Tuesday's Serial: "Brigands of the Moon (The Book of Gregg Haljan)" by Ray Cummings (in English) VII

CHAPTER XVII - A Woman of Mars

                "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 alert and tense, fearful still of what Anita's emotion might betray her into doing.

                "Not so loyal," Miko repeated. "And a fool! Do you think I am such a child you can escape me!"

                He swung around. "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 go into the asteroid's atmosphere."

                "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 look-outs," said Anita. "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 that 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 added 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 felt he could seize the 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. And they could win me.

                "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 shiver 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. "If Moa wants to try and put sense into your head—I hope she does. Bring him to the lounge when you are finished, Moa. 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," I said.

                She came and sat down beside me. "If you should attempt to leave this room, the stern look-out has orders to bore you through."

                "I have no intention of leaving the 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 foolish?"

                I remained silent.

                "Why?" she demanded.

                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, no doubt."

                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 upon 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, stern-lipped.

                "Well, why don't you tell me?" I said. "If I am to help you..."

                "Gregg, I want you with us. Don't you understand? We are not many. 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, Gregg?"

                "Yes. And the other ship—how fast is it?"

                "Quite fast. In eight days—or nine, perhaps—it will reach the Moon."

                She seemed willing enough to talk. There was indeed, no particular reason for reticence; I could not, she naturally felt, turn the knowledge to account.

                "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 to-morrow—where is our equipment?"

                The Moon, with its lack of atmosphere, needed special equipment. I had never heard 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 Great-New York on this voyage without our own arrangements. My brother, and Coniston and Prince—all of us shipped 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 suddenly intense.

                "Gregg, I told you once a Martian girl goes after what she wants. It is you I want—"

                Not for me to play like a cad upon a woman's emotions! "Moa, you flatter me."

                "I love you." She held me off, gazing at me. "Gregg—"

                I must have smiled. And abruptly she released me.

                "So you think it amusing?"

                "No. But on Earth—"

                "We are not on the 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? It seems stupidity, the fatuousness of man!"

                "Perhaps," I said.

                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?" she sneered.

                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 now 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 was 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 the Earth and you a girl of Mars."

                "Is that reason why we should not love?"

                "No. But our instincts are different. Men of the 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 when 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." I wanted Dr. Frank kept aboard. I still felt that there was a chance for us to recapture the ship.

                But 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 look-out, who was alertly watching the stern watch-tower.

                "Come, Gregg."

                I stepped out, and followed her forward along the deck, which now was bright with the radiance of the nearby asteroid.

                CHAPTER XVIII

Marooned on an Asteroid

                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 viewpoint, all of the little globe's disc was visible. The shadowed portion lay dimly red, mysteriously; the sunlit crescent—widening visibly is we approached—was gleaming silver. Inky moonlike shadows in the hollows, brilliant light upon the mountain heights. 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 child seemed to see in my uniform a mark of authority. She left her mother and ran to me.

                "You, please—you will 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 upon this ill-starred 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.

                "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 quarter-score bodies. Rankin, who had been killed by Blackstone in the fight; a man passenger killed; a woman and a man wounded.

                Miko added, "Dr. Frank will take his medical supplies—he 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 eyeing me. I said:

                "You have nothing to fear. I will guarantee you the best equipment we can spare. You will give them apparatus with which to signal?" I demanded of Miko.

                "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 word with me.

                I stood before the terrified woman while the little girl 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 passengers go ashore."

                "Why? No, of course you will have food, Mrs. Francis."

                "Never mind! 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?"

                "Of course, Hahn. I am no more anxious for a crash than you."

                He sighed with relief. "That is true. I am no expert at atmospheric entry, Haljan—nor Coniston, nor Miko."

                "Have no fear. Sit down, Moa."

                I waved to the look-out in the forward watch-tower, and got his routine gesture. I rang the corridor bells, and the normal signals came promptly back.

                "It's correct, Hahn. Get away with you." I called after him. "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 helio-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 seemed 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 rarified 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 green-verdured 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, verdured 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 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 thought 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 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. "We land in an hour-quadrant."

                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 helio-room doorway. But his guard was alert, with upraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in his position high amidships, 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. And a clanking chain connected them. They came like a line of convicts, marching forward, and stopped on the open deck-space 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 search-beams 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, perhaps, some last minute desperate purposes?

                I determined I would do what she said. Shout, or mis-order the lights. That would be easy. But to what advantage?

                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 possible 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 small 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 look-outs 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," I responded.

                I had done so. Our magnitizers had been adjusted to the shifting calculations of our landing. They were holding now at intensities, so that upon the Planetara no change from fairly normal Earth-gravity was apparent. I rang a tentative inquiry signal; the operator in the hull-magnetizer control answered that he was at his post.

                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, dishevelled, half-clothed men of three 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 steady gaze upon me. Her knife-blade gleamed in the turret light.

                She murmured again, "In a few minutes you can ring 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 of 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 over it 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 wonder 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.

                "Gregg!"

                She fought me as I tried to reach the switch. I saw down on the deck Miko 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 to the sward 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. And the course masters and those of our crew who had been killed; the stewards appeared with them; Miko unceremoniously cast them off.

                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 helio-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 shifted 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 mingled 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 us gently, bow first, with a repulsion of the bow plates. And started the central electronic engine. Its thrust from our 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 little world.

                With the three engines going we slid smoothly upward. The forest dropped, a purple spread of tree-tops, edged with starlight and Earth-light. The sharply curving horizon seemed following us up. 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."

                "An error? I don'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 away 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 score or more of 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 failed my cue? Whatever my part, it seemed now that I must have horribly mis-acted 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 away upon our course for the Moon. My mind flung ahead. Grantline with his treasure, unsuspecting this brigand ship. And suddenly, beyond all thought of Grantline and his treasure, 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. It swept me, so that I cursed my own incapacity. 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 an inept fool, never thought of that! Had left her 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.