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

CHAPTER XXX - Desperate Plans

The deck glowed lurid in the queer blue-greenish glare of Martian electro-fuse lights. It was in a bustle of ordered activity. Some twenty of the crew were scattered about, working in little groups. Apparatus was being brought up from below to be assembled. There was a pile of Erentz suits and helmets, of Martian pattern, but still very similar to those with which Grantline's expedition was equipped. There were giant projectors of several kinds, some familiar to me, others of a fashion I had never seen before. It seemed there were six or eight of them, still dismantled, with a litter of their attendant batteries and coils and tube-amplifiers. They were to be mounted here on the deck, I surmised; I saw in the dome-side one or two of them already rolled into position at the necessary pressure portes.

                Anita and I stood outside Potan's cubby, gazing around us curiously. The men looked at us, but none of them spoke.

                "Let's watch from here a moment," I whispered. She nodded, standing with her hand on my arm. I felt that we were very small, here in the midst of these seven-foot Martian men. I was all in white, the costume used in the warm interior of the Grantline camp. Bareheaded, white silk Planetara uniform jacket, broad belt and tight-laced trousers. Anita was a slim black figure beside me, somber as Hamlet, with her pale boyish face and wavy black hair.

                The gravity being maintained here on the ship we had found to be stronger than that of the Moon—rather more like Mars.

                "There are the heat-rays, Gregg."

A pile of them was visible down the deck-length. And I saw caskets of fragile glass globes, bombs of different styles; hand-projectors of the paralyzing ray; search-beams of several varieties; the Benson curve-light, and a few side-arms of ancient Earth-design—swords and dirks, and small bullet projectors.

                There seemed to be some mining equipment also. Far along the deck, beyond the central cabin in the open space of the stern, steel rails were stacked; half a dozen small-wheeled ore-carts; a tiny motor engine for hauling them—and what looked as though it might be the dismembered sections of an ore-shute.

                The whole deck was presently strewn with this mass of equipment.

                Potan moved about, directing the different groups of workers. The news had spread that we knew the location of the treasure. The brigands were jubilant. In a few hours the ship's armament would be ready, and it would advance to attack Grantline.

                I saw many glances being cast out the dome side-windows toward the distant, far-down plains of the Mare Imbrium. The brigands believed that the Grantline camp lay in that direction.

                Anita whispered, "Which is their giant electronic projector, Gregg?"

                I could see it amidships of the deck. It was already in place. Potan was there now, superintending the men who were connecting it. The most powerful weapon on the ship, it had, Potan said, an effective range of some ten miles. I wondered what it would do to a Grantline building! The Erentz double walls would withstand it for a time, I was sure. But it would blast an Erentz fabric-suit, no doubt of that. Like a lightning bolt, it would kill—its flashing free-stream of electrons shocking the heart, bringing instant death.

                I whispered, "We must smash that before we leave! But first turn it on Miko, if he signals now."

I  was tensely watchful for that signal. The electronic projector obviously was not yet ready. But when it was connected, I must be near it, to persuade its duty-man to fire it on Miko. With this done we would have more time to plan our other tasks. I did not think Potan would be ready for his attack before another time of sleep here in the ship's routine. Things would be quieter then—I would watch my chance to send a signal to Earth, and then we would escape.

                With my thoughts roving, we had been standing quietly at the cubby door-oval for perhaps fifteen minutes. My hand in my side pouch clutched the little bullet projector. The brigands had taken it from me and given it to Potan. He had placed it on the settle with my Erentz suit; and when we gained his confidence he had forgotten it and left it there. I had it now, and the feel of its cool sleek handle gave me a measure of comfort. Things could go wrong so easily—but if they did, I was determined to sell my life as dearly as possible. And a vague thought was in my mind: I must not use the last bullet. That would be for Anita.

                I shook myself free from such sinister fancy.

                "That electronic projector is remote-controlled. Look, Anita—that's the signal room over us. The giant projector will be aimed and fired from up there."

                It seemed so. A thirty-foot skeleton tower stood on the deck near us, with a spiral ladder leading up to a small square steel cubby at the top. Through the cubby window-ovals I could see instrument panels. A single Martian was up there; he had called down to Potan concerning the electronic projector.

The roof of this little tower room was close under the dome—a space of no more than four feet. A pressure lock-exit in the dome was up there, with a few steps leading up to it from the roof of the tower signal-room. We could escape that way, perhaps. In the event of dire necessity it might be possible. But only as a desperate resort, for it would put us on the top of the glassite dome, with a sheer hundred feet or more down its sleek bulging exterior side, and down the outside bulge of the ship's hull, to the rocks below. There might be a spider ladder outside leading downward, but I saw no evidence of it. If Anita and I were forced to escape that way, I wondered how we could manage a hundred foot jump to the rocks and land safely. Even with the slight gravity of the Moon it would be a dangerous fall.

                "You are Gregg Haljan?"

                I started as one of the brigands, coming up behind us, addressed me.

                "Yes."

                "Commander Potan tells me you were chief navigator of the Planetara?"

                "Yes."

                "You shall pilot us when we advance upon the Grantline camp. I am control-commander here—Brotow, my name."

                He smiled. A giant fellow, but spindly. He spoke good English. He seemed anxious to be friendly.

                "We are glad to have you and George Prince's sister with us." He shot Anita an admiring glance. "I will show you our controls, Haljan."

                "All right," I said. "Whatever I can do to help..."

                "But not now. It will be some hours before we are ready."

                I nodded, and he wandered away. Anita whispered:

                "Did he mean that signal room up here in the tower? Oh, Gregg, maybe it's only the ship's control room!"

                "I don't know. But the projector range-finders are up there, and I think it's the signal room."

                "Suppose we go up and see? Gregg, Miko's signals might start any minute."

And the electronic projector now seemed about ready. It was time for me to act. But a reluctant instinct was upon me. Our Erentz suits were here close behind us in Potan's cubby. I hated to leave them: if anything happened and we had to make a sudden dash, there would be no time to garb ourselves in the suits. To adjust the helmets was bad enough.

                I whispered swiftly, "We must get into our suits—find some pretext." I drew her back through the cubby doorway where we would be more secluded.

                "Anita, listen: I've been a fool not to plan our escape more carefully! We're in too great a danger here."

                It seemed to me suddenly that we were in desperate plight. Was it premonition?

                "Anita, listen: if anything happens and we have to make a dash—"

                "Up through that dome-lock, Gregg? It's a manual control; you can see the levers."

                "Yes. It's a manual. But up there—how would we get down?"

                She was far calmer than I. "There may be an outside ladder, Gregg."

                "I don't think so. I haven't seen it."

                "Then we can get out the way they brought us in. The hull-porte—it's a manual, too."

                "Yes, I think I can find our way down through the hull corridors. I mean, for a quick run. If we have to run, you stay close behind me. I've this bullet projector, and evidently there aren't many men in the lower corridors."

                "There are guards outside on the rocks."

                We had seen them through the dome windows. But there were not many—only two or three. A surprise rush at them would turn the trick.

We donned our Erentz suits.

                "What will we do with the helmets?" Anita demanded. "Leave them here?"

                "No—take them with us. I'm not going to get separated from them; it's too dangerous."

                "We'll look strange going up to that signal room equipped like this," she commented.

                "I can't help it. We'll figure out something to explain it."

                She stood before me, a queer-looking little figure in the now deflated, bagging suit with her slim neck and head protruding above the metal circle of its collar.

                "Carry your helmet, Anita. I'll take mine."

                We could adjust the helmets and start the Erentz motors all within a few seconds.

                "I'm ready, Gregg."

                "Come on, then. Let me go first."

                I had the bullet projector in an outer pouch of the suit where I could instantly reach it. This was more rational: we had a fighting chance now. The fear which had swept me so suddenly began to recede. I was calm.

                "We'll climb the tower to the signal room," I whispered. "Do it boldly."

                We stepped from the cubby. Potan was not in sight; he was on the further deck beyond the central cabin structure perhaps, or had gone below.

                On the deck, we were immediately accosted. This was different—our appearance in the Erentz suits!

                "Where are you going?"

                This fellow spoke in Martian. I answered in English.

                "Up there."

He stood before us, towering over me. I saw a group of nearby workers stop to regard us. In a moment we would be causing a commotion, and it was the last thing I desired.

                I said in Martian, "Commander Potan told me, what I wish I can do. From the dome we look around—see where is the Grantline camp—I am pilot of this ship to go there."

                The man who had called himself Brotow passed near us. I appealed to him.

                "We put on our suits. I thought we might go up on the dome for a minute and look around. If I'm to pilot the ship..."

                He hesitated, his glance sweeping the deck as though to ask Potan. Someone said in Martian:

                "The commander is down in the stern storeroom."

                It decided Brotow. He waved away the Martian who had stopped me.

                "Let them alone."

                Anita and I gave him our most friendly smiles.

                "Thanks."

                He bowed to Anita with a sweeping gesture. "I will show you over the control room presently."

                His gaze went to the peak of the bow. The little hooded cubby there was the control room. Satisfaction swept me. Then this, above us in the tower, must surely be the signal room. Would Brotow follow us up? I hoped not. I wanted to be alone with the duty-man up there, giving me a chance to get at the projector controls if Miko's signal should come.

                I drew Anita past Brotow, who had stood aside. "Thanks," I repeated. "We won't be long."

                We mounted the little ladder.

CHAPTER XXXI - In the Tower Cubby

Hurry, Anita!"

                I feared that Potan might come up from the hull at any moment and stop us. The duty-man over us gazed down, his huge head and shoulders blocking the small signal room window. Brotow called up in Martian, telling him to let us come. He scowled, but when we reached the trap in the room floor-grid, we found him standing aside to admit us.

                I flung a swift glance around. It was a metallic cubby, not much over fifteen feet square, with an eight-foot arched ceiling. There were instrument panels. The range-finder for the giant projector was here; its little telescope with the trajectory apparatus and the firing switch were unmistakable. And the signalling apparatus was here! Not a Martian set, but a fully powerful Botz ultra-violet helio sender with its attendant receiving mirrors. The Planetara had used the Botz system, so I was thoroughly familiar with it. I saw, too, what seemed to be weapons: a row of small fragile glass globes, hanging on clips along the wall—bombs, each the size of a man's fist. And a broad belt with bombs in its padded compartments.

                My heart was pounding as my first quick glance took in these details. I saw also that the room had four small oval window openings. They were breast-high above the floor; from the deck below I knew that the angle of vision was such that the men down there could not see into this room except to glimpse its upper portion near the ceiling. And the helio set was banked on a low table near the floor.

                In a corner of the room a small ladder led through a ceiling trap to the cubby roof. This upper trap was open. Four feet above the room-roof was the arch of the dome, with the entrance to the upper exit-lock directly above us. The weapons and the belt of bombs were near this ascending ladder, evidently placed here as equipment for use from the top of the dome.

I turned to the solitary duty-man. I must gain his confidence at once. Anita had laid her helmet aside. She spoke first.

                "We were with Set Miko," she said smilingly, "in the wreck of the Planetara. You heard of it? We know where the treasure is."

                This duty-man was a full seven feet tall, and the most heavy-set Martian I had ever seen. A tremendous, beetling-browed, scowling fellow. He stood with hands on his hips, his leather-garbed legs spread wide; and as I fronted him I felt like a child. He was silent, glaring down at me as I drew his attention from Anita.

                "You speak English? We are not skilled with Martian."

                I wondered if at the next time of sleep this fellow would be on duty here. I hoped not; it would not be easy to trick him and find an opportunity to flash a signal. But that task was some hours away as yet; I would worry about it when the time came. Just now I was concerned with Miko and his little band, who at any moment might arrive in sight. If we could persuade this scowling duty-man to turn the projector on them...

                He answered me in ready English:

                "You are the man Gregg Haljan? And this is the sister of George Prince—what do you want up here?"

                "I am a navigator. Brotow wants me to pilot the ship when we advance to attack Grantline."

                "This is not the control room."

                "No, I know it isn't."

                I put my helmet carefully on the floor-grid beside Anita's. I straightened to find the brigand gazing at her. He did not speak; he was still scowling. But in the dim blue glow of the cubby I caught the look in his eyes.

I said hastily, "Grantline knows your ship has landed here on Archimedes. His camp is off there on the Mare Imbrium. He sent up a signal—you saw it, didn't you?—just before Miss Prince and I came aboard. He was trying to pretend that he was your Earth-party, Miko and Coniston."

                "Why?"

                The fellow turned his scowl on me, but Anita brought his gaze back to her. She put in quickly:

                "Grantline, as Brother always said, has no great cunning. I believe he's planning now to creep up on us, catch us unaware by pretending that he is Miko."

                "If he does that," I said, "we will turn this electronic projector on him and annihilate him. You have its firing mechanism here."

                "Who told you so?" he shot at me.

                I gestured. "I see it here. It's obvious. I'm skilled at trajectory-firing. If Grantline appears down there now, I'll help you—"

                "Is it connected?" Anita demanded boldly.

                "Yes," he said. "You have on your Erentz suits: are you going to the dome-roof? Then go."

                But that was what we did not want to do. Anita's glance seemed to tell me to let her handle this. I turned toward one of the cubby windows; she said sweetly:

                "Are you in charge of this room? Show me how that projector is operated; it will be invincible against the Grantline camp."

                "Yes."

I had my back to them for a moment. Through the breast-high oval I could see down across the deck-space and out through the side dome windows. And my heart suddenly leaped into my throat. It seemed that down there in the Earthlit shadows, where the spreading base of the giant crater joined the plains, a light was bobbing. I gazed, stricken. Miko's lights? Was he advancing, preparing to signal? I tried to gauge the distance; it was not over two miles from here.

                Or was it not a light at all? With the naked eye, I could not be sure. Perhaps there was a telescopic finder here in the cubby...

                I was subconsciously aware of the voices of Anita and the duty-man behind me. Then abruptly I heard Anita's low cry. I whirled around.

                The giant Martian had gathered her into his huge arms, his heavy-jowled gray face with a leering grin close to hers!

                He saw me coming. He held her with one arm: his other flung at me, caught me, knocked me backward. He rasped:

                "Get out of here! Go up to the dome, leave us."

                Anita was silently struggling with her little hands at his thick throat. His blow flung me against a settle. But I held my feet. I was partly behind him. I leaped again, and as he tried to disengage himself from Anita to front me, her clutching fingers impeded him.

                My bullet projector was in my hand. But in that second as I leaped, I had the sense to realize I should not fire it and with its noise alarm the ship. I grasped its barrel, reached upward and struck with its heavy metal butt. The blow caught the Martian on the skull, and simultaneously my body struck him.

                We went down together, falling partly upon Anita. But the giant had not cried out, and as I gripped him now, I felt his body limp. I lay panting. Anita squirmed silently from under us. Blood from the giant's head was welling out, hot and sticky against my face as I lay sprawled on him.

I cast him off. He was dead, his fragile Martian skull split open by my blow.

                There had been no alarm. The slight noise we made had not been heard down on the busy deck. Anita and I crouched by the floor. From the deck all this part of the room could not be seen.

                "Dead!"

                "Oh, Gregg—"

                It forced our hand. I could not wait now for Miko to come. But I could flash the Earth signal now, and then we would have to make our run to escape.

                Abruptly I remembered that light down at the crater-base! I kept Anita out of sight on the floor and went cautiously to a window. The deck was in turmoil with brigands moving about excitedly. Not because of what had happened in our tower signal room; they were unaware of that.

                Miko's signals were showing! I could see them now plainly, down at the crater-base. A group of hand-lights and a small waving helio-beam.

                And they were being answered from the ship! Potan was on the deck—a babble of voices, above which his rose with roars of command. At one of the dome windows a brigand with a hand search-beam was sending its answering light. And I saw that Potan was working over a deck telescope-finder.

                It had all come so suddenly that I was stunned. But I did not wait to read the signals. I swung back at Anita.

                "It's Miko! And they are answering him! Get your helmet; I'll try firing the projector."

                Or would I instead try to send a brief flash-signal to Earth? There would be no time to do both: we must escape out of here. The route up through the dome was the only feasible one now.

                This range mechanism of the projector was reasonably familiar, and I felt that I could operate it. The range-finder and switch were on a ledge at one of the windows. I rushed to it. As I swung the little telescope, training it down on Miko's lights, I could see the huge projector on the deck swinging similarly. Its movement surprised the men who were attending it. One of them called up to me, but I ignored him.

Then Potan looked up and saw me. He shouted in Martian at the duty-man, whom he doubtless thought was behind me: "Be ready! We may fire on them, whoever they are. I'll give you the word."

                The signals were proceeding. It had only been a moment. I caught something like, "Haljan is impostor."

                I was aiming the projector. I was aware of Anita at my elbow. I pushed her back.

                "Put on your helmet!"

                I had the range. I flung the firing switch.

                At the deck window the giant projector spat its deadly electronic stream. The men down there leaped away from it with surprise. I heard Potan's voice, his shout of protest and anger.

                But down in the Earthglow at the crater-base, Miko's lights had not vanished! I had missed! An error in the range? Abruptly I knew it was not that. Miko's lights were still there. His signals still coming. And I remarked now a faint distortion about them, the glow of his little group of hand-lights faintly distorted and vaguely shot with a greenish cast. Benson curve-lights! I realized it.

                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]

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."

                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. Venza held the side-shields higher.

                We tilted, swayed crazily, and then steadied.

                The ship's dome dropped away beneath us. The rocks of the open ledge were 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.

[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.