 Transcriber's Note:

 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication was renewed. 

 _BRIGANDS of the MOON_

 by

 RAY CUMMINGS

 ACE BOOKS, INC. 

 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N. Y. 

 Copyright, 1931, by Ray Cummings

 * * * * *

I

Our ship, the space-flyer, _Planetara_, whose home port was GreaterNew York, carried mail and passenger traffic to and from both Venusand Mars. Of astronomical necessity, our flights were irregular. Thespring of 2070, with both planets close to the Earth, we were makingtwo complete round trips. We had just arrived in Greater New York, oneMay evening, from Grebhar, Venus Free State. With only five hours inport here, we were departing the same night at the zero hour forFerrok-Shahn, capital of the Martian Union. 

We were no sooner at the landing stage than I found a code flashsummoning Dan Dean and me to Divisional Detective Headquarters. Dan"Snap" Dean was one of my closest friends. He was electron-radiooperator of the _Planetara_. A small, wiry, red-headed chap, with aquick, ready laugh and the kind of wit that made everyone like him. 

The summons to Detective-Colonel Halsey's office surprised us. Deaneyed me. 

"You haven't been opening any treasure vaults, have you, Gregg?"

"He wants you, also, " I retorted. 

He laughed. "Well, he can roar at me like a traffic switch-man and myprivate life will remain my own. "

We could not think why we should be wanted. It was the darkness ofmid-evening when we left the _Planetara_ for Halsey's office. It wasnot a long trip. We went on the upper monorail, descending into thesubterranean city at Park Circle 30. 

We had never been to Halsey's office before. Now we found it to be agloomy, vaultlike place in one of the deepest corridors. The doorlifted. 

"Gregg Haljan and Daniel Dean. "

The guard stood aside. "Come in. "

I own that my heart was unduly thumping as we entered. The doordropped behind us. It was a small blue-lit apartment--a steel-linedroom like a vault. 

Colonel Halsey sat at his desk. And the big, heavy-set, florid CaptainCarter--our commander on the _Planetara_--was here. That surprised us:we had not seen him leave the ship. 

Halsey smiled at us gravely. Captain Carter spoke with an ominouscalmness: "Sit down, lads. "

We took the seats. There was an alarming solemnity about this. If Ihad been guilty of anything that I could think of, it would have beenfrightening. But Halsey's words reassured me. 

"It's about the Grantline Moon Expedition. In spite of our secrecy, the news has gotten out. We want to know how. Can you tell us?"

Captain Carter's huge bulk--he was about as tall as I am--towered overus as we sat before Halsey's desk. "If you lads have told anyone--saidanything--let _slip_ the slightest hint about it.... "

Snap smiled with relief; but he turned solemn at once. "I haven't. Nota word!"

"Nor have I!" I declared. 

The Grantline Moon Expedition! We had not thought of that as a reasonfor this summons. Johnny Grantline was a close friend of ours. He hadorganized an exploring expedition to the Moon. Uninhabited, with itsbleak, forbidding, airless, waterless surface, the Moon--even thoughso close to the Earth--was seldom visited. No regular ship everstopped there. A few exploring parties of recent years had come togrief. 

But there was a persistent rumor that upon the Moon, mineral riches offabulous wealth were awaiting discovery. The thing had already causedsome interplanetary complications. The aggressive Martians would beonly too glad to explore the Moon. But the United States of the World, which came into being in 2067, definitely warned them away. The Moonwas Earth territory, we announced, and we would protect it as such. 

There was, nevertheless, a realization by our government, thatwhatever riches might be upon the Moon should be seized at once andheld by some reputable Earth Company. And when John Grantline applied, with his father's wealth and his own scientific record of attainment, the government was glad to grant him its writ. 

The Grantline Expedition had started six months ago. The Martiangovernment had acquiesced to our ultimatum, yet brigands have beenknown to be financed under cover of a government disavowal. And so ourexpedition was kept secret. 

My words need give no offence to any Martian who comes upon them. Irefer to the history of our Earth only. The Grantline Expedition wason the Moon now. No word had come from it. One could not flash helioseven in code without letting all the universe know that explorers wereon the Moon. And why they were there, anyone could easily guess. 

And now Colonel Halsey was telling us that the news was abroad!Captain Carter eyed us closely; his flashing eyes under the whitebushy brows would pry a secret from anyone. 

"You're sure? A girl of Venus, perhaps, with her cursed, seductivelure! A chance word, with you lads befuddled by alcolite?"

We assured him that we had been careful. By the heavens, I know that Ihad been. Not a whisper, even to Snap, of the name Grantline in sixmonths or more. 

Captain Carter added abruptly, "We're insulated here, Halsey?"

"Yes. Talk as freely as you like. An eavesdropping ray will never getthrough to us. "

They questioned us. They were satisfied at last that, though thesecret had escaped, we had not given it away. Hearing it discussed, itoccurred to me to wonder why Carter was concerned. I was not awarethat he knew of Grantline's venture. I learned now the reason why the_Planetara_, upon each of her last voyages, had managed to pass fairlyclose to the Moon. It had been arranged with Grantline that if hewanted help or had any important message, he was to flash it locallyto our passing ship. And this Snap knew, and had never mentioned it, even to me. 

Halsey was saying, "Well, apparently we can't blame you: but thesecret is out. "

Snap and I regarded each other. What could anyone do? What wouldanyone dare do?

Captain Carter said abruptly, "Look here, lads, this is my chance nowto talk plainly to you. Outside, anywhere outside these walls, aneavesdropping ray may be upon us. You know that? One may never evendare to whisper since that accursed ray was developed. "

Snap opened his mouth to speak but decided against it. My heart waspounding. 

Captain Carter went on: "I know I can trust you two more than anyoneunder me on the _Planetara_. "

"What do you mean by that?" I demanded. "What--"

He interrupted me. "Just what I said. "

Halsey smiled grimly. "What he means, Haljan, is that things are notalways what they seem these days. One cannot always tell a friend froman enemy. The _Planetara_ is a public vessel. You have--how many isit, Carter?--thirty or forty passengers this trip tonight?"

"Thirty-eight, " said Carter. 

"There are thirty-eight people listed for the flight to Ferrok-Shahntonight, " Halsey said slowly. "And some may not be what they seem. " Heraised his thin dark hand. "We have information.... " He paused. "Iconfess, we know almost nothing--hardly more than enough to alarm us. "

Captain Carter interjected, "I want you and Dean to be on your guard. Once on the _Planetara_ it is difficult for us to talk openly, but bewatchful. I will arrange for us to be doubly armed. "

Vague, perturbing words! Halsey said, "They tell me George Prince islisted for the voyage. I am suggesting, Haljan, that you keep your eyeespecially on him. Your duties on the _Planetara_ leave youcomparatively free, don't they?"

"Yes, " I agreed. With the first and second officers on duty, and theCaptain aboard, my routine was more or less that of an understudy. 

I said, "George Prince? Who is he?"

"A mechanical engineer, " said Halsey. "An underofficial of the EarthFederated Catalyst Corporation. But he associates with badcompanions--particularly Martians. "

I had never heard of this George Prince, though I was familiar withthe Federated Catalyst Corporation, of course. A semigovernment trust, which controlled virtually the entire Earth supply of radiactum, thecatalyst mineral which was revolutionizing industry. 

"He was in the Automotive Department, " Carter put in. "You've heard ofthe Federated Radiactum Motor?"

We had, of course. It was a recent Earth discovery and invention. Anengine of a new type, using radiactum as its fuel. 

Snap demanded, "What in the stars has this got to do with JohnnyGrantline?"

"Much, " said Halsey quietly, "or perhaps nothing. But George Princesome years ago mixed in rather unethical transactions. We had him incustody once. He is known as unusually friendly with several Martiansin Greater New York of bad reputation. "

"Well?"

"What you don't know, " Halsey said, "is that Grantline expects to findradiactum on the Moon. "

We gasped. 

"Exactly, " said Halsey. "The ill-fated Ballon Expedition thought theyhad found it on the Moon, shortly after its merit was discovered. Anew type of ore--a lode of it is there somewhere, without doubt. "

He added vehemently, "Do you understand now why we should besuspicious of this George Prince? He has a criminal record. He has athorough technical knowledge of radium ores. He associates withMartians of bad reputation. A large Martian company has recentlydeveloped a radiactum engine to compete with our Earth motor. There isvery little radiactum available on Mars, and our government will notallow our own supply to be exported. What do you suppose that companyon Mars would pay for a few tons of richly radioactive radiactum suchas Grantline may have found on the Moon?"

"But, " I objected, "That is a reputable Martian company. It's backedby the government of the Martian Union. The government of Mars wouldnot dare--"

"Of course not!" Captain Carter exclaimed sardonically. "Not openly!But if Martian Brigands had a supply of radiactum I don't imaginewhere it came from would make much difference. The Martian companywould buy it, and you know that as well as I do!"

Halsey added, "And George Prince, my agents inform me, seems to knowthat Grantline is on the Moon. Put it all together, lads. Littlesparks show the hidden current. 

"More than that: George Prince knows that we have arranged to have the_Planetara_ stop at the Moon and bring back Grantline's ore.... Thisis your last voyage this year. You'll hear from Grantline this time, we're convinced. He'll probably give you the signal as you pass theMoon on your way out. Coming back, you'll stop at the Moon andtransport whatever radiactum ore Grantline has ready. The GrantlineFlyer is too small for ore transportation. "

Halsey's voice turned grimly sarcastic. "Doesn't it seem queer thatGeorge Prince and a few of his Martian friends happen to be listed aspassengers for this voyage?"

In the silence that followed, Snap and I regarded each other. Halseyadded abruptly:

"We had George Prince typed that time we arrested him four years ago. I'll show him to you. "

He snapped open an alcove, and said to his waiting attendant "Flash onthe type of George Prince. "

Almost at once, the image glowed on the grids before us. He stoodsmiling sourly before us as he repeated the official formula:

"My name is George Prince. I was born in Greater New York twenty-fiveyears ago. "

I gazed at this televised image of George Prince. He stood somber inthe black detention uniform, silhouetted sharply against theregulation backdrop of vivid scarlet. A dark, almost femininelyhandsome fellow, well below medium height--the rod checking him showedfive foot four inches. Slim and slight. Long, wavy black hair, fallingabout his ears. A pale, clean-cut, really handsome face, almostbeardless. I regarded it closely. A face that would have beenbeautiful without its masculine touch of heavy black brows and firmlyset jaw. His voice as he spoke was low and soft; but at the end, withthe concluding words, "I am innocent!" it flashed into strongmasculinity. His eyes, shaded with long girlish black lashes, bychance met mine. "I am innocent. " His curving sensuous lips drew downinto a grim sneer.... 

Halsey snapped a button. He turned back to Snap and me as hisattendant drew the curtain, hiding the black grid. 

"Well, there he is. We have nothing tangible against him now. But I'llsay this: he's a clever fellow, one to be afraid of. I would not blareit from the newscasters' stadium, but if he is hatching any plot, hehas been too clever for my agents!"

We talked for another half-hour, and then Captain Carter dismissed us. We left Halsey's office with Carter's final words ringing in our ears. "Whatever comes, lads, remember I trust you.... "

 * * * * *

Snap and I decided to walk part of the way back to the ship. It wasbarely more than a mile through this subterranean corridor to where wecould get the vertical lift direct to the landing stage. 

We started off on the lower level. Once outside the insulation ofHalsey's office we did not dare talk of this thing. Not onlyelectrical ears, but every possible eavesdropping device might be uponus. The corridor was two hundred feet or more below the ground level. At this hour of the night the business section was comparativelydeserted. The stores and office arcades were all closed. 

Our footfall echoed on the metal grids as we hurried along. I feltdepressed and oppressed. As though prying eyes were upon me. We walkedfor a time in silence, each of us busy with memory of what hadtranspired at Halsey's office. 

Suddenly Snap gripped me. "What's that?"

"Where?" I whispered. 

We stopped at a corner. An entryway was here. Snap pulled me into it. I could feel him quivering with excitement. 

"What is it?" I demanded in a whisper. 

"We're being followed. Did you hear anything?"

"No!" Yet I thought now that I could hear something. Vague footfalls. A rustling. And a microscopic whine, as though some device were withinrange of us. 

Snap was fumbling in his pocket. "Wait! I've got a pair of low-scaledetectors. "

He put the little grids against his ears. I could hear the sharpintake of his breath. Then he seized me, pulled me down to the metalfloor of the entryway. 

"Back, Gregg! Get back!" I could barely hear his whisper. We crouchedas far back into the doorway as we could get. I was armed. My officialpermit for the carrying of the pencil heat ray allowed me always tohave it with me. I drew it now. But there was nothing to shoot at. Ifelt Snap clamping the grids on my ears. And now I heard something! Anintensification of the vague footsteps I had thought I heard before. 

There was something following us! Something out in the corridor therenow! The corridor was dim, but plainly visible, and as far as I couldsee it was empty. But there was something there. Something invisible!I could hear it moving. Creeping toward us. I pulled the grids off myears. 

Snap murmured, "You've got a local phone?"

"Yes. I'll get them to give us the street glare!"

I pressed the danger signal, giving our location to the operator. In asecond we got the light. The street in all this neighborhood burstinto a brilliant actinic glare. The thing menacing us was revealed! Afigure in a black cloak, crouching thirty feet away across thecorridor. 

Snap was unarmed but he flung his hands out menacingly. The figure, which may perhaps not have been aware of our city safeguard, was takenwholly by surprise. A human figure, seven feet tall at the least, andtherefore, I judged, a Martian man. The black cloak covered his head. He took a step toward us, hesitated, and then turned in confusion. 

Snap's shrill voice was bringing help. The whine of a street guard'salarm whistle nearby sounded. The figure was making off! My pencil raywas in my hand and I pressed its switch. The tiny heat ray stabbedthrough the air, but I missed. The figure stumbled but did not fall. Isaw a bare gray arm come from the cloak, flung up to maintain itsbalance. Or perhaps my pencil ray had seared his arm. The gray-skinnedarm of a Martian. 

Snap was shouting, "Give him another!" But the figure passed beyondthe actinic glare and vanished. 

We were detained in the turmoil of the corridor for ten minutes ormore with official explanations. Then a message from Halsey releasedus. The Martian who had been following us in his invisible cloak wasnever caught. 

We escaped from the crowd at last and made our way back to the_Planetara_, where the passengers were already assembling for theoutward Martian voyage. 

II

I stood on the turret balcony of the _Planetara_ with Captain Carterand Dr. Frank, the ship surgeon, watching the arriving passengers. Itwas close to the zero hour; the level of the stage was a turmoil ofconfusion. The escalators, with the last of the freight aboard, werefolded back. But the stage was jammed with incoming passenger luggage, the interplanetary customs and tax officials with their x-ray andzed-ray paraphernalia and the passengers themselves, lined up for theexport inspection. 

At this height, the city lights lay spread in a glare of blue andyellow beneath us. The individual local planes came dropping likebirds to our stage. Thirty-eight passengers to Mars for this voyage, but that accursed desire of every friend and relative to speed thedeparting voyager brought a hundred or more extra people to crowd ourgirders and add to everybody's troubles. 

Carter was too absorbed in his duties to stay with us long. But herein the turret Dr. Frank and I found ourselves at the moment withnothing much to do but watch. 

Dr. Frank was a thin, dark, rather smallish man of fifty, trim in hisblue and white uniform. I knew him well: we had made several flightstogether. An American--I fancy of Jewish ancestry. A likable man, anda skillful doctor and surgeon. He and I had always been good friends. 

"Crowded, " he said. "Johnson says thirty-eight. I hope they'reexperienced travelers. This pressure sickness is a rottennuisance--keeps me dashing around all night assuring frightened womenthey're not going to die. Last voyage, coming out of the Venusatmosphere--"

He plunged into a lugubrious account of his troubles with space sickvoyagers. But I was in no mood to listen to him. My gaze was down onthe spider incline, up which, over the bend of the ship's sleek, silvery body, the passengers and their friends were coming in littlegroups. The upper deck was already jammed with them. 

The _Planetara_, as flyers go, was not a large vessel. Cylindrical ofbody, forty feet maximum beam, and two hundred and seventy-five feetin length. The passenger superstructure--no more than a hundred feetlong--was set amidships. A narrow deck, metallically enclosed, andwith large bull's-eye windows, encircled the superstructure. Some ofthe cabins opened directly onto the deck. Others had doors to theinterior corridors. There were half a dozen small but luxurious publicrooms. 

The rest of the vessel was given to freight storage and the mechanismand control compartments. Forward of the passenger structure the decklevel continued under the cylindrical dome roof to the bow. Theforward watch tower observatory was here, officers' cabins, CaptainCarter's navigating rooms and Dr. Frank's office. Similarly, under thestern dome, was the stern watch tower and a series of powercompartments. 

Above the superstructure a confusion of spider bridges, ladders andbalconies were laced like a metal network. The turret in which Dr. Frank and I now stood was perched here. Fifty feet away, like a bird'snest, Snap's instrument room stood clinging to the metal bridge. Thedome roof, with the glassite windows rolled back now, rose in a moundpeak to cover the highest middle portion of the vessel. 

Below, in the main hull, blue lit metal corridors ran the entirelength of the ship. Freight storage compartments; gravity controlrooms; the air renewal system; heater and ventilators and pressuremechanisms--all were located there. And the kitchens, stewards'compartments, and the living quarters of the crew. We carried a crewof sixteen, this voyage, exclusive of the navigating officers, thepurser, Snap Dean, and Dr. Frank. 

The passengers coming aboard seemed a fair representation of what weusually had for the outward voyage to Ferrok-Shahn. Most were Earthpeople--and returning Martians. Dr. Frank pointed out one. A hugeMartian in a grey cloak. A seven foot fellow. 

"His name is _Set_ Miko, " Dr. Frank remarked. "Ever heard of him?"

"No, " I said. "Should I?"

"Well--" The doctor suddenly checked himself, as though he were sorryhe had spoken. 

"I never heard of him, " I repeated slowly. 

An awkward silence fell between us. 

There were a few Venus passengers. I saw one of them presently comingup the incline, and recognized her. A girl traveling alone. We hadbrought her from Grebhar, last voyage but one. I remembered her. Analluring sort of girl, as most of them are. Her name was Venza. Shespoke English well. A singer and dancer who had been imported toGreater New York to fill some theatrical engagement. She'd made quitea hit on the Great White Way. 

She came up the incline with the carrier ahead of her. Gazing up, shesaw Dr. Frank and me at the turret window, smiled and waved her whitearm in greeting. 

Dr. Frank laughed. "By the gods of the airways, there's Alta Venza!You saw that look, Gregg? That was for me, not you. "

"Reasonable enough, " I retorted. "But I doubt it--the Venza is nothingif not impartial. "

I wondered what could be taking Venza now to Mars. I was glad to seeher. She was diverting. Educated. Well traveled. Spoke English with acolloquial, theatrical manner more characteristic of Greater New Yorkthan of Venus. And for all her light banter, I would rather put mytrust in her than any Venus girl I had ever met. 

The hum of the departing siren was sounding. Friends and relatives ofthe passengers were crowding the exit incline. The deck was clearing. I had not seen George Prince come aboard. And then I thought I saw himdown on the landing stage, just arrived from a private tube car. Asmall, slight figure. The customs men were around him. I could onlysee his head and shoulders. Pale, girlishly handsome face; long, blackhair to the base of his neck. He was bare-headed, with the hood of histraveling cloak pushed back. 

I stared, and I saw that Dr. Frank was also gazing down. But neitherof us spoke. 

Then I said upon impulse, "Suppose we go down to the deck, Doctor?"

He acquiesced. We descended to the lower room of the turret andclambered down the spider ladder to the upper deck level. The head ofthe arriving incline was near us. Preceded by two carriers who werelittered with hand luggage, George Prince was coming up the incline. He was closer now. I recognized him from the type we had seen inHalsey's office. 

And then, with a shock, I saw it was not so. This was a girl comingaboard. An arc light over the incline showed her clearly when she washalf way up. A girl with her hood pushed back; her face framed inthick black hair. I saw now it was not a man's cut of hair; but longbraids coiled up under the dangling hood. 

Dr. Frank must have remarked my amazed expression. "Little beauty, isn't she?"

"Who is she?"

We were standing back against the wall of the superstructure. Apassenger was near us--the Martian whom Dr. Frank had called Miko. Hewas loitering here, quite evidently watching this girl come aboard. But as I glanced at him, he looked away and casually sauntered off. 

The girl came up and reached the deck. "I am in A22, " she told thecarrier. "My brother came aboard a couple of hours ago. "

Dr. Frank answered my whisper. "That's Anita Prince. "

She was passing quite close to us on the deck, following the carrier, when she stumbled and very nearly fell. I was nearest to her. I leapedforward and caught her as she nearly went down. 

With my arm about her, I raised her up and set her upon her feetagain. She had twisted her ankle. She balanced herself upon it. Thepain of it eased up in a moment. 

"I'm all right--thank you!"

In the dimness of the blue lit deck I met her eyes. I was holding herwith my encircling arm. She was small and soft against me. Her face, framed in the thick, black hair, smiled up at me. Small, ovalface--beautiful--yet firm of chin, and stamped with the mark of itsown individuality. No empty-headed beauty, this. 

"I'm all right, thank you very much--"

I became conscious that I had not released her. I felt her handspushing at me. And then it seemed that for an instant she yielded andwas clinging. And I met her startled upflung gaze. Eyes like a purplenight with the sheen of misty starlight in them. 

I heard myself murmuring, "I beg your pardon. Yes, of course!" Ireleased her. 

She thanked me again and followed the carriers along the deck. She waslimping slightly. 

An instant she had clung to me. A brief flash of something, from hereyes to mine--from mine back to hers. The poets write that love can beborn of such a glance. The first meeting, across all the barriers ofwhich love springs unsought, unbidden--defiant, sometimes. And thetroubadours of old would sing: "A fleeting glance; a touch; two wildlybeating hearts--and love was born. "

I think, with Anita and me, it must have been like that. 

I stood, gazing after her, unconscious of Dr. Frank, who was watchingme with his quizzical smile. And presently, no more than a quarterbeyond the zero hour, the _Planetara_ got away. With the dome windowsbattened tightly, we lifted from the landing stage and soared over theglowing city. The phosphorescence of the electronic tubes was like acomet's tail behind us as we slid upward. 

III

At six A. M. , Earth Eastern time, which we were still carrying, SnapDean and I were alone in his instrument room, perched in the networkover the _Planetara's_ deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; itrounded like a great observatory window some twenty feet above theceiling of this little metal cubbyhole. 

The _Planetara_ was still in Earth's shadow. The firmament--black, interstellar space with its blazing white, red and yellow stars--layspread around us. The Moon, with nearly all its disc illumined, hung, a great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side, Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigar in the blackness. The Earth, behind our stern, was dimly, redly visible--a giant sphere, etched with the configurations of its oceans and continents. Upon onelimb a touch of sunlight hung on the mountain tops with a crescentred-yellow sheen. 

And then we plunged from the cone shadow. The Sun with the leapingcorona, burst through the blackness behind us. The Earth lighted intoa huge, thin crescent with hooked cusps. 

To Snap and me, the glories of the heavens were too familiar to beremarked. And upon this voyage particularly we were in no mood toconsider them. I had been in the radio room several hours. When the_Planetara_ started, and my few routine duties were over, I couldthink of nothing save Halsey's and Carter's admonition: "Be on yourguard. And particularly--watch George Prince. "

I had not seen George Prince. But I had seen his sister, whom Carterand Halsey had not bothered to mention. My heart was still poundingwith the memory. 

Dr. Frank evidently was having little trouble with pressure sickpassengers. The _Planetara's_ equalizers were fairly efficient. Prowling through the silent metal lounges and passages, I went to thedoor of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse passagejust off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with theletters: _Anita Prince_. I stood in my short white trousers and whitesilk shirt, like a cabin steward staring. Anita Prince! I had neverheard the name until this night. But there was magic music in it now, as I murmured it. 

She was here, doubtless asleep, behind this small metal door. Itseemed as though that little oval grid were the gateway to a fairylandof my dreams. 

I turned away. Thought of the Grantline Moon Expedition stabbed at me. George Prince--Anita's brother--he whom I had been warned to watch. This renegade--associate of dubious Martians, plotting God knows what. 

I saw, upon the adjoining door, A20, _George Prince_. I listened. Inthe humming stillness of the ship's interior there was no sound fromthese cabins. A20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had awindow and a door which gave upon the deck. I went through the lounge, out its arch and walked the deck length. The deck door and window ofA22 were closed and dark. 

The deck was dim with white starlight from the side ports. Chairs werehere but they were all empty. From the bow windows of the arching domea flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. Atthe corner where the superstructure ended, I thought I saw a figurelurking as though watching me. I went that way, but it vanished. 

I turned the corner, went the width of the ship to the other side. There was no one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, highin the bow network, and the second officer, on duty on the turretbalcony almost directly over me. 

As I stood and listened, I suddenly heard footsteps. From thedirection of the bow a figure came. Purser Johnson. 

He greeted me. "Cooling off, Gregg?"

"Yes, " I said. 

He passed me and went into the smoking room door nearby. 

I stood a moment at one of the deck windows, gazing at the stars; andfor no reason at all I realized I was tense. Johnson was a great onefor his regular sleep--it was wholly unlike him to be roaming aboutthe ship at such an hour. Had he been watching me? I told myself itwas nonsense. I was suspicious of everyone, everything, this voyage. 

I heard another step. Captain Carter appeared from his chart roomwhich stood in the center of the narrowing open deck space near thebow. I joined him at once. 

"Who was that?" he half whispered. 

"Johnson. "

"Oh, yes. " He fumbled in his uniform; his gaze swept the moonlit deck. "Gregg--take this. " He handed me a small metal box. I stuffed it atonce into my shirt. 

"An insulator, " he added swiftly. "Snap is in his office. Take it tohim, Gregg. Stay with him--you'll have a measure of security--and youcan help him to make the photographs. " He was barely whispering. "Iwon't be with you--no use making it look as though we were doinganything unusual. If your graphs show anything--or if Snap picks upany message--bring it to me. " He added aloud, "Well, it will be coolenough presently, Gregg. "

He sauntered away toward his chart room. 

"By heavens, what a relief!" Snap murmured as the current went on. Wehad wired his cubby with the insulator; within its barrage we could atleast talk with a degree of freedom. 

"You've seen George Prince, Gregg?"

"No. He's assigned A20. But I saw his sister. Snap, no one evermentioned--"

Snap had heard of her, but he hadn't known that she was listed forthis voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Accursed shame for adecent girl to have a brother like that. "

I could agree with him there.... 

It was now six A. M. Snap had been busy all night with routinecosmos-radios from the Earth, following our departure. He had a pileof them beside him. 

"Nothing queer looking?" I suggested. 

"No. Not a thing. "

We were at this time no more than sixty-five thousand miles from theMoon's surface. The _Planetara_ presently would swing upon her directcourse for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passengercomment in this close passing of the Moon; normally we used thesatellite's attraction to give us additional starting speed. 

It was now or never that a message would come from Grantline. He wassupposed to be upon the Earthward side of the Moon. While Snap hadrushed through with his routine, I searched the Moon's surface withour glass. 

But there was nothing. Copernicus and Kepler lay in full sunlight. Theheights of the lunar mountains, the depths of the barren, empty seaswere etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbiddingdesolation, this unchanging Moon. In romance, moonlight may shimmerand sparkle to light a lover's smile; but the reality of the Moon iscold and bleak. There was nothing to show my prying eyes where theintrepid Grantline might be. 

"Nothing at all, Snap. "

And Snap's instruments, attuned for an hour now to pick up thefaintest signal, were motionless. 

"If he has concentrated any appreciable amount of ore, " said Snap. "Weshould get an impulse from its rays. "

But our receiving shield was dark, untouched. Our mirror grid gave themagnified images; the spectro, with its wave length selection, pictured the mountain levels and slowly descended into the deepestseas. 

There was nothing. 

Yet in those Moon caverns--a million million recesses amid the cragsof that tumbled, barren surface--the pin point of movement which mighthave been Grantline's expedition could so easily be hiding! Could hehave the ore insulated, fearing its rays would betray its presence tohostile watchers?

Or might disaster have come to him? He might not be on this hemisphereof the Moon at all.... 

My imagination, sharpened by fancy of a lurking menace which seemedeverywhere about the _Planetara_ this voyage, ran rife with fears forJohnny Grantline. He had promised to communicate this voyage. It wasnow, or perhaps never. 

Six-thirty came and passed. We were well beyond the Earth's shadownow. The firmament blazed with its vivid glories; the Sun behind uswas a ball of yellow-red leaping flames. The Earth hung, a huge, dullred half sphere. 

We were within forty thousand miles of the Moon. A giant whiteball--all of its disc visible to the naked eye. It poised over thebow, and presently, as the _Planetara_ swung upon its course for Mars, it shifted sidewise. The light of it glared white and dazzling in ourwindows. 

Snap, with his habitual red celluloid eyeshade shoved high on hisforehead, worked over our instruments. 

"Gregg!"

The receiving shield was glowing a trifle. Rays were bombarding it! Itglowed, gleamed phosphorescent, and the audible recorder begansounding its tiny tinkling murmurs. 

Gamma rays! Snap sprang to the dials. The direction and strength weresoon obvious. A richly radioactive ore body was concentrated upon thishemisphere of the Moon! It was unmistakable. 

"He's got it, Gregg! He's--"

The tiny grids began quivering. Snap exclaimed triumphantly, "Here hecomes! By God, the message at last!"

Snap decoded it. 

_Success! Stop for ore on your return voyage. Will give you ourlocation later. Success beyond wildest hopes. _

Snap murmured, "That's all. He's got the ore!"

We were sitting in darkness, and abruptly I became aware that acrossour open window, where the insulation barrage was flung, the air wasfaintly hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purplesparks. Someone--some hostile ray from the deck beneath us, or fromthe spider bridge that led to our little room--someone out there wastrying to pry in!

Snap impulsively reached for the absorbers to let in the outsidelight. But I checked him. 

"Wait!" I cut off our barrage, opened our door and stepped to thenarrow metal bridge. 

"You stay there, Snap!" I whispered. Then I added aloud, "Well, Snap, I'm going to bed. Glad you've cleaned up that batch of work. "

I banged the door upon him. The lacework of metal bridges seemedempty. I gazed up to the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feetbeneath me was the metal roof of the cabin superstructure. Below it, both sides of the deck showed. All patched with moonlight. 

No one visible down there. I descended a ladder. The deck was empty. But in the silence something was moving! Footsteps moving away from medown the deck! I followed; and suddenly I was running. Chasingsomething I could hear, but could not see. It turned into the smokingroom. 

I burst in. And a real sound smothered the phantom. Johnson the purserwas sitting here alone in the dimness. He was smoking. I noticed thathis cigar held a long frail ash. It could not have been him I waschasing. He was sitting there quite calmly. A thick-necked, heavyfellow, easily out of breath. But he was breathing calmly now. 

He sat up in amazement at my wild-eyed appearance, and the ash jarredfrom his cigar. 

"Gregg! What in the devil--"

I tried to grin. "I'm on my way to bed--worked all night helpingSnap. "

I went past him, out the door into the main corridor. It was the onlyway the invisible prowler could have gone. But I was too late now--Icould hear nothing. I dashed forward into the main lounge. It wasempty, dim and silent, a silence broken presently by a faint click, astateroom door hastily closing. I swung and found myself in a tinytransverse passage. The twin doors of A20 and A22 were before me. 

The invisible eavesdropper had gone into one of these rooms! Ilistened at each of the panels, but there was only silence within. 

The interior of the ship was suddenly singing with the steward'ssiren--the call to awaken the passengers. It startled me. I movedswiftly away. But as the siren shut off, in the silence I heard asoft, musical voice:

"Wake up, Anita, I think that's the breakfast call. "

And her answer, "All right, George. "

IV

I did not appear at that morning meal. I was exhausted and druggedwith lack of sleep. I had a moment with Snap to tell him what hadoccurred. Then I sought out Carter. He had his little chart roominsulated. And we were cautious. I told him what Snap and I hadlearned: the rays from the Moon, proving that Grantline hadconcentrated a considerable ore body. I also told him of Grantline'smessage. 

"We'll stop on the way back, as he directs, Gregg. " He bent closer tome. "At Ferrok-Shahn I'm going to bring back a cordon ofInterplanetary Police. The secret will be out, of course, when we stopat the Moon. We have no right, even now, to be flying this vessel asunguarded as it is. "

He was very solemn. And he was grim when I told him of the invisibleeavesdropper. 

"You think he overheard Grantline's message? Who was it? You seem tofeel it was George Prince?"

I told him I was convinced the prowler went into A20. When I mentionedthe purser, who seemed to have been watching me earlier in the night, and again was sitting in the smoking room when the eavesdropper fledpast, Carter looked startled. 

"Johnson is all right, Gregg. "

"Does he know anything about this Grantline affair?"

"No--no, " said Carter hastily. "You haven't mentioned it, have you?"

"Of course I haven't. But why didn't Johnson hear that eavesdropper?And what was he doing there, anyway, at that hour of the morning?"

The Captain ignored my questions. "I'm going to have that Princesuite searched--we can't be too careful.... Go to bed, Gregg, you needrest. "

I went to my cabin. It was located aft, on the stern deck, near thestern watch tower. A small metal room with a chair, a desk and a bunk. I made sure no one was in it. I sealed the lattice grill and the door, set the alarm trigger against any opening of them, and went to bed. 

The siren for the midday meal awakened me. I had slept heavily. I feltrefreshed. 

I found the passengers already assembled at my table when I arrived inthe dining salon. It was a low vaulted metal room with blue and yellowtube lights. At its sides the oval windows showed the deck, with itsports on the dome side, through which a vista of the starry firmamentwas visible. We were well on our course to Mars. The Moon had dwindledto a pin point of light beside the crescent Earth. And behind them ourSun blazed, visually the largest orb in the heavens. It was somesixty-eight million miles from the Earth to Mars. A flight, ordinarily, of some ten days. 

There were five tables in the dining salon, each with eight seats. Snap and I had one of the tables. We sat at the ends, with thepassengers on each of the sides. 

Snap was in his seat when I arrived. He eyed me down the length of thetable. In a gay mood, he introduced me to the three men alreadyseated:

"This is our third officer, Gregg Haljan. Big, handsome fellow, isn'the? And as pleasant as he is good-looking. Gregg, this is Sero ObHahn. "

I met the keen, somber gaze of a Venus man of middle age. A small, slim graceful man, with sleek black hair. His pointed face, accentuated by the pointed beard, was pallid. He wore a white andpurple robe; upon his breast was a huge platinum ornament, a devicelike a star and cross entwined. 

"I am happy to meet you, sir. " His voice was soft and deep. 

"Ob Hahn, " I repeated. "I should have heard of you, no doubt, but--"

A smile plucked at his thin, gray lips. "That is an error of mine, notyours. My mission is that all the universe shall hear of me. "

"He's preaching the religion of the Venus mystics, " Snap explained. 

"And this enlightened gentleman, " said Ob Hahn ironically, nodding tothe man, "has just termed it fetishism. The ignorance--"

"Oh, I say!" protested the man at Ob Hahn's side. "I mean, you seem tothink I meant something offensive. And as a matter of fact--"

"We've an argument, Gregg, " laughed Snap. "This is Sir ArthurConiston, an English gentleman, lecturer and sky-trotter--that is, hewill be a sky-trotter; he tells us he plans a number of voyages. "

The tall Englishman, in his white linen suit, bowed acknowledgement. "My compliments, Mr. Haljan. I hope you have no strong religiousconvictions, else we will make your table here very miserable!"

The third passenger had evidently kept out of the argument. Snapintroduced him as Rance Rankin. An American--a quiet, blond fellow ofthirty-five or forty. 

I ordered my breakfast and let the argument go on. 

"Won't make me miserable, " said Snap. "I love an argument. You said, Sir Arthur--"

"I mean to say, I think I said too much. Mr. Rankin, you are morediplomatic. "

Rankin laughed. "I am a magician, " he said to me. "A theatricalentertainer. I deal in tricks--how to fool an audience--" His keen, amused gaze was on Ob Hahn. "This gentleman from Venus and I have toomuch in common to argue. "

"A nasty one!" the Englishman exclaimed. "By Jove! Really, Mr. Rankin, you're a bit too cruel!"

I could see we were doomed to have turbulent meals this voyage. Ilike to eat in quiet; arguing passengers always annoy me. There werestill three seats vacant at our table; I wondered who would occupythem. I soon learned the answer--for one seat at least. Rankin saidcalmly:

"Where is the little Venus girl this meal?" His glance went to theempty seat at my right hand. "The Venza, isn't that her name? She andI are destined for the same theater in Ferrok-Shahn. "

So Venza was to sit beside me. It was good news. Ten days of areligious argument three times a day would be intolerable. But thecheerful Venza would help. 

"She never eats the midday meal, " said Snap. "She's on the deck, having orange juice. I guess it's the old gag about diet, eh?"

My attention wandered about the salon. Most of the seats wereoccupied. At the Captain's table I saw the objects of my search:George Prince and his sister, one on each side of the Captain. I sawGeorge Prince in the life now as a man who looked hardly twenty-five. He was at this moment evidently in a gay mood. His clean-cut, handsomeprofile, with its poetic dark curls, was turned toward me. Thereseemed little of the villain about him. 

And I saw Anita Prince now as a dark-haired, black-eyed little beauty, in feature resembling her brother very strongly. She presentlyfinished her meal. She rose, with him after her. She was dressed inEarth-fashion--white blouse and dark jacket, wide, knee-lengthtrousers of gray, with a red sash her only touch of color. She wentpast me, flashed me a smile. 

My heart was pounding. I answered her greeting, and met GeorgePrince's casual gaze. He, too, smiled, as though to signify that hissister had told him of the service I had done her. Or was his smile anironical memory of how he had eluded me this morning when I chasedhim?

I gazed after his small white-suited figure as he followed Anita fromthe salon. And thinking of her, I prayed that Carter and Halsey mightbe wrong. Whatever plotting against the Grantline Expedition might begoing on, I hoped that George Prince was innocent of it. Yet I knew inmy heart it was a futile hope. Prince had been the eavesdropperoutside the radio room. I could not doubt it. But that his sister mustbe ignorant of what he was doing, I was sure. 

My attention was brought suddenly back to the reality of our table. Iheard Ob Hahn's silky voice. "We passed quite close to the Moon lastnight, Mr. Dean. "

"Yes, " said Snap. "We did, didn't we? Always do--it's a technicalproblem of the exigencies of interstellar navigation. Explain it tothem, Gregg. You're an expert. "

I waved it away with a laugh. There was a brief silence. I could nothelp noticing Sir Arthur Coniston's queer look, and I have never seenso keen a glance as Rance Rankin shot at me. Were all three peopleaware of Grantline's treasure on the Moon? It suddenly seemed so. Iwished fervently at that instant that the ten days of this voyage wereover. Captain Carter was right. Coming back we should have a cordon ofInterplanetary Police aboard. 

Sir Arthur broke the awkward silence. "Magnificent sight, the Moon, from so close--though I was too much afraid of pressure sickness to beup to see it. "

I had nearly finished my hasty meal when another incident shocked me. The two other passengers at our table came in and took their seats. AMartian girl and man. The girl had the seat at my left, with the manbeside her. All Martians are tall. The girl was about my own height. That is, six feet, two inches. The man was seven feet or more. Bothwore the Martian outer robe. The girl flung hers back. Her limbs wereencased in pseudomail. She looked, as all Martians like to look, avery warlike Amazon. But she was a pretty girl. She smiled at me witha keen-eyed, direct gaze. 

"Mr. Dean said at breakfast that you were big and handsome. You are. "

They were brother and sister, these Martians. Snap introduced them as_Set_ Miko and _Setta_ Moa--the Martian equivalent of Mr. And Miss. 

This Miko was, from our Earth standards, a tremendous, brawny giant. Not spindly, like most Martians, this fellow, for all his seven feetin height was almost heavy set. He wore a plaited leather jerkinbeneath his robe and knee pants of leather out of which his lower legsshowed as gray, hairy pillars of strength. He had come into the salonwith a swagger, his sword ornament clanking. 

"A pleasant voyage so far, " he said to me as he started his meal. Hisvoice had the heavy, throaty rasp characteristic of the Martian. Hespoke perfect English--both Martians and Venus people are by heritageextraordinary linguists. Miko and his sister Moa, had a touch ofMartian accent, worn almost away by living for some years in GreaterNew York. 

The shock to me came within a few minutes. Miko, absorbed in attackinghis meal, inadvertently pushed back his robe to bare his forearm. Aninstant only, then it dropped to his wrist. But in that instant I hadseen, upon the gray flesh, a thin sear turned red. A very recentburn--as though a pencil ray of heat had caught his arm. 

My mind flung back. Only last night in the city corridor, Snap and Ihad been followed by a Martian. I had shot at him with a heat ray: Ithought I had hit him on the arm. Was this the mysterious Martian whohad followed us from Halsey's office?

V

Shortly after that midday meal I encountered Venza sitting on thestarlit deck. I had been in the bow observatory; taken my routinecastings of our position and worked them out. I was, I think, of the_Planetara's_ officers the most expert handler of the mathematicalcalculators. The locating of our position and charting the trajectoryof our course was, under ordinary circumstances, about all I had todo. And it took only a few minutes every twelve hours. 

I had a moment with Carter in the isolation of his chart room. 

"This voyage! Gregg, I'm getting like you--too fanciful. We've a normalgroup of passengers apparently, but I don't like the look of any ofthem. That Ob Hahn, at your table--"

"Snaky looking fellow, " I commented. "He and the Englishman are greaton arguments. Did you have Princes' cabin searched?"

My breath hung on his answer. 

"Yes. Nothing unusual among his things. We searched both his room andhis sister's. "

I did not follow that up. Instead I told him about the burn on Miko'sthick arm. 

He stared. "I wish we were at Ferrok-Shahn. Gregg, tonight when thepassengers are asleep, come here to me. Snap will be here, and Dr. Frank. We can trust him. "

"He knows about--about the Grantline treasure?"

"Yes. And so do Balch and Blackstone. " Balch and Blackstone were ourfirst and second officers. 

"We'll all meet here, Gregg--say about the zero hour. We must takesome precautions. "

Then he dismissed me. 

I found Venza seated alone in a starlit corner of the secluded deck. Aporthole, with the black heavens and the blazing stars was before her. There was an empty seat nearby. 

She greeted me with the Venus form of jocular, intimate greeting:

"Hola-lo, Gregg! Sit here with me. I have been wondering when youwould come after me. "

I sat down beside her. "Why are you going to Mars, Venza? I'm glad tosee you. "

"Many thanks. But I am glad to see you, Gregg. So handsome a man. Doyou know, from Venus to Earth, and I have no doubt on all of Mars, noman will please me more. "

"Glib tongue, " I laughed. "Born to flatter the male--every girl ofyour world. " And I added seriously, "You don't answer my question. What takes you to Mars?"

"Contract. By the stars, what else? Of course, a chance to make avoyage with you--"

"Don't be silly, Venza. "

I enjoyed her. I gazed at her small, slim figure reclining in the deckchair. Her long, gray robe parted by design, I have no doubt, todisplay her shapely, satin-sheathed legs. Her black hair was coiled ina heavy knot at the back of her neck; her carmine lips were partedwith a mocking, alluring smile. The exotic perfume of her envelopedme. 

She glanced at me sidewise from beneath her sweeping black lashes. 

"Be serious, " I added. 

"I am serious. Sober. Intoxicated by you, but sober. "

I said, "What sort of a contract?"

"A theater in Ferrok-Shahn. Good money, Gregg. I'll be there a year. "She sat up to face me. "There's a fellow here on the _Planetara_, Rance Rankin, he calls himself. At our table--a big, good-lookingblond American. He says he is a magician. Ever hear of him?"

"That's what he told me. No, I never heard of him. "

"Nor did I. And I thought I had heard of everyone of importance. He islisted for the same theater I am. Nice sort of fellow. " She paused, then added, "If he's a professional entertainer, I'm a motor oiler. "

It startled me. "Why do you say that?"

Instinctively my gaze swept the deck. An Earth woman and child and asmall Venus man were in sight, but not within earshot. 

"Why do you look so furtive?" she retorted. "Gregg, there's somethingstrange about this voyage. I'm no fool, nor you, so you must know itas well as I do. "

"Rance Rankin--" I prompted. 

She leaned closer toward me. "He could fool you. But not me--I'veknown too many magicians. " She grinned. "I challenged him to trickme. You should have seen him evading!"

"Do you know Ob Hahn?" I interrupted. 

She shook her head. "Never heard of him. But he told me plenty atbreakfast. By Satan, what a flow of words that devil driver canmuster! He and the Englishman don't mesh very well, do they?"

She stared at me. I had not answered her grin; my mind was too busywith queer fancies. Halsey's words: "Things are not always what theyseem--" Were these passengers masqueraders? Were they put here byGeorge Prince? And then I thought of Miko the Martian, and the burnupon his arm. 

"Come back, Gregg! Don't go wandering off like that!" She dropped hervoice to a whisper. "I'll be serious. I want to know what in hell isgoing on aboard this ship. I'm a woman and I'm curious. You tell me. "

"What do you mean?" I parried. 

"I mean a lot of things. What we've just been talking about. And whatwas the excitement you were in just before breakfast this morning?"

"Excitement?"

"Gregg, you may trust me. " For the first time she was wholly serious. Her gaze made sure no one was within hearing. She put her hand on myarm. I could barely hear her whisper: "I know they might have a rayupon us. I'll be careful. "

"They?"

"Anyone. Something's going on. You know it. You are in it. I saw youthis morning, Gregg. Wild-eyed, chasing a phantom--"

"You?"

"And I heard the phantom! A man's footsteps. A magnetic, deflecting, invisible cloak. You couldn't fool an audience with that, it's toocommonplace. If Rance Rankin tried--"

I gripped her. "Don't ramble, Venza! You saw me?"

"Yes. My stateroom door was open. I was sitting with a cigarette. Isaw the purser in the smoking room. He was visible from--"

"Wait! Venza, that prowler went through the smoking room!"

"I know he did. I could hear him. "

"Did the purser hear him?"

"Of course. The purser looked up, followed the sound with his gaze. Ithought that was queer. He never made a move. And then you came alongand he acted innocent. Why? What's going on, that's what I want toknow?"

I held my breath. "Venza, where did the prowler run to? Can you--"

She whispered calmly, "Into A20. I saw the door open and close. I eventhought I could see his blurred outline. " She added, "Why shouldGeorge Prince be sneaking around with you after him? And the purseracting innocent? And who is this George Prince, anyway?"

The huge Martian, Miko, with his sister Moa came strolling along thedeck. They nodded as they passed us. 

I whispered, "I can't explain anything now. But you're right, Venza:there is something going on. Listen! Whatever you learn--whatever youencounter which looks unusual--will you tell me? I ... Well, I dotrust you. Really I do, but the whole thing isn't mine to tell. "

The somber pools of her eyes were shining. "You are very lovable, Gregg. I won't question you. " She was trembling with excitement. "Whatever it is, I want to be in on it. Here's something I can tellyou now. We've two high class gold leaf gamblers aboard. Do you knowthat?"

"Who are they?"

"Shac and Dud Ardley. Every detective in Greater New York knows them. They had a wonderful game with that Englishman, Sir Arthur, thismorning. Stripped him of half a pound of eight-inch leaves--a neatlittle stack. A crooked game, of course. Those fellows are morenimble-fingered than Rance Rankin ever dared to be!"

I sat staring at her. She was a mine of information, this girl. 

"And Gregg, I tried my charms on Shac and Dud. Nice men, but dumb. Whatever's going on, they're not in it. They wanted to know what kindof a ship this was. Why? Because Shac has a cute little eavesdroppingmicrophone of his own. He had it working last night. He overheardGeorge Prince and that giant Miko arguing about the Moon!"

I gasped, "Venza! Softer--"

Against all propriety of this public deck she pretended to drapeherself upon me. Her hair smothered my face as her lips almost touchedmy ear. 

"Something about treasure on the Moon. Shac couldn't understand what. And they mentioned you. Then the purser joined them. " Her whisperedwords tumbled over one another. "A hundred pounds of gold leaf--that'sthe purser's price. He's with them--whatever it is. He promised to dosomething or other for them. "

She stopped. "Well?" I prompted. 

"That's all. Shac's current was interrupted. "

"Tell him to try it again, Venza! I'll talk with him. No! I'd betterlet him alone. Can you get him to keep his mouth shut?"

"I think he might do anything I told him. He's a man!"

"Find out what you can. "

She drew away from me abruptly. "There's Anita and George Prince. "

They came to the corner of the deck, but turned back. Venza caught mylook. And understood it. 

"You do love Anita Prince, Gregg?" Venza was smiling. "I wish you.... I wish some man handsome as you would gaze after me like that. " Sheturned solemn. "You may be interested to know, she loves you. I couldsee it. I knew it when I mentioned you to her this morning. "

"Me? Why we've hardly spoken!"

"Is it necessary? I never heard that it was. "

I could not see Venza's face; she stood up suddenly. And when I rosebeside her, she whispered, "We should not be seen talking so long. I'll find out what I can. "

I stared after her slight robed figure as she turned into the loungearchway and vanished. 

VI

Captain Carter was grim. "So they've bought him off, have they? Gobring him in here, Gregg. We'll have it out with him now. "

Snap, Dr. Frank, Balch, our first officer, and I were in the Captain'schart room. It was four P. M. Earth time. We were sixteen hours uponour voyage. 

I found Johnson in his office in the lounge. "Captain wants to seeyou. Close up. "

He closed his window upon an American woman passenger who wasdemanding the details of Martian currency, and followed me forward. "What is it, Gregg?"

"I don't know. "

Captain Carter banged the slide upon us. The chart room was insulated. The hum of the current was obvious. Johnson noticed it. He stared atthe hostile faces of the surgeon and Balch. And he tried to bluster. 

"What's this? Something wrong?"

Carter wasted no words. "We have information, Johnson, that there'ssome undercover plot aboard. I want to know what it is. Suppose youtell us. "

The purser looked blank. "What do you mean? We've gamblers aboard, ifthat's--"

"To hell with that, " growled Balch. "You had a secret interview withthat Martian, _Set_ Miko, and with George Prince!"

Johnson scowled from under his heavy brows, and then raised them insurprise. "Did I? You mean changing their money? I don't like yourtone, Balch. I'm not your under-officer!"

"But you're under me!" roared the Captain. "By God, I'm master here!"

"Well, I'm not disputing that, " said the purser mildly. "Thisfellow--"

"We're in no mood for argument, " Dr. Frank cut in. "Clouding theissue.... "

"I won't let it be clouded, " the Captain exclaimed. 

I had never seen Carter so choleric. He added:

"Johnson, you've been acting suspiciously. I don't give a damn whetherI've proof of it or not. Did you or did you not meet George Prince andthat Martian, last night?"

"No, I did not. And I don't mind telling you, Captain Carter, thatyour tone also is offensive!"

"Is it?" Carter seized him. They were both big men. Johnson's heavyface went purplish red. 

"Take your hands--!" They were struggling. Carter's hands werefumbling at the purser's pockets. I leaped, flung an arm aroundJohnson's neck, pinning him. 

"Easy there! We've got you, Johnson!"

Snap tried to help me. "Go on! Bang him on the head, Gregg. Now's yourchance!"

We searched him. A heat ray cylinder--that was legitimate. But wefound a small battery and eavesdropping device similar to the oneVenza had mentioned that Shac the gambler was carrying. 

"What are you doing with that?" the Captain demanded. 

"None of your business! Is it criminal? Carter, I'll have the lineofficials dismiss you for this! Take your hands off me--all of you!"

"Look at this!" exclaimed Dr. Frank. 

From Johnson's breast pocket the surgeon drew a folded document. Itwas a scale drawing of the _Planetara_ interior corridors, the lowercontrol rooms and mechanisms. It was always kept in Johnson's safe. And with it, another document: the ship's clearance papers--the secretcode passwords for this voyage, to be used if we should be challengedby any Interplanetary Police ship. 

Snap gasped, "My God, that was in my radio room strong box! I'm theonly one on this vessel except the Captain who's entitled to knowthose passwords!"

Out of the silence, Balch demanded, "Well, what about it, Johnson?"

The purser was still defiant. "I won't answer your questions, Balch. At the proper time, I'll explain--Gregg Haljan, you're choking me!"

I eased up. But I shook him. "You'd better talk. "

He was exasperatingly silent. 

"Enough!" exploded Carter. "He can explain when we get to port. Meanwhile I'll put him where he'll do no more harm. Gregg, lock him inthe cage. "

We ignored his violent protestations. The cage--in the old days of seavessels on Earth, they called it the brig--was the ship's jail. Asteel-lined, windowless room located under the deck in the peak of thebow. I dragged the struggling Johnson there, with the amazed watcherlooking down from the observatory window at our lunging starlit forms. 

"Shut up, Johnson! If you know what's good for you--"

He was making a fearful commotion. Behind us, where the deck narrowedat the superstructure, half a dozen passengers were gazing insurprise. 

"I'll have you thrown out of the service, Gregg Haljan!"

I shut him up finally. And flung him down the ladder into the cage andsealed the deck trap door upon him. I was headed back for the chartroom when from the observatory came the lookout's voice:

"An asteroid, Haljan! Officer Blackstone wants you. "

I hurried to the turret bridge. An asteroid was in sight. We hadnearly attained our maximum speed now. An asteroid was approaching, sodangerously close that our trajectory would have to be altered. Iheard Blackstone's signals ringing in the control rooms; and metCarter as he ran to the bridge with me. 

"That scoundrel! We'll get more out of him, Gregg. By God, I'll putthe chemicals on him--torture him--illegal or not!"

We had no time for further discussion. The asteroid was rapidlyapproaching. Already, under the glass, it was a magnificent sight. Ihad never seen this tiny world before--asteroids are not numerousbetween the Earth and Mars, or in toward Venus. 

At a speed of nearly a hundred miles a second the asteroid swept intoview. With the naked eye, at first it was a tiny speck of star-dustunnoticeable in the gem-strewn black velvet of space. A speck. Then agleaming dot, silver white, with the light of our Sun upon it. 

I stood with Carter and Blackstone on the turret bridge. It wasobvious, that unless we altered our course, the asteroid would passtoo close for safety. Already we were feeling its attraction; from thecontrol rooms came the report that our trajectory was disturbed bythis new mass so near. 

"Better make your calculations now, Gregg, " Blackstone urged. 

I cast up the rough elements from the observational instruments in theturret. When I had us upon our new course, with the attractive andrepulsive plates in the _Planetara's_ hull set in their alteredcombinations, I went to the bridge again. 

The asteroid hung over our bow quarter. No more than twenty or thirtythousand miles away. A giant ball now, filling all that quadrant ofthe heavens. The configurations of its mountains, its land and waterareas, were plainly visible. 

"Perfectly habitable, " Blackstone said. "But I've searched all overthe hemisphere with the glass. No sign of human life--certainlynothing civilized--nothing in the fashion of cities. "

A fair little world, by the look of it. A tiny globe, come from theregion beyond Neptune. We swept past the asteroid. The passengers wereall gathered to view the passing little world. I saw, not far from me, Anita, standing with her brother; and the giant figure of Miko withthem. Half an hour since this wandering little world had showeditself, it swiftly passed, began to dwindle behind us. A huge halfmoon. A thinner, smaller quadrant. A tiny crescent, like a silverbarpin to adorn some lady's breast. And then it was a dot, a point oflight indistinguishable among the myriad others hovering in this greatblack void. 

The incident of the passing of the asteroid was over. I turned fromthe deck window. My heart leaped. The moment for which all day I hadbeen subconsciously longing was at hand. Anita was sitting in a deckchair, momentarily alone. Her gaze was on me as I glanced her way, andshe smiled an invitation for me to join her. 

VII

"But, Miss Prince, why are you and your brother going to Ferrok-Shahn?His business--"

Even as I voiced it, I hated myself for such a question. So nimble inthe humble mind that mingled with my rhapsodies of love, was my needfor information of George Prince. 

"Oh, " she said. "This is pleasure, not business, for George. " Itseemed to me that a shadow crossed her face. But it was gone in aninstant, and she smiled. "We have always wanted to travel. We arealone in the world, you know--our parents died when we were children. "

I filled in her pause. "You will like Mars. So many interesting thingsto see. "

She nodded. "Yes, I understand so. Our Earth is so much the same allover, cast all in one mould. "

"But a hundred or more years ago, it was not, Miss Prince. I have readhow the picturesque Orient, differing from ... Well, Greater New Yorkor London, for instance--"

"Transportation did that, " she interrupted eagerly. "Made everythingthe same--the people all look alike ... Dress alike. "

We discussed it. She had an alert, eager mind, childlike with itscuriosity, yet strangely matured. And her manner was na�vely earnest. Yet this was no clinging vine, this Anita Prince. There was afirmness, a hint of masculine strength in her chin and in her manner. 

"If I were a man, what wonders I could achieve in this marvelous age!"Her sense of humor made her laugh at herself. "Easy for a girl to saythat, " she added. 

"You have greater wonders to achieve, Miss Prince, " I saidimpulsively. 

"Yes? What are they?" She had a very frank and level gaze, devoid ofcoquetry. 

My heart was pounding. "The wonders of the next generation. A littleson, cast in your own gentle image--"

What madness, this clumsy, brash talk! I choked it off. 

But she took no offense. The dark rose-petals of her cheeks weremantled deeper red, but she laughed. 

"That is true. " She turned abruptly serious. "I should not laugh. Thewonders of the next generation--conquering humans marching on.... " Hervoice trailed away. My hand went to her arm. Strange tinglingsomething which poets call love! It burned and surged through mytrembling fingers into the flesh of her forearm. 

The starlight glowed in her eyes. She seemed to be gazing, not at thesilver-lit deck, but away into distant reaches of the future. 

Our moment. Just a breathless moment given us as we sat there with myhand burning her arm, as though we both might be seeing ourselvesjoined in a new individual--a little son, cast in his mother's gentleimage and with the strength of his father. Our moment, and then it wasover. A step sounded. I sat back. The giant gray figure of Miko camepast, his great cloak swaying, with his clanking sword ornamentbeneath it. His bullet head, with its close-clipped hair, was hatless. He gazed at us, swaggering past, and turned the deck corner. 

Our moment was gone. Anita said conventionally, "It has been pleasantto talk with you, Mr. Haljan. "

"But we'll have many more, " I said. "Ten days--"

"You think we'll reach Ferrok-Shahn on schedule?"

"Yes. I think so.... As I was saying, Miss Prince, you'll enjoy Mars. A strange, aggressively forward-looking people. "

An oppression seemed on her. She stirred in her chair. 

"Yes they are, " she said vaguely. "My brother and I know many Martiansin Greater New York. " She checked herself abruptly. Was she sorry shehad said that? It seemed so. 

Miko was coming back. He stopped this time. "Your brother would seeyou, Anita. He sent me to bring you to his room. "

The glance he shot me had a touch of insolence. I stood up and hetowered a head over me. 

Anita said, "Oh yes. I'll come. "

I bowed. "I will see you again, Miss Prince. I thank you for apleasant half-hour. "

The Martian led her away. Her little figure was like a child with agiant. It seemed, as they passed the length of the deck, with mestaring after them, that he took her arm roughly. And that she shrankfrom him in fear. 

And they did not go inside. As though to show me that he had merelytaken her from me, he stopped at a distant deck window and stoodtalking to her. Once he picked her up as one would pick up a child toshow it some distant object through the window. 

Was Anita afraid of this Martian's wooing? Yet was held to him by somepower he might have over her brother? The vagrant thought struck me. 

VIII

The rest of that afternoon and evening were a blank confusion to me. Anita's words, the touch of my hand on her arm, that vast realm ofwhat might be for us, like the glimpse of a magic land of happinesswhich I had seen in her eyes, and perhaps she had seen in mine--allthis surged within me. 

After wandering about the ship, I had a brief consultation withCaptain Carter. He was genuinely apprehensive now. The _Planetara_carried only a half-dozen of the heat-ray projectors, no long rangeweapons, a few side arms, and some old-fashioned, practicallyantiquated weapons of explosives, plus hand projectors with the newBenson curve light. 

The weapons were all in Carter's chart room, save the few we officersalways carried. Carter was afraid, but of what, he was not sure. Hehad not thought that our plan to stop at the Moon could affect thisoutward voyage. He had thought that any danger would occur on the wayback, and then the _Planetara_ would have been adequately guarded andmanned with police-soldiers. 

But now we were practically defenseless. I had a moment with Venza, but she had nothing new to communicate. And for half an hour I chattedwith George Prince. He seemed a gay, pleasant young man. I couldalmost have fancied I liked him. Or was it because he was Anita'sbrother? He told me how he looked forward to traveling with her onMars. No, he had never been there before, he said. 

He had a measure of Anita's earnest na�ve personality. Or was he avery clever scoundrel, with irony lurking in his soft voice, and achuckle that could so befool me?

"Well talk again, Haljan. You interest me--I've enjoyed it. "

He sauntered away from me, joining the saturnine Ob Hahn, with whompresently I heard him discussing religion. 

The arrest of Johnson had caused considerable discussion among thepassengers. A few had seen me drag him forward to the cage. Theincident had been the subject of discussion all afternoon. CaptainCarter had posted a notice to the effect that Johnson's accounts hadbeen found in serious error, and that Dr. Frank for this voyage wouldact in his stead. 

 * * * * *

It was near midnight when Snap and I closed and sealed the radio roomand started for the chart room, where we were to meet with CaptainCarter and the other officers. The passengers had nearly all retired. A game was in progress in the smoking room, but the deck was almostdeserted. 

Snap and I were passing along one of the interior corridors. Thestateroom doors were all closed. The metal grid of the floor echoedour footsteps. Snap was in advance of me. His body suddenly rose inthe air. He went like a balloon to the ceiling, struck it gently, andall in a heap came floating down and landed on the floor!

"What in the infernal--"

He was laughing as he picked himself up. But it was a brief laugh. Weknew what had happened: the artificial gravity controls in the base ofthe ship, which by magnetic force gave us normality aboard, were beingtampered with! For just this instant, this particular small section ofthis corridor had been cut off. The slight bulk of the _Planetara_, floating in space, had no appreciable gravity pull on Snap's body, andthe impulse of his step as he came to the unmagnetized area of thecorridor had thrown him to the ceiling. The area was normal now. Snapand I tested it gingerly. 

He gripped me. "That never went wrong by accident, Gregg! Someone--"

We rushed to the nearest descending ladder. In the deserted lower roomthe bank of dials stood neglected. A score of dials and switches werehere, governing the magnetism of different areas of the ship. Thereshould have been a night operator, but he was gone. 

Than we saw him lying nearby, sprawled, face down on the floor! In thesilence and dim, lurid glow of the fluorescent tubes, we stood holdingour breaths, peering and listening. No one here. 

The guard was not dead. He lay unconscious from a blow on the head. Abrawny fellow. We had him revived in a few moments. A broadcast flashof the call buzz brought Dr. Frank from the chart room. 

"What's the matter?"

"Someone was here, " I said hastily, "experimenting with the magneticswitches. Evidently unfamiliar with them--pulling one or another totest their workings and so see their reactions on the dials. "

We told him what had happened to Snap in the corridor; the guard herewas no worse off for the episode, save a lump on the head by aninvisible assailant. We left him nursing his head, sitting belligerentat his post, alert to any danger and armed now with my heat-raycylinder. 

"Strange doings this voyage, " he told us. "All the crew knows it. I'llstick it out now, but when we get back home I'm done with this startravelin'. I belong on the sea anyway. "

We hurried back to the upper level. We would indeed have to plansomething at this chart room conference. This was the first tangibleattack our adversaries had made. 

We were on the passenger deck headed for the chart room when all threeof us stopped short, frozen with horror. Through the silent passengerquarters a scream rang out! A girl's shuddering, gasping scream. Terror in it. Horror. Or a scream of agony. In the silence of thedully vibrating ship it was utterly horrible.... It lasted aninstant--a single long scream; then was abruptly stilled. 

And with blood pounding my temples and rushing like ice through myveins, I recognized it. 

Anita!

IX

"Good God, what was that?" Dr. Frank's face had gone white. Snap stoodlike a statue of horror. 

The deck here was patched as always, with silver radiance from thedeck ports. The empty deck chairs stood about. The scream was stilled, but now we heard a commotion inside--the rasp of opening cabin doors;questions from frightened passengers. 

I found my voice. "Anita! Anita Prince!"

"Come on!" shouted Snap. "In her stateroom, A22!" He was dashing forthe lounge archway. 

Dr. Frank and I followed. I realized that we passed the deck door andwindow of A22. But they were dark, and evidently sealed on the inside. The dim lounge was in a turmoil; passengers standing at their cabindoors. 

I shouted, "Go back to your rooms! We want order here--keep back!"

We came to the twin doors of A22 and A20. Both were closed. Dr. Frankwas in advance of Snap and me now. He paused at the sound of CaptainCarter's voice behind us. 

"Was it from in there? Wait a moment!"

Carter dashed up. He had a large heat-ray projector in his hand. Heshoved us aside. "Let me in first. Is the door sealed? Gregg, keepthose passengers back!"

The door was not sealed. Carter burst into the room. I heard him gasp, "Good God!"

Snap and I shoved back three or four passengers. And in that instantDr. Frank had been in the room and out again. 

"There's been an accident! Get back, Gregg! Snap, help me keep thecrowd away. " He shoved me forcibly. 

From within, Carter was shouting, "Keep them out! Where are you, Frank? Come back here! Send a flash for Balch!"

Dr. Frank went back into the room and banged the cabin door upon Snapand me. I was unarmed. Weapon in hand, Snap forced the panic-strickenpassengers back to their rooms. 

Snap reassured them glibly; but he knew no more about the facts thanI. Moa, with a nightrobe drawn tight around her thin, tall figure, edged up to me. 

"What has happened, _Set_ Haljan?"

I gazed around for her brother Miko, but did not see him. 

"An accident, " I said shortly. "Go back to your room. Captain'sorders. "

She eyed me and then retreated. Snap was threatening everybody withhis cylinder. Balch dashed up. "What in hell! Where is Carter?"

"In there. " I pounded on A22. It opened cautiously. I could see onlyCarter, but I heard the murmuring voice of Dr. Frank through theinterior connecting door to A20. 

The Captain rasped, "Get out, Haljan! Oh, is that you, Balch? Comein. " He admitted the older officer and slammed the door upon me again. And immediately reopened it. 

"Gregg, keep the passengers quieted. Tell them everything's all right. Miss Prince got frightened--that's all. Then go to the turret. TellBlackstone what's happened. "

"But I don't know what's happened. "

Carter was grim and white. He whispered, "I think it may turn out tobe murder, Gregg! No, not dead yet.... Dr. Frank is trying ... Don'tstand there like an ass, man. Get to the turret! Verify ourtrajectory--no--wait.... "

The Captain was almost incoherent. "Wait a minute. I don't mean that!Tell Snap to watch his radio room. Arm yourselves and guard ourweapons. "

I stammered, "If ... If she dies ... Will you flash us word?"

He stared at me strangely. "I'll be there presently, Gregg. "

He slammed the door upon me. 

I followed his orders but it was like a dream of horror. The turmoilof the ship gradually quieted. Snap went to the radio room; Blackstoneand I sat in the tiny chart room; how much time passed, I do not know. I was confused. Anita hurt! She might die ... Murdered.... But why? Bywhom? Had George Prince been in his own room when the attack came? Ithought now I recalled hearing the low murmur of his voice in therewith Dr. Frank. 

Where was Miko? It stabbed at me. I had not seen him among thepassengers in the lounge. 

Carter came into the chart room. "Gregg, you get to bed. You look likea ghost. "

"But--"

"She's not dead. She may live. Dr. Frank and her brother are withher. They're doing all they can. " He told us what had happened. Anitaand George Prince had both been asleep, each in his respective room. Someone unknown had opened Anita's corridor door. 

"Wasn't it sealed?"

"Yes. But the intruder opened it. "

"Burst it? I didn't think it was broken. "

"It wasn't broken. The assailant opened it somehow, and assaulted MissPrince--shot her in the chest with a heat ray. Her left lung. "

"Shot her?"

"Yes. But she did not see who did it. Nor did Prince. Her screamawakened him, but the intruder evidently fled out the corridor door ofA22, the way he entered. "

I stood weak and shaken at the chart room entrance. Anita--dying, perhaps; and all my dreams were fading into a memory of what mighthave been. 

I was glad enough to get away. I would lie down for an hour and thengo to Anita's stateroom. I'd demand that Dr. Frank let me see her. 

I went to the stern deck where my cubby was located. My mind wasconfused but some instinct within me made me verify the seals of mydoor and window. They were intact. I entered cautiously, switched onthe dimmer of the tube lights, and searched the room. It had only abunk, my tiny desk, a chair and clothes robe. There was no evidence ofany intruder here. I set my door and window alarm. Then I audiphonedto the radio room. 

"Snap?"

"Yes. "

I told him about Anita. Carter cut in on us from the chart room. "Stopthat, you fools!"

We cut off. Fully dressed, I flung myself on my bed. Anita mightdie.... 

I must have fallen into a tortured sleep, I was awakened by the soundof my alarm buzzer. Someone was tampering with my door! Then thebuzzer ceased; the marauder outside must have found a way ofsilencing it. But it had done its work--awakened me. 

I had switched off the light; my cubby was Stygian black. A heatcylinder was in the bunk-bracket over my head. I searched for it, pried it loose softly. 

I was fully awake. Alert. I could hear a faint sizzling--someoneoutside trying to unseal the door. In the darkness, cylinder in hand, I crept softly from the bunk. Crouched at the door. This time I wouldcapture or kill this night prowler. 

The sizzling was faintly audible. My door seal was breaking. Uponimpulse I reached for the door, jerked it open. 

No one there! The starlit segment of deck was empty. But I leaped andstruck a solid body, crouching in the doorway. A giant man. Miko!

His electronized metallic robe burned my hands. I lunged againsthim--I was almost as surprised as he. I shot, but the stab of heatevidently missed him. The shock of my encounter, short-circuited hisrobe; he materialized in the starlight. A brief, savage encounter. Hestruck the weapon from my hand. He had dropped his hydrogen torch, andtried to grip me. But I twisted away from his hold. 

"So it's you!"

"Quiet, Gregg Haljan! I only want to talk. "

Without warning, a stab of radiance shot from a weapon in his hand. Itcaught me. Ran like ice through my veins. Seized and numbed my limbs. 

I fell helpless to the deck. Nerves and muscles paralyzed. My tonguewas thick and inert. I could not speak, nor move. But I could see Mikobending over me, and hear him:

"I don't want to kill you, Haljan. We need you. "

He gathered me up like a bundle in his huge arms; carried me swiftlyacross the deserted deck. 

Snap's radio room in the network under the dome was diagonallyoverhead. A white actinic light shot from it--caught us, bathed us. Snap had been awake; had heard the commotion of our encounter. 

His voice rang shrilly: "Stop! I'll shoot!" His warning siren rang outto alert the ship. His spotlight clung to us. 

Miko ran with me a few steps. Then he cursed and dropped me; fledaway. I fell like a sack of carbide to the deck. My senses faded intoblackness.... 

"He's all right now. "

I was in the chart room with Captain Carter, Snap and Dr. Frankbending over me. The surgeon said, "Can you speak now, Gregg?"

I tried it. My tongue was thick, but it moved. "Yes. " I was soonrevived. I sat up, with Dr. Frank vigorously rubbing me. 

"I'm all right. " I told them what had happened. 

Captain Carter said, "Yes, we know that. And it was Miko also whokilled Anita Prince. She told us before she died. "

"Died!... " I leaped to my feet. "She ... Died.... "

"Yes, Gregg. An hour ago. Miko got into her stateroom and tried toforce his love upon her. She repulsed him. He killed her.... "

It struck me blank. And then with a rush came the thought, "He saysMiko killed her".... 

I heard myself stammering, "Why--why we must get him!" I gathered mywits; a surge of hate swept me; a wild desire for vengeance. 

"Why, by God, where is he? Why don't you go get him? I'll gethim--I'll kill him!"

"Easy, Gregg!" Dr. Frank gripped me. 

The Captain said gently. "We know how you feel, Gregg. She told usbefore she died. "

"I'll bring him in here to you! But I'll kill him, I tell you!"

"No you won't, lad. We don't want him killed, not attacked, even. Notyet. We'll explain later. "

They sat me down, calming me.... 

Anita dead. The door of the shining garden was closed. A brief glimpsegiven to me and to her of what might have been. And now she wasdead.... 

X

I had not been able at first to understand why Captain Carter wantedMiko left at liberty. Within me there was that cry of vengeance, asthough to strike Miko down would somehow lessen my own grief. WhateverCarter's purpose, Snap had not known it. But Balch and Dr. Frank werein the Captain's confidence--all three of them working on some plan ofaction. 

It was obvious that at least two of our passengers were plotting withMiko and George Prince; trying on this voyage to learn what they couldabout Grantline's activities on the Moon--scheming doubtless to seizethe treasure when the _Planetara_ stopped at the Moon on the returnvoyage. I thought I could name those masquerading passengers. Ob Hahn, supposedly a Venus mystic. And Rance Rankin, who called himself anAmerican magician. Those two, Snap and I agreed, seemed mostsuspicious. And there was the purser. 

I sat for a time on the deck outside the chart room with Snap. ThenCarter summoned us back, and we sat listening while he, Balch and Dr. Frank went on with their conference. Listening to them, I could notbut agree that our best plan was to secure evidence which wouldincriminate all who were concerned in the plot. Miko, we wereconvinced, had been the Martian who followed Snap and me from Halsey'soffice in Greater New York. George Prince had doubtless been theinvisible eavesdropper outside the radio room. He knew, and had toldthe others that Grantline had found that priceless metal on the Moonand that the _Planetara_ would stop there on the way home. 

But we could not incarcerate George Prince for being an eavesdropper. Nor had we the faintest possible evidence against Ob Hahn or Rankin. And even the purser would probably be released by the InterplanetaryCourt of Ferrok-Shahn when it heard our evidence. 

There was only Miko. We could arrest him for the murder of Anita. Butif we did that now, the others would be put on their guard. It wasCarter's idea to let Miko remain at liberty for a time and see if wecould identify and incriminate his fellows. The murder of Anitaobviously had nothing to do with any plot against Grantline Moontreasure. 

"Why, " exclaimed Balch, "there might be--probably are--huge Martianinterests concerned in this thing. These men aboard are onlyemissaries, making this voyage to learn what they can. When they getto Ferrok-Shahn, they'll make their report, and then we'll have a realdanger on our hands. Why, an outlaw ship could be launched fromFerrok-Shahn that would beat us back to the Moon--and Grantline isentirely without warning of any danger!"

It seemed obvious. Unscrupulous criminals in Ferrok-Shahn would bedangerous indeed, once these details of Grantline were given them. Sonow it was decided that in the remaining nine days of our outwardvoyage, we would attempt to secure enough evidence to arrest all theseplotters. 

"I'll have them all in the cage when we land, " declared Carter grimly. "They'll make no report to their principals!"

Ah, the futile plans of men!

Yet, at the time, we thought it practical. We were all doubly armednow. Bullet projectors and heat ray cylinders. And we had severaleavesdropping microphones which we planned to use whenever occasionoffered. 

Only twenty-eight hours of this eventful voyage had passed. The_Planetara_ was some six million miles from the Earth; it blazedbehind us, a tremendous giant. 

The body of Anita was being made ready for burial. George Prince wasstill in his stateroom. Glutz, effeminate little hairdresser, whowaxed rich acting as beauty doctor for the women passengers, and who, in his youth, had been an undertaker, had gone with Dr. Frank toprepare the body. 

Gruesome details. I tried not to think of them. I sat, numbed, in thechart room. 

An astronomical burial--there was little precedent for it. I draggedmyself to the stern deck where, at five A. M. , the ceremony took place. 

We were a solemn little group, gathered there in the checkeredstarlight with the great vault of the heavens around us. A dismantledelectronic projector--necessary when a long range gun was mounted--hadbeen rigged up in one of the deck ports. 

They brought out the body. I stood apart, gazing reluctantly at thesmall bundle, wrapped like a mummy in a dark metallic screen-cloth. Apatch of black silk rested over her face. Four cabin stewards carriedher; and beside her walked George Prince. A long black robe coveredhim, but his head was bare. And suddenly he reminded me of the ancientplay-character of Hamlet. His black, wavy hair; his finely chiseled, pallid face, set now in a stern patrician cast. And staring, Irealized that however much of the villain this man might be, at thisinstant, walking beside the body of his dead sister, he was strickenwith grief. He loved that sister with whom he had lived sincechildhood; and to see him now no one could doubt it. 

The little procession stopped in a patch of starlight by the port. They rested the body on a bank of chairs. The black-robed chaplain, roused from his bed and still trembling from excitement of thissudden, inexplicable death on board, said a brief, solemn littleprayer. An appeal: That the Almighty Ruler of all these blazing worldsmight guard the soul of this gentle girl whose mortal remains were nowto be returned to Him. 

Ah, if ever God seemed hovering close, it was now at this instant, onthis starlit deck floating in the black void of space. 

Then Carter for just a moment removed the black shroud from her face. I saw her brother gaze silently; saw him stoop and implant akiss--and turn away. I did not want to look, but I found myself movingslowly forward. 

She lay, so beautiful. Her face, white and calm and peaceful in death. My sight blurred. 

"Easy Gregg, " Snap was whispering to me. He had his arm around me. "Come on away. "

They tied the shroud over her face. I did not see them as they put thebody in the tube, sent it through the exhaust chamber and dropped it. 

But a moment later I saw it, a small black, oblong bundle hoveringbeside us. It was perhaps a hundred feet away, circling us. Held bythe _Planetara's_ bulk, it had momentarily become our satellite. Itswung around us like a moon. Gruesome satellite, by nature's lawsforever to follow us. 

Then from another tube at the bow, Blackstone operated a smallzed-co-ray projector. Its dull light caught the floating bundle, neutralizing its metallic wrappings. 

It swung off at a tangent. Speeding. Falling free in the dome of theheavens. A rotating black oblong. But in a moment distance dwindled itto a speck. A dull silver dot with the sunlight on it. A speck ofhuman Earth dust, falling free.... 

It vanished. Anita--gone. 

XI

I turned from the deck. Miko was near me! So he had dared show himselfhere among us! But I realized he could not be aware we knew he was themurderer. George Prince had been asleep, had not seen Miko with Anita. Miko, with impulsive rage had shot the girl and escaped. No doubt nowhe was cursing himself for having done it. And he could very wellassume that Anita had died without regaining consciousness to tell whohad killed her. 

He gazed at me now. I thought for an instant he was coming over totalk with me. Though he probably considered he was not suspected ofthe murder of Anita, he realized, of course, that his attack on me wasknown. He must have wondered what action would be taken. 

But he did not approach me. He moved away and went inside. Moa hadbeen near him; and as though by prearrangement with him she nowaccosted me. 

"I want to speak to you, _Set_ Haljan. "

"Go ahead. "

I felt an instinctive aversion to this Martian girl. Yet she was notunattractive. Over six feet tall, straight and slim. Sleek blond hair. Rather a handsome face; not gray, like the burly Miko, but pink andwhite; stern lipped, but feminine, too. She was smiling gravely now. Her blue eyes regarded me keenly. She said gently:

"A sad occurrence, Gregg Haljan. And mysterious. I would not questionyou--"

"Is that all you have to say?" I demanded. 

"No. You are a handsome man, Gregg--attractive to women--to anyMartian woman. "

She said it impulsively. Admiration for me was on her face, in hereyes--a man cannot miss it. 

"Thank you. "

"I mean, I would be your friend. My brother Miko is so sorry aboutwhat happened between you and him this morning. He only wanted to talkto you, and he came to your cubby door--"

"With a torch to break its seal, " I interjected. 

She waved that away. "He was afraid you would not admit him. He toldyou he would not harm you. "

"And so he struck me with one of your Martian paralyzing rays!"

"He is sorry.... "

She seemed gauging me, trying, no doubt, to find out what reprisalwould be taken against her brother. I felt sure that Moa was as activeas a man in any plan that was under way to capture the Grantlinetreasure. Miko, with his ungovernable temper, was doing things thatput their plans in jeopardy. 

I demanded, "What did your brother want to talk to me about?"

"Me, " she said surprisingly. "I sent him. A Martian girl goes afterwhat she wants. Did you know that?"

She swung on her heel and left me. I puzzled over it. Was that whyMiko struck me down and was carrying me off? I did not think so. Icould not believe that all these incidents were so unrelated to what Iknew was the main undercurrent They wanted me, had tried to capture mefor something else. 

Dr. Frank found me mooning alone. "Go to bed, Gregg. You look awful. "

"I don't want to go to bed. "

"Where's Snap?"

"I don't know. He was here a little while ago. " I had not seen himsince the burial of Anita. 

"The Captain wants him, " he said. 

Within an hour the morning siren would arouse the passengers. I wasseated in a secluded corner of the deck, when George Prince camealong. He went past me, a slight, somber, dark-robed figure. He had onhigh, thick boots. A hood was over his head, but as he saw me hepushed it back and dropped down beside me. 

For a moment he did not speak. His face showed pallid in the dimstarlight. 

"She said you loved her. " His soft voice was throaty with emotion. 

"Yes. " I said it almost against my will. There seemed a bond springingbetween this bereaved brother and me. He added, so softly I couldbarely hear him: "That makes you, I think, almost my friend. And youthought you were my enemy. "

I held my answer. An incautious tongue running under emotion is adangerous thing. And I was sure of nothing. 

He went on, "Almost my friend. Because--we both loved her, and sheloved us both. " He was hardly more than whispering. "And there isaboard one whom we both hate. "

"Miko!" It burst from me. 

"Yes. But do not say it. "

Another silence fell between us. He brushed back the black curls fromhis forehead. "Have you an eavesdropping microphone, Haljan?"

I hesitated. "Yes. "

"I was thinking.... " He leaned closer. "If, in half an hour, you coulduse it upon Miko's cabin--I would rather tell you than anyone else. The cabin will be insulated, but I shall find a way of cutting offthat insulation so that you can hear. "

So George Prince had turned with us. The shock of his sister'sdeath--himself allied with her murderer--had been too much for him. Hewas with us!

Yet his help must be given secretly. Miko would kill him instantly ifit became known. He had been watchful of the deck. He stood up now. 

"I think that is all. "

As he turned away, I murmured, "But I do thank you.... "

 * * * * *

The name _Set_ Miko glowed upon the door. It was in a transversecorridor similar to A22. The corridor was forward of the lounge: itopened off the small circular library. 

The library was unoccupied and unlighted, dim with only the reflectedlights from the nearby passages. I crouched behind a cylinder case. The door of Miko's room was in sight. 

I waited perhaps five minutes. No one entered. Then I realized thatdoubtless the conspirators were already there. I set my tinyeavesdropper on the library floor beside me; connected its littlebattery; focused its projector. Was Miko's room insulated? I could nottell. There was a small ventilating grid above the door. Across itsopening, if the room was insulated, a blue sheen of radiance would beshowing. And there would be a faint hum. But from this distance Icould not see or hear such details, and I was afraid to approachcloser. Once in the transverse corridor, I would have no place tohide, no way of escape. If anyone approached Miko's door, I would betrapped. 

I threw the current into my apparatus. I prayed, if it metinterference, that the slight sound would pass unnoticed. GeorgePrince had said that he would make opportunity to disconnect theroom's insulation. He had evidently done so. I picked up the interiorsounds at once; my headphone vibrated with them. And with tremblingfingers on the little dial between my knees as I crouched in thedarkness behind the cylinder case, I synchronized. 

"Johnson is a fool. " It was Miko's voice. "We must have thepasswords. "

"He got them from the radio room. " A man's voice: I puzzled over it atfirst, then recognized it. Rance Rankin. 

Miko said, "He is a fool. Walking around this ship as though withletters blazoned on his forehead, 'Watch me.... I need watching. ' Hah!No wonder they apprehended him!"

Rankin's voice said: "He would have turned the papers over to us. Iwould not blame him too much. What harm--"

"Oh, I'll release him, " Miko declared. "What harm? That braying assdid us plenty of harm. He has lost the passwords. Better he had leftthem in the radio room. "

Moa was in the room. Her voice said, "We've got to have them. The_Planetara_, upon such an important voyage as this, might be watched. "

"No doubt it is, " Rankin said quietly. "We ought to have thepasswords. When we are in control of this ship.... "

It sent a shiver through me. Were they planning to try and seize the_Planetara_? Now? It seemed so. 

"Johnson undoubtedly memorized them, " Moa was saying. "When we get himout--"

"Hahn is to do that, at the signal. " Miko added, "George could do itbetter, perhaps. "

And then I heard George Prince for the first time, "I'll try. "

"No need, " Miko said unexpectedly. 

I could not see what had happened. A look, perhaps, which Princecould not avoid giving this man he had come to hate. Miko doubtlesssaw it, and the Martian's hot anger leaped. 

Rankin said hurriedly, "Stop that!"

And Moa, "Let him alone, you fool! Sit down!"

I could hear the sound of a scuffle. A blow--a cry, half suppressed, from George Prince. 

Then Miko: "I will not hurt him. Craven coward! Look at him! Hatingme--frightened!"

I could fancy George Prince sitting there with murder in his heart, and Miko taunting him:

"Hates me now, because I shot his sister!"

Moa: "Hush!"

"I will not! Why should I not say it? I will tell you something else, George Prince. It was not Anita I shot at, but you! I meant nothingfor her but love. If you had not interfered--"

This was different from what we had figured. George Prince had come infrom his own room, had tried to rescue his sister, and in the scuffle, Anita had taken the shot instead of George. 

"I did not even know I had hit her, " Miko was saying. "Not until Iheard she was dead. " He added sardonically, "I hoped it was you I hadhit, George. And I will tell you this: you hate me no more than I hateyou. If it were not for your knowledge of ores--"

"Is this to be a personal wrangle?" Rankin interrupted. "I thought wewere here to plan--"

"It is planned, " Miko said shortly. "I give orders, I do not plan. Iam waiting now for the moment--" He checked himself. 

Moa said, "Does Rankin understand that no harm is to come to GreggHaljan?"

"Yes, " Rankin said. "And Dean. We need them, of course. But you cannotmake Dean send messages if he refuses, nor make Haljan navigate. "

"I know enough to check on them, " Miko said grimly. "They will notfool me. And they will obey me, have no fear. A little touch ofsulphuric--" His laugh was gruesome. "It makes the most stubborn, verywilling. "

"I wish, " said Moa, "we had Haljan safely hidden. If he ishurt--killed--"

So that was why Miko had tried to capture me? To keep me safe so thatI might navigate the ship. 

It occurred to me that I should get Carter at once. A plot to seizethe _Planetara_--but when?

I froze with startled horror. 

The diaphragms at my ears rang with Miko's words: "I have set the timefor now--two minutes--"

It seemed to startle Rankin and George Prince as much as it did me. Both exclaimed: "No!"

"No? Why not? Everyone is at his post!"

Prince repeated, "No!"

And Rankin, "But can we trust them? The stewards--the crew?"

"Eight of them are our own men! You didn't know that, Rankin? They'vebeen aboard the _Planetara_ for several voyages. Oh, this is noquickly planned affair, even though we let you in on it so recently. You and Johnson.... By God!"

There was a commotion in the stateroom. I crouched, tense. Miko haddiscovered that his insulation had been cut off! He had evidentlyleaped to his feet. I heard a chair overturn. And the Martian's roar:"It's off! Did you do that, Prince? By God, if I thought--"

My apparatus went suddenly dead as Miko flung on his insulation. Ilost my wits in the confusion: I should have instantly taken off myvibrations. There was interference: it showed in the dark space of theventilator grid over Miko's doorway, a snapping in the air, there--aswirl of sparks. 

I heard with my unaided ears Miko's roar over his insulation: "By God, they're listening!"

The scream of hand sirens sounded from his stateroom. It rang over theship. His signal! I heard it answered from some distant point. Andthen a shot: a commotion in the lower corridors.... 

The attack upon the _Planetara_ had begun!

I was on my feet. The shouts of startled passengers sounded, a turmoilbeginning everywhere. 

I stood momentarily transfixed. The door of Miko's stateroom burstopen. He stood there, with Rankin, Moa and George Prince crowding him. 

He saw me. "You, Gregg Haljan!"

He came leaping at me. 

XII

I was taken wholly by surprise. There was an instant when I stoodnumbed, fumbling for a weapon at my belt, undecided whether to run orstand my ground. Miko was no more than twenty feet from me. He checkedhis forward rush. The light from an overhead tube was on him: I saw inhis hand the cylinder projector of his paralyzing ray. 

I plucked my heat cylinder from my belt, and fired without taking aim. My tiny heat beam flashed. I must have grazed Miko's hand. His roar ofanger and pain rang out over the turmoil. He dropped his weapon; thenstooped to pick it up. But Moa forestalled him. She leaped and seizedit. 

"Careful! Fool, you promised not to harm him!"

A confusion of swift action. Rankin had turned and darted away. I sawGeorge Prince stumbling half in front of the struggling Miko and Moa. And I heard footsteps beside me. A hand gripped me, jerked at me. 

Over the turmoil, Prince's voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan!"

I recall that I had the impression that Prince was frightened; he hadhalf fallen in front of Miko. And there was Miko's voice: "Let go ofme!"

It was Balch gripping me. "Gregg! This way--run! Get out of here!He'll kill you with that ray!"

Miko's ray flashed, but George Prince had knocked his arm. I did notdare fire again. Prince was in the way. Balch, who was unarmed, shovedme violently back. 

"Gregg! The chart room!"

I turned and ran, with Balch after me. Prince had fallen or beenfelled by Miko. A flash followed me from Miko's weapon, but again itmissed. He did not pursue me. Instead he ran the other way, throughthe portside door of the library. 

Balch and I found ourselves in the library. Shouting, frightenedpassengers were everywhere. The place was in wild confusion, the wholeship ringing now with shouts. 

"To the chart room, Gregg!"

I called to the passengers, "Go back to your rooms!"

I followed Balch. We ran through the archway to the deck. In thestarlight I saw figures scurrying aft, but none were near us. The deckforward was dim with heavy shadows. The oval windows and door of thechart room were blue-yellow from the tube lights inside. No one seemedon the deck there. And then as we approached, I saw further forward inthe bow, the trap door to the cage standing open. Johnson had beenreleased. 

From one of the chart room windows a heat ray sizzled. It barelymissed us. Balch shouted, "Carter--don't!"

The Captain called, "Oh you, Balch--and Haljan--"

He came out on the deck as we rushed up. His left arm was danglinglimp. 

"God--this--" He got no further. From the turret overhead a tinysearch beam came down and disclosed us. Blackstone was supposed to beon duty up there, with a course master at the controls. But, glancingup, I saw, illumined by the turret lights, the figure of Ob Hahn inhis purple-white robe, and Johnson, the purser. And on the turretbalcony, two fallen men--Blackstone and the course master. 

Johnson was training the spotlight on us. And Hahn fired a Martianray. It struck Balch beside me. He dropped. 

Carter was shouting, "Inside--Gregg! Get inside!"

I stopped to raise up Balch. Another beam came down. A heat ray thistime. It caught the fallen Balch full on the chest, piercing himthrough. The smell of his burning flesh rose to sicken me. He wasdead. I dropped his body. Carter shoved me into the chart room. 

In the small, steel-lined room, Carter and I slid the door closed. Wewere alone here. The thing had come so quickly it had taken CaptainCarter, like us all, wholly unawares. We had anticipated spyingeavesdroppers, but not this open brigandage. No more than a minute ortwo had passed since Miko's siren in his stateroom had given thesignal for attack. Carter had been in the chart room. Blackstone wasin the turret. At the outbreak of confusion, Carter dashed out to seeHahn releasing Johnson from the cage. From the forward chart roomwindow now I could see where Hahn with a torch had broken the cageseal. The torch lay on the deck. There had been an exchange of shots;Carter's arm was paralyzed; Johnson and Hahn had escaped. 

Carter was as confused as I. There had simultaneously been anencounter up in the turret. Blackstone and the course master werekilled. The lookout had been shot from his post in the forwardobservatory. The body dangled now, twisted half in and half out thewindow. 

We could see several of Miko's men--erstwhile members of our crew andsteward corps--scurrying from the turret along the upper bridge towardthe dark and silent radio room. Snap was up there. But was he? Theradio room glowed suddenly with dim light, but there was no evidenceof a fight there. The fighting seemed mostly below the deck, down inthe hull corridors. A blended horror of sounds came up to us. Screams, shouts and the hissing and snapping of ray weapons. Our crew--such ofthem as were loyal--were making a stand below. But it was brief. Within a minute it died away. The passengers, amidships in thesuperstructure, were still shouting. Then above them Miko's roarsounded. 

"Be quiet! Go in your rooms--you will not be harmed. "

The brigands in these few minutes were in control of the ship. All butthis little chart room, where, with most of the ship's weapons, Carterand I were entrenched. 

"God, Gregg, that this should come upon us!"

Carter was fumbling with the chart room weapons. "Here, Gregg. Helpme. What have you got? Heat ray? That's all I had ready. "

It struck me then as I helped him make the connections that Carter inthis crisis was at best an inefficient commander. His red face hadgone splotchy purple; his hands were trembling. Skilled as Captain ofa peaceful liner, he was at a loss now. But I could not blame him. Itis easy to say we might have taken warning, done this or that, andcome triumphant through the attack. But only the fool looks backwardand says, "I would have done better. "

I tried to summon my wits. The ship was lost to us unless Carter and Icould do something. Our futile weapons! They were all here--four orfive heat ray hand projectors that could send a pencil ray a hundredfeet or so. I shot one diagonally up at the turret where Johnson wasleering down at our rear window, but he saw my gesture and droppedback out of sight. The heat beam flashed harmlessly up and struck theturret room. Then across the turret window came a sheen ofradiance--an electrobarrage. And behind it, Hahn's suave, evil faceappeared. He shouted down:

"We have orders to spare you, Gregg Haljan--or you would have beenkilled long ago!"

My answering shot hit his barrage with a shower of sparks, behindwhich he stood unmoved. 

Carter handed me another weapon. "Gregg, try this. "

I leveled the old explosive projector; Carter crouched beside me. Butbefore I could press the trigger, from somewhere down the starlit deckan electro beam hit me. The little rifle exploded, broke its breech. Isank back to the floor, tingling from the shock of the hostilecurrent. My hands were blackened from the exploded powder. 

Carter seized me. "No use. Hurt?"

"No. "

The stars through the dome windows were swinging. A long swing--theshadows and patterns on the starlit deck were all shifting. The_Planetara_ was turning. The heavens revolved in a great round sweepof movement, then settled as we took our new course. 

Hahn at the turret controls had swung us. The Earth and the Sun showedover our bow quarter. The sunlight mingled red-yellow with thebrilliant starlight. Hahn's signals were sounding; I heard themanswered from the mechanism rooms down below. Brigands there--in fullcontrol. The gravity plates were being set to the new positions: Wewere on our new course. Headed a point or two off the Earthline. Notheaded for the Moon? I wondered. 

Carter and I were planning nothing. What was there to plan? We wereunder observation. A Martian paralyzing ray--or an electronic beam, far more deadly than our own puny weapons--would have struck us theinstant we tried to leave the chart room. 

My thoughts were interrupted by a shout from down the deck. At acorner of the cabin superstructure some fifty feet from our windowsthe figure of Miko appeared. A radiance barrage hung about him like ashimmering mantle. His voice sounded: "Gregg Haljan, do you yield?"

Carter leaped up from where he and I were crouching. Against allreason of safety he leaned from the low window, waving his hamlikefist. 

"Yield? No! I am in command here, you pirate! Brigand--murderer!"

I dragged him back sharply. "For God's sake--"

He was spluttering; and over it Miko's sardonic laugh sounded. "Shallwe argue about it?"

I stood up. "What do you want to say, Miko?"

Behind him the tall, thin figure of his sister showed. She wasplucking at him. He turned violently. "I won't harm him! GreggHaljan--is this a truce? You will not shoot?" He was shielding Moa. 

"No, " I called. "For a moment, no. A truce. What is it you want tosay?"

I could hear the babble of passengers who were herded in the cabinwith brigands guarding them. George Prince, bare-headed, but shroudedin his cloak, showed in a patch of light behind Moa. He looked my wayand then retreated. 

Miko called, "You must yield. We want you, Haljan. "

"No doubt, " I jeered. 

"Alive. It is easy to kill you. "

I could not doubt that. Carter and I were little more than rats in atrap. But Miko wanted to take me alive: that was not so simple. Headded persuasively:

"We want you to navigate us. Will you?"

"No. "

"Will you help us, Captain Carter? Tell your cub, this Haljan, toyield. "

Carter roared, "Get back from there. There is no truce!"

I shoved aside his leveled projector. "Wait a minute, Miko. Navigatewhere?"

"That is our business. When you come out here, I will give you thecourse. "

I realized that all this parley was a ruse of Miko's to take me alive. He had made a gesture. Hahn, watching him from the turret window, doubtless flashed a signal down to the hull corridors. The magnetizercontrol under the chart room was altered, our artificial gravity cutoff. I felt the sudden lightness: I gripped the window casement andclung. Carter was startled into incautious movement. It flung him outinto the room, his arms and legs flailing. 

And across the chart room, in the opposite window, I felt rather thansaw the shape of something. A figure, almost invisible but not quite, was trying to climb in! I flung the empty rifle I was holding. It hitsomething solid in the window. In a flare of sparks a blackhoodedfigure materialized. A man climbing in! His weapon spat. There was atiny electronic flash, deadly silent. The intruder had shot at Carter:struck him. Carter gave one queer scream. He had floated to the floor;his convulsive movement when he was hit hurled him to the ceiling. Hisbody struck; twitched; bounced back and sank inert on the floor gridalmost at my feet. 

I clung to the casement. Across the room of the weightless room thehooded intruder was also clinging. His hood fell back. It was Johnson. 

"Killed him, the bully! Now for you, Mr. Third Officer Haljan!"

But he did not dare fire at me. Miko had forbidden it. I saw him reachunder his robe, doubtless for a low-powered paralyzing ray. But henever got it out. I had no weapon within reach. I leaned into theroom, still holding the casement, and doubled my legs under me. Ikicked out from the window. 

The force catapulted me across the space across the room like avolplane. I struck the purser. We gripped. Our locked, strugglingbodies bounced out into the room. We struck the floor, surged up likeballoons to the ceiling, struck it with a flailing arm or leg andfloated back. 

Grotesque, abnormal combat! Like fighting in weightless water. Johnsonclutched his weapon, but I twisted his wrist, held his armoutstretched so that he could not aim it. I was aware of Miko's voiceshouting on the deck outside. 

Johnson's left hand was gouging at my face, his fingers digging at myeyes. We lunged down. 

I twisted his wrists. He dropped the weapon and it sank away, I triedto reach it but could not.... Then I had him by the throat. I wasstronger than he, and more agile. I tried choking him, I had his thickbull neck within my fingers. He kicked, scrambled, tore and gouged atme. Tried to shout, but it ended in a gurgle. And then, as he felt hisbreath stopped, his hands came up in an effort to tear mine loose. 

We sank again to the floor. We were momentarily upright. I felt myfeet touch. I bent my knees. We sank further. And then I kickedviolently upward. Our locked bodies shot to the ceiling. Johnson'shead was above me. It struck the steel roof of the chart room. Aviolent blow. I felt him go suddenly limp. I cast him off and, doubling my body, I kicked at the ceiling. It sent me diagonallydownward to the window, where I clung. 

And I saw Miko standing on the deck with a weapon leveled at me!

XIII

"Haljan! Yield or I'll fire! Moa, give me the smaller one. "

He had in his hand too large a projector. Its ray would kill me. If hewanted to take me alive, he would not fire. I chanced it. 

"No!" I tried to draw myself beneath the window. An automaticprojector was on the floor where Carter had dropped it. I pulledmyself down. Miko did not fire. I reached the weapon. The bodies ofthe Captain and Johnson had drifted together on the floor in thecenter of the room. 

I hitched myself back to the window. With upraised weapon I gazedcautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line ofvision, was empty. 

But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement, ready upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in ashadow along the deck. Then a figure rose up. 

"Don't fire, Haljan!"

The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger. Itwas the tall, lanky Englishman. Sir Arthur Coniston, he as calledhimself. So he too, was one of Miko's band! The light through a domewindow fell full on him. 

"If you fire, Haljan, and kill me--Miko will kill you then, surely. "

From where he had been crouching he could not command my window. Butnow, upon the heels of his placating words, he abruptly shot. Thelow-powered ray, had it struck, would have felled me without killingme. But it went over my head as I dropped. Its aura made my sensesreel. 

Coniston shouted, "Haljan!"

I did not answer. I wonder if he would dare approach to see if I hadbeen hit. A minute passed. Then another. I thought I heard Miko'svoice on the deck outside. But it was an aerial, microscopic whisperclose beside me. 

"We see you, Haljan. You must yield!"

Their eavesdropping vibrations, with audible projection, were upon me. I retorted loudly, "Come and get me! You cannot take me alive!"

I do protest if this action of mine in the chart room may seembravado. I had no wish to die. There was within me a very healthydesire for life. But I felt, by holding out, that some chance mightcome wherewith I might turn events against these brigands. Yet reasontold me it was hopeless. Our loyal members of the crew were killed, nodoubt. Captain Carter and Balch were dead. The lookouts and coursemasters, also. And Blackstone. 

There remained only Dr. Frank and Snap. Their fate I did not yet know. And there was George Prince. He, perhaps, would help me if he could. But, at best, he was a dubious ally. 

"You are very foolish, Haljan, " murmured Miko's voice. And then Iheard Coniston:

"See here, why would not a hundred pounds of gold leaf tempt you? Thecode words which were taken from Johnson--I mean to say, why not tellus where they are?"

So that was one of the brigands' new difficulties! Snap had taken thecode word sheet that time we sealed the purser in the cage. 

I said, "You'll never find them. And when a police ship sights us, what will you do then?"

The chances of a police ship were slight indeed, but the brigandsevidently did not know that. I wondered again what had become of Snap. Was he captured or still holding them off?

I was watching my windows; for at any moment, under the cover of talk, I might be assailed. 

Gravity came suddenly to the room. Miko's voice said: "We mean well byyou, Haljan. There is your normality. Join us. We need you to chartour course. "

"And a hundred pounds of gold leaf, " urged Coniston. "Or more. Why, this treasure--"

I could hear an oath from Miko. And then his ironic voice. "We willnot bother you, Haljan. There is no hurry. You will be hungry in goodtime. And sleepy. Then we will come and get you. And a little acidwill help you to think differently about us.... "

His vibrations died away. The pull of gravity in the room was normal. I was alone in the dim silence, with the bodies of Carter and Johnsonhuddled on the grid. I bent to examine them. Both were dead. 

My isolation was not ruse this time. The outlaws made no furtherattack. Half an hour passed. The deck outside, what I could see of it, was vacant. Balch lay dead close outside the chart room door. Thebodies of Blackstone and the course master had been removed from theturret window. As a forward lookout, one of Miko's men was on duty inthe nearby tower. Hahn was at the turret's controls. The ship wasunder orderly handling, heading back upon a new course. For the Earth?The Moon? It did not seem so. 

I found, in the chart room, a Benson curve light projector which poorCaptain Carter had nearly assembled. I worked on it, trained itthrough my rear window along the empty deck; bent it into the loungearchway. Upon my grid the image of the lounge interior presentlyfocused. The passengers in the lounge were huddled in a group. Disheveled, frightened, with Moa standing watching them. Stewards wereserving them with a meal. 

Upon a bench, bodies were lying. Some were dead. I saw Rance Rankin. Others were evidently only injured. Dr. Frank was moving among them, attending them. Venza was there, unharmed. And I saw the gamblers, Shac and Dud, sitting white-faced, whispering together. And Glutz'slittle beribboned, becurled figure on a stool. 

George Prince was there, standing against the wall, shrouded in hismourning cloak, watching the scene with alert, roving eyes. And by theopposite doorway, the huge towering figure of Miko stood on guard. ButSnap was missing. 

A brief glimpse. Miko saw my Benson light. I could have equipped aheat ray and fired along the curved Benson light into that lounge. ButMiko gave me no time. 

He slid the lounge door closed, and Moa leaped to close the one on myside. My grid showed only the blank deck and door. 

Another interval. I had made plans. Futile plans! I could get into theturret perhaps, and kill Hahn. I had the invisible cloak which Johnsonwas wearing. I took it from his body. Its mechanism could be repaired. Why, with it I could creep about the ship, kill these brigands one byone, perhaps. George Prince would be with me. The brigands who hadbeen posing as the stewards and crew members were unable to navigate;they would obey my orders. There were only Miko, Coniston and Hahn tokill. 

From my window I could gaze up to the radio room. And now, abruptly, Iheard Snap's voice: "No! I tell you--no!"

And Miko, "Very well, then. We'll try this. "

So Snap was captured but not killed. Relief swept me. He was in theradio room and Miko was with him. But my relief was short-lived. Aftera brief interval, there came a moan from Snap. It floated down thesilence overhead and made me shudder. 

My Benson beam shot into the radio room. It showed me Snap lying thereon the floor. He was bound with wire. His torso had been stripped. Hislivid face was ghastly plain in my light. 

Miko was bending over him. Miko with a heat cylinder no longer than afinger. Its needle beam played upon Snap's naked chest. I could seethe gruesome little trail of smoke rising; and as Snap twisted andjerked, there on his flesh was the red and blistered trail of theviolet ray. 

"Now will you tell?"

"No!"

Miko laughed. "No? Then I shall write my name a little deeper.... "

A black sear now--a trail etched in the quivering flesh. 

"Oh!" Snap's face went white as chalk as he pressed his lips together. 

"Or a little acid? This fire-writing does not really hurt? Tell mewhat you did with those code words!"

"No!"

In his absorption Miko did not notice my light. Nor did I have the witto try and fire along it. I was trembling. Snap under torture!

As the beam went deeper. Snap suddenly screamed. But he ended, "No! Iwill send no message for you--"

It had been only a moment. In the chart room window beside me again afigure appeared! No image. A solid, living person, undisguised by anycloak of invisibility. George Prince had chanced my fire and creptupon me. 

"Haljan! Don't attack me. "

I dropped my light connections. As impulsively I stood up, I sawthrough the window the figure of Coniston on the deck watching theresult of Prince's venture. 

"Haljan--yield. "

Prince no more than whispered it. He stood outside on the deck; thelow window casement touched his waist. He leaned over it. 

"He's torturing Snap! Call out that you will yield. "

The thought had already been in my mind. Another scream from Snapfilled me with horror. I shouted, "Miko! Stop!"

I rushed to the window and Prince gripped me. "Louder!"

I called louder: "Miko! Stop!" My upflung voice mingled with Snap'sagony of protest. Then Miko heard me. His head and shoulders showed upthere at the radio room oval. 

"You--Haljan?"

Prince shouted, "I have made him yield. He will obey you if you stopthat torture. "

I think that poor Snap must have fainted. He was silent. I called, "Stop! I will do what you command. "

Miko jeered, "That is good. A bargain, if you and Dean obey me. Disarmhim, Prince, and bring him out. "

Miko moved back into the radio room. On the deck, Coniston wasadvancing, but cautiously mistrustful of me. 

"Gregg. "

George Prince flung a leg over the casement and leaped lightly intothe dim chart room. His small slender figure stood beside me, clung tome. 

A moment, while we stood there together. No ray was upon us. Conistoncould not see us, nor could he hear our whispers. 

"Gregg. "

A different voice; its throaty, husky quality gone. A soft pleading. "Gregg--Gregg, don't you know me? Gregg, dear.... "

Why, what was this? Not George Prince? A masquerader, yet so likeGeorge Prince. 

"Gregg don't you know me?"

Clinging to me. A soft touch upon my arm. Fingers, clinging. A surgeof warm, tingling current was flowing between us. 

My sweep of instant thoughts. A speck of human Earth dust fallingfree. That was George Prince who had been killed. George Prince'sbody, disguised by the scheming Carter and Dr. Frank, buried in theguise of his sister. And this black-robed figure who was trying tohelp me.... 

"Anita! Anita darling--"

"Gregg, dear one!"

"Anita!" My arms went around her, my lips pressed hers, and felt hertremulous eager answer. 

The form of Coniston showed at our window. She cast me off. She said, with her throaty swagger of amused, masculinity:

"I have him, Sir Arthur. He will obey us. "

I sensed her warning glance. She shoved me toward the window. Shesaid ironically, "Have no fear, Haljan. You will not be tortured, youand Dean, if you obey our commands. "

Coniston gripped me. "You fool! You caused us a lot of trouble. Movealong there!"

He jerked me roughly through the window. Marched me the length of thedeck, out to the stern space, opened the door of my cubby, flung me inand sealed the door upon me. 

"Miko will come presently. "

I stood in the darkness of my tiny room, listening to his retreatingfootsteps. But my mind was not upon him. 

All the universe, in that instant, had changed for me. Anita wasalive!

XIV

The giant Miko stood confronting me. He slid my cubby door closedbehind him. He stood with his head towering close against my ceiling. His cloak was discarded. In his leather clothes, and with his clankingsword ornament, his aspect carried the swagger of a brigand of old. Hewas bare-headed; the light from one of my tubes fell upon hisgrinning, leering gray face. 

"So, Gregg Haljan? You have come to your senses at last. You do notwish me to write my name on your chest? I would not have done that toDean; he forced me. Sit back. "

I had been on my bunk. I sank back at the gesture of his huge hairyarm. His forearm was bare now; the sear of a burn on it was plain tobe seen. He remarked my gaze. 

"True. You did that, Haljan, in Greater New York. But I bear you nomalice. I want to talk to you now. "

He cast about for a seat, and took the little stool which stood by mydesk. His hand held a small cylinder of the Martian paralyzing ray. Herested it beside him on the desk. 

"Now we can talk. "

I remained silent. Alert. Yet my thoughts were whirling. Anita wasalive. Masquerading as her brother. And, with the joy of it, came ashudder. Above everything, Miko must not know. 

"A great adventure we are upon, Haljan. "

My thoughts came back. Miko was talking with an assumption of friendlycomradeship. "All is well--and we need you, as I have said before. Iam no fool. I have been aware of everything that went on aboard thisship. You, of all the officers, are most clever at the routinemathematics. Is that so?"

"Perhaps. "

"You are modest. " He fumbled at a pocket of his jacket, produced ascroll-sheaf. I recognized it. Blackstone's figures. The calculationBlackstone made of the asteroid we had passed. 

"I am interested in these, " Miko went on. "I want you to verify them. And this. " He held up another scroll. "This is the calculation of ourpresent position and our course. Hahn claims he is a navigator. Wehave set the ship's gravity plates--see, like this. "

He handed me the scrolls. He watched me keenly as I glanced over them. 

"Well?" I said. 

"You are sparing of words, Haljan. By the devils of the airways, Icould make you talk! But I want to be friendly. "

I handed him back the scrolls. I stood up. I was almost within reachof his weapon, but with a sweep of his great arm he knocked me back tomy bunk. 

"You dare?" Then he smiled. "Let us not come to blows!"

In truth, physical violence could get me nothing. I would have to tryguile. And I saw now that his face was flushed and his eyesunnaturally bright. He had been drinking alcolite; not enough tobefuddle him, but enough to make him triumphantly talkative. 

"Hahn may not be much of a mathematician, " I suggested. "But there isyour Sir Arthur Coniston. " I managed a sarcastic grin. "Is that hisname?"

"Almost. Haljan, will you verify these figures?"

"Yes. But why? Where are we going?"

He laughed. "You are afraid I will not tell you! Why should I? Thisgreat adventure of mine is progressing perfectly. A tremendous stake, Haljan. A hundred million dollars in gold leaf. There will be fabulousriches for all of us--"

"But where are we going?"

"To that asteroid, " he said. "I must get rid of these passengers. I amno murderer. "

With a half-dozen killings in the recent fight this was hardlyconvincing. But he was obviously wholly serious. He seemed to read mythoughts. 

"I kill only when necessary. We will land upon the asteroid. A perfectplace to maroon the passengers. Is it not so? I will give them thenecessities of life. They will be able to signal. And in a month orso, when we are perfectly safe and finished with our adventure, apolice ship no doubt will rescue them. "

"And then, from the asteroid, " I suggested, "we are going--"

"To the Moon, Haljan. What a clever guesser you are! Coniston and Hahnare calculating our course. But I have no great confidence in them. And so I want you. "

"You have me. "

"Yes. I have you. I would have killed you long ago--I am an impulsivefellow--but my sister restrained me. "

He gazed at me slyly. "Moa seems strangely to like you, Haljan. "

"Thanks, " I said. "I'm flattered. "

"She still hopes I may really win you to join us, " he went on. "Goldleaf is a wonderful thing; there would be plenty for you in thisaffair. And to be rich, and have the love of a woman like Moa.... "

He paused. I was trying cautiously to gauge him, to get from him allthe information I could. I said, with another smile, "That ispremature, to talk of Moa. I will help you chart your course. But thisventure, as you call it, is dangerous. A police ship--"

"There are not many, " he declared. "The chances of our encounteringone are very slim. " He grinned at me. "You know that as well as I do. And we now have those code passwords--I forced Dean to tell me wherehe had hidden them. If we should be challenged, our password answerwill relieve suspicion. "

"The _Planetara_, " I objected, "being overdue at Ferrok-Shahn, willcause alarm. You'll have a covey of patrol ships after you. "

"That will be two weeks from now, " he smiled. "I have a ship of my ownin Ferrok-Shahn. It lies there waiting now, manned and armed. I amhoping that, with Dean's help, we may be able to flash them a signal. It will join us on the Moon. Fear not for the danger, Haljan. I havegreat interests allied with me in this thing. Plenty of money. We haveplanned carefully. "

He was idly fingering his cylinder; he gazed at me as I sat docile onmy bunk. "Did you think George Prince was a leader of this? A mereboy. I engaged him a year ago--his knowledge of science is valuable tous. "

My heart was pounding but I strove not to show it. He went on calmly. 

"I told you I am impulsive. Half a dozen times I have nearly killedGeorge Prince, and he knows it. " He frowned. "I wish I had killed himinstead of his sister. That was an error. "

There was a note of real concern in his voice. He added, "That isdone--nothing can change it. George Prince is helpful to me. Yourfriend Dean, is another. I had trouble with him, but he is docilenow. "

I said abruptly, "I don't know whether your promise means anything ornot, Miko. But Prince said you would use no more torture. "

"I won't. Not if you and Dean obey me. "

"You tell Dean I have agreed to that. You say he gave you the codewords he took from Johnson?"

"Yes. There was a fool, for you! That Johnson! You blame me, Haljan, for the death of Carter? You need not. Johnson offered to try andcapture you, take you both alive. He killed Carter because he wasangry with him. A stupid, vengeful fool! He is dead and I'm glad ofit. "

My mind was on Miko's plans. I ventured, "This treasure on theMoon--did you say it was on the Moon?"

"Don't play the fool, " he retorted. "I know as much about Grantline asyou do. "

"That's very little. "

"Perhaps. "

"Perhaps you know more, Miko. The Moon is a big place. Where, forinstance, is Grantline located?"

I held my breath. Would he tell me that? A score of questions--vagueplans were in my mind. How skilled at mathematics were these brigands?Miko, Coniston, Hahn--could I fool them? If I could learn Grantline'slocation on the Moon, and keep the _Planetara_ away from it. Apretended error of charting. Time lost--and perhaps Snap could find anopportunity to signal Earth, get help. 

Miko answered my question as bluntly as I asked it. "I don't knowwhere Grantline is located. But we will find out. He will not suspectthe _Planetara_ so when we get close to the Moon, we will signal andask him. We can trick him into telling us. You think I do not knowwhat is on your mind, Haljan? There is a secret code of signalsarranged between Dean and Grantline. I have forced Dean to confess it. Without torture! Prince helped me in that. He persuaded Dean not todefy me. A very persuasive fellow, George Prince. More diplomatic thanI am. I give him credit for that. "

I strove to hold my voice calm. "If I should join you, Miko--my word, if I ever gave it, you would find dependable--I would say GeorgePrince is very valuable to us. You should rein your temper. He ishalf your size--you might some time, without intention, do himinjury. "

He laughed. "Moa says so. But have no fear--"

"I was thinking, " I persisted. "I'd like to have a talk with GeorgePrince. "

Ah, my pounding, tumultuous heart! But I was smiling calmly. And Itried to put into my voice a shrewd note of cupidity. "I really knowvery little about this treasure, Miko. If there were a million or twoof gold leaf in it for me--"

"Perhaps there would be. "

"Suppose you let me have a talk with Prince? I have some scientificknowledge myself about the powers of this catalyst. Prince's knowledgeand mine--we might be able to come to a calculation on the value ofGrantline's treasure. You don't know. You are only assuming. "

I paused after this glib outburst. Whatever may have been in Miko'smind, I cannot say. But abruptly he stood up. I had left my bunk buthe waved me back. 

"Sit down. I am not like Moa. I would not trust you just because youprotested you would be loyal. " He picked up his cylinder. "We willtalk again. " He gestured to the scrolls he had left upon my desk. "Work on those. I will judge you by the results. "

He was no fool, this brigand leader. 

"Yes, " I agreed. "You want a true course to the asteroid?"

"Yes. And by the gods, I warn you, I can check up on you!"

I said meekly, "Very well. But you ask Prince if he wants mycalculations on Grantline's possibilities. "

I shot Miko a foxy look as he stood by the door. I added, "You thinkyou are clever. There is plenty you don't know. Our first night outfrom Earth--Grantline's signals--didn't it ever occur to you that Imight have some figures on his treasure?"

It startled him. "Where are they?"

I tapped my forehead. "You don't suppose I was foolish enough torecord them. You ask Prince if he wants to talk to me. A hundredmillion, or two hundred million--it would make a big difference, Miko. "

"I will think about it. " He backed out and sealed the door upon me. 

But Anita did not come. I verified Hahn's figures, which were verynearly correct. I charted a course for the asteroid; it was almost theone which had been set. 

Coniston came for my results. "I say, we are not so bad as navigators, are we? I think we're jolly good, considering our inexperience. Notbad at all, eh?"

"No. "

I did not think it wise to ask him about Prince. 

"Are you hungry, Haljan?"

"Yes. "

A steward came with a meal. The saturnine Hahn stood at my door with aweapon upon me while I ate. They were taking no chances and they werewise not to. 

The day passed. Day and night, all the same of aspect here in thestarry vault of space. But with the ship's routine it was day. Andthen another time of sleep. I slept fitfully, worrying, trying toplan. Within a few hours we would be nearing the asteroid. 

The time of sleep was nearly passed. My chronometer marked five A. M. Original Earth starting time. The seal of my cubby door hissed. Thedoor slowly opened. 

Anita!

She stood there with her cloak around her. A distance away on theshadowed deck Coniston was loitering. 

"Anita!" I whispered it. 

"Gregg, dear!"

She turned and gestured to the watching brigand. "I will not be long, Coniston. "

She came in and half closed the door upon us, leaving it open enoughso that we could make sure that Coniston did not advance. 

I stepped back where he could not see us. "Anita!"

She flung herself into my opened arms. 

XV

A moment when, beyond the thought of the nearby brigand--or thepossibility of an eavesdropping ray trained now upon my cubby--amoment while Anita and I held each other, and whispered those thingswhich could mean nothing to the world, but which were all the world tous!

Then it was she whose wits brought us back from the shining fairylandof our love, into the sinister reality of the _Planetara_. 

"Gregg, if they are listening--"

I pushed her away. This brave little masquerader! Not for my life, orfor all the lives on the ship, would I consciously have endangeredher. 

"But Grantline's findings!" I said aloud. "In his message--see here, Prince--"

Coniston was too far away on the deck to hear us. Anita went to mydoor again and waved at him reassuringly. I put my ear to the dooropening and listened at the space across the grid of the ventilatorover my bunk. The hum of a vibration would have been audible at thosetwo points. But there was nothing. 

"It's all right, " I whispered, and she clung to me--so small besideme. With the black robe thrown aside, it seemed that I could not missthe curves of her woman's figure. A dangerous game she was playing. Her hair had been cut short to the base of her neck, in the fashion ofher dead brother. Her eyelashes had been clipped: the line of herbrows altered. And now, in the light of my tube as it shone upon herearnest face, I could remark other changes. Glutz, the little beautyspecialist, was in this secret. With plastic skill he had altered theset of her jaw--put masculinity here. 

She was whispering: "It was--was poor George whom Miko shot. "

I had now the true version of what had occurred. Miko had been forcinghis wooing upon Anita. George Prince was a weakling whose only goodquality was his love for his sister. Some years ago he had fallen intoevil ways. Been arrested, and then been discharged from his positionwith the Federated Corporation. He had taken up with evil companionsin Greater New York. Mostly Martians. And Miko had met him. Histechnical knowledge, his training with the Federated Corporation, madehim valuable to Miko's enterprise. And so Prince had joined thebrigands. 

Of all this, Anita had been unaware. She had never liked Miko. Fearedhim. But it seemed that the Martian had some hold upon her brother, which puzzled and frightened Anita. 

Then Miko had fallen in love with her. George had not liked it. Andthat night on the _Planetara_, Miko had come and knocked upon Anita'sdoor, and incautiously she had opened it. He forced himself in. Andwhen she repulsed him, struggled with him, George had been awakened. 

She was whispering to me now. "My room was dark. We were all threestruggling. George was holding me--the shot came--and I screamed. "

And Miko had fled, not knowing whom his shot had hit in the darkness. 

"And when George died, Captain Carter wanted me to impersonate him. Weplanned it with Dr. Frank to try and learn what Miko and the otherswere doing; because I didn't know that poor George had fallen intosuch evil ways. "

She whispered, "But I love you, Gregg. I want to be the first to sayit: I love you--I love you. "

We had the sanity to try and plan. 

"Anita, tell Miko we discussed the multiple powers of the catalyst. Discussed how carefully it would have to be transported; how to gaugeits worth. You'll have to be careful, clever. Don't say too much. Tellhim we estimate the value at about a hundred and thirty millions. "

I repeated what Miko had told me of his plans. She knew all that. AndSnap knew it. She had a few moments alone with Snap and gave me now amessage from him, "We'll pull out of this, Gregg. "

With Snap she had worked out a plan. There were Snap and I; and Shacand Dud Ardley upon whom we could doubtless depend. And Dr. Frank. Against us were Miko and his sister, and Coniston and Hahn. Of course, there were the members of the crew. But we were numerically thestronger when it came to true leadership. Unarmed and guarded now. Butif we could break loose--recapture the ship.... 

I sat listening to Anita's eager whispers. It seemed feasible. Mikodid not altogether trust George Prince; Anita was now unarmed. 

"But I can make opportunity! I can get one of their ray cylinders, andan invisible cloak equipment. "

That cloak, that had been hidden in Miko's room when Carter searchedfor it in A20 was now in the chart room by Johnson's body. It had beenrepaired now. Anita thought she could get possession of it. 

We worked out the details of the plan. Anita would arm herself, andcome and release me. Together, with a paralyzing ray, we could creepabout the ship, overcome these brigands, one by one. There were so fewof the leaders. With them felled, and with us in control of the turretand the radio room, we could force the crew to stay at their posts. There were, Anita said, no navigators among Miko's crew. They wouldnot dare oppose us. 

"But it should be done at once, Anita. In a few hours we will be atthe asteroid. "

"Yes. I will go now and try to get the weapons. "

"Where is Snap?"

"Still in the radio room. One of the crew guards him. "

Coniston was roaming the ship. He was still loitering on the deck, watching my door. Hahn was in the turret. The morning watch of thecrew were at their posts in the hull corridors. The stewards werepreparing a morning meal. There were nine members of subordinatesaltogether, Anita had calculated. Six of them were in Miko's pay. Theother three--our own men who had not been killed in the fighting--hadjoined the brigands. 

"And Dr. Frank, Anita?"

He was in the lounge. All the passengers were herded there, with Mikoand Moa alternating on guard. 

"I will arrange it with Venza, " Anita whispered swiftly. "She willtell the others. Dr. Frank knows about it now. He thinks it can bedone. "

The possibility of it swept me anew. The brigands were of necessityscattered singly about the ship. One by one, creeping under cover ofan invisible cloak, I could fell them, and replace them withoutalarming others. My thoughts leaped to it. We would strike down theguard in the radio room. Release Snap. At the turret we could assailHahn, and replace him with Snap. 

Coniston's voice outside broke in upon us. "Prince. "

He was coming forward. Anita stood in the doorway. "I have thefigures, Coniston. By God, this Haljan is with us! And clever! Wethink it will total a hundred and thirty millions. What a stake!"

She whispered, "Gregg dear, I'll be back soon. We can do it--beready!"

"Anita--be careful of yourself! If they should suspect you.... "

"I'll be careful. In an hour, Gregg, or less, I'll come back.... Allright, Coniston. Where is Miko? I want to see him. Stay where you are, Haljan. In good time Miko will trust you with your liberty. You'll berich like all of us. Never fear. "

She swaggered out upon the deck, waved at the brigand, and banged mycubby door in my face. 

I sat upon my bunk. Waiting. Would she come back? Would she besuccessful?

XVI

She came. I suppose it was no more than an hour: It seemed an eternityof apprehension. There was the slight hissing of the seal of my door. The panel slid. I had leaped from my bunk where in the darkness I waslying tense. 

"Prince?" I did not dare say "Anita. "

"Gregg. "

Her voice. My gaze swept the deck as the panel opened. NeitherConiston nor anyone else was in sight, save Anita's dark-robed figurewhich came into my room. 

"You got it?" I asked in a low whisper. 

I held her for an instant, kissed her. But she pushed me away withquick hands. She was breathless. 

"Yes, I have it. Give us a little light--we must hurry!"

In the blue dimness I saw that she was holding one of the Martiancylinders. The smaller size: it would paralyze but not kill. 

"Only one, Anita?"

"Yes. And this--"

The invisible cloak. We laid it on my grid, and I adjusted itsmechanism. I donned it and drew its hood, and threw on its current. 

"All right, Anita?"

"Yes. "

"Can you see me?"

"No. " She had stepped back a foot or two. "Not from here. But you mustlet no one approach too close. "

Then she came forward, put out her hand, fumbled until she found me. 

It was our plan to have me follow her out. Anyone observing us wouldsee only the robed figure of the supposed George Prince, and I wouldescape unnoticed. 

The situation about the ship was almost unchanged. Anita had securedthe weapon and the cloak and slipped away to my cubby without beingobserved. 

"You're sure of that?"

"I think so, Gregg. I was careful. "

Moa was now in the lounge, guarding the passengers. Hahn was asleep inthe chart room. Coniston was in the turret. Coniston would be off dutypresently, Anita said, with Hahn taking his place. There were lookoutsin the forward and stern watch towers, and a guard upon Snap in theradio room. 

"Is he inside the room, Anita?"

"Snap? Yes. "

"No--the guard. "

"The guard was sitting on the spider bridge at the door. "

This was unfortunate. That guard could see all the deck clearly. Hemight be suspicious of George Prince wandering around: it would bedifficult to get near enough to assail him. This cylinder, I knew, hadan effective range of only some twenty feet. 

"Coniston is the sharpest, Gregg. He will be the hardest to get near. "

"Where is Miko?"

The brigand leader had gone below a few moments ago, down into thehull corridor. Anita had seized the opportunity to come to me. 

"We can attack Hahn in the chart room first, " I whispered. "And getthe other weapons. Are they still there?"

"Yes. But the forward deck is very bright, Gregg. "

We were approaching the asteroid. Already its light, like a brilliantmoon, was brightening the forward deck space. It made me realize howmuch haste was necessary. 

We decided to go down into the hull corridors. Locate Miko. Fell himand hide him. His nonappearance back on deck would very soon throw theothers into confusion, especially now with our impending landing uponthe asteroid. And, under cover of this confusion, we would try torelease Snap. 

We were ready. Anita slid my door open. She stepped through, with mesoundlessly scurrying after her. The empty, silent deck wasalternately dark with shadow patches and bright with blobs ofstarlight. A sheen of the Sun's corona was mingled with it; and fromforward came the radiance of the asteroid's mellow silver glow. 

Anita turned to seal my door; within my faintly humming cloak I stoodbeside her. Was I invisible in this light? Almost directly over us, close under the dome, the lookout sat in his little tower. He gazeddown at Anita. 

Amidships, high over the cabin superstructure, the radio room hungdark and silent. The guard on its bridge was visible. He too, lookeddown. 

A tense instant. Then I breathed again. There was no alarm. The twoguards answered Anita's gesture. 

Anita said aloud into my empty cubby: "Miko will come for youpresently, Haljan. He told me that he wants you at the turret controlsto land us on the asteroid. "

She finished sealing my door and turned away; started forward alongthe deck. I followed. My steps were soundless in my elastic-bottomedshoes. Anita swaggered with a noisy tread. Near the door of thesmoking room a small incline passage led downward. We went into it. 

The passage was dimly blue lit. We descended its length, came to themain corridor, which ran the length of the hull. A vaulted metalpassage, with doors to the control rooms opening from it. Dim lightsshowed at intervals. 

The humming of the ship was more apparent here. It drowned the lighthumming of my cloak. I crept after Anita; my hand under the cloakclutched the ray weapon. 

A steward passed us. I shrank aside to avoid him. 

Anita spoke to him. "Where is Miko, Ellis?"

"In the ventilator room, Miss. Prince. There was difficulty with theair renewal. "

Anita nodded and moved on. I could have felled that steward as hepassed me. Oh, if I only had, how different things might have been!

But it seemed needless. I let him go, and he turned into a nearby doorwhich led to the galley. 

Anita moved forward. If we could come upon Miko alone! Abruptly sheturned and whispered, "Gregg, if other men are with him, I'll draw himaway. You watch your chance. "

What little things can overthrow one's careful plans! Anita had notrealized how close to her I was following. And her turning sounexpectedly caused me to collide with her sharply. 

"Oh!" She exclaimed it involuntarily. Her outflung hand hadunwittingly gripped my wrist, caught the electrode there. The touchburned her, and short-circuited my robe. There was a hiss. My currentburned out the tiny fuses. 

My invisibility was gone! I stood, a tall, blackhooded figure, revealed to the gaze of anyone who might be near!

The futile plans of humans! We had planned so carefully! Ourcalculations, our hopes of what we could do, came clattering now in asudden wreckage around us. 

"Anita! Run!"

If I were seen with her, then her own disguise would probably bediscovered. That above everything, would be disaster. 

"Anita, get away from me! I must try it alone!"

I could hide somewhere, repair the cloak perhaps. Or, since now I wasarmed, why could not I boldly start an assault?

"Gregg, we must get you back to your cubby!" She was clinging to me inpanic. 

"No. You run! Get away from me! Don't you understand? George Princehas no business here with me! They'll kill you!"

"Gregg, let's get back to the deck. "

I pushed at her, both of us in confusion. 

From behind me there came a shout. That accursed steward! He hadreturned, to investigate perhaps what George Prince was doing in thiscorridor. He heard our voices. His shout in the silence of the shipsounded horribly loud. The white-cloaked shape of him was in thenearby doorway. He stood stricken with surprise at seeing me. And thenturned to run. 

I fired my paralyzing cylinder through my cloak. Got him! He fell. Ishoved Anita violently. 

"Run! Tell Miko to come--tell him you heard a shout. He won't suspectyou!"

"But, Gregg--"

"You mustn't be found out. You're our only hope, Anita! I'll hide, fixthe cloak, or get back to my cubby. We'll try again. "

It decided her. She scurried down the corridor. I whirled the otherway. The steward's shout might not have been heard. 

Then realization flashed to me. That steward would be revived. He wasone of Miko's men. He would be revived and tell what he had seen andheard. Anita's disguise would be revealed. 

A cold-blooded killing, I do protest, went against me. But it wasnecessary. I flung myself upon him. I beat his skull with the metal ofmy cylinder. 

I stood up. My hood had fallen back from my head. I wiped my bloodyhands on my useless cloak. I had smashed the cylinder. 

"Haljan!"

Anita's voice! A sharp note of horror and warning. I became aware thatin the corridor, forty feet down its dim length, Miko had appearedwith Anita behind him. His bullet projector was leveled. It spat atme. But Anita had pulled at his arm. 

The explosive report was sharply deafening in the confined space ofthe corridor. With a spurt of flame the leaden pellet struck over myhead against the vaulted ceiling. 

Miko was struggling with Anita. "Prince, you idiot!"

"Miko, it's Haljan! Don't kill him--"

The turmoil brought members of the crew. From the shadowed oval nearme they came running. I flung the useless cylinder at them. But I wastrapped in the narrow passage. 

I might have fought my way out. Or Miko might have shot me. But therewas the danger that, in her horror, Anita would betray herself. 

I backed against the wall. "Don't kill me! See, I will not fight!"

I flung up my arms. And the crew, emboldened and courageous underMiko's gaze, leaped on me and bore me down. 

The futile plans of humans! Anita and I had planned so carefully. Andin a few brief minutes of action it had come only to this!

XVII

"So, Gregg Haljan, you are not as loyal as you pretend!"

Miko was livid with suppressed anger. They had stripped the cloak fromme, and flung me back in my cubby. Miko was now confronting me: at thedoor Moa stood watching. And Anita was behind her. I sat outwardlydefiant and sullen on my bunk. But I was tense and alert, fearfulstill of what Anita's emotion might betray her into doing. 

"Not so loyal, " Miko repeated. "And a fool!"

"How did he get out of here? Prince, you came in here!"

My heart was wildly thumping. But Anita retorted with a touch ofspirit, "I came to tell him what you commanded. To check Hahn's latestfigures--and to be ready to take the controls when we approached theasteroid. "

"Well, how did he get out?"

"How should I know?" she parried. Little actress! Her spirit helped toallay my fear. She held her cloak close around her in the fashion theyhad come to expect from the George Prince who had just buried hissister. "How should I know, Miko? I sealed his door. "

"But did you?"

"Of course he did, " Moa put in. 

"Ask your lookouts, " Anita said. "They saw me--I waved to them just asI 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 myconstellations now that he was dead. "I shall not try it again, " Irepeated. 

A glance passed between Miko and his sister. Miko said abruptly, "Youseem to realize it is not my purpose to kill you. And you presume uponit. "

"I shall not again. " I eyed Moa. She was gazing at me steadily. Shesaid, "Leave me with him, Miko.... " She smiled. "Gregg Haljan, we areno more than twenty thousand miles from the asteroid now. Thecalculations for retarding are now in operation. "

It was what had taken Miko below, that and trouble with theventilating system, which was soon rectified. But the retarding of theship's velocity when nearing a destination required accuratemanipulation. These brigands were fearful of their own skill. That wasobvious. It gave me confidence. I was really needed. They would notharm me. Except for Miko's impulsive temper, I was in no danger fromthem--not now, certainly. 

Moa was saying, "I think I may make you understand, Gregg. We havetremendous riches within our grasp. "

"I know it, " I said with sudden thought. "But there are many with whomto divide this treasure.... "

Miko caught my intended implication. "By the infernal, this fellow mayhave thought he could seize this treasure for himself! Because he is anavigator!"

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 outlawlike themselves. As though it were a bond between us. 

"Leave me with him, " said Moa. 

Miko acquiesced. "For a few minutes only. " He proffered a heat raycylinder 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 strangefellow, Haljan. I can't make you out. I am not angry now. Do youthink, when I am deadly serious, that I mean what I say?"

His calm words set a sudden chill over me. I checked my smile. 

"Yes, " I said. 

"Well then, I will tell you this: not for all of Prince's well-meaninginterference, 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 mustnot 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 twistyour neck! Do you believe it?"

"Yes. " I did indeed. 

He swung on his heel. "Moa wants to try and put sense in your head--Ihope she does it. Bring him to the lounge when you have finished. Come, Prince, Hahn will need us. " He chuckled grimly. "Hahn seems tofear we will plunge into this asteroid like a wild comet gone suddenlytangent!"

Anita moved aside to let him through the door. I caught a glimpse ofher set white face as she followed him down the deck. Then Moa's bulkblocked the doorway. She faced me. 

"Sit where you are, Gregg. " She turned and closed the door upon us. "Iam not afraid of you. Should I be?"

"No. "

She came and sat down beside me. "If you should attempt to leave thisroom, the stern lookout has orders to bore you through. "

"I have no intention of leaving this room, " I retorted. "I do not wantto commit suicide. "

"I thought you did. You seem minded in such a fashion. Gregg, why areyou so heedless?"

I said carefully, "This treasure--you are many who will divide it. Youhave all these men on the _Planetara_. And in Ferrok-Shahn, others--"

I paused. Would she tell me? Could I make her talk of that otherbrigand ship which Miko had said was waiting on Mars? I wondered if hehad been able to signal it. The distance from here to Mars was great;yet upon other voyages Snap's signals had gotten through. My heartsank at the thought. Our situation here was desperate enough. Thepassengers soon would be cast upon the asteroid: there would be leftonly Snap, Anita and myself. We might recapture the ship, but Idoubted it now. My thoughts were turning to our arrival on 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 fromMars, the condition would be immeasurably worse. Grantline had sometwenty men, and his camp, I knew, would be reasonably fortified. Iknew 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--anemotion in them sweeping her. But outwardly she was calm. 

"Well, why don't you tell me?" I said. "If I am to help.... "

"Gregg, I want you with us. Don't you understand. And we are not many, really. My brother and I are guiding this affair. With your help, Iwould 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 gavethat, did they not?"

"Yes, " I said. "And the other ship--how fast is it?"

"Quite fast. In eight days--perhaps nine, it will reach the Moon. "

She seemed willing enough to talk. There was indeed, no reason why sheshouldn't: I could not, she naturally felt, turn the knowledge toaccount. Certainly my position seemed desperately helpless. 

"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--whichyou 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 likeJohnson, 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 tomorrow--where is ourequipment?"

The Moon, with its lack of atmosphere, needed special equipment. I hadnever heard Captain Carter mention what apparatus the _Planetara_ wascarrying. 

Moa laughed. "We have located air suits and helmets--a variety ofsuitable apparatus, Gregg. But we were not foolish enough to leaveGreater New York on this voyage without our own apparatus. My brotherand Coniston and Prince--all of us snipped crates of freight consignedto Ferrok-Shahn; and Rankin had special baggage marked 'theatricalapparatus. '"

I understood it now. These brigands had boarded the _Planetara_ withtheir 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 grippingmy shoulders. 

"Gregg, look at me!"

I gazed into her eyes. There was passion there; and her voice wasintense. 

"Gregg, I told you once a Martian girl goes after what she wants. Itis you I want--"

Not for me to play upon a woman's emotions! "Moa, you flatter me. "

"I love you. " She held me off, gazing at me. "Gregg--"

I must have smiled. Abruptly she released me. 

"So you think it amusing?"

"No. But on Earth--"

"We are not on Earth. Nor am I of the Earth!" She was gauging mekeenly. No note of pleading was in her voice: a stern authority, andthe passion was swinging to anger. 

"I am like my brother: I do not understand you, Gregg Haljan. Perhapsyou think you are clever?"

"Perhaps. "

There was a moment of silence. "Gregg, I said I loved you. Have you noanswer?"

"No. " In truth, I did not know what sort of answer it would be best tomake. 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! Youthought you loved her! Was that it?"

"No!"

But I hardly deceived her. "Sacred to her memory! Her ratlike littleface, soft voice like a purring, sniveling cat! Is that what you'reremembering, Gregg Haljan?"

I tried to laugh. "What nonsense!"

"Is it? Then why are you cold under my touch? Am I, a girl descendedfrom the Martian flame-workers, impotent to awaken a man?"

A woman scorned! In all the universe there could be no more dangerousan enemy. An incredible venom shot from her eyes. 

"That miserable mouselike creature! Well for her that my brotherkilled her. "

It struck me cold. If Anita were unmasked, beyond all the menace ofMiko's wooing, I knew that the venom of Moa's jealousy was a greaterdanger. 

I said sharply, "Don't be simple, Moa!" I shook off her grip. "Youimagine too much. You forget that I am a man of Earth and you a girlof Mars. "

"Is that reason why we should not love?"

"No. But our instincts are different. Men of Earth are born to thechase. "

I was smiling. With thought of Anita's danger I could find it readilyin 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 mesteadily. 

"I don't know what to think, Gregg Haljan.... "

I held my grip. "Think what you like. Men of Earth have been known tokill 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 youtreat me fairly, I can be of great advantage to this venture. Therewill 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 theturret. "

I stood up. I half expected she would stop me, but she did not. Iadded, "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 doesnot yield to love while 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. "Whenit 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 establishit. 

"Are we going to maroon Dr. Frank with the passengers?" I asked. 

"Yes. "

"But he may be of use to us. "

Moa shook her head decisively. "My brother has decided not. We will bewell rid of Dr. Frank. Are you ready, Gregg?"

"Yes. "

She opened the door. Her gesture reassured the lookout, who wasalertly watching the stern watchtower. 

I stepped out, and followed her forward along the deck, which now wasbright with the radiance of the nearby asteroid. 

XVIII

A fair little world. I had thought so before; and I thought so now asI gazed at the asteroid hanging so close before our bow. A huge, thincrescent, with the Sun off to one side behind it. A silver crescent, tinged with red. From this near vantage point, all of the littleglobe's disc was visible. The seas lay in gray patches. The convexityof 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 Anitaat once. Her robed figure lurked in an inconspicuous corner; her eyeswere upon me as Moa and I entered, but she did not move. Thethirty-odd passengers were huddled in a group. Solemn, white-facedmen; frightened women. Some of them were sobbing. One Earth woman--ayoung widow--sat holding her little girl, and wailing withuncontrolled hysteria. The child knew me. As I appeared now, with mygold laced white coat over my shoulders, the little girl seemed to seein my uniform a mark of authority. She left her mother and ran to me. 

"You--please, will you help us? My Moms is crying. "

I sent her gently back. But there came upon me then a compassion forthese innocent passengers, fated to have embarked on this ill-fatedvoyage. Herded here in this cabin, with brigands like pirates of old, guarding them. Waiting now to be marooned on an uninhabited asteroidroaming in space. A sense of responsibility swept me. I swung uponMiko. He stood with a nonchalant grace, lounging against the wall witha cylinder dangling in his hand. He anticipated me, and was the firstto speak. 

"So, Haljan, she put some sense into your head? No more trouble? Thenget into the turret. Moa, stay there with him. Send Hahn here. Whereis that ass, Coniston? We will be in the atmosphere shortly. "

I said, "No more trouble from me, Miko. But these passengers--whatpreparation are you making for them on the asteroid?"

He stared in surprise. Then he laughed. "I am no murderer. The crew ispreparing food, all we can spare. And tools. They can build themselvesshelter--they will be picked up in a few weeks. "

Dr. Frank was here. I caught his gaze but he did not speak. On thelounge couches there still lay the five bodies. Rankin, who had beenkilled by Blackstone in the fight; a man passenger killed; a woman anda man wounded, as well. 

Miko added, "Dr. Frank will take his medical supplies and will carefor the wounded. There are other bodies among the crew. " His gesturewas deprecating. "I have not buried them. We will put them ashore;easier that way. "

The passengers were all eying me. I said:

"You have nothing to fear. I will guarantee you the best equipment wecan spare. " I turned to Miko. "You will give them apparatus with whichto signal?"

"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 thedeck; 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 wassitting with the child's weeping mother. This was a ruse to get a wordwith me. 

I stood before the terrified woman while the child clung to my legs. 

I said gently, "Don't be so frightened. Dr. Frank will take care ofyou. There is no danger; you will be safer on the asteroid than hereon the ship. " I leaned down and touched her shoulder. "There is nodanger. "

I was between Venza and the open cabin. Venza whispered swiftly, "Whenwe are landing, Gregg, I want you to make a commotion--anything--justas the women go ashore. "

"Why? Of course you will have food, Mrs. Francis. "

"Never mind details! An instant--just confusion. Go, Gregg--don'tspeak now!"

I raised the child. "You take care of Mother. " I kissed her. 

From across the cabin, Miko's sardonic voice made me turn. "Touchingsentimentality, 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?"

"Yes. I am no more anxious for a crash than you are, Hahn. "

He sighed with relief. "That is true, of course. I am no expert atatmospheric entry. "

"Have no fear. Sit down, Moa. "

I waved to the lookout in the forward watch tower, and got his routinegesture. I rang the corridor bells, and the normal signals camepromptly back. 

I turned to Hahn. "Get along, won't you? Tell Miko that things are allright here. "

Hahn's small dark figure, lithe as a leopard in his tight fittingtrousers and jacket with his robe now discarded, went swiftly down thespider incline and across the deck. 

"Moa, where is Snap? By the infernal--if he has been injured--"

Up on the radio room bridge, the brigand guard still sat. Then I sawthat Snap was out there sitting with him. I waved from the turretwindow, and Snap's cheery gesture answered me. His voice carried downthrough the silver moonlight: "Land us safely, Gregg. These weirdamateur navigators!"

Within the hour I had us dropping into the asteroid's atmosphere. Theship heated steadily. The pressure went up. It kept me busy with theinstruments and the calculations. But my signals were always promptlyanswered from below. The brigand crew did its part efficiently. 

At a hundred and fifty thousand feet I shifted the gravity plates tothe landing combinations, and started the electronic engines. 

"All safe, Gregg?" Moa sat at my elbow; her eyes, with what seem aglow 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 rarefied air, our bow liftedslightly, like a ship riding a gentle ground swell. At a hundredthousand feet we sailed gently forward, hull down to the asteroid'ssurface, cruising to seek a landing space. 

A little sea was now beneath us. A shadowed sea, deep purple in thenight down there. Occasional verdurous islands showed, with the linesof white surf marking them. Beyond the sea, a curving coastline wasvisible. Rocky headlines, behind which mountain foothills rose inserrated, verdurous ranks. The sunlight edged the distant mountains;and presently this rapidly turning little world brought the sunlightforward. 

It was day beneath us. We slid gently downward. Thirty thousand feetnow, above a sparkling blue ocean. The coastline was just ahead; greenwith a lush, tropical vegetation. Giant trees, huge-leaved. Long, dangling vines; air plants, with giant pods and vivid orchidlikeblossoms. 

I sat at the turret window, staring through my glasses. A fair, littleworld, yet obviously uninhabited. I could fancy that all this wasnewly sprung vegetation. This asteroid had whirled in from the cold ofthe interplanetary space, far outside our solar system. A few yearsago--as time might be measured astronomically, it was no more thanyesterday--this fair landscape was congealed white and bleak with asweep of glacial ice. But the seeds of life miraculously were here. The miracle of life! Under the warming, germinating sunlight, theverdure had sprung. 

"Can you find landing space, Gregg?" Moa's question brought back mywandering fancies. I saw an upland glade, a level spread of ferns withthe forest banked around it. A cliff height nearby, frowning down atthe sea. 

"Yes. I can land us there. " I showed her through the glasses. I rangthe sirens, and we spiraled, descending further. The mountain topswere now close beneath us. Clouds were overhead, white masses withblue sky behind them. A day of brilliant sunlight. But soon, with ourforward cruising, it was night. The sunlight dropped beneath thesharply convex horizon; the sea and the land went purple. 

A night of brilliant stars; the Earth was a blazing blue-red point oflight. The heavens visibly were revolving; in an hour or so it wouldbe daylight again. 

On the forward deck now Coniston had appeared, commanding half a dozenof the crew. They were carrying up caskets of food and the equipmentwhich was to be given the marooned passengers. And making ready thedisembarking 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 thoughts flung back into Earth's history. Like this, ancient travelers of the surface of the sea were herded by pirates towalk the plank, or be put ashore, marooned upon some fair desertisland of the tropic Spanish main. 

Hahn came mounting our turret incline. "All is well, Gregg Haljan?"

"Get to your work, " Moa told him sharply. 

He retreated, joining the bustle and confusion which now was beginningon the deck. It struck me--could I turn that confusion to account?Would it be possible, now at the last moment, to attack thesebrigands? Snap still sat outside the radio room doorway. But his guardwas alert with upraised projector. And that guard, I saw, in hisposition, commanded all the deck. 

And I saw too, as the passengers now were herded in a line from thelounge oval, that Miko had roped and bound all of the men, a clankingchain connected them. They came like a line of convicts, marchingforward, and stopped on the open deck 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, becareful. You will find gravity very different--this is a very smallworld. "

I flung on the landing lights; the deck glowed with the blue radiance;the searchbeams shot down beside our hull. We hung now a thousand feetabove the forest glade. I cut off the electronic streams. We poised, with the gravity plates set at normal, and only a gentle night breezeto give us a slight side drift. This I could control with the lateralpropeller rudders. 

For all my busy landing routine, my mind was on other things. Venza'sswift words back there in the lounge. I was to create a commotionwhile the passengers were landing. Why? Had she and Dr. Frank somelast minute desperate purposes?

I determined I would do what she said. Shout, or mis-order the lights. That would be easy. 

I was glad it was night. I had, indeed, calculated our descent so thatthe landing would be in darkness. But to what purpose? These brigandswere very alert. There was nothing I could think of to do which wouldavail us anything more than a probable 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 inthe glade. The deep purple night with stars overhead was around us. Ihissed out our interior air through the dome and hull ports, andadmitted the night air of the asteroid. My calculations--of necessitymere mathematical approximations--proved fairly accurate. Intemperature and pressure there was no radical change as the domewindows slid back. 

We had landed. Whatever Venza's purpose, her moment was at hand. I wastense. But I was aware also, that beside me Moa was very alert. I hadthought her unarmed. She was not. She sat back from me; in her handwas a long thin knife blade. 

She murmured tensely, "You have done your part, Gregg. Well andskillfully done. Now we will sit here quietly and watch them land. "

Snap's guard was standing, keenly watching. The lookouts in theforward and stern towers were also armed; I could see them both gazingkeenly 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 shoutedup at me:

"Haljan, hold our shipboard gravity normal. "

"Yes. "

The line of men were first to descend. Dr. Frank led them. He flasheda look of farewell up at me and Snap as he went down the incline withthe chained men passengers after him. 

Motley procession! Twenty odd, disheveled, half-clothed men of theseworlds. The changing, lightening gravity on the incline caught them. Dr. Frank bounded up to the rail under the impetus of his step; caughtand held himself. Drew himself back. The line swayed. In the dim, bluelit glare it seemed unreal, crazy. A grotesque dream of men descendinga plank. 

They reached the forest glade. Stood swaying, afraid at first to move. The purple night crowded them; they stood gazing at this strangeworld, their new prison. 

"Now the women. "

Miko was shoving the women to the head of the incline. I could feelMoa's gaze upon me. Her knife gleamed in the turret light. 

She murmured again, "In a few moments you can bring us away, Gregg. "

I felt like an actor awaiting his cue in the wings of some turgiddrama the plot of which he did not know. Venza was near the head ofthe incline. Some of the women and children were on it. A womanscreamed. Her child had slipped from her hand; bounded up over therail and fallen. Hardly fallen--floated down to the ground, withflailing arms and legs, landing in the dark ferns unharmed. Itsterrified wail came up. 

There was a confusion on the incline. Venza, still on the deck, seemedto send a look of appeal to the turret. My cue?

I slid my hand to the light switchboard. It was near my knees. Ipulled a switch. The blue lit deck beneath the turret went dark. 

I recall an instant of horrible, tense silence, and in the gloombeside me I was aware of Moa moving. I felt a thrill of instinctivefear--would she plunge that knife into me?

The silence of the darkened deck was broken with a confusion ofsounds. A babble of voices; a woman passenger's scream; shufflingfeet; and above it all, Miko's roar:

"Stand quiet! Everyone! No movement!"

On the descending incline there was chaos. The disembarking women wereclinging to the gang rail; some of them had evidently surged forwardand fallen. Down on the ground in the purple-shadowed starlight, Icould vaguely see the chained line of men. They too, were inconfusion, 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 wondered if I should try and leave theturret. Where was Anita? She had been down there on the deck when Iflung out the lights. 

I think twenty seconds would have covered it all. I had not moved. Ithought, "Is Snap concerned with this?"

Moa's knife could have stabbed me. I felt her lunge against me. Andsuddenly I was gripping her, twisting her wrist. But she flung theknife away. Her strength was almost the equal of my own. Her hand wentfor my throat, and with the other hand she was fumbling. 

The deck abruptly sprang into light again. Moa had found the switchand threw it back. 

She fought me as I tried to reach the switch. I saw down on the deck. Miko was gazing up at us. Moa panted, "Gregg--stop! If he sees youdoing this, he'll kill you. "

The scene down there was almost unchanged. I had answered my cue. Towhat purpose? I saw Anita near Miko. The last of the women were on theplank. 

I had stopped struggling with Moa. She sat back, panting. And then shecalled:

"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 womenviolently at the incline. She bounded over. Her body, with the gravitypull of only a few Earth pounds, sailed in an arc and dropped nearthe swaying line of men. 

Miko swung back. "Get out of my way!" A sweep of his huge arm knockedAnita sidewise. "Prince, damn you, help me with those boxes!"

The frightened stewards were lifting the boxes, square metal storagechests 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 fromthem; raised it at the top of the incline, poised it over his head aninstant, with his massive arms like gray pillars beneath it; and flungit. The box catapulted, dropped; and then passing the _Planetara's_gravity area, it sailed in a long flat arc over the forest glade andcrashed 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 usaway!"

On the deck lay the dead body of Rance Rankin, which the stewards hadcarried out. Miko seized it: flung it. 

"There! Go to your last resting place!"

And the other bodies, Balch, Blackstone, Captain Carter, Johnson--Mikoflung them all. And the course masters and those of our crew who hadbeen killed. 

The passengers were all on the ground now. It was dim down there. Itried to distinguish Venza, but could not. I could see Dr. Frank'sfigure at the end of the chained line of men. The passengers weregazing 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 seemedso. On the radio room bridge Snap and his guard stood like silentstatues 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 windowsslid 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 thepurple forest, disconnected now from the ship, the last of our friendsstood marooned. I could distinguish them through the blur of theclosed dome--only a swaying, huddled group was visible. But my fancypictured this last sight of them, Dr. Frank, Venza, Shac and DudArdley. 

They were gone. There were left only Snap, Anita and myself. 

I was mechanically ringing us away. I heard my sirens sounding downbelow, with the answering clangs here in the turret. The _Planetara's_respiratory controls started; the pressure equalizers began operating;and the gravity plates began shifting into lifting combinations. 

The ship was hissing and quivering with it, combined with the gratingof the last of the dome ports. And Miko's command:

"Lift, Haljan!"

Hahn had been mingling with the confusion of the deck though I hadhardly noticed him. Coniston had remained below with the crewanswering my signals. Hahn stood now with Miko, gazing down through adeck window. Anita was alone at another. 

"Lift, Haljan!"

I lifted up gently, bow first, with a repulsion of the bow plates. Andstarted the central electronic engine. Its thrust from the stern movedus diagonally over the purple forest trees. 

The glade slid downward and away. I caught a last vague glimpse ofthe huddled group of marooned passengers, staring up at us. Left totheir fate, alone on this deserted world. 

With the three engines going, we slid smoothly upward. The forestdropped, a purple spread of treetops edged with starlight andEarthlight. The sharply curving horizon seemed to follow us upward. Iswung on all the power. We mounted at a forty degree angle, slowlycircling, with a bank of clouds over us to the side and the shininglittle sea beneath. 

"Very good, Gregg. " In the turret light Moa's eyes blazed at me. "I donot know what you meant by darkening the deck lights. " Her fingers dugat my shoulders. "I will tell my brother it was an error. "

I said, "An error--yes. "

"I didn't know what it was. But you have me to deal with now. Youunderstand? I will tell my brother so. You said, 'On Earth a man maykill 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 awoman scorned--a mingling of turgid emotions.... 

I twisted back from her grip and ignored her. She sat back, silentlywatching my busy activities: the calculations of the shiftingconditions of gravity, pressures, temperatures; a checking of theinstruments 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 surfacebeneath us. Venza, with her last unknown play, gone to failure. Had Imissed my cue? Whatever my part, it seemed now that I must havehorribly misacted it. 

The crescent Earth was presently swinging over our bow. We rocketedout of the asteroid's shadow. The glowing, flaming Sun appeared, making a crescent of the Earth. With the glass I could see our tinyMoon, visually seeming to hug the limb of its parent Earth. 

We were on our course to the Moon. My mind flung ahead. Grantlinewith his treasure, unsuspecting this brigand ship. And suddenly, beyond all thought of Grantline, there came to me a fear for Anita. InGod's truth I had been, so far, a very stumbling, inept champion, doomed to failure with everything I tried. Why had I not contrived tohave Anita desert at the asteroid? Would it not have been far betterfor her there, taking her chance for rescue with Dr. Frank, Venza andthe others?

But no! I had, like a fool, never thought of that! Had let her remainhere 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 thecatastrophe. There was a shudder within me as I sat in that turret, docilely guiding us out through the asteroid's atmosphere, heading usupon our course for the Moon. 

XIX

"Try again. By the infernal, Snap Dean, if you do anything to balk us, you die!"

Miko scanned the apparatus with keen eyes. How much technicalknowledge of signaling instruments did this brigand leader have? I wastense and cold with apprehension as I sat in a corner of the radioroom, watching Snap. Could Miko be fooled? Snap, I knew, was trying tofool him. 

The Moon spread close beneath us. My log-chart, computed up to thirtyminutes past, showed us barely some thirty thousand miles over theMoon's surface. A silver quadrant. The sunset caught the Lunarmountains, flung slanting shadows over the Lunar plains. All the discwas plainly visible. The mellow Earthlight glowed serene and pale toillumine the Lunar night. 

The _Planetara_ was bathed in silver. A brilliant silver glare sweptthe forward deck, clean white and splashed with black shadows. We hadpartly circled the Moon so as now to approach it from the Earthwardside. 

Miko for a time had been at my side in the turret. I had not seenConiston or Hahn of recent hours. I had slept, awakened refreshed, andhad a meal. Coniston and Hahn remained below, one or other of themalways with the crew to execute my sirened orders. Then Coniston cameto take my place in the turret, and I went with Miko to the radioroom. 

"You are skillful, Haljan. " A measure of grim approval was in hisvoice. "You evidently have no wish to try and fool me in thisnavigation. "

I had not, indeed. It is delicate work at best, coping with theintricacies of celestial mechanics upon a semicircular trajectory withretarding velocity, and with a makeshift crew we could easily havecome upon real difficulty. 

We hung at last, hull down, facing the Earthward hemisphere of theLunar disc. The giant ball of the Earth lay behind and above us--theSun over our stern quarter. With forward velocity almost checked, wepoised, and Snap began his signals to the unsuspecting Grantline. 

My work momentarily was over. I sat watching the radio room. Moa washere, close beside me. I felt always her watchful gaze, so that eventhe play of my emotions needed reining. 

Miko worked with Snap. Anita too was here. To Miko and Moa it was thesomber, taciturn George Prince, shrouded always in his black mourningcloak, disinclined to talk; sitting alone, brooding and sullen. Thisis how they thought of Anita. 

Miko repeated: "By the infernal, if you try to fool me, Snap Dean!"

The small metal room, with its grid floor and low arched ceiling, glared with moonlight through its window. The moving figures of Snapand Miko were aped by the grotesque, misshapen shadows of them on thewalls. Miko gigantic--a great menacing ogre. Snap small and alert--atrim, pale figure in his tight-fitting white trousers, broad-flowingbelt, and white shirt open at the throat. His face was pale and drawnfrom lack of sleep and the torture to which Miko had subjected himearlier on the voyage. But he grinned at the brigand's words, andpushed his straggling hair closer under the red eyeshade. 

The room over long periods was deadly silent, with Miko and Snapbending watchfully at the crowded banks of instruments. A silence inwhich my own pounding heart seemed to echo. I did not dare look atAnita, nor she at me. Snap was trying to signal Earth, not the Moon!His main grids were set in the reverse. The infra-red waves, flungfrom the bow window, were of a frequency which Snap and I believedthat Grantline could not pick up. And over against the wall, closebeside me and seemingly ignored by Snap, there was a tiny ultra-violetsender. Its faint hum and the quivering of its mirrors had so farpassed unnoticed. 

Would some Earth station pick it up? I prayed so. There was athumbnail mirror here which would bring an answer. 

Would some Earth telescope be able to see us? I doubted it. Thepinpoint of the _Planetara's_ infinitesimal bulk would be beyondvision. 

Long silences, broken only by the faint hiss and murmur of Snap'sinstruments. 

"Shall I try the graphs, Miko?"

"Yes. "

I helped him with the spectro. At every level the plates showed usnothing save the scarred and pitted Moon surface. We worked for anhour. There was nothing. Bleak cold night on the Moon here beneath us. A touch of fading sunlight upon the Apennines. Up near the South Pole, Tycho with its radiating open rills stood like a grim dark maw. 

Miko bent over a plate. "Something here? Is there?"

An abnormality upon the frowning ragged cliffs of Tycho? We thoughtso. But then it seemed not. 

Another hour. No signal came from Earth. If Snap's calls were gettingthrough we had no evidence of it. Abruptly Miko strode at me fromacross the room. I went cold and tense; Moa shifted, alert to my everymovement. But Miko was not interested in me. A sweep of his clenchedfist knocked the ultra-violet sender and its coils and mirrors in atinkling crash to the grid at my feet. 

"We don't need that, whatever it is!" He rubbed his knuckles where theviolet waves had tinged them, and turned grimly back to Snap. 

"Where are your ray mirrors? If the treasure lies exposed--"

This Martian's knowledge was far greater than we believed. He grinnedsardonically at Anita. "If our treasure is here on this hemisphere, Prince, we should pick up its rays. Don't you think so? Or isGrantline too cautious to leave it exposed?"

Anita spoke in a careful, throaty drawl. "The rays came through enoughwhen we passed here on the way out. "

"You should know, " grinned Miko. "An expert eavesdropper, Prince, Iwill say that for you.... Come, Dean, try something else. By God, ifGrantline does not signal us, I will be likely to blame you--mypatience is shortening. Shall we go closer, Haljan?"

"I don't think it would help, " I said. 

He nodded. "Perhaps not. Are we checked?"

"Yes. " We were poised very nearly motionless. "If you wish an advance, I can ring it. But we need a surface destination now. "

"True, Haljan. " He stood thinking. "Would a zed-ray penetrate thosecrater cliffs? Tycho, for instance, at this angle?"

"It might, " Snap agreed. "You think he may be on the northern innerTycho?"

"He may be anywhere, " said Miko shortly. 

"If you think that, " Snap persisted, "suppose we swing the _Planetara_over the South Pole. Tycho, viewed from there--"

"And take another quarter day of time?" Miko sneered. "Flash on yourzed-ray; help him hook it up, Haljan. "

I moved to the lens box of the spectroheliograph. It seemed that Snapwas very strangely reluctant. Was it because he knew that theGrantline camp lay concealed on the north inner wall of Tycho's giantring? I thought so. But Snap flashed a queer look at Anita. She didnot see it, but I did. And I could not understand it. 

My accursed, witless incapacity! If only I had taken warning!

"Here, " commanded Miko. "A score of 'graphs with the zed-ray. I tellyou I will comb this surface if we have to stay here until our shipcomes from Ferrok-Shahn to join us!"

The Martian brigands were coming. Miko's signals had been answered. Inten days the other brigand ship, adequately manned and armed, would behere. 

Snap helped me connect the zed-ray. He did not dare even to whisper tome, with Moa hovering always so close. And for all Miko's sardonicsmiling, we knew that he would tolerate nothing from us now. He wasfully armed and so was Moa. 

I recall that several times Snap endeavored to touch me significantly. Oh, if only I had taken warning!

We finished our connecting. The dull gray point of zed-ray gleamedthrough the prisms to mingle with the moonlight entering the mainlens. I stood with the shutter trip. 

"The same interval, Snap?"

"Yes. "

Beside me, I was aware of a faint reflection of the zed-ray--a graycathedral shaft crossing the room and falling upon the opposite wall. An unreality there, as the zed-ray faintly strove to penetrate themetal room side. 

I said, "Shall I make the exposure?"

Snap nodded. But that 'graph was never made. An exclamation from Moamade us all turn. The gamma mirrors were quivering! Grantline hadpicked our signals! With what was undoubtedly an intensified receivingequipment which Snap had not thought Grantline able to use, he hadcaught our faint zed-rays, which Snap was sending only to deceiveMiko. And Grantline had recognized the _Planetara_, and had releasedhis occulting screens surrounding the ore. 

And upon their heels came Grantline's message. Not in the secretsystem he had arranged with Snap, but unsuspectingly in open code. Icould read the swinging mirror, and so could Miko. 

And Miko decoded it triumphantly aloud:

"Surprised but pleased your return. Approach Mid-Northern Hemisphereregion of Archimedes, forty thousand off nearest Apennine range. "

The message broke off. But even its importance was overshadowed. Mikostood in the center of the radio room, triumphantly reading the littleindicator. Its beam swung on the scale, which chanced to be almostdirectly over Anita's head. I saw Miko's expression change.... A lookof surprise, amazement, came over him. 

"Why--"

He gasped. He stood staring. Almost stupidly staring, for an instant. And as I regarded him with fascinated horror, there came upon hisheavy gray face a look of dawning comprehension. And I heard Snap'sstartled intake of breath. He moved to the spectro, where the zed-rayconnections were still humming. 

But, with a leap, Miko flung him away. "Off with you! Moa, watch him!Haljan, don't move!"

Again Miko stood staring. I saw now that he was staring at Anita!

"Why, George Prince! How strange you look!"

Anita did not move. She was stricken with horror; she shrank backagainst the wall, huddled in her cloak. Miko's sardonic voice cameagain:

"How strange you look, Prince!" He took a step forward. He was grimand calm. Horribly calm. Deliberate. Gloating like a great graymonster in human form toying with a fascinated, imprisoned bird. 

"Move just a little, Prince. Let the zed-ray light fall more fully. "

Anita's head was bare. That pale, Hamlet-like face. Dear God, thezed-ray light lay gray and penetrating upon it!

Miko took another step. Peering. Grinning. "How amazing, GeorgePrince! Why, I can hardly believe it!"

Moa was armed with an electronic cylinder now. For all heramazement--what turgid emotions sweeping her I can only guess--shenever took her eyes from Snap and me. 

"Back! Don't move either of you!" she hissed at us. 

Then Miko leaped at Anita like a giant gray leopard pouncing. 

"Away with that cloak, Prince!"

I stood cold and numbed. And realization came at last. The faintzed-light had fallen by chance upon Anita's face. Penetrating theflesh; exposed, faintly glowing, the bone line of her jaw. Unmaskedthe art of Glutz. 

Miko seized her wrists, drew her forward, beyond the shaft ofzed-light, into the brilliant light of the Moon. And ripped her cloakfrom her. The gentle curves of her woman's figure were sounmistakable!

And as Miko gazed at them, all his calm triumph swept away. 

"Why, Anita!"

I heard Moa mutter, "So that is it?" A venomous flashing look--a shaftfrom me to Anita and back again. "So that is it?"

"Why, Anita!"

Miko's great arms gathered her up as though she were a child. "So Ihave you back! From the dead, delivered back to me!"

"Gregg!" Snap's warning, and his grip on my shoulders brought me ameasure of sanity. I had tensed to spring. I stood quivering, and Moathrust her weapon against my face. The grids were swaying again with amessage from Grantline. But it was ignored. 

In the glare of moonlight by the forward window, Miko held Anita, hisgreat hands pawing her with triumphant possessive caresses. 

"So, little Anita, you are given back to me!"

XX

Moonlight upon Earth so gently shines to make romantic a lover'ssmile! But the reality of the Lunar night is cold beyond human belief. Cold and darkly silent. Grim desolation. Awesome. Majestic. A frowningmajesty that even to the most intrepid human beholder is inconceivablyforbidding. 

And there were humans here now. On this tumbled plain, betweenArchimedes and the mountains, one small crater amid the million of itsfellows was distinguished this night by the presence of humans. TheGrantline camp! It huddled in the deepest purple shadows on the sideof a bowl-like pit, a crudely circular orifice with a scant two milesacross its rippling rim. There was faint light here to mark thepresence of the living intruders. The blue glow radiance of Morrelltube lights under a spread of glassite. 

The Grantline camp stood midway up one of the inner cliff walls of thelittle crater. The broken, rock-strewn floor, two miles wide, lay fivehundred feet below the camp. Behind it, the jagged, precipitous cliffrose another five hundred to the heights of the upper rim. A broadlevel shelf hung midway up the cliff, and upon it Grantline had builthis little group of glassite dome shelters. Viewed from above therewas the darkly purple crater floor, the upflung circular rim where theEarthlight tinged the spires and crags with yellow sheen; and on theshelf, like a huddled group of birds' nests, Grantline's domes hungand gazed down upon the inner valley. 

The air here on the Moon surface was negligible--a scant onefive-thousandth of the atmospheric pressure at the sea level on Earth. But within the glassite shelter, a normal Earth pressure must bemaintained. Rigidly braced double walls to withstand the explosivetendency, with no external pressure to counteract it. A tremendousnecessity for mechanical equipment had burdened Grantline's small shipto capacity. The chemistry of manufactured air, the pressureequalizers, renewers, respirators, the lighting and temperaturemaintenance of a space-flyer was here. 

There was this main Grantline building, stretched low and rectangularalong the front edge of the ledge. Within it were living rooms, messhall and kitchen. Fifty feet behind it, connected by a narrow passageof glassite, was a similar though smaller structure. The mechanicalcontrol rooms, with their humming, vibrating mechanisms were here. Andan instrument room with signaling apparatus, senders, receivers, mirror-grids and audiphones of several varieties. And anelectro-telescope, small but modern, with dome overhead like a littleEarth observatory. 

From this instrument building, beside the connecting pedestrianpassage, wire cables for light, and air tubes and strings and bundlesof instrument wires ran to the main structure--gray snakes upon theporous, gray Lunar rock. 

The third building seemed a lean-to banked against the cliff wall, aslanting shed-wall of glassite fifty feet high and two hundred inlength. Under it, for months Grantline's bores had dug into the cliff. Braced tunnels were here, penetrating back and downward into the veinof rock. 

The work was over. The borers had been dismantled and packed away. Atone end of the cliff the mining equipment lay piled in a litter. Therewas a heap of discarded ore where Grantline had carted and dumped itafter his first crude refining process had yielded it as waste. Theore slag lay like gray powder flakes strewn down the cliff. Trucks andore carts along the ledge stood discarded, mute evidence of the weeksand months of work these helmeted miners had undergone, strugglingupon this airless, frowning world. 

But now all that was finished. The catalytic ore was sufficientlyconcentrated. It lay--this treasure--in a seventy foot pile behindthe glassite lean-to, with a cage of wires over it and an insulationbarrage hiding its presence. 

The ore shelter was dark; the other two buildings were lighted. Andthere were small lights mounted at intervals about the camp and alongthe edge of the ledge. A spider ladder, with tiny platforms sometwenty feet one above the other, hung precariously to the cliff-face. It descended the five hundred feet to the crater floor; and, behindthe camp, it mounted the jagged cliff-face to the upper rim height, where a small observatory platform was placed. 

Such was the outer aspect of the Grantline Treasure Camp near thebeginning of this Lunar night, when, unknown to Grantline and his men, the _Planetara_ with its brigands was approaching. The night wasperhaps a sixth advanced. Full night. No breath of cloud to mar thebrilliant starry heavens. The quadrant Earth hung poised like a giantmellow moon over Grantline's crater. A bright Earth, yet no air washere on this Lunar surface to spread its light. Only a glow, minglingwith the spots of blue tube light on the poles along the cliff, andthe radiance from the lighted buildings. 

No evidence of movement showed about the silent camp. Then a pressuredoor in an end of the main building opened its tiny series of locks. Abent figure came out. The lock closed. The figure straightened andgazed about the camp. Grotesque, bloated semblance of a man! Helmeted, with rounded dome hood, suggestion of an ancient sea diver, yetgoggled and trunked like a gas-masked fighter of the twentiethcentury. 

He stopped presently and disconnected metal weights which were uponhis shoes. 

Then he stood erect again, and with giant strides bounded along thecliff. Fantastic figure in the blue lit gloom! A child's dream ofcrags and rocks and strange lights with a single monstrous figure inseven league boots. 

He went the length of the ledge with his twenty foot strides, inspected the lights, and made adjustments. Came back, and climbedwith agile, bounding leaps up the spider ladder to the dome of thecrater top. A light flashed on up there. Then it was extinguished. 

The goggled, bloated figure came leaping down after a moment. Grantline's exterior watchman making his rounds. He came back to themain building. Fastened the weights on his shoes. Signaled. 

The lock opened. The figure went inside. 

It was early evening. After the dinner hour and before the time ofsleep according to the camp routine Grantline was maintaining. NineP. M. Of Earth Eastern American time, recorded now upon his Earthchronometer. In the living room of the main building Johnny Grantlinesat with a dozen of his men dispersed about the room, whiling away asbest they could the lonesome hours. 

"All as usual. This cursed Moon! When I get home--if I ever do--"

"Say your say, Wilks. But you'll spend your share of the gold leaf andthank your constellations that you had your chance to make it. "

"Let him alone! Come on, Wilks, take a hand here. This game is not anygood with three. "

The man who had been outside flung his hissing helmet recklessly tothe floor and unsealed his suit. "Here, get me out of this. No, Iwon't play. I can't play your cursed game with nothing at stake!"

A laugh went up at the sharp look Johnny Grantline flung from where hesat reading in a corner of the room. 

"Commander's orders. No gambling gold leafers tolerated here. "

"Play the game, Wilks, " Grantline said quietly. "We all know it'sinfernal--this doing nothing. "

"He's been struck by Earthlight, " another man laughed. "Commander, Itold you not to let that guy Wilks out at night. "

A rough but good-natured lot of men. Jolly and raucous by nature intheir leisure hours. But there was too much leisure here now. Theirmirth had a hollow sound. In older times, explorers of the frozenPolar zones had to cope with inactivity, loneliness and despair. Butat least they were on their native world. The grimness of the Moon waseating into the courage of Grantline's men. An unreality here. Aweirdness. These fantastic crags. The deadly silence. The nights, almost two weeks of Earth time in length, congealed by the deadlyfrigidity of space. The days of black sky, blazing stars and flamingSun, with no atmosphere to diffuse the Sun's heat radiating so swiftlyfrom the naked Lunar surface that the outer temperature still wascold. And day and night, always the beloved Earth disc hanging poisedup near the zenith. From thinnest crescent to full Earth, then back tocrescent. 

All so abnormal, irrational, disturbing to human senses. 

With the mining work over, an irritability grew upon Grantline's men. And perhaps since the human mind is so wonderful, elusive a thing, there lay upon these men an indefinable sense of disaster. JohnnyGrantline felt it. He thought about it now as he sat in the roomcorner watching Wilks being forced into the plaget game, and he foundthe premonition strong within him. Unreasonably, ominous depression!Barring the accident which had disabled his little spaceship when theyreached this small crater hole, his expedition had gone well. Hisinstruments, and the information he had from the former explorers, hadenabled him to pick up the catalyst vein with only one month ofsearch. 

The vein had now been exhausted; but the treasure was here--enough tosupply every need on his Earth! Nothing was left but to wait for the_Planetara_. The men were talking of that now. 

"She ought to be well midway from Ferrok-Shahn by now. When do youfigure she'll be back here and signal us?"

"Twenty days. Give her another five now to Mars, and five in port. That's ten. We'll pick her signals in three weeks, mark me!"

"Three weeks. Just give me three weeks of reasonable sunrise andsunset! This cursed Moon! You mean, Williams, next daylight. "

"Ha! He's inventing a Lunar language. You'll be a Moon man yet. "

Olaf Swenson, the big blond fellow from the Scandia fiords, came andflung himself down beside Grantline. 

"Ay tank they bane without enough to do, Commander ----"

"Three weeks isn't very long, Ole. "

"No. Maybe not. "

From across the room somebody was saying, "If the _Comet_ hadn'tsmashed on us, damn me but I'd ask the Commander to let some of ustake her back. "

"Shut up, Billy. She _is_ smashed. "

"You all agreed to things as they are, " Johnny said shortly. "We alltook the same chances--voluntarily. "

A dynamic little fellow, this Johnny Grantline. Short of tempersometimes, but always just, and a perfect leader of men. In stature hewas almost as small as Snap. But he was thick-set, with asmooth-shaven, keen-eyed, square-jawed face; and a shock of browntousled hair. A man of thirty-five, though the decision of his manner, the quiet dominance of his voice made him seem older. He stood up now, surveying the blue lit glassite room with its low ceiling closeoverhead. He was bow-legged; in movement he seemed to roll with astiff-legged gait like some sea captains of former days on the deck ofhis swaying ship. Odd looking figure! Heavy flannel shirt andtrousers, boots heavily weighted, and bulky metal-loaded belt strappedabout his waist. 

He grinned at Swenson. "When the time comes to divide this treasure, everyone will be happy, Ole. "

The treasure was estimated to be the equivalent of ninety millions ingold leaf. A hundred and ten millions in the gross as it now stood, with twenty millions to be deducted by the Federated Refiners forreducing it to the standard purity for commercial use. Ninetymillions, with only a million and a half to come off for expeditionexpenses, and the _Planetara's_ share another million. A nice littlestake. 

Grantline strode across the room with his rolling gait. 

"Cheer up, boys. Who's winning there? I say, you fellows--"

An audiphone buzzer interrupted him, a call from the duty man in theinstrument room of the nearby building. 

Grantline clicked the receiver. The room fell into silence. Any callwas unusual--nothing ever happened here in the camp. 

The duty man's voice sounded over the room. 

"Signals coming! Not clear. Will you come over, Commander?"

Signals!

It was never Grantline's way to enforce needless discipline. Heoffered no objection when every man in the camp rushed through theconnecting passages. They crowded the instrument room where the tenseduty man sat bending over his radio receivers. The mirrors wereswaying. 

The duty man looked up and met Grantline's gaze. 

"I ran it up to the highest intensity, Commander. We ought to getit--"

"Low scale, Peter?"

"Yes. Weakest infra-red. I'm bringing it up, even though it uses toomuch of our power. "

"Get it, " said Grantline shortly. 

"I got one slight television swing a minute ago--then it faded. Ithink it's the _Planetara_. "

"_Planetara_!" The crowding group of men chorused. How could it be the_Planetara_?

But it was. The call came in presently. Unmistakably the _Planetara_, turned back now from her course to Ferrok-Shahn. 

"How far away, Peter?"

The duty man consulted the needles of his dial scale. "Close! Veryweak infra-red. But close. Around thirty thousand miles, maybe. It'sSnap Dean calling. "

The _Planetara_ here within thirty thousand miles! Excitement andpleasure swept the room. The _Planetara_ had for so long been awaitedeagerly!

The excitement communicated to Grantline. It was unlike him to beincautious; yet now with no thought save that some unforeseen andpleasing circumstance had brought the _Planetara_ ahead of time;incautious, Grantline certainly was!

"Raise the barrage. "

"I'll go. My suit is here. "

A willing volunteer rushed out to the shed. 

"Can you send, Peter?" Grantline demanded. 

"Yes. With more power. "

"Use it. "

Johnny dictated the message of his location which we received. In hisincautious excitement he ignored the secret code. 

An interval passed. No message had come from us--just Snap's routinesignal in the weak infra-red, which we hoped Grantline would not get. 

The men crowding Grantline's instrument room waited in tense silence. Then Grantline tried the television again. Its current weakened thelights with the drain upon the distributors, and cooled the room witha sudden deadly chill as the Erentz insulating system slowed down. 

The duty man looked frightened. "You'll bulge out our walls, Commander. The internal pressure--"

"We'll chance it. "

They picked up the image of the _Planetara_. It shone clear on thegrid--the segment of star-field with a tiny cigar-shaped blob. Clearenough to be unmistakable. The _Planetara_! Here now, over the Moon, almost directly overhead, poised at what the altimeter scale showed tobe a fraction under thirty thousand miles. 

The men gazed in awed silence. The _Planetara_ coming.... 

But the altimeter needle was motionless. The _Planetara_ was hangingpoised. 

A sudden gasp went about the room. The men stood with whitening faces, gazing at the _Planetara's_ image. And at the altimeter's needle. Itwas moving now. The _Planetara_ was descending. But not with anorderly swoop. 

The grid showed the ship clearly. The bow tilted up, then dipped down. But then in a moment it swung up again. The ship turned partly over. Righted itself. Then swayed again, drunkenly. 

The watching men were stricken in horrified silence. The _Planetara's_image momentarily, horribly, grew larger. Swaying. Then turningcompletely over, rotating slowly end over end. 

The _Planetara_, out of control, was falling!

XXI

On the _Planetara_, in the radio room, Snap and I stood with Moa'sweapon upon us. Miko held Anita. Triumphant, possessive. Then as shestruggled, a gentleness came to this strange Martian giant. Perhaps hereally loved her. Looking back on it, I sometimes think so. 

"Anita, do not fear me. " He held her away from him. "I would not harmyou. I want your love. " Irony came to him. "And I thought I had killedyou. But it was only your brother. "

He partly turned. I was aware of how alert was his attention. Hegrinned. "Hold them, Moa. Don't let them do anything foolish.... So, little Anita, you were masquerading to spy on me? That was wrong ofyou. "

Anita had not spoken. She held herself tensely away from Miko. She hadflashed me a look, just one. What horrible mischance to have broughton this catastrophe!

The completion of Grantline's message had come unnoticed by us all. Weremained tense. 

"Look! Grantline again!" Snap said abruptly. 

But the mirrors were steadying. We had no recording mechanism; therest of the message was lost. 

No further message came. There was an interval while Miko waited. Heheld Anita in the hollow of his great arm. 

"Quiet, little bird. Do not fear me. I have work to do, Anita, this isour great adventure. We will be rich, you and I. All the luxuriesthese worlds can offer--all for us when this is over. Careful, Moa!This Haljan has no wit. "

Well could he say it. I, who had been so witless as to let this comeupon us! Moa's weapon prodded me. Her voice hissed at me with all thevenom of a reptile enraged. "So that was your game, Gregg Haljan! AndI was so graceless as to admit love for you!"

Snap murmured in my ear, "Don't move, Gregg! She's reckless. "

She heard it. She whirled on him. "We have lost George Prince, itseems. Well, we will survive without his scientific knowledge. Andyou, Dean--and this Haljan, mark me--I will kill you both if you causetrouble!"

Miko was gloating. "Don't kill them yet, Moa. What was it Grantlinesaid? Near the crater of Archimedes. Ring us down, Haljan. We'llland. "

He signaled the turret, gave Coniston the Grantline message, andaudiphoned it below to Hahn. The news spread about the ship. Thebandits were jubilant. 

"We'll land now, Haljan. Come, Anita and I will go with you to theturret. "

I found my voice. "To what destination?"

"Near Archimedes. The Apennine side. Keep well away from the Grantlinecamp. We will probably sight it as we descend. "

There was no trajectory needed. We were almost over Archimedes now. Icould drop us with a visible, instrumental course. My mind waswhirling with a confusion of thoughts. What could we do? I met Snap'sgaze. 

"Ring us down, Gregg, " he said quietly. 

I nodded. I pushed Moa's weapon away. "You don't need that--"

We went to the turret. Moa watched me and Snap, a grim, cold Amazon. She avoided looking at Anita, whom Miko helped down the ladders witha strange mixture of courtierlike grace and amused irony. Conistonstared at Anita. 

"I say, not George Prince? The girl--"

"No time for explanations, " Miko commanded. "It's the girl, masquerading as her brother. Get below, Coniston. Haljan takes usdown. "

The astounded Englishman continued to gaze at Anita. But he said, "Imean to say, where to on the Moon? Not to encounter Grantline at once, Miko? Our equipment is not ready. "

"Of course not. We will land well away--"

The reluctant Coniston left us. I took the controls. Miko, stillholding Anita as though she were a child, sat beside me. "We willwatch him, Anita. A skilled fellow at this sort of work. "

I rang my signals for the shifting of the gravity plates. The answershould have come from below within a second or two. But it did not. Miko regarded me with his great bushy eyebrows upraised. 

"Ring again, Haljan. "

I duplicated. No answer. The silence was ominous. 

Miko muttered, "That accursed Hahn. Ring again!"

I sent the imperative emergency demand. 

No answer. A second or two. Then all of us in the turret werestartled. Transfixed. From below came a sudden hiss. It sounded in theturret; it came from the shifting room call grid. The hissing of thepneumatic valves of the plate shifters in the lower control room. Thevalves were opening; the plates automatically shifting into neutral, and disconnecting!

An instant of startled silence. Miko may have realized thesignificance of what had happened. Certainly Snap and I did. Thehissing ceased. I gripped the emergency plate shifter switch whichhung over my head. Its disc was dead! The plates were dead in neutral:in the position they were placed only in port! And their shiftingmechanisms were imperative!

I was on my feet. "We're in neutral!"

The Moon disc moved visibly as the _Planetara_ lurched. The vault ofthe heavens was slowly swinging. 

Miko ripped out a heavy oath. "Haljan! What is this?"

The heavens turned with a giant swoop. The Moon was over us. It swungin a dizzying arc. Overhead, then back past our stern; under us, thenappearing over our bow. 

The _Planetara_ had turned over. Upending. Rotating, end over end. 

For a moment I think all of us in the turret stood and clung. The Moondisc, the Earth, Sun and all the stars were swinging past our windows. So horribly dizzying. The _Planetara_ seemed lurching and tumbling. But it was an optical effect only. I stared with grim determination atmy feet. The turret seemed to steady. 

Then I looked again. That horrible swoop of all the heavens! And theMoon, as it went past seemed expanded. We were falling! Out ofcontrol, with the Moon gravity pulling us down!

"That accursed Hahn--"

A moment only had passed. My fancy that the Moon disc was enlarged wasmerely the horror of my imagination. We had not fallen far enough forthat. 

But we were falling. Unless I could do something, we would crash uponthe Lunar surface. 

Anita, killed in this turret: the end of everything--every hope. 

Action came to me. I gasped, "Miko, you stay here! The controls aredead! You stay here and hold Anita--"

I ignored Moa's weapon. Snap thrust her away. 

"We're falling, you fool--let us alone!"

Miko gasped, "Can you--check us? What happened?"

"I don't know--"

I stood clinging. This dizzying whirl. From the audiphone gridConiston's voice sounded. 

"I say, Haljan, something's wrong. Hahn doesn't signal. "

The lookout in the forward tower was clinging to our window. On thedeck below our turret a member of the crew appeared, stood lurchingfor a moment, then shouted and ran, swaying, aimless. From the lowerhull corridors our grids sounded with the tramping of running steps. Panic among the crew was spreading over the ship. A chaos below deck. 

I pulled at the emergency switch again. Dead.... 

"Snap, we must get down. The signals. "

Coniston's voice came like a scream from the grid. "Hahn is dead. Thecontrols are broken!"

I shouted, "Miko, hold Anita! Come on, Snap!"

We clung to the ladders. Snap was behind me. "Careful, Gregg! GoodGod!"

This dizzying whirl. I tried not to look. The deck under me was now ablurred kaleidoscope of swinging patches of moonlight and shadow. 

We reached the deck. It seemed that from the turret Anita's voicefollowed us. "Be careful!"

Once inside the ship, our senses steadied. With the rotating, reelingheavens shut out, there were only the shouts and tramping steps of thepanic-stricken crew to mark that there was anything amiss. That, and apseudo sensation of lurching caused by the pulsing of gravity--a pullwhen the Moon was beneath our hull to combine its forces with ourmagnetizers; a lightening, when it was overhead. A throbbing, pendulumlurch!

We ran down to the corridor incline. A white-faced member of the crewcame running up. 

"What's happened, Haljan? What's happened?"

"We're falling!" I gripped him. "Get below. Come with us. "

But he jerked away from me. "Falling?"

A steward came running. "Falling? My God!"

Snap swung at them. "Get ahead of us! The manual controls--our onlychance--we need all you men at the compressor pumps!"

But it was instinct to try and get on deck, as though here below wewere rats caught in a trap. The men tore away from us and ran. Theirshouts of panic resounded through the dim, blue lit corridors. 

Coniston came lurching from the control room. "I say--falling! Haljan, my God, look!"

Hahn was sprawled at the gravity plate switchboard. Sprawled, headdown. Dead. Killed? Or a suicide?

I bent over him. His hands gripped the main switch. He had ripped itloose. And his left hand had reached and broken the fragile line oftubes that intensified the current of the pneumatic plate-shifters. Asuicide? With his last frenzy, determined to kill us all? Why?

Then I saw that Hahn had been killed! Not a suicide! In his hand hegripped a small segment of black fabric, a piece torn from aninvisible cloak!

Snap was rigging the hand compressors. If he could get the pressureback in the tanks.... 

I swung on Coniston. "You armed?"

"Yes. " He was white-faced and confused, but not in a panic. He showedme his heat ray cylinder. "What do you want me to do?"

"Round up the crew. Get all you can. Bring them here to man thepumps. "

He dashed away. Snap called after him, "Kill them if they argue!"

Miko's voice sounded from the turret call grid: "Falling! Haljan, youcan see it now! Check us!"

Desperate moments. Or was it an hour? Coniston brought the men. Hestood over them with menacing weapon. 

We had all the pumps going. The pressure rose a little in the tanks. Enough to shift a bow plate. I tried it. The plate slowly clicked intoa new combination. A gravity repulsion just in the bow-tip. 

I signaled Miko. "Have we stopped swinging?"

"No. But slower. "

I could feel it, that lurch of the gravity. But not steady now. Alimp. The tendency of our bow was to stay up. 

"More pressure, Snap. "

One of the crew rebelled, tried to bolt from the room. 

Coniston shot him down. 

I shifted another bow plate. Then two in the stern. The stern platesseemed to move more readily than the others. 

"Run all the stern plates, " Snap advised. 

I tried it. The lurching stopped. Miko called, "We're bow down. Falling!"

But not falling free. The Moon gravity pull on us was more than halfneutralized. 

"I'll go up, Snap, and try the engines. You don't mind staying downhere? Executing my signals?"

"You idiot!" He gripped my shoulders. His eyes were gleaming, his facehaggard, but his pale lips twitched with a smile. 

"Maybe it's good-bye, Gregg. We'll fall--fighting. "

"Yes. Fighting. Coniston, you keep the pressure up. "

With the broken tubes it took nearly all the pressure to maintain thefew plates I had shifted. One slipped back to neutral. Then the pumpsgained on it, and it shifted again. 

I dashed up to the deck. Oh, the Moon was so close now! So horriblyclose! The deck shadows were still. Through the forward bow windowsthe Moon surface glared up at us. 

Those last horrible minutes were a blur. And there was always Anita'sface. She left Miko. Faced with death, he sat clinging. Moa too, satapart--staring. 

And Anita crept to me. "Gregg, dear one. The end.... "

I tried the electronic engines from the stern, setting them inreverse. The streams of their light glowed from the stern, forwardalong our hull, and flared down from our bow toward the Lunar surface. But no atmosphere was here to give resistance. Perhaps the electronicstreams checked our fall a little. The pumps gave us pressure just inthe last minutes, to slide a few of the hull plates. But our bowstayed down. We slid, like a spent rocket falling. 

I recall the horror of that expanding Lunar surface. The maw ofArchimedes yawning. A blob. Widening to a great pit. Then I saw it wasto one side, rushing upward. 

"Gregg, dear one--good-bye. "

Her gentle arms about me. The end of everything for us. I recallmurmuring, "Not falling free, Anita. Some hull plates are set. "

My dials showed another plate shifting, checking us a little further. Good old Snap!

I calculated the next best plate to shift. I tried it. Slid it over. 

Then everything faded but the feeling of Anita's arms around me. 

"Gregg, dear one--"

The end of everything for us.... 

There was an up-rush of gray-black rock. 

XXII

I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt--a painshooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could notseem to move my left arm. Then I moved it and it hurt. I was lyingtwisted. I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was over. Iwas not dead. Anita--

She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in the silentblur--a soft mellow Earthlight filtering in the window. The weight onme was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way acrossmy lap. 

Not dead! Thank God, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, andI lifted her. The Earthlight glowed on her pale face. 

"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive. "

I held her as though all of life's turgid dangers were powerless totouch us. 

But in the silence my floating senses were brought back to reality bya faint sound forcing itself upon me. A little hiss. The faintestmurmuring breath like a hiss. Escaping air!

I cast off Anita's clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"

For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of ourembrace. But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken andour precious air was hissing out. 

Full reality came to me. I was not seriously injured. I found I couldmove freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, butthey were better in a moment. 

And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not herown. 

Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giantfigure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. Awidening pool. 

Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. Thissoundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its twomotionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I wereghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to the_Planetara's_ deck. It lay dashed against the dome side. 

The deck was aslant. A litter of wreckage! A broken human figureshowed--one of the crew who, at the last, must have come running up. The forward observation tower was down on the chart room roof: in itsmetal tangle I thought I could see the legs of the tower lookout. 

So this was the end of the brigands' adventure. The _Planetara's_ lastvoyage! How small and futile are humans' struggles. Miko's daringenterprise--so villainous--brought all in a few moments to this silenttragedy. The _Planetara_ had fallen thirty thousand miles. But why?What had happened to Hahn? And where was Coniston, down in this brokenhull?

And Snap! I thought suddenly of Snap. 

I clutched at my wandering wits. This inactivity was death. Theescaping air hissed in my ears. Our precious air, escaping away intothe vacant desolation of the Lunar emptiness. Through one of thetwisted, slanting dome windows a rocky spire was visible. The_Planetara_ lay bow down, wedged in a jagged cradle of Lunar rock. Amiracle that the hull and dome had held together. 

"Anita, we must get out of here!"

"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg. "

She was staring at the fallen Miko and Moa. She shuddered and turnedaway and gripped me. "In the forward storage room, by the port of theemergency exit. "

If only the exit locks would operate! We must find Snap and get out ofhere. Good old Snap! Would we find him lying dead?

We climbed from the slanting, fallen turret, over the wreckage of thelittered deck. It was not difficult. A lightness was upon us. The_Planetara's_ gravity-magnetizers were dead; this was only the lightMoon gravity pulling us. 

"Careful, Anita. Don't jump too freely. "

We leaped along the deck. The hiss of the escaping pressure was like aclanging gong of warning to tell us to hurry. The hiss of death soclose!

"Snap--" I murmured. 

"Oh, Gregg, I pray we may find him alive!"

With a fifteen foot leap we cleared a pile of broken deck chairs. Aman lay groaning near them. I went back with a rush. Not Snap! Asteward. He had been a brigand, but he was a steward to me now. 

"Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here The air isescaping!"

But he sank back and lay still. No time to find if I could help him:there was Anita and Snap to save. 

We found a broken entrance to one of the descending passages. I flungthe debris aside and cleared it. Like a giant of strength with onlythis Moon gravity holding me, I raised a broken segment ofsuperstructure and heaved it back. 

Anita and I dropped ourselves down the sloping passage. The interiorof the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage lightwas still burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckageeverywhere but the double dome and hull shell had withstood the shock. Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat, like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling oneverything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would soon behere in these wrecked corridors. The end of the _Planetara_. 

We prowled like ghouls. We did not see Coniston. Snap had been by theshifter pumps. We found him in the oval doorway. He lay sprawled. Dead? No, he moved. He sat up before we could get to him. He seemedconfused, but his senses clarified with the movement of our figuresover him. 

"Gregg! Why, Anita!"

"Snap! You're all right? We struck--the air is escaping. "

He pushed me away. He tried to stand. "I'm all right. I was up aminute ago. Gregg, it's getting cold. Where is she? I had herhere--she wasn't killed. I spoke to her. "

Irrational!

"Snap!" I held him. Shook him. "Snap, old fellow!"

He said normally, "Easy, Gregg. I'm all right. "

Anita gripped him. "Who, Snap?"

"She--there she is.... "

Another figure was here! On the grid floor by the door oval. A figurepartly shrouded in a broken invisible cloak and hook. An invisiblecloak! I saw a white face with opened eyes regarding me. 

"Venza!" I bent down. "You!"

Venza here? Why ... How ... My thoughts swept on. Venza here--dying?Her eyes closed. But she murmured to Anita, "Where is he? I want him. "

I murmured impulsively, "Here I am, Venza dear. " Gently, as one wouldspeak with gentle sympathy to humor the dying. "Here I am, Venza. "

But it was only the confusion of the shock upon her. And it was uponus all. She pushed at Anita. "I want him. " She saw me; this whimsicalVenus girl! Even here as we gathered, all of us blurred by shock, confused in the dim, wrecked ship with the chill of death coming--evenhere she could jest. Her pale lips smiled. 

"You, Gregg. I'm not hurt--I don't think I'm hurt. " She managed to getherself up on one elbow. "Did you think I wanted you with my dyingbreath? What conceit! Not you, Handsome Haljan! I was calling Snap. "

He was down to her. "We're all right, Venza. It's over. We must getout of the ship. The air is escaping. "

We gathered in the oval doorway. We fought the confusion of panic. 

"The exit port is this way. "

Or was it? I answered Snap, "Yes, I think so. "

The ship suddenly seemed a stranger to me. So cold. So vibrationless. Broken lights. These slanting wrecked corridors. With the ventilatingfans stilled, the air was turning fetid. Chilling. And thinning, withescaping pressure, rarefying so that I could feel the grasp of it inmy lungs and the pin-pricks in my cheeks. 

We started off. Four of us, still alive in this silent ship of death. My blurred thoughts tried to cope with it all. Venza here. Iremembered how she had bade me create a diversion when the womenpassengers were landing on the asteroid. She had carried out herpurpose! In the confusion she had not gone ashore. A stowaway here. She had secured the cloak. Prowling, to try and help us, she had comeupon Hahn. Had seized his ray cylinder and struck him down, and beenherself knocked unconscious by his dying lunge, which also had brokenthe tubes and wrecked the _Planetara_. And Venza, unconscious, hadbeen lying here with the mechanism of her cloak still operating, sothat we did not see her when we came and found why Hahn did not answermy signals. 

"It's here, Gregg. "

Snap and I lifted the pile of Moon equipment to which she referred. We located four suits and helmets and the mechanisms to operate them. 

"More are in the chart room, " Anita said. 

But we needed no others. I robed Anita and showed her the mechanisms. Snap was helping Venza. We were all stiff from the cold; but withinthe suits and their pulsing currents, the blessed warmth came again. 

The helmets had ports through which food and drink could be taken. Istood with my helmet ready. Anita, Venza and Snap were bloated andgrotesque beside me. We had found food and water here, assembled inportable cases which the brigands had prepared. Snap lifted them, andsignaled to me he was ready. 

My helmet shut out all sounds save my own breathing, my poundingheart, and the murmur of the mechanism. The warmth and pure air weregood. 

We reached the hull port locks. They operated! We went through in thelight of the headlamps over our foreheads. 

I closed the locks after us: an instinct to keep the air in the shipfor the other trapped humans lying in there. 

We slid down the sloping side of the _Planetara_. We were unweighted, irrationally agile with this slight gravity. I fell a dozen feet andlanded with barely a jar. 

We were out on the Lunar surface. A great sloping ramp of cragsstretched down before us. Gray-black rock tinged with Earthlight. TheEarth hung amid the stars in the blackness overhead like a hugesection of a glowing yellow ball. 

This grim, desolate, silent landscape! Beyond the ramp, fifty feetbelow us, a tumbled naked plain stretched away into blurred distance. But I could see mountains off there. Behind us, the towering, frowningrampart-wall of Archimedes loomed against the sky. 

I had turned to look back at the _Planetara_. She lay broken, wedgedbetween spires of upstanding rock. A few of her lights still gleamed. The end of the _Planetara_!

The three grotesque figures of Anita, Venza and Snap had started off. Hunchback figures with the tanks mounted on their shoulders. I boundedand caught them. I touched Snap. We made audiphone contact. 

"Which way do you think?" I demanded. 

"I think this way, down the ramp. Away from Archimedes, toward themountains. It shouldn't be too far. "

"You run with Venza. I'll hold Anita. "

He nodded. "But we must keep together, Gregg. "

We could soon run freely. Down the ramp, out over the tumbled plain. Bounding, grotesque, leaping strides. The girls were more agile, moreskillful. They were soon leading us. The Earth shadows of theirfigures leaped beside them. The _Planetara_ faded into the distancebehind us. Archimedes stood back there. Ahead, the mountains camecloser. 

An hour perhaps. I lost track of time. Occasionally we stopped torest. Were we going toward the Grantline camp? Would they see our tinywaving headlights?

Another interval. Then far ahead of us on the ragged plain, lightsshowed! Moving, tiny spots of light! Headlights on helmeted figures!

We ran, monstrously leaping. A group of figures were off there. Grantline's party? Snap gripped me. 

"Grantline! We're safe, Gregg! Safe!"

He took his bulb light from his helmet; we stood in a group while hewaved it. A semaphore signal. 

"_Grantline?_"

And the answer came, "_Yes. You, Dean?_"

Their personal code. No doubt of this--it was Grantline, who had seenthe _Planetara_ fall and had come to help us. 

I stood then with my hand holding Anita. And I whispered, "It'sGrantline! We're safe, Anita, my darling!"

Death had been so close! Those horrible last minutes on the_Planetara_ had shocked us, marked us. We stood trembling. AndGrantline and his men came bounding up, weird, inflated figures. 

A helmeted figure touched me. I saw through the helmetpane the visageof a stern-faced, square-jawed young man. 

"Grantline? Johnny Grantline?"

"Yes, " said his voice at my ear-grid. "I'm Grantline. You're Haljan?Gregg Haljan?"

They crowded around us. Gripped us, to hear our explanations. 

Brigands! It was amazing to Johnny Grantline. But the menace was overnow, over as soon as Grantline realized its existence. 

We stood for a brief time discussing it. Then I drew apart, leavingSnap with Grantline. And Anita joined me. I held her arm so that wehad audiphone contact. 

"Anita, mine. "

"Gregg--dear one!"

Murmured nothings which mean so much to lovers!

As we stood in the fantastic gloom of Lunar desolation, with theblessed Earthlight on us, I sent up a prayer of thankfulness. Not thatthe enormous treasure was saved. Not that the attack upon Grantlinehad been averted. But only that Anita was given back to me. In momentsof greatest emotion the human mind individualizes. To me, there wasonly Anita. 

Life is very strange! The gate to the shining garden of our loveseemed swinging wide to let us in. Yet I recall that a vague fearstill lay on me. A premonition?

I felt a touch on my arm. A bloated helmet visor was thrust near myown. I saw Snap's face peering at me. 

"Grantline thinks we should return to the _Planetara_. Might find someof them alive. "

Grantline touched me. "It's only human--"

"Yes, " I said. 

We went back. Some ten of us--a line of grotesque figures boundingwith slow, easy strides over the jagged, rock-strewn plain. Our lightsdanced before us. 

The _Planetara_ came at last into view. My ship. Again that pang sweptme as I saw her. This, her last resting place. She lay here, in heropen tomb, shattered, broken, unbreathing. The lights on her wereextinguished. The Erentz system had ceased to pulse--the heart of thedying ship, for a while beating faintly, but now at rest. 

We left the two girls with some of Grantline's men at the admissionport. Snap, Grantline and I, with three others, went inside. Therestill seemed to be air, but not enough so that we dared remove ourhelmets. 

It was dark inside the wrecked ship. The corridors were black. Thehull control rooms were dimly with Earthlight straggling through thewindows. 

This littered tomb. Cold and silent with death. We stumbled over afallen figure. A member of the crew. Grantline straightened fromexamining it. 

"Dead, " he said. 

Earthlight fell on the horrible face. Puffed flesh, bloated red fromthe blood which had oozed from its pores in the thinning air. I lookedaway. 

We prowled further. Hahn lay dead in the pump room. The body ofConiston should have been near here. We did not see it. We climbed upto the slanting, littered deck. The air up here had all almost hissedaway. 

Again Grantline touched me. "That the turret?"

No wonder he asked me! The wreckage was all so formless. 

"Yes. "

We climbed after Snap into the broken turret room. We passed the bodyof that steward who just at the end had appealed to me and I had leftdying. The legs of the forward lookout still poked grotesquely up fromthe wreckage of the observatory tower where it lay smashed downagainst the roof of the chart room. 

We shoved ourselves into the turret. What was this? No bodies here!The giant Miko was gone! The pool of blood lay congealed into a frozendark splotch on the metal grid. 

And Moa was gone! They had not been dead. Had dragged themselves outof here, fighting desperately for life. We would find them somewherearound here. 

But we did not. Nor Coniston. I recalled what Anita had said: othersuits and helmets had been here in the nearby chart room. The brigandshad taken them, and food and water doubtless, and escaped from theship, following us through the lower admission ports only a fewminutes after we were gone. 

We made careful search of the entire ship. Eight of the bodies whichshould have been here were missing: Miko, Moa, Coniston and five ofthe crew. 

We did not find them outside. They were hiding near here, no doubt, more willing to take their chances than to yield to us now. But how, in all this Lunar desolation, could we hope to locate them?

"No use, " said Grantline. "Let them go. If they want death, well, theydeserve it. "

But we were saved. Then, as I stood there, realization leaped at me. Saved? Were we not indeed fatuous fools?

In all these emotion-swept moments since we had encountered Grantline, memory of that brigand ship coming from Mars had never once occurredto Snap and me!

I told Grantline now. He stared at me. 

"What!"

I told him again. It would be here in eight days. Fully manned andarmed. 

"But Haljan, we have almost no weapons! All my _Comet's_ space wastaken with equipment and the mechanisms for my camp. I can't signalEarth! I was depending on the _Planetara_!"

It surged upon us. The brigand menace past? We were blindlycongratulating ourselves on our safety! But it would be eight days ormore before in distant Ferrok-Shahn the nonarrival of the _Planetara_would cause any real comment. No one was searching for us--no one wasworried over us. 

No wonder the crafty Miko was willing to take his chances out here inthe Lunar wilds! His ship, his reinforcements, his weapons were comingrapidly!

And we were helpless. Almost unarmed. Marooned here on the Moon!

XXIII

"Try it again, " Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise someEarth station! Chance it! Use the power--run it up full. Chance it!"

We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty man, withblanched grim face, sat at his senders. The Grantline crew shovedclose around us. There were very few observers in the high-poweredEarth stations who knew that an exploring party was on the Moon. Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had sanctioned theexpedition and Halsey and his confr�res in the Detective Bureau werenot anticipating trouble at this point. The _Planetara_ was supposedto be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn. It was when she was due toreturn that Halsey would be alert. 

Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of safety. He cut downthe lights; the telescope intensifiers and television were completelydisconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so that theair here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew fetid. All, to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might survive. 

Even so, it was strained to the danger point. Our heat was radiatingaway; the deadly chill of space crept in. 

"Again!" ordered Grantline. 

The duty man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence, the tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotatingprisms, intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisiblebeam, it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overheaddome and into space. 

"Enough, " said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that fornow. "

It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath inthe chill darkness. The lights came on again; the Erentz motorsaccelerated to normal. The strain on the walls eased up, and the roombegan warming. 

Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power tofind out. Our receivers were disconnected. If an answering signalcame, we could not know it. One of the men said:

"Let's assume they read us. " He laughed, but it was a high-pitched, tense laugh. "We don't dare even use the telescope or television. Orelectron radio. Our rescue ship might be right overhead, visible tothe naked eye, before we see it. Three days more--that's what I'llgive it. "

But the three days passed and no rescue ship came. The Earth wasalmost at the full. We tried signaling again. Perhaps it gotthrough--we did not know. But our power was weaker now. The wall ofone of the rooms sprang a leak, and the men were hours repairing it. Idid not say so, but never once did I feel that our signals were readon Earth. Those cursed clouds! The Earth almost everywhere seemed tohave poor visibility. 

Four of our eight days of grace were all too soon passed. The brigandship must be half way here by now. 

They were busy days for us. If we could have captured Miko and hisband, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasureinsulated, and our camp in darkness, the arriving brigand ship mightnever find us. But Miko knew our location; he would signal hisoncoming ship when it was close and lead it to us. 

During those three days--and the days which followed them--Grantlinesent out searching parties. But it was unavailing. Miko, Moa andConiston, with their five underlings, could not be found. 

We had at first hoped that the brigands might have perished. But thatwas soon dispelled! I went--about the third day--with the party thatwas sent to the _Planetara_. We wanted to salvage some of itsequipment, its unbroken power units. And Snap and I had worked out anidea which we thought might be of service. We needed some of the_Planetara's_ smaller gravity plate sections. Those in Grantline'swrecked little _Comet_ had stood so long that their radiations hadgone dead. But the _Planetara's_ were still working. 

Our hope that Miko might have perished was dashed. He too had returnedto the _Planetara_! The evidence was clear before us. The vessel wasstripped of all its power units save those which were dead anduseless. The last of the food and water stores were taken. The weaponsin the chart room--the Benson curve lights, projectors and heatrays--had vanished!

Other days passed. Earth reached the full and was waning. The fourteenday Lunar night was in its last half. No rescue ship came from Earth. We had ceased our efforts to signal, for we needed all our power tomaintain ourselves. The camp would be in a state of siege before long. That was the best we could hope for. We had a few short-range weapons, such as Bensons, heat-rays and projectors. A few hundred feet ofeffective range was the most any of them could obtain. Theheat-rays--in giant form one of the most deadly weapons on Earth--wereonly slowly efficacious on the airless Moon. Striking an intenselycold surface, their warming radiations were slow to act. Even in ablasting heat beam a man in his Erentz helmet-suit could withstand theray for several minutes. 

We were, however, well equipped with explosives. Grantline had broughta large supply for his mining operations, and much of it was stillunused. We had, also, an ample stock of oxygen fuses, and a variety ofoxygen light flares in small, fragile glass globes. 

It was to use these explosives against the brigands that Snap and Iwere working out our scheme with the gravity plates. The brigand shipwould come with giant projectors and some thirty men. If we could holdout against them for a time, the fact that the _Planetara_ was missingwould bring us help from Earth. 

Another day. A tenseness was upon all of us, despite the absorption ofour feverish activities. To conserve power, the camp was almost dark, we lived in dim, chill rooms, with just a few weak spots of lightoutside to mark the watchmen on their rounds. We did not use thetelescope, but there was scarcely an hour when one or the other of themen was not sitting on a cross-piece up in the dome of the littleinstrument room, casting a tense, searching gaze through his glassesinto the black, starry firmament. A ship might appear at any timenow--a rescue ship from Earth, or the brigands from Mars. 

Anita and Venza through these days could aid us very little save bytheir cheering words. They moved about the rooms, trying to inspireus; so that all the men, when they might have been humanly sullen andcursing their fate, were turned to grim activity, or grim laughter, making a joke of the coming siege. The morale of the camp now wasperfect. An improvement indeed over the inactivity of their formerpeaceful weeks!

Grantline mentioned it to me. "Well put up a good fight, Haljan. Thesefellows from Mars will know they've had a task before they ever sailoff with the treasure. "

I had many moments alone with Anita. I need not mention them. Itseemed that our love was crossed by the stars, with an adverse fatedooming it. And Snap and Venza must have felt the same. Among the men, we were always quietly, grimly active. But alone.... I came upon Snaponce with his arms around the little Venus girl. I heard him say:

"Accursed luck! That you and I should find each other too late, Venza. We could have a lot of fun in Greater New York together. "

"Snap, we will!"

As I turned away, I murmured, "And pray God, so will Anita and I. "

The girls slept together in a small room of the main building. Oftenduring the time of sleep, when the camp was stilled except for thenight watch, Snap and I would sit in the corridor near the girls'door, talking of that time when we would all be back on our blessedEarth. 

Our eight days of grace were passed. The brigand ship was due--now, tomorrow, or the next day. 

I recall, that night, my sleep was fitfully uneasy. Snap and I had acubby together. We talked, and made futile plans. I went to sleep, butawakened after a few hours. Impending disaster lay heavily upon me. But there was nothing abnormal nor unusual in that!

Snap was asleep. I was restless, but I did not have the heart toawaken him. He needed what little repose he could get. I dressed, leftour cubby and wandered out into the corridor of the main building. 

It was cold in the corridor, and gloomy with the weak blue light. Aninterior watchman passed me. 

"All as usual, Haljan. "

"Nothing in sight?"

"No. They're watching. "

I went through the connecting corridor to the adjacent building. Inthe instrument room several of the men were gathered, scanning thevault overhead. 

"Nothing, Haljan. "

I stayed with them awhile, then wandered away. An outside man met menear the admission lock chambers of the main building. The duty manhere sat at his controls, raising the air pressure in the locksthrough which the outside watchman was coming. The relief sat here inhis bloated suit, with his helmet on his knees. It was Wilks. 

"Nothing yet, Haljan. I'm going up to the peak of the crater to see ifanything is in sight. I wish that damnable brigand ship would come andget it over with. "

Instinctively we all spoke in half whispers, the tenseness bearing inon us. 

The outside man was white and grim, but he grinned at Wilks. He triedthe familiar jest: "Don't let the Earthlight get you!"

Wilks went out through the ports--a process of no more than a minute. I wandered away again through the corridors. 

I suppose it was half an hour later that I chanced to be gazingthrough a corridor window. The lights along the rocky cliff were tinyblue spots. The head of the stairway leading down to the abyss of thecrater floor was visible. The bloated figure of Wilks was just comingup. I watched him for a moment making his rounds. He did not stop toinspect the lights. That was routine. I thought it odd that he passedthem. 

Another minute passed. The figure of Wilks went with slow bounds overtoward the back of the ledge where the glassite shelter housed thetreasure. It was all dark off there. Wilks went into the gloom, butbefore I lost sight of him, he came back. As though he had changed hismind, he headed for the foot of the staircase which led up the cliffto where, at the peak of the little crater, five hundred feet aboveus, the narrow observatory was perched. He climbed with easy bounds, the light on his helmet bobbing in the gloom. 

I stood watching. I could not tell why there seemed to be somethingqueer about Wilks' actions. But I was struck with it, nevertheless. Iwatched him disappear over the summit. 

Another minute went by. Wilks did not reappear. I thought I could makeout his light on the platform up there. Then abruptly a tiny whitebeam was waving from the observatory platform! It flashed once ortwice, then was extinguished. And now I saw Wilks plainly, standing inthe Earthlight, gazing down. 

Queer actions! Had the Earthlight touched him? Or was that a localsignal call which he sent out? Why should Wilks be signaling? What washe doing with a hand helio? Our watchmen, I knew, had no reason tocarry one. 

And to whom could Wilks be signaling? To whom, across this Lunardesolation? The answer stabbed at me: to Miko's band!

I waited less than a moment. No further light. Wilks was still upthere!

I went back to the lock entrance. Spare helmets and suits were herebeside the keeper. He gazed at me inquiringly. 

"I'm going out, Franck. Just for a minute. " It struck me that perhapsI was a meddlesome fool. Wilks, of all of Grantline's men, was, Iknew, most in his commander's trust. The signal could have been somepart of this night's ordinary routine, for all I knew. 

I was hastily donning an Erentz suit. I added, "Let me out. I just gotthe idea Wilks is acting strangely. " I laughed. "Maybe the Earthlighthas touched him. "

With my helmet on, I went through the locks. Once outside, with theouter panel closed behind me, I dropped the weights from my belt andshoes and extinguished my helmet light. 

Wilks was still up there. Apparently he had not moved. I bounded offacross the ledge to the foot of the ascending stairs. Did Wilks see mecoming? I could not tell. As I approached the stairs the platform wascut off from my line of vision. 

I mounted with bounding leaps. In my flexible gloved hand I carried myonly weapon, a small projector with firing caps for use in thisoutside near-vacuum. 

I held the weapon behind me. I would talk to Wilks first. I wentslowly up the last hundred feet. Was Wilks still up there? The summitwas bathed in Earthlight. The little metal observatory platform cameinto view above my head. 

Wilks was not there. Then I saw him standing on the rocks nearby, motionless. But in a moment he saw me coming. 

I waved my left hand with a gesture of greeting. It seemed to me thathe started, made as though to leap away, and then changed his mind. Isailed from the head of the staircase with a twenty foot leap andlanded lightly beside him. I gripped his arm for audiphone contact. 

"Wilks!"

Through my visor his face was visible. I saw him and he saw me. And Iheard his voice:

"You, Haljan. How nice!"

It was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston. 

XXIV

The duty man at the exit locks stood at his window and watched mecuriously. He saw me go up the spider stairs. He could see the figurehe thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw me join Wilks, sawus locked together in combat. 

For a brief instant the duty man stood amazed. There were twofantastic figures, fighting at the very brink of the cliff. They weresmall, dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayedin and out of the shadows. The duty man could not tell one from theother. To him it was Haljan and Wilks, fighting to the death!

The duty man sprang into action. An interior siren call was on theinstrument panel near him. He rang it frantically. 

The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them. 

"What's this? Good God, Franck!"

They had seen the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff. 

Grantline stood stricken with amazement. "That's Wilks!"

"And Haljan, " the duty man gasped. "He went out--something wrong withWilks' actions--"

The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men, awakened fromsleep, ran out into the corridors shouting questions. 

"An attack?"

"Is it an attack?"

"The brigands?"

But it was Wilks and Haljan in a fight up there on the cliff. The mencrowded at the bull's-eye windows. 

And over all the confusion the alarm siren, with no one thinking toshut it off, was screaming. 

Grantline, momentarily stricken, stood gazing. One of the figuresbroke away from the other, bounded up to the summit from the stairplatform to which they had both fallen. The other followed. Theylocked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed thatthey would go over; then they surged back, momentarily out of sight. 

Grantline found his wits. "Stop them! I'll go out and stop them! Whatfools!"

He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits. "Cut off that siren!"

Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty man called from thewindow, "Still at it, the fools. By the infernal--they'll killthemselves!"

"Franck, let me out. "

"I'll go with you, Commander. " But the volunteer was not equipped. Grantline would not wait. 

The duty man turned to his panel. The volunteer shoved a weapon atGrantline. 

Grantline jammed on his helmet, took the weapon. 

He moved the few steps into the air chamber which was the first of thethree pressure locks. Its interior door panel swung open for him. Butthe door did not close after him!

Cursing the man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he turned tothe corridor. The duty man came running. 

Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell--"

"Broken! Dead!"

"What!"

"Smashed from outside, " gasped the duty man. "Look there--my tubes--"

The control tubes of the ports had flashed into a short circuit andburned out. The admission ports would not open!

"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside!"

There was no way now of getting through the pressure locks. The doors, the entire pressure lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered withfrom outside?

As if to answer Grantline's question there came a chorus of shoutsfrom the men at the corridor windows. 

"Commander! By God--look!"

A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit andhelmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurkingat the port entrance, had ripped out the wires there. 

It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and madeoff with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see itvanish around the building corner. 

It was a giant figure, larger than an Earth man. A Martian?

 * * * * *

Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were stillfighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two. 

A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever, Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don someof the other suits, and called for some of the hand projectors. 

But he could not get out through these main admission ports. He couldhave forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure changingmechanism broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. Arush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was, noone could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it. 

Grantline was shouting, "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside!The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants togo with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit. "

But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline wasthere. It was a smaller two-lock gateway of manual control, so thatthe person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor atthe other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! Thelever would not open the panels!

Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? Atraitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had theskulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?

The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. Thenews spread. The camp was a prison! No one could get out!

And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks andHaljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up onthe observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again. Crazily swaying, bouncing, striking the rail. 

They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks, and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then theother. 

They rolled unheeding to the brink. Here, beyond the midway ledgewhich held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on downto the crater floor. 

The figures were rolling; then one shook himself loose; rose up, seized the other and, with desperate strength, shoved him--

The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtlingdown into the shadows past the camp level--down out of sight in thedarkness of the crater floor. 

Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the window gasped, "God!Was that Gregg who fell?"

No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp ledge, anotherhelmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the mainbuilding when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast, bounding toward the spider staircase. It began mounting. 

And now still another figure became visible--the giant Martian again. He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. Heevidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now wasstanding in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw too, no doubt, thesecond figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the windowthrough which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his back to thebuilding, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leapstoward the ascending staircase. 

Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing thestairs? And was the third figure Miko?

Grantline's mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn fromthem, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridorwas ringing with shouts. 

"We're imprisoned! Can't get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands areoutside!"

And then an interior audiphone blared a calling for Grantline. Someonein the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking. 

"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed--"

But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news. 

"Commander! The brigand ship!"

Miko's reinforcements had come. 

XXV

Not Wilks, but Coniston! His drawling, British voice:

"You, Gregg Haljan! How nice!"

His voice broke off as he jerked his arm from me. My hand with theprojector came up, but with a sweeping blow he struck my wrist. Theweapon dropped to the rocks. 

I fought instinctively, those first moments; my mind was whirling withthe shock of surprise. This was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston. 

It was an eerie combat. We swayed; shoving, kicking, wrestling. Hishold around my middle shut off the Erentz circulation; the warningbuzz rang in my ears, to mingle with the rasp of his curses. I flunghim off, and my Erentz motors recovered. He staggered away, but in agreat leap came at me again. 

I was taller, heavier and far stronger than Coniston. But I found himcrafty, and where I was awkward in handling my lightness, he seemedmore skillfully agile. 

I became aware that we were on the twenty foot square grid of theobservatory platform. It had a low metal railing. We surged againstit. I caught a dizzying glimpse of the abyss. Then it receded as webounced the other way. And then we fell to the grid. His helmet bashedagainst mine, striking as though butting with the side of his head topuncture my visor panel. His gloved fingers were clutching at mythroat. 

As we regained our feet, I flung him off, and bounded like a diver, head first, into him. He went backward, but skillfully kept his feetunder him, gripped me again and shoved me. 

I was tottering at the head of the staircase--falling. But I clutchedat him. We fell some twenty or thirty feet to be next lower spiderlanding. The impact must have dazed us both. I recall my vague ideathat we must have fallen down the cliff.... My air shut off--then itcame again. The roaring in my ears was stilled; my head cleared, and Ifound that we were on the landing, fighting. 

He presently broke away from me, bounded to the summit with me afterhim. In the close confines of the suit I was bathed in sweat andgasping. I had no thought to increase the oxygen control. I could notfind it; or it would not operate. 

I realized that I was fighting sluggishly, almost aimlessly. But sowas Coniston!

It seemed dreamlike. A phantasmagoria of blows and staggering steps. Anightmare with only the horrible vision of this goggled helmet alwaysbefore my eyes. 

It seemed that we were rolling on the ground, back on the summit. Theunshadowed Earthlight was clear and bright. The abyss was beside me. Coniston, rolling, was now on top, now under me, trying to shove meover the brink. It was all like a dream--as though I were asleep, dreaming that I did not have enough air. 

I strove to keep my senses. He was struggling to roll me over thebrink. God, that would not do! But I was so tired. One cannot fightwithout oxygen!

I suddenly knew that I had shaken him off and gained my feet. He rose, swaying. He was as tired, confused, as nearly asphyxiated as I. 

The brink of the abyss was behind us. I lunged, desperately shoving, avoiding his clutch. 

He went over, and fell soundlessly, his body whirling end over enddown into the shadows, far below. 

I drew back. My senses faded as I sank panting to the rocks. But withinactivity, my heart quieted. My respiration slowed. The Erentzcirculation gained on my poisoned air. It purified. 

That blessed oxygen! My head cleared. Strength came. I felt better. 

Coniston had fallen to his death. I was victor. I went to the brinkcautiously, for I was still dizzy. I could see, far down there on thecrater floor, a little patch of Earthlight in which a mashed humanfigure was lying. 

I staggered back again. A moment or two must have passed while I stoodthere on the summit, with my senses clearing and my strength renewedas the blood stream cleared in my veins. 

I was victor. Coniston was dead. I saw now, down on the lowerstaircase below the camp ledge, another goggled figure lying huddled. That was Wilks, no doubt. Coniston had probably caught him there, surprised him, killed him. 

My attention, as I stood gazing, went down to the camp buildings. Another figure was outside! It bounded along the ledge, reached thefoot of the stairs at the top of which I was standing. With agileleaps, it came mounting at me!

Another brigand! Miko? No, it was not large enough to be Miko. I wasstill confused. I thought of Hahn. But that was absurd: Hahn was inthe wreck of the _Planetara_. One of the stewards then.... 

The figure came up the staircase recklessly, to assail me. I took astep backward, bracing myself to receive this new antagonist. And thenI looked further down and saw Miko! Unquestionably he, for there wasno mistaking his giant figure. He was down on the camp ledge, runningtoward the foot of the stairs. 

I thought of my revolver. I turned to try and find it. I was awarethat the first of my assailants was at the stairhead. I swung back tosee what this oncoming brigand was doing. He was on the summit: with asailing leap he launched for me. I could have bounded away, but with alast look to locate the revolver, I braced myself for the shock. 

The figure hit me. It was small and light in my clutching arms. Irecall I saw that Miko was halfway up the stairs. I gripped myassailant. The audiphone contact brought a voice. 

"Gregg, is it you?"

It was Anita!

XXVI

"Gregg, you're safe!"

She had heard the camp corridors resounding with the shouts that Wilksand Haljan were fighting. She had come upon a suit and helmet by themanual emergency lock, had run out through the lock, confused, withher only idea to stop Wilks and me from fighting. Then she had seenone of us killed. Impulsively, barely knowing what she was doing, shemounted the stairs, frantic to find if I were alive. 

"Anita!"

Miko was coming fast! She had not seen him; for she had no thought ofbrigands--only the belief that either Wilks or I had been killed. 

But now, as we stood together on the rocks near the observatoryplatform, I could see the towering figure of Miko nearing the top ofthe stairs. 

"Anita, that's Miko! We must run!"

Then I saw my projector. It lay in a bowl-like depression quite nearus. I jumped for it. And as I tore loose from Anita, she leaped downafter me. It was a broken bowl in the rocks, some six feet deep. Itwas open on the side facing the stairs--a narrow, ravinelike gully, full of gray, broken, tumbled rock masses. The little gully waslittered with crags and boulders. But I could see out through it. 

Miko had come to the head of the stairs. He stopped there, his greatfigure etched sharply by the Earthlight. I think he must have knownthat Coniston was the one who had fallen over the cliff, as my helmetand Coniston's were different enough for him to recognize which waswhich. He did not know who I was, but he did know me for an enemy. 

He stood now at the summit, peering to see where we had gone. He wasno more than fifty feet from us. 

"Anita, lie down. "

I pulled her down on the rocks. I took aim with my projector. But Ihad forgotten our helmet lights. Miko must have seen them just as Ipulled the trigger. He jumped sidewise and dropped, but I could seehim moving in the shadows to where a jutting rock gave him shelter. Ifired, missing him again. 

I had stood up to take aim. Anita pulled me sharply down beside her. 

"Gregg, he's armed!"

It was his turn to fire. It came--the familiar vague flash of theparalyzing ray. It spat its tint of color on the rocks near us, butdid not reach us. 

A moment later, Miko bounded to another rock. 

Time passed--only a few seconds. I could not see Miko momentarily. Perhaps he was crouching; perhaps he had moved away again. He was, orhad been, on slightly higher ground than the bottom of our bowl. Itwas dim down here where we were lying, but I feared that any momentMiko might appear and strike at us. His ray at any short range wouldpenetrate our visor panes, even though our suits might temporarilyresist it. 

"Anita, it's too dangerous here!"

Had I been alone, I might perhaps have leapt up to lure Miko. But withAnita I did not dare chance it. 

"We've got to get back to camp, " I told her. 

"Perhaps he has gone--"

But he had not. We saw him again, out in a distant patch ofEarthlight. He was further from us than before, but on still higherground. We had extinguished our small helmet lights. But he knew wewere here and possibly he could see us. His projector flashed again. He was a hundred feet or more away now, and his weapon was of nolonger range than mine. I did not answer his fire, for I could nothope to hit him at such a distance, and the flash of my weapon wouldhelp him to locate us. 

I murmured to Anita, "We must get away. "

Yet how did I dare take Anita from these concealing shadows? Mikocould reach us so easily as we bounded away in plain view in theEarthlight of the open summit! We were caught, at bay in this littlebowl. 

The camp was not visible from here. But out through the broken gully, a white beam of light suddenly came up from below. 

_Haljan. _ It spelled the signal. 

It was coming from the Grantline instrument room, I knew. 

I could answer it with my helmet light, but I did not dare. 

"Try it, " urged Anita. 

We crouched where we thought we might be safe from Miko's fire. Mylittle light beam shot up from the bowl. It was undoubtedly visible tothe camp. 

_Yes, I am Haljan. Send us help. _

I did not mention Anita. Miko doubtless could read these signals. Theyanswered, _Cannot_--

I lost the rest of it. There came a flash from Miko's weapon. It gaveus confidence: he was unable to reach us at this distance. 

The Grantline beam repeated:

_Cannot come out. Ports broken. You cannot get in. Stay where you arefor an hour or two. We may be able to repair ports. _

I extinguished my light. What use was it to tell Grantline anythingfurther? Besides, my light was endangering us. But the Grantline beamspelled another message:

_Brigand ship is coming. It will be here before we can get out to you. No lights. We will try and hide our location. _

And the signal beam brought a last appeal:

_Miko and his men will divulge where we are unless you can stop them. _

The beam vanished. The lights of the Grantline camp made a faint glowthat showed above the crater edge. The glow died, as the camp now wasplunged into darkness. 

XXVII

We crouched in the shadows, the Earthlight filtering down to us. Theskulking figure of Miko had vanished; but I was sure he was out theresomewhere on the crags, lurking, maneuvering to where he could strikeus with his ray. Anita's metal-gloved hand was on my arm; in myear-diaphragm her voice sounded eager:

"What was the signal, Gregg?"

I told her everything. 

"Oh Gregg! The Martian ship coming!"

Her mind clung to that as the most important thing. But not so myself. To me there was only the realization that Anita was caught out here, almost at the mercy of Miko's ray. Grantline's men could not get outto help us, nor could I get Anita into the camp. 

She added, "Where do you suppose the ship is?"

"Twenty or thirty thousand miles up, probably. "

The stars and the Earth were visible over us. Somewhere up there, disclosed by Grantline's instruments but not yet discernible to thenaked eye, Miko's reinforcements were hovering. 

We lay for a moment in silence. It was horribly nerve straining. Mikocould be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire?Creeping--or would he make a swift, unexpected rush?

The feeling that he was upon us abruptly swept me. I jumped to myfeet, against Anita's effort to hold me. Where was he now? Was myimagination playing me tricks?... 

I sank back. "That ship should be here in a few hours. "

I told her what Grantline's signal had suggested; the ship washovering overhead. It must be fairly close; for Grantline's telescopehad revealed its identity as an outlaw flyer, unmarked by any of thestandard code identification lights. It was doubtless too far away asyet to have located the whereabouts of Grantline's camp. The Martianbrigands knew that we were in the vicinity of Archimedes, but no morethan that. Searching this glowing Moon surface, our tiny localsemaphore beams would certainly pass unnoticed. 

But as the brigand ship approached now--dropping close to Archimedesas it probably would--our danger was that Miko and his men would thensignal it, join it, and reveal the camp's location. And the brigandattack would be upon us!

I told this now to Anita. "The signal from Grantline said, '_Unlessyou can stop them. _'"

It was an appeal to me. But how could I stop them? What could I do, alone out here with Anita, to cope with this enemy?

Anita made no comment. 

I added, "That ship will land near Archimedes, within an hour or two. If Grantline can repair the ports, and I can get you inside.... "

Again she made no comment. Then suddenly she gripped me. "Gregg, lookthere!"

Out through the gully break in our bowl the figure of Miko showed! Hewas running. But not at us. Circling the summit, leaping to keephimself behind the upstanding crags. He passed the head of thestaircase; he did not descend it, but headed off along the summit ofthe crater rim. 

I stood up to watch him. "Where's he going!"

I let Anita stand up beside me, cautiously at first, for it occurredto me it might be a ruse to cover some other of Miko's men who mightbe lurking near. 

But the summit seemed clear. The figure of Miko was a thousand feetaway now. We could see the tiny blob of it bobbing over the rocks. Then it plunged down--not into the crater valley, but out toward theopen Moon surface. 

Miko had abandoned his attack on us. The reason seemed plain. He hadcome here from his encampment with Coniston ahead to lure and killWilks. When this was done, Coniston had flashed his signal to Miko, who was hiding nearby. 

It was not like the brigand leader to remain in the background. Mikowas no coward. But Coniston could impersonate Wilks, whereas Miko'sgiant stature at once would reveal his identity. Miko had been engagedin smashing the ports. He had looked up and seen me kill Coniston. Hehad come to assail me. And then he had read Grantline's message to me. It was his first knowledge that his ship was at hand. With the campexits inoperative, Grantline and his men were imprisoned. Miko hadmade an effort to kill me. He did not know my companion was Anita. Butthe effort was taking too long; with his ship at hand, it was Miko'sbest move to return to his own camp, rejoin his men, and await theiropportunity to signal the ship. 

At least, so I reasoned it. Anita and I stood alone. What could we do?

We went to the brink of the cliff. The unlighted Grantline buildingsshowed vaguely in the Earthlight. 

I said, "We'll go down. I'll leave you there. You can wait at theport. They'll repair it soon. "

"And what will you do, Gregg?"

I did not intend to tell her. "Hurry, Anita!"

"Gregg, let me go with you. "

She jerked away from me and bounded back up the stairs. I caught heron the summit. 

"Anita!"

"I'm going with you. "

"You're going to stay here. "

"I'm not!"

This exasperating controversy!

"Anita, please. "

"I'll be safer with you than waiting here, Gregg. " And she added, "Besides, I won't stay and you can't make me. "

We ran along the crater top. At its distant edge the lower plainspread before us. Far down, and far away on the distant brokensurface, the leaping figure of Miko showed. He plunged down the brokenouter slope, reached the level. Soon, as we ran, the little Grantlinecrater faded behind us. 

Anita ran more skillfully than I. Ten minutes or so passed. We hadseen Miko and the direction he was taking, but down here on the plainwe could no longer see him. It struck me that our chase waspurposeless and dangerous. Suppose Miko were to see us following him?Suppose he stopped and lay in ambush to fire at us as we came leapingheedlessly by?

"Anita, wait!"

I drew her down amid a group of tumbled boulders. And then abruptlyshe clung to me. 

"Gregg, I know what we can do! Gregg, don't tell me you won't let metry it!"

I listened to her plan. Incredible! Incredibly dangerous. Yet, as Ipondered it, the very daring of the scheme seemed the measure of itspossible success. The brigands would never imagine we could be sorash!

"But Anita--"

"Gregg, you're stupid!" It was her turn to be exasperated. 

But I was in no mood for daring. My mind was obsessed with Anita'ssafety. I had been planning that we might see the glow of Miko'sencampment and decide on some course of action. 

"But, Gregg, the safety of the treasure--of all the Grantline men.... "

"To the infernal with that! It's you, your safety--"

"My safety, then! If you put me in the camp and the brigands attack itand I am killed--what then? But this plan of mine, if we can do it, Gregg, will mean safety in the end for all of us. "

And it seemed possible. We crouched, discussing it. So daring a thing!

The brigand ship would come down near Archimedes. That was fifty milesfrom Grantline. The brigands from Mars would not have seen the darkGrantline buildings hidden in the little crater pit. They would waitfor Miko and his men to make their whereabouts known. 

Miko's encampment was ahead of us now, undoubtedly. We had beenfollowing him toward the Mare Imbrium. Or at least, we hoped so. Hewould signal his ship. But Anita and I, closer to it, would alsosignal it; and, posing as brigands, would join it!

"Remember, Gregg, I remain Anita Prince, George's sister. " Her voicetrembled as she mentioned her dead brother. "They know that George wasin Miko's pay, and I as his sister, will help to convince them. "

This daring scheme! If we could join the ship, we might be able topersuade its leader that Miko's distant signals were merely a ruse ofGrantline to lure the brigands in that direction. A long rangeprojector from the ship would kill Miko and his men as they cameforward to join it! And then we would falsely direct the brigands, lead them away from Grantline and the treasure. 

"Gregg, we must try it. "

Heaven help me, I yielded to her persuasion!

We turned at right angles and ran toward where the distant frowningwalls of Archimedes loomed against the starlit sky. 

XXVIII

The broken, shaggy ramparts of the giant crater rose above us. Wetoiled upward, out of the foothills, clinging now to the crags andpitted terraces of the main ascent. An hour had passed since we turnedfrom the borders of Mare Imbrium. Or was it two hours? I could nottell. I only know that we ran with desperate, frantic haste. 

Anita would not admit that she was tired. She was more skillful than Iin this leaping over the broken rock masses. Yet I felt that herslight strength must give out. It seemed miles up the undulatingslopes of the foothills with the black and white ramparts of thecrater close before us. 

And then the main ascent. There were places where, like smooth blackfrozen ice, the walls rose sheer. We avoided them, toiling aside, plunging into gullies, crossing pits where sometimes, perforce, wewent downwards, and then up again. Or sometimes we stood, hot andbreathless, upon ledges, recovering our strength, selecting the bestroute upward. 

In tumbled mass of rock, honeycombed everywhere with caves andpassages leading into impenetrable darkness, there were pits intowhich we might so easily have fallen; ravines to span, sometimes witha leap, sometimes by a long and arduous detour. 

Endless climb. We came to the ledge with the plains of the MareImbrium stretching out beneath us. We might have been upon this mainascent for an hour; the plains were far down, the broken surface downthere smoothed now by the perspective of height. And yet still aboveus the brooding circular wall went up into the sky. Ten thousand feetabove us. 

"You're tired, Anita. We'd better stay here. "

"No. If we could only get to the top--the ship may land on the otherside--they would see us. "

There was as yet no sign of the brigand ship. With every stop forrest we searched the starry vault. The Earth hung over us, flattenedbeyond the full. The stars blazed to mingle with the Earthlight andillumine these massive crags of the Archimedes walls. But no speckappeared to tell us that the ship was up there. 

We were on the curving side of the Archimedes wall which fronted theMare Imbrium to the north. The plains lay Like a great frozen sea, congealed ripples shining in the light of the Earth, with dark patchesto mark the hollows. Somewhere down there--six or eight thousand feetbelow us now--Miko's encampment lay concealed. We searched for lightsof it, but could see none. 

Had Miko rejoined his party, left his camp and come here likeourselves to climb Archimedes? Or was our assumption wholly wrong:perhaps the brigand ship would not land near here at all!

Sweeping around from the Mare Imbrium, the plains were less smooth. The little crater which concealed the Grantline camp was off in thecrater-scarred region beyond which the distant Apennines raised theirterraced walls. There was nothing to mark it from here. 

"Gregg, do you see anything up there?" She added, "There seems to be ablur. "

Her sight, sharper than mine, had picked it out. The descendingbrigand ship! A faintest, tiny blur against the stars, a few of themocculted as though an invisible shadow were upon them. A growingshadow, materializing into a blur--a blob, a shape faintly defined. Then sharper until we were sure of what we saw. It was the brigandship. It was dropping slowly, silently down. 

We crouched on the little ledge. A cave mouth was behind us. A gullywas beside us, a break in the ledge; and at our feet the sheer walldropped. 

We had extinguished our lights. We crouched, silently gazing up intothe stars. 

The ship, when we first distinguished it, was centered overArchimedes. We thought for a while that it might descend into thecrater. But it did not; it came sailing forward. 

I whispered into the audiphone, "It's coming over the crater. "

Her hand pressed my arm in answer. 

I recalled that when, from the _Planetara_, Miko had forced Snap tosignal this brigand band on Mars, Miko's only information as to thewhereabouts of the Grantline camp was that it lay between Archimedesand the Apennines. The brigands now were following that information. 

A tense interval passed. We could see the ship plainly above us now, agray-black shape among the stars up beyond the shaggy, towering craterrim. The vessel came upon a level keel, hull down. Slowly circling, looking for Miko's signal, no doubt, or for possible lights fromGrantline's camp. They might also be picking a landing place. 

We saw it soon as a cylindrical, cigarlike shape, rather smaller thanthe _Planetara_, but similar of design. It bore lights now. The portsof its hull were tiny rows of illumination, and the glow of lightunder its rounding upper dome was faintly visible. 

A bandit ship, no doubt of that. Its identification keel plate wasempty of official pass code lights. These brigands had not attemptedto secure official sailing lights when leaving Ferrok-Shahn. It wasunmistakably an outlaw ship. And here upon the deserted Moon there wasno need for secrecy. Its lights were openly displayed, that Miko mightsee it and join it. 

It went slowly past us, only a few thousand feet higher than ourlevel. We could see the whole outline of its pointed cylinder hull, with the rounded dome on top. And under the dome was its open deckwith a little cabin superstructure in the center. 

I thought for a moment that by some unfortunate chance it might landquite near us. But it went past. And then I saw that it was headingfor a level, plateaulike surface a few miles further on. It dropped, cautiously floating down. 

There was still no sign of Miko. But I realized that haste wasnecessary. We must be the first to join the brigand ship. 

I lifted Anita to her feet. "I don't think we should signal fromhere. "

"No. Miko might see it. "

We could not tell where he was. Down on the plains, perhaps? Or uphere, somewhere in these miles of towering rocks?

"Are you ready, Anita?"

"Yes, Gregg. "

I stared through the visors at her white solemn face. 

"Yes, I'm ready, " she repeated. 

Her hand pressure seemed to me suddenly like a farewell. We wereplunging rashly into what was destined to mean our death? Was this afarewell?

An instinct told me not to do this thing. Why, in a few hours I couldhave Anita back to the comparative safety of the Grantline camp. Theexit ports would doubtless be repaired by now. I could get her inside. 

She had bounded away from me, leaped down some thirty feet into thebroken gully, to cross it and then up on the other side. I stood foran instant watching her fantastic shape, with the great rounded, goggled, trunked helmet and the lump on her shoulders which held thelittle Erentz motors. Then I hurried after her. 

It did not take us long--two or three miles of circling along thegiant wall. The ship lay only a few hundred feet above our level. 

We stood at last on a buttelike pinnacle. The lights of the ship wereclose over us. And there were moving lights up there, tiny movingspots on the adjacent rocks. The brigands had come out, prowling aboutto investigate their location. 

No signal yet from Miko. But it might come at any moment. 

"I'll flash now, " I whispered. 

"Yes. "

The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the lamp from myhelmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by ashot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship?

Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with mytorch and flung its switch. My puny light beam shot up. I waved it, touched the ship with its faint glowing circle of illumination. 

They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there. 

I semaphored:

_I am from Miko. Do not fire. _

I used open universal code. In Martian first, and then in English. 

There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again. 

_This is Haljan, one of the_ Planetara. _George Prince's sister iswith me. There has been disaster to Miko. _

A small light beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliffbeside the ship. 

_Continue. _

I went steadily on: _Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killedbut me and Prince's sister. We want to join you. _

I flashed off my light. The answer came:

_Where is the Grantline Camp?_

_Near here. The Mare Imbrium. _

As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, some tenmiles or so from the crater base, a tiny signal light shot up. Anitasaw it and gripped me. 

"There is Miko's light!"

It spelled in Martian, _Come down. Land Mare Imbrium. _

Miko had seen the signaling up here and had joined it! He repeated, _Land Mare Imbrium. _

I flashed a protest up to the ship: _Beware. That is Grantline!Trickery. _

From the ship the summons came, _Come up. _

We had won this first encounter! Miko must have realized hisdisadvantage. His distant light went out. 

"Come, Anita. "

There was no retreat now. But again I seemed to feel in the pressureof her hand that vague farewell. Her voice whispered, "We must do ourbest, act our best to be convincing. "

In the white glow of a searchbeam we climbed the crags, reached thebroad upper ledge. Helmeted figures rushed at us, searched us forweapons, seized our helmet lights. The evil face of a giant Martianpeered at me through the visors. Two other monstrous, towering figuresseized Anita. 

We were shoved toward the port locks at the base of the ship's hull. Above the hull bulge I could see the grids of projectors mounted onthe dome side, and the figures of men standing on the deck, peeringdown at us. 

We went through the admission locks into a hull corridor, up anincline passage, and reached the lighted deck. The Martian brigandscrowded around us. 

XXIX

Anita's words echoed in my memory: "We must do our best to beconvincing. " It was not her ability that I doubted, as much as my own. She had played the part of George Prince cleverly, unmasked only by anevil chance. 

I steeled myself to face the searching glances of the brigands as theyshoved around us. This was a desperate game into which we had plunged. For all our acting, how easy it would be for some small chance thingabruptly to undo us! I realized it, and now, as I gazed into thepeering faces of these men from Mars, I cursed myself for the witlessrashness which had brought Anita into this!

The brigands--some ten or fifteen of them here on deck--stood in aring around us. They were all big men, nearly of a seven-foot average, dressed in leather jerkins and short leather breeches, with bare kneesand flaring leather boots. Piratical swaggering fellows, knife-bladesmingled with small hand projectors fastened to their belts. Gray, heavy faces, some with scraggly, unshaven beards. They plucked at us, jabbering in Martian. 

One of them seemed the leader. I said sharply, "Are you the commanderhere? You speak the Earth English?"

"Yes, " he said readily. "I am commander here. " He spoke English withthe same freedom and accent as Miko. "Is this George Prince's sister?"

"Yes. Her name is Anita Prince. Tell your men to take their hands offher. "

He waved his men away. They all seemed more interested in Anita thanin me. He added:

"I am _Set_ Potan. " He addressed Anita. "George Prince's sister? Youare called Anita? I have heard of you. I knew your brother--indeed, you look very much like him. "

He swept his plumed hat to the grid with a swaggering gesture ofhomage. A courtierlike fellow this, debonair as a Venus cavalier!

He accepted us. I realized that Anita's presence was extremelyvaluable in making us convincing. Yet there was about this Potan--aswith Miko--a disturbing suggestion of irony. I could not make him out. I decided that we had fooled him. Then I remarked the steely glitterof his eyes as he turned to me. 

"You were an officer of the _Planetara_?"

The insignia of my rank was visible on my white jacket collar whichshowed beneath the Erentz suit now that my helmet was off. 

"Yes. I was supposed to be. But a year ago I embarked upon thisadventure with Miko. "

He was leading us to his cabin. "The _Planetara_ wrecked? Miko dead?"

"And Hahn and Coniston. George Prince too. We are the only survivors. "

While we divested ourselves of the Erentz suits, at his command, Itold him briefly of the _Planetara's_ fall. All had been killed onboard, save Anita and me. We had escaped, awaited his coming. Thetreasure was here; we had located the Grantline camp, and were readyto lead him to it. 

Did he believe me? He listened quietly. He seemed not shocked at thedeath of his comrades. Nor yet pleased: merely imperturbable. 

I added with a sly, sidelong glance, "There were too many of us on the_Planetara_. The purser had joined us and many of the crew. And therewas Miko's sister, the _Setta_ Moa--too many. The treasure dividesbetter among less. "

An amused smile played on his thin gray lips. But he nodded. The fearwhich had leaped at me was allayed by his next words. 

"True enough, Haljan. He was a domineering fellow, Miko. A third of itall was for him alone. But now.... "

The third would go to this sub-leader, Potan! The implication wasobvious. 

I said, "Before we go any further, I can trust you for my share?"

"Of course. "

I figured that my very boldness in bargaining so prematurely wouldconvince him. I insisted, "Miss Prince will have her brother's share?"

Clever Anita! She put in swiftly, "Oh, I give no information until youpromise! We know the location of the Grantline camp, its weapons, itsdefences, the amount and location of the treasure. I warn you, if youdo not play us fair.... "

He laughed heartily. He seemed to like us. He spread his huge legs ashe lounged in his settle, and drank of the bowl which one of his menset before him. 

"Little tigress! Fear me not--I play fair!" He pushed two of the bowlsacross the table. "Drink, Haljan. All is well with us and I am glad toknow it. Miss Prince, drink my health as your leader. "

I waved it away from Anita. "We need all our wits; your strong Martiandrinks are dangerous. Look here, I'll tell you just how the situationstands--"

I plunged into a glib account of our supposed wanderings to find theGrantline camp: its location off the Mare Imbrium--hidden in acavern there. Potan, with the drink, and under the gaze of Anita'seyes, was in high good humor. He laughed when I told him that we haddared to invade the Grantline camp, had smashed its exit ports, hadeven gotten up to have a look where the treasure was piled. 

"Well done, Haljan. You're a fellow to my liking!" But his gaze was onAnita. "You dress like a man or a charming boy. "

She still wore the dark clothes of her brother. She said, "I am usedto action. Man's garb pleases me. You shall treat me like a man andgive me my share of gold leaf. "

He had already demanded the reason for the signal from the MareImbrium. Miko's signal! It had not come again, though any moment Ifeared it. I told him that Grantline doubtless had repaired hisdamaged ports and sallied out to assail me in reprisal. And, seeingthe brigand ship landing on Archimedes, had tried to lure him into atrap. 

I wondered if my explanation was convincing: it did not sound so. Buthe was flushed now with drink, and Anita added:

"Grantline knows the territory near his camp very well. But he isequipped only for short range fighting. "

I took it up. "It's like this, Potan: if he could get you to landunsuspectingly near his cavern--"

I pictured how Grantline might have figured on a sudden surpriseattack upon the ship. It was his only chance to catch it unprepared. 

We were all three in friendly, intimate mood now. Potan said, "We'llland down there right enough! But I need a few hours for myassembling. "

"He will not dare advance, " I said. 

Anita put in, smiling, "He knows by now that we have unmasked hislure. Haljan and I, joining you--that silenced him. His light went outvery promptly, didn't it?"

She flashed me a side gaze. Were we acting convincingly? But if Mikostarted up his signals again, they might so quickly betray us!Anita's thoughts were upon that, for she added:

"Grantline will not dare show his light! If he does, _Set_ Potan, wecan blast him from here with a ray. Can't we?"

"Yes, " Potan agreed. "If he comes within ten miles, I have onepowerful enough. We are assembling it now. "

"And we have thirty men?" Anita persisted. "When we sail down toattack him, it should not be difficult to kill all the Grantlineparty. "

"By heaven, Haljan, this girl of yours is small, but verybloodthirsty!"

"And I'm glad Miko is dead, " Anita added. 

I explained, "That accursed Miko murdered her brother. "

Acting! And never once did we dare relax. If only Miko's signals wouldhold off and give us time!

 * * * * *

We may have talked for half an hour. We were in a small steel-linedcubby, located in the forward deck of the ship. The dome was over it. I could see from where I sat at the table that there was a forwardobservatory tower under the dome quite near here. The ship was laidout in rather similar fashion to the _Planetara_, though considerablysmaller. 

Potan had dismissed his men from the cubby so as to be alone with us. Out on the deck I could see them dragging apparatus about, bringingthe mechanisms of giant projectors up from below and beginning toassemble them. Occasionally some of the men would come to our cubbywindows to peer in curiously. 

My mind was roaming as I talked. For all my manner of casualness, Iknew that haste was necessary. Whatever Anita and I were to do must bequickly done. 

But to win this fellow's utter confidence first was necessary, so thatwe might have the freedom of the ship, might move about unnoticed, unwatched. 

I was horribly tense inside. Through the dome windows across the deckfrom the cubby, the rocks of the Lunar landscape were visible. I couldsee the brink of this ledge upon which the ship lay, the descendingcrags down the precipitous wall of Archimedes to the Earthlit plainsfar below. Miko, Moa, and a few of the _Planetara's_ crew were downthere somewhere. 

Anita and I had a fairly definite plan. We were now in Potan'sconfidence; this interview at an end, I felt that our status among thebrigands would be established. We would be free to move about theship, join in its activities. It ought to be possible to locate thesignal room, get friendly with the operator there. 

Perhaps we could find a secret opportunity to flash a signal to Earth. This ship, I was confident, would have the power for a long rangesignal, if not of too sustained a length. It would be a desperatething to attempt, but our whole procedure was desperate! Anita couldlure the duty man from the signal room, I might send a single flash ortwo that would reach the Earth. Just a distress signal, signed"Grantline. " If I could do that and not get caught!

Anita was engaging Potan in talking of his plans. The brigand leaderwas boasting of them: of his well equipped ship, the daring of hismen. And questioning her about the size of the treasure. My thoughtswere free to roam. 

While we were making friends with this brigand, the longest rangeelectronic projector was being assembled. Miko then could flash hissignal and be damned to him! I would be on the deck with thatprojector. Its operator and I would turn it upon Miko--one flash of itand he and his little band would be wiped out. 

But there was our escape to be thought of. We could not remain verylong with these brigands. We could tell them that the Grantline campwas on the Mare Imbrium. It would delay them for a time, but our liewould soon be discovered. We must escape from them, get away and backto Grantline. With Miko dead, a distress signal to Earth, and Potan inignorance of Grantline's location, the treasure would be safe untilhelp arrived from Earth. 

"By the infernal, little Anita, you look like a dove, but you're atigress! A comrade after my own heart--bloodthirsty as afire-worshipper!"

Her laugh rang out to mingle with his. "Oh no, _Set_ Potan! I amtreasure-thirsty. "

"We'll get the treasure. Never fear, little Anita. "

"With you to lead us, I'm sure we will. "

A man entered the cubby. Potan looked frowningly around. "What is it, Argle?"

The fellow answered in Martian, leered at Anita and withdrew. 

Potan stood up. I noticed that he was unsteady with the drink. 

"They want me with the work at the projectors. "

"Go ahead, " I said. 

He nodded. We were comrades now. "Amuse yourself, Haljan. Or come outon deck if you wish. I will tell my men you are one of us. "

"And tell them to keep their hands off Miss Prince. "

He stared at me. "I had not thought of that: a woman among so manymen!"

His own gaze at Anita was as offensive as any of his men could havegiven. He said, "Have no fear, little tigress. "

Anita laughed. "I'm afraid of nothing. "

But when he had lurched from the cabin, she touched me. Smiled withher mannish swagger, for fear we were still observed, and murmured:

"Oh Gregg, I am afraid!"

We stayed in the cubby a few moments, whispering and planning. 

"You think the signal room is in the tower, Gregg? This tower outsideour window here?"

"Yes, I think so. "

"Shall we go out and see?"

"Yes. Keep near me always. "

"Oh Gregg, I will!"

We deposited our Erentz suits carefully in a corner of the cubby. Wemight need them so suddenly! Then we swaggered out to join thebrigands working on the deck. 

XXX

The deck glowed lurid in the queer blue-greenish glare of Martianelectro-fuse lights. It was in a bustle of ordered activity. Sometwenty of the crew were scattered about, working in little groups. Apparatus was being brought up from below to be assembled. There was apile of Erentz suits and helmets, of Martian pattern, but still verysimilar to those with which Grantline's expedition was equipped. Therewere giant projectors of several kinds, some familiar to me, others ofa fashion I had never seen before. It seemed there were six or eightof them, still dismantled, with a litter of their attendant batteriesand coils and tube amplifiers. 

They were to be mounted here on the deck, I surmised; I saw in thedome side one or two of them already rolled into position. 

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, standingwith her hand on my arm. I felt that we were very small, here in themidst of these seven foot Martian men. I was all in white, the costumeused in the warm interior of Grantline's camp. Bareheaded, white silk_Planetara_ uniform jacket, broad belt and tight-laced trousers. Anitawas a slim black figure beside me, somber as Hamlet, with her paleboyish face and wavy black hair. 

The gravity being maintained here on the ship we had found to bestronger than that of the Moon and rather more like Mars. 

"There are the heat rays, Gregg. "

A pile of them was visible down the deck length. And I saw caskets offragile glass globes, bombs of different styles, hand projectors ofthe paralyzing ray; search beams of several varieties; the Bensoncurve light, and a few side arms of ancient Earth design--swords anddirks, 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 railswere stacked; half a dozen tiny-wheeled ore carts; a tiny motor enginefor hauling them and what looked as though it might be the dismemberedsections of an ore chute. 

The whole deck was presently strewn with this mass of equipment. 

Potan moved about, directing the different groups of workers. The newshad spread that we knew the location of the treasure. The brigandswere jubilant. In a few hours the ship's armament would be ready, andit would advance. 

I saw many glances cast out the dome side windows toward the distantplains of the Mare Imbrium. The brigands believed that the Grantlinecamp 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. Potanwas there now, superintending the men who were connecting it. The mostpowerful weapon on the ship. It had, Potan said, an effective range ofsome 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. Butit would blast an Erentz fabric suit, no doubt of that. Like alightning bolt, it would kill--its flashing free stream of electronsshocking the heart, bringing instant death. 

I whispered, "We must smash that before we leave! But first turn it onMiko, if he signals now. "

I was tensely watchful for that signal. The electronic projectorobviously was not 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 wouldhave more time to plan our other tasks. I did not think Potan would beready for his attack before another time of sleep here in the ship'sroutine. Things would be quieter then; I would watch my chance to senda signal to Earth, and then we would escape. 

With my thoughts roving, we had been standing quietly at the cubbydoor for about fifteen minutes. My hand in my side pouch clutched thelittle bullet projector. The brigands had taken it from me and givenit to Potan. He had placed it on the settle with my Erentz suit; andwhen we gained his confidence he had forgotten it and left it there. Ihad it now, and the feel of its cool sleek handle gave me a measure ofcomfort. Things could go wrong so easily. But if they did, I wasdetermined to sell my life as dearly as possible. And a vague thoughtwas in my mind: I must not use the last bullet. That would be forAnita. 

"That electronic projector is remote controlled. Look, Anita, that'sthe signal room over us. The giant projector will be aimed and firedfrom up there. "

A thirty foot skeleton tower stood on the deck near us, with a spiralladder leading up to a small, square, steel cubby at the top. Throughthe cubby window I could see instrument panels. A single Martian wasup there; he had called down to Potan concerning the electronicprojector. 

The roof of this little tower room was close under the dome--a spaceof no more than four feet. A pressure lock exit in the dome was upthere, with a few steps leading up to it from the roof of the towersignal room. 

We could escape that way, perhaps. In the event of dire necessity itmight be possible. But only as a desperate resort, for it would put uson the top of the glassite dome, with a sheer hundred feet or moredown its sleek bulging exterior side, and down the outside bulge ofthe ship's hull, to the rocks below. There might be a spider ladderoutside leading downward, but I saw no evidence of it. If Anita and Iwere forced to escape that way, I wondered how we could manage ahundred foot jump to the rocks, and land safely. Even with the slightgravity of the Moon, it would be a dangerous fall. 

"You are Gregg Haljan?"

I stared as one of the brigands, coming up behind, 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 amcontrol-commander here--Brotow, my name. "

He smiled. A giant fellow, but spindly. He spoke good English. Heseemed anxious to be friendly. 

"We are glad to have you and George Prince's sister with us. " He shotAnita 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 thatsignal room up in the tower? Oh Gregg, maybe it's only the controlroom. "

"Suppose we go up and see? Miko's signals might start any minute. "

And the electronic projector seemed about ready. It was time for me toact. But a reluctant instinct was upon me. Our Erentz suits were closebehind us in Potan's cubby. I hated to leave them. If anythinghappened, and we had to make a sudden dash, there would be no time togarb ourselves in the suits. To adjust the helmets would be badenough. 

I whispered swiftly, "We must get into our suits--find some pretext. "I drew her back through the cubby doorway where we would be moresecluded. 

"Anita, listen. I've been a fool not to plan our escape morecarefully. We're in too great a danger here!"

Suddenly it seemed to me that we were in desperate plight! Was itpremonition?

"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 seethe levers. "

"Yes. It's a manual. But once 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 port--it's amanual, too. "

"Yes, I think I can find our way down through the hull 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. I was armed and a surprise rush would do the trick. 

We donned our Erentz suits. 

"What will we do with the helmets?" demanded Anita. "Leave them here?"

"No, take them with us. I'm not going to get separated from them!"

"We'll look strange going up to that signal room equipped like this. "

"I can't help it, Anita. We'll explain it, somehow. "

She stood before me, a queer-looking little figure in the nowdeflated, bagging suit with her slim neck and head protruding aboveit. 

"Carry your helmet, Anita. Ill take mine. "

We could adjust the helmets and start the motors all within a fewseconds. 

"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 couldinstantly reach it. This was more rational; we had a fighting chancenow. The fear which had swept me began to recede. 

"We'll climb the tower to the signal room, " I whispered. "Do itboldly. "

We stepped from the cubby. Potan was not in sight; perhaps he was onthe further deck beyond the central cabin structure. 

On the deck, we were immediately accosted. This was different--ourappearance 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 workersstop to regard us. In a moment we would be causing a commotion, and itwas 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 to see where is the Grantline camp fromhere. I am pilot of this ship to go there. "

The man who had called himself Brotow passed near us. I appealed tohim. 

"We put on our suits. After our experience, we feel safer that way. IfI'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 pass. "

Anita and I gave him our most friendly smiles. 

"Thanks. "

He bowed to Anita with a sweeping gesture. "I will show you over thecontrol room presently. "

His gaze went to the peak of the bow. 

The little hooded cubby there was the control room, then. Satisfactionswept me. Then 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 theduty man up there, giving me a chance to get at the projector controlsif 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. 

XXXI

"Hurry, Anita!"

I feared that Potan might come up from the hull at any moment and stopus. The duty man over us gazed down, his huge head and shouldersblocking the small signal room window. Brotow called up in Martian, telling him to let us come. He scowled, but when we reached the trapin 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 overfifteen feet square, with an eight foot arched ceiling. There wereinstrument panels. The range finder for the giant projector was here;its telescope with the trajectory apparatus and the firing switch wereunmistakable. And the signaling apparatus was here! Not a Martian set, but a fully powerful Botz ultra-violet sender with its attendantreceiving mirrors. The _Planetara_ had used the Botz system, so I wasthoroughly familiar with it. 

I saw too, what seemed to be weapons: a row of small fragile glassglobes, hanging on clips along the wall--bombs, each the size of aman'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. Theywere breast high above the floor; from the deck below I knew that theangle of vision was such that the men down there could not see intothis room except to glimpse its upper portion near the ceiling. Andthe 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 tothe cubby roof. This upper trap was open. Four feet above the room'sroof was the arch of the dome, with the entrance to the exit-lockdirectly above us. The weapons and the belt of bombs were near theascending ladder, evidently placed here as equipment for use from thetop 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-setMartian I had ever seen. A tremendous, beetle-browed, scowling fellow. He stood with hands on his hips, his leather-garbed legs spread wide;and as I confronted him, I felt like a child. 

He was silent, glaring down at me as I drew his attention from Anita. 

"You speak English?" I asked. "We are not skilled with Martian. "

I wondered if at the next time of sleep this fellow would be on dutyhere. I hoped not: it would not be easy to trick him and find anopportunity to flash a signal. But that task was some hours away asyet; I would worry about it when the time came. Just now I wasconcerned with Miko and his little band, who at any moment mightarrive in sight. If we could persuade this duty man to turn theprojector on them!

He answered me in ready English:

"You are the man Gregg Haljan? And this is the sister of GeorgePrince--what do you want up here?"

"I am a navigator. Brotow wants me to pilot the ship when we advanceto attack Grantline. "

"This is not the control room. "

"No, I know it isn't. "

I put my helmet carefully on the floor beside Anita's. I straightenedto find the brigand gazing at her. He did not speak: he was stillscowling. But in the dim blue glow of the cubby, I caught the look inhis eyes. 

I said hastily, "Grantline knows your ship has landed here onArchimedes. His camp is off there on the Mare Imbrium. He sent up asignal--you saw it, didn't you?--just before Miss Prince and I cameaboard. He was trying to pretend he was your Earth party, Miko andConiston. "

"Why?"

The fellow turned his scowl on me, but Anita brought his gaze back toher. She put in quickly:

"Grantline, as brother always said, has no great cunning. I believenow he plans to creep up on us unawares, by pretending that he isMiko. "

"If he does that, " I said, "we will turn this electronic projector onhim and his party and annihilate them. You have its firing mechanismhere. "

"Who told you so?" he shot at me. 

I gestured. "I see it here. It's obvious: I'm skilled at trajectoryfiring. 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 thedome roof? Then go. "

But that was what we did not want to do. Anita's glance seemed to tellme 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 theprojector is operated. I know it will be invincible against theGrantline camp. "

I had my back to them for a moment. Through the breast-high oval Icould see down across the deck-space and out through the side domewindows. And my heart suddenly leaped into my throat. It seemed thatdown there in the Earthlit shadows, where the spreading base of thegiant crater joined the plains, a light was bobbing. I gazed, stricken. Miko's lights? Was he advancing, preparing to signal? Itried 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 telescope finder here in the cubby.... 

I was subconsciously aware of the voices of Anita and the duty manbehind me. Then abruptly I heard Anita's low cry. I whirled around. 

The giant Martian had gathered her into his huge arms, his heavyjowled 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--"

Anita was silently struggling with her little hands at his thickthroat. His blow flung me against a settle. But I held my feet. I waspartly behind him. I leaped again, and as he tried to disengagehimself from Anita to front me, her clutching fingers impeded him. 

My projector was in my hand. But in that second as I leaped, I had thesense to realize I should not fire it because its noise would alarmthe ship. I grasped its barrel, reached upward and struck with itsheavy metal butt. The blow caught the Martian on the skull, andsimultaneously my body struck him. 

We went down together, falling partly upon Anita. But the giant hadnot cried out, and as I gripped him now, I felt his body go limp. Ilay panting. Anita squirmed silently from under us. Blood from thegiant's head was welling out, hot and sticky against my face as I laysprawled on him. 

I cast him off. He was dead, his fragile Martian skull split open bymy blow. 

There had been no alarm. The slight noise we made had not been hearddown on the busy deck. Anita and I crouched by the floor. From thedeck 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 couldflash the Earth signal now, and then we would have to make our run toescape. 

Then I remembered that light down by the base! I kept Anita out ofsight down on the floor and went cautiously to a window. The deck wasin turmoil with brigands moving about excitedly. Not because of whathad happened in our tower signal room: they were unaware of that. 

Miko's signals were showing! I could see them now plainly, down at thecrater base. A group of hand lights and small waving helio beam. 

And they were being answered from the ship! Potan was on the deck--ababble of voices, above which his rose with roars of command. At oneof the dome windows a brigand with a hand searchbeam was sending itsanswering light. And I saw that Potan was working over a decktelescope finder. 

It had all come so suddenly that I was stunned. But I did not wait toread the signals. I swung back at Anita, who stared helplessly at me. 

"It's Miko! And they are answering him! Get your helmet: I'll tryfiring the projector. "

Or would I instead try and send a brief flash signal to Earth? Therewould be no time to do both: we must escape out of here. The route upthrough the dome was the only feasible one now. 

This range mechanism of the projector was reasonably familiar, and Ifelt that I could operate it. The range-finder and the switch were ona ledge at one of the windows. I rushed to it. As I swung thetelescope, training it down on Miko's lights, I could see the hugeprojector on the deck swinging similarly. Its movement surprised themen who were attending it. One of them called up to me, but I ignoredhim. 

Then Potan looked up and saw me. He shouted in Martian at the dutyman, whom he doubtless thought was behind me: "Be ready! We may fireon them. I'll give you the word. "

The signals were proceeding. It had only been a moment. I caughtsomething like, "_Haljan is imposter_. "

I was aiming the projector. I was aware of Anita at my elbow. I pushedher back. 

"Put on your helmet!"

I had the range. I flung the firing switch. 

At the deck window the giant projector spat its deadly electronicstream. The men down there leaped away from it in surprise. I heardPotan's voice, his shout of protest and anger. 

But down in the Earth glow at the crater base, Miko's lights had notvanished! I had missed! An error in the range? Abruptly I knew it wasnot that. Miko's lights were still there. His signals still coming. And I noticed now a faint distortion about them, the glow of hislittle group of hand lights faintly distorted and vaguely shot with agreenish cast. Benson curve lights!

My thoughts whirled in the few seconds while I stood there at thetower window. Miko had feared he might be summarily fired on. He hadgone 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 sawhim! The Benson curve light changed the path of the light raystraveling from him to me, I could not even approximate his trueposition!

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? Istood another few seconds at the window. I saw Potan down in theconfusion of the deck, training a telescope. He had shouted upviolently at his duty man here not to fire again. 

And now he let out a roar. "I can see them! It's Miko! By theAlmighty--his giant stature--Brotow, look! That's not an Earth man!"

He flung aside his telescope finder. "Disconnect that projector! It'sMiko down there! This Haljan is a trickster! Where is he?Braile--Braile, you accursed fool! Are Haljan and the girl up therewith you?"

But the duty man lay in his blood at our feet. 

I had dropped back from the window. Anita and I crouched for aninstant in confusion, fumbling with our helmets. 

The ship rang with the alarm. And amid the turmoil we could hear theshouts of the infuriated brigands swarming up the tower ladder afterus!

XXXII

I was only inactive a moment. I had thought Anita would have on herhelmet. But she was reluctant, or confused. 

"Anita, we've got to get out of here! Up through the overhead locks tothe dome. "

"Yes. " She fumbled with her helmet. The climbing men on the ladderwere audible. They were already nearing the top. The trap door wasclosed; Anita and I were crouching on it. There was a thick metal barset in a depressed groove for the grid. I slid it in place; it wouldseal the trap for a short time. 

A degree of confidence came to me. We had a few moments before therecould be any hand-to-hand conflict. The giant electronic projectorwould eventually be used against Grantline; it was the brigands' mostpowerful weapon. Its controls were here, by Heaven, I would smashthem? That at least I could do!

I jumped for the window. Miko's signals had stopped, but I caught aglimpse of his distant moving curve lights. 

A flash came up at me, as in the window I became visible to thebrigands on the ship's deck. It was a small hand projector, hastilyfired, for it went wide of the window. It was followed by a rain ofsmall beams, but I was warned and dropped my head beneath the sill. The rays flashed dangerously upward through the oval opening, hissedagainst our vaulted roof. The air snapped and tingled with a showerof blue-red sparks, and the acrid odor of the released gases settleddown upon us. 

The trajectory controls of the projector were beside me. I seizedthem, ripped and tore at them. There was a roar down on the deck. Theprojector had exploded. A man's agonizing scream split the confusionof sounds. 

It silenced the brigands on the deck. Under our floor grid, those onthe ladder had been pounding at the trap door. They stopped, evidentlyto see what had happened. The bombardment of our windows stoppedmomentarily. 

I cautiously peered out the window again. In the wreck of theprojector, three men were lying. One of them was screaming horribly. The dome side was damaged. Potan and other men were franticallyinvestigating to see if the ship's air was hissing out. 

A triumph swept over me. They had not found me so meek and inoffensiveas they might have thought!

Anita clutched me. She still had not donned her helmet. 

"Put on your helmet!"

"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 awhile. "

But they were still on the ladder under our floor. They heard ourvoices: they began thumping again. Then pounding. They seemed now tohave heavy implements. They rammed against the trap. 

The floor seemed holding. The square of metal grid trembled, yielded alittle. But it was good for a few minutes longer. 

I called down, "The first one who comes through will be shot!" Mywords mingled with their oaths. There was a moment's pause, then theramming 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 amoment I had it humming. The fluorescent tubes lighted with theirlurid glare; they painted purple the body of the giant duty man wholay sprawled at my feet. I drew on all the ship's power. The tubelights in the room quivered and went dim. 

I would have to hurry. Potan could shut this off from the main hullcontrol room. I could see, through the room's upper trap, the primarysending 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 WesternHemisphere faced the Moon at this hour. I flashed in English, with theopen Universal Earth code:

_Help. Grantline. _

And again: _Help. Archimedes region near Apennines. Attacked bybrigands. _

_Send help at once. Grantline. _

If only it would be received! I flung off the current. Anita stoodwatching me intently. "Gregg, look!"

I saw that she had taken some of the glass globe-bombs which lay bythe foot of the ascending ladder. "Gregg, I threw some of them. "

At the window we gazed down. The globes she flung had shattered on thedeck. They were darkness bombs. 

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 Isaw that it was beginning to yield. 

"We've got to go, Anita!"

From out of the darkness which hung like a shroud over the deck anoccasional flash came up, unaimed, wide of our windows. But thedarkness was dissipating. I could see now the dim glow of the decklights, blurred as through a heavy fog. 

I dropped another of the bombs. 

"Put on your helmet. "

"Yes--yes, I will. You put yours on. "

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 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. Ileaped over the body of the dead duty man, seized the belt of bombsand strapped it around my waist. 

"Give me the projector. "

She handed it to me. The trap door burst upward! A man's head andshoulders appeared. I fired a bullet into him--the leaden pelletsinging down through the yellow powder flash that spat from theprojector's muzzle. 

The brigand screamed, and dropped back out of sight. There wasconfusion at the ladder top. I flung a bomb at the broken trap. A tinyheat 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 my hand. You go first--here is the ladder!"

We found it in the blackness, mounted it and went through the cubby'sroof-trap. 

I took another look and dropped another bomb beside us. The four footspace up here between the cubby roof and the overhead dome, wentblack. 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. Butthey swung. The tiny port opened wide to receive us. We clambered intothe small air-chamber; the door slid closed, just as a flash frombelow struck at it. The brigands had seen our cloud of darkness andwere firing up through it. 

In a moment we were out on the dome top. A sleek, rounded spread ofglassite, with broad aluminite girders. There were cross ribs whichgave us a footing, and occasionally projections--streamline fin-tips, the casings of the upper rudder shafts, and the upstanding stubbyfunnels into which 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--ahundred feet or so in length, and bulging thirty feet wide beneathus--glistened in the Earthlight. It was a sheer drop and down thesecurving sides past the ship's hull, a hundred feet to the rocks onwhich the vessel rested. The towering wall of Archimedes was besideus; and beyond the brink of the ledge the thousands of feet down tothe 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 advancedup the crater's foothills, coming to join the ship. 

I had an instant's glimpse. Anita and I could not stay here. Thebrigands would follow us up in a moment. I saw no exterior ladder. Wewould have to take our chances and jump. 

There were brigands down there on the rocks. I saw three or fourhelmeted figures, and they saw us! A bullet whizzed by us, and thencame 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, 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 thestern, flinging down the last of my bombs. The darkness was like acloud down there, enveloping the outer brigands. But up there we wereabove it, etched by the starlight and Earthglow. 

I came back to Anita. "We'll have to chance it now. "

"Gregg.... "

"Good-bye, 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 movingspeck, coming toward us!

"Gregg, what is it?"

I gazed, held my breath. A moving speck out there. A blob now. Andthen I realized it was not a large object, far away, but small, andalready very close--only a few hundred feet off, dropping toward thetop of our dome. A narrow, flat, ten foot object, like a winglessvolplane. There were no lights on it, but in the Earthlight I couldsee two crouching, helmeted figures riding it. 

"Anita! Don't you remember!"

I was swept with dawning comprehension. Back in the Grantline campSnap and I had discussed how to use the _Planetara's_ gravity plates. We had gone to the wreck and secured them, had rigged this littlevolplane flyer.... 

The brigands on the rocks saw it now. A flash went up at it. One ofthe figures crouching on it opened a flexible fabric like a wing overits side. I saw another flash from below, harmlessly striking theinsulated shield. 

I gasped to Anita, "Light your helmet! It's from Grantline! Let themsee 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 hadcome--was near us. The advancing brigands were already in it! I hadforgotten to demolish the manuals. And I saw that the darkness down onthe rocks was almost gone now, dissipating in the airless night. Thebrigands 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 dometop, 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 metalplatform. It was barely four feet wide; a low railing, handles withwhich to cling, and a tiny hooded cubby in front. 

"Gregg!"

"You, Snap!"

It was Snap and Venza. She seized Anita, held her crouching in place. Snap flung himself face down at the controls. 

The brigands were out on the dome now. I took a last shot as welifted. My bullet punctured one of them: he slid, fell scrambling offthe rounded dome and dropped out of sight. 

Light rays and silent flashes seemed to envelope us. Venza held theside shields higher. 

We tilted, swayed crazily, and then steadied. 

The ship's dome dropped away beneath us. The rocks of the open ledgewere beneath us. Then the abyss, with the moving, climbing specks ofMiko's lights far down. 

I saw, over the side shield, the already distant brigand ship restingon the ledge with the massive Archimedes' wall behind it. A confusionback there of futile flashing rays. 

It all faded into a remote glow as we sailed smoothly up into thestarlight and away, heading for the Grantline camp. 

XXXIII

"Wake up. Gregg! They're coming!"

I forced myself to consciousness. "Coming--"

I leaped from my bunk, followed Snap with a rush into the corridor. 

We had returned safely to the Grantline camp. Anita and I foundourselves exhausted from lack of sleep, our arduous climb ofArchimedes and that tense time on the brigand ship. On the flightback, Snap had explained how the landing of the ship on Archimedes wasobserved through the Grantline telescope. They had read with amazementmy signals to the brigands. Snap had rushed to completion the first ofour flying platforms. Then he had seen Miko's signals from the craterbase, seen the lights and the fight to capture Anita and me, and hadcome to rescue us. 

Back at the camp we were given food, and Grantline forced me to try tosleep. 

"They'll be on us in a few hours, Gregg. Miko wall have joined them bynow. He'll lead them to us. You must rest, for we need everyone at hisbest. "

And surprisingly, in the midst of the camp's turmoil of last minuteactivities, I slept soundly until Snap called me, telling me the shipwas coming. 

The corridor echoed with the tramp of Grantline's busy crew. But therewas no confusion; a grim calmness had settled on everyone. 

Anita and Venza rushed up to join us. "It's in sight!"

There was no need of going to the instrument room. From the windowsfronting the brink of the cliff the brigand ship was plainly visible. It came sailing from Archimedes, a dark shape blurring the stars. Allits lights were extinguished save a single white search beam in thebow peak, slanting diagonally down. 

The beam presently caught our group of buildings; its glare shone inthe windows as it clung for a moment. I could envisage the triumphantcuriosity of Potan and his men up there, gazing along the beam. 

We had dimmed the lights to conserve our power, and to enable theErentz motors to run at full capacity. Our buildings would have towithstand the brigands' rays which soon would be upon us. 

Outside on our dim, Earthlit cliff, the tiny lights showed where ourfew guards were lurking. As I stood at the window watching theincoming ship, Grantline's voice sounded:

"Call in those men! Ring the call-lights, Franck!"

The siren buzzed over the camp's interior; the warning call-lights onthe roof brought in the outer guards. They came running to theadmission ports, which had been repaired after Miko disabled them. 

The guards came in. We dimmed our lights further. The treasure shedswere black against the cliff behind us. No need for guards there--wereasoned the brigands would not attempt to move it until our buildingswere captured. But, if they should try it, we were prepared to defendit. 

In the dim light we crouched. A silence was upon us save for theclanging in the workshop down the corridor. Most of us wore our Erentzsuits, with helmets ready, though I am sure there was not a man of usbut who prayed he might not have to go out. At many of thewindows--our weakest points to withstand the rays--insulated fabricsheets were hung like curtains. 

The brigand ship slowly advanced. It was soon over the opposite rim ofour little crater. Its searchbeam swung about the rim and down thevalley. 

My thoughts ran like a turgid stream as I stood tensely watching. 

Four hours ago I had sent that flash signal to Earth. If it wasreceived, a patrol ship could come to our rescue and arrive here inanother eight hours--or perhaps even less. 

Ah, that "if!" _If_ the signal was received! _If_ the patrol ship wereimmediately available. _If_ it started at once.... 

Eight hours at the very least. I tried to assure myself that we couldhold out that long. 

The brigand ship crossed the opposite crater rim. It dropped lower. Itseemed poised over the crater valley, almost at our own level and lessthan two miles from us. Its searchbeam vanished. For a moment ithung, a sleek, cylindrical silver shape, gleaming in the Earthlight. 

Snap looked at me and murmured, "It's descending. "

It slowly settled, cautiously picked its landing place amid the cragsand pits of the tumbled, scarred valley floor. It came to rest, avague, menacing silver shape lurking in the lower shadows, close atthe foot of the inner opposite crater wall. 

A few moments of tense waiting passed. Soon tiny lights were movingdown there, some out on the rocks near the ship, others up under itsdeck dome. 

A stab of searchlight shot across the valley, swung along our ledgeand clung with its glaring ten foot circle to the front of our mainbuilding. Then a ray flashed. 

The assault had begun!

XXXIV

It seemed, with that first shot from the enemy, that a great reliefcame to us--an apprehension fallen away. We had anticipated thismoment for so long, dreaded it. I think all our men felt it. A shoutwent up:

"Harmless!"

It was not that. But our building withstood it better than I hadfeared. It was a flash from a large electronic projector mounted onthe deck of the brigand ship. It stabbed up from the shadows acrossthe valley at the foot of the opposite crater wall, a beam of vaguelyfluorescent light. Simultaneously the searchlight vanished. 

The stream of electrons caught the front face of our main building ina six foot circle. It held a few seconds, vanished, then stabbedagain, and still again. Three bolts. A total, I suppose, of nine orten seconds. 

I was standing with Grantline at a front window. We had rigged anoblong of insulated fabric like a curtain; we stood peering, holdingthe curtain cautiously aside. The ray struck some twenty feet awayfrom us. 

"Harmless!" The men shouted it with derision. 

But Grantline swung on them: "Don't get that idea!"

An interior signal panel was beside Grantline. He called the duty menin the instrument room. 

"It's over. What are your readings?"

The bombarding electrons had passed through the outer shell of thebuilding's double wall, and been absorbed in the rarefied, magnetizedaircurrent of the Erentz circulation. Like poison in a man's veins, reaching his heart, the free alien electrons had disturbed the motors. They accelerated, then retarded. Pulsed unevenly, and drew added powerfrom the reserve tanks. But they had normalized at once when the shotwas past. The duty man's voice sounded from the grid in answer toGrantline's question:

"Five degrees colder in your building. Can't you feel it?"

The disturbed, weakened Erentz system had allowed the outer cold toradiate through a trifle. The walls had had a trifle extra explosivepressure from the air. A strain--but that was all. 

"It's probably their most powerful single weapon, Gregg, " saidGrantline. 

I nodded, "Yes, I think so. "

I had smashed the real giant, with its ten mile range. The ship wasonly two miles from us, but it seemed as though this projector wereexerted to its distance limit. I had noticed on the deck only one ofthis type. The others, paralyzing rays and heat rays, were lessdeadly. 

Grantline commented: "We can withstand a lot of that bombardment. Ifwe stay inside--"

That ray, striking a man outside, would penetrate his Erentz suitwithin a few seconds, we could not doubt. We had, however, nointention of going out unless for dire necessity. 

"Even so, " said Grantline, "a hand shield would hold it off for acertain length of time. "

We had an opportunity a moment later to test our insulated shields. The bolt came again. It darted along the front face of the building, caught our window, and clung. The double window shelves were ourweakest points. The sheet of flashing Erentz current was transparent;we could see through it as though it were glass. It moved faster, butwas thinner at the windows than the walls. We feared the bombardingelectrons might cross it, penetrate the inner shell and, like alightning bolt, enter the room. 

We dropped the curtain corner. The radiance of the bolt was dimlyvisible. A few seconds, then it vanished again, and behind the shieldwe had not felt a tingle. 

"Harmless!"

But our power had been drained nearly an aeron, to neutralize theshock to the Erentz current. Grantline said:

"If they kept that up, it would be a question of whose power supplywould last longer. And it would not be ours.... You saw our lightsfade when the bolt was striking?"

But the brigands did not know we were short of power. And to fire theprojector with a continuous bolt would, in thirty minutes, perhaps, have exhausted their own power reserve. 

"I won't answer them, " Grantline declared. "Our game is to sitdefensive. Conserve everything. Let them make the leading moves. "

We waited half an hour; but no other shot came. The valley floor waspatched with Earthlight and shadow. We could see the vague outline ofthe brigand ship backed up at the foot of the opposite crater wall. The form of its dome over the illuminated deck was visible, and theline of its tiny hull ovals. 

On the rocks near the ship, helmet lights of prowling brigandsoccasionally showed. 

Whatever activity was going on down there we could not see with thenaked eye. Grantline did not use our telescope at first. To connectit, even for local range, drew on our precious ammunition of power. Some of the men urged that we search the sky with the telescope. Wasour rescue ship from Earth coming? But Grantline refused. We were inno trouble yet. And every delay was to our advantage. 

"Commander, where shall I put these helmets?"

A man came wheeling a pile of helmets on a small truck. 

"At the manual port--in the other building. "

Our weapons and outside equipment were massed at the main exit locksof the large building. But we might want to go out through smallerlocks too. Grantline sent helmets there; suits were not needed, asmost of us were garbed in them now. 

Snap was still in the workshop. I went there during this firsthalf-hour of the attack. Ten of our men were busy there with thelittle flying platforms and the fabric shields. 

"How goes it, Snap?"

"Almost all ready. "

He had six of the platforms, including the one we had already used, and more than a dozen hand shields. At a squeeze, all of us could rideon these six little vehicles. We might _have_ to ride them! We plannedthat, in event of disaster to the buildings, we could at least escapein this fashion. Food supplies and water were now being placed at theports. 

Depressing preparations! Our buildings uninhabitable, a rush out andaway, abandoning the treasure.... Grantline had never mentioned such acontingency, but I noticed, nevertheless, that preparations were beingmade. 

Snap's voice was raised over the clang of the workmen bolting thegravity plates of the last platform:

"Only that one projector, Gregg?"

"They gave us four blasts; but just the one projector. Theirstrongest. "

He grinned. He wore no Erentz suit as yet. He stood in torn grimy worktrousers and a bedraggled shirt, with the inevitable red eyeshadeholding back his unruly hair. Around his waist was the weighted belt, and there were weights on his shoes for gravity stability. 

"Didn't hurt us much. "

"No. "

"When I get the tube panels in this thing I'll be finished. It'll takeanother half-hour. Then I'll join you. Where are you stationed?"

I shrugged. "I was at a front window with Johnny. Nothing to do asyet. "

Snap went back to his work. "Well, the longer they delay, the betterfor us. If only your signal got through, Gregg, we'll have a rescueship here in a few hours more!"

Ah, that _if_!

I turned away. "Can't help you, Snap?"

"No.... Take those shields, " he added to one of the men. 

"Take them where?"

"To Grantline. He'll tell you where to put them. "

The shields were wheeled away on a little cart. I followed it. Grantline sent it to the back exit. 

"No other move from them yet, Johnny?"

"No. All quiet. "

"Snap's almost finished. "

The brigands presently made another play. A giant heat-ray beam cameacross the valley. It clung to our front wall for nearly a minute. 

Grantline got the report from the instrument room. He laughed. 

"That helped rather than hurt us. Heated the outer wall. Franck tookadvantage of it and eased up the motors. "

We wondered if Miko knew that. Doubtless he did, for the heat-ray wasnot used again. 

Then came a zed-ray. I stood at the window, watching it, faint sheenof beam in the dimness; it crept with sinister deliberation along ourfront wall, clung momentarily to our shielded windows, and pried withits revealing glow into Snap's workshop. 

"Looking us over, " Grantline commented. "I hope they like what theysee. "

I knew that he did not feel the bravado that was in his tone. We hadnothing but small hand weapons: heat-rays, electronic projectors, andbullet projectors. All for very short range fighting. If Miko had notknown that before, he could at least make a good guess at it after thecareful zed-ray inspection. With his ship down there two miles away, we were powerless to reach him. It seemed that Miko was now testingall his mechanisms. A light flare went up from the dome peak of theship. It rose in a slow arc over the valley, and burst. For a fewseconds the two mile circle of crags was brilliantly illumined. Istared, but I had to shield my eyes against the dazzling actinicglare, and I could see nothing. Was Miko making a zed-ray photographof our interiors? We had no way of knowing. 

He was testing his short range projectors now. With my eyes againaccustomed to the normal Earthlight in the valley, I could see thestabs of electronic beams, the Martian paralyzing rays and heat beams. They darted out like flashing swords from the rocks near the ship. 

Then the whole ship and the crater wall behind it seemed to shiftsidewise as a Benson curve light spread its glow about the ship, witha projector curve beam coming up and touching the window through whichI was peering. 

"Haljan, come look at these damn girls! Commander--shall I stop them?They'll kill themselves, or kill us--or smash something!"

We followed the man into the building's broad central corridor. Anitaand Venza were riding a midget platform! Anita, in her boyish blackgarb; Venza, with a flowing white Venus-robe. They lay on the tiny sixfoot long oblong of metal, one manipulating its side shields, theother at the controls. As we arrived, the platform came sliding downthe narrow confines of the corridor, lurching, barely missing a doorprojection. Up to the low vaulted ceiling, then down to the floor. 

It sailed over our heads, rising over us as we ducked. Anita waved herhand. 

Grantline gasped, "By the infernal!"

I shouted, "Anita, stop!"

But they only waved at us, skimming down the length of the corridor, seeming to avoid a smash a dozen times by the smallest margin ofchance, stopping miraculously at the further end, hanging poised inmid-air, wheeling, coming back, undulating up and down. 

Grantline clung to me. "By the gods of the airways!"

In spite of my astonished horror, I could not but share Grantline'sadmiration. Three or four other men were watching. The girls wereamazingly skillful, no doubt of that. There was not a man among us whocould have handled that gravity platform indoors, not one who wouldhave had the brash temerity to try it. 

The platform landed with the grace of a humming bird at our feet, thegirls dexterously balancing so that it came to rest swiftly, withoutthe least bump. 

I confronted them. "Anita, what are you doing?"

She stood up, flushed and smiling. "Practicing. "

"What for?"

Venza's roguish eyes twinkled at me. Her hands went to her slim hipswith a gesture of defiance. 

She asked, "Are you speaking for yourself or the Commander?"

I ignored her. "What for?"

"Because we're good at it, " Anita retorted. "Better than any of youmen. If you should need us, we're ready.... "

"We won't!" I said shortly. 

"But if you should.... "

Venza put in, "If Snap and I hadn't come for you, you wouldn't behere, Gregg Haljan. I didn't notice you were so horrified to see meholding that shield up over you!"

It silenced me. 

She added, "Commander, let us alone. We won't smash anything. "

Grantline laughed. "I hope you won't!"

A warning call took us back to the front window. The brigands'searchlight was again being used. It swept slowly along the length ofthe cliff. Its circle went down the cliff steps to the valley floor, and came sweeping up again. Then it went up to the observatoryplatform at the summit above us, then over to the ore sheds. 

We had no men outside, if that was what the brigands wanted todetermine. The searchbeam presently vanished. It was replacedimmediately by a zed-ray, which darted at once to our treasure shedsand clung. 

That stung Grantline into his first action. We flung our own zed-raydown across the valley. It reached the brigand ship and the blurredinterior of the cabins. 

"Try the searchbeam, Franck. "

The zed-ray went off. We gazed down our searchlight which clung to thedome of the distant enemy vessel. We could see movement there. 

"The telescope, " Grantline ordered. 

The dynamos hummed. The telescope finder glowed and clarified. On thedeck of the ship we saw the brigands working with the assembling oftiny ore carts. A deck landing port was open. The ore carts were beingcarried out through a port lock and down a landing incline. And on therock outside, we saw several of the carts, tiny rail sections and thesection of an ore chute. 

Miko was unloading his mining apparatus! He was making ready to comeup for the treasure!

The discovery, startling as it was, nevertheless, was far overshadowedby an imperative danger alarm from our main building. Brigands wereoutside on our ledge! Miko's searchbeam, sweeping the ledge a momentbefore, had carefully avoided revealing them. It had been done justfor that purpose, no doubt--to make us feel sure the ledge wasunoccupied and thus to guard against our own light making the search. 

But there was a brigand group close outside our walls! By the merestchance the radiating glow from our searchray had shown the helmetedfigures scurrying for shelter. 

Grantline leaped to his feet. 

We rushed from the rear port exit which was nearest us. The giantbloated figures had been seen running along the outside of theconnecting corridor, in this direction. But before we ever got there, a new alarm came. A brigand was crouching at a front corner of themain building!

His hydrogen heat torch had already opened a rift in the wall!

XXXV

"In with you!" ordered Grantline. "Get your helmets on! How many? Six. Enough--get back there, Williams--you were last. The lock won't holdany more. "

I was one of the six who jammed into the manual exit lock. We wentthrough it; in a moment we were outside. It was less than threeminutes since the prowling brigand had been seen. 

Grantline touched me just as we emerged. "Don't wait for orders? Gethim. "

"That fellow with the torch--"

"Yes. I'm with you. "

We went out with a rush. We had already discarded our shoe and beltweights. I leaped, regardless of my companions. 

The scurrying Martians had disappeared. Through my visor bull's-eye Icould see only the Earthlit rocky surface of the ledge. Beside mestretched the dark wall of our building. 

I bounded toward the front. The brigand with the torch had been at thefront corner. I could not see him from here; he had been crouchingjust around the angle. 

I had a tiny bullet projector, the best weapon for short rangeoutdoors. I was aware of Grantline close behind me. 

It took only a few of my giant leaps. I handed at the corner, recovered my balance and whirled around to the front. 

The Martian was here, a giant misshapen lump as he crouched. His torchwas a little stab of blue in the deep shadow enveloping him. Intentupon his work, he did not see me. Perhaps he thought his fellow menhad broken our exits by now. 

I landed like a leopard upon his back and fired, my weapon muzzleramming him. His torch fell hissing with a silent rain of blue fireupon the rocks. 

As my grip upon him made audiphone contact, his agonized screamrattled the diaphragms of my ear grids with horrible, deafeningintensity. 

He lay writhing under me; then was still. His scream choked intosilence. His suit deflated within my encircling grip. He was dead: myleaden, steel-tipped pellet had punctured the double surface of hisErentz fabric; penetrated his chest. 

Grantline had leaped, landing beside me. "Dead?"

"Yes. "

I climbed from the inert body. The torch had hissed itself out. Grantline swung to our building corner, and I leaned down with him toexamine it. The torch had fused and scarred the wall, burned almostthrough. A pressure rift had opened. We could see it, a curving gashin the metal wall-plate like a crack in a glass window pane. 

I went cold. This was serious damage. The rarefied Erentz air wouldseep out. It was leaking now: we could see the magnetic radiance of itall up the length of the ten foot crack. The leak would change thepressure of the Erentz system, constantly lower it, demanding steadyrenewal. The Erentz motors would overheat; some might go bad from thestrain. 

Grantline stood gripping me. "Damn bad. "

"Yes. Can't we repair it, Johnny?"

"No. Would have to take that whole plaster section out, shut off theErentz plant and exhaust the interior air of all this bulkhead. Day'sjob--maybe more. "

And the crack would get worse, I knew. It would gradually spread andwiden. The Erentz circulation would fail. All our power would bedrained struggling to maintain it. This brigand who had unwittinglycommitted suicide by his daring act had accomplished more than he hadperhaps realized. I could envisage our weapons, useless from the lackof power. The air in our buildings turned fetid and frigid; ourselvesforced to the helmets. A rush out to abandon the camp and escape. Thebuilding exploding, scattering into a litter on the ledge like achild's broken toy. The treasure abandoned, with the brigands comingup and loading it on their ship. 

Our defeat. In a few hours now--or minutes. This crack could slowlywiden, or it could break suddenly at any time. Disaster, come now soabruptly upon us at the very start of the brigand attack.... 

Grantline's voice in my audiphone broke my despairing thoughts. 

"Bad. Come on, Gregg. Nothing to do here. "

We were aware that our other four men had run along the building'sother side. They emerged now--with the running brigands in front ofthem, rushing out toward the stairs on the ledge. Three giant Martianfigures in flight, with our four men chasing. 

A brigand fell to the rocks by the brink of the ledge. The othersreached the descending staircase, tumbled down it with reckless leaps. 

Our men turned back. Before we could join them, the enemy ship down inthe valley sent up a cautious searchbeam which located its returningmen. Then the beam swung up to the ledge, landing upon us. 

We stood confused, blinded by the brilliant glare. Grantline stumbledagainst me. 

"Run, Gregg! They'll be firing at us. "

We dashed away. Our companions joined us, rushing back for the port. Isaw it open, reinforcements coming out to help us--half a dozenfigures carrying a ten foot insulated shield. They could barely get itthrough the port. 

The Martian searchray vanished. Then almost instantly the electronicray came with its deadly stab. Missed us at first, as we ran for theshield, carrying it back to the port, hiding behind it. 

The ray stabbed once or twice more. 

Whether Miko's instruments showed him how badly damaged our front wallwas, we never knew. But I think that he realized. His searchbeam clungto it, and his zed-ray pried into our interiors. 

The brigand ship was active now. We were desperate; we used ourtelescope freely for observation. Miko's ore carts and miningapparatus were unloaded on the rocks. The rail sections were beingcarried a mile out, nearly to the center of the valley. A subsidiarycamp was being established there, only a mile from the base of ourcliff, but still far beyond reach of our weapons. We could see thebrigand lights down there. 

Then the ore chute sections were brought over. We could see Miko's mencarrying some of the giant projectors, mounting them in the newposition. Power tanks and cables. Light flare catapults--smallmechanical cannons for throwing illuminating bombs. 

The enemy searchlight constantly raked our vicinity. Occasionally thegiant electronic projector flung out its bolt as though warning us notto dare leave our buildings. 

Half an hour went by. Our situation was even worse than Miko couldknow. The Erentz motors were running hot--our power draining, thecrack widening. When it would break, we could not tell; but the dangerwas like a sword over us. 

An anxious thirty minutes for us, this second interlude. Grantlinecalled a meeting of all our little force, with every man having hissay. Inactivity was no longer a feasible policy. We recklessly usedour power to search the sky. Our rescue ship might be up there; but wecould not see it with our now disabled instruments. No signals came. We could not--or, at least, did not--receive them. 

"They wouldn't signal, " Grantline protested. "They'd know theMartians would be more likely to get the signal than us. Of what useto warn Miko?"

But he did not dare wait for a rescue ship that might or might not becoming! Miko was playing the waiting game now--making ready for aquick loading of the ore when we were forced to abandon our buildings. 

The brigand ship suddenly moved its position! It rose up in a low flatarc, came forward and settled in the center of the valley where thecarts and rail sections were piled, and the outside projectors newlymounted on the rocks. 

The brigands now began laying the rails from the ship toward the baseof our cliff. The chute would bring the ore down from the ledge, andthe carts would take it to the ship. The laying of the rails was doneunder cover of occasional stabs from the electronic projector. 

And then we discovered that Miko had made still another move. Thebrigand rays, fired from the depth of the valley, could strike ourfront building, but could not reach all our ledge. And from the ship'snewer and nearer position this disadvantage to us was intensified. Then abruptly we realized that under cover of darkness bombs, anelectronic projector and searchray had been carried to the top of thecrater rim, diagonally across and only half a mile from us. Theirbeams shot down, raking all our vicinity from this new angle. 

I was on the little flying platform which sallied out as a test toattack these isolated projectors. Snap and I, and one other volunteer, went. He and I held the shield; Snap handled the controls. 

Our exit port was on the lee side of the building from the hostilesearchbeam. We got out unobserved and sailed upward; but soon a lightfrom the ship caught us. And the projector bolts came up.... 

Our sortie only lasted a few minutes. To me, it was a confusion ofcrossing beams, with the stars overhead, the swaying little platformunder me, and the shield tingling in my hands when the blasts struckus. Moments of blurred terror.... 

The voice of the man beside me sounded in my ears: "Now, Haljan, givethem one!"

We were up over the peak of the rim with the hostile projectors underus. I gauged our movement, and dropped an explosive powder bomb. 

It missed. It flared with a puff on the rocks, twenty feet from wherethe two projectors were mounted. I saw that two helmeted figures weredown there. They tried to swing their grids upward, but could not getthem vertical to reach us. The ship was firing at us, but it was faraway. And Grantline's searchbeam was going full power, clinging to theship to dazzle them. 

Snap circled them. As we came back I dropped another bomb. Its silentpuff seemed littered with flying fragments of the two projectors andthe bodies of the men. 

We swiftly flew back to our base. 

It decided Grantline. For an hour past Snap and I had been urging ourplan to use the gravity platforms. To remain inactive was sure defeatnow. Even if our buildings did not explode--if we thought to huddle inthem, helmeted in the failing air--then Miko could readily ignore usand proceed with his loading of the treasure under our helpless gaze. He could do that now with safety--if we refused to accept thechallenge--for we could not fire through the windows and must go outto meet this threat. 

To remain defensive would end inevitably in our defeat. We all knew itnow. The waiting game was Miko's--not ours. 

The success of our attack upon the distant isolated projectors, heartened us. Yet it was a desperate offensive upon which we decided!

We prepared our little expedition at the larger of the exit ports. Miko's zed-ray was watching all our interior movements. We made abrave show of activity in our workshop with abandoned ore carts whichwere stored there. We got them out, started to recondition them. 

It seemed to fool Miko. His zed-ray clung to the workshop, watchingus. And at the distant port we gathered the platforms, shields, helmets, bombs, and a few hand projectors. 

There were six platforms--three of us upon each. It left four peopleto remain indoors. 

I need not describe the emotion with which Snap and I listened toVenza and Anita pleading to be allowed to accompany us. They urged itupon Grantline, and we took no part. It was too important a decision. The treasure--the life or death of all these men--hung now upon thefate of our venture. Snap and I could not intrude our personalfeelings. 

And the girls won. Both were undeniably more skillful at handling themidget platforms than any of us men. Two of the six platforms could beguided by them. That was a third of our little force! And of what useto go out and be defeated, leaving the girls here to meet death almostimmediately afterward?

We gathered at the port. A last minute change made Grantline order sixof his men to remain to guard the buildings. The instruments, theErentz system, all the appliances had to be attended. 

It left four platforms, each with three men--Grantline at the controlsof one of them. And upon two of the others, Venza rode with Snap and Iwith Anita. 

We crouched in the shadows outside the port. So small an army, sallying out to bomb this enemy vessel or be killed in the attempt!Only sixteen of us. And thirty or so brigands well armed. 

I envisioned then this tiny Moon crater, the scene of this battle wewere waging. Struggling humans, desperately trying to kill!

Anita drew me down on the platform. "Ready, Gregg. "

The others were rising. We lifted, moved slowly out and away from theprotective shadows of the building. 

XXXVI

Grantline led us. We held about level. Five hundred feet beneath usthe brigand ship lay, cradled on the rocks. When it was still a mileaway from us I could see all its outline fairly clearly in thedimness. Its tiny hull windows were dark; but the blurred shape of thehull was visible, and above it the rounded cap of dome, with a dimradiance beneath it. 

We followed Grantline's platform. It was rising, drawing the othersafter it like a tail. I touched Anita where she lay beside me with herhead half in the small hooded control bank. 

"Going too high. "

She nodded, but followed the line nevertheless. It was Grantline'scommand. 

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 themup and in to cover us. 

They afforded a measure of protection against the hostile rays, thoughjust how much we were not sure. With the platform level, a bolt frombeneath could not harm us unless it continued for a considerable time. But the platform, except upon direct flight, was seldom level, for itwas a frail, unstable little vehicle! To handle it was more than aquestion of the controls. We balanced, and helped to guide it with themovement of our bodies--shifting our weight sidewise, or back, orforward to make it dip as the controls altered the gravity pull in itstiny plate sections. 

Like a bird, wheeling, soaring, swooping. To me, it was a precariousbusiness. 

But now we were in straight flight diagonally upward. The outline ofthe brigand ship came directly under us. I crouched tense, breathless;every moment it seemed that the brigands must discover us and loosetheir bolts. 

They may have seen us for some moments before they fired. I peeredover the side shield down at our mark, then up ahead to getGrantline's firing signal. It seemed long delayed. An added glow downthere must have warned Grantline that a shot was coming from there. The tiny red light flared bright on his platform. 

I turned on our Benson curve light radiance. We had been dark, but asoft glow now enveloped us. Its sheen went down to the ship to revealus. But its curving path showed us falsely placed. I saw the littleline of platforms ahead of us. They seemed to move suddenly sidewise. 

It was everyone for himself now; none of us could tell where the otherplatforms actually were placed or headed. Anita swooped us sharplydown to avoid a possible collision. 

"Gregg?"

"Yes. I'm aiming. "

I was making ready to drop the small explosive globe bomb. Our searchlight ray at the camp, answering Grantline's signal, shot down andbathed the enemy 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 itdown. The brigand rays flashed around me. They were horribly close;Miko had understood our sudden visible shift and aimed, not where weappeared to be, but approximately where we had been before. 

I dropped my bomb hastily at the glowing white ship. The touch of ahostile ray would have exploded it in my hand. I saw others droppingalso from our nearby platforms. The explosions from them merged in aconfusion of the white glare--and a cloud of black mist as thebrigands out on the rocks used their darkness bombs. 

We swept past in a blur of leaping hostile beams. Silent battle oflights! Darkness bombs down at the ship struggling to bar our campsearchray. The Benson radiance rays from our passing platforms, curving down to mingle with the confusion. The electronic rayssending up their bolts.... 

Our platforms dropped some ten dynamitrine bombs in that first passageover the ship. As we sped by, I dimmed the Benson 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--brokenwreckage, in which the litter of two or three projectors seemedstrewn. And the gruesome deflated forms of several helmeted figures. Others seemed to be running, scattering--hiding in the rocks andpit-holes. Twenty brigands at least were outside the ship. Some wererunning over toward the base of our camp ledge. The darkness bombswere spreading like a curtain over the valley floor; but it seemedthat some of the figures were dragging their projectors away. 

We sailed off toward the opposite crater rim. I remember passing overthe broken wreckage of Grantline's little spaceship, the _Comet_. Miko's bolts momentarily had vanished. We had hit some of his outsideprojectors; the others were abandoned, or being dragged to saferpositions. 

After a mile we wheeled and went back. I suddenly realized that onlyfour platforms were in the re-formed line ahead of us. One wasmissing! I saw it now, wavering down, close over the ship. A boltleaped up diagonally from a distant angle on the rocks and caught thedisabled platform. It fell, whirling, glowing red--disappeared intothe 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 smallforce gone!

But Grantline led us desperately back. Anita caught his signal tobreak our line. The five platforms scattered, dipping and wheelinglike frightened birds--blurring shapes, shifting unnaturally in flightas the Benson curve lights 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 likeancient rapiers. Falling blue points of fuse lights as we threw ourbombs. 

Down in a swoop. Then rising. Away, and then back. This silent warfareof lights! It seemed that around me must be bursting a pandemonium ofsound. Yet there was none. Silent, blurred melee, infinitelyfrightening. A bolt struck us, clung for an instant; but we weatheredit. The light was blinding. Through my gloves I could feel the tingleof the over charged shield as it caught and absorbed the hostilebombardment. Under me the platform seemed heated. My little Erentzmotors ran with ragged pulse. I got too much oxygen. I was dullysmothering.... 

Then the bolt was gone. I found us soaring upward, horribly tilted. Ishifted over. 

"Anita! Anita, dear, are you all right?"

"Yes, Gregg. All right. "

The melee went on. The brigand ship and all its vicinity wereenveloped in dark mist now--a turgid sable curtain, made more dense bythe dissipating heavy fumes of our exploding bombs which settled lowover the ship and the rocks nearby. The searchlight from our campstrove futilely to penetrate the cloud. 

Our platforms were separated. One went by, high over us. I saw anotherdart close beneath my shield. 

"God, Anita!"

"Too close! I didn't see it. "

Almost a collision. 

"Gregg, haven't we broken the ship's dome yet?"

It seemed not. I had dropped nearly all my bombs. This could not go onmuch longer. Had it been only about five minutes? Only that? Reasontold me so, yet it seemed an eternity of horror. 

Another swoop. My last bomb. Anita had brought us into position tofling it. But I could not. A bolt stabbed up from the gloom and caughtus. We huddled, pulling the shields up and over us. 

Blurred darkness again. Too much to the side now. I had to wait whileAnita swung us back. Then we seemed too high. 

I waited with my last bomb. The other platforms were occasionallydropping 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 sending up catapulted light flares. They came frompositions on the rocks outside the ship. They mounted in lazy curvesand burst over us. The concealing darkness, broken only by the flaresof explosions, enveloped the enemy. Our camp searchlight was stillstruggling with it. But overhead, where the few little platforms werecircling and swooping, the flares gave an almost continuous glare. Itwas dazzling, blinding. Even through the smoked pane which I adjustedto my visor I could not stand it. 

But these were thoughts of comparative dimness. In a patch where theEarthlight struck through the darkness of the rocks, I saw another ofour fallen platforms! Snap and Venza?

It was not they, but three figures of our men. One was dead. Two hadsurvived the fall. They stood up, staggering. And in that instant, before the turgid black curtain closed over them, I saw two brigandscome rushing. Their hand projectors stabbed at close range. Our mencrumpled and fell.... 

We were in position again. I flung my last missile, watched its lightas it dropped. On the dome roof two of Miko's men were crouching. Mybomb was truly aimed--perhaps one of the few in all our bombardmentwhich landed directly on the dome roof. But the waiting marksmen firedat it with short range heat projectors and exploded it harmlesslywhile 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 firehad died down to only a very occasional bolt. In the confusion of mywhirling impressions, I wondered if Miko were in distress. Not that!We had not hit his ship; perhaps we had done little damage indeed! Itwas we who were in distress. Two of our platforms had fallen--two outof 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. "

Grantline's signal light was summoning us from the attack. He was athousand feet or more above us. 

I was suddenly shocked with horror. The searchray from our campsuddenly vanished! Anita wheeled us to face the distant ledge. Thecamp lights showed, and over one of the buildings was a distresslight!

Had the crack in our front wall broken, threatening explosion of allthe buildings? The wild thought swept me. But it was not that. I couldsee light stabs from the cliff outside the main building. Miko haddared to send some men to attack our almost deserted camp!

Grantline realized it. His red helmet light semaphored the command tofollow him. His platform soared away, heading for the camp, with theother 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 got an idea!"

The attack on the brigand ship was over. It lay enveloped in thedarkness of the powder gas cloud and its own darkness bombs. But itwas uninjured. 

Miko had answered us with our own tactics. He had practically unmannedthe ship, no doubt, and had sent his men to our buildings. The fighthad shifted. But I was now without ammunition, save for two or threebullet projectors. 

Of what use for our platform to rush back? Miko expected that. Hisattack on the camp was undoubtedly made just for that purpose: to lureus back there. 

"Anita, if we can get down on the rocks somewhere near the ship, andcreep up unobserved in that blackness.... "

I might be able to reach the manual hull lock, rip it open and let theair out. If I could get into its pressure chamber and unseal the innerslide.... 

"It would wreck the ship, Anita: exhaust all its air. Shall we tryit?"

"Whatever you say, Gregg. "

We seemed to be unobserved. We skimmed close to the valley floor, amile from the ship. We headed slowly toward it, sailing low over therocks. 

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, butshe would not stay. And to be with me seemed at least equally safe. 

The rocks were deserted. I thought that there was very little chancethat any of the enemy would lurk here. We clambered over the pitted, scarred surface; the higher crags, etched with Earthlight, stood likesentinels in the gloom. 

The brigand ship with its surrounding darkness was not far from us. Noone was out here. We passed the wreckage of broken projectors, andgruesome, 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 itto where I was sure the manual lock would be located. 

Abruptly I realized that Anita was not behind me! Then I saw her at alittle distance, struggling in the grip of a giant helmeted figure!The brigand lifted her--turned, and ran. 

I did not dare fire. I bounded after them along the hull-side, aroundunder the curve of the pointed bow, down along the other side. 

I had mistaken the hull port location. It was here. The running, bounding figure reached it, slid the panel. I was only fifty feetaway--not much more than a single leap. I saw Anita being shoved intothe pressure lock. The Martian flung himself after her. 

I fired at him in desperation, but missed. I came with a rush. And asI reached the port, it slid closed in my face, barring me!

XXXVII

With puny fists I pounded the panel. A small pane in it wastransparent. Within the lock I could see the blurred figures of Anitaand her captor--and it seemed, another figure there. The lock was someten feet square, with a low ceiling. It glowed with a dim tube-light. 

I strained at it with futile, silent effort. The mechanism was here toopen this manual; but it was now clasped from within so would notoperate. 

A few seconds, while I stood there in a panic of confusion, raging toget in. This disaster had come so suddenly. I did not plan: I had nothought save to batter my way in and rescue Anita. I recall that Ifinally beat on the glassite pane with my bullet projector until theweapon was bent and useless. And I flung it with a wild despairingrage at my feet. 

They were letting the ship's air-pressure into this lock. Soon theywould open the inner panel, step into the secondary chamber--and in amoment more would be within the ship's hull corridor. Anita, lost tome!

The outer panel suddenly opened! I had lunged against it with myshoulder; the giant figure inside slid it. It was taken by surprise! Ihalf fell forward. 

Huge arms went around me. The goggled face of the helmet peered intomine. 

"So it is you, Haljan! I thought I recognized that little device overyour helmet bracket. And here is my little Anita, come back to meagain!"

Miko!

This was he. His great bloated arms encircling me, bending mebackward, holding me helpless. I saw over his shoulder that Anita wasclutched in the grip of another helmeted figure. No giant, but tallfor an Earth man--almost as tall as myself. Then the tube light in theroom 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, Haljan! A fool to the last! Butyou were always a fool. "

I could scarcely move in his grip. My arms were pinned. As he slowlybent me backward, I wound my legs around one of his: it was asunyielding as a steel pillar. He had closed the outer panel; the airpressure 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 aknife blade, its naked, sharpened metal glistening blue-white in thelight from overhead. 

I seized his wrist. But my puny strength could not hold him. Theknife, against all of 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 thenthe two girls leaping upon Miko. It threw him off his balance, and myhanging weight made him topple forward. He took a step to recoverhimself; his hand with the knife was flung up with an instinctive, involuntary balancing gesture. And as it came down again, I forced theknife-blade to graze his throat. Its point caught in the fabric of hissuit. 

His startled oath jangled in my ears. The girls were clawing at him;we were all four scrambling, swaying. With despairing strength Itwisted at his wrist. The knife went into his throat. I plunged itdeeper. 

His suit went flabby. He crumpled over me and fell, knocking me to thefloor. 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 theknife, jerked it from her brother's throat. She leaped backward, waving it. 

I twisted from beneath Miko's lifeless, inert body. As I got to myfeet, Anita flung herself to shield me. Moa was across the lock, backup against the wall. The knife in her hand went up. She stood for thebriefest instant regarding Anita and me, holding each other. I thoughtthat she was about to leap upon us. But before I could move, the knifecame down and plunged into her breast. She fell forward, her grotesquehelmet striking the grid-floor 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 safepressure was in the room. I shut off Moa's Erentz motors, unfastenedher helmet and raised it off. We gently turned her body. She lay withclosed eyes, her pallid face blue. With our own helmets off, we kneltover her. 

"Oh, Gregg--is she dead?"

"No. Not quite--but dying. "

"Gregg, I don't want her to die! She was trying to help you there atthe last. "

She opened her eyes. The film of death was glazing them. But she sawme, recognized me. 

"Gregg--"

"Yes, Moa. I'm here. "

Her vivid lips were faintly drawn in a smile. "I'm--so glad--you tookthe helmets off, Gregg. I'm--going--you know. "

"No!"

"Going--back to Mars--to rest with the fire-makers--where I camefrom. I was thinking--maybe you would kiss me, Gregg?"

Anita gently pushed me down. I pressed the white, faintly smiling lipswith 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 strengthand it fell back. Her words were the faintest of whispers:

"There was no use living--without your love. But I want you tosee--now--that a Martian girl can die with a smile--"

Her eyelids fluttered down; it seemed that she sighed and then was notbreathing. But on her livid face the faint smile still lingered, toshow me how a Martian girl could die. 

We had forgotten for the moment where we were. As I glanced up I sawthrough the inner panel, past the secondary lock, that the hull'scorridor was visible. And along its length a group of Martians wasadvancing! 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. Ipulled at the lever of the outer panel. The brigands were hurrying, thinking that they could be in time to stop me. One of the morecautious fumbled with a helmet. 

"Anita, run! Try and keep your feet. "

I slid the outer panel and pushed at Anita. Simultaneously thebrigands opened the inner port. 

The air came with a tempestuous rush. A blast through the innerport--through the small pressure lock--a wild rush, out to the airlessMoon. All the air in the ship madly rushing to escape.... 

Like feathers, we were blown with it. I recall an impression of thehurtling brigand figures and swift flying rocks under me. A silentcrash as I struck. 

Then soundless, empty blackness. 

XXXVIII

"Is he conscious? We'd better take him back: get his helmet off. "

"It's over. We can get back to the camp now. Venza dear, we'vewon--it's over. "

"He hears us!"

"Gregg!"

"He hears us. He'll be all right!"

I opened my eyes, I lay on the rocks. Over my helmet, other helmetswere peering, and faint, familiar voices mingled with the roaring inmy 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 outsidethe brigand ship. 

"Anita!"

She held me, lifted me. I was uninjured. I could stand: I staggered upand stood swaying. The brigand ship, a hundred feet away, loomed darkand silent, a lifeless hulk, already empty of air, drained in the madblast outward. Like the wreck of the _Planetara_--a dead, useless, pulseless hulk already. 

We four stood together, triumphant. The battle was over. The brigandswere worsted, almost the last man of them dead or dying. No more thanten or fifteen had been available for that final assault upon the campbuildings. Miko's last strategy. I think perhaps he had intended, withhis few remaining men, to take the ship and make away, deserting hisfellows. 

All on the ship, caught unhelmeted by the explosion, were dead longsince. 

I stood listening to Snap's triumphant account. It had not beendifficult for the flying platforms to hunt down the attacking brigandson the open rocks. We had only lost one more platform. 

Human hearts beat sometimes with very selfish emotions. It was atriumphant ending for us, and we hardly gave a thought that half ofGrantline's men had perished. 

We huddled on Snap's platform. It rose, lurching drunkenly barelycarrying us. 

As we headed for the Grantline buildings, where still the rift in thewall had not quite broken, there came the final triumph. Miko had beenaware of it, and knew he had lost. Grantline's searchlight leapedupward, swept the sky, caught its sought-for object--a huge silvercylinder, bathed brightly in the white searchbeam glare. 

The police ship from Earth. 

 * * * * *

TWO PLANETS CLASH FOR LUNAR TREASURE

Gregg Haljan was aware that there was a certain danger in having thegiant spaceship _Planetara_ stop off at the moon to pick upGrantline's special cargo of moon ore. For that rare metal--invaluablein keeping Earth's technology running--was the target of many greedyeyes. 

But nevertheless he hadn't figured on the special twist the cleverMartian brigands would use. So when he found both the ship and himselfsuddenly in their hands, he knew that there was only one way in whichhe could hope to save that cargo and his own secret--that would be byturning space-pirate himself and paying the BRIGANDS OF THE MOON backin their own interplanetary coin. 

 * * * * *

Here is a science-fiction classic, as exciting and ingenious as only amaster of super-science could write. 

 * * * * *

When RAY CUMMINGS took leave of this planet early in 1957, the worldof modern science-fiction lost one of its genuine founding fathers. For the imagination of this talented writer supplied a great many ofthe most basic themes upon which the present superstructure ofscience-fiction is based. Following the lead of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, Cummings successfully bridged the gap between the early dawningof science-fiction in the last decades of the Nineteenth Century andthe full flowering of the field in these middle decades of theTwentieth. 

Born in 1887, Cummings acquired insight into the vast possibilities offuture science by a personal association with Thomas Alva Edison. During the 1920's and 1930's, he thrilled millions of readers with hisvivid tales of space and time. The infinite and the infinitesimal wereall parts of his canvas, and past, present, and future, theinterplanetary and the extra-dimensional, all made their initialimpact on the reading public through his many stories and novels. 

 * * * * *

Previously published in an ACE edition is his novel, _The Man Who Mastered Time_ (D-173). 

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