afraid of. I would not blare
+it from the newscasters' stadium, but if he is hatching any plot, he
+has been too clever for my agents!"
+
+We talked for another half-hour, and then Captain Carter dismissed us.
+We left Halsey's office with Carter's final words ringing in our ears.
+"Whatever comes, lads, remember I trust you...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Snap and I decided to walk part of the way back to the ship. It was
+barely more than a mile through this subterranean corridor to where we
+could get the vertical lift direct to the landing stage.
+
+We started off on the lower level. Once outside the insulation of
+Halsey's office we did not dare talk of this thing. Not only
+electrical ears, but every possible eavesdropping device might be upon
+us. The corridor was two hundred feet or more below the ground level.
+At this hour of the night the business section was comparatively
+deserted. The stores and office arcades were all closed.
+
+Our footfall echoed on the metal grids as we hurried along. I felt
+depressed and oppressed. As though prying eyes were upon me. We walked
+for a time in silence, each of us busy with memory of what had
+transpired at Halsey's office.
+
+Suddenly Snap gripped me. "What's that?"
+
+"Where?" I whispered.
+
+We stopped at a corner. An entryway was here. Snap pulled me into it.
+I could feel him quivering with excitement.
+
+"What is it?" I demanded in a whisper.
+
+"We're being followed. Did you hear anything?"
+
+"No!" Yet I thought now that I could hear something. Vague footfalls.
+A rustling. And a microscopic whine, as though some device were within
+range of us.
+
+Snap was fumbling in his pocket. "Wait! I've got a pair of low-scale
+detectors."
+
+He put the little grids against his ears. I could hear the sharp
+intake of his breath. Then he seized me, pulled me down to the metal
+floor of the entryway.
+
+"Back, Gregg! Get back!" I could barely hear his whisper. We crouched
+as far back into the doorway as we could get. I was armed. My official
+permit for the carrying of the pencil heat ray allowed me always to
+have it with me. I drew it now. But there was nothing to shoot at. I
+felt Snap clamping the grids on my ears. And now I heard something! An
+intensification of the vague footsteps I had thought I heard before.
+
+There was something following us! Something out in the corridor there
+now! The corridor was dim, but plainly visible, and as far as I could
+see it was empty. But there was something there. Something invisible!
+I could hear it moving. Creeping toward us. I pulled the grids off my
+ears.
+
+Snap murmured, "You've got a local phone?"
+
+"Yes. I'll get them to give us the street glare!"
+
+I pressed the danger signal, giving our location to the operator. In a
+second we got the light. The street in all this neighborhood burst
+into a brilliant actinic glare. The thing menacing us was revealed! A
+figure in a black cloak, crouching thirty feet away across the
+corridor.
+
+Snap was unarmed but he flung his hands out menacingly. The figure,
+which may perhaps not have been aware of our city safeguard, was taken
+wholly by surprise. A human figure, seven feet tall at the least, and
+therefore, I judged, a Martian man. The black cloak covered his head.
+He took a step toward us, hesitated, and then turned in confusion.
+
+Snap's shrill voice was bringing help. The whine of a street guard's
+alarm whistle nearby sounded. The figure was making off! My pencil ray
+was in my hand and I pressed its switch. The tiny heat ray stabbed
+through the air, but I missed. The figure stumbled but did not fall. I
+saw a bare gray arm come from the cloak, flung up to maintain its
+balance. Or perhaps my pencil ray had seared his arm. The gray-skinned
+arm of a Martian.
+
+Snap was shouting, "Give him another!" But the figure passed beyond
+the actinic glare and vanished.
+
+We were detained in the turmoil of the corridor for ten minutes or
+more with official explanations. Then a message from Halsey released
+us. The Martian who had been following us in his invisible cloak was
+never caught.
+
+We escaped from the crowd at last and made our way back to the
+_Planetara_, where the passengers were already assembling for the
+outward Martian voyage.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I stood on the turret balcony of the _Planetara_ with Captain Carter
+and Dr. Frank, the ship surgeon, watching the arriving passengers. It
+was close to the zero hour; the level of the stage was a turmoil of
+confusion. The escalators, with the last of the freight aboard, were
+folded back. But the stage was jammed with incoming passenger luggage,
+the interplanetary customs and tax officials with their x-ray and
+zed-ray paraphernalia and the passengers themselves, lined up for the
+export inspection.
+
+At this height, the city lights lay spread in a glare of blue and
+yellow beneath us. The individual local planes came dropping like
+birds to our stage. Thirty-eight passengers to Mars for this voyage,
+but that accursed desire of every friend and relative to speed the
+departing voyager brought a hundred or more extra people to crowd our
+girders and add to everybody's troubles.
+
+Carter was too absorbed in his duties to stay with us long. But here
+in the turret Dr. Frank and I found ourselves at the moment with
+nothing much to do but watch.
+
+Dr. Frank was a thin, dark, rather smallish man of fifty, trim in his
+blue and white uniform. I knew him well: we had made several flights
+together. An American--I fancy of Jewish ancestry. A likable man, and
+a skillful doctor and surgeon. He and I had always been good friends.
+
+"Crowded," he said. "Johnson says thirty-eight. I hope they're
+experienced travelers. This pressure sickness is a rotten
+nuisance--keeps me dashing around all night assuring frightened women
+they're not going to die. Last voyage, coming out of the Venus
+atmosphere--"
+
+He plunged into a lugubrious account of his troubles with space sick
+voyagers. But I was in no mood to listen to him. My gaze was down on
+the spider incline, up which, over the bend of the ship's sleek,
+silvery body, the passengers and their friends were coming in little
+groups. The upper deck was already jammed with them.
+
+The _Planetara_, as flyers go, was not a large vessel. Cylindrical of
+body, forty feet maximum beam, and two hundred and seventy-five feet
+in length. The passenger superstructure--no more than a hundred feet
+long--was set amidships. A narrow deck, metallically enclosed, and
+with large bull's-eye windows, encircled the superstructure. Some of
+the cabins opened directly onto the deck. Others had doors to the
+interior corridors. There were half a dozen small but luxurious public
+rooms.
+
+The rest of the vessel was given to freight storage and the mechanism
+and control compartments. Forward of the passenger structure the deck
+level continued under the cylindrical dome roof to the bow. The
+forward watch tower observatory was here, officers' cabins, Captain
+Carter's navigating rooms and Dr. Frank's office. Similarly, under the
+stern dome, was the stern watch tower and a series of power
+compartments.
+
+Above the superstructure a confusion of spider bridges, ladders and
+balconies were laced like a metal network. The turret in which Dr.
+Frank and I now stood was perched here. Fifty feet away, like a bird's
+nest, Snap's instrument room stood clinging to the metal bridge. The
+dome roof, with the glassite windows rolled back now, rose in a mound
+peak to cover the highest middle portion of the vessel.
+
+Below, in the main hull, blue lit metal corridors ran the entire
+length of the ship. Freight storage compartments; gravity control
+rooms; the air renewal system; heater and ventilators and pressure
+mechanisms--all were located there. And the kitchens, stewards'
+compartments, and the living quarters of the crew. We carried a crew
+of sixteen, this voyage, exclusive of the navigating officers, the
+purser, Snap Dean, and Dr. Frank.
+
+The passengers coming aboard seemed a fair representation of what we
+usually had for the outward voyage to Ferrok-Shahn. Most were Earth
+people--and returning Martians. Dr. Frank pointed out one. A huge
+Martian in a grey cloak. A seven foot fellow.
+
+"His name is _Set_ Miko," Dr. Frank remarked. "Ever heard of him?"
+
+"No," I said. "Should I?"
+
+"Well--" The doctor suddenly checked himself, as though he were sorry
+he had spoken.
+
+"I never heard of him," I repeated slowly.
+
+An awkward silence fell between us.
+
+There were a few Venus passengers. I saw one of them presently coming
+up the incline, and recognized her. A girl traveling alone. We had
+brought her from Grebhar, last voyage but one. I remembered her. An
+alluring sort of girl, as most of them are. Her name was Venza. She
+spoke English well. A singer and dancer who had been imported to
+Greater New York to fill some theatrical engagement. She'd made quite
+a hit on the Great White Way.
+
+She came up the incline with the carrier ahead of her. Gazing up, she
+saw Dr. Frank and me at the turret window, smiled and waved her white
+arm in greeting.
+
+Dr. Frank laughed. "By the gods of the airways, there's Alta Venza!
+You saw that look, Gregg? That was for me, not you."
+
+"Reasonable enough," I retorted. "But I doubt it--the Venza is nothing
+if not impartial."
+
+I wondered what could be taking Venza now to Mars. I was glad to see
+her. She was diverting. Educated. Well traveled. Spoke English with a
+colloquial, theatrical manner more characteristic of Greater New York
+than of Venus. And for all her light banter, I would rather put my
+trust in her than any Venus girl I had ever met.
+
+The hum of the departing siren was sounding. Friends and relatives of
+the passengers were crowding the exit incline. The deck was clearing.
+I had not seen George Prince come aboard. And then I thought I saw him
+down on the landing stage, just arrived from a private tube car. A
+small, slight figure. The customs men were around him. I could only
+see his head and shoulders. Pale, girlishly handsome face; long, black
+hair to the base of his neck. He was bare-headed, with the hood of his
+traveling cloak pushed back.
+
+I stared, and I saw that Dr. Frank was also gazing down. But neither
+of us spoke.
+
+Then I said upon impulse, "Suppose we go down to the deck, Doctor?"
+
+He acquiesced. We descended to the lower room of the turret and
+clambered down the spider ladder to the upper deck level. The head of
+the arriving incline was near us. Preceded by two carriers who were
+littered with hand luggage, George Prince was coming up the incline.
+He was closer now. I recognized him from the type we had seen in
+Halsey's office.
+
+And then, with a shock, I saw it was not so. This was a girl coming
+aboard. An arc light over the incline showed her clearly when she was
+half way up. A girl with her hood pushed back; her face framed in
+thick black hair. I saw now it was not a man's cut of hair; but long
+braids coiled up under the dangling hood.
+
+Dr. Frank must have remarked my amazed expression. "Little beauty,
+isn't she?"
+
+"Who is she?"
+
+We were standing back against the wall of the superstructure. A
+passenger was near us--the Martian whom Dr. Frank had called Miko. He
+was loitering here, quite evidently watching this girl come aboard.
+But as I glanced at him, he looked away and casually sauntered off.
+
+The girl came up and reached the deck. "I am in A22," she told the
+carrier. "My brother came aboard a couple of hours ago."
+
+Dr. Frank answered my whisper. "That's Anita Prince."
+
+She was passing quite close to us on the deck, following the carrier,
+when she stumbled and very nearly fell. I was nearest to her. I leaped
+forward and caught her as she nearly went down.
+
+With my arm about her, I raised her up and set her upon her feet
+again. She had twisted her ankle. She balanced herself upon it. The
+pain of it eased up in a moment.
+
+"I'm all right--thank you!"
+
+In the dimness of the blue lit deck I met her eyes. I was holding her
+with my encircling arm. She was small and soft against me. Her face,
+framed in the thick, black hair, smiled up at me. Small, oval
+face--beautiful--yet firm of chin, and stamped with the mark of its
+own individuality. No empty-headed beauty, this.
+
+"I'm all right, thank you very much--"
+
+I became conscious that I had not released her. I felt her hands
+pushing at me. And then it seemed that for an instant she yielded and
+was clinging. And I met her startled upflung gaze. Eyes like a purple
+night with the sheen of misty starlight in them.
+
+I heard myself murmuring, "I beg your pardon. Yes, of course!" I
+released her.
+
+She thanked me again and followed the carriers along the deck. She was
+limping slightly.
+
+An instant she had clung to me. A brief flash of something, from her
+eyes to mine--from mine back to hers. The poets write that love can be
+born of such a glance. The first meeting, across all the barriers of
+which love springs unsought, unbidden--defiant, sometimes. And the
+troubadours of old would sing: "A fleeting glance; a touch; two wildly
+beating hearts--and love was born."
+
+I think, with Anita and me, it must have been like that.
+
+I stood, gazing after her, unconscious of Dr. Frank, who was watching
+me with his quizzical smile. And presently, no more than a quarter
+beyond the zero hour, the _Planetara_ got away. With the dome windows
+battened tightly, we lifted from the landing stage and soared over the
+glowing city. The phosphorescence of the electronic tubes was like a
+comet's tail behind us as we slid upward.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+At six A.M., Earth Eastern time, which we were still carrying, Snap
+Dean and I were alone in his instrument room, perched in the network
+over the _Planetara's_ deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; it
+rounded like a great observatory window some twenty feet above the
+ceiling of this little metal cubbyhole.
+
+The _Planetara_ was still in Earth's shadow. The firmament--black,
+interstellar space with its blazing white, red and yellow stars--lay
+spread around us. The Moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung,
+a great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side,
+Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigar in the blackness.
+The Earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible--a giant sphere,
+etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon one
+limb a touch of sunlight hung on the mountain tops with a crescent
+red-yellow sheen.
+
+And then we plunged from the cone shadow. The Sun with the leaping
+corona, burst through the blackness behind us. The Earth lighted into
+a huge, thin crescent with hooked cusps.
+
+To Snap and me, the glories of the heavens were too familiar to be
+remarked. And upon this voyage particularly we were in no mood to
+consider them. I had been in the radio room several hours. When the
+_Planetara_ started, and my few routine duties were over, I could
+think of nothing save Halsey's and Carter's admonition: "Be on your
+guard. And particularly--watch George Prince."
+
+I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carter
+and Halsey had not bothered to mention. My heart was still pounding
+with the memory.
+
+Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure sick
+passengers. The _Planetara's_ equalizers were fairly efficient.
+Prowling through the silent metal lounges and passages, I went to the
+door of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse passage
+just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the
+letters: _Anita Prince_. I stood in my short white trousers and white
+silk shirt, like a cabin steward staring. Anita Prince! I had never
+heard the name until this night. But there was magic music in it now,
+as I murmured it.
+
+She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. It
+seemed as though that little oval grid were the gateway to a fairyland
+of my dreams.
+
+I turned away. Thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me.
+George Prince--Anita's brother--he whom I had been warned to watch.
+This renegade--associate of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what.
+
+I saw, upon the adjoining door, A20, _George Prince_. I listened. In
+the humming stillness of the ship's interior there was no sound from
+these cabins. A20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had a
+window and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge,
+out its arch and walked the deck length. The deck door and window of
+A22 were closed and dark.
+
+The deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs were
+here but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching dome
+a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. At
+the corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a figure
+lurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished.
+
+I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side.
+There was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high
+in the bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turret
+balcony almost directly over me.
+
+As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From the
+direction of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson.
+
+He greeted me. "Cooling off, Gregg?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+He passed me and went into the smoking room door nearby.
+
+I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; and
+for no reason at all I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great one
+for his regular sleep--it was wholly unlike him to be roaming about
+the ship at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told myself it
+was nonsense. I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage.
+
+I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart room
+which stood in the center of the narrowing open deck space near the
+bow. I joined him at once.
+
+"Who was that?" he half whispered.
+
+"Johnson."
+
+"Oh, yes." He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck.
+"Gregg--take this." He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it at
+once into my shirt.
+
+"An insulator," he added swiftly. "Snap is in his office. Take it to
+him, Gregg. Stay with him--you'll have a measure of security--and you
+can help him to make the photographs." He was barely whispering. "I
+won't be with you--no use making it look as though we were doing
+anything unusual. If your graphs show anything--or if Snap picks up
+any message--bring it to me." He added aloud, "Well, it will be cool
+enough presently, Gregg."
+
+He sauntered away toward his chart room.
+
+"By heavens, what a relief!" Snap murmured as the current went on. We
+had wired his cubby with the insulator; within its barrage we could at
+least talk with a degree of freedom.
+
+"You've seen George Prince, Gregg?"
+
+"No. He's assigned A20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one ever
+mentioned--"
+
+Snap had heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed for
+this voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for a
+decent girl to have a brother like that."
+
+I could agree with him there....
+
+It was now six A.M. Snap had been busy all night with routine
+cosmos-radios from the Earth, following our departure. He had a pile
+of them beside him.
+
+"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested.
+
+"No. Not a thing."
+
+We were at this time no more than sixty-five thousand miles from the
+Moon's surface. The _Planetara_ presently would swing upon her direct
+course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger
+comment in this close passing of the Moon; normally we used the
+satellite's attraction to give us additional starting speed.
+
+It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He was
+supposed to be upon the Earthward side of the Moon. While Snap had
+rushed through with his routine, I searched the Moon's surface with
+our glass.
+
+But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. The
+heights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seas
+were etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding
+desolation, this unchanging Moon. In romance, moonlight may shimmer
+and sparkle to light a lover's smile; but the reality of the Moon is
+cold and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where the
+intrepid Grantline might be.
+
+"Nothing at all, Snap."
+
+And Snap's instruments, attuned for an hour now to pick up the
+faintest signal, were motionless.
+
+"If he has concentrated any appreciable amount of ore," said Snap. "We
+should get an impulse from its rays."
+
+But our receiving shield was dark, untouched. Our mirror grid gave the
+magnified images; the spectro, with its wave length selection,
+pictured the mountain levels and slowly descended into the deepest
+seas.
+
+There was nothing.
+
+Yet in those Moon caverns--a million million recesses amid the crags
+of that tumbled, barren surface--the pin point of movement which might
+have been Grantline's expedition could so easily be hiding! Could he
+have the ore insulated, fearing its rays would betray its presence to
+hostile watchers?
+
+Or might disaster have come to him? He might not be on this hemisphere
+of the Moon at all....
+
+My imagination, sharpened by fancy of a lurking menace which seemed
+everywhere about the _Planetara_ this voyage, ran rife with fears for
+Johnny Grantline. He had promised to communicate this voyage. It was
+now, or perhaps never.
+
+Six-thirty came and passed. We were well beyond the Earth's shadow
+now. The firmament blazed with its vivid glories; the Sun behind us
+was a ball of yellow-red leaping flames. The Earth hung, a huge, dull
+red half sphere.
+
+We were within forty thousand miles of the Moon. A giant white
+ball--all of its disc visible to the naked eye. It poised over the
+bow, and presently, as the _Planetara_ swung upon its course for Mars,
+it shifted sidewise. The light of it glared white and dazzling in our
+windows.
+
+Snap, with his habitual red celluloid eyeshade shoved high on his
+forehead, worked over our instruments.
+
+"Gregg!"
+
+The receiving shield was glowing a trifle. Rays were bombarding it! It
+glowed, gleamed phosphorescent, and the audible recorder began
+sounding its tiny tinkling murmurs.
+
+Gamma rays! Snap sprang to the dials. The direction and strength were
+soon obvious. A richly radioactive ore body was concentrated upon this
+hemisphere of the Moon! It was unmistakable.
+
+"He's got it, Gregg! He's--"
+
+The tiny grids began quivering. Snap exclaimed triumphantly, "Here he
+comes! By God, the message at last!"
+
+Snap decoded it.
+
+_Success! Stop for ore on your return voyage. Will give you our
+location later. Success beyond wildest hopes._
+
+Snap murmured, "That's all. He's got the ore!"
+
+We were sitting in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that across
+our open window, where the insulation barrage was flung, the air was
+faintly hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple
+sparks. Someone--some hostile ray from the deck beneath us, or from
+the spider bridge that led to our little room--someone out there was
+trying to pry in!
+
+Snap impulsively reached for the absorbers to let in the outside
+light. But I checked him.
+
+"Wait!" I cut off our barrage, opened our door and stepped to the
+narrow metal bridge.
+
+"You stay there, Snap!" I whispered. Then I added aloud, "Well, Snap,
+I'm going to bed. Glad you've cleaned up that batch of work."
+
+I banged the door upon him. The lacework of metal bridges seemed
+empty. I gazed up to the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet
+beneath me was the metal roof of the cabin superstructure. Below it,
+both sides of the deck showed. All patched with moonlight.
+
+No one visible down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty.
+But in the silence something was moving! Footsteps moving away from me
+down the deck! I followed; and suddenly I was running. Chasing
+something I could hear, but could not see. It turned into the smoking
+room.
+
+I burst in. And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purser
+was sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed that
+his cigar held a long frail ash. It could not have been him I was
+chasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavy
+fellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly now.
+
+He sat up in amazement at my wild-eyed appearance, and the ash jarred
+from his cigar.
+
+"Gregg! What in the devil--"
+
+I tried to grin. "I'm on my way to bed--worked all night helping
+Snap."
+
+I went past him, out the door into the main corridor. It was the only
+way the invisible prowler could have gone. But I was too late now--I
+could hear nothing. I dashed forward into the main lounge. It was
+empty, dim and silent, a silence broken presently by a faint click, a
+stateroom door hastily closing. I swung and found myself in a tiny
+transverse passage. The twin doors of A20 and A22 were before me.
+
+The invisible eavesdropper had gone into one of these rooms! I
+listened at each of the panels, but there was only silence within.
+
+The interior of the ship was suddenly singing with the steward's
+siren--the call to awaken the passengers. It startled me. I moved
+swiftly away. But as the siren shut off, in the silence I heard a
+soft, musical voice:
+
+"Wake up, Anita, I think that's the breakfast call."
+
+And her answer, "All right, George."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I did not appear at that morning meal. I was exhausted and drugged
+with lack of sleep. I had a moment with Snap to tell him what had
+occurred. Then I sought out Carter. He had his little chart room
+insulated. And we were cautious. I told him what Snap and I had
+learned: the rays from the Moon, proving that Grantline had
+concentrated a considerable ore body. I also told him of Grantline's
+message.
+
+"We'll stop on the way back, as he directs, Gregg." He bent closer to
+me. "At Ferrok-Shahn I'm going to bring back a cordon of
+Interplanetary Police. The secret will be out, of course, when we stop
+at the Moon. We have no right, even now, to be flying this vessel as
+unguarded as it is."
+
+He was very solemn. And he was grim when I told him of the invisible
+eavesdropper.
+
+"You think he overheard Grantline's message? Who was it? You seem to
+feel it was George Prince?"
+
+I told him I was convinced the prowler went into A20. When I mentioned
+the purser, who seemed to have been watching me earlier in the night,
+and again was sitting in the smoking room when the eavesdropper fled
+past, Carter looked startled.
+
+"Johnson is all right, Gregg."
+
+"Does he know anything about this Grantline affair?"
+
+"No--no," said Carter hastily. "You haven't mentioned it, have you?"
+
+"Of course I haven't. But why didn't Johnson hear that eavesdropper?
+And what was he doing there, anyway, at that hour of the morning?"
+
+The Captain ignored my questions. "I'm going to have that Prince
+suite searched--we can't be too careful.... Go to bed, Gregg, you need
+rest."
+
+I went to my cabin. It was located aft, on the stern deck, near the
+stern watch tower. A small metal room with a chair, a desk and a bunk.
+I made sure no one was in it. I sealed the lattice grill and the door,
+set the alarm trigger against any opening of them, and went to bed.
+
+The siren for the midday meal awakened me. I had slept heavily. I felt
+refreshed.
+
+I found the passengers already assembled at my table when I arrived in
+the dining salon. It was a low vaulted metal room with blue and yellow
+tube lights. At its sides the oval windows showed the deck, with its
+ports on the dome side, through which a vista of the starry firmament
+was visible. We were well on our course to Mars. The Moon had dwindled
+to a pin point of light beside the crescent Earth. And behind them our
+Sun blazed, visually the largest orb in the heavens. It was some
+sixty-eight million miles from the Earth to Mars. A flight,
+ordinarily, of some ten days.
+
+There were five tables in the dining salon, each with eight seats.
+Snap and I had one of the tables. We sat at the ends, with the
+passengers on each of the sides.
+
+Snap was in his seat when I arrived. He eyed me down the length of the
+table. In a gay mood, he introduced me to the three men already
+seated:
+
+"This is our third officer, Gregg Haljan. Big, handsome fellow, isn't
+he? And as pleasant as he is good-looking. Gregg, this is Sero Ob
+Hahn."
+
+I met the keen, somber gaze of a Venus man of middle age. A small,
+slim graceful man, with sleek black hair. His pointed face,
+accentuated by the pointed beard, was pallid. He wore a white and
+purple robe; upon his breast was a huge platinum ornament, a device
+like a star and cross entwined.
+
+"I am happy to meet you, sir." His voice was soft and deep.
+
+"Ob Hahn," I repeated. "I should have heard of you, no doubt, but--"
+
+A smile plucked at his thin, gray lips. "That is an error of mine, not
+yours. My mission is that all the universe shall hear of me."
+
+"He's preaching the religion of the Venus mystics," Snap explained.
+
+"And this enlightened gentleman," said Ob Hahn ironically, nodding to
+the man, "has just termed it fetishism. The ignorance--"
+
+"Oh, I say!" protested the man at Ob Hahn's side. "I mean, you seem to
+think I meant something offensive. And as a matter of fact--"
+
+"We've an argument, Gregg," laughed Snap. "This is Sir Arthur
+Coniston, an English gentleman, lecturer and sky-trotter--that is, he
+will be a sky-trotter; he tells us he plans a number of voyages."
+
+The tall Englishman, in his white linen suit, bowed acknowledgement.
+"My compliments, Mr. Haljan. I hope you have no strong religious
+convictions, else we will make your table here very miserable!"
+
+The third passenger had evidently kept out of the argument. Snap
+introduced him as Rance Rankin. An American--a quiet, blond fellow of
+thirty-five or forty.
+
+I ordered my breakfast and let the argument go on.
+
+"Won't make me miserable," said Snap. "I love an argument. You said,
+Sir Arthur--"
+
+"I mean to say, I think I said too much. Mr. Rankin, you are more
+diplomatic."
+
+Rankin laughed. "I am a magician," he said to me. "A theatrical
+entertainer. I deal in tricks--how to fool an audience--" His keen,
+amused gaze was on Ob Hahn. "This gentleman from Venus and I have too
+much in common to argue."
+
+"A nasty one!" the Englishman exclaimed. "By Jove! Really, Mr. Rankin,
+you're a bit too cruel!"
+
+I could see we were doomed to have turbulent meals this voyage. I
+like to eat in quiet; arguing passengers always annoy me. There were
+still three seats vacant at our table; I wondered who would occupy
+them. I soon learned the answer--for one seat at least. Rankin said
+calmly:
+
+"Where is the little Venus girl this meal?" His glance went to the
+empty seat at my right hand. "The Venza, isn't that her name? She and
+I are destined for the same theater in Ferrok-Shahn."
+
+So Venza was to sit beside me. It was good news. Ten days of a
+religious argument three times a day would be intolerable. But the
+cheerful Venza would help.
+
+"She never eats the midday meal," said Snap. "She's on the deck,
+having orange juice. I guess it's the old gag about diet, eh?"
+
+My attention wandered about the salon. Most of the seats were
+occupied. At the Captain's table I saw the objects of my search:
+George Prince and his sister, one on each side of the Captain. I saw
+George Prince in the life now as a man who looked hardly twenty-five.
+He was at this moment evidently in a gay mood. His clean-cut, handsome
+profile, with its poetic dark curls, was turned toward me. There
+seemed little of the villain about him.
+
+And I saw Anita Prince now as a dark-haired, black-eyed little beauty,
+in feature resembling her brother very strongly. She presently
+finished her meal. She rose, with him after her. She was dressed in
+Earth-fashion--white blouse and dark jacket, wide, knee-length
+trousers of gray, with a red sash her only touch of color. She went
+past me, flashed me a smile.
+
+My heart was pounding. I answered her greeting, and met George
+Prince's casual gaze. He, too, smiled, as though to signify that his
+sister had told him of the service I had done her. Or was his smile an
+ironical memory of how he had eluded me this morning when I chased
+him?
+
+I gazed after his small white-suited figure as he followed Anita from
+the salon. And thinking of her, I prayed that Carter and Halsey might
+be wrong. Whatever plotting against the Grantline Expedition might be
+going on, I hoped that George Prince was innocent of it. Yet I knew in
+my heart it was a futile hope. Prince had been the eavesdropper
+outside the radio room. I could not doubt it. But that his sister must
+be ignorant of what he was doing, I was sure.
+
+My attention was brought suddenly back to the reality of our table. I
+heard Ob Hahn's silky voice. "We passed quite close to the Moon last
+night, Mr. Dean."
+
+"Yes," said Snap. "We did, didn't we? Always do--it's a technical
+problem of the exigencies of interstellar navigation. Explain it to
+them, Gregg. You're an expert."
+
+I waved it away with a laugh. There was a brief silence. I could not
+help noticing Sir Arthur Coniston's queer look, and I have never seen
+so keen a glance as Rance Rankin shot at me. Were all three people
+aware of Grantline's treasure on the Moon? It suddenly seemed so. I
+wished fervently at that instant that the ten days of this voyage were
+over. Captain Carter was right. Coming back we should have a cordon of
+Interplanetary Police aboard.
+
+Sir Arthur broke the awkward silence. "Magnificent sight, the Moon,
+from so close--though I was too much afraid of pressure sickness to be
+up to see it."
+
+I had nearly finished my hasty meal when another incident shocked me.
+The two other passengers at our table came in and took their seats. A
+Martian girl and man. The girl had the seat at my left, with the man
+beside her. All Martians are tall. The girl was about my own height.
+That is, six feet, two inches. The man was seven feet or more. Both
+wore the Martian outer robe. The girl flung hers back. Her limbs were
+encased in pseudomail. She looked, as all Martians like to look, a
+very warlike Amazon. But she was a pretty girl. She smiled at me with
+a keen-eyed, direct gaze.
+
+"Mr. Dean said at breakfast that you were big and handsome. You are."
+
+They were brother and sister, these Martians. Snap introduced them as
+_Set_ Miko and _Setta_ Moa--the Martian equivalent of Mr. and Miss.
+
+This Miko was, from our Earth standards, a tremendous, brawny giant.
+Not spindly, like most Martians, this fellow, for all his seven feet
+in height was almost heavy set. He wore a plaited leather jerkin
+beneath his robe and knee pants of leather out of which his lower legs
+showed as gray, hairy pillars of strength. He had come into the salon
+with a swagger, his sword ornament clanking.
+
+"A pleasant voyage so far," he said to me as he started his meal. His
+voice had the heavy, throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. He
+spoke perfect English--both Martians and Venus people are by heritage
+extraordinary linguists. Miko and his sister Moa, had a touch of
+Martian accent, worn almost away by living for some years in Greater
+New York.
+
+The shock to me came within a few minutes. Miko, absorbed in attacking
+his meal, inadvertently pushed back his robe to bare his forearm. An
+instant only, then it dropped to his wrist. But in that instant I had
+seen, upon the gray flesh, a thin sear turned red. A very recent
+burn--as though a pencil ray of heat had caught his arm.
+
+My mind flung back. Only last night in the city corridor, Snap and I
+had been followed by a Martian. I had shot at him with a heat ray: I
+thought I had hit him on the arm. Was this the mysterious Martian who
+had followed us from Halsey's office?
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Shortly after that midday meal I encountered Venza sitting on the
+starlit deck. I had been in the bow observatory; taken my routine
+castings of our position and worked them out. I was, I think, of the
+_Planetara's_ officers the most expert handler of the mathematical
+calculators. The locating of our position and charting the trajectory
+of our course was, under ordinary circumstances, about all I had to
+do. And it took only a few minutes every twelve hours.
+
+I had a moment with Carter in the isolation of his chart room.
+
+"This voyage! Gregg, I'm getting like you--too fanciful. We've a normal
+group of passengers apparently, but I don't like the look of any of
+them. That Ob Hahn, at your table--"
+
+"Snaky looking fellow," I commented. "He and the Englishman are great
+on arguments. Did you have Princes' cabin searched?"
+
+My breath hung on his answer.
+
+"Yes. Nothing unusual among his things. We searched both his room and
+his sister's."
+
+I did not follow that up. Instead I told him about the burn on Miko's
+thick arm.
+
+He stared. "I wish we were at Ferrok-Shahn. Gregg, tonight when the
+passengers are asleep, come here to me. Snap will be here, and Dr.
+Frank. We can trust him."
+
+"He knows about--about the Grantline treasure?"
+
+"Yes. And so do Balch and Blackstone." Balch and Blackstone were our
+first and second officers.
+
+"We'll all meet here, Gregg--say about the zero hour. We must take
+some precautions."
+
+Then he dismissed me.
+
+I found Venza seated alone in a starlit corner of the secluded deck. A
+porthole, with the black heavens and the blazing stars was before her.
+There was an empty seat nearby.
+
+She greeted me with the Venus form of jocular, intimate greeting:
+
+"Hola-lo, Gregg! Sit here with me. I have been wondering when you
+would come after me."
+
+I sat down beside her. "Why are you going to Mars, Venza? I'm glad to
+see you."
+
+"Many thanks. But I am glad to see you, Gregg. So handsome a man. Do
+you know, from Venus to Earth, and I have no doubt on all of Mars, no
+man will please me more."
+
+"Glib tongue," I laughed. "Born to flatter the male--every girl of
+your world." And I added seriously, "You don't answer my question.
+What takes you to Mars?"
+
+"Contract. By the stars, what else? Of course, a chance to make a
+voyage with you--"
+
+"Don't be silly, Venza."
+
+I enjoyed her. I gazed at her small, slim figure reclining in the deck
+chair. Her long, gray robe parted by design, I have no doubt, to
+display her shapely, satin-sheathed legs. Her black hair was coiled in
+a heavy knot at the back of her neck; her carmine lips were parted
+with a mocking, alluring smile. The exotic perfume of her enveloped
+me.
+
+She glanced at me sidewise from beneath her sweeping black lashes.
+
+"Be serious," I added.
+
+"I am serious. Sober. Intoxicated by you, but sober."
+
+I said, "What sort of a contract?"
+
+"A theater in Ferrok-Shahn. Good money, Gregg. I'll be there a year."
+She sat up to face me. "There's a fellow here on the _Planetara_,
+Rance Rankin, he calls himself. At our table--a big, good-looking
+blond American. He says he is a magician. Ever hear of him?"
+
+"That's what he told me. No, I never heard of him."
+
+"Nor did I. And I thought I had heard of everyone of importance. He is
+listed for the same theater I am. Nice sort of fellow." She paused,
+then added, "If he's a professional entertainer, I'm a motor oiler."
+
+It startled me. "Why do you say that?"
+
+Instinctively my gaze swept the deck. An Earth woman and child and a
+small Venus man were in sight, but not within earshot.
+
+"Why do you look so furtive?" she retorted. "Gregg, there's something
+strange about this voyage. I'm no fool, nor you, so you must know it
+as well as I do."
+
+"Rance Rankin--" I prompted.
+
+She leaned closer toward me. "He could fool you. But not me--I've
+known too many magicians." She grinned. "I challenged him to trick
+me. You should have seen him evading!"
+
+"Do you know Ob Hahn?" I interrupted.
+
+She shook her head. "Never heard of him. But he told me plenty at
+breakfast. By Satan, what a flow of words that devil driver can
+muster! He and the Englishman don't mesh very well, do they?"
+
+She stared at me. I had not answered her grin; my mind was too busy
+with queer fancies. Halsey's words: "Things are not always what they
+seem--" Were these passengers masqueraders? Were they put here by
+George Prince? And then I thought of Miko the Martian, and the burn
+upon his arm.
+
+"Come back, Gregg! Don't go wandering off like that!" She dropped her
+voice to a whisper. "I'll be serious. I want to know what in hell is
+going on aboard this ship. I'm a woman and I'm curious. You tell me."
+
+"What do you mean?" I parried.
+
+"I mean a lot of things. What we've just been talking about. And what
+was the excitement you were in just before breakfast this morning?"
+
+"Excitement?"
+
+"Gregg, you may trust me." For the first time she was wholly serious.
+Her gaze made sure no one was within hearing. She put her hand on my
+arm. I could barely hear her whisper: "I know they might have a ray
+upon us. I'll be careful."
+
+"They?"
+
+"Anyone. Something's going on. You know it. You are in it. I saw you
+this morning, Gregg. Wild-eyed, chasing a phantom--"
+
+"You?"
+
+"And I heard the phantom! A man's footsteps. A magnetic, deflecting,
+invisible cloak. You couldn't fool an audience with that, it's too
+commonplace. If Rance Rankin tried--"
+
+I gripped her. "Don't ramble, Venza! You saw me?"
+
+"Yes. My stateroom door was open. I was sitting with a cigarette. I
+saw the purser in the smoking room. He was visible from--"
+
+"Wait! Venza, that prowler went through the smoking room!"
+
+"I know he did. I could hear him."
+
+"Did the purser hear him?"
+
+"Of course. The purser looked up, followed the sound with his gaze. I
+thought that was queer. He never made a move. And then you came along
+and he acted innocent. Why? What's going on, that's what I want to
+know?"
+
+I held my breath. "Venza, where did the prowler run to? Can you--"
+
+She whispered calmly, "Into A20. I saw the door open and close. I even
+thought I could see his blurred outline." She added, "Why should
+George Prince be sneaking around with you after him? And the purser
+acting innocent? And who is this George Prince, anyway?"
+
+The huge Martian, Miko, with his sister Moa came strolling along the
+deck. They nodded as they passed us.
+
+I whispered, "I can't explain anything now. But you're right, Venza:
+there is something going on. Listen! Whatever you learn--whatever you
+encounter which looks unusual--will you tell me? I ... well, I do
+trust you. Really I do, but the whole thing isn't mine to tell."
+
+The somber pools of her eyes were shining. "You are very lovable,
+Gregg. I won't question you." She was trembling with excitement.
+"Whatever it is, I want to be in on it. Here's something I can tell
+you now. We've two high class gold leaf gamblers aboard. Do you know
+that?"
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Shac and Dud Ardley. Every detective in Greater New York knows them.
+They had a wonderful game with that Englishman, Sir Arthur, this
+morning. Stripped him of half a pound of eight-inch leaves--a neat
+little stack. A crooked game, of course. Those fellows are more
+nimble-fingered than Rance Rankin ever dared to be!"
+
+I sat staring at her. She was a mine of information, this girl.
+
+"And Gregg, I tried my charms on Shac and Dud. Nice men, but dumb.
+Whatever's going on, they're not in it. They wanted to know what kind
+of a ship this was. Why? Because Shac has a cute little eavesdropping
+microphone of his own. He had it working last night. He overheard
+George Prince and that giant Miko arguing about the Moon!"
+
+I gasped, "Venza! Softer--"
+
+Against all propriety of this public deck she pretended to drape
+herself upon me. Her hair smothered my face as her lips almost touched
+my ear.
+
+"Something about treasure on the Moon. Shac couldn't understand what.
+And they mentioned you. Then the purser joined them." Her whispered
+words tumbled over one another. "A hundred pounds of gold leaf--that's
+the purser's price. He's with them--whatever it is. He promised to do
+something or other for them."
+
+She stopped. "Well?" I prompted.
+
+"That's all. Shac's current was interrupted."
+
+"Tell him to try it again, Venza! I'll talk with him. No! I'd better
+let him alone. Can you get him to keep his mouth shut?"
+
+"I think he might do anything I told him. He's a man!"
+
+"Find out what you can."
+
+She drew away from me abruptly. "There's Anita and George Prince."
+
+They came to the corner of the deck, but turned back. Venza caught my
+look. And understood it.
+
+"You do love Anita Prince, Gregg?" Venza was smiling. "I wish you....
+I wish some man handsome as you would gaze after me like that." She
+turned solemn. "You may be interested to know, she loves you. I could
+see it. I knew it when I mentioned you to her this morning."
+
+"Me? Why we've hardly spoken!"
+
+"Is it necessary? I never heard that it was."
+
+I could not see Venza's face; she stood up suddenly. And when I rose
+beside her, she whispered, "We should not be seen talking so long.
+I'll find out what I can."
+
+I stared after her slight robed figure as she turned into the lounge
+archway and vanished.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Captain Carter was grim. "So they've bought him off, have they? Go
+bring him in here, Gregg. We'll have it out with him now."
+
+Snap, Dr. Frank, Balch, our first officer, and I were in the Captain's
+chart room. It was four P.M. Earth time. We were sixteen hours upon
+our voyage.
+
+I found Johnson in his office in the lounge. "Captain wants to see
+you. Close up."
+
+He closed his window upon an American woman passenger who was
+demanding the details of Martian currency, and followed me forward.
+"What is it, Gregg?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+Captain Carter banged the slide upon us. The chart room was insulated.
+The hum of the current was obvious. Johnson noticed it. He stared at
+the hostile faces of the surgeon and Balch. And he tried to bluster.
+
+"What's this? Something wrong?"
+
+Carter wasted no words. "We have information, Johnson, that there's
+some undercover plot aboard. I want to know what it is. Suppose you
+tell us."
+
+The purser looked blank. "What do you mean? We've gamblers aboard, if
+that's--"
+
+"To hell with that," growled Balch. "You had a secret interview with
+that Martian, _Set_ Miko, and with George Prince!"
+
+Johnson scowled from under his heavy brows, and then raised them in
+surprise. "Did I? You mean changing their money? I don't like your
+tone, Balch. I'm not your under-officer!"
+
+"But you're under me!" roared the Captain. "By God, I'm master here!"
+
+"Well, I'm not disputing that," said the purser mildly. "This
+fellow--"
+
+"We're in no mood for argument," Dr. Frank cut in. "Clouding the
+issue...."
+
+"I won't let it be clouded," the Captain exclaimed.
+
+I had never seen Carter so choleric. He added:
+
+"Johnson, you've been acting suspiciously. I don't give a damn whether
+I've proof of it or not. Did you or did you not meet George Prince and
+that Martian, last night?"
+
+"No, I did not. And I don't mind telling you, Captain Carter, that
+your tone also is offensive!"
+
+"Is it?" Carter seized him. They were both big men. Johnson's heavy
+face went purplish red.
+
+"Take your hands--!" They were struggling. Carter's hands were
+fumbling at the purser's pockets. I leaped, flung an arm around
+Johnson's neck, pinning him.
+
+"Easy there! We've got you, Johnson!"
+
+Snap tried to help me. "Go on! Bang him on the head, Gregg. Now's your
+chance!"
+
+We searched him. A heat ray cylinder--that was legitimate. But we
+found a small battery and eavesdropping device similar to the one
+Venza had mentioned that Shac the gambler was carrying.
+
+"What are you doing with that?" the Captain demanded.
+
+"None of your business! Is it criminal? Carter, I'll have the line
+officials dismiss you for this! Take your hands off me--all of you!"
+
+"Look at this!" exclaimed Dr. Frank.
+
+From Johnson's breast pocket the surgeon drew a folded document. It
+was a scale drawing of the _Planetara_ interior corridors, the lower
+control rooms and mechanisms. It was always kept in Johnson's safe.
+And with it, another document: the ship's clearance papers--the secret
+code passwords for this voyage, to be used if we should be challenged
+by any Interplanetary Police ship.
+
+Snap gasped, "My God, that was in my radio room strong box! I'm the
+only one on this vessel except the Captain who's entitled to know
+those passwords!"
+
+Out of the silence, Balch demanded, "Well, what about it, Johnson?"
+
+The purser was still defiant. "I won't answer your questions, Balch.
+At the proper time, I'll explain--Gregg Haljan, you're choking me!"
+
+I eased up. But I shook him. "You'd better talk."
+
+He was exasperatingly silent.
+
+"Enough!" exploded Carter. "He can explain when we get to port.
+Meanwhile I'll put him where he'll do no more harm. Gregg, lock him in
+the cage."
+
+We ignored his violent protestations. The cage--in the old days of sea
+vessels on Earth, they called it the brig--was the ship's jail. A
+steel-lined, windowless room located under the deck in the peak of the
+bow. I dragged the struggling Johnson there, with the amazed watcher
+looking down from the observatory window at our lunging starlit forms.
+
+"Shut up, Johnson! If you know what's good for you--"
+
+He was making a fearful commotion. Behind us, where the deck narrowed
+at the superstructure, half a dozen passengers were gazing in
+surprise.
+
+"I'll have you thrown out of the service, Gregg Haljan!"
+
+I shut him up finally. And flung him down the ladder into the cage and
+sealed the deck trap door upon him. I was headed back for the chart
+room when from the observatory came the lookout's voice:
+
+"An asteroid, Haljan! Officer Blackstone wants you."
+
+I hurried to the turret bridge. An asteroid was in sight. We had
+nearly attained our maximum speed now. An asteroid was approaching, so
+dangerously close that our trajectory would have to be altered. I
+heard Blackstone's signals ringing in the control rooms; and met
+Carter as he ran to the bridge with me.
+
+"That scoundrel! We'll get more out of him, Gregg. By God, I'll put
+the chemicals on him--torture him--illegal or not!"
+
+We had no time for further discussion. The asteroid was rapidly
+approaching. Already, under the glass, it was a magnificent sight. I
+had never seen this tiny world before--asteroids are not numerous
+between the Earth and Mars, or in toward Venus.
+
+At a speed of nearly a hundred miles a second the asteroid swept into
+view. With the naked eye, at first it was a tiny speck of star-dust
+unnoticeable in the gem-strewn black velvet of space. A speck. Then a
+gleaming dot, silver white, with the light of our Sun upon it.
+
+I stood with Carter and Blackstone on the turret bridge. It was
+obvious, that unless we altered our course, the asteroid would pass
+too close for safety. Already we were feeling its attraction; from the
+control rooms came the report that our trajectory was disturbed by
+this new mass so near.
+
+"Better make your calculations now, Gregg," Blackstone urged.
+
+I cast up the rough elements from the observational instruments in the
+turret. When I had us upon our new course, with the attractive and
+repulsive plates in the _Planetara's_ hull set in their altered
+combinations, I went to the bridge again.
+
+The asteroid hung over our bow quarter. No more than twenty or thirty
+thousand miles away. A giant ball now, filling all that quadrant of
+the heavens. The configurations of its mountains, its land and water
+areas, were plainly visible.
+
+"Perfectly habitable," Blackstone said. "But I've searched all over
+the hemisphere with the glass. No sign of human life--certainly
+nothing civilized--nothing in the fashion of cities."
+
+A fair little world, by the look of it. A tiny globe, come from the
+region beyond Neptune. We swept past the asteroid. The passengers were
+all gathered to view the passing little world. I saw, not far from me,
+Anita, standing with her brother; and the giant figure of Miko with
+them. Half an hour since this wandering little world had showed
+itself, it swiftly passed, began to dwindle behind us. A huge half
+moon. A thinner, smaller quadrant. A tiny crescent, like a silver
+barpin to adorn some lady's breast. And then it was a dot, a point of
+light indistinguishable among the myriad others hovering in this great
+black void.
+
+The incident of the passing of the asteroid was over. I turned from
+the deck window. My heart leaped. The moment for which all day I had
+been subconsciously longing was at hand. Anita was sitting in a deck
+chair, momentarily alone. Her gaze was on me as I glanced her way, and
+she smiled an invitation for me to join her.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+"But, Miss Prince, why are you and your brother going to Ferrok-Shahn?
+His business--"
+
+Even as I voiced it, I hated myself for such a question. So nimble in
+the humble mind that mingled with my rhapsodies of love, was my need
+for information of George Prince.
+
+"Oh," she said. "This is pleasure, not business, for George." It
+seemed to me that a shadow crossed her face. But it was gone in an
+instant, and she smiled. "We have always wanted to travel. We are
+alone in the world, you know--our parents died when we were children."
+
+I filled in her pause. "You will like Mars. So many interesting things
+to see."
+
+She nodded. "Yes, I understand so. Our Earth is so much the same all
+over, cast all in one mould."
+
+"But a hundred or more years ago, it was not, Miss Prince. I have read
+how the picturesque Orient, differing from ... well, Greater New York
+or London, for instance--"
+
+"Transportation did that," she interrupted eagerly. "Made everything
+the same--the people all look alike ... dress alike."
+
+We discussed it. She had an alert, eager mind, childlike with its
+curiosity, yet strangely matured. And her manner was naively earnest.
+Yet this was no clinging vine, this Anita Prince. There was a
+firmness, a hint of masculine strength in her chin and in her manner.
+
+"If I were a man, what wonders I could achieve in this marvelous age!"
+Her sense of humor made her laugh at herself. "Easy for a girl to say
+that," she added.
+
+"You have greater wonders to achieve, Miss Prince," I said
+impulsively.
+
+"Yes? What are they?" She had a very frank and level gaze, devoid of
+coquetry.
+
+My heart was pounding. "The wonders of the next generation. A little
+son, cast in your own gentle image--"
+
+What madness, this clumsy, brash talk! I choked it off.
+
+But she took no offense. The dark rose-petals of her cheeks were
+mantled deeper red, but she laughed.
+
+"That is true." She turned abruptly serious. "I should not laugh. The
+wonders of the next generation--conquering humans marching on...." Her
+voice trailed away. My hand went to her arm. Strange tingling
+something which poets call love! It burned and surged through my
+trembling fingers into the flesh of her forearm.
+
+The starlight glowed in her eyes. She seemed to be gazing, not at the
+silver-lit deck, but away into distant reaches of the future.
+
+Our moment. Just a breathless moment given us as we sat there with my
+hand burning her arm, as though we both might be seeing ourselves
+joined in a new individual--a little son, cast in his mother's gentle
+image and with the strength of his father. Our moment, and then it was
+over. A step sounded. I sat back. The giant gray figure of Miko came
+past, his great cloak swaying, with his clanking sword ornament
+beneath it. His bullet head, with its close-clipped hair, was hatless.
+He gazed at us, swaggering past, and turned the deck corner.
+
+Our moment was gone. Anita said conventionally, "It has been pleasant
+to talk with you, Mr. Haljan."
+
+"But we'll have many more," I said. "Ten days--"
+
+"You think we'll reach Ferrok-Shahn on schedule?"
+
+"Yes. I think so.... As I was saying, Miss Prince, you'll enjoy Mars.
+A strange, aggressively forward-looking people."
+
+An oppression seemed on her. She stirred in her chair.
+
+"Yes they are," she said vaguely. "My brother and I know many Martians
+in Greater New York." She checked herself abruptly. Was she sorry she
+had said that? It seemed so.
+
+Miko was coming back. He stopped this time. "Your brother would see
+you, Anita. He sent me to bring you to his room."
+
+The glance he shot me had a touch of insolence. I stood up and he
+towered a head over me.
+
+Anita said, "Oh yes. I'll come."
+
+I bowed. "I will see you again, Miss Prince. I thank you for a
+pleasant half-hour."
+
+The Martian led her away. Her little figure was like a child with a
+giant. It seemed, as they passed the length of the deck, with me
+staring after them, that he took her arm roughly. And that she shrank
+from him in fear.
+
+And they did not go inside. As though to show me that he had merely
+taken her from me, he stopped at a distant deck window and stood
+talking to her. Once he picked her up as one would pick up a child to
+show it some distant object through the window.
+
+Was Anita afraid of this Martian's wooing? Yet was held to him by some
+power he might have over her brother? The vagrant thought struck me.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The rest of that afternoon and evening were a blank confusion to me.
+Anita's words, the touch of my hand on her arm, that vast realm of
+what might be for us, like the glimpse of a magic land of happiness
+which I had seen in her eyes, and perhaps she had seen in mine--all
+this surged within me.
+
+After wandering about the ship, I had a brief consultation with
+Captain Carter. He was genuinely apprehensive now. The _Planetara_
+carried only a half-dozen of the heat-ray projectors, no long range
+weapons, a few side arms, and some old-fashioned, practically
+antiquated weapons of explosives, plus hand projectors with the new
+Benson curve light.
+
+The weapons were all in Carter's chart room, save the few we officers
+always carried. Carter was afraid, but of what, he was not sure. He
+had not thought that our plan to stop at the Moon could affect this
+outward voyage. He had thought that any danger would occur on the way
+back, and then the _Planetara_ would have been adequately guarded and
+manned with police-soldiers.
+
+But now we were practically defenseless. I had a moment with Venza,
+but she had nothing new to communicate. And for half an hour I chatted
+with George Prince. He seemed a gay, pleasant young man. I could
+almost have fancied I liked him. Or was it because he was Anita's
+brother? He told me how he looked forward to traveling with her on
+Mars. No, he had never been there before, he said.
+
+He had a measure of Anita's earnest naive personality. Or was he a
+very clever scoundrel, with irony lurking in his soft voice, and a
+chuckle that could so befool me?
+
+"Well talk again, Haljan. You interest me--I've enjoyed it."
+
+He sauntered away from me, joining the saturnine Ob Hahn, with whom
+presently I heard him discussing religion.
+
+The arrest of Johnson had caused considerable discussion among the
+passengers. A few had seen me drag him forward to the cage. The
+incident had been the subject of discussion all afternoon. Captain
+Carter had posted a notice to the effect that Johnson's accounts had
+been found in serious error, and that Dr. Frank for this voyage would
+act in his stead.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was near midnight when Snap and I closed and sealed the radio room
+and started for the chart room, where we were to meet with Captain
+Carter and the other officers. The passengers had nearly all retired.
+A game was in progress in the smoking room, but the deck was almost
+deserted.
+
+Snap and I were passing along one of the interior corridors. The
+stateroom doors were all closed. The metal grid of the floor echoed
+our footsteps. Snap was in advance of me. His body suddenly rose in
+the air. He went like a balloon to the ceiling, struck it gently, and
+all in a heap came floating down and landed on the floor!
+
+"What in the infernal--"
+
+He was laughing as he picked himself up. But it was a brief laugh. We
+knew what had happened: the artificial gravity controls in the base of
+the ship, which by magnetic force gave us normality aboard, were being
+tampered with! For just this instant, this particular small section of
+this corridor had been cut off. The slight bulk of the _Planetara_,
+floating in space, had no appreciable gravity pull on Snap's body, and
+the impulse of his step as he came to the unmagnetized area of the
+corridor had thrown him to the ceiling. The area was normal now. Snap
+and I tested it gingerly.
+
+He gripped me. "That never went wrong by accident, Gregg! Someone--"
+
+We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower room
+the bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches were
+here, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. There
+should have been a night operator, but he was gone.
+
+Than we saw him lying nearby, sprawled, face down on the floor! In the
+silence and dim, lurid glow of the fluorescent tubes, we stood holding
+our breaths, peering and listening. No one here.
+
+The guard was not dead. He lay unconscious from a blow on the head. A
+brawny fellow. We had him revived in a few moments. A broadcast flash
+of the call buzz brought Dr. Frank from the chart room.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Someone was here," I said hastily, "experimenting with the magnetic
+switches. Evidently unfamiliar with them--pulling one or another to
+test their workings and so see their reactions on the dials."
+
+We told him what had happened to Snap in the corridor; the guard here
+was no worse off for the episode, save a lump on the head by an
+invisible assailant. We left him nursing his head, sitting belligerent
+at his post, alert to any danger and armed now with my heat-ray
+cylinder.
+
+"Strange doings this voyage," he told us. "All the crew knows it. I'll
+stick it out now, but when we get back home I'm done with this star
+travelin'. I belong on the sea anyway."
+
+We hurried back to the upper level. We would indeed have to plan
+something at this chart room conference. This was the first tangible
+attack our adversaries had made.
+
+We were on the passenger deck headed for the chart room when all three
+of us stopped short, frozen with horror. Through the silent passenger
+quarters a scream rang out! A girl's shuddering, gasping scream.
+Terror in it. Horror. Or a scream of agony. In the silence of the
+dully vibrating ship it was utterly horrible.... It lasted an
+instant--a single long scream; then was abruptly stilled.
+
+And with blood pounding my temples and rushing like ice through my
+veins, I recognized it.
+
+Anita!
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+"Good God, what was that?" Dr. Frank's face had gone white. Snap stood
+like a statue of horror.
+
+The deck here was patched as always, with silver radiance from the
+deck ports. The empty deck chairs stood about. The scream was stilled,
+but now we heard a commotion inside--the rasp of opening cabin doors;
+questions from frightened passengers.
+
+I found my voice. "Anita! Anita Prince!"
+
+"Come on!" shouted Snap. "In her stateroom, A22!" He was dashing for
+the lounge archway.
+
+Dr. Frank and I followed. I realized that we passed the deck door and
+window of A22. But they were dark, and evidently sealed on the inside.
+The dim lounge was in a turmoil; passengers standing at their cabin
+doors.
+
+I shouted, "Go back to your rooms! We want order here--keep back!"
+
+We came to the twin doors of A22 and A20. Both were closed. Dr. Frank
+was in advance of Snap and me now. He paused at the sound of Captain
+Carter's voice behind us.
+
+"Was it from in there? Wait a moment!"
+
+Carter dashed up. He had a large heat-ray projector in his hand. He
+shoved us aside. "Let me in first. Is the door sealed? Gregg, keep
+those passengers back!"
+
+The door was not sealed. Carter burst into the room. I heard him gasp,
+"Good God!"
+
+Snap and I shoved back three or four passengers. And in that instant
+Dr. Frank had been in the room and out again.
+
+"There's been an accident! Get back, Gregg! Snap, help me keep the
+crowd away." He shoved me forcibly.
+
+From within, Carter was shouting, "Keep them out! Where are you,
+Frank? Come back here! Send a flash for Balch!"
+
+Dr. Frank went back into the room and banged the cabin door upon Snap
+and me. I was unarmed. Weapon in hand, Snap forced the panic-stricken
+passengers back to their rooms.
+
+Snap reassured them glibly; but he knew no more about the facts than
+I. Moa, with a nightrobe drawn tight around her thin, tall figure,
+edged up to me.
+
+"What has happened, _Set_ Haljan?"
+
+I gazed around for her brother Miko, but did not see him.
+
+"An accident," I said shortly. "Go back to your room. Captain's
+orders."
+
+She eyed me and then retreated. Snap was threatening everybody with
+his cylinder. Balch dashed up. "What in hell! Where is Carter?"
+
+"In there." I pounded on A22. It opened cautiously. I could see only
+Carter, but I heard the murmuring voice of Dr. Frank through the
+interior connecting door to A20.
+
+The Captain rasped, "Get out, Haljan! Oh, is that you, Balch? Come
+in." He admitted the older officer and slammed the door upon me again.
+And immediately reopened it.
+
+"Gregg, keep the passengers quieted. Tell them everything's all right.
+Miss Prince got frightened--that's all. Then go to the turret. Tell
+Blackstone what's happened."
+
+"But I don't know what's happened."
+
+Carter was grim and white. He whispered, "I think it may turn out to
+be murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet.... Dr. Frank is trying ... don't
+stand there like an ass, man. Get to the turret! Verify our
+trajectory--no--wait...."
+
+The Captain was almost incoherent. "Wait a minute. I don't mean that!
+Tell Snap to watch his radio room. Arm yourselves and guard our
+weapons."
+
+I stammered, "If ... if she dies ... will you flash us word?"
+
+He stared at me strangely. "I'll be there presently, Gregg."
+
+He slammed the door upon me.
+
+I followed his orders but it was like a dream of horror. The turmoil
+of the ship gradually quieted. Snap went to the radio room; Blackstone
+and I sat in the tiny chart room; how much time passed, I do not know.
+I was confused. Anita hurt! She might die ... murdered.... But why? By
+whom? Had George Prince been in his own room when the attack came? I
+thought now I recalled hearing the low murmur of his voice in there
+with Dr. Frank.
+
+Where was Miko? It stabbed at me. I had not seen him among the
+passengers in the lounge.
+
+Carter came into the chart room. "Gregg, you get to bed. You look like
+a ghost."
+
+"But--"
+
+"She's not dead. She may live. Dr. Frank and her brother are with
+her. They're doing all they can." He told us what had happened. Anita
+and George Prince had both been asleep, each in his respective room.
+Someone unknown had opened Anita's corridor door.
+
+"Wasn't it sealed?"
+
+"Yes. But the intruder opened it."
+
+"Burst it? I didn't think it was broken."
+
+"It wasn't broken. The assailant opened it somehow, and assaulted Miss
+Prince--shot her in the chest with a heat ray. Her left lung."
+
+"Shot her?"
+
+"Yes. But she did not see who did it. Nor did Prince. Her scream
+awakened him, but the intruder evidently fled out the corridor door of
+A22, the way he entered."
+
+I stood weak and shaken at the chart room entrance. Anita--dying,
+perhaps; and all my dreams were fading into a memory of what might
+have been.
+
+I was glad enough to get away. I would lie down for an hour and then
+go to Anita's stateroom. I'd demand that Dr. Frank let me see her.
+
+I went to the stern deck where my cubby was located. My mind was
+confused but some instinct within me made me verify the seals of my
+door and window. They were intact. I entered cautiously, switched on
+the dimmer of the tube lights, and searched the room. It had only a
+bunk, my tiny desk, a chair and clothes robe. There was no evidence of
+any intruder here. I set my door and window alarm. Then I audiphoned
+to the radio room.
+
+"Snap?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I told him about Anita. Carter cut in on us from the chart room. "Stop
+that, you fools!"
+
+We cut off. Fully dressed, I flung myself on my bed. Anita might
+die....
+
+I must have fallen into a tortured sleep, I was awakened by the sound
+of my alarm buzzer. Someone was tampering with my door! Then the
+buzzer ceased; the marauder outside must have found a way of
+silencing it. But it had done its work--awakened me.
+
+I had switched off the light; my cubby was Stygian black. A heat
+cylinder was in the bunk-bracket over my head. I searched for it,
+pried it loose softly.
+
+I was fully awake. Alert. I could hear a faint sizzling--someone
+outside trying to unseal the door. In the darkness, cylinder in hand,
+I crept softly from the bunk. Crouched at the door. This time I would
+capture or kill this night prowler.
+
+The sizzling was faintly audible. My door seal was breaking. Upon
+impulse I reached for the door, jerked it open.
+
+No one there! The starlit segment of deck was empty. But I leaped and
+struck a solid body, crouching in the doorway. A giant man. Miko!
+
+His electronized metallic robe burned my hands. I lunged against
+him--I was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heat
+evidently missed him. The shock of my encounter, short-circuited his
+robe; he materialized in the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. He
+struck the weapon from my hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, and
+tried to grip me. But I twisted away from his hold.
+
+"So it's you!"
+
+"Quiet, Gregg Haljan! I only want to talk."
+
+Without warning, a stab of radiance shot from a weapon in his hand. It
+caught me. Ran like ice through my veins. Seized and numbed my limbs.
+
+I fell helpless to the deck. Nerves and muscles paralyzed. My tongue
+was thick and inert. I could not speak, nor move. But I could see Miko
+bending over me, and hear him:
+
+"I don't want to kill you, Haljan. We need you."
+
+He gathered me up like a bundle in his huge arms; carried me swiftly
+across the deserted deck.
+
+Snap's radio room in the network under the dome was diagonally
+overhead. A white actinic light shot from it--caught us, bathed us.
+Snap had been awake; had heard the commotion of our encounter.
+
+His voice rang shrilly: "Stop! I'll shoot!" His warning siren rang out
+to alert the ship. His spotlight clung to us.
+
+Miko ran with me a few steps. Then he cursed and dropped me; fled
+away. I fell like a sack of carbide to the deck. My senses faded into
+blackness....
+
+"He's all right now."
+
+I was in the chart room with Captain Carter, Snap and Dr. Frank
+bending over me. The surgeon said,
+
+"Can you speak now, Gregg?"
+
+I tried it. My tongue was thick, but it moved. "Yes." I was soon
+revived. I sat up, with Dr. Frank vigorously rubbing me.
+
+"I'm all right." I told them what had happened.
+
+Captain Carter said, "Yes, we know that. And it was Miko also who
+killed Anita Prince. She told us before she died."
+
+"Died!..." I leaped to my feet. "She ... died...."
+
+"Yes, Gregg. An hour ago. Miko got into her stateroom and tried to
+force his love upon her. She repulsed him. He killed her...."
+
+It struck me blank. And then with a rush came the thought, "He says
+Miko killed her"....
+
+I heard myself stammering, "Why--why we must get him!" I gathered my
+wits; a surge of hate swept me; a wild desire for vengeance.
+
+"Why, by God, where is he? Why don't you go get him? I'll get
+him--I'll kill him!"
+
+"Easy, Gregg!" Dr. Frank gripped me.
+
+The Captain said gently. "We know how you feel, Gregg. She told us
+before she died."
+
+"I'll bring him in here to you! But I'll kill him, I tell you!"
+
+"No you won't, lad. We don't want him killed, not attacked, even. Not
+yet. We'll explain later."
+
+They sat me down, calming me....
+
+Anita dead. The door of the shining garden was closed. A brief glimpse
+given to me and to her of what might have been. And now she was
+dead....
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+I had not been able at first to understand why Captain Carter wanted
+Miko left at liberty. Within me there was that cry of vengeance, as
+though to strike Miko down would somehow lessen my own grief. Whatever
+Carter's purpose, Snap had not known it. But Balch and Dr. Frank were
+in the Captain's confidence--all three of them working on some plan of
+action.
+
+It was obvious that at least two of our passengers were plotting with
+Miko and George Prince; trying on this voyage to learn what they could
+about Grantline's activities on the Moon--scheming doubtless to seize
+the treasure when the _Planetara_ stopped at the Moon on the return
+voyage. I thought I could name those masquerading passengers. Ob Hahn,
+supposedly a Venus mystic. And Rance Rankin, who called himself an
+American magician. Those two, Snap and I agreed, seemed most
+suspicious. And there was the purser.
+
+I sat for a time on the deck outside the chart room with Snap. Then
+Carter summoned us back, and we sat listening while he, Balch and Dr.
+Frank went on with their conference. Listening to them, I could not
+but agree that our best plan was to secure evidence which would
+incriminate all who were concerned in the plot. Miko, we were
+convinced, had been the Martian who followed Snap and me from Halsey's
+office in Greater New York. George Prince had doubtless been the
+invisible eavesdropper outside the radio room. He knew, and had told
+the others that Grantline had found that priceless metal on the Moon
+and that the _Planetara_ would stop there on the way home.
+
+But we could not incarcerate George Prince for being an eavesdropper.
+Nor had we the faintest possible evidence against Ob Hahn or Rankin.
+And even the purser would probably be released by the Interplanetary
+Court of Ferrok-Shahn when it heard our evidence.
+
+There was only Miko. We could arrest him for the murder of Anita. But
+if we did that now, the others would be put on their guard. It was
+Carter's idea to let Miko remain at liberty for a time and see if we
+could identify and incriminate his fellows. The murder of Anita
+obviously had nothing to do with any plot against Grantline Moon
+treasure.
+
+"Why," exclaimed Balch, "there might be--probably are--huge Martian
+interests concerned in this thing. These men aboard are only
+emissaries, making this voyage to learn what they can. When they get
+to Ferrok-Shahn, they'll make their report, and then we'll have a real
+danger on our hands. Why, an outlaw ship could be launched from
+Ferrok-Shahn that would beat us back to the Moon--and Grantline is
+entirely without warning of any danger!"
+
+It seemed obvious. Unscrupulous criminals in Ferrok-Shahn would be
+dangerous indeed, once these details of Grantline were given them. So
+now it was decided that in the remaining nine days of our outward
+voyage, we would attempt to secure enough evidence to arrest all these
+plotters.
+
+"I'll have them all in the cage when we land," declared Carter grimly.
+"They'll make no report to their principals!"
+
+Ah, the futile plans of men!
+
+Yet, at the time, we thought it practical. We were all doubly armed
+now. Bullet projectors and heat ray cylinders. And we had several
+eavesdropping microphones which we planned to use whenever occasion
+offered.
+
+Only twenty-eight hours of this eventful voyage had passed. The
+_Planetara_ was some six million miles from the Earth; it blazed
+behind us, a tremendous giant.
+
+The body of Anita was being made ready for burial. George Prince was
+still in his stateroom. Glutz, effeminate little hairdresser, who
+waxed rich acting as beauty doctor for the women passengers, and who,
+in his youth, had been an undertaker, had gone with Dr. Frank to
+prepare the body.
+
+Gruesome details. I tried not to think of them. I sat, numbed, in the
+chart room.
+
+An astronomical burial--there was little precedent for it. I dragged
+myself to the stern deck where, at five A.M., the ceremony took place.
+
+We were a solemn little group, gathered there in the checkered
+starlight with the great vault of the heavens around us. A dismantled
+electronic projector--necessary when a long range gun was mounted--had
+been rigged up in one of the deck ports.
+
+They brought out the body. I stood apart, gazing reluctantly at the
+small bundle, wrapped like a mummy in a dark metallic screen-cloth. A
+patch of black silk rested over her face. Four cabin stewards carried
+her; and beside her walked George Prince. A long black robe covered
+him, but his head was bare. And suddenly he reminded me of the ancient
+play-character of Hamlet. His black, wavy hair; his finely chiseled,
+pallid face, set now in a stern patrician cast. And staring, I
+realized that however much of the villain this man might be, at this
+instant, walking beside the body of his dead sister, he was stricken
+with grief. He loved that sister with whom he had lived since
+childhood; and to see him now no one could doubt it.
+
+The little procession stopped in a patch of starlight by the port.
+They rested the body on a bank of chairs. The black-robed chaplain,
+roused from his bed and still trembling from excitement of this
+sudden, inexplicable death on board, said a brief, solemn little
+prayer. An appeal: That the Almighty Ruler of all these blazing worlds
+might guard the soul of this gentle girl whose mortal remains were now
+to be returned to Him.
+
+Ah, if ever God seemed hovering close, it was now at this instant, on
+this starlit deck floating in the black void of space.
+
+Then Carter for just a moment removed the black shroud from her face.
+I saw her brother gaze silently; saw him stoop and implant a
+kiss--and turn away. I did not want to look, but I found myself moving
+slowly forward.
+
+She lay, so beautiful. Her face, white and calm and peaceful in death.
+My sight blurred.
+
+"Easy Gregg," Snap was whispering to me. He had his arm around me.
+"Come on away."
+
+They tied the shroud over her face. I did not see them as they put the
+body in the tube, sent it through the exhaust chamber and dropped it.
+
+But a moment later I saw it, a small black, oblong bundle hovering
+beside us. It was perhaps a hundred feet away, circling us. Held by
+the _Planetara's_ bulk, it had momentarily become our satellite. It
+swung around us like a moon. Gruesome satellite, by nature's laws
+forever to follow us.
+
+Then from another tube at the bow, Blackstone operated a small
+zed-co-ray projector. Its dull light caught the floating bundle,
+neutralizing its metallic wrappings.
+
+It swung off at a tangent. Speeding. Falling free in the dome of the
+heavens. A rotating black oblong. But in a moment distance dwindled it
+to a speck. A dull silver dot with the sunlight on it. A speck of
+human Earth dust, falling free....
+
+It vanished. Anita--gone.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+I turned from the deck. Miko was near me! So he had dared show himself
+here among us! But I realized he could not be aware we knew he was the
+murderer. George Prince had been asleep, had not seen Miko with Anita.
+Miko, with impulsive rage had shot the girl and escaped. No doubt now
+he was cursing himself for having done it. And he could very well
+assume that Anita had died without regaining consciousness to tell who
+had killed her.
+
+He gazed at me now. I thought for an instant he was coming over to
+talk with me. Though he probably considered he was not suspected of
+the murder of Anita, he realized, of course, that his attack on me was
+known. He must have wondered what action would be taken.
+
+But he did not approach me. He moved away and went inside. Moa had
+been near him; and as though by prearrangement with him she now
+accosted me.
+
+"I want to speak to you, _Set_ Haljan."
+
+"Go ahead."
+
+I felt an instinctive aversion to this Martian girl. Yet she was not
+unattractive. Over six feet tall, straight and slim. Sleek blond hair.
+Rather a handsome face; not gray, like the burly Miko, but pink and
+white; stern lipped, but feminine, too. She was smiling gravely now.
+Her blue eyes regarded me keenly. She said gently:
+
+"A sad occurrence, Gregg Haljan. And mysterious. I would not question
+you--"
+
+"Is that all you have to say?" I demanded.
+
+"No. You are a handsome man, Gregg--attractive to women--to any
+Martian woman."
+
+She said it impulsively. Admiration for me was on her face, in her
+eyes--a man cannot miss it.
+
+"Thank you."
+
+"I mean, I would be your friend. My brother Miko is so sorry about
+what happened between you and him this morning. He only wanted to talk
+to you, and he came to your cubby door--"
+
+"With a torch to break its seal," I interjected.
+
+She waved that away. "He was afraid you would not admit him. He told
+you he would not harm you."
+
+"And so he struck me with one of your Martian paralyzing rays!"
+
+"He is sorry...."
+
+She seemed gauging me, trying, no doubt, to find out what reprisal
+would be taken against her brother. I felt sure that Moa was as active
+as a man in any plan that was under way to capture the Grantline
+treasure. Miko, with his ungovernable temper, was doing things that
+put their plans in jeopardy.
+
+I demanded, "What did your brother want to talk to me about?"
+
+"Me," she said surprisingly. "I sent him. A Martian girl goes after
+what she wants. Did you know that?"
+
+She swung on her heel and left me. I puzzled over it. Was that why
+Miko struck me down and was carrying me off? I did not think so. I
+could not believe that all these incidents were so unrelated to what I
+knew was the main undercurrent They wanted me, had tried to capture me
+for something else.
+
+Dr. Frank found me mooning alone. "Go to bed, Gregg. You look awful."
+
+"I don't want to go to bed."
+
+"Where's Snap?"
+
+"I don't know. He was here a little while ago." I had not seen him
+since the burial of Anita.
+
+"The Captain wants him," he said.
+
+Within an hour the morning siren would arouse the passengers. I was
+seated in a secluded corner of the deck, when George Prince came
+along. He went past me, a slight, somber, dark-robed figure. He had on
+high, thick boots. A hood was over his head, but as he saw me he
+pushed it back and dropped down beside me.
+
+For a moment he did not speak. His face showed pallid in the dim
+starlight.
+
+"She said you loved her." His soft voice was throaty with emotion.
+
+"Yes." I said it almost against my will. There seemed a bond springing
+between this bereaved brother and me. He added, so softly I could
+barely hear him: "That makes you, I think, almost my friend. And you
+thought you were my enemy."
+
+I held my answer. An incautious tongue running under emotion is a
+dangerous thing. And I was sure of nothing.
+
+He went on, "Almost my friend. Because--we both loved her, and she
+loved us both." He was hardly more than whispering. "And there is
+aboard one whom we both hate."
+
+"Miko!" It burst from me.
+
+"Yes. But do not say it."
+
+Another silence fell between us. He brushed back the black curls from
+his forehead. "Have you an eavesdropping microphone, Haljan?"
+
+I hesitated. "Yes."
+
+"I was thinking...." He leaned closer. "If, in half an hour, you could
+use it upon Miko's cabin--I would rather tell you than anyone else.
+The cabin will be insulated, but I shall find a way of cutting off
+that insulation so that you can hear."
+
+So George Prince had turned with us. The shock of his sister's
+death--himself allied with her murderer--had been too much for him. He
+was with us!
+
+Yet his help must be given secretly. Miko would kill him instantly if
+it became known. He had been watchful of the deck. He stood up now.
+
+"I think that is all."
+
+As he turned away, I murmured, "But I do thank you...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The name _Set_ Miko glowed upon the door. It was in a transverse
+corridor similar to A22. The corridor was forward of the lounge: it
+opened off the small circular library.
+
+The library was unoccupied and unlighted, dim with only the reflected
+lights from the nearby passages. I crouched behind a cylinder case.
+The door of Miko's room was in sight.
+
+I waited perhaps five minutes. No one entered. Then I realized that
+doubtless the conspirators were already there. I set my tiny
+eavesdropper on the library floor beside me; connected its little
+battery; focused its projector. Was Miko's room insulated? I could not
+tell. There was a small ventilating grid above the door. Across its
+opening, if the room was insulated, a blue sheen of radiance would be
+showing. And there would be a faint hum. But from this distance I
+could not see or hear such details, and I was afraid to approach
+closer. Once in the transverse corridor, I would have no place to
+hide, no way of escape. If anyone approached Miko's door, I would be
+trapped.
+
+I threw the current into my apparatus. I prayed, if it met
+interference, that the slight sound would pass unnoticed. George
+Prince had said that he would make opportunity to disconnect the
+room's insulation. He had evidently done so. I picked up the interior
+sounds at once; my headphone vibrated with them. And with trembling
+fingers on the little dial between my knees as I crouched in the
+darkness behind the cylinder case, I synchronized.
+
+"Johnson is a fool." It was Miko's voice. "We must have the
+passwords."
+
+"He got them from the radio room." A man's voice: I puzzled over it at
+first, then recognized it. Rance Rankin.
+
+Miko said, "He is a fool. Walking around this ship as though with
+letters blazoned on his forehead, 'Watch me.... I need watching.' Hah!
+No wonder they apprehended him!"
+
+Rankin's voice said: "He would have turned the papers over to us. I
+would not blame him too much. What harm--"
+
+"Oh, I'll release him," Miko declared. "What harm? That braying ass
+did us plenty of harm. He has lost the passwords. Better he had left
+them in the radio room."
+
+Moa was in the room. Her voice said, "We've got to have them. The
+_Planetara_, upon such an important voyage as this, might be watched."
+
+"No doubt it is," Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have the
+passwords. When we are in control of this ship...."
+
+It sent a shiver through me. Were they planning to try and seize the
+_Planetara_? Now? It seemed so.
+
+"Johnson undoubtedly memorized them," Moa was saying. "When we get him
+out--"
+
+"Hahn is to do that, at the signal." Miko added, "George could do it
+better, perhaps."
+
+And then I heard George Prince for the first time, "I'll try."
+
+"No need," Miko said unexpectedly.
+
+I could not see what had happened. A look, perhaps, which Prince
+could not avoid giving this man he had come to hate. Miko doubtless
+saw it, and the Martian's hot anger leaped.
+
+Rankin said hurriedly, "Stop that!"
+
+And Moa, "Let him alone, you fool! Sit down!"
+
+I could hear the sound of a scuffle. A blow--a cry, half suppressed,
+from George Prince.
+
+Then Miko: "I will not hurt him. Craven coward! Look at him! Hating
+me--frightened!"
+
+I could fancy George Prince sitting there with murder in his heart,
+and Miko taunting him:
+
+"Hates me now, because I shot his sister!"
+
+Moa: "Hush!"
+
+"I will not! Why should I not say it? I will tell you something else,
+George Prince. It was not Anita I shot at, but you! I meant nothing
+for her but love. If you had not interfered--"
+
+This was different from what we had figured. George Prince had come in
+from his own room, had tried to rescue his sister, and in the scuffle,
+Anita had taken the shot instead of George.
+
+"I did not even know I had hit her," Miko was saying. "Not until I
+heard she was dead." He added sardonically, "I hoped it was you I had
+hit, George. And I will tell you this: you hate me no more than I hate
+you. If it were not for your knowledge of ores--"
+
+"Is this to be a personal wrangle?" Rankin interrupted. "I thought we
+were here to plan--"
+
+"It is planned," Miko said shortly. "I give orders, I do not plan. I
+am waiting now for the moment--" He checked himself.
+
+Moa said, "Does Rankin understand that no harm is to come to Gregg
+Haljan?"
+
+"Yes," Rankin said. "And Dean. We need them, of course. But you cannot
+make Dean send messages if he refuses, nor make Haljan navigate."
+
+"I know enough to check on them," Miko said grimly. "They will not
+fool me. And they will obey me, have no fear. A little touch of
+sulphuric--" His laugh was gruesome. "It makes the most stubborn, very
+willing."
+
+"I wish," said Moa, "we had Haljan safely hidden. If he is
+hurt--killed--"
+
+So that was why Miko had tried to capture me? To keep me safe so that
+I might navigate the ship.
+
+It occurred to me that I should get Carter at once. A plot to seize
+the _Planetara_--but when?
+
+I froze with startled horror.
+
+The diaphragms at my ears rang with Miko's words: "I have set the time
+for now--two minutes--"
+
+It seemed to startle Rankin and George Prince as much as it did me.
+Both exclaimed: "No!"
+
+"No? Why not? Everyone is at his post!"
+
+Prince repeated, "No!"
+
+And Rankin, "But can we trust them? The stewards--the crew?"
+
+"Eight of them are our own men! You didn't know that, Rankin? They've
+been aboard the _Planetara_ for several voyages. Oh, this is no
+quickly planned affair, even though we let you in on it so recently.
+You and Johnson.... By God!"
+
+There was a commotion in the stateroom. I crouched, tense. Miko had
+discovered that his insulation had been cut off! He had evidently
+leaped to his feet. I heard a chair overturn. And the Martian's roar:
+"It's off! Did you do that, Prince? By God, if I thought--"
+
+My apparatus went suddenly dead as Miko flung on his insulation. I
+lost my wits in the confusion: I should have instantly taken off my
+vibrations. There was interference: it showed in the dark space of the
+ventilator grid over Miko's doorway, a snapping in the air, there--a
+swirl of sparks.
+
+I heard with my unaided ears Miko's roar over his insulation: "By God,
+they're listening!"
+
+The scream of hand sirens sounded from his stateroom. It rang over the
+ship. His signal! I heard it answered from some distant point. And
+then a shot: a commotion in the lower corridors....
+
+The attack upon the _Planetara_ had begun!
+
+I was on my feet. The shouts of startled passengers sounded, a turmoil
+beginning everywhere.
+
+I stood momentarily transfixed. The door of Miko's stateroom burst
+open. He stood there, with Rankin, Moa and George Prince crowding him.
+
+He saw me. "You, Gregg Haljan!"
+
+He came leaping at me.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+I was taken wholly by surprise. There was an instant when I stood
+numbed, fumbling for a weapon at my belt, undecided whether to run or
+stand my ground. Miko was no more than twenty feet from me. He checked
+his forward rush. The light from an overhead tube was on him: I saw in
+his hand the cylinder projector of his paralyzing ray.
+
+I plucked my heat cylinder from my belt, and fired without taking aim.
+My tiny heat beam flashed. I must have grazed Miko's hand. His roar of
+anger and pain rang out over the turmoil. He dropped his weapon; then
+stooped to pick it up. But Moa forestalled him. She leaped and seized
+it.
+
+"Careful! Fool, you promised not to harm him!"
+
+A confusion of swift action. Rankin had turned and darted away. I saw
+George Prince stumbling half in front of the struggling Miko and Moa.
+And I heard footsteps beside me. A hand gripped me, jerked at me.
+
+Over the turmoil, Prince's voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan!"
+
+I recall that I had the impression that Prince was frightened; he had
+half fallen in front of Miko. And there was Miko's voice: "Let go of
+me!"
+
+It was Balch gripping me. "Gregg! This way--run! Get out of here!
+He'll kill you with that ray!"
+
+Miko's ray flashed, but George Prince had knocked his arm. I did not
+dare fire again. Prince was in the way. Balch, who was unarmed, shoved
+me violently back.
+
+"Gregg! The chart room!"
+
+I turned and ran, with Balch after me. Prince had fallen or been
+felled by Miko. A flash followed me from Miko's weapon, but again it
+missed. He did not pursue me. Instead he ran the other way, through
+the portside door of the library.
+
+Balch and I found ourselves in the library. Shouting, frightened
+passengers were everywhere. The place was in wild confusion, the whole
+ship ringing now with shouts.
+
+"To the chart room, Gregg!"
+
+I called to the passengers, "Go back to your rooms!"
+
+I followed Balch. We ran through the archway to the deck. In the
+starlight I saw figures scurrying aft, but none were near us. The deck
+forward was dim with heavy shadows. The oval windows and door of the
+chart room were blue-yellow from the tube lights inside. No one seemed
+on the deck there. And then as we approached, I saw further forward in
+the bow, the trap door to the cage standing open. Johnson had been
+released.
+
+From one of the chart room windows a heat ray sizzled. It barely
+missed us. Balch shouted, "Carter--don't!"
+
+The Captain called, "Oh you, Balch--and Haljan--"
+
+He came out on the deck as we rushed up. His left arm was dangling
+limp.
+
+"God--this--" He got no further. From the turret overhead a tiny
+search beam came down and disclosed us. Blackstone was supposed to be
+on duty up there, with a course master at the controls. But, glancing
+up, I saw, illumined by the turret lights, the figure of Ob Hahn in
+his purple-white robe, and Johnson, the purser. And on the turret
+balcony, two fallen men--Blackstone and the course master.
+
+Johnson was training the spotlight on us. And Hahn fired a Martian
+ray. It struck Balch beside me. He dropped.
+
+Carter was shouting, "Inside--Gregg! Get inside!"
+
+I stopped to raise up Balch. Another beam came down. A heat ray this
+time. It caught the fallen Balch full on the chest, piercing him
+through. The smell of his burning flesh rose to sicken me. He was
+dead. I dropped his body. Carter shoved me into the chart room.
+
+In the small, steel-lined room, Carter and I slid the door closed. We
+were alone here. The thing had come so quickly it had taken Captain
+Carter, like us all, wholly unawares. We had anticipated spying
+eavesdroppers, but not this open brigandage. No more than a minute or
+two had passed since Miko's siren in his stateroom had given the
+signal for attack. Carter had been in the chart room. Blackstone was
+in the turret. At the outbreak of confusion, Carter dashed out to see
+Hahn releasing Johnson from the cage. From the forward chart room
+window now I could see where Hahn with a torch had broken the cage
+seal. The torch lay on the deck. There had been an exchange of shots;
+Carter's arm was paralyzed; Johnson and Hahn had escaped.
+
+Carter was as confused as I. There had simultaneously been an
+encounter up in the turret. Blackstone and the course master were
+killed. The lookout had been shot from his post in the forward
+observatory. The body dangled now, twisted half in and half out the
+window.
+
+We could see several of Miko's men--erstwhile members of our crew and
+steward corps--scurrying from the turret along the upper bridge toward
+the dark and silent radio room. Snap was up there. But was he? The
+radio room glowed suddenly with dim light, but there was no evidence
+of a fight there. The fighting seemed mostly below the deck, down in
+the hull corridors. A blended horror of sounds came up to us. Screams,
+shouts and the hissing and snapping of ray weapons. Our crew--such of
+them as were loyal--were making a stand below. But it was brief.
+Within a minute it died away. The passengers, amidships in the
+superstructure, were still shouting. Then above them Miko's roar
+sounded.
+
+"Be quiet! Go in your rooms--you will not be harmed."
+
+The brigands in these few minutes were in control of the ship. All but
+this little chart room, where, with most of the ship's weapons, Carter
+and I were entrenched.
+
+"God, Gregg, that this should come upon us!"
+
+Carter was fumbling with the chart room weapons. "Here, Gregg. Help
+me. What have you got? Heat ray? That's all I had ready."
+
+It struck me then as I helped him make the connections that Carter in
+this crisis was at best an inefficient commander. His red face had
+gone splotchy purple; his hands were trembling. Skilled as Captain of
+a peaceful liner, he was at a loss now. But I could not blame him. It
+is easy to say we might have taken warning, done this or that, and
+come triumphant through the attack. But only the fool looks backward
+and says, "I would have done better."
+
+I tried to summon my wits. The ship was lost to us unless Carter and I
+could do something. Our futile weapons! They were all here--four or
+five heat ray hand projectors that could send a pencil ray a hundred
+feet or so. I shot one diagonally up at the turret where Johnson was
+leering down at our rear window, but he saw my gesture and dropped
+back out of sight. The heat beam flashed harmlessly up and struck the
+turret room. Then across the turret window came a sheen of
+radiance--an electrobarrage. And behind it, Hahn's suave, evil face
+appeared. He shouted down:
+
+"We have orders to spare you, Gregg Haljan--or you would have been
+killed long ago!"
+
+My answering shot hit his barrage with a shower of sparks, behind
+which he stood unmoved.
+
+Carter handed me another weapon. "Gregg, try this."
+
+I leveled the old explosive projector; Carter crouched beside me. But
+before I could press the trigger, from somewhere down the starlit deck
+an electro beam hit me. The little rifle exploded, broke its breech. I
+sank back to the floor, tingling from the shock of the hostile
+current. My hands were blackened from the exploded powder.
+
+Carter seized me. "No use. Hurt?"
+
+"No."
+
+The stars through the dome windows were swinging. A long swing--the
+shadows and patterns on the starlit deck were all shifting. The
+_Planetara_ was turning. The heavens revolved in a great round sweep
+of movement, then settled as we took our new course.
+
+Hahn at the turret controls had swung us. The Earth and the Sun showed
+over our bow quarter. The sunlight mingled red-yellow with the
+brilliant starlight. Hahn's signals were sounding; I heard them
+answered from the mechanism rooms down below. Brigands there--in full
+control. The gravity plates were being set to the new positions: We
+were on our new course. Headed a point or two off the Earthline. Not
+headed for the Moon? I wondered.
+
+Carter and I were planning nothing. What was there to plan? We were
+under observation. A Martian paralyzing ray--or an electronic beam,
+far more deadly than our own puny weapons--would have struck us the
+instant we tried to leave the chart room.
+
+My thoughts were interrupted by a shout from down the deck. At a
+corner of the cabin superstructure some fifty feet from our windows
+the figure of Miko appeared. A radiance barrage hung about him like a
+shimmering mantle. His voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan, do you yield?"
+
+Carter leaped up from where he and I were crouching. Against all
+reason of safety he leaned from the low window, waving his hamlike
+fist.
+
+"Yield? No! I am in command here, you pirate! Brigand--murderer!"
+
+I dragged him back sharply. "For God's sake--"
+
+He was spluttering; and over it Miko's sardonic laugh sounded. "Shall
+we argue about it?"
+
+I stood up. "What do you want to say, Miko?"
+
+Behind him the tall, thin figure of his sister showed. She was
+plucking at him. He turned violently. "I won't harm him! Gregg
+Haljan--is this a truce? You will not shoot?" He was shielding Moa.
+
+"No," I called. "For a moment, no. A truce. What is it you want to
+say?"
+
+I could hear the babble of passengers who were herded in the cabin
+with brigands guarding them. George Prince, bare-headed, but shrouded
+in his cloak, showed in a patch of light behind Moa. He looked my way
+and then retreated.
+
+Miko called, "You must yield. We want you, Haljan."
+
+"No doubt," I jeered.
+
+"Alive. It is easy to kill you."
+
+I could not doubt that. Carter and I were little more than rats in a
+trap. But Miko wanted to take me alive: that was not so simple. He
+added persuasively:
+
+"We want you to navigate us. Will you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Will you help us, Captain Carter? Tell your cub, this Haljan, to
+yield."
+
+Carter roared, "Get back from there. There is no truce!"
+
+I shoved aside his leveled projector. "Wait a minute, Miko. Navigate
+where?"
+
+"That is our business. When you come out here, I will give you the
+course."
+
+I realized that all this parley was a ruse of Miko's to take me alive.
+He had made a gesture. Hahn, watching him from the turret window,
+doubtless flashed a signal down to the hull corridors. The magnetizer
+control under the chart room was altered, our artificial gravity cut
+off. I felt the sudden lightness: I gripped the window casement and
+clung. Carter was startled into incautious movement. It flung him out
+into the room, his arms and legs flailing.
+
+And across the chart room, in the opposite window, I felt rather than
+saw the shape of something. A figure, almost invisible but not quite,
+was trying to climb in! I flung the empty rifle I was holding. It hit
+something solid in the window. In a flare of sparks a blackhooded
+figure materialized. A man climbing in! His weapon spat. There was a
+tiny electronic flash, deadly silent. The intruder had shot at Carter:
+struck him. Carter gave one queer scream. He had floated to the floor;
+his convulsive movement when he was hit hurled him to the ceiling. His
+body struck; twitched; bounced back and sank inert on the floor grid
+almost at my feet.
+
+I clung to the casement. Across the room of the weightless room the
+hooded intruder was also clinging. His hood fell back. It was Johnson.
+
+"Killed him, the bully! Now for you, Mr. Third Officer Haljan!"
+
+But he did not dare fire at me. Miko had forbidden it. I saw him reach
+under his robe, doubtless for a low-powered paralyzing ray. But he
+never got it out. I had no weapon within reach. I leaned into the
+room, still holding the casement, and doubled my legs under me. I
+kicked out from the window.
+
+The force catapulted me across the space across the room like a
+volplane. I struck the purser. We gripped. Our locked, struggling
+bodies bounced out into the room. We struck the floor, surged up like
+balloons to the ceiling, struck it with a flailing arm or leg and
+floated back.
+
+Grotesque, abnormal combat! Like fighting in weightless water. Johnson
+clutched his weapon, but I twisted his wrist, held his arm
+outstretched so that he could not aim it. I was aware of Miko's voice
+shouting on the deck outside.
+
+Johnson's left hand was gouging at my face, his fingers digging at my
+eyes. We lunged down.
+
+I twisted his wrists. He dropped the weapon and it sank away, I tried
+to reach it but could not.... Then I had him by the throat. I was
+stronger than he, and more agile. I tried choking him, I had his thick
+bull neck within my fingers. He kicked, scrambled, tore and gouged at
+me. Tried to shout, but it ended in a gurgle. And then, as he felt his
+breath stopped, his hands came up in an effort to tear mine loose.
+
+We sank again to the floor. We were momentarily upright. I felt my
+feet touch. I bent my knees. We sank further. And then I kicked
+violently upward. Our locked bodies shot to the ceiling. Johnson's
+head was above me. It struck the steel roof of the chart room. A
+violent blow. I felt him go suddenly limp. I cast him off and,
+doubling my body, I kicked at the ceiling. It sent me diagonally
+downward to the window, where I clung.
+
+And I saw Miko standing on the deck with a weapon leveled at me!
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+"Haljan! Yield or I'll fire! Moa, give me the smaller one."
+
+He had in his hand too large a projector. Its ray would kill me. If he
+wanted to take me alive, he would not fire. I chanced it.
+
+"No!" I tried to draw myself beneath the window. An automatic
+projector was on the floor where Carter had dropped it. I pulled
+myself down. Miko did not fire. I reached the weapon. The bodies of
+the Captain and Johnson had drifted together on the floor in the
+center of the room.
+
+I hitched myself back to the window. With upraised weapon I gazed
+cautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line of
+vision, was empty.
+
+But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement,
+ready upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in a
+shadow along the deck. Then a figure rose up.
+
+"Don't fire, Haljan!"
+
+The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger. It
+was the tall, lanky Englishman. Sir Arthur Coniston, he as called
+himself. So he too, was one of Miko's band! The light through a dome
+window fell full on him.
+
+"If you fire, Haljan, and kill me--Miko will kill you then, surely."
+
+From where he had been crouching he could not command my window. But
+now, upon the heels of his placating words, he abruptly shot. The
+low-powered ray, had it struck, would have felled me without killing
+me. But it went over my head as I dropped. Its aura made my senses
+reel.
+
+Coniston shouted, "Haljan!"
+
+I did not answer. I wonder if he would dare approach to see if I had
+been hit. A minute passed. Then another. I thought I heard Miko's
+voice on the deck outside. But it was an aerial, microscopic whisper
+close beside me.
+
+"We see you, Haljan. You must yield!"
+
+Their eavesdropping vibrations, with audible projection, were upon me.
+I retorted loudly, "Come and get me! You cannot take me alive!"
+
+I do protest if this action of mine in the chart room may seem
+bravado. I had no wish to die. There was within me a very healthy
+desire for life. But I felt, by holding out, that some chance might
+come wherewith I might turn events against these brigands. Yet reason
+told me it was hopeless. Our loyal members of the crew were killed, no
+doubt. Captain Carter and Balch were dead. The lookouts and course
+masters, also. And Blackstone.
+
+There remained only Dr. Frank and Snap. Their fate I did not yet know.
+And there was George Prince. He, perhaps, would help me if he could.
+But, at best, he was a dubious ally.
+
+"You are very foolish, Haljan," murmured Miko's voice. And then I
+heard Coniston:
+
+"See here, why would not a hundred pounds of gold leaf tempt you? The
+code words which were taken from Johnson--I mean to say, why not tell
+us where they are?"
+
+So that was one of the brigands' new difficulties! Snap had taken the
+code word sheet that time we sealed the purser in the cage.
+
+I said, "You'll never find them. And when a police ship sights us,
+what will you do then?"
+
+The chances of a police ship were slight indeed, but the brigands
+evidently did not know that. I wondered again what had become of Snap.
+Was he captured or still holding them off?
+
+I was watching my windows; for at any moment, under the cover of talk,
+I might be assailed.
+
+Gravity came suddenly to the room. Miko's voice said: "We mean well by
+you, Haljan. There is your normality. Join us. We need you to chart
+our course."
+
+"And a hundred pounds of gold leaf," urged Coniston. "Or more. Why,
+this treasure--"
+
+I could hear an oath from Miko. And then his ironic voice. "We will
+not bother you, Haljan. There is no hurry. You will be hungry in good
+time. And sleepy. Then we will come and get you. And a little acid
+will help you to think differently about us...."
+
+His vibrations died away. The pull of gravity in the room was normal.
+I was alone in the dim silence, with the bodies of Carter and Johnson
+huddled on the grid. I bent to examine them. Both were dead.
+
+My isolation was not ruse this time. The outlaws made no further
+attack. Half an hour passed. The deck outside, what I could see of it,
+was vacant. Balch lay dead close outside the chart room door. The
+bodies of Blackstone and the course master had been removed from the
+turret window. As a forward lookout, one of Miko's men was on duty in
+the nearby tower. Hahn was at the turret's controls. The ship was
+under orderly handling, heading back upon a new course. For the Earth?
+The Moon? It did not seem so.
+
+I found, in the chart room, a Benson curve light projector which poor
+Captain Carter had nearly assembled. I worked on it, trained it
+through my rear window along the empty deck; bent it into the lounge
+archway. Upon my grid the image of the lounge interior presently
+focused. The passengers in the lounge were huddled in a group.
+Disheveled, frightened, with Moa standing watching them. Stewards were
+serving them with a meal.
+
+Upon a bench, bodies were lying. Some were dead. I saw Rance Rankin.
+Others were evidently only injured. Dr. Frank was moving among them,
+attending them. Venza was there, unharmed. And I saw the gamblers,
+Shac and Dud, sitting white-faced, whispering together. And Glutz's
+little beribboned, becurled figure on a stool.
+
+George Prince was there, standing against the wall, shrouded in his
+mourning cloak, watching the scene with alert, roving eyes. And by the
+opposite doorway, the huge towering figure of Miko stood on guard. But
+Snap was missing.
+
+A brief glimpse. Miko saw my Benson light. I could have equipped a
+heat ray and fired along the curved Benson light into that lounge. But
+Miko gave me no time.
+
+He slid the lounge door closed, and Moa leaped to close the one on my
+side. My grid showed only the blank deck and door.
+
+Another interval. I had made plans. Futile plans! I could get into the
+turret perhaps, and kill Hahn. I had the invisible cloak which Johnson
+was wearing. I took it from his body. Its mechanism could be repaired.
+Why, with it I could creep about the ship, kill these brigands one by
+one, perhaps. George Prince would be with me. The brigands who had
+been posing as the stewards and crew members were unable to navigate;
+they would obey my orders. There were only Miko, Coniston and Hahn to
+kill.
+
+From my window I could gaze up to the radio room. And now, abruptly, I
+heard Snap's voice: "No! I tell you--no!"
+
+And Miko, "Very well, then. We'll try this."
+
+So Snap was captured but not killed. Relief swept me. He was in the
+radio room and Miko was with him. But my relief was short-lived. After
+a brief interval, there came a moan from Snap. It floated down the
+silence overhead and made me shudder.
+
+My Benson beam shot into the radio room. It showed me Snap lying there
+on the floor. He was bound with wire. His torso had been stripped. His
+livid face was ghastly plain in my light.
+
+Miko was bending over him. Miko with a heat cylinder no longer than a
+finger. Its needle beam played upon Snap's naked chest. I could see
+the gruesome little trail of smoke rising; and as Snap twisted and
+jerked, there on his flesh was the red and blistered trail of the
+violet ray.
+
+"Now will you tell?"
+
+"No!"
+
+Miko laughed. "No? Then I shall write my name a little deeper...."
+
+A black sear now--a trail etched in the quivering flesh.
+
+"Oh!" Snap's face went white as chalk as he pressed his lips together.
+
+"Or a little acid? This fire-writing does not really hurt? Tell me
+what you did with those code words!"
+
+"No!"
+
+In his absorption Miko did not notice my light. Nor did I have the wit
+to try and fire along it. I was trembling. Snap under torture!
+
+As the beam went deeper. Snap suddenly screamed. But he ended, "No! I
+will send no message for you--"
+
+It had been only a moment. In the chart room window beside me again a
+figure appeared! No image. A solid, living person, undisguised by any
+cloak of invisibility. George Prince had chanced my fire and crept
+upon me.
+
+"Haljan! Don't attack me."
+
+I dropped my light connections. As impulsively I stood up, I saw
+through the window the figure of Coniston on the deck watching the
+result of Prince's venture.
+
+"Haljan--yield."
+
+Prince no more than whispered it. He stood outside on the deck; the
+low window casement touched his waist. He leaned over it.
+
+"He's torturing Snap! Call out that you will yield."
+
+The thought had already been in my mind. Another scream from Snap
+filled me with horror. I shouted, "Miko! Stop!"
+
+I rushed to the window and Prince gripped me. "Louder!"
+
+I called louder: "Miko! Stop!" My upflung voice mingled with Snap's
+agony of protest. Then Miko heard me. His head and shoulders showed up
+there at the radio room oval.
+
+"You--Haljan?"
+
+Prince shouted, "I have made him yield. He will obey you if you stop
+that torture."
+
+I think that poor Snap must have fainted. He was silent. I called,
+"Stop! I will do what you command."
+
+Miko jeered, "That is good. A bargain, if you and Dean obey me. Disarm
+him, Prince, and bring him out."
+
+Miko moved back into the radio room. On the deck, Coniston was
+advancing, but cautiously mistrustful of me.
+
+"Gregg."
+
+George Prince flung a leg over the casement and leaped lightly into
+the dim chart room. His small slender figure stood beside me, clung to
+me.
+
+A moment, while we stood there together. No ray was upon us. Coniston
+could not see us, nor could he hear our whispers.
+
+"Gregg."
+
+A different voice; its throaty, husky quality gone. A soft pleading.
+"Gregg--Gregg, don't you know me? Gregg, dear...."
+
+Why, what was this? Not George Prince? A masquerader, yet so like
+George Prince.
+
+"Gregg don't you know me?"
+
+Clinging to me. A soft touch upon my arm. Fingers, clinging. A surge
+of warm, tingling current was flowing between us.
+
+My sweep of instant thoughts. A speck of human Earth dust falling
+free. That was George Prince who had been killed. George Prince's
+body, disguised by the scheming Carter and Dr. Frank, buried in the
+guise of his sister. And this black-robed figure who was trying to
+help me....
+
+"Anita! Anita darling--"
+
+"Gregg, dear one!"
+
+"Anita!" My arms went around her, my lips pressed hers, and felt her
+tremulous eager answer.
+
+The form of Coniston showed at our window. She cast me off. She said,
+with her throaty swagger of amused, masculinity:
+
+"I have him, Sir Arthur. He will obey us."
+
+I sensed her warning glance. She shoved me toward the window. She
+said ironically, "Have no fear, Haljan. You will not be tortured, you
+and Dean, if you obey our commands."
+
+Coniston gripped me. "You fool! You caused us a lot of trouble. Move
+along there!"
+
+He jerked me roughly through the window. Marched me the length of the
+deck, out to the stern space, opened the door of my cubby, flung me in
+and sealed the door upon me.
+
+"Miko will come presently."
+
+I stood in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to his retreating
+footsteps. But my mind was not upon him.
+
+All the universe, in that instant, had changed for me. Anita was
+alive!
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+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 bare-headed; 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 on 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 Greater 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 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."
+
+"You are modest." He fumbled at a pocket of his jacket, produced a
+scroll-sheaf. I recognized it. Blackstone's figures. The calculation
+Blackstone made 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 knocked me back to
+my bunk.
+
+"You dare?" Then he smiled. "Let us not come to blows!"
+
+In truth, physical violence could get me nothing. 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? This
+great adventure of mine is progressing perfectly. A tremendous stake,
+Haljan. A hundred million dollars in gold leaf. There will be fabulous
+riches for all of us--"
+
+"But where are we going?"
+
+"To that asteroid," he said. "I must get rid of these passengers. I am
+no murderer."
+
+With a half-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 perfectly safe and 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 our encountering
+one are very slim." He grinned at me. "You know that as well as I do.
+And we now have those code passwords--I forced Dean to tell me where
+he had hidden them. If we should be challenged, our password 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 them 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; he gazed at 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 science is valuable to
+us."
+
+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. 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 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 he took from Johnson?"
+
+"Yes. There was a fool, for you! That Johnson! You blame me, Haljan,
+for the death of Carter? You need not. Johnson offered to try and
+capture you, take you both alive. He killed Carter because he was
+angry with him. A stupid, vengeful fool! He is dead and I'm 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 play the fool," 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, Coniston, Hahn--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_ so 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 for that."
+
+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."
+
+"Suppose you let me have a talk with Prince? I have some scientific
+knowledge myself about the powers of this catalyst. Prince's knowledge
+and mine--we might be able to come to a calculation on the value of
+Grantline's treasure. You don't know. You are only assuming."
+
+I paused after this glib outburst. 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 to the asteroid?"
+
+"Yes. And 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 on Grantline's possibilities."
+
+I shot Miko a foxy look as he stood by the door. I added, "You think
+you are clever. There is plenty you don't know. Our first night out
+from 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 hundred
+million, or two hundred million--it would make a big difference,
+Miko."
+
+"I will think about it." He backed out and sealed the door upon me.
+
+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?"
+
+"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.
+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 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.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+A moment when, beyond the thought of the nearby brigand--or the
+possibility of an eavesdropping ray trained now upon my 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 Grantline's findings!" I said aloud. "In his 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, 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 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--put masculinity here.
+
+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 his love for his sister. Some years ago he had fallen into
+evil ways. Been arrested, and then been discharged from his position
+with the Federated Corporation. He had taken up with evil companions
+in Greater 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. But 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, and incautiously she had 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 didn't know that poor George had fallen into
+such evil ways."
+
+She whispered, "But I love you, Gregg. I want to be the first to say
+it: I love you--I love you."
+
+We had the sanity to try and plan.
+
+"Anita, tell Miko we discussed the multiple powers of the catalyst.
+Discussed how carefully it would have to be transported; how to gauge
+its worth. You'll have to be careful, clever. Don't say too much. Tell
+him we estimate the value at about a hundred and thirty millions."
+
+I repeated what Miko had told me of his plans. She knew all that. And
+Snap knew it. She had a few moments alone with Snap and 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, that 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
+about 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 radio 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 and try to get the weapons."
+
+"Where is Snap?"
+
+"Still in the radio room. One of the crew guards him."
+
+Coniston was roaming the ship. He was still loitering on the deck,
+watching my 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 others. My thoughts leaped to it. We would strike down the
+guard in the radio 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. In good time Miko will trust you with your liberty. You'll be
+rich like all of us. 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?
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+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 in a low whisper.
+
+I held her for an instant, kissed her. But she pushed me away with
+quick hands. She was breathless.
+
+"Yes, 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 smaller size: it would paralyze but not kill.
+
+"Only one, Anita?"
+
+"Yes. And this--"
+
+The invisible cloak. We laid it on my grid, and I adjusted its
+mechanism. I donned it and drew its hood, and threw on its current.
+
+"All right, Anita?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can you see me?"
+
+"No." She had stepped back a foot or two. "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 unnoticed.
+
+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 lookouts
+in the forward and stern watch towers, and a guard upon Snap in the
+radio room.
+
+"Is he inside the room, Anita?"
+
+"Snap? Yes."
+
+"No--the guard."
+
+"The guard was sitting on 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.
+
+"Coniston is the sharpest, Gregg. He will be the hardest to get near."
+
+"Where is Miko?"
+
+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 whispered. "And get
+the other weapons. Are they still there?"
+
+"Yes. But the forward deck is very bright, Gregg."
+
+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 nonappearance 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 to
+release Snap.
+
+We were ready. Anita slid my door open. 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 lookout sat in his little tower. He gazed
+down at Anita.
+
+Amidships, high over the cabin superstructure, the radio 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 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 light
+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, Miss. 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 can 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 short-circuited my robe. There was a hiss. My current
+burned out the tiny fuses.
+
+My invisibility was gone! I stood, a tall, blackhooded 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 not I boldly start an assault?
+
+"Gregg, we must get you back to your cubby!" She was clinging to me in
+panic.
+
+"No. You run! Get away from me! Don't you understand? George Prince
+has no business here with me! They'll kill you!"
+
+"Gregg, let's get back to the deck."
+
+I pushed at her, both of us in 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-cloaked shape of him was in the
+nearby doorway. He stood stricken with 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 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. 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 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, 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!
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+"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 tense and alert, fearful
+still of what Anita's emotion might betray her into doing.
+
+"Not so loyal," Miko repeated. "And a fool!"
+
+"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 approached the
+asteroid."
+
+"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 lookouts," Anita said. "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 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 said 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 thought he could seize this 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.
+
+"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 chill 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. "Moa wants to try and put sense in your head--I
+hope she does it. Bring him to the lounge when you have finished.
+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."
+
+She came and sat down beside me. "If you should attempt to leave this
+room, the stern lookout has orders to bore you through."
+
+"I have no intention of leaving this 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 heedless?"
+
+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--"
+
+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 on 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.
+
+"Well, why don't you tell me?" I said. "If I am to help...."
+
+"Gregg, I want you with us. Don't you understand. And we are not many,
+really. 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?"
+
+"Yes," I said. "And the other ship--how fast is it?"
+
+"Quite fast. In eight days--perhaps nine, it will reach the Moon."
+
+She seemed willing enough to talk. There was indeed, no reason why she
+shouldn't: I could not, she naturally felt, turn the knowledge to
+account. Certainly my position seemed desperately helpless.
+
+"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 tomorrow--where is our
+equipment?"
+
+The Moon, with its lack of atmosphere, needed special equipment. I had
+never heard Captain 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
+Greater New York on this voyage without our own apparatus. My brother
+and Coniston and Prince--all of us snipped 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
+intense.
+
+"Gregg, I told you once a Martian girl goes after what she wants. It
+is you I want--"
+
+Not for me to play upon a woman's emotions! "Moa, you flatter me."
+
+"I love you." She held me off, gazing at me. "Gregg--"
+
+I must have smiled. Abruptly she released me.
+
+"So you think it amusing?"
+
+"No. But on Earth--"
+
+"We are not on 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?"
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+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?"
+
+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 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 were 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 Earth and you a girl
+of Mars."
+
+"Is that reason why we should not love?"
+
+"No. But our instincts are different. Men of 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 while 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."
+
+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 lookout, who was
+alertly watching the stern watchtower.
+
+I stepped out, and followed her forward along the deck, which now was
+bright with the radiance of the nearby asteroid.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+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 vantage point, all of the little
+globe's disc was visible. 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 girl seemed to see
+in my uniform a mark of authority. She left her mother and ran to me.
+
+"You--please, will you 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 on this ill-fated
+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, and was the first
+to speak.
+
+"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 five bodies. Rankin, who had been
+killed by Blackstone in the fight; a man passenger killed; a woman and
+a man wounded, as well.
+
+Miko added, "Dr. Frank will take his medical supplies and 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 eying me. I said:
+
+"You have nothing to fear. I will guarantee you the best equipment we
+can spare." I turned to Miko. "You will give them apparatus with which
+to signal?"
+
+"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 a word
+with me.
+
+I stood before the terrified woman while the child 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 go ashore."
+
+"Why? Of course you will have food, Mrs. Francis."
+
+"Never mind details! 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?"
+
+"Yes. I am no more anxious for a crash than you are, Hahn."
+
+He sighed with relief. "That is true, of course. I am no expert at
+atmospheric entry."
+
+"Have no fear. Sit down, Moa."
+
+I waved to the lookout in the forward watch tower, and got his routine
+gesture. I rang the corridor bells, and the normal signals came
+promptly back.
+
+I turned to Hahn. "Get along, won't you? 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 radio 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 seem 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 rarefied 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 verdurous 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, verdurous 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 had 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 thoughts 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 be 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.
+
+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 radio room doorway. But his guard
+was alert with upraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in his
+position, 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, a clanking
+chain connected them. They came like a line of convicts, marching
+forward, and stopped on the open deck 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 searchbeams 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 some
+last minute desperate purposes?
+
+I determined I would do what she said. Shout, or mis-order the lights.
+That would be easy.
+
+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 probable 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 long 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 lookouts 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."
+
+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, disheveled, half-clothed men of these
+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 gaze upon me. Her knife gleamed in the turret light.
+
+She murmured again, "In a few moments you can bring 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
+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 forward
+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 wondered 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.
+
+She fought me as I tried to reach the switch. I saw down on the deck.
+Miko was 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 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 all. And the course masters and those of our crew who had
+been killed.
+
+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 radio 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 began shifting 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 mingling 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 up gently, bow first, with a repulsion of the bow plates. And
+started the central electronic engine. Its thrust from the 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 world.
+
+With the three engines going, we slid smoothly upward. The forest
+dropped, a purple spread of treetops edged with starlight and
+Earthlight. The sharply curving horizon seemed to follow us upward. 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."
+
+"I didn'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 back 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
+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
+missed my cue? Whatever my part, it seemed now that I must have
+horribly misacted 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 on our course to the Moon. My mind flung ahead. Grantline
+with his treasure, unsuspecting this brigand ship. And suddenly,
+beyond all thought of Grantline, 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. 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 a fool, never thought of that! Had let her remain
+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.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+"Try again. By the infernal, Snap Dean, if you do anything to balk us,
+you die!"
+
+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 radio
+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. A silver quadrant. The sunset caught the Lunar
+mountains, flung slanting shadows over the Lunar plains. All the disc
+was plainly visible. The mellow Earthlight 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.
+
+Miko for a time had been at my side in the turret. I had not seen
+Coniston or Hahn of recent hours. I had slept, awakened refreshed, and
+had a meal. Coniston and Hahn remained below, one or 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 radio
+room.
+
+"You are skillful, Haljan." A measure of grim approval was in his
+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 makeshift 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 radio room. Moa was
+here, close beside me. I felt always her watchful gaze, so that even
+the play of my emotions 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 sullen. This
+is how they thought of Anita.
+
+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 window. 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
+earlier on the voyage. But he grinned at the brigand's words, and
+pushed his straggling hair closer under the red eyeshade.
+
+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 grids 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
+thumbnail mirror here which would bring an answer.
+
+Would some Earth telescope be able to see us? I doubted it. The
+pinpoint of the _Planetara's_ infinitesimal bulk would be beyond
+vision.
+
+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 spectro. 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 ray mirrors? If the treasure lies exposed--"
+
+This Martian's knowledge was far greater than we believed. He grinned
+sardonically at Anita. "If our treasure is here on this hemisphere,
+Prince, we should pick up its rays. Don't you think so? Or is
+Grantline too cautious to leave it exposed?"
+
+Anita spoke in a careful, throaty drawl. "The rays came through 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?"
+
+"It might," Snap agreed. "You think he may be on the northern inner
+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."
+
+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 several times Snap endeavored 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-ray--a gray
+cathedral shaft crossing the room and falling upon the opposite wall.
+An unreality there, as the zed-ray 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 was undoubtedly 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 ore.
+
+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 off nearest Apennine range."
+
+The message broke off. But even its importance was overshadowed. Miko
+stood in the center of the radio room, triumphantly reading the little
+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 over 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 spectro, 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!"
+
+Again Miko stood staring. 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, Hamlet-like face. Dear God, the
+zed-ray light 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 now. 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 at us.
+
+Then Miko leaped at Anita like a giant gray leopard pouncing.
+
+"Away with that cloak, Prince!"
+
+I stood cold and numbed. And realization came at last. The faint
+zed-light had fallen by chance upon Anita's face. Penetrating the
+flesh; exposed, faintly glowing, the bone line of her jaw. Unmasked
+the art of Glutz.
+
+Miko seized her wrists, 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 on 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 grids were swaying again with a
+message from Grantline. But it was ignored.
+
+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!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Moonlight upon Earth so gently shines to make romantic a lover's
+smile! But the reality of the Lunar night is cold beyond human belief.
+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 midway 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
+Earthlight tinged the spires and crags with yellow sheen; and on the
+shelf, like a huddled group of birds' nests, Grantline's domes hung
+and gazed down upon the inner valley.
+
+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 capacity. The chemistry of manufactured air, the pressure
+equalizers, renewers, respirators, the lighting and temperature
+maintenance of a space-flyer was here.
+
+There was this main Grantline building, stretched low and rectangular
+along the front edge of the ledge. Within it were living rooms, mess
+hall 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 bores had dug into the cliff.
+Braced tunnels were here, penetrating back and downward into the vein
+of rock.
+
+The work was over. 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. Trucks 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 catalytic 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 hiding 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, unknown to Grantline and his 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.
+
+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.
+
+He stopped presently and disconnected metal weights which were upon
+his shoes.
+
+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 of 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.
+
+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.
+
+"All as usual. This cursed Moon! When I get home--if I ever do--"
+
+"Say your say, Wilks. But you'll spend your share of the gold leaf and
+thank your constellations that you had your chance to make it."
+
+"Let him alone! Come on, Wilks, take a hand here. This game is not any
+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!"
+
+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--this doing nothing."
+
+"He's been struck by Earthlight," 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, blazing stars and flaming
+Sun, with no atmosphere to diffuse 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 beloved Earth disc hanging poised
+up near the zenith. From thinnest crescent to full Earth, then back 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 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
+the premonition strong within him. Unreasonably, ominous depression!
+Barring the accident which had disabled his little spaceship when they
+reached this small crater hole, his expedition had gone well. His
+instruments, and the information he had from the former explorers, had
+enabled him to pick up the catalyst vein with only one month of
+search.
+
+The vein had now been exhausted; but the treasure was here--enough to
+supply every need on his Earth! Nothing was left but to wait for the
+_Planetara_. The men were talking of that now.
+
+"She ought to be well midway from 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."
+
+"Ha! He's inventing a Lunar language. You'll be a Moon man yet."
+
+Olaf Swenson, the big blond fellow from the Scandia fiords, came and
+flung himself down beside Grantline.
+
+"Ay tank they bane without enough to do, Commander ----"
+
+"Three weeks isn't very long, Ole."
+
+"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."
+
+"Shut up, Billy. She _is_ smashed."
+
+"You all agreed to things as they are," Johnny said shortly. "We all
+took the same chances--voluntarily."
+
+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 made him seem older. He stood up now,
+surveying the blue lit glassite room with its low ceiling close
+overhead. He was bow-legged; in movement he seemed to roll with a
+stiff-legged gait like some sea captains of former days on the deck of
+his swaying ship. Odd looking figure! Heavy flannel shirt and
+trousers, boots heavily weighted, and bulky metal-loaded belt strapped
+about his waist.
+
+He grinned at Swenson. "When the time comes to divide this treasure,
+everyone will be happy, Ole."
+
+The treasure was estimated 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 for commercial use. Ninety
+millions, with only a million and a half to come off for expedition
+expenses, and the _Planetara'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 radio 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--"
+
+"Low scale, Peter?"
+
+"Yes. Weakest infra-red. I'm bringing it up, even though it uses too
+much of our power."
+
+"Get it," said Grantline shortly.
+
+"I got one slight television swing a minute ago--then it faded. I
+think it's the _Planetara_."
+
+"_Planetara_!" The crowding group of men chorused. How could it be the
+_Planetara_?
+
+But it was. The call came in presently. 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_ had for so long been awaited
+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 barrage."
+
+"I'll go. My suit is here."
+
+A willing volunteer rushed out to the shed.
+
+"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. 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 television again. 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 frightened. "You'll bulge out our walls,
+Commander. The internal pressure--"
+
+"We'll chance it."
+
+They picked up the image of the _Planetara_. It 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's needle. It
+was moving now. The _Planetara_ was descending. But not with an
+orderly swoop.
+
+The grid 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 in 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!
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+On the _Planetara_, in the radio 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,
+little Anita, you were masquerading to spy on me? That was wrong of
+you."
+
+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
+on this catastrophe!
+
+The completion of Grantline's message had come unnoticed by us all. We
+remained tense.
+
+"Look! Grantline again!" Snap said abruptly.
+
+But the mirrors were steadying. We had no recording mechanism; the
+rest of the message was lost.
+
+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
+these 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 as 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 as 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 scientific 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. 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? 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--"
+
+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
+stared at Anita.
+
+"I say, not George Prince? The girl--"
+
+"No time for explanations," Miko commanded. "It's the girl,
+masquerading as her brother. Get below, Coniston. Haljan takes us
+down."
+
+The astounded Englishman continued to gaze at Anita. But he said, "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--"
+
+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, 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 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 the 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 position they were placed only in port! And their shifting
+mechanisms were imperative!
+
+I was on my feet. "We're in neutral!"
+
+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?"
+
+The heavens turned with a giant swoop. The Moon was over us. It swung
+in a 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 I think all of us in the 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 down!
+
+"That accursed Hahn--"
+
+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 for
+that.
+
+But we were falling. Unless I could do something, we would crash upon
+the Lunar surface.
+
+Anita, killed in this turret: the end of everything--every hope.
+
+Action came to me. I gasped, "Miko, you stay here! The controls are
+dead! You stay here and hold Anita--"
+
+I ignored Moa's weapon. Snap thrust her away.
+
+"We're falling, you fool--let us alone!"
+
+Miko gasped, "Can you--check us? What happened?"
+
+"I don't know--"
+
+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 lookout in the forward tower was clinging to our window. On the
+deck below our turret a member of the crew appeared, stood lurching
+for a moment, then shouted 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 deck.
+
+I pulled at the emergency switch again. Dead....
+
+"Snap, we must get down. The signals."
+
+Coniston's voice came like a scream from the grid. "Hahn is dead. The
+controls are broken!"
+
+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. It seemed that from the turret Anita's voice
+followed us. "Be careful!"
+
+Once inside 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 there was anything 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 forces with our
+magnetizers; a lightening, when it was overhead. A throbbing, pendulum
+lurch!
+
+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 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 instinct to try and get on deck, as though here below we
+were rats caught in a trap. The men tore away from us 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!"
+
+Hahn was sprawled at the gravity plate switchboard. Sprawled, head
+down. Dead. Killed? 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? Why?
+
+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!
+
+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 the
+pumps."
+
+He dashed away. Snap called after him, "Kill them if they argue!"
+
+Miko's voice sounded from the turret call grid: "Falling! Haljan, you
+can see it now! Check us!"
+
+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."
+
+One of the crew rebelled, tried to bolt from the room.
+
+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 on us was more than half
+neutralized.
+
+"I'll go up, Snap, and try the engines. You don't mind staying down
+here? 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-bye, Gregg. We'll fall--fighting."
+
+"Yes. Fighting. Coniston, you keep the pressure up."
+
+With the broken 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. Oh, 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.
+
+Those last horrible minutes were a blur. And there was always Anita's
+face. She left Miko. Faced with death, he sat clinging. 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
+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.
+
+"Gregg, dear one--good-bye."
+
+Her gentle arms about me. The end of everything for us. I recall
+murmuring, "Not falling free, Anita. Some hull plates are set."
+
+My dials showed another plate shifting, checking us a little further.
+Good old Snap!
+
+I calculated the next best plate to shift. I tried it. Slid it over.
+
+Then everything faded but the feeling of Anita's arms around me.
+
+"Gregg, dear one--"
+
+The end of everything for us....
+
+There was an up-rush of gray-black rock.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt--a pain
+shooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not
+seem to move my left arm. Then I moved it and it hurt. I was lying
+twisted. I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was over. I
+was not dead. Anita--
+
+She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in the silent
+blur--a soft mellow Earthlight filtering in the window. The weight on
+me was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way across
+my lap.
+
+Not dead! Thank God, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, and
+I lifted her. The Earthlight glowed on her pale face.
+
+"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive."
+
+I held her as though all of life's turgid dangers were powerless to
+touch us.
+
+But in the silence my floating senses were brought back to reality by
+a faint sound forcing itself upon me. A little hiss. The faintest
+murmuring breath like a hiss. Escaping air!
+
+I cast off Anita's clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"
+
+For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our
+embrace. But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken and
+our precious air was hissing out.
+
+Full reality came to me. I was not seriously injured. I found I could
+move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, but
+they were better in a moment.
+
+And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not her
+own.
+
+Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giant
+figure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. A
+widening pool.
+
+Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. This
+soundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its two
+motionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I were
+ghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to 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 lookout.
+
+So this was the end of the brigands' adventure. The _Planetara's_ last
+voyage! How small and futile are humans' struggles. Miko's daring
+enterprise--so villainous--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!"
+
+"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg."
+
+She was staring at the fallen Miko and Moa. She shuddered and turned
+away and gripped me. "In the forward storage room, by the port of the
+emergency exit."
+
+If only the exit locks would operate! We must find Snap and get out of
+here. Good old Snap! Would we find him lying dead?
+
+We climbed from the slanting, fallen turret, over the wreckage of the
+littered deck. It was not difficult. A lightness was upon us. 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!"
+
+With a fifteen foot leap we cleared a pile of broken deck chairs. A
+man lay groaning near them. I went back with a rush. Not Snap! A
+steward. He had been a brigand, but he was a steward to me now.
+
+"Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here The air is
+escaping!"
+
+But he sank back and lay still. No time to find if I could help him:
+there was Anita and Snap to save.
+
+We found a broken entrance to one of the descending passages. I flung
+the debris aside and cleared it. Like a giant of strength with only
+this Moon gravity holding me, I raised a broken segment of
+superstructure and heaved it back.
+
+Anita and I dropped ourselves down the sloping passage. The interior
+of the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage light
+was still burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckage
+everywhere but the double dome and hull shell had withstood the shock.
+Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat,
+like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling on
+everything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would soon be
+here in these wrecked corridors. The end of the _Planetara_.
+
+We prowled like ghouls. We did not see Coniston. Snap had been by the
+shifter pumps. We found him in the oval doorway. He lay sprawled.
+Dead? No, he moved. He sat up before we could get to him. He seemed
+confused, but his senses clarified with the movement of our figures
+over him.
+
+"Gregg! Why, Anita!"
+
+"Snap! You're all right? We struck--the air is escaping."
+
+He pushed me away. He tried to stand. "I'm all right. I was up a
+minute ago. Gregg, it's getting cold. Where is she? I had her
+here--she wasn't killed. I spoke to her."
+
+Irrational!
+
+"Snap!" I held him. Shook him. "Snap, old fellow!"
+
+He said normally, "Easy, Gregg. I'm all right."
+
+Anita gripped him. "Who, Snap?"
+
+"She--there she is...."
+
+Another figure was here! On the grid floor by the door oval. A figure
+partly shrouded in a broken invisible cloak and hook. An invisible
+cloak! I saw a white face with opened eyes regarding me.
+
+"Venza!" I bent down. "You!"
+
+Venza here? Why ... how ... my thoughts swept on. Venza here--dying?
+Her eyes closed. But she murmured to Anita, "Where is he? I want him."
+
+I murmured impulsively, "Here I am, Venza dear." Gently, as one would
+speak with gentle sympathy to humor the dying. "Here I am, Venza."
+
+But it was only the confusion of the shock upon her. 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 shock,
+confused in the dim, wrecked ship with the chill of death coming--even
+here she could jest. Her pale lips smiled.
+
+"You, Gregg. I'm not hurt--I don't think I'm hurt." She managed to get
+herself up on one elbow. "Did you think I wanted you with my dying
+breath? What conceit! Not you, Handsome Haljan! I was calling Snap."
+
+He was down to her. "We're all right, Venza. It's over. We must get
+out of the ship. The air is escaping."
+
+We gathered in the oval doorway. We fought the confusion of panic.
+
+"The exit port is this way."
+
+Or was it? I answered Snap, "Yes, I think so."
+
+The ship suddenly seemed a stranger to me. So cold. So vibrationless.
+Broken lights. These slanting wrecked corridors. With the ventilating
+fans stilled, the air was turning fetid. Chilling. And thinning, with
+escaping pressure, rarefying so that I could feel the grasp of it in
+my lungs and the pin-pricks in my cheeks.
+
+We started off. Four of us, still alive in this silent ship of death.
+My blurred thoughts tried to cope with it all. Venza here. I
+remembered how she had bade me create a diversion when the women
+passengers were landing on the asteroid. She had carried out her
+purpose! In the confusion she had not gone ashore. A stowaway here.
+She had secured the cloak. Prowling, to try and help us, she had come
+upon Hahn. Had seized his ray cylinder and struck him down, and been
+herself knocked unconscious by his dying lunge, which also had broken
+the tubes and wrecked 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 to which she referred.
+We located four suits and helmets and the mechanisms to operate them.
+
+"More are in the chart room," Anita said.
+
+But we needed no others. I robed Anita and showed her the mechanisms.
+Snap was helping Venza. We were all stiff from the cold; but within
+the suits and their pulsing currents, the blessed warmth came again.
+
+The helmets had ports through which food and drink could be taken. I
+stood with my helmet ready. Anita, Venza and Snap were bloated and
+grotesque beside me. We had found food and water here, assembled in
+portable cases which the brigands had prepared. Snap lifted them, and
+signaled to me he was ready.
+
+My helmet shut out all sounds save my own breathing, my pounding
+heart, and the murmur of the mechanism. The warmth and pure air were
+good.
+
+We reached the hull port locks. They operated! We went through in the
+light of the headlamps over our foreheads.
+
+I closed the locks after us: an instinct to keep the air in the ship
+for the other trapped humans lying in there.
+
+We slid down the sloping side of the _Planetara_. We were unweighted,
+irrationally agile with this slight gravity. I fell a dozen feet and
+landed with barely a jar.
+
+We were out on the Lunar surface. A great sloping ramp of crags
+stretched down before us. Gray-black rock tinged with Earthlight. The
+Earth hung amid the stars in the blackness overhead like a huge
+section of a glowing yellow ball.
+
+This grim, desolate, silent landscape! Beyond the ramp, fifty feet
+below us, a tumbled naked plain stretched away into blurred distance.
+But I could see mountains off there. Behind us, the towering, frowning
+rampart-wall of Archimedes loomed against the sky.
+
+I had turned to look back at 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
+skillful. 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 track of time. Occasionally we stopped to
+rest. Were we going toward the Grantline camp? Would they see our tiny
+waving headlights?
+
+Another interval. Then far ahead of us on the ragged plain, lights
+showed! Moving, tiny spots of light! Headlights on helmeted figures!
+
+We ran, monstrously leaping. A group of figures were off there.
+Grantline's party? Snap gripped me.
+
+"Grantline! We're safe, Gregg! Safe!"
+
+He took his bulb light from his helmet; we stood in a group while he
+waved it. A semaphore signal.
+
+"_Grantline?_"
+
+And the answer came, "_Yes. You, Dean?_"
+
+Their personal code. No doubt of this--it was Grantline, who had seen
+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, weird, inflated figures.
+
+A helmeted figure touched me. I saw through the helmetpane the visage
+of a stern-faced, square-jawed young man.
+
+"Grantline? Johnny Grantline?"
+
+"Yes," said his voice at my ear-grid. "I'm Grantline. You're Haljan?
+Gregg Haljan?"
+
+They crowded around us. Gripped us, to hear our explanations.
+
+Brigands! It was amazing to Johnny Grantline. But the menace was over
+now, over as soon as Grantline realized its existence.
+
+We stood for a brief time discussing it. Then I drew apart, leaving
+Snap with Grantline. And Anita joined me. I held her arm so that we
+had audiphone contact.
+
+"Anita, mine."
+
+"Gregg--dear one!"
+
+Murmured nothings which mean so much to lovers!
+
+As we stood in the fantastic gloom of Lunar desolation, with the
+blessed Earthlight on us, I sent up a prayer of thankfulness. Not that
+the enormous treasure was saved. Not that the attack upon Grantline
+had been averted. But only that Anita was given back to me. In moments
+of greatest emotion the human mind individualizes. To me, there was
+only Anita.
+
+Life is very strange! The gate to the shining garden of our love
+seemed swinging wide to let us in. Yet I recall that a vague fear
+still lay on me. A premonition?
+
+I felt a touch on my arm. A bloated helmet visor was thrust near my
+own. I saw Snap's face peering at me.
+
+"Grantline thinks we should return to the _Planetara_. Might find some
+of them alive."
+
+Grantline touched me. "It's only human--"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+We went back. Some ten of us--a line of grotesque figures bounding
+with slow, easy strides over the jagged, rock-strewn plain. Our lights
+danced before us.
+
+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 with Earthlight straggling through the
+windows.
+
+This littered tomb. Cold and silent with death. We stumbled over a
+fallen figure. A member of the crew. Grantline straightened from
+examining it.
+
+"Dead," he said.
+
+Earthlight fell on the horrible face. Puffed flesh, bloated red from
+the blood which had oozed from its pores in the thinning air. I looked
+away.
+
+We prowled further. Hahn lay dead in the pump room. The body of
+Coniston should have been near here. We did not see it. We climbed up
+to the slanting, littered deck. The air up here had all almost hissed
+away.
+
+Again Grantline touched me. "That the turret?"
+
+No wonder he asked me! The wreckage was all so formless.
+
+"Yes."
+
+We climbed after Snap into the broken turret room. We passed the body
+of that steward who just at the end had appealed to me and I had left
+dying. The legs of the forward lookout still poked grotesquely up from
+the wreckage of the observatory tower where it lay smashed down
+against the roof of the chart room.
+
+We shoved ourselves into the turret. What was this? No bodies here!
+The giant Miko was gone! The pool of blood lay congealed into a frozen
+dark splotch on the metal grid.
+
+And Moa was gone! They had not been dead. Had dragged themselves out
+of here, fighting desperately for life. We would find them somewhere
+around here.
+
+But we did not. Nor Coniston. I recalled what Anita had said: other
+suits and helmets had been here in the nearby chart room. The brigands
+had taken them, and food and water doubtless, and escaped from the
+ship, following us through the lower admission ports only a few
+minutes after we were gone.
+
+We made careful search of the entire ship. Eight of the bodies which
+should have been here were missing: Miko, Moa, Coniston and five of
+the crew.
+
+We did not find them outside. They were hiding near here, no doubt,
+more willing to take their chances than to yield to us now. But how,
+in all this Lunar desolation, could we hope to locate them?
+
+"No use," said Grantline. "Let them go. If they want death, well, they
+deserve it."
+
+But we were saved. Then, as I stood there, realization leaped at me.
+Saved? Were we not indeed fatuous fools?
+
+In all these emotion-swept moments since we had encountered Grantline,
+memory of that brigand ship coming from Mars had never once occurred
+to Snap and me!
+
+I told Grantline now. He stared at me.
+
+"What!"
+
+I told him again. It would be here in eight days. Fully manned and
+armed.
+
+"But Haljan, we have almost no weapons! All my _Comet's_ space was
+taken with 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 nonarrival 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!
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+"Try it again," Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise some
+Earth station! Chance it! Use the power--run it up full. Chance it!"
+
+We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty man, with
+blanched grim face, sat at his senders. The Grantline crew shoved
+close around us. There were very few observers in the high-powered
+Earth stations who knew that an exploring party was on the Moon.
+Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had sanctioned the
+expedition and Halsey and his confreres in the Detective Bureau were
+not anticipating trouble at this point. The _Planetara_ was supposed
+to be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn. It was when she was due to
+return that Halsey would be alert.
+
+Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of safety. He cut down
+the lights; the telescope intensifiers and television were completely
+disconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so that the
+air here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew fetid. All,
+to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might survive.
+
+Even so, it was strained to the danger point. Our heat was radiating
+away; the deadly chill of space crept in.
+
+"Again!" ordered Grantline.
+
+The duty man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence,
+the tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating
+prisms, intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible
+beam, it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead
+dome and into space.
+
+"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for
+now."
+
+It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath in
+the chill darkness. The lights came on again; the Erentz motors
+accelerated to normal. The strain on the walls eased up, and the room
+began warming.
+
+Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power to
+find out. Our receivers were disconnected. If an answering signal
+came, we could not know it. One of the men said:
+
+"Let's assume they read us." He laughed, but it was a high-pitched,
+tense laugh. "We don't dare even use the telescope or television. Or
+electron radio. Our rescue ship might be right overhead, visible to
+the naked eye, before we see it. Three days more--that's what I'll
+give it."
+
+But the three days passed and no rescue ship came. The Earth was
+almost at the full. We tried signaling again. Perhaps it got
+through--we did not know. But our power was weaker now. The wall of
+one of the rooms sprang a leak, and the men were hours repairing it. I
+did not say so, but never once did I feel that our signals were read
+on Earth. Those cursed clouds! The Earth almost everywhere seemed to
+have poor visibility.
+
+Four of our eight days of grace were all too soon passed. The brigand
+ship must be half way here by now.
+
+They were busy days for us. If we could have captured Miko and his
+band, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasure
+insulated, and our camp in darkness, the arriving brigand ship might
+never find us. But Miko knew our location; he would signal his
+oncoming ship when it was close and lead it to us.
+
+During those three days--and the days which followed them--Grantline
+sent out searching parties. But it was unavailing. Miko, Moa and
+Coniston, with their five underlings, could not be found.
+
+We had at first hoped that the brigands might have perished. But that
+was soon dispelled! I went--about the third day--with the party that
+was sent to the _Planetara_. We wanted to salvage some of its
+equipment, its unbroken power units. And Snap and I had worked out an
+idea which we thought might be of service. We needed some of the
+_Planetara's_ smaller gravity plate sections. Those in Grantline's
+wrecked little _Comet_ had stood so long that their radiations had
+gone dead. But the _Planetara's_ were still working.
+
+Our hope that Miko might have perished was dashed. He too had returned
+to the _Planetara_! The evidence was clear before us. The vessel was
+stripped of all its power units save those which were dead and
+useless. The last of the food and water stores were taken. The weapons
+in the chart room--the Benson curve lights, projectors and heat
+rays--had vanished!
+
+Other days passed. Earth reached the full and was waning. The fourteen
+day Lunar night was in its last half. No rescue ship came from Earth.
+We had ceased our efforts to signal, for we needed all our power to
+maintain ourselves. The camp would be in a state of siege before long.
+That was the best we could hope for. We had a few short-range weapons,
+such as Bensons, heat-rays and projectors. A few hundred feet of
+effective range was the most any of them could obtain. The
+heat-rays--in giant form one of the most deadly weapons on Earth--were
+only slowly efficacious on the airless Moon. Striking an intensely
+cold surface, their warming radiations were slow to act. Even in a
+blasting heat beam a man in his Erentz helmet-suit could withstand the
+ray for several minutes.
+
+We were, however, well equipped with explosives. Grantline had brought
+a large supply for his mining operations, and much of it was still
+unused. We had, also, an ample stock of oxygen fuses, and a variety of
+oxygen light flares in small, fragile glass globes.
+
+It was to use these explosives against the brigands that Snap and I
+were working out our scheme with the gravity plates. The brigand ship
+would come with giant projectors and some thirty men. If we could hold
+out against them for a time, the fact that the _Planetara_ was missing
+would bring us help from Earth.
+
+Another day. A tenseness was upon all of us, despite the absorption of
+our feverish activities. To conserve power, the camp was almost dark,
+we lived in dim, chill rooms, with just a few weak spots of light
+outside to mark the watchmen on their rounds. We did not use the
+telescope, but there was scarcely an hour when one or the other of the
+men was not sitting on a cross-piece up in the dome of the little
+instrument room, casting a tense, searching gaze through his glasses
+into the black, starry firmament. A ship might appear at any time
+now--a rescue ship from Earth, or the brigands from Mars.
+
+Anita and Venza through these days could aid us very little save by
+their cheering words. They moved about the rooms, trying to inspire
+us; so that all the men, when they might have been humanly sullen and
+cursing their fate, were turned to grim activity, or grim laughter,
+making a joke of the coming siege. The morale of the camp now was
+perfect. An improvement indeed over the inactivity of their former
+peaceful weeks!
+
+Grantline mentioned it to me. "Well put up a good fight, Haljan. These
+fellows from Mars will know they've had a task before they ever sail
+off with the treasure."
+
+I had many moments alone with Anita. I need not mention them. It
+seemed that our love was crossed by the stars, with an adverse fate
+dooming it. And Snap and Venza must have felt the same. Among the men,
+we were always quietly, grimly active. But alone.... I came upon Snap
+once with his arms around the little Venus girl. I heard him say:
+
+"Accursed luck! That you and I should find each other too late, Venza.
+We could have a lot of fun in Greater New York together."
+
+"Snap, we will!"
+
+As I turned away, I murmured, "And pray God, so will Anita and I."
+
+The girls slept together in a small room of the main building. Often
+during the time of sleep, when the camp was stilled except for the
+night watch, Snap and I would sit in the corridor near the girls'
+door, talking of that time when we would all be back on our blessed
+Earth.
+
+Our eight days of grace were passed. The brigand ship was due--now,
+tomorrow, or the next day.
+
+I recall, that night, my sleep was fitfully uneasy. Snap and I had a
+cubby together. We talked, and made futile plans. I went to sleep, but
+awakened after a few hours. Impending disaster lay heavily upon me.
+But there was nothing abnormal nor unusual in that!
+
+Snap was asleep. I was restless, but I did not have the heart to
+awaken him. He needed what little repose he could get. I dressed, left
+our cubby and wandered out into the corridor of the main building.
+
+It was cold in the corridor, and gloomy with the weak blue light. An
+interior watchman passed me.
+
+"All as usual, Haljan."
+
+"Nothing in sight?"
+
+"No. They're watching."
+
+I went through the connecting corridor to the adjacent building. In
+the instrument room several of the men were gathered, scanning the
+vault overhead.
+
+"Nothing, Haljan."
+
+I stayed with them awhile, then wandered away. An outside man met me
+near the admission lock chambers of the main building. The duty man
+here sat at his controls, raising the air pressure in the locks
+through which the outside watchman was coming. The relief sat here in
+his bloated suit, with his helmet on his knees. It was Wilks.
+
+"Nothing yet, Haljan. I'm going up to the peak of the crater to see if
+anything is in sight. I wish that damnable brigand ship would come and
+get it over with."
+
+Instinctively we all spoke in half whispers, the tenseness bearing in
+on us.
+
+The outside man was white and grim, but he grinned at Wilks. He tried
+the familiar jest: "Don't let the Earthlight get you!"
+
+Wilks went out through the ports--a process of no more than a minute.
+I wandered away again through the corridors.
+
+I suppose it was half an hour later that I chanced to be gazing
+through a corridor window. The lights along the rocky cliff were tiny
+blue spots. The head of the stairway leading down to the abyss of the
+crater floor was visible. The bloated figure of Wilks was just coming
+up. I watched him for a moment making his rounds. He did not stop to
+inspect the lights. That was routine. I thought it odd that he passed
+them.
+
+Another minute passed. The figure of Wilks went with slow bounds over
+toward the back of the ledge where the glassite shelter housed the
+treasure. It was all dark off there. Wilks went into the gloom, but
+before I lost sight of him, he came back. As though he had changed his
+mind, he headed for the foot of the staircase which led up the cliff
+to where, at the peak of the little crater, five hundred feet above
+us, the narrow observatory was perched. He climbed with easy bounds,
+the light on his helmet bobbing in the gloom.
+
+I stood watching. I could not tell why there seemed to be something
+queer about Wilks' actions. But I was struck with it, nevertheless. I
+watched him disappear over the summit.
+
+Another minute went by. Wilks did not reappear. I thought I could make
+out his light on the platform up there. Then abruptly a tiny white
+beam was waving from the observatory platform! It flashed once or
+twice, then was extinguished. And now I saw Wilks plainly, standing in
+the Earthlight, gazing down.
+
+Queer actions! Had the Earthlight touched him? Or was that a local
+signal call which he sent out? Why should Wilks be signaling? What was
+he doing with a hand helio? Our watchmen, I knew, had no reason to
+carry one.
+
+And to whom could Wilks be signaling? To whom, across this Lunar
+desolation? The answer stabbed at me: to Miko's band!
+
+I waited less than a moment. No further light. Wilks was still up
+there!
+
+I went back to the lock entrance. Spare helmets and suits were here
+beside the keeper. He gazed at me inquiringly.
+
+"I'm going out, Franck. Just for a minute." It struck me that perhaps
+I was a meddlesome fool. Wilks, of all of Grantline's men, was, I
+knew, most in his commander's trust. The signal could have been some
+part of this night's ordinary routine, for all I knew.
+
+I was hastily donning an Erentz suit. I added, "Let me out. I just got
+the idea Wilks is acting strangely." I laughed. "Maybe the Earthlight
+has touched him."
+
+With my helmet on, I went through the locks. Once outside, with the
+outer panel closed behind me, I dropped the weights from my belt and
+shoes and extinguished my helmet light.
+
+Wilks was still up there. Apparently he had not moved. I bounded off
+across the ledge to the foot of the ascending stairs. Did Wilks see me
+coming? I could not tell. As I approached the stairs the platform was
+cut off from my line of vision.
+
+I mounted with bounding leaps. In my flexible gloved hand I carried my
+only weapon, a small projector with firing caps for use in this
+outside near-vacuum.
+
+I held the weapon behind me. I would talk to Wilks first. I went
+slowly up the last hundred feet. Was Wilks still up there? The summit
+was bathed in Earthlight. The little metal observatory platform came
+into view above my head.
+
+Wilks was not there. Then I saw him standing on the rocks nearby,
+motionless. But in a moment he saw me coming.
+
+I waved my left hand with a gesture of greeting. It seemed to me that
+he started, made as though to leap away, and then changed his mind. I
+sailed from the head of the staircase with a twenty foot leap and
+landed lightly beside him. I gripped his arm for audiphone contact.
+
+"Wilks!"
+
+Through my visor his face was visible. I saw him and he saw me. And I
+heard his voice:
+
+"You, Haljan. How nice!"
+
+It was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+The duty man at the exit locks stood at his window and watched me
+curiously. He saw me go up the spider stairs. He could see the figure
+he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw me join Wilks, saw
+us locked together in combat.
+
+For a brief instant the duty man stood amazed. There were two
+fantastic figures, fighting at the very brink of the cliff. They were
+small, dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed
+in and out of the shadows. The duty man could not tell one from the
+other. To him it was Haljan and Wilks, fighting to the death!
+
+The duty man sprang into action. An interior siren call was on the
+instrument panel near him. He rang it frantically.
+
+The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them.
+
+"What's this? Good God, Franck!"
+
+They had seen the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff.
+
+Grantline stood stricken with amazement. "That's Wilks!"
+
+"And Haljan," the duty man gasped. "He went out--something wrong with
+Wilks' actions--"
+
+The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men, awakened from
+sleep, ran out into the corridors shouting questions.
+
+"An attack?"
+
+"Is it an attack?"
+
+"The brigands?"
+
+But it was Wilks and Haljan in a fight up there on the cliff. The men
+crowded at the bull's-eye windows.
+
+And over all the confusion the alarm siren, with no one thinking to
+shut it off, was screaming.
+
+Grantline, momentarily stricken, stood gazing. One of the figures
+broke away from the other, bounded up to the summit from the stair
+platform to which they had both fallen. The other followed. They
+locked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed that
+they would go over; then they surged back, momentarily out of sight.
+
+Grantline found his wits. "Stop them! I'll go out and stop them! What
+fools!"
+
+He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits. "Cut off that siren!"
+
+Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty man called from the
+window, "Still at it, the fools. By the infernal--they'll kill
+themselves!"
+
+"Franck, let me out."
+
+"I'll go with you, Commander." But the volunteer was not equipped.
+Grantline would not wait.
+
+The duty man turned to his panel. The volunteer shoved a weapon at
+Grantline.
+
+Grantline jammed on his helmet, took the weapon.
+
+He moved the few steps into the air chamber which was the first of the
+three pressure locks. Its interior door panel swung open for him. But
+the door did not close after him!
+
+Cursing the man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he turned to
+the corridor. The duty man came running.
+
+Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell--"
+
+"Broken! Dead!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Smashed from outside," gasped the duty man. "Look there--my tubes--"
+
+The control tubes of the ports had flashed into a short circuit and
+burned out. The admission ports would not open!
+
+"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside!"
+
+There was no way now of getting through the pressure locks. The doors,
+the entire pressure lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered with
+from outside?
+
+As if to answer Grantline's question there came a chorus of shouts
+from the men at the corridor windows.
+
+"Commander! By God--look!"
+
+A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and
+helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking
+at the port entrance, had ripped out the wires there.
+
+It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made
+off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it
+vanish around the building corner.
+
+It was a giant figure, larger than an Earth man. A Martian?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still
+fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.
+
+A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever,
+Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some
+of the other suits, and called for some of the hand projectors.
+
+But he could not get out through these main admission ports. He could
+have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure changing
+mechanism broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A
+rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was, no
+one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.
+
+Grantline was shouting, "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside!
+The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to
+go with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit."
+
+But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was
+there. It was a smaller two-lock gateway of manual control, so that
+the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at
+the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The
+lever would not open the panels!
+
+Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? A
+traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the
+skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?
+
+The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The
+news spread. The camp was a prison! No one could get out!
+
+And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and
+Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on
+the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again.
+Crazily swaying, bouncing, striking the rail.
+
+They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks,
+and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the
+other.
+
+They rolled unheeding to the brink. Here, beyond the midway ledge
+which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on down
+to the crater floor.
+
+The figures were rolling; then one shook himself loose; rose up,
+seized the other and, with desperate strength, shoved him--
+
+The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling
+down into the shadows past the camp level--down out of sight in the
+darkness of the crater floor.
+
+Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the window gasped, "God!
+Was that Gregg who fell?"
+
+No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp ledge, another
+helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main
+building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast,
+bounding toward the spider staircase. It began mounting.
+
+And now still another figure became visible--the giant Martian again.
+He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He
+evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was
+standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw too, no doubt, the
+second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window
+through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his back to the
+building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps
+toward the ascending staircase.
+
+Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the
+stairs? And was the third figure Miko?
+
+Grantline's mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn from
+them, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridor
+was ringing with shouts.
+
+"We're imprisoned! Can't get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands are
+outside!"
+
+And then an interior audiphone blared a calling for Grantline. Someone
+in the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking.
+
+"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed--"
+
+But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news.
+
+"Commander! The brigand ship!"
+
+Miko's reinforcements had come.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Not Wilks, but Coniston! His drawling, British voice:
+
+"You, Gregg Haljan! How nice!"
+
+His voice broke off as he jerked his arm from me. My hand with the
+projector came up, but with a sweeping blow he struck my wrist. The
+weapon dropped to the rocks.
+
+I fought instinctively, those first moments; my mind was whirling with
+the shock of surprise. This was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.
+
+It was an eerie combat. We swayed; shoving, kicking, wrestling. His
+hold around my middle shut off the Erentz circulation; the warning
+buzz rang in my ears, to mingle with the rasp of his curses. I flung
+him off, and my Erentz motors recovered. He staggered away, but in a
+great leap came at me again.
+
+I was taller, heavier and far stronger than Coniston. But I found him
+crafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, he seemed
+more skillfully agile.
+
+I became aware that we were on the twenty foot square grid of the
+observatory platform. It had a low metal railing. We surged against
+it. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as we
+bounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashed
+against mine, striking as though butting with the side of his head to
+puncture my visor panel. His gloved fingers were clutching at my
+throat.
+
+As we regained our feet, I flung him off, and bounded like a diver,
+head first, into him. He went backward, but skillfully kept his feet
+under him, gripped me again and shoved me.
+
+I was tottering at the head of the staircase--falling. But I clutched
+at him. We fell some twenty or thirty feet to be next lower spider
+landing. The impact must have dazed us both. I recall my vague idea
+that we must have fallen down the cliff.... My air shut off--then it
+came again. The roaring in my ears was stilled; my head cleared, and I
+found that we were on the landing, fighting.
+
+He presently broke away from me, bounded to the summit with me after
+him. In the close confines of the suit I was bathed in sweat and
+gasping. I had no thought to increase the oxygen control. I could not
+find it; or it would not operate.
+
+I realized that I was fighting sluggishly, almost aimlessly. But so
+was Coniston!
+
+It seemed dreamlike. A phantasmagoria of blows and staggering steps. A
+nightmare with only the horrible vision of this goggled helmet always
+before my eyes.
+
+It seemed that we were rolling on the ground, back on the summit. The
+unshadowed Earthlight was clear and bright. The abyss was beside me.
+Coniston, rolling, was now on top, now under me, trying to shove me
+over the brink. It was all like a dream--as though I were asleep,
+dreaming that I did not have enough air.
+
+I strove to keep my senses. He was struggling to roll me over the
+brink. God, that would not do! But I was so tired. One cannot fight
+without oxygen!
+
+I suddenly knew that I had shaken him off and gained my feet. He rose,
+swaying. He was as tired, confused, as nearly asphyxiated as I.
+
+The brink of the abyss was behind us. I lunged, desperately shoving,
+avoiding his clutch.
+
+He went over, and fell soundlessly, his body whirling end over end
+down into the shadows, far below.
+
+I drew back. My senses faded as I sank panting to the rocks. But with
+inactivity, my heart quieted. My respiration slowed. The Erentz
+circulation gained on my poisoned air. It purified.
+
+That blessed oxygen! My head cleared. Strength came. I felt better.
+
+Coniston had fallen to his death. I was victor. I went to the brink
+cautiously, for I was still dizzy. I could see, far down there on the
+crater floor, a little patch of Earthlight in which a mashed human
+figure was lying.
+
+I staggered back again. A moment or two must have passed while I stood
+there on the summit, with my senses clearing and my strength renewed
+as the blood stream cleared in my veins.
+
+I was victor. Coniston was dead. I saw now, down on the lower
+staircase below the camp ledge, another goggled figure lying huddled.
+That was Wilks, no doubt. Coniston had probably caught him there,
+surprised him, killed him.
+
+My attention, as I stood gazing, went down to the camp buildings.
+Another figure was outside! It bounded along the ledge, reached the
+foot of the stairs at the top of which I was standing. With agile
+leaps, it came mounting at me!
+
+Another brigand! Miko? No, it was not large enough to be Miko. I was
+still confused. I thought of Hahn. But that was absurd: Hahn was in
+the wreck of the _Planetara_. One of the stewards then....
+
+The figure came up the staircase recklessly, to assail me. I took a
+step backward, bracing myself to receive this new antagonist. And then
+I looked further down and saw Miko! Unquestionably he, for there was
+no mistaking his giant figure. He was down on the camp ledge, running
+toward the foot of the stairs.
+
+I thought of my revolver. I turned to try and find it. I was aware
+that the first of my assailants was at the stairhead. I swung back to
+see what this oncoming brigand was doing. He was on the summit: with a
+sailing leap he launched for me. I could have bounded away, but with a
+last look to locate the revolver, I braced myself for the shock.
+
+The figure hit me. It was small and light in my clutching arms. I
+recall I saw that Miko was halfway up the stairs. I gripped my
+assailant. The audiphone contact brought a voice.
+
+"Gregg, is it you?"
+
+It was Anita!
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+"Gregg, you're safe!"
+
+She had heard the camp corridors resounding with the shouts that Wilks
+and Haljan were fighting. She had come upon a suit and helmet by the
+manual emergency lock, had run out through the lock, confused, with
+her only idea to stop Wilks and me from fighting. Then she had seen
+one of us killed. Impulsively, barely knowing what she was doing, she
+mounted the stairs, frantic to find if I were alive.
+
+"Anita!"
+
+Miko was coming fast! She had not seen him; for she had no thought of
+brigands--only the belief that either Wilks or I had been killed.
+
+But now, as we stood together on the rocks near the observatory
+platform, I could see the towering figure of Miko nearing the top of
+the stairs.
+
+"Anita, that's Miko! We must run!"
+
+Then I saw my projector. It lay in a bowl-like depression quite near
+us. I jumped for it. And as I tore loose from Anita, she leaped down
+after me. It was a broken bowl in the rocks, some six feet deep. It
+was open on the side facing the stairs--a narrow, ravinelike gully,
+full of gray, broken, tumbled rock masses. The little gully was
+littered with crags and boulders. But I could see out through it.
+
+Miko had come to the head of the stairs. He stopped there, his great
+figure etched sharply by the Earthlight. I think he must have known
+that Coniston was the one who had fallen over the cliff, as my helmet
+and Coniston's were different enough for him to recognize which was
+which. He did not know who I was, but he did know me for an enemy.
+
+He stood now at the summit, peering to see where we had gone. He was
+no more than fifty feet from us.
+
+"Anita, lie down."
+
+I pulled her down on the rocks. I took aim with my projector. But I
+had forgotten our helmet lights. Miko must have seen them just as I
+pulled the trigger. He jumped sidewise and dropped, but I could see
+him moving in the shadows to where a jutting rock gave him shelter. I
+fired, missing him again.
+
+I had stood up to take aim. Anita pulled me sharply down beside her.
+
+"Gregg, he's armed!"
+
+It was his turn to fire. It came--the familiar vague flash of the
+paralyzing ray. It spat its tint of color on the rocks near us, but
+did not reach us.
+
+A moment later, Miko bounded to another rock.
+
+Time passed--only a few seconds. I could not see Miko momentarily.
+Perhaps he was crouching; perhaps he had moved away again. He was, or
+had been, on slightly higher ground than the bottom of our bowl. It
+was dim down here where we were lying, but I feared that any moment
+Miko might appear and strike at us. His ray at any short range would
+penetrate our visor panes, even though our suits might temporarily
+resist it.
+
+"Anita, it's too dangerous here!"
+
+Had I been alone, I might perhaps have leapt up to lure Miko. But with
+Anita I did not dare chance it.
+
+"We've got to get back to camp," I told her.
+
+"Perhaps he has gone--"
+
+But he had not. We saw him again, out in a distant patch of
+Earthlight. He was further from us than before, but on still higher
+ground. We had extinguished our small helmet lights. But he knew we
+were here and possibly he could see us. His projector flashed again.
+He was a hundred feet or more away now, and his weapon was of no
+longer range than mine. I did not answer his fire, for I could not
+hope to hit him at such a distance, and the flash of my weapon would
+help him to locate us.
+
+I murmured to Anita, "We must get away."
+
+Yet how did I dare take Anita from these concealing shadows? Miko
+could reach us so easily as we bounded away in plain view in the
+Earthlight of the open summit! We were caught, at bay in this little
+bowl.
+
+The camp was not visible from here. But out through the broken gully,
+a white beam of light suddenly came up from below.
+
+_Haljan._ It spelled the signal.
+
+It was coming from the Grantline instrument room, I knew.
+
+I could answer it with my helmet light, but I did not dare.
+
+"Try it," urged Anita.
+
+We crouched where we thought we might be safe from Miko's fire. My
+little light beam shot up from the bowl. It was undoubtedly visible to
+the camp.
+
+_Yes, I am Haljan. Send us help._
+
+I did not mention Anita. Miko doubtless could read these signals. They
+answered, _Cannot_--
+
+I lost the rest of it. There came a flash from Miko's weapon. It gave
+us confidence: he was unable to reach us at this distance.
+
+The Grantline beam repeated:
+
+_Cannot come out. Ports broken. You cannot get in. Stay where you are
+for an hour or two. We may be able to repair ports._
+
+I extinguished my light. What use was it to tell Grantline anything
+further? Besides, my light was endangering us. But the Grantline beam
+spelled another message:
+
+_Brigand ship is coming. It will be here before we can get out to you.
+No lights. We will try and hide our location._
+
+And the signal beam brought a last appeal:
+
+_Miko and his men will divulge where we are unless you can stop them._
+
+The beam vanished. The lights of the Grantline camp made a faint glow
+that showed above the crater edge. The glow died, as the camp now was
+plunged into darkness.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+We crouched in the shadows, the Earthlight filtering down to us. The
+skulking figure of Miko had vanished; but I was sure he was out there
+somewhere on the crags, lurking, maneuvering to where he could strike
+us with his ray. Anita's metal-gloved hand was on my arm; in my
+ear-diaphragm her voice sounded eager:
+
+"What was the signal, Gregg?"
+
+I told her everything.
+
+"Oh Gregg! The Martian ship coming!"
+
+Her mind clung to that as the most important thing. But not so myself.
+To me there was only the realization that Anita was caught out here,
+almost at the mercy of Miko's ray. Grantline's men could not get out
+to help us, nor could I get Anita into the camp.
+
+She added, "Where do you suppose the ship is?"
+
+"Twenty or thirty thousand miles up, probably."
+
+The stars and the Earth were visible over us. Somewhere up there,
+disclosed by Grantline's instruments but not yet discernible to the
+naked eye, Miko's reinforcements were hovering.
+
+We lay for a moment in silence. It was horribly nerve straining. Miko
+could be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire?
+Creeping--or would he make a swift, unexpected rush?
+
+The feeling that he was upon us abruptly swept me. I jumped to my
+feet, against Anita's effort to hold me. Where was he now? Was my
+imagination playing me tricks?...
+
+I sank back. "That ship should be here in a few hours."
+
+I told her what Grantline's signal had suggested; the ship was
+hovering overhead. It must be fairly close; for Grantline's telescope
+had revealed its identity as an outlaw flyer, unmarked by any of the
+standard code identification lights. It was doubtless too far away as
+yet to have located the whereabouts of Grantline's camp. The Martian
+brigands knew that we were in the vicinity of Archimedes, but no more
+than that. Searching this glowing Moon surface, our tiny local
+semaphore beams would certainly pass unnoticed.
+
+But as the brigand ship approached now--dropping close to Archimedes
+as it probably would--our danger was that Miko and his men would then
+signal it, join it, and reveal the camp's location. And the brigand
+attack would be upon us!
+
+I told this now to Anita. "The signal from Grantline said, '_Unless
+you can stop them._'"
+
+It was an appeal to me. But how could I stop them? What could I do,
+alone out here with Anita, to cope with this enemy?
+
+Anita made no comment.
+
+I added, "That ship will land near Archimedes, within an hour or two.
+If Grantline can repair the ports, and I can get you inside...."
+
+Again she made no comment. Then suddenly she gripped me. "Gregg, look
+there!"
+
+Out through the gully break in our bowl the figure of Miko showed! He
+was running. But not at us. Circling the summit, leaping to keep
+himself behind the upstanding crags. He passed the head of the
+staircase; he did not descend it, but headed off along the summit of
+the crater rim.
+
+I stood up to watch him. "Where's he going!"
+
+I let Anita stand up beside me, cautiously at first, for it occurred
+to me it might be a ruse to cover some other of Miko's men who might
+be lurking near.
+
+But the summit seemed clear. The figure of Miko was a thousand feet
+away now. We could see the tiny blob of it bobbing over the rocks.
+Then it plunged down--not into the crater valley, but out toward the
+open Moon surface.
+
+Miko had abandoned his attack on us. The reason seemed plain. He had
+come here from his encampment with Coniston ahead to lure and kill
+Wilks. When this was done, Coniston had flashed his signal to Miko,
+who was hiding nearby.
+
+It was not like the brigand leader to remain in the background. Miko
+was no coward. But Coniston could impersonate Wilks, whereas Miko's
+giant stature at once would reveal his identity. Miko had been engaged
+in smashing the ports. He had looked up and seen me kill Coniston. He
+had come to assail me. And then he had read Grantline's message to me.
+It was his first knowledge that his ship was at hand. With the camp
+exits inoperative, Grantline and his men were imprisoned. Miko had
+made an effort to kill me. He did not know my companion was Anita. But
+the effort was taking too long; with his ship at hand, it was Miko's
+best move to return to his own camp, rejoin his men, and await their
+opportunity to signal the ship.
+
+At least, so I reasoned it. Anita and I stood alone. What could we do?
+
+We went to the brink of the cliff. The unlighted Grantline buildings
+showed vaguely in the Earthlight.
+
+I said, "We'll go down. I'll leave you there. You can wait at the
+port. They'll repair it soon."
+
+"And what will you do, Gregg?"
+
+I did not intend to tell her. "Hurry, Anita!"
+
+"Gregg, let me go with you."
+
+She jerked away from me and bounded back up the stairs. I caught her
+on the summit.
+
+"Anita!"
+
+"I'm going with you."
+
+"You're going to stay here."
+
+"I'm not!"
+
+This exasperating controversy!
+
+"Anita, please."
+
+"I'll be safer with you than waiting here, Gregg." And she added,
+"Besides, I won't stay and you can't make me."
+
+We ran along the crater top. At its distant edge the lower plain
+spread before us. Far down, and far away on the distant broken
+surface, the leaping figure of Miko showed. He plunged down the broken
+outer slope, reached the level. Soon, as we ran, the little Grantline
+crater faded behind us.
+
+Anita ran more skillfully than I. Ten minutes or so passed. We had
+seen Miko and the direction he was taking, but down here on the plain
+we could no longer see him. It struck me that our chase was
+purposeless and dangerous. Suppose Miko were to see us following him?
+Suppose he stopped and lay in ambush to fire at us as we came leaping
+heedlessly by?
+
+"Anita, wait!"
+
+I drew her down amid a group of tumbled boulders. And then abruptly
+she clung to me.
+
+"Gregg, I know what we can do! Gregg, don't tell me you won't let me
+try it!"
+
+I listened to her plan. Incredible! Incredibly dangerous. Yet, as I
+pondered it, the very daring of the scheme seemed the measure of its
+possible success. The brigands would never imagine we could be so
+rash!
+
+"But Anita--"
+
+"Gregg, you're stupid!" It was her turn to be exasperated.
+
+But I was in no mood for daring. My mind was obsessed with Anita's
+safety. I had been planning that we might see the glow of Miko's
+encampment and decide on some course of action.
+
+"But, Gregg, the safety of the treasure--of all the Grantline men...."
+
+"To the infernal with that! It's you, your safety--"
+
+"My safety, then! If you put me in the camp and the brigands attack it
+and I am killed--what then? But this plan of mine, if we can do it,
+Gregg, will mean safety in the end for all of us."
+
+And it seemed possible. We crouched, discussing it. So daring a thing!
+
+The brigand ship would come down near Archimedes. That was fifty miles
+from Grantline. The brigands from Mars would not have seen the dark
+Grantline buildings hidden in the little crater pit. They would wait
+for Miko and his men to make their whereabouts known.
+
+Miko's encampment was ahead of us now, undoubtedly. We had been
+following him toward the Mare Imbrium. Or at least, we hoped so. He
+would signal his ship. But Anita and I, closer to it, would also
+signal it; and, posing as brigands, would join it!
+
+"Remember, Gregg, I remain Anita Prince, George's sister." Her voice
+trembled as she mentioned her dead brother. "They know that George was
+in Miko's pay, and I as his sister, will help to convince them."
+
+This daring scheme! If we could join the ship, we might be able to
+persuade its leader that Miko's distant signals were merely a ruse of
+Grantline to lure the brigands in that direction. A long range
+projector from the ship would kill Miko and his men as they came
+forward to join it! And then we would falsely direct the brigands,
+lead them away from Grantline and the treasure.
+
+"Gregg, we must try it."
+
+Heaven help me, I yielded to her persuasion!
+
+We turned at right angles and ran toward where the distant frowning
+walls of Archimedes loomed against the starlit sky.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+The broken, shaggy ramparts of the giant crater rose above us. We
+toiled upward, out of the foothills, clinging now to the crags and
+pitted terraces of the main ascent. An hour had passed since we turned
+from the borders of Mare Imbrium. Or was it two hours? I could not
+tell. I only know that we ran with desperate, frantic haste.
+
+Anita would not admit that she was tired. She was more skillful than I
+in this leaping over the broken rock masses. Yet I felt that her
+slight strength must give out. It seemed miles up the undulating
+slopes of the foothills with the black and white ramparts of the
+crater close before us.
+
+And then the main ascent. There were places where, like smooth black
+frozen ice, the walls rose sheer. We avoided them, toiling aside,
+plunging into gullies, crossing pits where sometimes, perforce, we
+went downwards, and then up again. Or sometimes we stood, hot and
+breathless, upon ledges, recovering our strength, selecting the best
+route upward.
+
+In tumbled mass of rock, honeycombed everywhere with caves and
+passages leading into impenetrable darkness, there were pits into
+which we might so easily have fallen; ravines to span, sometimes with
+a leap, sometimes by a long and arduous detour.
+
+Endless climb. We came to the ledge with the plains of the Mare
+Imbrium stretching out beneath us. We might have been upon this main
+ascent for an hour; the plains were far down, the broken surface down
+there smoothed now by the perspective of height. And yet still above
+us the brooding circular wall went up into the sky. Ten thousand feet
+above us.
+
+"You're tired, Anita. We'd better stay here."
+
+"No. If we could only get to the top--the ship may land on the other
+side--they would see us."
+
+There was as yet no sign of the brigand ship. With every stop for
+rest we searched the starry vault. The Earth hung over us, flattened
+beyond the full. The stars blazed to mingle with the Earthlight and
+illumine these massive crags of the Archimedes walls. But no speck
+appeared to tell us that the ship was up there.
+
+We were on the curving side of the Archimedes wall which fronted the
+Mare Imbrium to the north. The plains lay Like a great frozen sea,
+congealed ripples shining in the light of the Earth, with dark patches
+to mark the hollows. Somewhere down there--six or eight thousand feet
+below us now--Miko's encampment lay concealed. We searched for lights
+of it, but could see none.
+
+Had Miko rejoined his party, left his camp and come here like
+ourselves to climb Archimedes? Or was our assumption wholly wrong:
+perhaps the brigand ship would not land near here at all!
+
+Sweeping around from the Mare Imbrium, the plains were less smooth.
+The little crater which concealed the Grantline camp was off in the
+crater-scarred region beyond which the distant Apennines raised their
+terraced walls. There was nothing to mark it from here.
+
+"Gregg, do you see anything up there?" She added, "There seems to be a
+blur."
+
+Her sight, sharper than mine, had picked it out. The descending
+brigand ship! A faintest, tiny blur against the stars, a few of them
+occulted as though an invisible shadow were upon them. A growing
+shadow, materializing into a blur--a blob, a shape faintly defined.
+Then sharper until we were sure of what we saw. It was the brigand
+ship. It was dropping slowly, silently down.
+
+We crouched on the little ledge. A cave mouth was behind us. A gully
+was beside us, a break in the ledge; and at our feet the sheer wall
+dropped.
+
+We had extinguished our lights. We crouched, silently gazing up into
+the stars.
+
+The ship, when we first distinguished it, was centered over
+Archimedes. We thought for a while that it might descend into the
+crater. But it did not; it came sailing forward.
+
+I whispered into the audiphone, "It's coming over the crater."
+
+Her hand pressed my arm in answer.
+
+I recalled that when, from the _Planetara_, Miko had forced Snap to
+signal this brigand band on Mars, Miko's only information as to the
+whereabouts of the Grantline camp was that it lay between Archimedes
+and the Apennines. The brigands now were following that information.
+
+A tense interval passed. We could see the ship plainly above us now, a
+gray-black shape among the stars up beyond the shaggy, towering crater
+rim. The vessel came upon a level keel, hull down. Slowly circling,
+looking for Miko's signal, no doubt, or for possible lights from
+Grantline's camp. They might also be picking a landing place.
+
+We saw it soon as a cylindrical, cigarlike shape, rather smaller than
+the _Planetara_, but similar of design. It bore lights now. The ports
+of its hull were tiny rows of illumination, and the glow of light
+under its rounding upper dome was faintly visible.
+
+A bandit ship, no doubt of that. Its identification keel plate was
+empty of official pass code lights. These brigands had not attempted
+to secure official sailing lights when leaving Ferrok-Shahn. It was
+unmistakably an outlaw ship. And here upon the deserted Moon there was
+no need for secrecy. Its lights were openly displayed, that Miko might
+see it and join it.
+
+It went slowly past us, only a few thousand feet higher than our
+level. We could see the whole outline of its pointed cylinder hull,
+with the rounded dome on top. And under the dome was its open deck
+with a little cabin superstructure in the center.
+
+I thought for a moment that by some unfortunate chance it might land
+quite near us. But it went past. And then I saw that it was heading
+for a level, plateaulike surface a few miles further on. It dropped,
+cautiously floating down.
+
+There was still no sign of Miko. But I realized that haste was
+necessary. We must be the first to join the brigand ship.
+
+I lifted Anita to her feet. "I don't think we should signal from
+here."
+
+"No. Miko might see it."
+
+We could not tell where he was. Down on the plains, perhaps? Or up
+here, somewhere in these miles of towering rocks?
+
+"Are you ready, Anita?"
+
+"Yes, Gregg."
+
+I stared through the visors at her white solemn face.
+
+"Yes, I'm ready," she repeated.
+
+Her hand pressure seemed to me suddenly like a farewell. We were
+plunging rashly into what was destined to mean our death? Was this a
+farewell?
+
+An instinct told me not to do this thing. Why, in a few hours I could
+have Anita back to the comparative safety of the Grantline camp. The
+exit ports would doubtless be repaired by now. I could get her inside.
+
+She had bounded away from me, leaped down some thirty feet into the
+broken gully, to cross it and then up on the other side. I stood for
+an instant watching her fantastic shape, with the great rounded,
+goggled, trunked helmet and the lump on her shoulders which held the
+little Erentz motors. Then I hurried after her.
+
+It did not take us long--two or three miles of circling along the
+giant wall. The ship lay only a few hundred feet above our level.
+
+We stood at last on a buttelike pinnacle. The lights of the ship were
+close over us. And there were moving lights up there, tiny moving
+spots on the adjacent rocks. The brigands had come out, prowling about
+to investigate their location.
+
+No signal yet from Miko. But it might come at any moment.
+
+"I'll flash now," I whispered.
+
+"Yes."
+
+The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the lamp from my
+helmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by a
+shot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship?
+
+Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with my
+torch and flung its switch. My puny light beam shot up. I waved it,
+touched the ship with its faint glowing circle of illumination.
+
+They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there.
+
+I semaphored:
+
+_I am from Miko. Do not fire._
+
+I used open universal code. In Martian first, and then in English.
+
+There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again.
+
+_This is Haljan, one of the_ Planetara. _George Prince's sister is
+with me. There has been disaster to Miko._
+
+A small light beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliff
+beside the ship.
+
+_Continue._
+
+I went steadily on: _Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killed
+but me and Prince's sister. We want to join you._
+
+I flashed off my light. The answer came:
+
+_Where is the Grantline Camp?_
+
+_Near here. The Mare Imbrium._
+
+As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, some ten
+miles or so from the crater base, a tiny signal light shot up. Anita
+saw it and gripped me.
+
+"There is Miko's light!"
+
+It spelled in Martian, _Come down. Land Mare Imbrium._
+
+Miko had seen the signaling up here and had joined it! He repeated,
+_Land Mare Imbrium._
+
+I flashed a protest up to the ship: _Beware. That is Grantline!
+Trickery._
+
+From the ship the summons came, _Come up._
+
+We had won this first encounter! Miko must have realized his
+disadvantage. His distant light went out.
+
+"Come, Anita."
+
+There was no retreat now. But again I seemed to feel in the pressure
+of her hand that vague farewell. Her voice whispered, "We must do our
+best, act our best to be convincing."
+
+In the white glow of a searchbeam we climbed the crags, reached the
+broad upper ledge. Helmeted figures rushed at us, searched us for
+weapons, seized our helmet lights. The evil face of a giant Martian
+peered at me through the visors. Two other monstrous, towering figures
+seized Anita.
+
+We were shoved toward the port locks at the base of the ship's hull.
+Above the hull bulge I could see the grids of projectors mounted on
+the dome side, and the figures of men standing on the deck, peering
+down at us.
+
+We went through the admission locks into a hull corridor, up an
+incline passage, and reached the lighted deck. The Martian brigands
+crowded around us.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+Anita's words echoed in my memory: "We must do our best to be
+convincing." It was not her ability that I doubted, as much as my own.
+She had played the part of George Prince cleverly, unmasked only by an
+evil chance.
+
+I steeled myself to face the searching glances of the brigands as they
+shoved around us. This was a desperate game into which we had plunged.
+For all our acting, how easy it would be for some small chance thing
+abruptly to undo us! I realized it, and now, as I gazed into the
+peering faces of these men from Mars, I cursed myself for the witless
+rashness which had brought Anita into this!
+
+The brigands--some ten or fifteen of them here on deck--stood in a
+ring around us. They were all big men, nearly of a seven-foot average,
+dressed in leather jerkins and short leather breeches, with bare knees
+and flaring leather boots. Piratical swaggering fellows, knife-blades
+mingled with small hand projectors fastened to their belts. Gray,
+heavy faces, some with scraggly, unshaven beards. They plucked at us,
+jabbering in Martian.
+
+One of them seemed the leader. I said sharply, "Are you the commander
+here? You speak the Earth English?"
+
+"Yes," he said readily. "I am commander here." He spoke English with
+the same freedom and accent as Miko. "Is this George Prince's sister?"
+
+"Yes. Her name is Anita Prince. Tell your men to take their hands off
+her."
+
+He waved his men away. They all seemed more interested in Anita than
+in me. He added:
+
+"I am _Set_ Potan." He addressed Anita. "George Prince's sister? You
+are called Anita? I have heard of you. I knew your brother--indeed,
+you look very much like him."
+
+He swept his plumed hat to the grid with a swaggering gesture of
+homage. A courtierlike fellow this, debonair as a Venus cavalier!
+
+He accepted us. I realized that Anita's presence was extremely
+valuable in making us convincing. Yet there was about this Potan--as
+with Miko--a disturbing suggestion of irony. I could not make him out.
+I decided that we had fooled him. Then I remarked the steely glitter
+of his eyes as he turned to me.
+
+"You were an officer of the _Planetara_?"
+
+The insignia of my rank was visible on my white jacket collar which
+showed beneath the Erentz suit now that my helmet was off.
+
+"Yes. I was supposed to be. But a year ago I embarked upon this
+adventure with Miko."
+
+He was leading us to his cabin. "The _Planetara_ wrecked? Miko dead?"
+
+"And Hahn and Coniston. George Prince too. We are the only survivors."
+
+While we divested ourselves of the Erentz suits, at his command, I
+told him briefly of the _Planetara's_ fall. All had been killed on
+board, save Anita and me. We had escaped, awaited his coming. The
+treasure was here; we had located the Grantline camp, and were ready
+to lead him to it.
+
+Did he believe me? He listened quietly. He seemed not shocked at the
+death of his comrades. Nor yet pleased: merely imperturbable.
+
+I added with a sly, sidelong glance, "There were too many of us on the
+_Planetara_. The purser had joined us and many of the crew. And there
+was Miko's sister, the _Setta_ Moa--too many. The treasure divides
+better among less."
+
+An amused smile played on his thin gray lips. But he nodded. The fear
+which had leaped at me was allayed by his next words.
+
+"True enough, Haljan. He was a domineering fellow, Miko. A third of it
+all was for him alone. But now...."
+
+The third would go to this sub-leader, Potan! The implication was
+obvious.
+
+I said, "Before we go any further, I can trust you for my share?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+I figured that my very boldness in bargaining so prematurely would
+convince him. I insisted, "Miss Prince will have her brother's share?"
+
+Clever Anita! She put in swiftly, "Oh, I give no information until you
+promise! We know the location of the Grantline camp, its weapons, its
+defences, the amount and location of the treasure. I warn you, if you
+do not play us fair...."
+
+He laughed heartily. He seemed to like us. He spread his huge legs as
+he lounged in his settle, and drank of the bowl which one of his men
+set before him.
+
+"Little tigress! Fear me not--I play fair!" He pushed two of the bowls
+across the table. "Drink, Haljan. All is well with us and I am glad to
+know it. Miss Prince, drink my health as your leader."
+
+I waved it away from Anita. "We need all our wits; your strong Martian
+drinks are dangerous. Look here, I'll tell you just how the situation
+stands--"
+
+I plunged into a glib account of our supposed wanderings to find the
+Grantline camp: its location off the Mare Imbrium--hidden in a
+cavern there. Potan, with the drink, and under the gaze of Anita's
+eyes, was in high good humor. He laughed when I told him that we had
+dared to invade the Grantline camp, had smashed its exit ports, had
+even gotten up to have a look where the treasure was piled.
+
+"Well done, Haljan. You're a fellow to my liking!" But his gaze was on
+Anita. "You dress like a man or a charming boy."
+
+She still wore the dark clothes of her brother. She said, "I am used
+to action. Man's garb pleases me. You shall treat me like a man and
+give me my share of gold leaf."
+
+He had already demanded the reason for the signal from the Mare
+Imbrium. Miko's signal! It had not come again, though any moment I
+feared it. I told him that Grantline doubtless had repaired his
+damaged ports and sallied out to assail me in reprisal. And, seeing
+the brigand ship landing on Archimedes, had tried to lure him into a
+trap.
+
+I wondered if my explanation was convincing: it did not sound so. But
+he was flushed now with drink, and Anita added:
+
+"Grantline knows the territory near his camp very well. But he is
+equipped only for short range fighting."
+
+I took it up. "It's like this, Potan: if he could get you to land
+unsuspectingly near his cavern--"
+
+I pictured how Grantline might have figured on a sudden surprise
+attack upon the ship. It was his only chance to catch it unprepared.
+
+We were all three in friendly, intimate mood now. Potan said, "We'll
+land down there right enough! But I need a few hours for my
+assembling."
+
+"He will not dare advance," I said.
+
+Anita put in, smiling, "He knows by now that we have unmasked his
+lure. Haljan and I, joining you--that silenced him. His light went out
+very promptly, didn't it?"
+
+She flashed me a side gaze. Were we acting convincingly? But if Miko
+started up his signals again, they might so quickly betray us!
+Anita's thoughts were upon that, for she added:
+
+"Grantline will not dare show his light! If he does, _Set_ Potan, we
+can blast him from here with a ray. Can't we?"
+
+"Yes," Potan agreed. "If he comes within ten miles, I have one
+powerful enough. We are assembling it now."
+
+"And we have thirty men?" Anita persisted. "When we sail down to
+attack him, it should not be difficult to kill all the Grantline
+party."
+
+"By heaven, Haljan, this girl of yours is small, but very
+bloodthirsty!"
+
+"And I'm glad Miko is dead," Anita added.
+
+I explained, "That accursed Miko murdered her brother."
+
+Acting! And never once did we dare relax. If only Miko's signals would
+hold off and give us time!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We may have talked for half an hour. We were in a small steel-lined
+cubby, located in the forward deck of the ship. The dome was over it.
+I could see from where I sat at the table that there was a forward
+observatory tower under the dome quite near here. The ship was laid
+out in rather similar fashion to the _Planetara_, though considerably
+smaller.
+
+Potan had dismissed his men from the cubby so as to be alone with us.
+Out on the deck I could see them dragging apparatus about, bringing
+the mechanisms of giant projectors up from below and beginning to
+assemble them. Occasionally some of the men would come to our cubby
+windows to peer in curiously.
+
+My mind was roaming as I talked. For all my manner of casualness, I
+knew that haste was necessary. Whatever Anita and I were to do must be
+quickly done.
+
+But to win this fellow's utter confidence first was necessary, so that
+we might have the freedom of the ship, might move about unnoticed,
+unwatched.
+
+I was horribly tense inside. Through the dome windows across the deck
+from the cubby, the rocks of the Lunar landscape were visible. I could
+see the brink of this ledge upon which the ship lay, the descending
+crags down the precipitous wall of Archimedes to the Earthlit plains
+far below. Miko, Moa, and a few of the _Planetara's_ crew were down
+there somewhere.
+
+Anita and I had a fairly definite plan. We were now in Potan's
+confidence; this interview at an end, I felt that our status among the
+brigands would be established. We would be free to move about the
+ship, join in its activities. It ought to be possible to locate the
+signal room, get friendly with the operator there.
+
+Perhaps we could find a secret opportunity to flash a signal to Earth.
+This ship, I was confident, would have the power for a long range
+signal, if not of too sustained a length. It would be a desperate
+thing to attempt, but our whole procedure was desperate! Anita could
+lure the duty man from the signal room, I might send a single flash or
+two that would reach the Earth. Just a distress signal, signed
+"Grantline." If I could do that and not get caught!
+
+Anita was engaging Potan in talking of his plans. The brigand leader
+was boasting of them: of his well equipped ship, the daring of his
+men. And questioning her about the size of the treasure. My thoughts
+were free to roam.
+
+While we were making friends with this brigand, the longest range
+electronic projector was being assembled. Miko then could flash his
+signal and be damned to him! I would be on the deck with that
+projector. Its operator and I would turn it upon Miko--one flash of it
+and he and his little band would be wiped out.
+
+But there was our escape to be thought of. We could not remain very
+long with these brigands. We could tell them that the Grantline camp
+was on the Mare Imbrium. It would delay them for a time, but our lie
+would soon be discovered. We must escape from them, get away and back
+to Grantline. With Miko dead, a distress signal to Earth, and Potan in
+ignorance of Grantline's location, the treasure would be safe until
+help arrived from Earth.
+
+"By the infernal, little Anita, you look like a dove, but you're a
+tigress! A comrade after my own heart--bloodthirsty as a
+fire-worshipper!"
+
+Her laugh rang out to mingle with his. "Oh no, _Set_ Potan! I am
+treasure-thirsty."
+
+"We'll get the treasure. Never fear, little Anita."
+
+"With you to lead us, I'm sure we will."
+
+A man entered the cubby. Potan looked frowningly around. "What is it,
+Argle?"
+
+The fellow answered in Martian, leered at Anita and withdrew.
+
+Potan stood up. I noticed that he was unsteady with the drink.
+
+"They want me with the work at the projectors."
+
+"Go ahead," I said.
+
+He nodded. We were comrades now. "Amuse yourself, Haljan. Or come out
+on deck if you wish. I will tell my men you are one of us."
+
+"And tell them to keep their hands off Miss Prince."
+
+He stared at me. "I had not thought of that: a woman among so many
+men!"
+
+His own gaze at Anita was as offensive as any of his men could have
+given. He said, "Have no fear, little tigress."
+
+Anita laughed. "I'm afraid of nothing."
+
+But when he had lurched from the cabin, she touched me. Smiled with
+her mannish swagger, for fear we were still observed, and murmured:
+
+"Oh Gregg, I am afraid!"
+
+We stayed in the cubby a few moments, whispering and planning.
+
+"You think the signal room is in the tower, Gregg? This tower outside
+our window here?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"Shall we go out and see?"
+
+"Yes. Keep near me always."
+
+"Oh Gregg, I will!"
+
+We deposited our Erentz suits carefully in a corner of the cubby. We
+might need them so suddenly! Then we swaggered out to join the
+brigands working on the deck.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+The deck glowed lurid in the queer blue-greenish glare of Martian
+electro-fuse lights. It was in a bustle of ordered activity. Some
+twenty of the crew were scattered about, working in little groups.
+Apparatus was being brought up from below to be assembled. There was a
+pile of Erentz suits and helmets, of Martian pattern, but still very
+similar to those with which Grantline's expedition was equipped. There
+were giant projectors of several kinds, some familiar to me, others of
+a fashion I had never seen before. It seemed there were six or eight
+of them, still dismantled, with a litter of their attendant batteries
+and coils and tube amplifiers.
+
+They were to be mounted here on the deck, I surmised; I saw in the
+dome side one or two of them already rolled into position.
+
+Anita and I stood outside Potan's cubby, gazing around us curiously.
+The men looked at us but none of them spoke.
+
+"Let's watch from here a moment," I whispered. She nodded, standing
+with her hand on my arm. I felt that we were very small, here in the
+midst of these seven foot Martian men. I was all in white, the costume
+used in the warm interior of Grantline's camp. Bareheaded, white silk
+_Planetara_ uniform jacket, broad belt and tight-laced trousers. Anita
+was a slim black figure beside me, somber as Hamlet, with her pale
+boyish face and wavy black hair.
+
+The gravity being maintained here on the ship we had found to be
+stronger than that of the Moon and rather more like Mars.
+
+"There are the heat rays, Gregg."
+
+A pile of them was visible down the deck length. And I saw caskets of
+fragile glass globes, bombs of different styles, hand projectors of
+the paralyzing ray; search beams of several varieties; the Benson
+curve light, and a few side arms of ancient Earth design--swords and
+dirks, and small bullet projectors.
+
+There seemed to be some mining equipment also. Far along the deck,
+beyond the central cabin in the open space of the stern, steel rails
+were stacked; half a dozen tiny-wheeled ore carts; a tiny motor engine
+for hauling them and what looked as though it might be the dismembered
+sections of an ore chute.
+
+The whole deck was presently strewn with this mass of equipment.
+
+Potan moved about, directing the different groups of workers. The news
+had spread that we knew the location of the treasure. The brigands
+were jubilant. In a few hours the ship's armament would be ready, and
+it would advance.
+
+I saw many glances cast out the dome side windows toward the distant
+plains of the Mare Imbrium. The brigands believed that the Grantline
+camp lay in that direction.
+
+Anita whispered, "Which is their giant electronic projector, Gregg?"
+
+I could see it amidships of the deck. It was already in place. Potan
+was there now, superintending the men who were connecting it. The most
+powerful weapon on the ship. It had, Potan said, an effective range of
+some ten miles. I wondered what it would do to a Grantline building!
+The Erentz double walls would withstand it for a time, I was sure. But
+it would blast an Erentz fabric suit, no doubt of that. Like a
+lightning bolt, it would kill--its flashing free stream of electrons
+shocking the heart, bringing instant death.
+
+I whispered, "We must smash that before we leave! But first turn it on
+Miko, if he signals now."
+
+I was tensely watchful for that signal. The electronic projector
+obviously was not ready. But when it was connected, I must be near it,
+to persuade its duty man to fire it on Miko. With this done we would
+have more time to plan our other tasks. I did not think Potan would be
+ready for his attack before another time of sleep here in the ship's
+routine. Things would be quieter then; I would watch my chance to send
+a signal to Earth, and then we would escape.
+
+With my thoughts roving, we had been standing quietly at the cubby
+door for about fifteen minutes. My hand in my side pouch clutched the
+little bullet projector. The brigands had taken it from me and given
+it to Potan. He had placed it on the settle with my Erentz suit; and
+when we gained his confidence he had forgotten it and left it there. I
+had it now, and the feel of its cool sleek handle gave me a measure of
+comfort. Things could go wrong so easily. But if they did, I was
+determined to sell my life as dearly as possible. And a vague thought
+was in my mind: I must not use the last bullet. That would be for
+Anita.
+
+"That electronic projector is remote controlled. Look, Anita, that's
+the signal room over us. The giant projector will be aimed and fired
+from up there."
+
+A thirty foot skeleton tower stood on the deck near us, with a spiral
+ladder leading up to a small, square, steel cubby at the top. Through
+the cubby window I could see instrument panels. A single Martian was
+up there; he had called down to Potan concerning the electronic
+projector.
+
+The roof of this little tower room was close under the dome--a space
+of no more than four feet. A pressure lock exit in the dome was up
+there, with a few steps leading up to it from the roof of the tower
+signal room.
+
+We could escape that way, perhaps. In the event of dire necessity it
+might be possible. But only as a desperate resort, for it would put us
+on the top of the glassite dome, with a sheer hundred feet or more
+down its sleek bulging exterior side, and down the outside bulge of
+the ship's hull, to the rocks below. There might be a spider ladder
+outside leading downward, but I saw no evidence of it. If Anita and I
+were forced to escape that way, I wondered how we could manage a
+hundred foot jump to the rocks, and land safely. Even with the slight
+gravity of the Moon, it would be a dangerous fall.
+
+"You are Gregg Haljan?"
+
+I stared as one of the brigands, coming up behind, addressed me.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Commander Potan tells me you were chief navigator of the
+_Planetara_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You shall pilot us when we advance upon the Grantline camp. I am
+control-commander here--Brotow, my name."
+
+He smiled. A giant fellow, but spindly. He spoke good English. He
+seemed anxious to be friendly.
+
+"We are glad to have you and George Prince's sister with us." He shot
+Anita an admiring glance. "I will show you our controls, Haljan."
+
+"All right," I said. "Whatever I can do to help...."
+
+"But not now. It will be some hours before we are ready."
+
+I nodded, and he wandered away. Anita whispered: "Did he mean that
+signal room up in the tower? Oh Gregg, maybe it's only the control
+room."
+
+"Suppose we go up and see? Miko's signals might start any minute."
+
+And the electronic projector seemed about ready. It was time for me to
+act. But a reluctant instinct was upon me. Our Erentz suits were close
+behind us in Potan's cubby. I hated to leave them. If anything
+happened, and we had to make a sudden dash, there would be no time to
+garb ourselves in the suits. To adjust the helmets would be bad
+enough.
+
+I whispered swiftly, "We must get into our suits--find some pretext."
+I drew her back through the cubby doorway where we would be more
+secluded.
+
+"Anita, listen. I've been a fool not to plan our escape more
+carefully. We're in too great a danger here!"
+
+Suddenly it seemed to me that we were in desperate plight! Was it
+premonition?
+
+"Anita, listen: if anything happens and we have to make a dash--"
+
+"Up through that dome lock, Gregg? It's a manual control; you can see
+the levers."
+
+"Yes. It's a manual. But once up there how would we get down?"
+
+She was far calmer than I. "There may be an outside ladder, Gregg."
+
+"I don't think so. I haven't seen it."
+
+"Then we can get out the way they brought us in. The hull port--it's a
+manual, too."
+
+"Yes, I think I can find our way down through the hull corridors."
+
+"There are guards outside on the rocks."
+
+We had seen them through the dome windows. But there were not many,
+only two or three. I was armed and a surprise rush would do the trick.
+
+We donned our Erentz suits.
+
+"What will we do with the helmets?" demanded Anita. "Leave them here?"
+
+"No, take them with us. I'm not going to get separated from them!"
+
+"We'll look strange going up to that signal room equipped like this."
+
+"I can't help it, Anita. We'll explain it, somehow."
+
+She stood before me, a queer-looking little figure in the now
+deflated, bagging suit with her slim neck and head protruding above
+it.
+
+"Carry your helmet, Anita. Ill take mine."
+
+We could adjust the helmets and start the motors all within a few
+seconds.
+
+"I'm ready, Gregg."
+
+"Come on, then. Let me go first."
+
+I had the bullet projector in an outer pouch of the suit where I could
+instantly reach it. This was more rational; we had a fighting chance
+now. The fear which had swept me began to recede.
+
+"We'll climb the tower to the signal room," I whispered. "Do it
+boldly."
+
+We stepped from the cubby. Potan was not in sight; perhaps he was on
+the further deck beyond the central cabin structure.
+
+On the deck, we were immediately accosted. This was different--our
+appearance in the Erentz suits!
+
+"Where are you going?" This fellow spoke in Martian.
+
+I answered in English, "Up there."
+
+He stood before us, towering over me. I saw a group of nearby workers
+stop to regard us. In a moment we would be causing a commotion, and it
+was the last thing I desired.
+
+I said in Martian, "Commander Potan told me, what I wish I can do.
+From the dome we look around to see where is the Grantline camp from
+here. I am pilot of this ship to go there."
+
+The man who had called himself Brotow passed near us. I appealed to
+him.
+
+"We put on our suits. After our experience, we feel safer that way. If
+I'm to pilot the ship...."
+
+He hesitated, his glance sweeping the deck as though to ask Potan.
+Someone said in Martian:
+
+"The Commander is down in the stern storeroom."
+
+It decided Brotow. He waved away the Martian who had stopped me.
+
+"Let them pass."
+
+Anita and I gave him our most friendly smiles.
+
+"Thanks."
+
+He bowed to Anita with a sweeping gesture. "I will show you over the
+control room presently."
+
+His gaze went to the peak of the bow.
+
+The little hooded cubby there was the control room, then. Satisfaction
+swept me. Then above us in the tower, must surely be the signal room.
+Would Brotow follow us up? I hoped not. I wanted to be alone with the
+duty man up there, giving me a chance to get at the projector controls
+if Miko's signal should come.
+
+I drew Anita past Brotow, who had stood aside. "Thanks," I repeated.
+"We won't be long."
+
+We mounted the little ladder.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+"Hurry, Anita!"
+
+I feared that Potan might come up from the hull at any moment and stop
+us. The duty man over us gazed down, his huge head and shoulders
+blocking the small signal room window. Brotow called up in Martian,
+telling him to let us come. He scowled, but when we reached the trap
+in the room floor grid, we found him standing aside to admit us.
+
+I flung a swift glance around. It was a metallic cubby, not much over
+fifteen feet square, with an eight foot arched ceiling. There were
+instrument panels. The range finder for the giant projector was here;
+its telescope with the trajectory apparatus and the firing switch were
+unmistakable. And the signaling apparatus was here! Not a Martian set,
+but a fully powerful Botz ultra-violet sender with its attendant
+receiving mirrors. The _Planetara_ had used the Botz system, so I was
+thoroughly familiar with it.
+
+I saw too, what seemed to be weapons: a row of small fragile glass
+globes, hanging on clips along the wall--bombs, each the size of a
+man's fist. And a broad belt with bombs in its padded compartments.
+
+My heart was pounding as my first quick glance took in these details.
+I saw also that the room had four small oval window openings. They
+were breast high above the floor; from the deck below I knew that the
+angle of vision was such that the men down there could not see into
+this room except to glimpse its upper portion near the ceiling. And
+the helio set was banked on a low table near the floor.
+
+In a corner of the room a small ladder led through a ceiling trap to
+the cubby roof. This upper trap was open. Four feet above the room's
+roof was the arch of the dome, with the entrance to the exit-lock
+directly above us. The weapons and the belt of bombs were near the
+ascending ladder, evidently placed here as equipment for use from the
+top of the dome.
+
+I turned to the solitary duty man. I must gain his confidence at once.
+Anita had laid her helmet aside. She spoke first.
+
+"We were with _Set_ Miko," she said smilingly, "in the wreck of the
+_Planetara_. You heard of it? We know where the treasure is."
+
+This duty man was a full seven feet tall, and the most heavy-set
+Martian I had ever seen. A tremendous, beetle-browed, scowling fellow.
+He stood with hands on his hips, his leather-garbed legs spread wide;
+and as I confronted him, I felt like a child.
+
+He was silent, glaring down at me as I drew his attention from Anita.
+
+"You speak English?" I asked. "We are not skilled with Martian."
+
+I wondered if at the next time of sleep this fellow would be on duty
+here. I hoped not: it would not be easy to trick him and find an
+opportunity to flash a signal. But that task was some hours away as
+yet; I would worry about it when the time came. Just now I was
+concerned with Miko and his little band, who at any moment might
+arrive in sight. If we could persuade this duty man to turn the
+projector on them!
+
+He answered me in ready English:
+
+"You are the man Gregg Haljan? And this is the sister of George
+Prince--what do you want up here?"
+
+"I am a navigator. Brotow wants me to pilot the ship when we advance
+to attack Grantline."
+
+"This is not the control room."
+
+"No, I know it isn't."
+
+I put my helmet carefully on the floor beside Anita's. I straightened
+to find the brigand gazing at her. He did not speak: he was still
+scowling. But in the dim blue glow of the cubby, I caught the look in
+his eyes.
+
+I said hastily, "Grantline knows your ship has landed here on
+Archimedes. His camp is off there on the Mare Imbrium. He sent up a
+signal--you saw it, didn't you?--just before Miss Prince and I came
+aboard. He was trying to pretend he was your Earth party, Miko and
+Coniston."
+
+"Why?"
+
+The fellow turned his scowl on me, but Anita brought his gaze back to
+her. She put in quickly:
+
+"Grantline, as brother always said, has no great cunning. I believe
+now he plans to creep up on us unawares, by pretending that he is
+Miko."
+
+"If he does that," I said, "we will turn this electronic projector on
+him and his party and annihilate them. You have its firing mechanism
+here."
+
+"Who told you so?" he shot at me.
+
+I gestured. "I see it here. It's obvious: I'm skilled at trajectory
+firing. If Grantline appears down there now, I'll help you."
+
+"Is it connected?" Anita demanded boldly.
+
+"Yes," he said. "You have on your Erentz suits: are you going to the
+dome roof? Then go."
+
+But that was what we did not want to do. Anita's glance seemed to tell
+me to let her handle this. I turned toward one of the cubby windows.
+
+She said sweetly, "Are you in charge of this room? Show me how the
+projector is operated. I know it will be invincible against the
+Grantline camp."
+
+I had my back to them for a moment. Through the breast-high oval I
+could see down across the deck-space and out through the side dome
+windows. And my heart suddenly leaped into my throat. It seemed that
+down there in the Earthlit shadows, where the spreading base of the
+giant crater joined the plains, a light was bobbing. I gazed,
+stricken. Miko's lights? Was he advancing, preparing to signal? I
+tried to gauge the distance; it was not over two miles from here.
+
+Or was it not a light at all? With the naked eye, I could not be sure.
+Perhaps there was a telescope finder here in the cubby....
+
+I was subconsciously aware of the voices of Anita and the duty man
+behind me. Then abruptly I heard Anita's low cry. I whirled around.
+
+The giant Martian had gathered her into his huge arms, his heavy
+jowled gray face, with a leering grin, close to hers!
+
+He saw me coming. He held her with one arm! his other flung at me,
+caught me, knocked me backward. He rasped:
+
+"Get out of here! Go up to the dome--"
+
+Anita was silently struggling with her little hands at his thick
+throat. His blow flung me against a settle. But I held my feet. I was
+partly behind him. I leaped again, and as he tried to disengage
+himself from Anita to front me, her clutching fingers impeded him.
+
+My projector was in my hand. But in that second as I leaped, I had the
+sense to realize I should not fire it because its noise would alarm
+the ship. I grasped its barrel, reached upward and struck with its
+heavy metal butt. The blow caught the Martian on the skull, and
+simultaneously my body struck him.
+
+We went down together, falling partly upon Anita. But the giant had
+not cried out, and as I gripped him now, I felt his body go limp. I
+lay panting. Anita squirmed silently from under us. Blood from the
+giant's head was welling out, hot and sticky against my face as I lay
+sprawled on him.
+
+I cast him off. He was dead, his fragile Martian skull split open by
+my blow.
+
+There had been no alarm. The slight noise we made had not been heard
+down on the busy deck. Anita and I crouched by the floor. From the
+deck all this part of the room could not be seen.
+
+"Dead."
+
+"Oh Gregg--"
+
+It forced our hand. I could not wait now for Miko to come. But I could
+flash the Earth signal now, and then we would have to make our run to
+escape.
+
+Then I remembered that light down by the base! I kept Anita out of
+sight down on the floor and went cautiously to a window. The deck was
+in turmoil with brigands moving about excitedly. Not because of what
+had happened in our tower signal room: they were unaware of that.
+
+Miko's signals were showing! I could see them now plainly, down at the
+crater base. A group of hand lights and small waving helio beam.
+
+And they were being answered from the ship! Potan was on the deck--a
+babble of voices, above which his rose with roars of command. At one
+of the dome windows a brigand with a hand searchbeam was sending its
+answering light. And I saw that Potan was working over a deck
+telescope finder.
+
+It had all come so suddenly that I was stunned. But I did not wait to
+read the signals. I swung back at Anita, who stared helplessly at me.
+
+"It's Miko! And they are answering him! Get your helmet: I'll try
+firing the projector."
+
+Or would I instead try and send a brief flash signal to Earth? There
+would be no time to do both: we must escape out of here. The route up
+through the dome was the only feasible one now.
+
+This range mechanism of the projector was reasonably familiar, and I
+felt that I could operate it. The range-finder and the switch were on
+a ledge at one of the windows. I rushed to it. As I swung the
+telescope, training it down on Miko's lights, I could see the huge
+projector on the deck swinging similarly. Its movement surprised the
+men who were attending it. One of them called up to me, but I ignored
+him.
+
+Then Potan looked up and saw me. He shouted in Martian at the duty
+man, whom he doubtless thought was behind me: "Be ready! We may fire
+on them. I'll give you the word."
+
+The signals were proceeding. It had only been a moment. I caught
+something like, "_Haljan is imposter_."
+
+I was aiming the projector. I was aware of Anita at my elbow. I pushed
+her back.
+
+"Put on your helmet!"
+
+I had the range. I flung the firing switch.
+
+At the deck window the giant projector spat its deadly electronic
+stream. The men down there leaped away from it in surprise. I heard
+Potan's voice, his shout of protest and anger.
+
+But down in the Earth glow at the crater base, Miko's lights had not
+vanished! I had missed! An error in the range? Abruptly I knew it was
+not that. Miko's lights were still there. His signals still coming.
+And I noticed now a faint distortion about them, the glow of his
+little group of hand lights faintly distorted and vaguely shot with a
+greenish cast. Benson curve lights!
+
+My thoughts whirled in the few seconds while I stood there at the
+tower window. Miko had feared he might be summarily fired on. He had
+gone back to his camp, equipped all his lights with the Benson curve.
+He was somewhere at the crater base now. But not where I thought I saw
+him! The Benson curve light changed the path of the light rays
+traveling from him to me, I could not even approximate his true
+position!
+
+Anita was plucking at me. "Gregg, come."
+
+"I can't hit him," I gasped.
+
+Should I try the flash signal to Earth? Did we dare linger here? I
+stood another few seconds at the window. I saw Potan down in the
+confusion of the deck, training a telescope. He had shouted up
+violently at his duty man here not to fire again.
+
+And now he let out a roar. "I can see them! It's Miko! By the
+Almighty--his giant stature--Brotow, look! That's not an Earth man!"
+
+He flung aside his telescope finder. "Disconnect that projector! It's
+Miko down there! This Haljan is a trickster! Where is he?
+Braile--Braile, you accursed fool! Are Haljan and the girl up there
+with you?"
+
+But the duty man lay in his blood at our feet.
+
+I had dropped back from the window. Anita and I crouched for an
+instant in confusion, fumbling with our helmets.
+
+The ship rang with the alarm. And amid the turmoil we could hear the
+shouts of the infuriated brigands swarming up the tower ladder after
+us!
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+I was only inactive a moment. I had thought Anita would have on her
+helmet. But she was reluctant, or confused.
+
+"Anita, we've got to get out of here! Up through the overhead locks to
+the dome."
+
+"Yes." She fumbled with her helmet. The climbing men on the ladder
+were audible. They were already nearing the top. The trap door was
+closed; Anita and I were crouching on it. There was a thick metal bar
+set in a depressed groove for the grid. I slid it in place; it would
+seal the trap for a short time.
+
+A degree of confidence came to me. We had a few moments before there
+could be any hand-to-hand conflict. The giant electronic projector
+would eventually be used against Grantline; it was the brigands' most
+powerful weapon. Its controls were here, by Heaven, I would smash
+them? That at least I could do!
+
+I jumped for the window. Miko's signals had stopped, but I caught a
+glimpse of his distant moving curve lights.
+
+A flash came up at me, as in the window I became visible to the
+brigands on the ship's deck. It was a small hand projector, hastily
+fired, for it went wide of the window. It was followed by a rain of
+small beams, but I was warned and dropped my head beneath the sill.
+The rays flashed dangerously upward through the oval opening, hissed
+against our vaulted roof. The air snapped and tingled with a shower
+of blue-red sparks, and the acrid odor of the released gases settled
+down upon us.
+
+The trajectory controls of the projector were beside me. I seized
+them, ripped and tore at them. There was a roar down on the deck. The
+projector had exploded. A man's agonizing scream split the confusion
+of sounds.
+
+It silenced the brigands on the deck. Under our floor grid, those on
+the ladder had been pounding at the trap door. They stopped, evidently
+to see what had happened. The bombardment of our windows stopped
+momentarily.
+
+I cautiously peered out the window again. In the wreck of the
+projector, three men were lying. One of them was screaming horribly.
+The dome side was damaged. Potan and other men were frantically
+investigating to see if the ship's air was hissing out.
+
+A triumph swept over me. They had not found me so meek and inoffensive
+as they might have thought!
+
+Anita clutched me. She still had not donned her helmet.
+
+"Put on your helmet!"
+
+"But Gregg--"
+
+"Put it on!"
+
+"I.... I don't want to put it on until you put yours on."
+
+"I've smashed the projector! We've stopped them coming up for a
+while."
+
+But they were still on the ladder under our floor. They heard our
+voices: they began thumping again. Then pounding. They seemed now to
+have heavy implements. They rammed against the trap.
+
+The floor seemed holding. The square of metal grid trembled, yielded a
+little. But it was good for a few minutes longer.
+
+I called down, "The first one who comes through will be shot!" My
+words mingled with their oaths. There was a moment's pause, then the
+ramming went on. The dying man on the deck was still screaming.
+
+I whispered, "I'll try an Earth signal."
+
+She nodded. Pale, tense, but calm. "Yes, Gregg. And I was thinking--"
+
+"It won't take a minute. Have your helmet ready."
+
+"I was thinking--" She hurried across the room.
+
+I swung on the Botz signaling apparatus. It was connected. Within a
+moment I had it humming. The fluorescent tubes lighted with their
+lurid glare; they painted purple the body of the giant duty man who
+lay sprawled at my feet. I drew on all the ship's power. The tube
+lights in the room quivered and went dim.
+
+I would have to hurry. Potan could shut this off from the main hull
+control room. I could see, through the room's upper trap, the primary
+sending mirror mounted in the peak of the dome. It was quivering,
+radiant with its light energy. I sent the flash.
+
+The flattened past full Earth was up there. I knew that the Western
+Hemisphere faced the Moon at this hour. I flashed in English, with the
+open Universal Earth code:
+
+_Help. Grantline._
+
+And again: _Help. Archimedes region near Apennines. Attacked by
+brigands._
+
+_Send help at once. Grantline._
+
+If only it would be received! I flung off the current. Anita stood
+watching me intently. "Gregg, look!"
+
+I saw that she had taken some of the glass globe-bombs which lay by
+the foot of the ascending ladder. "Gregg, I threw some of them."
+
+At the window we gazed down. The globes she flung had shattered on the
+deck. They were darkness bombs.
+
+Through the blackness of the deck, the shouts of the brigands came up.
+They were stumbling about. But the ramming of our trap went on, and I
+saw that it was beginning to yield.
+
+"We've got to go, Anita!"
+
+From out of the darkness which hung like a shroud over the deck an
+occasional flash came up, unaimed, wide of our windows. But the
+darkness was dissipating. I could see now the dim glow of the deck
+lights, blurred as through a heavy fog.
+
+I dropped another of the bombs.
+
+"Put on your helmet."
+
+"Yes--yes, I will. You put yours on."
+
+We had them adjusted in a moment. Our Erentz motors were pumping.
+
+I gripped her. "Put out your helmet light."
+
+She extinguished it. I handed her my projector.
+
+"Hold it a moment. I'm going to take that belt of bombs."
+
+The trap door was all but broken under the ramming blows of the men. I
+leaped over the body of the dead duty man, seized the belt of bombs
+and strapped it around my waist.
+
+"Give me the projector."
+
+She handed it to me. The trap door burst upward! A man's head and
+shoulders appeared. I fired a bullet into him--the leaden pellet
+singing down through the yellow powder flash that spat from the
+projector's muzzle.
+
+The brigand screamed, and dropped back out of sight. There was
+confusion at the ladder top. I flung a bomb at the broken trap. A tiny
+heat ray came wavering up through the opening, but went wide of us.
+
+The instrument room was in darkness. I clung to Anita.
+
+"Hold on to my hand. You go first--here is the ladder!"
+
+We found it in the blackness, mounted it and went through the cubby's
+roof-trap.
+
+I took another look and dropped another bomb beside us. The four foot
+space up here between the cubby roof and the overhead dome, went
+black. We were momentarily concealed.
+
+Anita located the manual levers of the lock-entrance.
+
+"Here, Gregg."
+
+I shoved at them. Fear leaped in me that they would not operate. But
+they swung. The tiny port opened wide to receive us. We clambered into
+the small air-chamber; the door slid closed, just as a flash from
+below struck at it. The brigands had seen our cloud of darkness and
+were firing up through it.
+
+In a moment we were out on the dome top. A sleek, rounded spread of
+glassite, with broad aluminite girders. There were cross ribs which
+gave us a footing, and occasionally projections--streamline fin-tips,
+the casings of the upper rudder shafts, and the upstanding stubby
+funnels into which helicopters were folded.
+
+We moved along the central footpath and crouched by a six-foot casing.
+The stars and the glowing Earth were over us. The curving dome top--a
+hundred feet or so in length, and bulging thirty feet wide beneath
+us--glistened in the Earthlight. It was a sheer drop and down these
+curving sides past the ship's hull, a hundred feet to the rocks on
+which the vessel rested. The towering wall of Archimedes was beside
+us; and beyond the brink of the ledge the thousands of feet down to
+the plains.
+
+I saw the lights of Miko's band down there. He had stopped signaling.
+His little lights were spread out, bobbing as he and his men advanced
+up the crater's foothills, coming to join the ship.
+
+I had an instant's glimpse. Anita and I could not stay here. The
+brigands would follow us up in a moment. I saw no exterior ladder. We
+would have to take our chances and jump.
+
+There were brigands down there on the rocks. I saw three or four
+helmeted figures, and they saw us! A bullet whizzed by us, and then
+came the flash of a hand ray.
+
+I touched Anita. "Can you make the leap? Anita dear...."
+
+Again it seemed that this must be farewell.
+
+"Gregg, dear one, we've got to do it!"
+
+Those waiting figures would pounce on us.
+
+"Anita, lie here a moment."
+
+I jumped up and ran twenty feet toward the bow; then back toward the
+stern, flinging down the last of my bombs. The darkness was like a
+cloud down there, enveloping the outer brigands. But up there we were
+above it, etched by the starlight and Earthglow.
+
+I came back to Anita. "We'll have to chance it now."
+
+"Gregg...."
+
+"Good-bye, dear. I'll jump first, down this side, you follow."
+
+To leap into that black patch, with the rocks under it....
+
+"Gregg--"
+
+She was trying to tell me to look overhead. She gestured, "Gregg,
+see!"
+
+I saw it, out over the plains, a little speck amid the stars. A moving
+speck, coming toward us!
+
+"Gregg, what is it?"
+
+I gazed, held my breath. A moving speck out there. A blob now. And
+then I realized it was not a large object, far away, but small, and
+already very close--only a few hundred feet off, dropping toward the
+top of our dome. A narrow, flat, ten foot object, like a wingless
+volplane. There were no lights on it, but in the Earthlight I could
+see two crouching, helmeted figures riding it.
+
+"Anita! Don't you remember!"
+
+I was swept with dawning comprehension. Back in the Grantline camp
+Snap and I had discussed how to use the _Planetara's_ gravity plates.
+We had gone to the wreck and secured them, had rigged this little
+volplane flyer....
+
+The brigands on the rocks saw it now. A flash went up at it. One of
+the figures crouching on it opened a flexible fabric like a wing over
+its side. I saw another flash from below, harmlessly striking the
+insulated shield.
+
+I gasped to Anita, "Light your helmet! It's from Grantline! Let them
+see us!"
+
+I stood erect. The little flying platform went over us, fifty feet up,
+circling, dropping to the dome top.
+
+I waved my helmet light. The exit lock from below--up which we had
+come--was near us. The advancing brigands were already in it! I had
+forgotten to demolish the manuals. And I saw that the darkness down on
+the rocks was almost gone now, dissipating in the airless night. The
+brigands down there began firing up at us.
+
+It was a confusion of flashing lights. I clutched at Anita.
+
+"Come this way--run!"
+
+The platform barely missed our heads. It sailed lengthwise of the dome
+top, and crashed silently on the central runway near the stern tip.
+Anita and I ran to it.
+
+The two helmeted figures seized us, shoved us prone on the metal
+platform. It was barely four feet wide; a low railing, handles with
+which to cling, and a tiny hooded cubby in front.
+
+"Gregg!"
+
+"You, Snap!"
+
+It was Snap and Venza. She seized Anita, held her crouching in place.
+Snap flung himself face down at the controls.
+
+The brigands were out on the dome now. I took a last shot as we
+lifted. My bullet punctured one of them: he slid, fell scrambling off
+the rounded dome and dropped out of sight.
+
+Light rays and silent flashes seemed to envelope us. Venza held the
+side shields higher.
+
+We tilted, swayed crazily, and then steadied.
+
+The ship's dome dropped away beneath us. The rocks of the open ledge
+were beneath us. Then the abyss, with the moving, climbing specks of
+Miko's lights far down.
+
+I saw, over the side shield, the already distant brigand ship resting
+on the ledge with the massive Archimedes' wall behind it. A confusion
+back there of futile flashing rays.
+
+It all faded into a remote glow as we sailed smoothly up into the
+starlight and away, heading for the Grantline camp.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+"Wake up. Gregg! They're coming!"
+
+I forced myself to consciousness. "Coming--"
+
+I leaped from my bunk, followed Snap with a rush into the corridor.
+
+We had returned safely to the Grantline camp. Anita and I found
+ourselves exhausted from lack of sleep, our arduous climb of
+Archimedes and that tense time on the brigand ship. On the flight
+back, Snap had explained how the landing of the ship on Archimedes was
+observed through the Grantline telescope. They had read with amazement
+my signals to the brigands. Snap had rushed to completion the first of
+our flying platforms. Then he had seen Miko's signals from the crater
+base, seen the lights and the fight to capture Anita and me, and had
+come to rescue us.
+
+Back at the camp we were given food, and Grantline forced me to try to
+sleep.
+
+"They'll be on us in a few hours, Gregg. Miko wall have joined them by
+now. He'll lead them to us. You must rest, for we need everyone at his
+best."
+
+And surprisingly, in the midst of the camp's turmoil of last minute
+activities, I slept soundly until Snap called me, telling me the ship
+was coming.
+
+The corridor echoed with the tramp of Grantline's busy crew. But there
+was no confusion; a grim calmness had settled on everyone.
+
+Anita and Venza rushed up to join us. "It's in sight!"
+
+There was no need of going to the instrument room. From the windows
+fronting the brink of the cliff the brigand ship was plainly visible.
+It came sailing from Archimedes, a dark shape blurring the stars. All
+its lights were extinguished save a single white search beam in the
+bow peak, slanting diagonally down.
+
+The beam presently caught our group of buildings; its glare shone in
+the windows as it clung for a moment. I could envisage the triumphant
+curiosity of Potan and his men up there, gazing along the beam.
+
+We had dimmed the lights to conserve our power, and to enable the
+Erentz motors to run at full capacity. Our buildings would have to
+withstand the brigands' rays which soon would be upon us.
+
+Outside on our dim, Earthlit cliff, the tiny lights showed where our
+few guards were lurking. As I stood at the window watching the
+incoming ship, Grantline's voice sounded:
+
+"Call in those men! Ring the call-lights, Franck!"
+
+The siren buzzed over the camp's interior; the warning call-lights on
+the roof brought in the outer guards. They came running to the
+admission ports, which had been repaired after Miko disabled them.
+
+The guards came in. We dimmed our lights further. The treasure sheds
+were black against the cliff behind us. No need for guards there--we
+reasoned the brigands would not attempt to move it until our buildings
+were captured. But, if they should try it, we were prepared to defend
+it.
+
+In the dim light we crouched. A silence was upon us save for the
+clanging in the workshop down the corridor. Most of us wore our Erentz
+suits, with helmets ready, though I am sure there was not a man of us
+but who prayed he might not have to go out. At many of the
+windows--our weakest points to withstand the rays--insulated fabric
+sheets were hung like curtains.
+
+The brigand ship slowly advanced. It was soon over the opposite rim of
+our little crater. Its searchbeam swung about the rim and down the
+valley.
+
+My thoughts ran like a turgid stream as I stood tensely watching.
+
+Four hours ago I had sent that flash signal to Earth. If it was
+received, a patrol ship could come to our rescue and arrive here in
+another eight hours--or perhaps even less.
+
+Ah, that "if!" _If_ the signal was received! _If_ the patrol ship were
+immediately available. _If_ it started at once....
+
+Eight hours at the very least. I tried to assure myself that we could
+hold out that long.
+
+The brigand ship crossed the opposite crater rim. It dropped lower. It
+seemed poised over the crater valley, almost at our own level and less
+than two miles from us. Its searchbeam vanished. For a moment it
+hung, a sleek, cylindrical silver shape, gleaming in the Earthlight.
+
+Snap looked at me and murmured, "It's descending."
+
+It slowly settled, cautiously picked its landing place amid the crags
+and pits of the tumbled, scarred valley floor. It came to rest, a
+vague, menacing silver shape lurking in the lower shadows, close at
+the foot of the inner opposite crater wall.
+
+A few moments of tense waiting passed. Soon tiny lights were moving
+down there, some out on the rocks near the ship, others up under its
+deck dome.
+
+A stab of searchlight shot across the valley, swung along our ledge
+and clung with its glaring ten foot circle to the front of our main
+building. Then a ray flashed.
+
+The assault had begun!
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+It seemed, with that first shot from the enemy, that a great relief
+came to us--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 searchlight 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 shouted it with derision.
+
+But Grantline swung on them: "Don't get that idea!"
+
+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
+aircurrent 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 system had allowed the outer cold to
+radiate through a trifle. The walls had had a trifle extra explosive
+pressure from the air. A strain--but that was all.
+
+"It's probably their most powerful single weapon, Gregg," said
+Grantline.
+
+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 shelves 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 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 longer. And it would not be ours.... You saw our lights
+fade when 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.
+
+"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 illuminated 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 small truck.
+
+"At the manual port--in the other building."
+
+Our weapons and outside equipment were massed at the main exit locks
+of the large building. But we might want to go out through smaller
+locks too. Grantline sent helmets there; suits were not needed, as
+most of us were garbed in them now.
+
+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 goes 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 event of disaster to the buildings, we could at least escape
+in this fashion. Food supplies and water were now being placed at the
+ports.
+
+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.
+
+Snap's voice was raised over the clang of the workmen bolting the
+gravity plates of the last platform:
+
+"Only that one projector, Gregg?"
+
+"They gave us 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. Then 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. He'll tell you where to put them."
+
+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 report from the instrument room. He laughed.
+
+"That helped rather than hurt us. Heated the outer wall. Franck took
+advantage of it and eased up the motors."
+
+We wondered if Miko knew that. Doubtless he did, for 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 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 that 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
+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 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 platform! Anita, in her boyish black
+garb; Venza, with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the tiny six
+foot long 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
+projection. Up to the low vaulted ceiling, then down to the floor.
+
+It sailed over 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
+admiration. Three or 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. "Practicing."
+
+"What for?"
+
+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?"
+
+"Because we're good at it," Anita retorted. "Better than any of you
+men. If you should need us, we're ready...."
+
+"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 brigands'
+searchlight 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 over to the ore sheds.
+
+We had no men outside, if that was what the brigands wanted to
+determine. The searchbeam 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 and the blurred
+interior of the cabins.
+
+"Try the searchbeam, Franck."
+
+The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our searchlight which clung to the
+dome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there.
+
+"The telescope," Grantline ordered.
+
+The dynamos hummed. The telescope finder glowed and clarified. On the
+deck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the assembling of
+tiny ore carts. A deck landing port was open. The ore carts were being
+carried out through a port lock and down a landing incline. And on the
+rock outside, we saw several of the carts, tiny rail sections and the
+section of an ore chute.
+
+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 searchbeam, sweeping the ledge a moment
+before, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done just
+for that purpose, no doubt--to make us feel sure the ledge was
+unoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making the search.
+
+But there was a brigand group close outside our walls! By the merest
+chance the radiating glow from our searchray had shown the helmeted
+figures scurrying for shelter.
+
+Grantline leaped to his feet.
+
+We rushed from the rear port exit 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!
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+"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 brigand had been seen.
+
+Grantline touched me just as we emerged. "Don't wait for orders? Get
+him."
+
+"That fellow with the torch--"
+
+"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 the
+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 handed 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 fellow men
+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 had leaped, landing beside me. "Dead?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I climbed from the inert body. The torch had hissed itself out.
+Grantline swung to our building corner, and I leaned down with him to
+examine it. The torch had fused and scarred 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. Would have to take that whole plaster section out, shut off the
+Erentz plant and exhaust the interior air of all this bulkhead. 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 had
+perhaps realized. I could envisage our weapons, useless from the lack
+of power. The air in our buildings turned fetid and frigid; ourselves
+forced to the helmets. A rush out to abandon the camp and escape. The
+building 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 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 stairs on the ledge. Three giant Martian
+figures in flight, with our four men chasing.
+
+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 searchbeam which located its returning
+men. Then the beam swung up to the ledge, landing 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 port. 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
+through the port.
+
+The Martian searchray vanished. Then almost instantly the electronic
+ray came with its deadly stab. Missed us at first, as we ran for the
+shield, carrying it back to the port, hiding behind it.
+
+The ray stabbed once or twice more.
+
+Whether Miko's instruments showed him how badly damaged our front wall
+was, we never knew. But I think that he realized. His searchbeam clung
+to it, and his zed-ray pried into our interiors.
+
+The brigand ship was active now. We were desperate; we used our
+telescope freely for observation. 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 chute 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--small
+mechanical cannons for throwing illuminating bombs.
+
+The enemy searchlight constantly raked our vicinity. Occasionally the
+giant electronic projector flung out 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 now 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.
+
+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 depth of the valley, could strike our
+front building, but could not reach all our ledge. And from the ship's
+newer and nearer position this disadvantage to us was intensified.
+Then abruptly we realized that under cover of darkness bombs, an
+electronic projector and searchray 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 port was on the lee side of the building from the hostile
+searchbeam. 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 searchbeam was going full power, clinging to the
+ship to dazzle them.
+
+Snap circled them. 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 swiftly flew back to our base.
+
+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 accept the
+challenge--for we could not fire through the windows and must go out
+to meet this threat.
+
+To remain defensive would end inevitably in our defeat. We all knew it
+now. The waiting game was Miko's--not ours.
+
+The success of our attack upon the distant isolated projectors,
+heartened us. Yet it was a desperate offensive upon which we decided!
+
+We prepared our little expedition at the larger of the exit ports.
+Miko's zed-ray was watching all our interior movements. We made a
+brave show of activity in our workshop 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 port we gathered the platforms, 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 skillful 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 port. A last minute change made Grantline order six
+of his men to remain to guard the buildings. The instruments, the
+Erentz system, all the appliances had to be attended.
+
+It left four platforms, each with three men--Grantline at the controls
+of one of them. And upon two of the others, Venza rode with Snap and I
+with Anita.
+
+We crouched in the shadows outside the port. 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 well armed.
+
+I envisioned then this tiny Moon crater, the scene of this battle we
+were waging. Struggling humans, desperately trying to kill!
+
+Anita drew me down on the platform. "Ready, Gregg."
+
+The others were rising. We lifted, moved slowly out and away from the
+protective shadows of the building.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+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 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 directly 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. An added glow down
+there must have warned Grantline that a shot was coming from there.
+The tiny red light flared bright on his platform.
+
+I turned 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. They seemed 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 small explosive globe bomb. Our search
+light ray at the camp, answering Grantline's signal, shot down and
+bathed the enemy 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 approximately where we had been 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 saw others dropping
+also from our nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in a
+confusion of the white glare--and a cloud of black mist as the
+brigands out on the rocks used their 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
+searchray. 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 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 spaceship, 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 small
+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 lights 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 there was none. 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. I was dully
+smothering....
+
+Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. I
+shifted over.
+
+"Anita! Anita, dear, are you all right?"
+
+"Yes, Gregg. All right."
+
+The melee went on. The brigand ship and all its vicinity were
+enveloped in dark 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 searchlight 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 didn't see it."
+
+Almost a collision.
+
+"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 about 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.
+
+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 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 explosions, enveloped the enemy. Our camp searchlight 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 these 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?
+
+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....
+
+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 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."
+
+Grantline's signal light was summoning us from the attack. He was a
+thousand feet or more above us.
+
+I was suddenly shocked with horror. The searchray from our camp
+suddenly 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 thought 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 men to attack our almost deserted 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 got 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
+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: to lure
+us back there.
+
+"Anita, if we can get down on the rocks somewhere near the ship, and
+creep up unobserved in that blackness...."
+
+I might be able to reach the 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 that 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. 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
+to where I was sure the manual lock would be 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 ran.
+
+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 port 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 in desperation, but missed. I came with a rush. And as
+I reached the port, it slid closed in my face, barring me!
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+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 there. The lock was some
+ten feet square, with a low ceiling. It glowed with a dim tube-light.
+
+I strained at it with futile, silent effort. The mechanism was here to
+open this manual; but it was now clasped from within so would not
+operate.
+
+A few seconds, 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
+finally 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. It was taken by surprise! I
+half fell forward.
+
+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 here is my little Anita, come back to me
+again!"
+
+Miko!
+
+This was he. His great bloated arms encircling me, bending me
+backward, holding me helpless. I saw over his shoulder that Anita was
+clutched in the grip of another helmeted figure. No giant, but tall
+for an Earth man--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, 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 of 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 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 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 wrist. 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 beneath Miko's lifeless, inert body. As I got to my
+feet, Anita flung herself to shield me. Moa was across the lock, back
+up against the 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 grid-floor almost at my feet.
+
+"Gregg!"
+
+"She's dead."
+
+"No! She moved! Get her helmet off! 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 and raised it off. We gently turned her body. She lay with
+closed eyes, her pallid face blue. With our own helmets off, we knelt
+over her.
+
+"Oh, Gregg--is she dead?"
+
+"No. Not quite--but dying."
+
+"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 vivid 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
+through the inner panel, past the secondary lock, that the hull's
+corridor was visible. And along its length a group of Martians was
+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 that 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 port.
+
+The air came with a tempestuous rush. A blast through the inner
+port--through the small 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.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+"Is he conscious? We'd better take him back: get his helmet off."
+
+"It's over. We can get back to the camp now. Venza dear, we've
+won--it's over."
+
+"He hears us!"
+
+"Gregg!"
+
+"He hears us. He'll be 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 hulk, already empty of air, drained in the mad
+blast outward. Like the wreck of the _Planetara_--a dead, useless,
+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 men had perished.
+
+We huddled on Snap's platform. It rose, lurching drunkenly barely
+carrying us.
+
+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 searchlight leaped
+upward, swept the sky, caught its sought-for object--a huge silver
+cylinder, bathed brightly in the white searchbeam glare.
+
+The police ship from Earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+TWO PLANETS CLASH FOR LUNAR TREASURE
+
+
+Gregg Haljan was aware that there was a certain danger in having the
+giant spaceship _Planetara_ stop off at the moon to pick up
+Grantline's special cargo of moon ore. For that rare metal--invaluable
+in keeping Earth's technology running--was the target of many greedy
+eyes.
+
+But nevertheless he hadn't figured on the special twist the clever
+Martian brigands would use. So when he found both the ship and himself
+suddenly in their hands, he knew that there was only one way in which
+he could hope to save that cargo and his own secret--that would be by
+turning space-pirate himself and paying the BRIGANDS OF THE MOON back
+in their own interplanetary coin.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Here is a science-fiction classic, as exciting and ingenious as only a
+master of super-science could write.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When RAY CUMMINGS took leave of this planet early in 1957, the world
+of modern science-fiction lost one of its genuine founding fathers.
+For the imagination of this talented writer supplied a great many of
+the most basic themes upon which the present superstructure of
+science-fiction is based. Following the lead of Jules Verne and H. G.
+Wells, Cummings successfully bridged the gap between the early dawning
+of science-fiction in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century and
+the full flowering of the field in these middle decades of the
+Twentieth.
+
+Born in 1887, Cummings acquired insight into the vast possibilities of
+future science by a personal association with Thomas Alva Edison.
+During the 1920's and 1930's, he thrilled millions of readers with his
+vivid tales of space and time. The infinite and the infinitesimal were
+all parts of his canvas, and past, present, and future, the
+interplanetary and the extra-dimensional, all made their initial
+impact on the reading public through his many stories and novels.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Previously published in an ACE edition is his novel,
+_The Man Who Mastered Time_ (D-173).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Brigands of the Moon, by Ray Cummings
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