May 1930

by Unknown

  My thoughts whirled in the few seconds while I stood there at the tower window. Miko had feared he might summarily be fired upon. 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 fascinated 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 suddenly let out a roar. "I can see them! It's Miko! By the Almighty--his giant stature--Brotow, look! That's not an Earthman!"

  He flung aside his little 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 weltering 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!

  CHAPTER XXXII - A Speck Amid the Stars

  I was only inactive a moment. I had thought Anita would have on her helmet. But she was reluctant, or confused.

  "Gregg."

  "We've got to get out of here! Up through the overhead locks to the dome."

  "Yes--" She fumbled with the helmet. Under the floor-grid 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 of the grid. I slid it in place--it would seal the trap for a time, at any rate.

  A degree of confidence came to me. We had a few moments before there could be any hand-to-hand conflict. That 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 I dropped my head beneath the high sill. The rays flashed diagonally 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 me.

  * * * * *

  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 agonized 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 ceased 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 were hissing out.

  A triumph swept me. They had not found me so meek and inoffensive as they might have thought!

  Anita clutched at me. She still had not donned her helmet.

  "Put it on!"

  "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 some heavy implement. They rammed with it against the trap.

  But 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: "Send 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!"

  She had taken some of the glass globe-bombs which lay by the foot of the ascending ladder. She held some of them now.

  "Gregg. I threw some."

  * * * * *

  At the window we gazed down. The globes she flung had shattered on the deck. They were occulting darkness bombs.[5]

  [Footnote 5: Filled with an odorless, harmless gas, these bombs were used in warfare, taking the place of the old-fashioned smoke screens. The diffusing gas was of such a nature that, when released, it absorbed within itself all the color inherent to the light-rays striking it, thus creating a temporary darkness.]

  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. One corner of it was bent up.

  "We've got to go, Anita!"

  "Yes."

  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 on yours."

  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 bullet 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 on the ladder. I leaped over the body of the duty-man, seized the belt of bombs and strapped it about my waist.

  Anita stood with me.

  "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 little 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 me! You go first--here is the ladder."<
br />
  We found it in the blackness, mounted it and went through the cubby's roof-trap.

  I took a hasty 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 porte 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 little cloud of darkness and were firing up through it.

  We were through the locks in a moment, out on the open dome-top. A sleek, rounded spread of glassite, with broad aluminite girders. There were cross-ribs which gave us footing, and occasional projections--streamline fin-tips, the casings of the upper rudder shafts, and the upstanding stubby funnels into which the 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 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 their 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 skulking 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--oh, 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 here we were above it, etched by the starlight and Earthglow.

  I came back to Anita.

  "We'll have to chance it now."

  "Gregg...."

  "Good-by, 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 that 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, with banks of controls.

  "Gregg!"

  "Snap!"

  It was Snap and Venza. She seized Anita, held her crouching in place. Snap flung himself face down at the controls.

  The brigands in the lock were out on the dome now. I took a last shot as we lifted. My bullet punctured one of them; he fell, slid scrambling off the rounded dome and dropped out of sight.

  Light-rays and silent flashes seemed to envelop us. Venra 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 under 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.

  CHAPTER XXXIII - Besieged!

  "Wake up, Gregg! They're coming!"

  I forced myself to consciousness. "Coming--"

  "Yes. Wake up!"

  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, using but little of its power for this local range. They had read with amazement my signals to the brigands. Snap had rushed to completion the first of our contemplated flying platforms. Then he had seen Miko's signals from the crater-base, seen the lights of the fight to capture Anita and me in the cubby, and had come to rescue us.

  Back at the camp we were given food, and Grantline forced me to try and sleep.

  "They'll be on us in a few hours, Gregg. Miko will 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 that the ship was coming.

  The corridor echoed with the tramp of Grantline's busy crew. But there was no confusion now; a grim calmness had settled upon everyone.

  Anita and Venra 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 little 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 fellows up there, gazing along the beam.

  Then it swung away. The ship was at an altitude of no more than three thousand feet when I first saw it, coming upon a level keel. Would it circle over us, firing at us? Or sail past, after inspecting us? Or land, perhaps, boldly crowded upon our little ledge?

  We were ready--a
s ready as we could be with our meager equipment. The camp was in a state of siege. The cliff-lights were extinguished: the interior lights were dim, save in the workshops of the main building, where the final assembling of Snap's other flying platforms and their insulated protective shields was still in progress.

  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 brigand 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 oncoming 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 portes, 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--the bulk of the ore was such that 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 sally out with our hand-weapons and defend it.

  In the dim lights 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 shields were hung like curtains.

  The brigand ship slowly advanced. It was soon over the opposite rim of our little crater. Its search-beam swung about the rim and down into 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 were 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 were 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....