Wonder Stories, January, 1934
Wonder Stories
2
Moon Plague
by Raymond Z. Gallun
EISURELY, old Steve Jubiston made
which were certainly not like the footprints
his way along a narrow valley toward
which a party of men, shod with space-boots,
L the laboratory-camp which his would make. They were too large, and their employer had established on the shape was oval. Old Steve felt a tingling thrill surface of the moon several months before. He ripple along his spine.
was returning from that which, on earth, might Warily, he glanced along the ravine-have been termed a casual afternoon stroll. A like cleft, which branched off to the right from short jaunt of this sort had recently become
the valley which he had been following. The
one of his usual pastimes when he had nothing sun, which had already declined far down the
better to do.
western sky, left most of it in dense shadow, It had been some time since old Steve
which his eyes, accustomed to the intense
had been care-free, but he now had some time
glare, could not penetrate. It was into these on his hands. His big, awkward body rolled
shadows, peculiar to the moon, where
forward with slow and distinctly sailorish atmospheric diffusion of light is practically strides. He whistled a blissful ditty inside the lacking, that the indentations disappeared.
oxygen helmet of his space-suit, and his small They came from up the valley, in the general
blue eyes twinkled behind the glazed view-
direction of the laboratory-camp. That they
window, as they roved hither and yon, taking
had been recently made was evident, for he
in the weirdly beautiful aspects of the lunar had traversed the valley when he had started
scenery. His metal-shod boot kicked casually
out on his jaunt, and they had not been there.
at a fragment of obsidian that glinted in the Old Steve felt a wave of apprehension.
sunlit dust of the trail. Now and then he would He fumbled at the apparatus at his belt,
pause to hurl a stone boyishly up at the steep closing two small switches. “Mr. Melconne!”
granite hilltops, and the rugged walls of small he called softly into the radio transmitter with craters that towered about him, or to examine which his helmet was equipped. “Mr.
a bit of blue lichen,[footnote 1] which was one Melconne! It’s me—Steve. Can’t you hear
of the very few forms of plant life which the me? Mr. Melconne—!”
almost airless lunar surface could support.
For a long minute he stood
Steve rounded a peculiar spire of grey
statuesquely, like a hound at stance, listening, rock, that was a well-known landmark to him.
his mind troubled and uneasy.
Then abruptly he stopped. The happy
But no reassuring word came through
whistling died on his lips, and his battered
his phones. Only the quick rustling of his own features became solemn and concerned.
pulse, magnified by the total absence of other Unconsciously, he assumed a half-sound, throbbed in his ears.
crouching attitude, on guard. The fine
“They might have gone away from the
volcanic dust of the ground about him was
radio for a few seconds,” he told himself
marked with many curious indentations, inwardly, in an effort to rid his mind of the
Moon Plague
3
tense unrest that had come over it. But no, that paradise about him. His eyes roved to the sky.
was against the rigid rules of the camp. While Instead of the normal blue of the earthly
any member of the expedition was afield, firmament, it was dark slate-grey, sprinkled there must always be some one at the radio.
with countless stars, even though the sun was Steve’s eyes dropped again to the well above the horizon. Those stars did not peculiar-oval markings in the ashy lunar soil.
blink kindly; they merely stared, with an
Best to investigate without a second’s delay.
inscrutable brightness. It would not take much No harm at least to do so.
of loneliness in this empty world, to make a
He started forward in long, easy raving maniac of a mart.
bounds, for the weak gravity of the moon
offered little resistance to his athletic muscles.
IN a sort of panic, Steve scrambled down to
And always, as he leaped over jagged rocks
the crater’s floor. Using his small flashlight, and tortured volcanic crevices, those strange he made his way to the squat, circular
oval indentations marked the dust under his
structure which for three months had been the feet, and continued ahead of him, along the
lunar explorers’ home. The airlock was
trail toward the camp.
closed, but beside it there was a gaping rent in He came at last to a place where a
the double wall of sheet aluminum, and the
crude stairway had been recently cut in the
layers of cold-resisting packing between them.
outer slope of a small crater’s wall by
Old Steve’s hard-set jaw tightened. His
members of his party. Agilely he climbed it,
impulse was to rush headlong into the dark
and peered intently into the inky shadows that interior of the building, yet something deep
shrouded the volcano’s floor. The laboratory
and primal within him warned him to caution.
building, located at the bottom, was as He advanced warily, now and then calling in a completely hidden as if it did not exist.
hoarse whisper the names of the members of
Steve’s eyes narrowed. Yes, there his party: “Mr. Melconne! Claire! Walker!”
must be trouble here, otherwise there would
His only answer was an eloquent, deathly
be lights burning in the laboratory. He paused, stillness.
his head hunched between massive shoulders,
The bright beam of his flashlight
the excessive breadth of which was enhanced
bobbed here and there over the walls and
by the fantastic garb which he wore. Then
floor. The latter was splotched with peculiar slowly, cautiously, he started forward, down
dried areas of a substance which had probably the stair cut in the steep, inner slope of the originally been a greenish, slimy fluid. The
crater. He called again. Nothing came through living quarters were in wild disorder;
his phones.
furniture, cooking utensils, and articles of
He became suddenly conscious of the
clothing were scattered haphazardly about.
brooding silence that hung, thick and heavy,
Steve passed into the test room. Apparatus and over the fantastic world about him. The pit
equipment here had been hastily dismantled
beneath was filled with a dense, almost and carried off. The air-purifying machinery tangible blackness, like a lake of ink. His eyes had been completely and methodically
blinked at the farther rampart of the crater, wrecked.
glaring grey-white in the intense sunlight, yet He made his way to the hang
ar, which
somehow drab and sombre. He saw the was next to the test room. The great doors distorted pinnacles looming beyond—twisted,
were flung wide, and both the spaceship that
motionless nightmares of this bizarre devils’
had brought the expedition to the moon and
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the small auxiliary flier were gone.
the building, then!
Steve’s flashlight groped over the
Presently, after a feverish search, he
floor, and wavered upon a huddled form. He
found him trying to creep across the floor in approached it. It was a human form, the main living room. With awkward unprotected by any space-armor. The eyes gentleness, Steve raised him, and placed him bulged hideously, and the face was bloated
in a broken bunk.
and purple under the short, black beard. The
“Hurt, kid?” he questioned, while he
teeth, between the curling lips, were flecked examined him as well as he could for
with foamy blood.
indications of serious injury. He could not
To have hinted in any way that old
remove the boy’s space armor, for to do so
Steve Jubiston was soft, would have been the
now that the air-tight walls of the building had supreme insult to him; yet now, something
been pierced, would of course have been
that was very like a dry sob escaped from his immediately fatal.
throat.
“It’s not serious,” Claire Melconne
The man on the floor was Frank reassured him. “Pretty well bruised up though, Walker, Steve’s side-kick during many an and I feel sort of sick .... Say, I’m sorry, but—
interesting episode on the Pacific, and in ports well, Steve—Garth Jubiston did this. Garth
of the Far East. Steve was down on his knees, and about twenty plant-men. You know, the
chafing the cold hands between his space-
specimen I shot just after we arrived. Garth
gloves before he realized that his act was
has evidently become pretty familiar with
useless—that this was a corpse.
them. Same kind of things. I—”
He stared in vague bewilderment about
“Garth?” Steve questioned. His voice
the dark hangar, at a loss as to what move to was almost a harsh whisper, that was
make. Who had done this? The fact that much
nevertheless full of meaning. “But, kid, he
of the laboratory equipment had been taken
must be dead! He left us six weeks ago. He
away, suggested that a man, or a group of men couldn’t have lived all that time without food, with scientific interests was back of the deed.
water, and oxygen! Think again!”
A thought came to old Steve, and for a
fleeting instant he fancied he knew who the
criminal was. That thought brought with it an CHAPTER II
emotion that was stronger and more Garth and the Plant-Men devastating than mere physical terror. It struck close to his pride, his self-respect, his hopes and his dreams. But no, he had guessed OLD STEVE was thankful for the darkness wrongly. That fellow was dead. Besides, the
that hid the look of pain which crossed his
tracks—
face. Garth Jubiston was Steve’s younger
Out of the lonely silence, which brother. But the expression on the old sailor’s seemed for the moment filled with the piping, face passed quickly. His lips became a hard
chuckling whisperings of a thousand little line.
demons, there came a human voice. Steve
“No, Steve, he’s alive,” Claire told
started, then strained his ears to catch the
him. “The mere fact of the existence of the
words coming through his phones. Someone
plant-men indicates that air and water are
was calling his name weakly. It was Claire
available somewhere around here, probably in
Melconne’s voice. The boy was somewhere in
subterranean grottoes, as Garth once said. And
Moon Plague
5
where there’s air and water, there might easily time breaking in. They just used their rocks.
be food.
The walls crumpled up and broke like
“Say, Steve, I know this thing is tough
cardboard. I potted two of them with my
any way you look at it; but I’ve got an idea
automatic as they rushed in. Dad got another.
that maybe Garth has got a good reason for
Then a plant-man grabbed me in his tendrils,
not being quite responsible for what he’s and threw me down upon the floor. I must doing. He’s sick, Steve. He staggered a little have been completely out for at least a minute.
when he was leading his forces toward the
When I came to, I could tell by the thumping
laboratory, and I got a glimpse of his face. His on the floor under me that they were still in eyes were staring, and there was something
the place. I managed to get into the closet. I across his nose and down along one cheek.
thought I’d get a few shots at them through
Thought at first that it was grease or some
the crack of the door, but I must have passed other kind of dirt; but no, it was grey and
out again. Somehow, they didn’t find me.
fuzzy. Reminded me of something; a grey,
That’s all I remember until I heard you. I
parasitic growth which I found on some white
couldn’t answer right away. We’ve got to do
lichens a couple of miles north of camp just a something, Steve—quick. Our air’ll be gone
few hours ago. Garth found a similarly in a few hours. We’ve got to go—” Claire diseased lichen before all this trouble started, Melconne’s voice trailed away.
if you can remember ....
Old Steve nodded slowly to himself.
“I was in the test room, getting my
He was getting the fantastic affair straight at diseased lichen ready for the specimen chest, last. Plant-men—Garth. It was a bizarre
when I happened to look out of the window. I
thought that Garth should be associating with saw Garth and his band just climbing over the those strange lunar creatures; and it was still crater rim. With their long legs, the plant-men more bizarre that Garth should lead them
looked almost like big, hungry spiders against men in the laboratory, that he should scrambling down a wall. It was sort of queer
cause the death of Walker, and place the rest to see them so active out there, where there’s of them in a position where extinction within a practically no atmosphere. You have to think a few hours seemed inevitable.
couple of times before you remember that
they’ve got thick, heat-resisting, cold-
GARTH Jubiston was Steve’s junior by ten
resisting, evaporation-resisting shells over years. He had been left an orphan when he their bodies, and that they are really green
was a small boy, and the responsibility of his plants which can, with the aid of sunshine, of raising had devolved upon his older brother.
which there is plenty, manufacture their own
Since Steve’s job carried him far and wide
oxygen from the thin atmosphere of carbon-
over the world, he hadn’t seen Garth for long dioxide [Footnote 2] which exists around here.
stretches of time; but old Steve had gotten the
“Not one of them was less than boy through school. Garth was ambitious, and eighteen feet tall. Garth was in their midst, he had something which Steve did not
apparently directing them, as they
came possess—a flash of genius. His advance had loping toward the laboratory. It was then that I been rapid. Everyone who had known Garth
saw his face .... All the plant-men carried big had admitted that his record had been above
rocks, and I knew that they meant trouble. I
reproach.
warned Walker and Dad, and then got into my
Finally, because of his ability, and
space-suit. But those things didn’t waste much because of his friendship with Claire
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6
Melconne, with whom he had become enough to give a fair idea of what it had been acquainted while holding an important like in life. It had stood perhaps eighteen feet instructorship in a large American university, tall. Its two stalky, many-jointed legs were
he had joined the expedition.
covered with countless matted brown fibres,
Everything had gone well until some
resembling roots. A tough, leathery mantle of time after their arrival on the sidereal sphere.
bright leaf-green, oddly reminiscent of a
Claire had shot the plant-man—the only one
military cape, hung over its spiny ovoid body.
they had seen. Garth had been intensely From the edge of this, its tactile tendrils, or interested in the creature. Shortly afterward, tentacles, projected. The creature had no head.
they had prepared a collection of strange lunar At the top of its body was a sort of hard brown lichens, to be taken, back to earth. Among
shell, resembling the calyx of an enormous
them had been the white lichen with the flower. It was not difficult to imagine that parasitic grey spots—the one Garth had found.
when the occasion demanded, the plant-man’s
Almost immediately, Garth had entire vulnerable anatomy, including his long become irritable and abusive. During the next legs, could be drawn into, and sealed in this few hours, he had made two trips alone and on shell, which might serve as a protection during foot, away from the camp. Then, when all the
the intense cold of the lunar nights. Sprouting others were sleeping, he had returned, and had from between the sections of this integument, gathered together a few of his belongings was a long forked stalk, bearing two globular before starting out again. The brief note he
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