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

CHAPTER XXXVI - The Battle in the Crater

Grantline led us. We held about level. Five hundred feet beneath us the brigand ship lay, cradled on the rocks. When it was still a mile away from us I could see all its outline fairly clearly in the dimness. Its tiny hull-windows were now dark; but the blurred shape of the hull was visible and above it the rounded cap of dome, with a dim radiance beneath it.

              We followed Grantline's platform. It was rising, drawing the others after it like a tail. I touched Anita where she lay beside me with her head half in the small hooded control-bank.

                "Going too high."

                She nodded, but followed the line nevertheless. It was Grantline's command.

               I lay crouched, holding the inner tips of the flexible side-shields. The bottom of the platform was covered with the insulated fabric. There were two side-shields. They extended upward some two feet, flexible so that I could hold them out to see over them, or draw them up and in to cover us.

                They afforded a measure of protection against the hostile rays, though just how much we were not sure. With the platform level, a bolt from beneath could not harm us unless it continued for a considerable time. But the platform, except upon direct flight, was seldom level, for it was a frail, unstable little vehicle! To handle it was more than a question of the controls. We balanced, and helped to guide it, with the movement of our bodies—shifting our weight sidewise, or back, or forward to make it dip as the controls altered the gravity-pull in its tiny plate-sections.

             Like a bird, wheeling, soaring, swooping. To me, it was a precarious business.

 But now we were in straight flight diagonally upward. The outline of the brigand ship came under us. I crouched tense, breathless; every moment it seemed that the brigands must discover us and loose their bolts.

                They may have seen us for some moments before they fired. I peered over the side-shield down at our mark, then up ahead to get Grantline's firing signal. It seemed long delayed. We were almost over the ship. An added glow down there must have warned Grantline that a shot was coming. The tiny red light flared bright on his platform.

                I hissed on our Benson curve-light radiance. We had been dark, but a soft glow now enveloped us. Its sheen went down to the ship to reveal us. But its curving path showed us falsely placed. I saw the little line of platforms ahead of us seem to move suddenly sidewise.

                It was everyone for himself now; none of us could tell where the other platforms actually were placed or headed. Anita swooped us sharply down to avoid a possible collision.

                "Gregg—?"

                "Yes. I'm aiming."

                I was making ready to drop the little explosive globe-bomb. Our search-light ray at the camp, answering Grantline's signal, shot down and bathed the ship in a white glare, revealing it for our aim. Simultaneously the brigand bolts came up at us.

                I held my bomb out over the shield, calculating the angle to throw it down. The brigand rays flashed around me. They were horribly close; Miko had understood our sudden visible shift and aimed, not where we appeared to be, but where we had been a moment before.

I dropped my bomb hastily at the glowing white ship. The touch of a hostile ray would have exploded it in my hand. I could see its blue-sizzling fuse as it fell. I saw the others also dropping from our nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in a confusion of the white glare—and a cloud of black light-mist as the brigands out on the rocks used their occulting darkness bombs.

                We swept past in a blur of leaping hostile beams. Silent battle of lights! Darkness bombs down at the ship struggling to bar our camp search-ray. The Benson radiance-rays from our passing platforms curving down to mingle with the confusion. The electronic rays sending up their bolts...

                Our platforms dropped some ten dynamitrine bombs in that first passage over the ship. As we sped by, I dimmed the Benson's radiance. I peered. We had not hit the ship. Or if we had, the damage was inconclusive. But on the rocks I could see a pile of ore-carts scattered—broken wreckage, in which the litter of two or three projectors seemed strewn. And the gruesome deflated forms of several helmeted figures. Others seemed, to be running, scattering—hiding in the rocks and pit-holes. Twenty brigands at least were outside the ship. Some were running over toward the base of our camp-ledge. The darkness bombs were spreading like a curtain over the valley floor; but it seemed that some of the figures were dragging their projectors away.

                We sailed off toward the opposite crater-rim. I remember passing over the broken wreckage of Grantline's little space-ship, the Comet. Miko's bolts momentarily had vanished. We had hit some of his outside projectors; the others were abandoned, or being dragged to safer positions.

After a mile we wheeled and went back. I suddenly realized that only four platforms were in the re-formed line ahead of us. One was missing! I saw it now, wavering down, close over the ship. A bolt leaped up diagonally from a distant angle on the rocks and caught the disabled platform. It fell, whirling, glowing red—disappeared into the blur of darkness like a bit of heated metal plunged into water.

                One out of six of our platforms already lost! Three men of our little force gone!

                But Grantline led us desperately back. Anita caught his signal to break our line. The five platforms scattered, dipping and wheeling like frightened birds—blurring shapes, shifting unnaturally in flight as the Benson curve-angles were altered.

                Anita now took our platform in a long swoop downward. Her tense, murmured voice sounded in my ears:

                "Hold off: I'll take us low."

                A melee. Passing platform shapes. The darting bolts, crossing like ancient rapiers. Falling blue points of fuse-lights as we threw our bombs.

                Down in a swoop. Then rising. Away, and then back. This silent warfare of lights! It seemed that around me must be bursting a pandemonium of sound. Yet I heard nothing. Silent, blurred melee, infinitely frightening. A bolt struck us, clung for an instant; but we weathered it. The light was blinding. Through my gloves I could feel the tingle of the over-charged shield as it caught and absorbed the hostile bombardment. Under me the platform seemed heated. My little Erentz motors ran with ragged pulse. I got too much oxygen; my head roared with it. Spots danced before my closed eyes. Then not enough oxygen. I was dully smothering...

                Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. I shifted over.

                "Anita! Anita, dear!"

                "Yes. Gregg. All right."

The melee went on. The brigand ship and all its vicinity was enveloped in darkness-mist now—a turgid sable curtain, made more dense by the dissipating heavy fumes of our exploding bombs which settled low over the ship and the rocks nearby. The search-light from our camp strove futilely to penetrate the cloud.

                Our platforms were separated. One went by high over us; I saw another dart close beneath my shield.

                "God, Anita!"

                "Too close! I did not mean that—I didn't see it."

                Almost a collision.

                "Oh, Gregg, haven't we broken the ship's dome yet?"

                It seemed not. I had dropped nearly all my bombs. This could not go on much longer. Had it been only five minutes? Only that? Reason told me so, yet it seemed an eternity of horror.

                Another swoop. My last bomb. Anita had brought us into position to fling it. But I could not. A bolt stabbed up from the gloom and caught us. We huddled, pulling the shields up and over us.

                Blurred darkness again. Too much to the side now. I had to wait while Anita swung us back. Then we seemed too high.

                We swooped. But not too low! Down in the darkness-mist we would immediately have lost direction, and crashed.

                I waited with my last bomb. The other platforms were occasionally dropping them: I had been too hasty, too prodigal.

                Had we broken the ship's dome with a direct hit? It seemed not.

The brigands were occasionally sending up catapulted light-flares. They came from positions on the rocks outside the ship. They mounted in lazy curves and burst over us. The concealing darkness, broken only by the flares of our explosions, enveloped the enemy. Our camp search-light was still struggling with it. But overhead, where the few little platforms were circling and swooping, the flares gave an almost continuous glare. It was dazzling, blinding. Even through the smoked pane which I adjusted to my visor I could not stand it.

                But there were thoughts of comparative dimness. In a patch where the Earthlight struck through the darkness of the rocks, I saw another of our fallen platforms! Snap and Venza! Dear God...

                It was not they, but three figures of our men. One was dead. Two had survived the fall. They stood up, staggering. And in that instant, before the turgid black curtain closed over them, I saw two brigands come rushing. Their hand projectors stabbed at close range. Our men crumpled and fell.

                And now I saw why probably we had never yet hit the ship.

                Its outline was revealed. "Now, Gregg—can you fling it from here?"

                We were in position again. I flung my last missile, watched its light as it dropped. On the dome-roof two of Miko's men were crouching. My bomb was truly aimed—perhaps one of the few in all our bombardment which would have landed directly on the dome-roof. But the waiting marksmen fired at it with short-range heat projectors and exploded it harmlessly while it was still above them.

                We swung up and away. I saw, high above us, Grantline's platform, recognizing its red signal light. There seemed a lull. The enemy fire had died down to only a very occasional bolt. In the confusion of my whirling impressions I wondered if Miko were in distress? Not that! We had not hit his ship; perhaps we had done little damage indeed! It was we who were in distress. Two of our platforms had fallen—two out of six. Or more, of which I did not know.

I saw one rising off to the side of us. Grantline was over us. Well, we were at least three. And then I saw the fourth.

                "Grantline is calling us up, Gregg."

                "Yes."

                Grantline's signal-light was summoning us from the attack. He was a thousand or two thousand feet above.

                I was suddenly shocked with horror. The search-ray from our camp abruptly vanished! Anita wheeled us to face the distant ledge. The camp-lights showed, and over one of the buildings was a distress light!

                Had the crack in our front wall broken, threatening explosion of all the buildings? The wild thoughts swept me. But it was not that. I could see light-stabs from the cliff outside the main building. Miko had dared to send some of his men to attack our almost abandoned camp!

                Grantline realized it. His red helmet-light semaphored the command to follow him. His platform soared away, heading for the camp, with the other two behind him.

                Anita lifted us to follow. But I checked her.

                "No! Off to the right, across the valley."

                "But Gregg!"

                "Do as I say, Anita."

                She swung us diagonally away from both the camp and the brigand ship. I prayed that we might not be noticed by the brigands.

                "Anita, listen: I've an idea!"

                The attack on the brigand ship was over. It lay enveloped in the darkness of the powder-gas cloud and its own darkness bombs. But it was uninjured.

                Miko had answered us with our own tactics. He had practically unmanned the ship, no doubt, and had sent his men to our buildings. The fight had shifted. But I was now without ammunition, save for two or three small bullet projectors.

                Of what use for our platform to rush back? Miko expected that. His attack on the camp was undoubtedly made just for that purpose.

                "Anita, if we can get down on the rocks somewhere near the ship, and creep up on it unobserved in that blackness..."

I might be able to open its manual hull-lock, rip it open and let the air out. If I could get into its pressure chamber and unseal the inner slide...

                "It would wreck the ship, Anita, exhaust all its air. Shall we try it?"

                "Whatever you say, Gregg."

                We seemed to be unobserved. We skimmed close to the valley floor, a mile from the ship. We headed slowly toward it, sailing low over the rocks.

                Then we landed, left the platform.

                "Let me go first, Anita."

                I held a bullet projector. With slow, cautious leaps, we advanced. Anita was behind me. I had wanted to leave her with the platform, but she would not stay. And to be with me seemed at least equally safe.

                The rocks were deserted. I thought there was very little chance that any of the enemy would lurk here. We clambered over the pitted, scarred surface. The higher crags, etched with Earthlight, stood like sentinels in the gloom.

                The brigand ship with its surrounding darkness was not far from us. Then we entered the cloud.

                No one was out here. We passed the wreckage of broken projectors, and gruesome, shattered human forms.

                We prowled closer. The hull of the ship loomed ahead of us. All dark.

                We came at last close against the sleek metal hull-side, slid along it toward where I was sure the manual-porte was located.

                Abruptly I realized that Anita was not behind me! Then I saw her at a little distance, struggling in the grip of a giant helmeted figure! The brigand lifted her—turned, and, carrying her, ran the other way!

                I did not dare fire. I bounded after them along the hull-side, around under the curve of the pointed bow, down along the other side.

                I had mistaken the hull-porte location. It was here. The running, bounding figure reached it, slid the panel. I was only fifty feet away—not much more than a single leap. I saw Anita being shoved into the pressure lock. The Martian flung himself after her.

                I fired at him, but missed. I came with a rush. And as I reached the porte it slid closed in my face, barring me!

CHAPTER XXXVII - In the Pressure Lock.

With puny fists I pounded the panel. A small pane in it was transparent. Within the lock I could see the blurred figures of Anita and her captor—and, it seemed, another figure. The lock was some ten feet square, with a low ceiling. It glowed with a dim tube-light.

                I pounded, thumped with futile, silent blows. The mechanism was here to open this manual; but it was now clasped from within and would not operate.

                A few seconds only, while I stood there in a panic of confusion, raging to get in. This disaster had come so suddenly! I did not plan; I had no thought save to batter my way in and rescue Anita. I recall that I beat on the glassite pane with my bullet projector until the weapon was bent and useless; and I flung it with a wild, despairing rage at my feet.

                They were letting the ship's air-pressure into this lock. Soon they would open the inner panel, step into the secondary chamber—and in a moment more would be within the ship's hull corridor. Anita, lost to me!

                The outer panel suddenly opened! I had lunged against it with my shoulder; the giant figure inside slid it. I was taken by surprise! I half-fell inward.

                Huge arms went around me. The goggled face of the helmet peered into mine.

                "So it is you, Haljan! I thought I recognized that little device over your helmet-bracket. And there is my little Anita, come back to me again!"

                Miko!

This was he. His great bloated arms encircling me, bending me backward, holding me almost helpless. I saw over his shoulder that Anita was clutched in the grip of another helmeted figure. No giant, but tall for an Earthman—almost as tall as myself. Then the tube-light in the room illumined the visor. I saw the face, recognized it. Moa!

                I gasped, "So—I've—got you, Miko—"

                "Got me! You're a fool to the last, Gregg Haljan! A fool to the last! But you were always a fool."

                I could scarcely move in his grip. My arms were pinned. As he slowly bent me backward, I wound my legs around one of his; it was as unyielding as a steel pillar. He had closed the outer panel; the air-pressure in the lock was rising. I could feel it against my suit.

                My helmeted head was being forced backward; Miko's left arm held me. In his gloved right hand as it came slowly up over my throat I saw a knife-blade, its naked, sharpened metal glistening blue-white in the light from overhead.

                I seized his wrist. But my puny strength could not hold him. The knife, against all my efforts, came slowly down.

                A moment of this slow deadly combat—the end of everything for me.

                I was aware of the helmeted figure of Moa casting off Anita—and then the two girls leaping together upon Miko. It threw him off his balance, and my hanging weight made him topple forward. He took a step to recover himself; his hand with the knife was flung up with an instinctive, involuntary balancing gesture. And as it came swiftly down again, I forced the knife-blade to graze his throat. Its point caught in the fabric of his suit.

                His startled oath jangled in my ears. The girls were clawing at him; we were all four scrambling, swaying. With despairing strength I twisted at his waist. The knife went into his throat. I plunged it deeper.

His suit went flabby. He crumpled over me and fell, knocking me to the floor. His voice, with the horrible gurgling rasp of death in it, rattled my ear-grids.

                "Not such a fool—are you, Haljan—"

                Moa's helmeted head was close over us. I saw that she had seized the knife, jerked it from her brother's throat. She leaped backward, waving it.

                I twisted from under Miko's inert, lifeless body. As I got to my feet, Anita flung herself to shield me. Moa was across the lock, backed up against its wall. The knife in her hand went up. She stood for the briefest instant regarding Anita and me holding each other. I thought that she was about to leap upon us; but before I could move, the knife came down and plunged into her breast. She fell forward, her grotesque helmet striking the floor-grid almost at my feet.

                "Gregg!"

                "She's dead."

                "No! She moved! Get her helmet off! There's enough air here."

                My helmet pressure-indicator was faintly buzzing to show that a safe pressure was in the room. I shut off Moa's Erentz motors, unfastened her helmet, raised it off. We gently turned her body. She lay with closed eyes, her pallid face blue-cast from the light in the lock.

                With our own helmets off, we knelt over her.

                "Oh. Gregg, is she dead?"

                "No. Not quite—but dying."

                "Oh Gregg, I don't want her to die! She was trying to help you there at the last."

                She opened her eyes; the film of death was glazing them. But she saw me, recognized me.

                "Gregg—"

                "Yes, Moa, I'm here."

Her livid lips were faintly drawn in a smile. "I'm—so glad—you took the helmets off, Gregg. I'm—going—you know."

                "No!"

                "Going—back to Mars—to rest with the fire-makers—where I came from. I was thinking—maybe you would kiss me, Gregg—?"

                Anita gently pushed me down. I pressed the white, faintly smiling lips with mine. She sighed, and it ended with a rattle in her throat.

                "Thank you—Gregg—closer—I can't talk so loudly—"

                One of her gloved hands struggled to touch me, but she had no strength and it fell back. Her words were the faintest of whispers:

                "There was no use living—without your love. But I want you to see—now—that a Martian girl can—die with a smile—"

                Her eyelids fluttered down: it seemed that she sighed and then was not breathing. But on her livid face the faint smile still lingered to show me how a Martian girl could die.

                We had forgotten for the moment where we were. As I glanced up I saw that through the inner panel, past the secondary lock, the ship's hull-corridor was visible, and along its length a group of Martians were advancing! They saw us, and came running.

                "Anita! Look! We've got to get out of here!"

                The secondary lock was open to the corridor. We jammed on our helmets. The unhelmeted brigands by then were fumbling at the inner panel. I pulled at the lever of the outer panel. The brigands were hurrying, thinking they could be in time to stop me. One of the more cautious fumbled with a helmet.

                "Anita, run! Try and keep your feet."

                I slid the outer panel and pushed at Anita. Simultaneously the brigands opened the inner porte.

                The air came with a tempestuous rush. A blast through the inner porte—through the little pressure-lock—a wild rush out to the airless Moon. All the air in the ship madly rushing to escape...

                Like feathers we were blown with it. I recall an impression of the hurtling brigand figures and swift-flying rocks under me. A silent crash as I struck.

                Then soundless, empty blackness.

CHAPTER XXXVIII - Triumph!

Is he conscious? We'd better take him back, get his helmet off."

                "It's over. We can get back now. Venza, dear, we've won—it's over."

                "He hears us!"

                "Gregg!"

                "He hears us—he's all right!"

                I opened my eyes. I lay on the rocks. Over my helmet other helmets were peering, and faint, familiar voices mingled with the roaring in my ears.

                "—back to the camp and get his helmet off."

                "Are his motors smooth? Keep them right, Snap—he must have good air."

                I seemed unhurt. But Anita...

                She was here. "Gregg, dear one!"

                Anita safe! All four of us here on the Earthlit rocks, close outside the brigand ship.

                "Anita!"

                She held me, lifted me. I was uninjured. I could stand; I staggered up and stood swaying. The brigand ship, a hundred feet away, loomed dark and silent, a lifeless bulk, already empty of air, drained in that mad blast outward. Like the wreck of the Planetara—a dead, pulseless hulk already.

                We four stood together, triumphant. The battle was over. The brigands were worsted, almost the last man of them dead or dying. No more than ten or fifteen had been available for that final assault upon the camp buildings. Miko's last strategy. I think perhaps he had intended, with his few remaining men, to take the ship and make away, deserting his fellows.

                All on the ship, caught unhelmeted by the explosion, were dead long since.

                I stood listening to Snap's triumphant account. It had not been difficult for the flying platforms to hunt down the attacking brigands on the open rocks. We had only lost one more platform.

                Human hearts beat sometimes with very selfish emotions. It was a triumphant ending for us, and we hardly gave a thought that half of Grantline's little group had perished.

                We huddled on Snap's platform. It rose, lurching drunkenly, barely carrying us.

                And as we headed for the Grantline buildings, where still the rift in the wall had not quite broken, there came the final triumph. Miko had been aware of it, and knew he had lost. Grantline's search-light leaped upward, swept the sky, caught its sought-for object—a huge silver cylinder, bathed brightly in the white search-beam glare.

                The police-ship from Earth!

CHAPTER XXXIX - My Exit

My narrative lies now in this permanently recorded form before you, and I prepare my exit bow with the humble hope that I may have given you pleasure. If so, I do beg you to tell me of it. There are some who already have flashed their approval of my discs; I thank them most earnestly and gratefully.

                My errors of recording unquestionably are many; and for them I ask your indulgence. There have been, I can readily see, errors of omission. I have not mentioned, for instance, the final rescue of the Planetara's marooned passengers on the asteroid. You will bear with me, since the disc-space has its technical limitations, that such omissions have been unavoidable.

                Since the passage of the Earth-law by the Federated Board of Education, forcing narrative fiction to cling so closely to sworn facts of actual happening, I need offer no assurance of the truth of my narrative. My witnesses have filed their corroborating declarations. Indeed, the Planetara's wreck and the brigands' attack upon the Moon-treasure were given the widest news-casters' publicity, as you all know. Yet I, who was unwittingly involved in those stirring events, may have added a more personal note, making the scenes more vivid to your imagination. I have tried to do that. I do hope that in some measure you will think I have succeeded.

                There are many foolish girls now who say that they would like to know Gregg Haljan. They doubtless would be very disappointed. I really crave no more publicity. And the girls of all the Universe have no charm for me. There is only one, for me—an Earth-girl.

                I think that life has very beautifully endowed me with its blessings.