by John Wyndham
My companions turned wondering eyes upon me, full of uneasy fears. Robson murmured something which might have been an apology. He begged for the whole story. I told him as calmly as I could all that I knew.
He found it meagre. ‘Have you any theories?’ he demanded.
I had been thinking, but I hesitated. ‘It’s rather a fantastic theory,’ I admitted.
‘Of course it is! The whole thing’s fantastic. Let’s have it.’ ‘You remember what happened when we opened the coffins? A globe of something dropped and smashed. Then, too, there were those glass needles–-There must have been a purpose behind them.’
Robson looked hard at me. ‘You mean that the needles might have been some kind of hypodermic?’
‘Something of the sort,’ I nodded.
‘And that they revived what we thought were corpses?’ ‘There were the glass globes, too,’ I reminded him.
‘But it’s ridiculous, preposterous! After thousands of years.
… There might be a possibility of suspended animation for a short time, but this …’
‘Why should it be impossible for an indefinite length of time? The fact that we don’t know how to do it doesn’t prove its impossibility. Those coffins were air-tight; they may have been full of preserving gas, for all we know. We couldn’t notice that while we were wearing space-suits.’
‘But-’
‘Oh, all right,’ I said. ‘I’m only offering a theory. Can you think of a better one?’
Robson turned to contemplate the cliff.
‘But why?’ he murmured. ‘Why?’
‘Why do men put up memorials?’ I asked. ‘It’s a habit, an instinct to perpetuate. I should say these people had just the same instinct. Their world was dying; the race was dying. Perhaps they thought that it was only a phase and that the Moon would become fertile once more. Anyway, on the face of it, it looks as though they decided to take a chance and try to save some of their race for whatever future there might be.’
‘But how can they live?’ asked someone. ‘There’s hardly any air.’
‘But remember the enormous lung capacity,’ suggested Robson.
CHAPTER FOUR
BESIEGED BY THE MOON MEN
With the suggestion of a rational explanation, the fears of the party grew less intense. Some of the more adventurous even volunteered to undertake a further investigation. They could go prepared and well armed.
Robson vetoed the idea at once. He pointed out that there were over four hundred Lunarians ready to over-run them faster than they could fire.
‘But we don’t mean them any harm.’
‘Nor did the others, but they got theirs. It doesn’t seem to have occurred to you that they must have food. There was nothing to eat in the vault.’
We looked at one another. This implication of the immediate capture of our men had not struck us before. It did so now, unpleasantly….
Robson summoned Captain Toft. This was a danger which concerned the whole ship, not merely our scientific group.
The Captain’s incredulity was easily beaten down by our massed conviction. He was all for action and rescue, until he realised that the space-suits had been slit and that the men were past all help. Robson pressed for the immediate removal of the Scintilla from the Mare Serenitatis to a less dangerous resting-place in some crater; but Toft shook his head.
‘The engines are down for repairs. Even by forcing work to the limit, it’ll take another ten hours.’ Our faces looked anxious enough to make him add: ‘I’ll do my best, gentlemen, you may depend on that, but I can’t promise a minute less than ten hours.’
Robson thought for a while. At last he spoke.
‘We must keep them penned up as long as we can. I want two men to go outside and take rifles. Every man or woman who tries to get out of that vault must be shot.’
Two volunteers were immediately forthcoming. They hurried into space-suits, and were on their way to the lock when a shout from a watcher at the window stopped them.
‘Too late,’ he called. ‘They’re out!’
A knot of a dozen or more Moonmen had just emerged. They halted a few paces from the cliff and stood on the grey sand, shielding their eyes with their hands from the glare of our searchlight, and looking,about them.
Now that they were erect, their differences from Earth-men appeared more pronounced. The large ears developed for catching sounds in the thin air seemed to dwarf their heads, and the huge bulging chests were so disproportionate as to render all the limbs skinny and spindly by contrast. They looked bewildered by the barrenness of the world they now faced. Not only did it fail to fulfil their expectations, but it was obviously different from their last view of it.
One man raised his arm and pointed to a distinctively distorted crag, as though it were a recognisable landmark. The rest nodded and let their eyes wander, searching for other familiar sights. More of their kind came out of the vault and joined them. After a short conference, they seemed to reach a decision and the whole group turned towards the Scintilla.
The doctor, standing next to me, was watching them with close attention.
‘They’re not doing too well,’ he murmured. ‘Even those great lungs are labouring a bit. The atmosphere must have been a great deal denser when they went in. I wonder just how long ago-?’
Robson’s voice cut him short. He was addressing the two in space-suits.
‘They mean mischief. You two get up into the control-dome and take your rifles. We’ll evacuate the dome, and then you can open the windows and pick them off, if necessary.’
The two men left the room, and we heard them clattering up the metal ladders. Robson was right. The Moonmen and women did mean mischief. It was in their gleaming eyes and bared teeth as they approached.
They had resumed the trappings that we had pilfered. Each wore the broad worked belt of Luna, and about their necks and ankles glittered metal bangles. Black hair, held back from their faces by ornate circlets, depended in a lank mane upon their shoulders and down their backs.
One man, slightly taller than the rest, appeared to be the leader. As they drew close, he turned to incite the rest. A moment later, a volley of rocks and stones clattered futilely against the Scintilla’s metal sides.
We took heart. The primitive simplicity of such an attack encouraged us. Half a minute later, two Moonmen dropped inert. Our men in the dome had gone into action. The attackers, by now a hundred strong, were thrown into momentary confusion. But the wavering was brief, and in a few seconds, they were running towards us. They had seen in a flash that once beneath the ship’s overhanging sides, they would be safe from the marksmen above.
A well-placed rock put the searchlight out of action and plunged the cliff-face into intense shadow. It became impossible for the riflemen to pick off the reinforcements which would pour from the tomb. They would be all but invisible until the line of sunlight was reached—and that line was crawling slowly closer to us with the sinking of the Sun.
Another searchlight was switched on, but it, too, was swiftly obscured. The main body of the attackers was now out of view from our windows, though a large number of stragglers continued to dart from the shadow towards the ship. Of these, a number fell to the guns, but a larger number won through unharmed.
From down the corridor came the sudden clanging of an attack upon our outer door. We looked at one another and smiled. There was precious little to be feared from that direction. Nor were the Moonmen long in realising that the steel would defy their utmost efforts. In a very short time, they came clustering around the window, hungrily gloating and excitedly jostling one another as they peered in.
The leader picked up a prodigious rock which could not have been stirred by one man on Earth. He flung it with a mighty heave against the fused pane. The pane was unharmed, but Robson looked serious.
‘I don’t know how much of that sort of thing it will stand,’ he said doubtfully. ‘If they try two or three of those rocks simultaneously-?’
The same idea had occurred to the Moonmen. We saw them collecting the largest rocks they could handle. There was a leering look of triumph on the face of the leader as he regarded us through his slant eyes.
Robson rushed back and opened the door. ‘Quick, out of this! ’ he shouted.
We left in a headlong rush, and as the last of us came through, we heard the crash of the shattered window. The door snapped to behind us automatically as the air pressure fell.
Within a couple of minutes, a furious battering began towards the stern. Half a dozen of us raced down the ship. As we clattered through the engine-room, the chief engineer looked up, spanner in hand. He was working all he knew. The grime on his face was trickled with sweat and his hair lay damp and flat.
‘Clamp on the emergency plates,’ he called as we passed.
There had been no time in the main cabin to fix the heavy steel plates across the windows, but now we seized them from their racks and set to with a will. No sooner was a plate fixed over one port-hole than the Moonmen turned their attack to another, and we had to rush that also to cover with an emergency plate.
In the middle of our activity came word that the men in the control-dome were abandoning their position. The place was becoming untenable on account of the bombardment of rocks, for while the rocks could be thrown on a trajectory which kept the throwers concealed, the riflemen must have direct vision before their shots could be effective.
For what seemed several hours, we lived in a nightmare of rushes from point to point. As fast as we made one spot safe, another was attacked. Then, at last, when we were weary to the point of exhaustion, we became aware that the frenzy was lessening. The batterings grew fewer and feebler, until at length they stopped altogether.
We waited, puzzled. It was almost an hour before we cautiously removed an emergency plate and peered out. Only then did we understand the abrupt cessation of hostilities. The Sun had set, and the sea-bed shimmered coldly in the pale, green-blue Earth-light. Of the Moonmen, only a few still, crumpled forms were to be seen.
‘They’ve gone,’ I said. ‘But why?’
Robson pointed towards the cliff, and I saw that the stone door was now closed.
‘The cold,’ he explained. ‘Right now it’s colder out there than anything you’ve ever known. In a little while, it will be so cold that what little air there is left will freeze solid.’
‘And the Moonmen?’
‘It means the end of them. Even in their vaults, the air will freeze—though they’ll freeze first.’
‘Poor devils,’ I said. ‘To wait all those thousands of years just for this—to freeze to death! ’
I had an unhappy vision of the last luckless Moonmen and women huddled together in their lightless tomb, waiting without hope for the creeping coldness of death. Robson’s voice broke my mood.
‘All hands on the job,’ he said briskly. ‘We’ve got to get shipshape again. Captain Toft, what are your orders, sir?’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE TWELVE COFFINS
It was decided that we would make for Earth. The morale of the Scintilla’s company was too shaken to undertake the exploration of Luna’s hidden side on our present trip. Since little or no calculation was necessary, Toft waited only until the engines were repaired before he headed straight for the great pale disc of Terra.
The ground fell away, and we looked for the last time on that misnamed Sea of Serenity. A few scattered brown figures were visible in the Earth-light; they seemed like a sad symbol of the littleness of that passing phase of worlds which we call life. With that final glimpse, those of us not on duty turned away and sought our cabins for overdue rest.
I slept long. It was all of twelve hours before I reopened my cabin door. My way down the passage led me past the chief engineer’s room, and I hesitated outside his door, wondering whether to take him along for breakfast or whether to let him have his sleep out. My hand was on the knob when the door opened abruptly and in the doorway stood a woman—a Moon-woman!
I stood frozen with the shock, staring at her. She returned the stare, white teeth and dark eyes glinting. She crouched slightly, becoming the more grotesque and horrifying. Her right hand slid forward, and I saw that it held a knife which was red with blood.
I lunged to grip her wrist, but she was too swift. With a twist and a cry, she had passed me and was away up the corridor. I hesitated, then turned into the engineer’s cabin. One look at him was enough; that Moon-devil must have slashed and slashed____
For a moment I stood irresolute. The engineer’s fate might well have been mine—and I was not safe now. I ran into the corridor; the rest must be warned.
At the threshold of the living-cabin, I checked in horror. Five still forms lay on the floor, each of them horribly mutilated. I recoiled and fled to the control-dome, hoping desperately.
My fears were not vain. Just in the entrance, I stumbled over the bodies of two officers. Beside a third figure crouched a Moon-woman. At my entrance, she arose and whirled towards me; I could see that the man at her feet was Toft, alive, but bound and helpless.
She faced me like some terrifying Medusa, stepping cat-like, a knife in either hand. I backed and grasped a chair, intending to use it as a weapon—I had forgotten that all furniture on the ship must be fixed. She gave a cry, semi-human and chilling. A door on the far side of the dome opened suddenly to reveal a group of the grotesque Moonmen and women.
It was more than I could stand; I fled, bolting the door behind me.
For the next twelve hours, I remained locked in my cabin. There was plenty of time to review our folly. How could we, even in our excitement, have overlooked the possibility of menace from those twelve coffins that we had taken aboard? And not only had we taken them aboard, but we had even opened them to assure ourselves of their contents. Surely, some of us should have foreseen the danger! Either Robson or myself ought to have fastened down the lids, or, better still, have jettisoned them upon the Moon.
And in the middle of my self-blame, it came to me that this was not the end. They must have taken the ship completely by surprise and murdered every man they had found except Toft; they would make him show them how to work the ship, or else force him to guide the Scintilla back to Earth himself. The Moon-people had planned thousands of years ago their bid for survival, and it had not yet failed. A dozen of the Lunarians might yet be let loose upon Earth.
I was unarmed, for all the weapons were kept in a cupboard off the main living-cabin. I would have to get there before I could avenge my comrades and wipe out the Moon-folk. I crept to the door and listened. One hasty glance up and down the corridor assured me that it was empty, and I made stealthily in the direction of the bows.
I reached the main cabin undetected, and slipped inside. Averting my eyes from the shambles on the floor, I sought the armoury cupboard. Its steel door was locked____
Footsteps rang on the floor beyond the opposite door. In a flash, I was across the room and back by the way I had entered —weaponless, and perhaps the only survivor, unless they had permitted Toft still to live. What could I do? I could think of nothing but that I must live and carry my warning. And to live, I must have food.
By devious ways I gained the store-room, and piled the necessities of life into an empty case. I had lugged it half-way back to my cabin when misfortune overtook me. Rounding a corner, I came face to face with a Moonman.
His surprise was greater than mine—I got in a good drive to the chin while he still stared. He went down with a cry which was half shout and half groan. It was not loud, but it served to alarm his fellows. There came a din of feet pounding down the corridor behind me. Leaving my case of food, I jumped over the prostrate man and fled.
Running and sliding on the metal floors, I made for the only safe place I knew; my cabin. The clatter of pursuing feet grew louder, spurring me on. Turning at last into the final alley, I found my way blocked. But I was desperate, and there was only one thing to do. I put my head down and charged l
ike a bull at the four brown figures before me.
There was a brief, whirling nightmare of kicking and hammering, and then somehow I broke out of that melee and gained my cabin. With a final effort, I slammed the door in my pursuers’ faces. My chest and face were bloody and lacerated. I remember pulling free a Moonman’s dagger which lodged in my left shoulder; and after that—nothing–-
The jolt of a rough landing finally roused me from my sleep or coma. With an excruciating effort, I raised my stiff body to look through the small port-hole. Outside was a stretch of white sand and beyond it a line of frothing breakers, glistening in the sunlight. Somehow, the Moonmen had brought the Scintilla back to Earth.
I was a sick man, and it took me a long time to move. When at length I managed to stagger down the passage, it was to find the entrance wide open and the ship deserted. Somewhere in the green forest which fringed the beach, the Moon-folk were prowling and hunting.
I made my difficult way to the fuel-store, and close to the tanks I lit a slow fuse; at least there would be no Scintilla as a safe base for the Moon-devils’ operations. Then, as fast as I could, I made my way along the shore.
A few days later, I found a long-neglected canoe. I repaired it the best I could and paddled it out to sea.
The President of the Lunar Archaeological Society frowned. He pulled his ear reflectively, and shook his head slowly. He turned the bunch of papers over and, still frowning, began to read them again.
Preposterous, of course, but—well, there had been a Stephen Dawcott, and he had sailed on the Scintilla….
THE PUFFBALL MENACE
The Prince Khordah of Ghangistan was in a bitter mood. His council, seated cross-legged upon a semi-circle of cushions before him, had come to know too well that look of dissatisfaction. Of late it had seemed to dwell perpetually upon his dark features. The members of the council were aware of his words before he spoke, so often had they heard them.
