Read Astounding Stories, May, 1931 Page 1

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  ASTOUNDING

  STORIES

  20c

  _On Sale the First Thursday of Each Month_

  W. M. CLAYTON, Publisher HARRY BATES, Editor DOUGLAS M. DOLD, Consulting Editor

  The Clayton Standard on a Magazine Guarantees

  _That_ the stories therein are clean, interesting, vivid, by leading writers of the day and purchased under conditions approved by the Authors' League of America;

  _That_ such magazines are manufactured in Union shops by American workmen;

  _That_ each newsdealer and agent is insured a fair profit;

  _That_ an intelligent censorship guards their advertising pages.

  _The other Clayton magazines are:_

  ACE-HIGH MAGAZINE, RANCH ROMANCES, COWBOY STORIES, CLUES, FIVE-NOVELSMONTHLY, ALL STAR DETECTIVE STORIES, RANGELAND LOVE STORY MAGAZINE,WESTERN ADVENTURES, and WESTERN LOVE STORIES.

  _More than Two Million Copies Required to Supply the Monthly Demandfor Clayton Magazines._

  * * * * *

  VOL. VI, No. 2 CONTENTS MAY, 1931

  COVER DESIGN H. W. WESSO

  _Painted in Water-Colors from a Scene in "Dark Moon._"

  DARK MOON CHARLES W. DIFFIN 148

  _Mysterious, Dark, Out of the Unknown Deep Comes a New Satellite to Lure Three Courageous Earthlings on to Strange Adventure._ (_A Complete Novelette._)

  WHEN CAVERNS YAWNED CAPTAIN S. P. MEEK 198

  _Only Dr. Bird's Super-Scientific Sleuthing Stands in the Way of Ivan Sarnoff's Latest Attempt at Wholesale Destruction._

  THE EXILE OF TIME RAY CUMMINGS 216

  _Young Lovers of Three Eras Are Swept down the Torrent of the Sinister Cripple Tugh's Frightful Vengeance._ (Part Two of a Four-Part Novel.)

  WHEN THE MOON TURNED GREEN HAL K. WELLS 241

  _Outside His Laboratory Bruce Dixon Finds a World of Living Dead Men--and Above, in the Sky, Shines a Weird Green Moon._

  THE DEATH-CLOUD NAT SCHACHNER AND ARTHUR L. ZAGAT 256

  _The Epic Exploit of One Who Worked in the Dark and Alone, Behind the Enemy Lines, in the Great Last War._

  THE READERS' CORNER ALL OF US 276

  _A Meeting Place for Readers of Astounding Stories._

  Single Copies, 20 Cents (In Canada, 25 Cents) Yearly Subscription,$2.00

  Issued monthly by Readers' Guild, Inc., 80 Lafayette Street, New York,N. Y. W. M. Clayton, President; Francis P. Pace, Secretary. Entered assecond-class matter December 7, 1929, at the Post Office at New York,N. Y., under Act of March 3, 1879. Title registered as a Trade Mark inthe U. S. Patent Office. Member Newsstand Group. For advertising ratesaddress The Newsstand Group, Inc., 80 Lafayette St., New York or TheWrigley Bldg., Chicago.

  * * * * *

  Dark Moon

  A COMPLETE NOVELETTE

  _By Charles W. Diffin_

  CHAPTER I

  _There Comes a New World_

  _Behind them a red ship was falling--falling free!_]

  [Sidenote: Mysterious, dark, out of the unknown deep comes a newsatellite to lure three courageous Earthlings on to strangeadventures.]

  The one hundred and fifty-ninth floor of the great TransportationBuilding allowed one standing at a window to look down upon the roofsof the countless buildings that were New York.

  Flat-decked, all of them; busy places of hangars and machine shops andstrange aircraft, large and small, that rose vertically under the liftof flashing helicopters.

  The air was alive and vibrant with directed streams of stubby-wingedshapes that drove swiftly on their way, with only a wisp of vapor fromtheir funnel-shaped sterns to mark the continuous explosion thatpropelled them. Here and there were those that entered a shaft ofpale-blue light that somehow outshone the sun. It marked an ascendingarea, and there ships canted swiftly, swung their blunt noses upward,and vanished, to the upper levels.

  A mile and more away, in a great shaft of green light from which allother craft kept clear, a tremendous shape was dropping. Her hull ofsilver was striped with a broad red band; her multiple helicopterswere dazzling flashes in the sunlight. The countless dots that wereportholes and the larger observation ports must have held numberlesseager faces, for the Oriental Express served a cosmopolitan passengerlist.

  But Walter Harkness, standing at the window, stared out from troubled,frowning eyes that saw nothing of the kaleidoscopic scene. His backwas turned to the group of people in the room, and he had no thoughtof wonders that were prosaic, nor of passengers, eager or blase; histhoughts were only of freight and of the acres of flat roofs far inthe distance where alternate flashes of color marked the descendingarea for fast freighters of the air. And in his mind he could see whathis eyes could not discern--the markings on those roofs that wereenormous landing fields: Harkness Terminals, New York.

  * * * * *

  Only twenty-four, Walt Harkness--owner now of Harkness, Incorporated.Dark hair that curled slightly as it left his forehead; eyes that weretaking on the intent, straightforward look that had been his father'sand that went straight to the heart of a business proposal withdisconcerting directness. But the lips were not set in the hard linesthat had marked Harkness Senior; they could still curve into boyishpleasure to mark the enthusiasm that was his.

  He was not typically the man of business in his dress. His broadshoulders seemed slender in the loose blouse of blue silk; a narrowscarf of brilliant color was loosely tied; the close, full-lengthcream-colored trousers were supported by a belt of woven metal, whilehis shoes were of the coarse-mesh fabric that the latest modedemanded.

  He turned now at the sound of Warrington's voice. E. B. Warrington,Counsellor at Law, was the name that glowed softly on the door ofthis spacious office, and Warrington's gray head was nodding as hedated and indexed a document.

  "June twentieth, nineteen seventy-three," he repeated; "a lucky dayfor you, Walter. Inside of ten years this land will be worth doublethe fifty million you are paying--and it is worth more than that toyou."

  He turned and handed a document to a heavy-bodied man across from him."Here is your copy, Herr Schwartzmann," he said. The man pocketed thepaper with a smile of satisfaction thinly concealed on his dark face.

  * * * * *

  Harkness did not reply. He found little pleasure in the look onSchwartzmann's face, and his glance passed on to a fourth man who satquietly at one side of the room.

  Young, his tanned face made bronze by contrast with his close-curlingblond hair, there was no need of the emblem on his blouse to mark himas of the flying service. Beside the spread wings was the triple starof a master pilot of the world; it carried Chet Bullard past allearth's air patrols and gave him the freedom of every level.

  Beside him a girl was seated. She rose quickly now and came towardHarkness with outstretched hand. And Harkness found time in theinstant of her coming to admire her grace of movement, and thecarriage that was almost stately.

  The mannish attire of a woman of business seemed almost a discordantnote; he did not realize that the hard simplicity of her costume hadbeen saved by the soft warmth of its color, and by an indefinable,flowing line in
the jacket above the rippling folds of an undergarmentthat gathered smoothly at her knees. He knew only that she made alovely picture, surprisingly appealing, and that her smile was acompensation for the less pleasing visage of her companion,Schwartzmann.

  "Mademoiselle Vernier," Herr Schwartzmann had introduced her when theycame. And he had used her given name as he added: "Mademoiselle Dianeis somewhat interested in our projects."

  She was echoing Warrington's words as she took Harkness' hand in afriendly grasp. "I hope, indeed, that it is the lucky day for you,Monsieur. Our modern transportation--it is so marvelous, and I know solittle of it. But I am learning. I shall think of you as developingyour so-splendid properties wonderfully."

  * * * * *

  Only when she and Schwartzmann were gone did Harkness answer hiscounsellor's remark. The steady Harkness eyes were again wrinkledabout with puckering lines; the shoulders seemed not so square asusual.

  "Lucky?" he said. "I hope you're right. You were Father's attorney fortwenty years--your judgment ought to be good; and mine is not entirelyworthless.

  "Yes, it is a good deal we have made--of course it is!--it bears everyanalysis. We need that land if we are to expand as we must, and thebanks will carry me for the twenty million I can't swing. But,confound it, Warrington, I've had a hunch--and I've gone against it.Schwartzmann has tied me up for ready cash, and he represents thebiggest competitors we have. They're planning something--but we needthe land.... Oh, well, I've signed up; the property is mine; but...."

  The counsellor laughed. "You need a change," he said; "I never knewyou to worry before. Why don't you jump on the China Mail thisafternoon; it connects with a good line out of Shanghai. You can betramping around the Himalayas to-morrow. A day or two there will fixyou up."

  "Too busy," said Harkness. "Our experimental ship is about ready, soI'll go and play with that. We'll be shooting at the moon one of thesedays."

  "The moon!" the other snorted. "Crazy dreams! McInness tried it, andyou know what happened. He came back out of control--couldn't checkhis speed against the repelling area--shot through and stripped hishelicopters off against the heavy air. And that other fellow,Haldgren--"

  "Yes," said Harkness quietly, "Haldgren--he didn't fall back. He wenton into space."

  * * * * *

  "Impossible!" the counsellor objected. "He must have fallen unobserved.No, no, Walter; be reasonable. I do not claim to know much about thosethings--I leave them to the Stratosphere Control Board--but I do know thismuch: that the lifting effect above the repelling area--what used to beknown as the heaviside layer--counteracts gravity's pull. That's why ourships fly as they please when they have shot themselves through. But theyhave to fly close to it; its force is dissipated in another ten thousandfeet, and the old earth's pull is still at work. It can't be done, my boy;the vast reaches of space--"

  "Are the next to be conquered," Harkness broke in. "And Chet and Iintend to be in on it." He glanced toward the young flyer, and theyexchanged a quiet smile.

  "Remember how my father was laughed at when he dared to vision thecommerce of to-day? Crazy dreams, Warrington? That's what they saidwhen Dad built the first unit of our plant, the landing stages for thebig freighters, the docks for ocean ships while they lasted, theberths for the big submarines that he knew were coming. They jeered athim then. 'Harkness' Folly,' the first plant was called. Andnow--well you know what we are doing."

  He laughed softly. "Leave us our crazy dreams, Warrington," heprotested; "sometimes those dreams come true.... And I'll try toforget my hunch. We've bought the property; now we'll make it earnmoney for us. I'll forget it now, and work on my new ship. Chet and Iare about ready for a try-out."

  * * * * *

  The flyer had risen to join him, and the two turned together to thedoor where a private lift gave access to the roof. They were halfwayto it when the first shock came to throw the two men on the floor.

  The great framework of the Transportation Building was swaying wildlyas they fell, and the groaning of its wrenched and straining memberssounded through the echoing din as every movable object in the roomcame crashing down.

  Dazed for the moment, Harkness lay prone, while his eyes saw thenitron illuminator, like a great chandelier, swing widely from theceiling where it was placed. Its crushing weight started toward him,but a last swing shot it past to the desk of the counsellor.

  Harkness got slowly to his feet. The flyer, too, was able to stand,though he felt tenderly of a bruised shoulder. But where Warringtonhad been was only the crumpled wreckage of a steeloid desk, theshattered bulk of the illuminator upon it, and, beneath, the mangledremains where flowing blood made a quick pool upon the polished floor.

  Warrington was dead--no help could be rendered there--and Harkness wasreaching for the door. The shock had passed, and the building wasquiet, but he shouted to the flyer and sprang into the lift.

  "The air is the place for us," he said; "there may be more coming." Hejammed over the control lever, and the little lift moved.

  "What was it?" gasped Bullard, "earthquake?--explosion? Lord, what asmash!"

  Harkness made no reply. He was stepping out upon the broad surface ofthe Transportation Building. He paid no attention to the hurryingfigures about him, nor did he hear the loud shouting of thenewscasting cone that was already bringing reports of the disaster. Hehad thought only for the speedy little ship that he used for his dailytravel.

  * * * * *

  The golden cylinder was still safe in the grip of its hold-downclutch, and its stubby wings and gleaming sextuple-bladed helicopterwere intact. Harkness sprang for the control-board.

  He, too, wore an emblem: a silver circle that marked him a pilot ofthe second class; he could take his ship around the world below theforty level, though at forty thousand and above he must give overcontrol to the younger man.

  The hiss of the releasing clutch came softly to him as the free-signalflashed, and he sank back with a great sigh of relief as the motorshummed and the blades above leaped into action. Then the stern blastroared, though its sound came faintly through the deadened walls, andhe sent the little speedster for the pale blue light of an ascendingarea. Nor did he level off until the gauge before him said twentythousand.

  His first thought had been for their own safety in the air, but withit was a frantic desire to reach the great plant of the HarknessTerminals. What had happened there? Had there been any damage? Hadthey felt the shock? A few seconds in level twenty would tell him. Hereached the place of alternate flashes where he could descend, and thelittle ship fell smoothly down.

  Below him the great expanse of buildings took form, and they seemedsafe and intact. His intention was to land, till the slim hands ofChet Bullard thrust him roughly aside and reached for the controls.

  It was Bullard's right--a master pilot could take control at anytime--but Harkness stared in amazement as the other lifted the ship,then swung it out over the expanse of ocean beyond--stared until hisown eyes followed those of Chet Bullard to see the wall of water thatwas sweeping toward the land.

  Chet, he knew, had held them in a free-space level, where they couldmaneuver as they pleased, but he knew, too, that the pilot's handswere touching levers that swung them at a quite unlawful speed pastother ships, and that swept them down in a great curve above theocean's broad expanse.

  * * * * *

  Harkness did not at once grasp the meaning of the thing. There was thewater, sparkling clear, and a monstrous wave that lifted itself up tomountainous heights. Behind it the ocean's blue became a sea of mud;and only when he glanced at their ground-speed detector did he sensethat the watery mountain was hurling itself upon the shore with theswiftness of a great super-liner.

  There were the out-thrusting capes that made a safe harbor for thecommerce that came on and beneath the waters to the HarknessTerminals; the wave built itself up to sti
ll greater heights as itcame between them. They were riding above it by a thousand feet, andWalter Harkness, in sudden knowledge of what this meant, stared withstraining eyes at the wild thing that raced with them underneath.

  He must do something--anything!--to check the monster, to flatten outthe onrushing mountain! The red bottom-plates of a submarine freightercame rolling up behind the surge to show how futile was the might ofman. And the next moment marked the impact of the wall of water upon awidespread area of landing roofs, where giant letters stared mockinglyat him to spell the words: Harkness Terminals, New York.

  He saw the silent crumbling of great buildings; he glimpsed in onewild second the whirling helicopters on giant freighters that took theair too late; he saw them vanish as the sea swept in and engulfedthem. And then, after endless minutes, he knew that Chet had swungagain above the site of his plant, and he saw the stumps of steel andtwisted wreckage that remained....

  * * * * *

  The pilot hung the ship in air--a golden beetle, softly humming as ithovered above the desolate scene. Chet had switched on the steady buzzof the stationary-ship signal, and the wireless warning was swingingpassing craft out and around their station. Within the quiet cabin aman stood to stare and stare, unspeaking, until his pilot laid afriendly hand upon the broad shoulders.

  "You're cleaned," said Chet Bullard. "It's a washout! But you'll buildit up again; they can't stop you--"

  But the steady, appraising eyes of Walter Harkness had moved on and onto a rippling stretch of water where land had been before.

  "Cleaned," he responded tonelessly; "and then some! And I could startagain, but--" He paused to point to the stretch of new sea, and hislips moved that he might laugh long and harshly. "But right there isall I own--that is, the land I bought this morning. It is gone, and Iowe twenty million to the hardest-hearted bunch of creditors in theworld. That foreign crowd, who've been planning to invade ourterritory here. You know what chance I'll have with them...."

  The disaster was complete, and Walter Harkness was facing it--facingit with steady gray eyes and a mind that was casting a true balance ofaccounts. He was through, he told himself; his other holdings would beseized to pay for this waste of water that an hour before had been dryland; they would strip him of his last dollar. His lips curved into asardonic smile.

  "June twentieth, nineteen seventy-three," he repeated. "Poor oldWarrington! He called this my lucky day!"

  * * * * *

  The pilot had respected the other man's need of silence, but hiscuriosity could not be longer restrained.

  "What's back of it all?" he demanded. "What caused it? The shock waslike no earthquake I've ever known. And this tidal wave--" He wasreaching for a small switch. He turned a dial to the words: "NewsService--General," and the instrument broke into hurried speech.

  It told of earth shocks in many places--the whole world had feltit--some tremendous readjustment among the inner stresses of theearth--most serious on the Atlantic seaboard--the great HarknessTerminals destroyed--some older buildings in the business districtshaken down--loss of life not yet computed....

  "But what _did_ it?" Chet Bullard was repeating in the cabin of theirfloating ship. "A tremendous shake-up like that!" Harkness silencedhim with a quick gesture of his hand. Another voice had broken in toanswer the pilot's question.

  "The mystery is solved," said the new voice. "This is the Radio-Newsrepresentative speaking from Calcutta. We are in communication withthe Allied Observatories on Mount Everest. At eleven P. M., WorldStandard Time, Professor Boyle observed a dark body in transit acrossthe moon. According to Boyle, a non-luminous and non-reflectingasteroid has crashed into the earth's gravitational field. A dark moonhas joined this celestial grouping, and is now swinging in an orbitabout the earth. It is this that has disturbed the balance of internalstresses within the earth--"

  * * * * *

  "A dark moon!" Chet Bullard broke in, but again a movement fromHarkness silenced his exclamations. Whatever of dull apathy hadgripped young Harkness was gone. No thought now of the devastationbelow them that spelled his financial ruin. Some greater, moregripping idea had now possessed him. The instrument was stillspeaking:

  "--Without light of its own, nor does it reflect the sun's light asdoes our own moon. This phenomenon, as yet, is unexplained. It isnearer than our own moon and smaller, but of tremendous density."Harkness nodded his head quickly at that, and his eyes were alive withan inner enthusiasm not yet expressed in words. "It is believed thatthe worst is over. More minor shocks may follow, but the cause isknown; the mystery is solved. Out from the velvet dark of space hascome a small, new world to join us--"

  The voice ceased. Walter Harkness had opened the switch.

  "The mystery is solved," Chet Bullard repeated.

  "Solved?" exclaimed the other from his place at the controls. "Man, itis only begun!" He depressed a lever, and a muffled roar marked theirpassage to a distant shaft of blue, where he turned the ship on endand shot like a giant shell for the higher air.

  There was northbound travel at thirty-five, and northward Harknesswould go, but he shot straight up. At forty thousand he motioned themaster-pilot to take over the helm.

  "Clear through," he ordered; "up into the liner lanes; then north forour own shop." Nor did he satisfy the curiosity in Chet Bullard's eyesby so much as a word until some hours later when they floated down.

  * * * * *

  An icy waste was beneath them, where the sub-polar regions werewrapped in the mantle of their endless winter. Here ships neverpassed. Northward, toward the Pole, were liner lanes in the higherlevels, but here was a deserted sector. And here Walter Harkness hadelected to carry on his experiments.

  A rise of land showed gaunt and black, and the pilot was guiding theship in a long slant upon it. He landed softly beside a building in asheltered, snow-filled valley.

  Harkness shivered as he stepped from the warmth of their insulatedcabin, and he fumbled with shaking fingers to touch the combinationupon the locked door. It swung open, to close behind the men as theystood in the warm, brightly-lighted room.

  Nitro illuminators were hung from the ceiling, their diffusedbrilliance shining down to reflect in sparkling curves and ribbons oflight from a silvery shape. It stood upon the floor, a metal cylindera hundred feet in length, whose blunt ends showed dark openings ofgaping ports. There were other open ports above and below and inregular spacing about the rounded sides. No helicopters swung theirblades above; there were only the bulge of a conning tower and theheavy inset glasses of the lookouts. Nor were there wings of any kind.It might have been a projectile for some mammoth gun.

  Harkness stood in silence before it, until he turned to smile at thestill-wondering pilot.

  "Chet," he said, "it's about finished and ready--just in time. We'vebuilt it, you and I; freighted in the parts ourselves and assembledevery piece. We've even built the shop: lucky the big steeloid platesare so easily handled. And you and I are the only ones that know.

  "Every ship in the airlanes of the world is driven by detonite--and wehave evolved a super-detonite. We have proved that it will work. Itwill carry us beyond the pull of gravitation; it will give us thefreedom of outer space. It is ours and ours alone."

  "No," the other corrected slowly, "it is yours. You have paid thebills and you have paid me. Paid me well."

  "I'm paying no more," Harkness told him. "I'm broke, right thisminute. I haven't a dollar--and yet I say now that poor Warrington wasright: this is my lucky day."

  * * * * *

  He laughed aloud at the bewilderment on the pilot's face.

  "Chet," he said slowly, and his voice was pitched to a more serioustone, "out there is a new world, the Dark Moon. 'Tremendous density,'they said. That means it can hold an atmosphere of its own. It meansnew metals, new wealth. It means a new little world to explore, andit's out there
waiting for us. Waiting for us; we will be the first.For here is the ship that will take us.

  "It isn't mine, Chet; it's ours. And the adventure is ours; yours andmine, both. We only meant to go a few hundred miles at first, buthere's something big. We may never come back--it's a long chance thatwe're taking--but you're in on it, if you want to go...."

  He paused. The expression in the eyes of Chet Bullard, master-pilot ofthe world, was answer enough. But Chet amplified it with explosivewords.

  "Am I in on it?" he demanded. "Try to count me out--just try to do it!I was game for a trial flight out beyond. And now, with a realobjective to shoot at--a new world--"

  His words failed him. Walt Harkness knew that the hand the otherextended was thrust forth blindly; he gripped at it hard, while heturned to look at the shining ship.

  But his inner gaze passed far beyond the gleaming thing of metal, offinto a realm of perpetual night. Out there a new world was waiting--aDark Moon!--and there they might find.... But his imagination failedhim there; he could only thrill with the adventure that the unknownheld.

  CHAPTER II

  _Escape_

  Two days, while a cold sun peeped above an icy horizon! Two days ofdriving, eager work on the installation of massive motors--yet motorsso light that one man could lift them--then Harkness prepared toleave.

  "Wealth brings care when it comes," he told Chet, "but it leavesplenty of trouble behind it when it goes. I must get back to New Yorkand throw what is left of my holdings to the wolves; they must behowling by this time to find out where I am. I'll drop back here in aweek."

  There were instruments to be installed, and Chet would look afterthat. He would test the motors where the continuous explosion ofsuper-detonite would furnish the terrific force for their drivingpower. Then the exhaust from each port must be measured and thrustsequalized, where needed, by adjustment of great valves. All this Chetwould finish. And then--a test flight. Harkness hoped to be back forthe first try-out of the new ship.

  "I'll be seeing you in a week," he repeated. "You'll be that longgetting her tuned up."

  But Chet Bullard grinned derisively. "Two days!" he replied. "You'llhave to step some if you get in on the trial flight. But don't worry;I won't take off for the Dark Moon. I'll just go up and play aroundabove the liner lanes and see how the old girl stunts."

  Harkness nodded. "Watch for patrol ships," he warned. "There's notraffic directly over here--that's one reason why I chose thisspot--but don't let anyone get too close. Our patents have not beenapplied for."

  * * * * *

  Harkness spent a day in New York. Then a night trip by HighlineExpress took him to London where he busied himself for some hours.Next, a fast passenger plane for Vienna.

  In other days Walter Harkness would have chartered a private ship tocut off a few precious hours, but he was traveling more economicallynow. And the representatives of his foreign competitors were not nowcoming to see him; he must go to them.

  At the great terminal in Vienna a man approached him. "Herr Harkness?"he inquired, and saluted stiffly.

  He was not in uniform. He was not of the Allied Patrol nor of anybranch of the police force that encircled the world in its operations.Yet his military bearing was unmistakable. To Harkness it wasreminiscent of old pictures of Prussian days--those curious picturesrevived at times for the amusement of those who turned to theirtelevision sets for entertainment. He had to repress a smile as hefollowed where the other led him to a gray speedster in a distantcorner of the open concourse.

  He stepped within a luxurious cabin and would have gone on into thelittle control room, but his guide checked him. Harkness was mildlycurious as to their course--Schwartzmann was to have seen him inVienna--but the way to the instrument board was barred. Anotherprecise salute, and he was motioned to the cabin at the rear.

  "It is orders that I follow," he was told. And Walter Harknesscomplied.

  "It could happen only here," he told himself. And he found himselfexasperated by a people who were slow to conform to the customs of aworld whose closely-knit commerce had obliterated the narrownationalism of the past.

  * * * * *

  They landed in an open court surrounded by wide lawns. He glimpsedtrees about them in the dusk, and looming before him was an old-timebuilding of the chateau type set off in this private park. He wouldhave followed his guide toward the entrance, but a flash of colorchecked him.

  Like a streak of flame a ship shot in above them; hung poised near theone that had brought them and settled to rest beside it. A little redspeedster, it made a splash of crimson against the green lawns beyond.And, "Nice flying," Harkness was telling himself.

  The hold-down clamps had hardly gripped it when a figure sprang outfrom an opened door. A figure in cool gray that took warmth and colorfrom the ship behind--a figure of a girl, tall and slender andgraceful as she came impulsively toward him.

  "Monsieur Harkness!" she exclaimed. "But this is a surprise. I thoughtthat Herr Schwartzmann was to see you in Vienna!" For a brief momentHarkness saw a flicker of puzzled wonderment in her eyes.

  "And I am sorry," she went on, "--so very sorry for your misfortune.But we will be generous."

  She withdrew her hand which Harkness was holding. He was stillphrasing a conventional greeting as she flung him a gay laugh and alook from brown eyes that smiled encouragement. She was gone beforehe found words for reply.

  Walter Harkness had been brought up in a world of business, and knewlittle of the subtle message of a woman's eyes. But he felt within hima warm response to the friendly companionship that the glance implied.

  Within the chateau, in a dark-paneled room, Herr Schwartzmann waswaiting. He motioned Harkness to a chair and resumed his complacentcontemplation of a picture that was flowing across a screen. Colorphotography gave every changing shade. It was coming by wireless, asHarkness knew, and he realized that the sending instrument must be ina ship that cruised slowly above a scene of wreckage and desolation.

  He recognized the ruins of his great plant; he saw the tiny figures ofmen, and he knew that the salvage company he had placed in charge wason the job. Beyond was a stretch of rippling water where the greatwave had boiled over miles of land and had sucked it back to theocean's depths. And he realized that the beginning of his conferencewas not auspicious.

  After the warmth of the girl's greeting, this other was like a plungeinto the Arctic chill of his northern retreat.

  * * * * *

  "I have listed every dollar's worth of property that I own," he wassaying an hour later, "and I have turned it over to a trustee who willprotect your rights. What more do you want?"

  "We have heard of some experimental work," said Herr Schwartzmannsmoothly. "A new ship; some radical changes in design. We would likethat also."

  "Try and get it," Harkness invited.

  The other passed that challenge by. "There is another alternative,"he said. "My principals in France are unknown to you; perhaps, also,it is not known that they intend to extend their lines to New York andthat they will erect great terminals to do the work that you havedone.

  "Your father was the pioneer; there is great value in the name ofHarkness--the 'good-will' as you say in America. We would like toadopt that name, and carry on where you have left off. If you were toassign to us the worthless remains of your plant, and all right andtitle to the name of Harkness Terminals, it might be--" He pauseddeliberately while Harkness stiffened in his chair. "It might be thatwe would require no further settlement. The balance of yourfortune--and your ship--will be yours."

  Harkness' gray eyes, for a moment, betrayed the smouldering rage thatwas his.

  "Put it in plain words," he demanded. "You would bribe me to sell yousomething you cannot create for yourselves. The name of Harkness hasstood for fair-dealing, for honor, for scrupulous observance of ourclients' rights. My father established it on that basis and I havecontinued in the same way. And
you?--well, it occurs to me that theSchwartzmann interests have had a different reputation. Now you wouldbuy my father's name to use it as a cloak for your dirty work!"

  He rose abruptly. "It is not for sale. Every dollar that I own will beused to settle my debt. There will be enough--"

  * * * * *

  Herr Schwartzmann refused to be insulted. His voice was unruffled ashe interrupted young Harkness' vehement statement.

  "Perhaps you are right; perhaps not. Permit me to remind you that thevalue of your holdings may depreciate under certain influences thatwe are able to exert--also that you are in Austria, and that the lawsof this country permit us to hold you imprisoned until the debt ispaid. In the meantime we will find your ship and seize it, andwhatever it has of value will be protected by patents in our name."

  His unctuous voice became harsh. "Honor! Fair dealing!" He spat outthe words in sudden hate. "You Americans who will not realize thatbusiness is business!"

  Harkness was standing, drawn unconsciously to his full height. Helooked down upon the other man. All anger had gone from his face; heseemed only appraising the individual before him.

  "The trouble with you people," he said, "is that you are living in thepast--way back about nineteen fourteen, when might maderight--sometimes."

  He continued to look squarely into the other's eyes, but his lips setfirmly, and his voice was hard and decisive.

  "But," he continued, "I am not here to educate you, nor to deal withyou. Any further negotiations will be through my counsellors. And nowI will trouble you to return me to the city. We are through withthis."

  * * * * *

  Herr Schwartzmann's heavy face drew into lines of sardonic humor. "Notquite through," he said; "and you are not returning to the city." Hedrew a paper from his desk.

  "I anticipated some such _verdammpt_ foolishness from you. You seethis? It is a contract; a release, a transfer of all your interests inHarkness, Incorporated. It needs only your signature, and that will besupplied. No one will question it when we are done: the very ink inthe stylus you carry will be duplicated. For the last time, I repeatmy offer; I am patient with you. Sign this, and keep all else thatyou have. Refuse, and--"

  "Yes?" Harkness inquired.

  "And we will sign for you--a forgery that will never be detected. Andas for you, your body will be found--a suicide! You will leave aletter: we will attend to all that. Herr Harkness will have found thismisfortune unbearable.... We shall be very sad!" His heavy smile grewinto derisive laughter.

  "I am still patient, and kind," he added. "I give you twenty-fourhours to think it over."

  A touch of a button on his desk summoned the man who had broughtHarkness there. "Herr Harkness is in your charge," were theinstructions to the one who stood stiffly at attention. "He is not toleave this place. Is it understood?"

  As he was ushered from the room, Walter Harkness also understood, andhe knew that this was no idle threat. He had heard ugly rumors of HerrSchwartzmann and his methods. One man, he knew, had dared to opposehim--and that man had gone suddenly insane. A touch of a needle, itwas whispered....

  There had been other rumors; Schwartzmann got what he wanted; hisfinancial backing was enormous. And now he would bring his ruthlessmethods to America. But there he needed the Harkness standing, thereputation for probity--and Walter Harkness was grimly resolved thatthey should never buy it from him. But the problem must be faced, andthe answer found, if answer there was, in twenty-four hours.

  * * * * *

  An amazing state of affairs in a modern world! He stood meditatingupon his situation in a great, high-ceilinged room. A bed stood in acorner, and other furniture marked the room as belonging to an earliertime. Even mechanical weather-control was wanting; one must open thewindows, Harkness found, to get cooling air.

  He stood at the open window and saw storm clouds blowing up swiftly. Theyblotted the stars from the night sky; they swept black and ominousoverhead, and seemed to touch the giant trees that whipped their branchesin the wind. But he was thinking not at all of the storm, and only of thefact that this room where he stood must be directly above the one whereSchwartzmann was seated. Schwartzmann--who would put an end to his life ascasually as he would bring down a squirrel from one of those trees!

  And again he thought: "Twenty-four hours!... Why hours? Why notminutes?... Whatever must be done he must do now. And might maderight: it was the only way to meet this unscrupulous foreignscoundrel."

  A wind-tossed branch lashed at him. On the ground below he saw the manwho had brought him, posting another as a guard. They glanced up athis window. There would be no escape there.

  And yet the branch seemed beckoning. He caught it when again itwhipped toward him, and, without any definite plan, he lashed it fastwith a velvet cord from the window drapes.

  But his thoughts came back to the room. He snatched suddenly at thecovers of the bed. What were the sheets?--fabric as old-fashioned asthe room, or were they cellulex? The touch of the soft fabricreassured him: it was as soft as though woven of spider's web, andstrong as fibres of steel.

  It took all of his strength to rip it into strips, but it was a matterof minutes, only, until he had a rope that would bear his weight. Thestorm had broken; the black clouds let loose a deluge of water thatdrove in at the window. If only the window below was still open!

  He found the middle of his rope, looped it over a post of the bed,and, with both strands in his grasp, let himself out and over thedripping sill.

  Would the guard see him, or had he taken to shelter? Harkness did notpause to look. He left the branch tied fast. "A squirrel in a tree,"he thought: the branch would mislead them. His feet found thewindow-sill one story below. He drew himself into the room and letloose of one strand of his rope as he entered.

  Schwartzmann was gone. Harkness, with the bundle of wet fabric in hishands, glanced quickly about. A door stood open--it was a closet--andthe rain-drenched man was hidden there an instant later. But hestepped most carefully across the floor and touched his wet shoes onlyto the rugs where their print was lost. And he held himselfbreathlessly silent as he heard the volley of gutteral curses thatmarked the return of Herr Schwartzmann some minutes later.

  "Imbecile!" Schwartzmann shouted above the crash of the closingwindow. "_Dumkopff!_ You have let him escape.

  "Give me your pistol!" Harkness glimpsed the figure of his recentguard. "Get another for yourself--find him!--shoot him down! A littlelead and detonite will end this foolishness!"

  From his hiding place Harkness saw the bulky figure of Schwartzmann,who made as if to follow where the other man had gone. The pistol wasin his hand. Walt Harkness knew all too well what that meant. The tinygrain of detonite in the end of each leaden ball was the same terribleexplosive that drove their ships: it would tear him to pieces. And hehad to get this man.

  He was tensed for a spring as Schwartzmann paused. From the wallbeyond him a red light was flashing; a crystal flamed forth with theintense glare of a thousand fires. It checked the curses on theother's thick lips; it froze Harkness to a rigid statue in thedarkness of his little room.

  * * * * *

  An emergency flash broadcast over the world! It meant that the NewsService had been commandeered. This flashing signal was calling to thepeoples of the earth!

  What catastrophe did this herald? Had it to do with the Dark Moon? Notsince the uprising of the Mole-men, those creatures who had spewedforth from the inner world, had the fiery crystal called!... It seemedto Harkness that Schwartzmann was hours in reaching the switch.... Avoice came shouting into the room:

  "By order of the Stratosphere Control Board," it commanded, "alltraffic is forbidden above the forty level. Liners take warning.Descend at once."

  Over and over it repeated the command--an order whose authority couldnot be disregarded. In his inner vision Harkness saw the tumult in theskies, the swift dropping of huge line
rs and great carriers of fastfreight, the scurrying of other craft to give clearance to thesemonsters whose terrific speed must be slowly checked. But why? Whathad happened? What could warrant such disruption of the traffic of theworld? His tensed muscles were aching unheeded; his sense of feelingseemed lost, so intently was he waiting for some further word.

  "Emergency news report," said another voice, and Harkness strainedevery faculty to hear. "Highline ships attacked by unknown foe. Threepassenger carriers of the Northpolar Short Line reported crashed.Incomplete warnings from their commanders indicate they were attacked.Patrol ship has spotted one crash. They have landed beside it and arereporting....

  "The report is in; it is almost beyond belief. They say the liner isempty, that no human body, alive or dead, is in the ship. She wasstripped of crew and passengers in the air.

  "We await confirmation. Danger apparently centered over arcticregions, but traffic has been ordered from all upper levels--"

  The voice that had been held rigidly to the usual calm clarity of anofficial announcer became suddenly high-pitched and vibrant. "Standby!" it shouted. "An S. O. S. is coming in. We will put it through ouramplifiers; give it to you direct!"

  * * * * *

  The newscaster crackled and hissed: they were waiving all technicalniceties at R. N. Headquarters, Harkness knew. The next voice cameclearly, though a trifle faint.

  "Air Patrol! Help! Position eighty-two--fourteen north,ninety-three--twenty east--Superliner Number 87-G, flying at R. A. plusseven. We are attacked!--Air Patrol!--Air Patrol!--Eighty-two--fourteennorth, ninety-three--twenty--"

  The voice that was repeating the position was lost in a pandemonium ofcries. Then--

  "Monsters!" the voice was shouting. "They have seized the ship! Theyare tearing at our ports--" A hissing crash ended in silence....

  "Tearing at our ports!" Harkness was filled with a blinding nausea ashe sensed what had come with the crash. The opening ports--theout-rush of air released to the thin atmosphere of those upper levels!Earth pressure within the cabins of the ship; then in aninstant--none! Every man, every woman and child on the giant craft,had died instantly!

  The announcer had resumed, but above the sound was a guttural voicethat shouted hoarsely in accents of dismay. "Eighty-seven-G!"Schwartzmann was exclaiming, "--Mein Gott! It iss our own ship, theAlaskan! Our crack flyer!"

  * * * * *

  Harkness heard him but an instant, for another thought was hammeringat his brain. The position!--the ship's position!--it was almost abovehis experimental plant! And Chet was there, and the ship.... What hadChet said? He would fly it in two days--and this was the second day!Chet had no radio-news; no instrument had been installed in the shop;they had depended upon the one in Harkness' own ship. And now--

  Walt Harkness' clear understanding had brought a vision that wassickening, so plainly had he glimpsed the scene of terror in thatdistant cabin. And now he saw with equal clarity another picture.There was Chet, smiling, unafraid, proud of their joint accomplishmentand of the gleaming metal shape that he was lifting carefully from itsbed. He was floating it out to the open air; he was taking off, andup--up where some horror awaited.

  "Monsters!" that thin voice had cried in a tone that was vibrant withterror. What could it be?--great ships out of space?--an invasion? Orbeasts?... But Harkness' vision failed him there. He knew only that afast ship was moored just outside. He had planned vaguely to seize it;he had needed it for his own escape; but he needed it a thousand timesmore desperately now. Chet might have been delayed, and he must warnhim.... The thoughts were flashing like hot sparks through his brainas he leaped.

  * * * * *

  He bore the heavier body of Schwartzmann to the floor. He rainedsmashing blows upon him with a furious frenzy that would not becurbed. The weapon with its deadly detonite bullet came toward him.In the same burst of fury he tore the weapon from the hand that heldit; then sprang to his feet to stand wild-eyed and panting is he aimedthe pistol at the cursing man and dragged him to his feet.

  "The ship!" he said between heavy breaths, "--the ship! Take me to it!You will tell anyone we meet it is all right. One word of alarm, onewrong look, and I'll blow you to hell and make a break for it!"

  The pistol under Harkness' silken jacket was pressed firmly intoSchwartzmann's side; it brought them safely past excited guards andout into the storm; it held steady until the men had fought their waythrough blasts of rain to the side of the anchored ship. Not till thendid Schwartzmann speak.

  "Wait," he said. "Are you crazy, Harkness? You can never take off; thetrees are close; a straight ascent is needed. And the wind--!"

  He struggled in the other's grasp as Harkness swung open the cabindoor, his fear of what seemed a certain death overmastering his fearof the weapon. He was shouting for help as Harkness threw him roughlyaside and leaped into the ship.

  Outside Harkness saw running figures as he threw on the motors. Apistol's flash came sharply through the storm and dark. A window inthe chateau flashed into brilliance to frame the figure of a girl.Tall and slender, she leaned forward with outstretched arms. Sheseemed calling to him.

  * * * * *

  Harkness seized the controls, and knew as he did so that Schwartzmannwas right: he could never lift the ship in straight ascent. Before herwhirling fans could raise her they would be crashed among the trees.

  But there were two helicopters--dual lift, one forward and one aft.And Walt Harkness, pilot of the second class, earned immediatedisbarment or a much higher rating as he coolly fingered the controls.He cut the motor on the big fan at the stern, threw the forward one onfull and set the blades for maximum lift, then released the hold-downgrips that moored her.

  The grips let go with a crashing of metal arms. The bow shot upwardwhile a blast of wind tore at the stubby wings. The slim ship tried tostand erect. Another furious, beating wind lifted her bodily, asHarkness, clinging desperately within the narrow room, threw his fullweight upon the lever that he held.

  The full blast of a detonite motor, on even a small ship, is terrific,and the speedster of Herr Schwartzmann did not lack for power. Smallwonder that the rules of the Board of Control prohibit the use of thestern blast under one thousand feet.

  The roaring inferno from the stern must have torn the ground as if bya mammoth plow; the figures of men must have scattered like leaves ina gusty wind. The ship itself was racked and shuddering with theimpact of the battering thrust, but it rose like a rocket, thoughcanted on one wing, and the crashing branches of wind-torn treesmarked its passage on a long, curving slant that bent upward into thedark. Within the control room Walter Harkness grinned happily as hedrew his bruised body from the place where he had been thrown, andbrought the ship to an even keel.

  * * * * *

  Nice work! But there was other work ahead, and the smile ofsatisfaction soon passed. He held the nose up, and the wirelesswarning went out before as the wild climb kept on.

  Forty thousand was passed; then fifty and more; a hundred thousand;and at length he was through the repelling area, that zone ofmysterious force, above which was a magnetic repulsion nearlyneutralizing gravity. He could fly level now; every unit of forcecould be used for forward flight to hurl him onward faster and fasterinto the night.

  Harkness was flying where his license was void; he was flying, too,where all aircraft were banned. But the rules of the Board of Controlmeant nothing to him this night. Nor did the voluble and sulphurousorders to halt that a patrol-ship flashed north. The patrol-ship wason station; she was lost far astern before she could gather speed forpursuit.

  Walter Harkness had caught his position upon a small chart. It was asphere, and he led a thin wire from the point that was Vienna to a dotthat he marked on the sub-polar waste. He dropped a slender pointerupon the wire and engaged its grooved tip, and then the flying was outof his hands. The instrument befo
re him, with its light bulbs andswift moving discs, would count their speed of passage; it would holdthe ship steadily upon an unerring course and allow for drift ofwinds. The great-circle course was simple; the point he marked wasdrawing them as if it had been a magnet--drawing them as it drew theeyes of Walt Harkness, staring strainingly ahead as if to span thethousands of miles of dark.

  CHAPTER III

  _The Space Terror_

  The control room was glassed in on all sides. The thick triple lenseswere free from clouding, and the glasses between them kept out thebiting cold of the heights. The glass was strong, to hold the pressureof one atmosphere that was maintained within the ship. The lookoutsgave free vision in all directions except directly below the hull,and a series of mirrors corrected this defect.

  But Walt Harkness had eyes solely for the black void ahead. Only thebrilliant stars shone now in the mantle of velvety night. No flashinglights denoted the passing of liners, for they were safe in the harborof the lower levels. He moved the controls once to avoid the greenglare of an ascending area, then he knew that there were no ships tofear, and let the automatic control put him back on his course.

  Before him, under a hooded light, was a heavy lens. It showed inmagnification a portion of the globe. There were countries and seas ona vari-colored map, and one pin-point of brilliance that marked hisever-changing position.

  He watched the slow movement of the glowing point. The CentralFederated States of Europe were behind him; the point was tracing acourse over the vast reaches of the patchwork map that meant the manydemocracies of Russia. This cruiser of Schwartzmann's was doing fivehundred miles an hour--and the watching man cursed under his breath atthe slow progress of the tiny light.

  But the light moved, and the slow hours passed, while Harkness triedto find consolation in surmises he told himself must be true.

  Chet had been delayed, he insisted to himself; Chet could never havefinished the work in two days; he had been bluffing good-naturedlywhen he threatened to fly the ship alone....

  * * * * *

  The Arctic Ocean was beneath. The tiny light had passed clear of theland on the moving chart.

  He would be there soon.... Of course Chet had been fooling; he wasalways ready for a joke.... Great fellow, Chet! They had taken theirtraining together, and Chet had gone on to win a master-pilot'srating, the highest to be had....

  Another hour, and a rising hum from a buzzer beside him gave warningof approach to the destination he had fixed. The automatic control waswarning him to decelerate. Harkness well knew what was expected of thepilot when that humming sounded; yet, with total disregard for thesafety of his helicopters, he dived at full speed for the denser airbeneath.

  He felt the weight that came suddenly upon him as he drove through andbeneath the repelling area, and he flattened out and checked histerrific speed when the gauges quivered at forty thousand.

  Then down and still down in a long, slanting dive, till a landmark wasfound. He was off his course a bit, but it was a matter of minutesuntil he circled, checked his wild flight, and sank slowly beneath thelift of the dual fans to set the ship down as softly as a snowflakebeside a building that was dark and forbiddingly silent--a lonelyoutpost in a lonely waste.

  No answer came to his hail. The building was empty; the ship was gone.And Chet! Chet Bullard!... Harkness' head was heavy on his shoulders;his feet took him with hopeless, lagging steps to his waiting ship. Hewas tired--and the long strain of the flight had been in vain. He wassuddenly certain of disaster. And Chet--Chet was up there at somehitherto untouched height, battling with--what?

  * * * * *

  He broke into a stumbling run and drew himself within the little ship.He was helpless; the ship was unarmed, even if the weapons of hisworld were of use against this unknown terror; but he knew that he wasgoing up. He would find Chet if he could get within reach of his ship;he would warn him.... He tried to tell himself that he might yet be intime.

  The little cruiser rose slowly under the lift of the fans; then heopened the throttle and swept out in a parabolic curve that ended in avertical line. Straight up, the ship roared. It shot through a stratumof clouds. The sun that was under the horizon shone redly now; it grewto a fiery ball; the earth contracted; the markings that werecoastlines and mountains drew in upon themselves.

  He passed the repelling area and felt the lift of its mysteriousforce--the "R. A. Effect" that permitted the high-level flying of theworld. His speed increased. It would diminish again as the R. A.Effect grew less. Record flights had been made to another tenthousand.... He wondered what the ceiling would be for the shipbeneath him. He would soon learn....

  He set his broadcast call for the number of Chet's ship. They had beengiven an experimental license, and "E--L--29-X" the instrument wasflashing, "E--L--29-X." Above the heaviside layer that had throttledthe radio of earlier years, he knew that his call from so small aninstrument as this would be carried for hundreds of miles.

  He reached the limit of his climb and was suddenly weightless,floating aimlessly within the little room; the ship was falling, andhe was falling with it. His speed of descent built up to appallingfigures until his helicopters found air to take their thrust.

  And still no answering word from Chet. The cruiser was climbing againto the heights. The hands of Harkness, trembling slightly now, heldher to a vertical climb, while his eyes crept back to the unlit platewhere Chet's answering call should flash. But his own call would be aguide to Chet; the directional finders on the new ship would trace theposition of his own craft if the new ship were afloat--if it were notlying crushed on the ice below, empty, like the liners, of any signof life.

  * * * * *

  His despairing mind snapped sharply to attention. His startled jerkthrew the ship widely from her course. A voice was speaking--Chet'svoice! It was shouting in the little room!

  "Go down, Walt," it told him. "For God's sake, go down! I'm rightabove you; I've been fighting them for an hour; but I'll make it!"

  He heard the clash of levers thrown sharply over in that distant ship;his own hands were frozen to the controls. His ship roared on in itsupward course, the futile "E--L--29-X" of his broadcast call stillgoing out to a man who could not remove his hands to send an answer,but who had managed to switch on his sending set into which he couldshout.

  Harkness was staring into the black void whence the wireless voice hadcome--staring into the empty night. And then he saw them.

  The thin air was crystal clear; his gaze penetrated for miles. And farup in the heights, where his own ship could never reach and where noclouds could be, were diaphanous wraiths. Like streamers of cloud inlong serpentine forms, they writhed and shot through space withlightning speed. They grew luminous as they moved living streamers ofmoonlit clouds.... A whirling cluster was gathered into a fallingmass. Out of it in a sharp right turn shot a projectile, tiny andglistening against the velvet black. The swarm closed in again....There were other lashing shapes that came diving down. They werecoming toward him.

  And, in his ears, a voice was imploring: "Down! down! The R. A.tension may stop them!... Go down! I am coming--you can't help--I'llmake it--they'll rip you to pieces--"

  The wraith-like coils that had left the mass above had straightened tosharp spear-heads of speed. They were darting upon him, swelling tomonstrous size in their descent. And Walt Harkness saw in an instantthe folly of delay: he was not helping Chet, but only hindering....His ship swung end for end under his clutching hands, and the thrustof his stern exhaust was added to the pull of Earth to throw him intoa downward flight that tore even the thin air into screamingfragments.

  * * * * *

  One glance through the lookouts behind him showed lashing serpentforms, translucent as pale fire; impossible beasts from space. Hisreason rejected them while his eyes told him the terrible truth.Despite the speed of his dive, they were gaining on him, coming u
pfast; one snout that ended in a cupped depression was plain. A mouthgaped beneath it; above was a row of discs that were eyes--eyes thatshone more brightly than the luminous body behind--eyes that froze themind and muscles of the watching man in utter terror.

  He forced himself to look ahead, away from the spectral shapes thatpursued. They were close, yet he thrilled with the realization that hehad helped Chet in some small degree: he had drawn off this group ofattackers.

  He felt the upthrust of the R. A. Effect; he felt, too, the pull of abody that had coiled about his ship. No intangible, vaporous thing,this. The glass of his control room was obscured by a clinging,glowing mass while still the little cruiser tore on.

  Before his eyes the glowing windows went dark, and he felt theclutching thing stripped from the hull as the ship shot through theinvisible area of repulsion. A scant hundred yards away a hugecylinder drove crashingly past. Its metal shone and glittered in thesun; he knew it for his own ship--his and Chet's. And what was withinit? What of Chet? The loudspeaker was silent.

  He eased the thundering craft that bore him into a slow-forming curvethat did not end for fourscore miles before the wild flight waschecked. He swung it back, to guide the ship with shaking hands wherea range of mountains rose in icy blackness, and where a gleamingcylinder rested upon a bank of snow whose white expanse showed afigure that came staggering to meet him.

  * * * * *

  Some experiences and dangers that come to men must be talked over atonce; thrills and excitement and narrow escapes must be told andcompared. And then, at rare times, there are other happenings thatstrike too deeply for speech--terrors that rouse emotions beyond merewords.

  It was so with Harkness and Chet. A gripping of hands; a perfunctory,"Good work, old man!"--and that was all. They housed the two ships,closing the great doors to keep out the arctic cold; and then ChetBullard threw himself exhausted upon a cot, while he stared, stillwordless, at the high roof overhead. But his hands that gripped andstrained at whatever they touched told of the reaction to his wildflight.

  Harkness was examining their ship, where shreds of filmy, fibrousmaterial still clung, when Chet spoke.

  "You knew they were there?" he asked, "--and you came up to warn me?"

  "Sure," Harkness answered simply.

  "Thanks," Chet told him with equal brevity.

  Another silence. Then: "All right, tell me! What's the story?"

  And Walt Harkness told him in brief sentences of the world-widewarning that had flashed, of the liners crashing to earth and theircabins empty of human life.

  "They could do it," said Chet. "They could open the ports and ramthose snaky heads inside to feed." He seemed to muse for a moment uponwhat might have come to him.

  "My speed saved me," he told Harkness. "Man, how that ship can travel!I shook them off a hundred times--outmaneuvered them when I could--butthey came right back for more.

  "How do they propel themselves?" he demanded.

  "No one knows," Harkness told him. "That luminosity in action meanssomething--some conversion of energy, electrical, perhaps, to carrythem on lines of force of which we know nothing as yet. That's aguess--but they do it. You and I can swear to that."

  Chet was pondering deeply. "High-level lanes are closed," he said,"and we are blockaded like the rest of the world. It looks as if ourspace flights were off. And the Dark Moon trip! We could have made it,too."

  * * * * *

  If there was a questioning note in those last remarks it was answeredpromptly.

  "No!" said Harkness with explosive emphasis. "They won't stop me." Hestruck one clenched fist upon the gleaming hull beside him.

  "This is all I've got. And I won't have this if that gang ofSchwartzmann's gets its hands upon it. The best I could expect wouldbe a long-drawn fight in the courts, and I can't afford it. I am goingup. We've got something good here; we know it's good. And we'll proveit to the world by reaching the Dark Moon."

  Another filmy, fibrous mass that had been torn from one of themonsters of the heights slid from above to make a splotch of colorlessmatter upon the floor.

  Harkness stared at it. The firm line of his lips set more firmlystill, but his eyes had another expression as he glanced at Chet. Hewould go alone if he must; no barricade of unearthly beasts could holdhim from the great adventure. But Chet?--he must not lead Chet to hisdeath.

  "Of course," he said slowly, "you've had one run-in with the brutes."Again he paused. "We don't know where they come from, but my guess isfrom the Dark Moon. They may be too much for us.... If you don't feellike tackling them again--"

  The figure of Chet Bullard sprang upright from the cot. His harshvoice told of the strain he had endured and his reaction from it.

  "What are you trying to tell me?" he demanded. "Are you trying toleave me out?" Then at the look in the other's eyes he grinnedsheepishly at his own outburst.

  And Walter Harkness threw one arm across Chet's shoulder as he said;"I hoped you would feel that way about it. Now let's make some plans."

  Provisions for one year! Even in concentrated form this made aprodigious supply. And, arms--pistols and rifles, with cases ofcartridges whose every bullet was tipped with the deadly detonite--allthis was brought from the nearest accessible points. They landed,though, in various cities, keeping Schwartzmann's ship asinconspicuous as possible, and made their purchases at differentsupply houses to avoid too-pointed questioning. For Harkness foundthat he and Bullard were marked men.

  The newscaster in the Schwartzmann cabin brought the information. Itbrought, too, continued reports of the menace in the upper air. Ittold of patrol-ships sent down to destruction with no trace ofcommander or crew; and a cruiser of the International PeaceEnforcement Service came back with a story of horror and helplessness.

  Their armament was useless. No shells could be timed to match theswift flight of the incredible monsters, and impact charges failed toexplode on contact; the filmy, fibrous masses offered littleresistance to the shells that pierced them. Yet a wrecked aftercompartment and smashed port-lights and doors gave evidence of thestrength of the brutes when their great sinuous bodies, lined withrows of suction discs, secured a hold.

  "Speed!" was Chet Bullard's answer to this, when the newscasterceased. "Speed!--until we find something better. I got clear of themwhen they caught me unprepared, but we can rip right through them nowthat we know what we're up against."

  * * * * *

  He had turned again to the packing of supplies, but Harkness was heldby the sound of his own name.

  Mr. Walter Harkness, late of New York, was very much in the day'snews. When a young millionaire loses all his wealth beneath a tidalwave; when, further, he flies to Vienna and transfers all rights inthe great firm of Harkness, Incorporated, to the Schwartzmanninterests in part settlement of his obligations; and, still further,when he is driven to fury by his losses and attacks the great HerrSchwartzmann in a murderous frenzy, wounds him and escapes inSchwartzmann's own ship--that is an item that is worth broadcastingbetween announcements of greater importance.

  It interested Harkness, beyond a doubt. He remembered the shot outsidethe cabin as he took off in his wild flight. Schwartzmann had beenwounded, it seemed, and he was to be blamed for the assault. Hesmiled grimly as he heard the warrant for his arrest broadcast. Everypatrol-ship would be on the watch. And there would be a dozenwitnesses to swear to the truth of Schwartzmann's lie.

  The plan seemed plain to him. He saw himself in custody; taken toVienna. And then, at the best, months of waiting in the psychopathicward of a great institution where the influence of Herr Schwartzmannwould not be slight. And, meanwhile, Schwartzmann would have his ship.Clever! But not clever enough. He would fool them, he and Chet.

  And then he recalled the girl, Mademoiselle Diane, a slim figureoutlined in a lighted window of the old chateau. Was there hope there?he wondered. Had her clear, smiling eyes seen what occurred?

&
nbsp; "Nonsense," he told himself. "She saw nothing in that storm. And,besides, she is one of their crowd--tarred with the same stick. Forgether."

  But he knew, as he framed the unspoken words, that the advice wasvain. He would never forget her. There was a picture in his mind thatcould not be blotted out--a picture of a tall, slender girl, trim andstraight in her mannish attire, who came toward him from her littlered speedster. She held out her hand impulsively, and her eyes weresmiling as she said; "We will be generous, Monsieur Harkness--"

  "Generous!" His smile was bitter as he turned to help Chet in theirfinal work.

  CHAPTER IV

  _The Rescue in Space_

  How often are the great things of life submerged beneath the trivial.The vast reaches of space that must be traversed; the unknown worldthat awaited them out there; its lands and seas and the life that wasupon it: Walter Harkness was pondering all this deep within his mind.It must have been the same with Chet, yet few words of speculationwere exchanged. Instead, the storage of supplies, a checking andrechecking of lists, additional careful testing of generators--suchdetails absorbed them.

  And the heavy, gray powder with its admixture of radium thattransformed it to super-detonite--this must be carefully charged intothe magazines of the generators. A thousand such responsibilities--andyet the moment finally came when all was done.

  The midnight sun shone redly from a distant horizon. It cast strangelights across the icy waste. And it flashed back in crimson splendorfrom the gleaming hull that floated from the hangar and came to restupon the snowy world.

  The two men closed the great doors, and it was as if they wereshutting themselves off from their last contact with the world. Theystood for long moments, silent, in the utter silence of the frozennorth.

  Chet Bullard turned, and Harkness gripped his hand. He was suddenlyaware of his thankfulness for the companionship of this tall, blondyoungster. He tried to speak--but what words could express the tumultof emotions that arose within him? His throat was tight....

  It was Chet who broke the tense silence; his happy grin flashed likesunshine across his lean face.

  "You're right," he answered his companion's unspoken thoughts; "it's agreat little old world we're leaving. I wonder what the new one willbe like."

  And Harkness smiled back. "Let's go!" he said, and turned toward thewaiting ship.

  * * * * *

  The control room was lined with the instruments they had installed. Anitron illuminator flashed brilliantly upon shining levers--emergencycontrols that they hoped they would not have to use. Harkness placedhis hand upon a small metal ball as Chet reported all ports closed.

  The ball hung free in space, supported by the magnetic attraction ofthe curved bars that made a cage about it. An adaptation of theelectrol device that had appeared on the most modern ships, Harknessknew how to handle it. Each movement of the ball within its cage,where magnetic fields crossed and recrossed, would bring instantresponse. To lift the ball would be to lift the ship; a forwardpressure would throw their stern exhaust into roaring life that wouldhurl them forward; a circular motion would roll them over and over. Itwas as if he held the ship itself within his hand.

  Chet touched a button, and a white light flashed to confirm his reportthat all was clear. Harkness gently raised the metal ball.

  Beneath them a soft thunder echoed from the field of snow, and cameback faintly from icy peaks. The snow and ice fell softly away as theyrose.

  A forward pressure upon the ball, and a louder roaring answered fromthe stern. A needle quivered and swung over on a dial as their speedincreased. Beneath them was a blur of whirling white; ahead was anupthrust mountain range upon which they were driving. And Harknessthrilled with the sense of power that his fingers held as he gentlyraised the ball and nosed the ship upward in meteor-flight.

  The floor beneath them swung with their change of pace. Without it,they would have been thrown against the wall at their backs. Theclouds that had been above them lay dead ahead; the ship was pointingstraight upward. It flashed silently into the banks of gray, throughthem, and out into clear air above. And always the quivering needlecrept up to new marks of speed, while their altimeter marked off thepassing levels.

  * * * * *

  They were through the repelling area when Harkness relinquished thecontrols to Chet. The metal ball hung unmoving; it would holdautomatically to the direction and speed that had been established.The hand of the master-pilot found it quickly. They were in dangerousterritory now--a vast void under a ceiling of black, star-speckedspace. No writhing, darting wraith-forms caught the rays of thedistant sun. Their way seemed clear.

  Harkness' eyes were straining ahead, searching for serpent forms, whenthe small cone beside him hummed a warning that they were not alone.Another ship in this zone of danger?--it seemed incredible. But moreincredible was the scream that rang shrilly from the cone. "Help! Oh,help me!" a feminine voice implored.

  Harkness sprang for the instrument where the voice was calling. "Wearen't the only fools up here," he exclaimed; "and that's a woman'svoice, too!" He pressed a button, and a needle swung instantly topoint the direction whence the radio waves were coming.

  "Hard a-port!" he ordered. "Ten degrees, and hold her level. No--twopoints down."

  But Chet's steady hand had anticipated the order. He had seen thedirection-finder, and he swung the metal ball with a single motionthat swept them in a curve that seemed crushing them to the floor.

  The ship levelled off; the ball was thrust forward, and the thunderfrom the stern was deafening despite their insulated walls. Theshuddering structure beneath them was hurled forward till the needleof the speed-indicator jammed tightly against its farthest pin. Andahead of them was no emptiness of space.

  * * * * *

  The air was alive with darting forms. Harkness saw them plainlynow--great trailing streamers of speed that shot downward from theheights. The sun caught them in their flight to make iridescentrainbow hues that would have been beautiful but for the hideous heads,the sucker-discs that lined the bodies and the one great disc thatcupped on the end of each thrusting snout.

  And beneath those that fell from on high was a cluster of the samesinister, writhing shapes which clung to a speeding ship that rolledand swung vainly in an effort to shake them off.

  The coiling, slashing serpent-forms had fastened to the doomed ship.Their thrashing bodies streamed out behind it. They made a cluster offlashing color whose center point was a tiny airship, a speedster, agay little craft. And her sides shone red as blood--red as they hadshone on the grassy lawn of an old chateau near far-off Vienna.

  "It's Diane!" Harkness was shouting. "Good Lord, Chet, it's Diane!"

  This girl he had told himself he would forget. She was there in thatship, her hands were wrenching at the controls in a fight that washopeless. He saw her so plainly--a pitiful, helpless figure, fightingvainly against this nightmare attack.

  Only an instant of blurred wonderment at her presence up there--then afrenzy possessed him. He must save her! He leaped to the side of thecrouching pilot, but his outstretched hands that clutched at thecontrol stopped motionless in air.

  * * * * *

  Chet Bullard, master-pilot of the first rank, upon whose chest was thetriple star that gave him authority to command all the air-levels ofearth, was tense and crouching. His eyes were sighting along aninstrument of his own devising as if he were aiming some super-gun ofa great air cruiser.

  But he was riding the projectile itself and guiding it as he rode. Hethrew the ship like a giant shell in a screaming, sweeping arc uponthe red craft that drove across their bow.

  They were crashing upon it; the red speedster swelled instantly beforetheir eyes. Harkness winced involuntarily from the crash that nevercame.

  Chet must have missed it by inches, Harkness knew; but he knew, too,that the impact he felt was no shattering of metal up
on metal. Theheavy windows of the control room went black with the masses offibrous flesh that crashed upon them; then cleared in an instant asthe ship swept through.

  Behind them a red ship was falling--falling free! And vaporous masses,ripped to ribbons, were falling, too, while other wraith-like formsclosed upon them in cannibalistic feasting.

  Their terrific speed swept them on into space. When the pilot couldcheck it, and turn, they found that the red ship was gone.

  "After it!" Harkness was shouting. "She went down out of control, butthey didn't get her. They've only sprung the door-ports a crack,releasing the internal pressure." He told himself this was true; hewould not admit for an instant the possible truth of the vision thatflashed through his mind--a ripping of doors--a thrusting snout thatwrithed in where a girl stood fighting.

  "Get it!" he ordered; "get it! I'll stand by for rescue."

  * * * * *

  He sprang for the switch that controlled the great rescue magnets. Notoften were they used, but every ship must have them: it was soordered by the Board of Control. And every ship had an inset of ironin its non-magnetic hull.

  His hand was upon the switch in an agony of waiting. Outside wereother beastly shapes, like no horror of earth, that came slantinglyupon them, but even their speed was unequal to the chase of this newcraft that left them far astern. Harkness saw the last ones vanish asChet drove down through the repelling area. And he had eyes only forthe first sight of the tiny ship that had fallen so helplessly.

  Ahead and below them the sun marked a brilliant red dot. It wasfalling with terrific speed, and yet, so swift was their own pace, ittook form too quickly: they would overshoot the mark.... Harkness feltthe ship shudder in slackening speed as the blast from the bow roaredout.

  They were turning; aiming down. The red shape passed from view whereHarkness stood. His hand was tight upon the heavy switch.

  Chet's voice came sharp and clear: "Rescue switch--ready?" He appearedas cool and steady as if he were commanding on an experimental testinstead of making his first rescue in the air. And Harkness answered:"Ready."

  A pause. To the waiting man it was an eternity of suspense. Then,"Contact!" Chet shouted, and Harkness' tense muscles threw the currentinto crashing life.

  * * * * *

  He felt the smash and jar as the two ships came together. He knew thatthe great magnets in their lower hull had gripped the plates on thetop of the other ship. He was certain that the light fans of thesmaller craft must have been crushed; but they had the little redspeedster in an unshakable grip; and they would land it gently. Andthen--then he would know!

  The dreadful visions in his mind would not down.... Chet's voicebroke in upon him.

  "I can't maintain altitude," Chet was saying. "Our vertical blastsstrike upon the other ship; they are almost neutralized." He pointedto a needle that was moving with slow certainty and deadly persistenceacross a graduated dial. It was their low-level altimeter, markingtheir fall. Harkness stared at it in stunned understanding.

  "We can't hold on," the pilot was saying; "We'll crash sure as fate.But I'm darned if we'll ever let go!"

  Harkness made no reply. He had dashed for an after-compartment totheir storage place of tools, and returned with a blow-torch in hishand. He lit it and checked its blue flame to a needle of fire.

  "Listen, Chet," he said, and the note of command in his voice told whowas in charge, at the final analysis, in this emergency. "I will bedown below. You call out when we are down to twenty thousand: I canstand the thin air there. I will open the emergency slot in the lowerhull."

  "You're going down?" Chet asked. He glanced at the torch and noddedhis understanding. "Going to cut your way through and--"

  "I'll get her if she's there to get," Harkness told him grimly. "Atfive hundred, if I'm not back, pull the switch."

  * * * * *

  The pilot's reply came with equal emphasis. "Make it snappy," he said:"this collision instrument has picked up the signals of fivepatrol-ships a hundred miles to the south."

  They dropped swiftly to the twenty level, and Harkness heard thedeafening roar of their lower exhausts as he opened the slot in theirship's hull. He dropped to the red surface held close beneath, whilethe cold gripped him and the whirling blasts of air tore at him. Butthe torch did its work, and he lowered himself into the cabin of thelittle craft that had been the plaything of Mademoiselle Diane.

  The cabin was a splintered wreck, where a horrible head had smashed insearch of food. One entrance port was torn open, and the head itselfstill hung where it had lodged. The mouth gaped flabbily open; aboveit was the suction cup that formed a snout; and above that, a row ofstaring, sightless eyes. Chet had slammed into the mass of serpentsjust in time, Harkness realized. Just in time, or just too late....

  The door to the control room was sprung and jammed. He pried it opento see the unconscious body that lay huddled upon the floor. But heknew, with a wave of thankfulness that was suffocating, that the brutehad not reached her; only the slow release of the air-pressure hadrendered her unconscious. He was beside her in an instant.

  * * * * *

  He was dimly aware of the thunder of exhausts and the shrill scream ofhelicopters as he reached the upper surface of the red ship and forcedhis unconscious burden into the emergency slot above his head.

  "They're here!" Chet was shouting excitedly. "We're ordered to halt.Looks as if our flight was postponed." He tried to smile, but theexperiment was a failure.

  "I am dodging around to keep that big one from grabbing us with itsmagnet. Schwartzmann is aboard one of the patrols; they think the girlis in her ship. They won't fire on us as long as we hang on. But we'llcrash if we do that, and they'll nail us if we let go."

  Harkness had placed the girl's body upon the floor. His answer was aquick leap to the pilot's side. "See to her," he ordered; "I'll takethe ship. Stop us now? Like hell they will! What's all our powerfor?"

  One glance gave him the situation: the big gray fighter above,slipping down to seize them with her powerful magnets; four otherpatrol cruisers that slowly circled, their helicopters holding themeven with the two ships that clung together in swift descent.

  Chet was right; no burst of speed could save them from the guns of thepatrols if they dropped the red speedster and made a break for it.They thought Diane was still in her ship, and a patrol would have thelittle craft safe before she had dropped a thousand feet. Their ownstern exhaust would be torn by a detonite shell, and the big cruiserwould seize them in the same way. No--they must hang onto the girl'sship and outmaneuver the others. He pressed the metal ball forward tothe limit of its space, and the stern exhaust crashed into action withall the suddenness of his own resolve.

  The ship beneath him threw itself straight ahead, flashed under thepatrol-ship that blocked them, and was away. The weight below, and itsresistance to the air, dragged them down, but Harkness brought theball up, and the ship answered with a slow lift of the bow that aimedthem straight out into space.

  A vertical climb!--and the voice from the instrument beside him wasshouting orders to halt. On each side were patrol-ships that roaredupward with him.

  "Cut those motors!" the voice commanded. "Release that ship! Halt, orwe will fire!"

  * * * * *

  Harkness threw his ship into a wild spiral for reply, and the thincrack of guns came to him from outside. Down! A headlong dive! Thenout and up again!

  He was through the repelling area in a twisting, rocking flight. Nothit as yet; they had to aim carefully to avoid damaging the redcraft.... He was straining his eyes for a glimpse of serpent-forms,and he laughed softly under his breath at thought of his strangeallies. Laughed!--until he saw them coming.

  He slammed down the switch on his own broadcast sender. "Back!" heshouted; "back, all of you! Look up! Look above you! The monsters arecoming!--the air-beasts!--they are at
tacking!"

  He threw his own ship into a dive; saw the others do likewise; thenleaped for the switch on the rescue magnets and pulled it open.

  He felt the red ship fall clear. He swung his own ship free and aimedit out and up on a long line of speed. Beside him a voice from adistant, fleeing patrol was shouting; "Come back, you fool! Down!Down, through the R. A.!"

  One backward glance showed him that his pursuers were safe. Theserpents had turned to pursue him, and other writhing luminositieswere falling from above. He swung head on, his motors wide open, hisspeed building up and up, to crash softly through the advance guard ofthe giant creatures out of space.

  Nothing could stop him! He was trembling with the knowledge, and withthe sheer joy of the adventure. Nothing could check them; neithercruisers nor monsters; nothing of earth or of space. They were free;they were on their way out--out where a new world awaited--where theDark Moon raced on her unlighted path!

  * * * * *

  For the moment he had forgotten their passenger. The thrill of combatand the ecstasy of winning freedom for their great adventure hadfilled him to forgetfulness of all else.

  "We're off!" he shouted. "Off for the Dark Moon!" Then he remembered,and turned where Chet was supporting the head of a slim girl whoseeyes opened to look about, to glance from Chet to Harkness and back toChet who was holding her.

  "You saved me," she breathed, "from them!" She raised one hand weaklyto cover her eyes at memory of those writhing shapes, then let it fallas other memories crowded in.

  "The patrol-ships!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "You must...." Hervoice trailed off into silence.

  She was able to stand, and with Chet's help she came slowly to herfeet as Harkness reached her. His voice was harsh and scornful; allelation had left him. He forced himself to hold his unsmiling gazesteadily upon the soft brown eyes that turned to his.

  "Yes," he said; "we must 'surrender'--that was the word you wanted. Wemust surrender!... Well, Mam'selle Diane, we're not in a surrenderingmood to-day. We've got away; made our escape!"

  He laughed loudly and contemptuously, though he winced at the look ofhurt that opened the brown eyes wide.

  "You brought the patrol," he went on; "you learned where we were--"

  "Herr Schwartzmann did," she interrupted in a quiet voice. "He locatedyou; your signals were picked up.... They left two hours before Idid," she added enigmatically. "I had to fly high, above the R. A. forgreater speed."

  Walt Harkness was bewildered. What did this mean? He tried to preservethe pose of hard indifference that was becoming increasinglydifficult.

  "More generosity?" he inquired. "You had to see the end of thehunt--be in at the death?"

  "In at the death!" she echoed, and laughed in a tone that trembled andbroke. "I nearly was, truly. But, no, my dear Monsieur Harkness:incredible as it seems, in view of your unfriendly reception, I cameto warn you!... But, enough of that. Tell me--you see how interestedI am in your plans?--what did you say of the Dark Moon?"

  * * * * *

  Walter Harkness tried to rearrange his jumbled thoughts. She had cometo warn them. Was this true? Or was this girl, who laughed so lightly,playing with him?

  "Yes," he said dully, "we were bound for the Dark Moon. The Patrolcouldn't stop us, nor the beasts that have paralyzed the flyingservice of the earth; but you have done it. We will turn back at once,and return you safely--"

  He was again at the controls, one hand extended for the metal ball,when her slim hand closed upon his wrist.

  "I know Herr Schwartzmann's plans," she said quietly. "He would ruinyou; seize your ship; steal for himself the glory of your invention.Would you go back and deliver yourself into his hands--because of me?"

  The brown eyes, Harkness found, were upon his with an expression hecould not fathom.

  "Yes," he said simply.

  And still the eyes looked into his. There was laughter in them, andsomething else whose meaning was concealed.

  "I ask you not to do this," she was saying. "You will succeed; I readit in your face. Let me go with you; let me share in the adventure. Iam begging this of you. It is your turn to be generous."

  Harkness' hand upon the metal ball held it motionless within itsenclosing cage. From astern there came to him the muffled roar of ablast that drove them on and out into space--black, velvety space,thick-studded with sharp points of light.... He stared into thatwondrous night, then back into the eyes that looked steadily,unfathomably, into his.... And his hand was unresisting as thestrong, slender fingers about his wrist drew it back....

  They were off for the Dark Moon: their journey, truly, was begun. Andthis girl, whom he had told himself to forget, was going with them.There was much that he did not understand, but he knew that he wasglad with a gladness that transcended all previous thrills of theperilous plan.

  CHAPTER V

  _The "Dark Moon"_

  They were seated in the cabin of the man-made meteor that the brain ofHarkness had conceived--two men and a girl. And they stared at oneanother unsmilingly, with eyes which reflected their comprehension ofthe risks that they ran and the dangers which lay ahead in the darkvoid. Yet the brown eyes of Mam'selle Diane, no less than the others,were afire with the thrill of adventure--the same response to the samelure that has carried men to each new exploration--or to their death.

  Behind them, a rear lookout port framed a picture of awful majesty.The earth was a great disc, faintly luminous in a curtain of deadblack. From beyond it, a hidden sun made glorious flame of the disc'sentire rim. And, streaming toward it, a straight, blasting line fromtheir stern exhaust, was an arrow of blue.

  It had taken form slowly, that arrow of blue fire, and Harknessanswered an unspoken question from the girl.

  "Hydrogen and oxygen," he explained. "It is an explosive mixture atthis height, but too thin to take fire. It will pass. Beyond this ispure hydrogen. And then, nothing."

  He turned to switch on their radio receiver, and he set it for thenewscasting waves that went forth from the most powerful station ofEarth, the Press Tower of New York. A voice came to them faintly. Fora time it vied with the muffled roar of their thundering exhaust; thenit lost volume, faded, and was finally gone.

  Their last contact with Earth was severed. There remained onlyblackness, and a great abyss through which they were plunging.

  * * * * *

  Harkness busied himself with calculations. He would have spoken, butthe silence that followed the vanished voice of Earth had robbed hisown voice of control.

  A telescope sight was fixed rigid with the axis of their ship. Helooked through it, moved their controls, and brought the cross-hairsof his instrument to bear upon a star.

  "That's about right," he said quietly. "I got all the information thatthe observatories had on the orbit of the Dark Moon. It is circlingthe Earth from north to south. It coincided for a short time with ourown moon when it first hit; that's what kicked up the big wave andjarred us up. But it swung off and seems to have settled down in itsown orbit now.

  "Two hundred thousand miles away is what they make it, though I thinkthat is more or less of a guess. I wish we could measure our speed."He looked at the earth-induction speed-indicator. Useless now, itregistered zero.

  "Well," he added, "we are shooting for the North Star. We will passclose to the Dark Moon's orbit; it should be about over the Pole onthis date. And there is one good safe bet, anyhow; there is nothingbetween here and there to stop us."

  He was being weakly facetious, but his efforts met with anenthusiastic response. The tension of the moment, it was plain, hadnot affected Harkness alone. But it was many hours before the error ofhis statement was made manifest to all.

  An island, faintly luminous, lay ahead. It grew to enormous size asthey dashed upon it. Harkness sprang for the controls, but, before hecould reach them, they had struck the vast field of pale green light,flashed through it, and left it diminishing in
size behind them. Then,other lights, not brilliant, but like phosphorescent bodies, that cameand went and flashed by with blinding speed.

  * * * * *

  Another luminous area rushed at them from ahead. At first it was aspeck, then an island, and then a continent in size, and through itmoved other brighter lights. This time a slight suggestion of animpact was felt. Here was matter of a form they could not guess. Itwas Chet who pointed to the glass of their control room. The heavylights of the lookouts were smeared with sticky fluid that drewtogether in trickling streams.

  "Nothing between us and the Dark Moon?" he asked of Harkness. "Andspace is an empty void? We Earth-creatures are a conceited lot."

  "Meaning?" the girl questioned.

  "Meaning that because we live on Earth--walk on solid ground, swim inthe water and fly in the air--we deny the existence of life in space.There's the answer written in the blood of some life that was snuffedout as we hit it."

  Harkness shook his head doubtfully. "Matter of some sort," headmitted, "and the serpents came from somewhere; but, as for the rest,the idea that the ocean of space is filled with life as ourEarth-oceans are--creatures living and moving through unknown fieldsof force...." He did not finish the denial, but looked with wonderinggaze at the myriad points that flashed softly into glowing masses anddarted aside before their onward rush.

  It was hours later that he checked their flight. Slowly at first hecut off the exhaust from their stern and opened the bow valve.Slowly, for their wild speed must slacken as it had been built up, byslow degrees. The self-adjusting floor swung forward and up. Theirdeceleration was like the pull of gravity, and now straight aheadseemed down.

  More hours, and they were at rest, floating in an ethereal ocean, anocean teeming with strange life. Each face was pressed close to alookout port. No one of the three could speak; each was too absorbedin the story his eyes were reading--this story of a strange, newexistence where no life should have been.

  Animalculae. They came in swarms; cloud masses of them floated past;and swirls of phosphorescent fire marked the presence of largercreatures that moved among them. Large and small, each living creaturewas invisible until it moved; then came the greenish light, likephosphorescence and yet unlike.

  * * * * *

  Still Harkness could not force himself to believe the irrefutableevidence. What of astronomy? he asked himself. Why was this matter notvisible through telescopes? Why did it not make its presence knownthrough interference? Through refraction of light?... And then herealized the incredible distance within the scope of his vision; heknew that this swarming life was actually more widely spaced; and thelight of a brilliant star shone toward him through the center of aliving mass to prove that here was matter that offered no resistanceto the passage of light.

  A void of nothingness was before his eyes. He saw its black emptinesschange to pale green fire that swirled and fled before a large shape.The newcomer swept down like light itself. Softly green like theothers, its rounded body was outlined in a huge circle of orangelight. Like a cyclopean pod, it was open at one end, and that open endclosed and opened and closed again as the creature gulped in uncountedmillions of the tiny, luminous dots--every one, as Harkness now knew,a living thing.

  Strange light whirled into life and vanished, each evidencing a battlewhere life took life in this ocean of the invisible living. A gaspfrom the girl brought Harkness quickly about.

  "Another one!" she said breathlessly, and pointed where the blacknesswas looped with writhing fire. It came swiftly near to show theoutline of the dread serpent form; the suction cups showed plainly.

  Danger was in this thing, Harkness knew, but it passed them by beforehe could move. The further lookout showed two gleaming monsters lockedtogether in deadly embrace. So swift was their whirling motion thatdetails of form were lost: only a confusion of lashing tentacles thatwhipped and tore, and one glimpse of a savage maw that sheared thetentacles off. Then the serpent was upon them.

  * * * * *

  Harkness had seen one time a sight that was indelibly impressed uponhis memory. A steeloid cable had broken under a terrific strain; theend of it had lashed out with a speed the eye could not follow, towind itself around the superstructure of a submarine--and the men whowere gathered there.

  He thought of that now, saw again the bleeding mass that had been aninstant before a group of humans, as the serpent seized its prey. Thetwo combatants were encircled in a living coil of light. Then, asmotion ceased, the ethereal sea went dark except for pulsing suctioncups that drew and strained at the bodies they held.

  Harkness was groping for the controls--he saw too plainly their ownhelplessness when they were at rest--but the voice of Dianne checkedhim.

  "That bright star went out," she said; and Harkness let his gazefollow where she pointed.

  The stars that were distant suns shone in brilliant points of light;no atmosphere here to dim them or cause a flickering. A bright pointvanished as she looked--another!--and he knew abruptly that he wasseeing a circle of blackness that moved slowly between them and thestars.

  "The Moon!" he shouted. "The Dark Moon!" And now his hand found thecontrols that threw their ship into thunderous life. It wasapproaching! He swung the metal ball to throw them ahead and to oneside, and the roar from the stern told of the fast-growing speed thatwas pressing them to the floor....

  * * * * *

  An hour of wild flight, and the circle was close upon them. Toofaintly lighted to register in the telescopes of Earth, there wasstill enough of luminosity to mark it as a round disc of violet thatgrew dimly bluish-green around the edge.

  It ceased to grow. Their ship, Harkness knew, was speeding beside itsome hundreds of miles away. But they were within its gravitationalpull, and were falling toward it. And he aimed his ship bow-on to makethe forward blast a check upon their falling speed.

  The circle broadened; became a sphere; and then they were plungingthrough clouds more tenuous than any vapors of Earth--thick layers ofgas that reflected no rays from the distant sun.

  Beside them a sinuous form showed where a serpent of space was tryingto match their speed. Harkness saw it twisting convulsively in thestratum of gas; it was falling, lifeless, beside them as they sped onand away. Here was something the beasts could not combat. He made amental note of the fact, but his thoughts flashed again to what layahead.

  Every eye was held close to the lookouts that faced forward. The threewere breathless, wordless; the hand of Harkness that held the tinyball was all that moved.

  Ahead of them was their goal, the Dark Moon! And they were preparedfor Stygian darkness and a land of perpetual night. The almostinvisible gas-clouds thinned; there was a glow ahead that grewbrilliant as they watched; and then, with a blinding suddenness thatmade them shield their eyes, there flashed before them a world oflight.

  Each line of shore was marked distinctly there; the blue and violet ofrippling seas were blended with unreal hues; there were mountainsupthrust and, on the horizon, a range of volcanic peaks that pouredforth flashing eruptions half-blanketed by invisible gas.

  "The Dark Moon!" gasped Harkness. He was spellbound with utter awe atthe spectacle he beheld. This brilliant world a-gleam to its farthesthorizon with golden, glorious sunlight, softly spread and diffused!This, _this!_ was the Dark Moon!

  * * * * *

  He turned to share with the others the delirium of ecstatic wonder toooverpowering to be borne alone--turned, to find his happiness shotthrough with a pang of regret. He saw Chet and Diane. They had beenstanding together at a wide forward lookout; and now she was holdingone hand of the pilot to her breast in an embrace of passionate joy.

  Unconscious, that gesture of delight at this climax of their periloustrip?--Harkness told himself that this was so. But he swung back tothe helm of the ship. He glanced at instruments that again wereregistering; he saw the
air-pressure indicator that told of oxygenand an atmosphere where men might live. He gauged his distancecarefully, and prepared to land.

  The moment of depression could not last, for there was too much hereto fill brain and eyes. What would they find? Was there life? Hisquestion was answered by an awkward body that flapped from beneaththem on clumsy wings. He glimpsed a sinuous neck, a head that was allmouth and flabby pouch, and the mouth opened ludicrously in what wasdoubtless a cry of alarm.

  Then land, that took form and detail; a mountain whose curled top waslike a frozen wave of stone. In a valley below it trees were growing.They swayed in a wind, and their branches reached upward and flowedand waved like seaweed on the ocean's floor. Green--vivid, glowinggreen!--and reds and purples that might be flowers and fruit.

  * * * * *

  An open space in a little valley spread invitingly before him, and helaid the ship down there in a jungle of lush grasses--set it down asgently as if he were landing from a jaunt of a thousand miles insteadof two hundred times that distance straight away from Earth.

  The others were looking at him with glowing, excited eyes. In thecabin was silence. Harkness felt that he must speak, must saysomething worthy of the moment--something to express in slight degreethe upwelling emotion that filled them all, three adventurers about toset foot upon a virgin world....

  The pause was long-drawn, until he ended it in a voice that had allthe solemn importance of a head-steward's announcement on a liner ofthe high-level service. But the corners of his lips were twitching toa little smile.

  "This," he announced, "is as far as we go. This is the end of ourrun."

  The tension that had held them emotionally taut was ended. Withoutstretched hands Diane ran toward him, and her broken laugh betrayedthe hysteria she was holding back.

  "Congratulations!" she cried, and clung tightly to his hands."Congratulations, M'sieu Walter--"

  Her voice choked and she could not go on; but the eyes that wereraised to his were luminous through the tears that filled them.

  From the cabin beyond came a clash of levers, where Chet was preparingto open a port. And Harkness followed with unseeing eyes where thepilot waited that their commander might be the first to step forthupon an unknown globe--upon the surface of what men had called "TheDark Moon."

  CHAPTER VI

  _Trapped_

  Walter Harkness, piloting his ship to a slow, safe landing on a newworld, had watched his instruments with care. He had seen the outerpressure build up to that of the air of Earth; the spectro-analyzerhad shown nitrogen preponderating, with sufficient oxygen to supportlife. And, below him, a monstrous thing that flopped hurriedly away onleather wings had told him that life was there.

  But what would that life be? This was the question uppermost in theminds of all three as they stepped forth--the first of Earth's peopleto ask the question and to find the answer.

  Chet had gone to their stores. He strapped a belt about his waist, abelt banded with a row of detonite cartridges, and a pistol hung athis hip. He handed another to Harkness. But the pistol he offeredDiane was refused.

  "My many accomplishments," she laughed, "do not include that. I nevercould shoot--and besides I will not need to with both of you here."Her hand was resting confidently upon Chet's arm as they followedwhere Harkness led.

  The heavy grass, standing waist-high in the little valley where theirship was at rest, stirred to ripples of vivid green as a light breezetouched it. Above, the sun shone warm upon this world of tropicalgrowth. Harkness, listening in the utter silence for sounds that mightmean danger, let his eyes follow up the rugged wall of rock thathemmed them in on two sides. It gleamed with metallic hues in themidday glare. He looked on to the sun above.

  "A dark moon!" he said wonderingly. "Dark!--and yet it is blazingbright. Why can't we see it from Earth? Why is it dark?... I've anidea that the gas we came through is the answer. There is metal, weknow, that conducts an electric current in only one direction: why nota gas that will do the same with light?"

  * * * * *

  The pilot was listening, but Diane seemed uninterested in scientificspeculations. "The trees!" she breathed in rapture; "the marvelous,beautiful trees!"

  She was gazing toward distant towering growths where the valleywidened. Like no trees of Earth, these monsters towered high in air,their black trunks branching to end in tendrils that raised high abovethem. And the tendrils were a waving, ever-moving sea of color, whererainbow iridescence was stabbed through with the flash of crimsonbuds. A down-draft of air brought a heady, intoxicating odor.

  And still there was silence. To Walter Harkness, standing motionlessand alert amidst the waving grass, it seemed a hush of waiting. Aprickle of apprehension passed over his skin. He glanced about, hispistol ready in his hand, looked back for a moment at the ship, thensmiled inwardly in self-derision of his fear as he strode forward.

  "Let's have a look at things," he said with a heartiness not entirelysincere. "We'll discover nothing standing here."

  But the silence weighed upon them all as they pressed on. Noexclamations of amazement from them now, no speculations of what mightlie ahead. Only wide-eyed alertness and a constant listening,listening--until the silence was broken by a scream.

  A man it seemed at first, when Harkness saw the figure leap outwardfrom the cliff. A second one followed. They landed on all fours upon arock that jutted outward toward the trees.

  The impact would have killed a human, but these creatures stoodupright to face the concealment from which they had sprung. One wascovered with matted, brown hair. Its arms were long, and its fistspounded upon a barrel-like chest, while it growled hoarsely. The otherape-thing, naked and hairless, did the same. They were both utteringthose sounds, that at times seemed almost like grunted words, when theend came.

  A swishing of leather wings!--a swooping, darting rush of a hugebody!--and one of the ape-men, as Harkness had mentally termed them,was struggling in the clutch of talons that gripped him fast.

  The giant bat-shape that had seized him reached for the other, too. Atalon ripped at the naked face, but the ape-man dodged and vanishedamong the rocks.

  * * * * *

  With pounding wings, the bat swept off in lumbering flight, but withits burden it seemed heavy, and failed to rise. The trees were close,and their waving tentacles drew back, then shot out to splash aboutthe intruder. The talons released their hold, and the huge leatherwings flapped frantically; but too late. Both captor and captive werewrapped in an embrace of iridescent arms and held struggling inmid-air, while the unmoving watchers below stood in horror before thisdrama of life and death.

  Then a red bud opened. It was enormous, and its flowery beauty mademore revolting the spectacle of the living food that was thrust withinits maw.

  The bud closed. Its petals were like lips.... And Diane, inwhite-faced horror, was clinging to the protecting arm of Chet Bullardbeside her. Chet, too, had paled beneath his tan. But Walter Harkness,though white of face, was staring not at the crimson bud, shut tightlyabout its living food, but upward toward the broken, rocky face of thecliff.

  The flying thing, the unnamed horror of the air, had come silentlyfrom on high. None of them had seen it until it struck, and he wassure that the ape-men had been taken unaware. Then what had frightenedthem? What other horror had driven them in screaming terror to thatfearful spring out into the open where they must have known dangerawaited?

  Did a rock move? he wondered. Was the splotch of color--that mottlingof crimson and copper and gray--a part of the metallic mass? He rubbedhis smarting eyes--and when he looked again the color was gone. But hehad a conviction that eyes, sinister and deadly, had been staring intohis, that a living mass had withdrawn softly into a shadowed cave, andthat the menace that had threatened the ape-men was directed nowtoward them.

  Was this the reason for the silence? Was this valley, so peaceful inits sunlit stillness, a place of
death, from which all living thingskept clear? Had the ape-men been drawn there through curiosity atseeing their ship float down?

  And the quiet beauty of the valley--it might be as horrible a mockeryas the blazing splendor of those things ahead--those beautiful andhorrible eaters of flesh! His voice was unsteady as he turned towardthe others.

  "Let's call this off," he said: "there is something up there. We'll goback to the ship and get up in the air again. We'll find a healthierplace to land."

  * * * * *

  Like Harkness, Chet Bullard held his pistol ready in his hand."Something else?" he inquired. "You saw something?" And Harknessnodded grimly.

  They retraced their steps. A half-mile, perhaps. It had seemed long asthey ventured forth, and was no shorter now. And the gleaming, silveryshape of the ship was entirely lovely to their eyes as theyapproached.

  Harkness circled the blunt bow with its open exhaust high above hishead. On the far side was the port where they had emerged; its opendoor would be welcome in its promise of safe seclusion. His sigh ofrelief was echoed by the two who followed, for the horror andapprehension had been felt by all. But the breath choked abruptly inhis throat.

  Before them was the door, its thick metal wide-swung as they had leftit. But the doorway itself, where warm darkness should have invited,was entirely sealed by a web of translucent stuff.

  Harkness approached to look more closely. The substance was glisteningand smooth--yellowish--almost transparent. It was made up of a tangleof woven cords which clung tightly to the metal sides. Harknessreached out in sudden fury to grip it and tear it loose. He graspedthe slippery stuff, stumbled--and hung suspended by a tenacious holdthat gripped his hand where it had touched, and would not let go.

  His arm swung against it, and his shoulder. They were instantlyimmovable. And he knew in a single terrifying instant his utterhelplessness. He saw Chet Bullard's hands come up, and he found hisvoice in time to scream a harsh warning to him.

  "Tear me loose!" he commanded, "but don't touch the damned stuff!" Ittook the combined strength of the pilot and the girl to free him, andHarkness had to set his teeth to restrain an exclamation of pain ashis hand came slowly from the web that clung and clung and would notlet go.

  * * * * *

  From his place upon the ground he saw Chet raise a broken piece ofrock. It was like metal, and heavy, as the pilot's efforts proved,though it was surprisingly small in size. He saw Chet raise it abovehis head and crash it upon the thick web that filled the door. And, ashis own aching arm had been held, the rock was seized in the toughstrands, which gave back only slightly under the blow.

  Harkness scrambled to his feet. The fury that had possessed him madethe hurt of his arm unfelt. What devil's work was this that barredthem from the safety of the ship? The memory of that other menace,half-seen among the rocks, was strong upon him.

  "Stand back!" he shouted to Chet and the girl, and he raised hispistol to send a charge of detonite into the unyielding mass. Here waspower to tear the clinging-stuff to atoms.

  He felt Chet's body plunge upon him an instant before he fired, andhis pistol was knocked up and flew outward from his hand. He heardthe pilot's voice.

  "Walt!" Chet was saying. "For God's sake come out of it! Are youcrazy? You might have wrecked that door-port so we never could havefixed it; or the bullet could have gone on through to explode insidethe ship. Either way we would never get back: no leaky hull would everlet us make the trip home!"

  Chet was right: Harkness knew it in a moment. He knew the folly ofwhat he would have done, yet knew, too, that desperate measures wereneeded and needed quickly. The eyes of a devil had held his own fromthe darkness of the rocks, and the same rock wall came close to wherethey stood. He was in command; it was up to him--

  * * * * *

  The moment of indecision ended as a mass of viscous fluid splashedheavily against the ship. Harkness whirled about to face the rocks. Hewas calm now and controlled, but under his quiet courage was a fearthat gripped him. A fear of what he should find! But the reality wasso far beyond any imagined terror as to leave him cold.

  Above them and thirty feet away on a rocky ledge was a thing ofhorror. Basilisk eyes in a hairy head; gray, stringy hairs; and thefearful head ended in narrow, outthrust jaws, where more of the grayhairs hung like moss from lips that writhed and curled and sucked atthe air with a whistling shrillness. Those jaws could crush a man topulp. And the head seemed huge until the body behind it came intoview.

  The suddenness with which the great body rose showed the strength ofthe beast. A prodigious sack, like black leather, with markings ofcrimson and copper!--and the straggling, ropy hairs on it weregreenish-gray like the lustre of the rocks at its back.

  It stood upright on great hairy legs. The eyes shot forward onprotruding antennae. The sack-like body flexed to bring the rear partunder and forward. It was aiming at them.

  Harkness seized the slim figure of the girl who stood, mute withhorror, beside him. He threw her roughly to the ground, for themeaning of the viscous splash was plain.

  "Down!" he shouted to Chet. "Down on the ground!" And he felt theswish of another liquid mass above his head as he obeyed his owncommand.

  He felt for his pistol, then remembered it was gone--lost when Chetsprang upon him. But Chet had his.

  "Shoot!" he ordered. "Shoot the damned thing, Chet! Kill the spider!"

  Spider! He had named it unconsciously. But the name was inadequate,for here was a thing of horror beyond even a spider of prodigioussize. This peaceful valley!--and here was its ruler, frightful,incredibly loathsome!

  * * * * *

  He waited for the sound of a shot. A cursing, instead, was the onlyreply: Chet was not firing! Harkness whirled to see the pilot pinnedby one arm to the web.

  The fluid had caught him; he had not dropped quickly enough. And hisright hand that had been raised, and the pistol it held, were clampedfast to the awful stuff.

  There was no word of appeal, no call for help, yet Chet Bullard musthave known what this meant. But neither did Harkness wait for thatword. One spring, and he had the pilot by the waist, and he felt theweight of the girl's slim body added to his as her arms went about himto help. Chet's face went chalk-white as the hand tore loose. Thepistol remained buried in the clinging stuff.

  From the corner of his eye, Harkness saw the monster crouched tospring. He was half dragging the other two as he stooped and ran forthe bow of the ship. The monstrous body thudded against the metal hullbehind them.

  The leap was prodigious. He saw the sack-like body fall inert, thegreat, hairy legs shaking. For the moment, the attacker was helpless:but the respite was brief, as the glaring eyes plainly told.

  Below the ledge where the beast had been was an opening in therocks--a bit of black shadow that was darker than the lustrous metalof the cliff. There was a chance--

  "I can make it," Chet was saying, as Harkness dragged him on; "helpDiane!" But the girl had sprung before them to gain a foothold andextend a helping hand. And they were back in the darkness of a rockycave before the sunlit entrance was blocked by a hairy head and ahorrible, slavering mouth on a body too huge to enter.

  CHAPTER VII

  _In the Labyrinth_

  Spent and shaken, the three passed onward into the cave. Harknesssearched his pockets for his neolite flash; found it--a tiny pencilwith a tip of glass--and the darkness of the inner cave was floodedwith light.

  A box of food tablets was in a pocket of Chet's jacket, and there waswater that trickled in a tiny stream out of the rocks. It could havebeen worse, Diane pointed out with forced gaiety. But Harkness, whohad gone back for a final look at the entrance to the cave, found itdifficult to smile.

  He had found the entrance an opening no longer: it was sealed with agiant web of ropy strands--a network, welded together to a glutinousmesh. They were sealed in as effectively as if the opening wer
eclosed by a thick door of steel.

  They gathered fungus that grew in thready clumps on the walls, andthis served as a mattress to soften the rocky floor that must be theirbed. And Harkness sat silent in the darkness long after the otherswere asleep--sat alone on guard, to think and to reach, at last, aconclusion.

  A cleavage in the rocks made a narrow crack to the outside world, andthrough it the starlight filtered dimly. The thread of light grewbrilliantly golden--moonlight, a hundredfold more bright thanmoonlight on Earth. And he realized that the source of light was theirown globe, Earth, shining far through space!

  It lighted the cave with a mellow glow. It shone upon the closed eyesof the sleeping girl, and touched lightly upon the rounded softness ofa lovely face beneath a tangle of brown curls. Harkness stared longand soberly at the picture she made, and he thought of many things.

  No parasite upon society was this girl. He had known such; but herready wit, her keen grasp of affairs, had been evident in their talkson the journey they had made. They had stamped her as one who was ableto share in the work and responsibilities of a world where men andwomen worked together. Yet there was nothing of the hardness that somany women showed. And now she was altogether feminine, and entirelylovely.

  * * * * *

  Not far away, Chet Bullard was sleeping heavily. His hand, injuredpainfully when they tore it from the clinging mass, had been bandagedby Diane. It troubled him now, and he flung one arm outward. His handtouched that of the girl, and Harkness saw the instant quiet that cameupon him at the touch. And Diane--her lips were smiling in her sleep.

  They had been much together, those two; theirs had been a ready,laughing comradeship. It had troubled Harkness, but now he put allthought of self aside.

  "This trip," he thought, "can end only in disaster--if it has notalready done so. What a fool I was to bring these two!" And: "If Iwant to risk my own life," he told himself bitterly, "that's my ownaffair. But for Chet, and Diane, with their lives ahead of them--" Hisdetermination was quickly reached.

  He would go back. Somehow, some way, he would get them to the ship.They would return to Earth. And then.... His plans were vague. But heknew he could interest capital; he knew that this new world, that wasone great mine of raw metals, would not go long unworked. The metalliccolorations in rock walls and mountains had fairly shouted of richores and untold wealth.

  Yes, they would go back, but he would return. He would put from hismind all thought of this girl; he would forget forever those nebulousplans that had filled him with hope for a happiness beyond all hoping.And he would come back here prepared for conquest.

  He put aside all speculation as to what other horrible forms of lifethe little world might hold: he would be prepared to deal with them.But he still wondered if there were people. He had hoped to find somehuman life.

  And this hope, too, left him; his sense of this globe as anundeveloped world was strong upon him. The monsters; the tropical,terrible vegetation; the very air itself--all breathed of a world thatwas young. There had not been time for the long periods of evolutionthrough which humanity came.

  He tried to tell himself of the wealth that would be his; tried tofeel the excitement that should follow upon such plans. But he couldonly feel a sense of loss, of something precious that was gone.Diane--named for the moon: she seemed more precious now to the lonelyman than all else on moon or Earth. She could never be his; she neverhad been. It was Chet upon whom the gods and Diane had smiled. AndChet deserved it.

  Only in this last conviction did he find some measure of consolationduring the long night.

  * * * * *

  "We will rip the big web out with detonite," Harkness told the otherswhen morning came. "But I want to get the spider, too."

  A touch upon the web with a stick brought an instant response. Againthey saw in all its repulsiveness the thing that seemed a creature ofsome horrible dream. The eyes glared, while hairy feelers seized theweb and shook it in furious rage. Harkness, fearing another dischargeof the nauseating, viscous liquid, withdrew with the others far backin the cave.

  "Wait," he told them. "I have a plan."

  The creature vanished, and Harkness went cautiously forward to theweb. He took a detonite cartridge from his belt and placed it on thefloor close to the ropy strands. Another, and another, until he had aclose-packed circle of the deadly things. Then he placed a heavy,metallic piece of rock beside them and proceeded, with infinite care,to build a tower.

  One irregular block upon another: it was like a child at play with histoys. Only now the play was filled with deadly menace. The stonesswayed, then held in precarious, leaning uncertainty; the topmost wasdirectly above the cartridges on the floor.

  "Back!" he ordered the others, "and lie flat on the floor. I mustguess at the amount of explosive for the job."

  Chet and Diane were safe as Harkness weighed a fragment of metal inhis hand. One throw--and he must not hit the tower he had built....The rock struck into the network of cords; he saw it clinging where itstruck, and saw the web shaking with the blow.

  Over his shoulder, as he ran, he glimpsed the onrush of the beast.Again the eyes were glaring, again the feelers were shaking furiouslyat the web. They touched the leaning stones!

  He had reached the place where Chet and Diane lay and saw thebeginning of the tower's fall; and in the split second of its fallinghe threw himself across the body of the prostrate girl to shield herfrom flying fragments of stone. A blast of air tore at him; his earswere numbed with the thunder of the blast--a thunder that ended with acrashing of stone on stone....

  * * * * *

  Slowly he recovered his breath; then raised himself to his feet tolook toward the entrance. It would be open now, the way cleared. But,instead of sunlight, he saw utter dark. Where the mouth of the cavehad been was blackness--and nothing else!

  He fumbled for his flash, and stood in despairing silence before whatthe light disclosed.

  The rock was black and shining about the mouth of the cavern. It hadsplit like glass. In shattered fragments it filled the forward part ofthe cave. The whole roof must have fallen, and a crashing slide abovehad covered all.

  Chet was beside him; Harkness dared not look toward the girl comingexpectantly forward.

  "We'll use more of the same," Chet suggested: "we will blast our wayout."

  "And bring down more rock with each charge," Harkness told himtonelessly. "This means we are--"

  Diane had overheard. Harkness' pause had come too late.

  "Yes?" she encouraged. "This means we are entombed?--buried here? Isthat it?"

  Her voice was quiet; her eyes, in the light of the little flash, weresteady in their look upon the man who was leader of the expedition.Diane Vernier might shudder with horror before some obscene beast--shewould tremble with delight, too, at sight of some sudden beauty--butshe was not one to give way to hysteria when a situation must befaced. No despair could be long-lived under the spell of those eyes,brave and encouraging.

  "No," said Walter Harkness: "we will find some way to escape. This isblocked. We will follow the cave back and see where it leads. Theremust be other outlets. We're not quitting now." He smiled with acheerful confidence that gave no hint of being assumed, and he led theway with a firm step.

  * * * * *

  Diane followed as usual, close to Chet. But her eyes were upon theirleader; they would have repaid him for a backward look.

  To a mineralogist this tunnel that nature had pierced through the rockwould have been an endless delight, but to a man seeking escape fromhis living tomb it brought no such ecstasy. The steady, appraisingglance of Harkness was everywhere--darting ahead, examining the walls,seeking some indication, some familiar geological structure, thatmight be of help.

  He stopped once to kick contemptuously at a vein of quartz. Three feetin thickness--and it crumbled to fragments under his foot to release anetwork of gold.<
br />
  "Rotten with it," he said.

  And the only comment came from Chet: "A fat lot of good it does us!"he replied.

  The cavern branched and branched again; it opened to a great roomhigher than their light could reach; it narrowed to leave aperturesthrough which they crawled like moles; it became a labyrinth ofpassages from which there seemed no escape. Each turn, each newopening, large or small--it was always the same: Harkness prayinginaudibly for a glimpse of light that would mean day; and,instead--darkness!--and their own pencil of light so feeble againstthe gloom ahead....

  CHAPTER VIII

  _The Half-Men_

  "The Valley of the Fires," Harkness was to call it later, and shortenit again to "Fire Valley." The misty smokes of a thousand fires roseskyward from the lava beds of its upper end.

  Where the lava flow had stopped and the lower valley began, camevegetation. Sparse at first, then springing to luxuriant growth, itcontrasted strongly with the barren wall beside it and the equallybarren waste of high ground where the fires were.

  Mountains hemmed it in; their distant peaks showed black, with red andgreen striations of mineralized deposits. The valleys about them weredense with foliage, a green so startling and vivid as almost to offendthe eye.

  Trees were in the lower end of the valley. They were of tremendousgrowth, and the dew of early morning dripped from them like rain.Trunks smooth and ghostly white, except where the bark had split intocountless fractures and the scarlet color of the sap-wood showedthrough. Outflung branches forked to drop down dangling stalks thatrooted again in the ground; these made a forest of slender whitesupports for the leafy roof--a forest of spectral shapes in ashadow-world. Only here and there were arrows of sunlight thatpierced the dense foliage above to strike through and down to theblack earth floor and the carpet of rainbow hues.

  And that carpet of radiant colors was trampled into paths that woundon to lose themselves in the half-light of that ghostly world.

  * * * * *

  From one of the paths came sounds of tramping feet. Cries and snarlinggrunts resounded through the silence to send lizards scurrying to thesafety of the trees. Animal cries or hoarse voices of men--it wouldhave been difficult to tell which. And a sight of the creaturesthemselves would have left an observer still in doubt.

  A score of them, and they walked upright. Some bodies were naked, acoppery-black in color; on others the skin was covered by a sparsegrowth of hair. Noses that were mere nostril-slits; low foreheads,retreating flatly to a tangle of matted hair; protruding jaws whichshowed the white flash of canine teeth as the ape-like faces twistedand the creatures tugged at ropes of vines thrown over theirshoulders.

  The Neanderthal Man had not learned to use the wheel; and theseman-animals, too, used only the sheer strength of their corded musclesas they hauled at the body of a beast.

  It dragged along the path behind them, rolling at times to show thewhite of its belly instead of the flexible armor-plating thatprotected its back. Fresh blood flowed from a wound in the whiteunder-skin; this, and the dripping flints that tipped their spears,told how death had come. One curving horn that projected from awrinkled snout caught at times in the undergrowth, and then the oneswho dragged it would throw themselves upon the head with snarls offury and twist the big horn free.

  The rocky cliff was honeycombed with caves. A cry, half-human in itstone, brought an avalanche of figures scurrying forth. Children, whosedistended abdomens told of the alternate feasting and hunger that wastheirs, were cuffed aside by women who shouted shrilly at sight of theprize. Older men came, too, and in a screaming mob they threwthemselves upon the carcass of the beast that had been dragged intothe open.

  * * * * *

  Flint knives came into play, then sharpened stakes that were thrustthrough the bleeding meat. Young and old seized what they could,leaped across the little stream that trickled downward through thevalley, and raced for the nearest fires.

  The fumaroles made places for roasting, and these half-men had learnedthe taste of cooked meats. Their jaws were slavering as they waited.The scents were tantalizing.

  A hunter was reaching to snatch a shred of half-cooked meat when awoman of the tribe gave a scream that was shrill with fear. Shepointed her gnarled hand upward on the face of the cliff.

  An opening was there, a black cave-mouth in the black cliff. Abovetheir own caves, was this higher opening, yet they must have exploredit often--must have followed it as far as they dared, where it led tothe mountain's innermost depths. Yet from this familiar place therestepped forth an apparition. Another followed, and another--threestrange creatures like none the savage eyes of this world had everseen.

  Clothing torn to rags--faces black and smeared with blood--hands thatreached groping and trembling toward the light, until the half-blindedeyes of one saw the trickling brook.

  Then, "Water!" he croaked in a voice hardly more human than thegrunts of horror from below, and he took the hand of another to helpin the steep descent--while the tribe beneath them forgot theiranticipated feast, forgot all but their primordial fear of theunknown, and, with startled cries, broke and ran for the safety of theforest....

  CHAPTER IX

  _The Throwers of Thunder_

  It is doubtful if Walter Harkness heard or consciously saw thatfleeing tribe. He saw only the glorious sunlight and its sparklingreflection upon the stream; and in his nostrils was the scent ofroasting meat to rouse him to a frenzy.

  For seven Earth days he and Chet had kept account of the hours. Howlong after that they had followed their stumbling course he could nothave told. Time ceased to be measured in hours and days; rather was itreckoned in painful progress a foot at a time up rocky burrows,helping, both of them, to ease the path for the girl who struggled sobravely with them, until aching muscles refused to bear them further.Then periods of drugged sleep with utter fatigue for an opiate--and onagain in hopeless, aimless wandering.

  And now, the sun! And he was plunging his head into icy water to drinkuntil he strangled for breath! He knew that Chet and Diane were besidehim. A weak laugh came to his lips as he sat erect: the girl had drunkas deeply as the rest--and now she was washing her hands and face.

  The idea seemed tremendously amusing--or was it that the simple riteindicated more than he could bear to know? It meant that they weresafe; they had escaped; and again a trifle like cleanliness wasimportant in a woman's eyes. He rocked with meaninglesslaughter--until again a puff of wind brought distinctly the odor ofcooking food.

  A hundred feet away, up higher in the valley, were the first of thefires. Harkness came to his feet and ran--ran staggeringly, it istrue, but he ran--and he tore at some hanging shreds of smoking meatregardless of the burn. But the fierce gnawing at his stomach did notforce him to wolf the food. He carried it back, a double handful ofhalf-cooked meat, to the others. And he doled it out sparingly to themand to himself.

  The cold water had restored his sanity. "Easy," he advised them; "toomuch at first and we're done for."

  * * * * *

  He was chewing on the last shred when a thought struck him; he hadbeen too stunned before to reason. For the first time he jerked up hishead in startled alarm. He looked carefully about--at the meat on itspointed stakes, at the distant fires, at the open glade below them andthe dense jungle beyond where nothing stirred.

  "Cooked meat!" he exclaimed in a whisper. "Who did it? This meanspeople!"

  The memory that had registered only in some corner of a mind deeperthan the conscious, came to the surface. "I remember," he said. "Therewere things that ran--men--apes--what were they?"

  "Oh, Lord!" Chet groaned. "And all I ask is to be left alone!" But hewearily raised himself upright and verified the other's words.

  "They ran toward that opening among those trees. And I'll bet theylive in these caves up here behind us. I got a whiff of them as wecame past: they smelled like a zoo."

  They had come out
on top of the lava-flow, close to its end. Themolten rock had hardened to leave a drop of some forty feet to theopen glade below. Beyond that the jungle began, but behind them wasthe lava bed, frozen in countless corrugations. Harkness rose andhelped Diane to her feet: they must force their aching muscles to takeup their task again.

  He peered up the valley where a thousand fires smoked. "That stream,"he said, "comes in from a little valley that branches off up there. Wehad better follow it--and we had better get going before that gangrecovers from its surprise."

  They were passing the first of the fires where the meat was smokingwhen Chet called a halt. "Wait a bit," he begged: "let's take asirloin steak along--" He was haggling at a chunk of meat with abroken flint when a spear whistled in and crashed upon the rocks.

  * * * * *

  Harkness saw the thrower. Beyond the lava's edge the jungle could beseen, and from among the spectral trees had darted a wild figure whosehairy arm had snapped the spear into the air.

  There were more who followed. They were sliding down the slendertrunks that supported the branches and leafy roof high above theground. To Harkness the open doorway to the jungle seemed swarmingwith monkey-men. The movement of the three fugitives had been taken asa retreat, and the courage of the cave-dwellers had returned.

  Harkness glanced quickly about to size up their situation. To go onwas certain death; if these creatures came up to meet them on thelava-beds, the end was sure. The escarpment gave the three some slightadvantage of a higher position.

  One vain wish for the pistol now resting in the deep grass beside avanished ship; then he sprang for the weapon that had been thrown--itwas better than nothing--and advanced cautiously to the lava's edge.

  No concealment there; no broken rocks, other than pieces of flint; apoor fortress, this, that they must defend! And the weapons of theircivilization were denied them.

  Another spear hummed its shrill song, coming dangerously close. He sawwomen-figures that came from the jungle with supplies of weapons.Short spears, about six feet long, like the one he held. But they hadothers, too--long lances of slender wood with tips of flint. Thrustingspears! He had a sickening vision of those jagged stone heads rippinginto their bodies while these beasts stood off in safety. It was thusthat they killed their prey. And Diane--he could not even spareher--could not give her the kind oblivion of a mercy-shot!

  The other two were lying beside him now at the edge of the slopingcliff. The bank of shining gray was not steep; the enemy would climbit with ease. Hopeless! They had won through for this!... Harknessgroaned silently in an agony of spirit at thought of the girl.

  "Oh, for one detonite shell to land among them!" he said betweenclenched teeth--then was breathless with a thought that explodedwithin his mind.

  * * * * *

  His fingers were clumsy with haste as he fumbled at the head of thespear. The sharp-edged stone was bound to its shaft with sinew, woundround and round. The enemy were out in the open; he spared aninstant's look to see them advancing. A clattering of falling spearssounded beyond, but the weapons were overcast, thanks to theprotection of the rocky edge.

  "A shell!" Harkness spoke with sharp intensity. "Give me a cartridgefrom your belt, quick!"

  Chet handed him one. Harkness took one look, then pulled a cartridgefrom his own belt.

  "That explains it," he was muttering as he worked, "--the bigexplosion when I smashed the rocks. You've got ammunition for yourpistol, but you put rifle cartridges in my belt--and serviceammunition at that. No wonder they raised the devil with those rocks!"

  His fingers were working swiftly now to bind the slender cartridge tothe spear. A chipped out hollow in the flint made a seat. He gavesilent thanks for Chet Bullard's mistake. Chet had slipped; he hadfilled Harkness' belt with ammunition that would have been useless forthe pistol--but it was just what he needed here.

  So intent was he on his task that he hardly heard the yelling chorusfrom below. It swelled to a din; but his work was finished, and helooked up.

  One figure in advance of the rest had been urging them on, and theycame in a wild rush now. Walt Harkness scrambled to his feet. Tall andsinewy, his broad shoulders, scantily covered by the rags of blousethat remained, were turned sideways as he raised the spear. Theyelling from below swelled louder and more shrill.

  This strange one from another tribe--he was unarmed except for one oftheir own spears. The curious covering on his body was flapping in thebreeze. Nothing here, surely, to hold a hunting-tribe in check.

  The spear rose slowly in the air. What child of the tribe could nothave thrown it better! They came on faster now; the leader had almostreached the place where the spear was dropping down. He must havelaughed, if laughter had yet been born in such a breast, at the futileweapon dropping point first among the rocks.

  One little shell, a scant three inches long, no thicker than thestylus on milady's desk! But here was service ammunition, as Harknesshad said; and in the end of the lead a fulminate cap was buried--and agrain of dense, gray dust!

  * * * * *

  There was no flame--only a concussion that cracked upon one's ears,and flying rock fragments that filled the air with demoniac shrieks.And then that sound was lost in the shriller cries of terror and painas the ape-men broke for the trees.

  Harkness saw some of them who rose and fell again to rise no more, andone who dragged himself slowly from the blast that had struck himdown. But his eyes came back to another spear in his hands, and hisfingers were tearing at the sinew wrapping.

  The spear bent in his hands; the wood was flexible and springy. It wasDiane who offered the next suggestion. She, too, was working atanother spear--what wonder if her breath came fast!--but her eyes werealight, and her mind was at work.

  "Make a bow!" she exclaimed. "A bow and arrow, Walter! We are fightingprimitive men, so we can't scorn primitive weapons." She stopped witha little exclamation of pain; the sharp tip of the flint had cut herhand.

  Chet's spearhead was unloosed. He tried the spring of the shaft."Bully girl, Diane!" he said, and fell to gouging out a notch with thesharp flint near the end of the shaft.

  The sinew made a string. Three slender sticks lying about whose endshad been sharpened for use on the meat: they would do for arrows. Eacharrow must be notched and headed with an explosive shell, and therewere many of them.

  Chet sprang to his feet at last. Forgotten was the fatigue that hadnumbed him. A wild figure, his clothes in rags, his short, curlinghair no longer blond, his face a mottling of brown and black, whereonly here and there the white skin dared show through--he executed anintricate dance-step with a bed of lava for a floor, while heshouted:

  "Bring on your fighters! Bring 'em on! Who's going to stop us now?"

  * * * * *

  They were free to go, but Harkness paused at a renewed screaming fromthe jungle. Again the hairy ones poured forth into the open glade. Hehad half raised his bow, with arrow ready, before he saw that this wasno attack.

  The screams merged discordantly with other sounds--a crashing ofuprooted trees--a chorus of harsh coughing--snorting--unrecognizablenoises. And the people were cowering in terror.

  They half-ran toward the safety of their caves, but the throwers ofthunder, the demons on the lava bed, were between them and theirhomes. They turned to face the jungle, and the wild sounds and crashof splintered wood that drew near.

  Harkness saw the first head that appeared. He stared in open-mouthedamazement at the armored monster. Thick plates of shell covered itsmammoth body and lapped part way over the head to end at beady,wicked, red eyes on either side of a single curved horn.

  An instant the animal waited, to glare at the cowering human forms ithad tracked to their lair; others crashed through beside it; and inthat instant Harkness recognized the huddled group below as brothers.Far down they were, in the long, weary path that was evolution, andhardly come as yet to
a consciousness of self--but there were thosewho leaped before the others, their long spears couched and ready;they were defending the weaker ones at their backs; they were men!

  And Harkness was shouting as he raised his crude bow. "Shoot!" heordered. "Kill the brutes!" His own arrow was speeding true.

  The rush of mammoth beasts was on as he fired, but it was checked asquickly as it began. An inferno of explosions rose about the rushingbodies; crashing detonations struck two of them down, their heads tornand crushed. Between the helpless, primordial men and the chargingbeasts was a geyser of spouting earth and rocks, through which showedugly heads and tremendous bodies that wheeled and crashed madly backinto the jungle growth.

  Harkness suddenly realized that only he and Chet had fired. Diane'sbow was on the ground. He saw the girl beside it, sitting upright; buther body was trembling and weaving, and she was plainly maintainingher upright posture only by the greatest effort.

  * * * * *

  He was beside her in an instant. "What is it?" he demanded. "Are youhurt? What is it?"

  She raised her hand that he might see; her lips, seemed almost toonumb for speech.

  "Only a scratch," she whispered, but Harkness saw her eyes glazing. Hedropped to his knees and caught her swaying body in his arms.

  "A scratch," she repeated in a fading voice, "from the spear....Poison ... I think."

  A head appeared over the lava crest. Harkness saw it vaguely. He knewthat Chet had the newcomer covered; his bow was drawn. It meantnothing to him, for Diane was wounded--dying! Dying, now, in hisarms....

  The ape-man came on; he was grovelling upon the ground. He washairless, like the one they had seen escape the attack of the giantbat, and his cheek was slashed with a healing cut that might have beenmade by a ripping talon. He abased himself before the awful might ofthese creatures who had saved them. And he made motions with his armsto picture how they had sailed down from the skies; had landed; and hehad seen them. He was plainly petitioning for pardon and the favor ofthese gods--when he dropped his animal head to stare at the girl andthe cut hand that Harkness held in his.

  The blue discoloration of the wound must have been plain in itssignificance. The hairless one sprang abruptly to his feet and dartedtoward a cave. He was back in a moment; and, though be approached withwriggling humility, he reached the girl and he ventured to touch thediscolored hand with a sticky paste. He had a gourd that he held tothe girl's lips.

  Harkness would have struck it away; he was beside himself with grief.But Chet interposed.

  "Give it to her," he said in a sharp, strained voice that told of hisown dismay. "I think the beggar knows what he's about. He is trying tohelp."

  The lips were lax; only a little of the liquid found its way down herthroat. But Harkness, after minutes of agony, saw the first flutter oflids that betokened returning life....

  CHAPTER X

  "_But Awfully Dumb...._"

  Harkness would never forget the helpless body in his arms, nor thetender look that came slowly to the opened eyes that gazed so steadilyinto his. And yet it was Chet that she seemed to want for the thousandlittle services during the week that followed. And Harkness tried tostill the hurt in his heart, and he told himself that it was herhappiness be wanted more than his; that if she found greater pleasurein having Chet near, then his love was unworthy if it placed itself asa bar to that other happiness.

  He talked by signs with the hairless one whom he called Towahg. It wasthe sound the other made as he struck upon his chest. And he learnedthat Towahg could guide him to the ship.

  The tribe had left them alone. Only Towahg seemed inclined tofriendliness; and Harkness frequently saw the one who was their leaderin ugly, silent contemplation of them when Towahg brought food andwater to their cave.

  Diane was recovering, but her progress was slow. She was able at onceto walk and go slowly about, but the least exertion tired her. It hadbeen a close call, Harkness knew, and he realized that some time mustpass before she could take up the hardships of the trail. And in themeantime much might happen.

  He felt that he must reach the ship at the first possible moment andreturn for the others; Towahg would show him the way. He explained theplan to Chet and Diane only to meet with emphatic dissent.

  "You would go alone?" the girl exclaimed. "To meet heaven knows whatdangers? No, no, Walter; you must not! Wait; I am stronger; I can gosoon, I know."

  Chet, too, was for delay--Diane was better, and she would improvesteadily. They could carry her, at first. But Harkness looked at thejungle he must penetrate and knew that he was right.

  * * * * *

  He gave Towahg a bow and arrows like his own and those that Chet keptfor defense, but the arrows were of sharpened wood without detonitetips. He grinned toward Chet as he showed the savage how to handle themarvellous thing.

  "We've advanced these people a thousand years in the science of arms,"he said. "They should make Diane their first Minister of Munitions, orworship her as their own lovely goddess of the chase."

  A weapon that would throw farther than the strongest man could cast aspear--here was magic indeed! And Towahg knelt and grovelled on theground at his benefactor's feet.

  Harkness made light of the dangers he must face, but he knew in hisown mind he might fail. And the time of leaving found him curiouslydepressed. He had gripped Chet's hand, then turned to Diane for whatmight be a last good-by. The quick enfoldment of her soft body in hisarms was as unpremeditated as the kiss he placed upon her lips.... Heswung away abruptly, and fell in behind his guide without a word. Theway led first across the place of smoke and fire.

  Danger ahead on this strange trail; he knew it well. But he took it asit came; and his guide, and his crude weapon, and his steady eye andsureness of foot on rocky crags all saw him through. And he mentallymapped the hills and valleys and the outcrops of metals that he wouldexplore some later time. Only seven of the short six-hour days of thislittle earth had passed when he drew near the ship.

  He was ready for an attack. There was the broken rubble that markedthe entrance of the cave. Beneath it, he knew, were mangled, horribleremains. This one beast alone, it seemed, had been the ruler of thevalley, for no other appeared.

  The mass that had blocked the doorway was crystalline now, and broketo brittle fragments at a blow. He entered the familiar cabin of theship. There was nothing disturbed; the sealed inner door had barredentrance to any inquiring beasts.

  Far down the valley he saw a naked, running figure. Towahg hadescorted this sky-god to the great bird that had brought him, but thecourage of even so advanced a tribesman as he must have limits. He wasstill running along the path they had come when Harkness closed andsealed the door.

  * * * * *

  There was an instrument among their stores for taking samples of gas.Harkness attached it to the ship before he left, and he took a fewprecious minutes for a flight into the heights. That gas up there wasfatal to the monsters of space: he must secure a sample and learn itscomposition.

  A closing of the switch on wires that led to the instrument outside,and he knew that the container had emptied its contents of water,drawn in the gas and sealed itself.

  Then the swift descent.

  He flew low as he circled back. They had traveled far on their journeybelow ground; it was even a longer route where he and Towahg hadcircled about. But it was the only route he knew; he could take nochances on a short-cut and a possible long-drawn search for the littlevalley.

  He followed the trail. The quick dusk was near; but in an hour's slowflying, while his eyes searched the hills and hollows, the valley wasin sight.

  He came down slowly in a black sky, with only the soft, muffled roarof the lower exhausts. It was growing dark, and he leaned from an opendoor to see more clearly his position. All was different from the air,and he needed time and careful scrutiny to get the bearings of theplace.

  The soft thunder from
below was in his ears when a sound piercedthrough. His own name! And it was Diane's voice calling him in aterrified tone.

  "Walter!" she cried. "Help! Help! Oh, Walter, come quickly!"

  * * * * *

  The scene below was lighted by fitful fires. He was above the uppervalley, a hundred yards from their cave: his mind was oriented in aninstant, and he knew each foot of ground.

  And here, where neither Diane nor Chet should be, was Diane. He sawher running in the bright glare of his landing light that he nowswitched on; saw a black shape hurl itself upon her; she wasstruggling. He threw himself back at the controls to send the shiplike a thunderbolt upon the earth.

  A pistol was in his hand as he leaped from the still-rocking ship andthrew himself upon the thing that ran and tried to carry a strugglingburden in its arms.

  He could not fire; but he brought the pistol down upon a heavy skull.The hairy figure seemed never to feel the blow. It dropped the body ofDiane and turned, and its slavering, shining fangs were set in ahorrible face that Harkness recognized.

  It was the leader of the tribe, and he had dared to attack. But wherewas Chet? What of his arrows and their detonite tips? These thoughtswere crowding through his mind in the instant that ape-like fingersgripped at his throat--the instant while he was bringing the pistolforward and up.

  A light charge of detonite in pistol ammunition--but no living bodycould withstand the shock. Harkness leaped over the fallen foe toreach the girl. She was half risen to a sitting posture as he came.

  "_Dieu!_" she was whispering; "_Ah, le bon Dieu!_" Then she cried out:"Walter! Oh, Walter, they have killed Chet! Down there!" Her hand waspointing. She grasped at Harkness' hand to draw herself to her feetand race with him toward the cave.

  * * * * *

  "Just at dark," she explained gaspingly as they ran. "It was theirchief, and there were others with him. They leaped upon Chet--beforehe could reach for his bow. They had seemed so friendly after youleft--but they were short of food--"

  Her voice was sobbing now, but she kept on, and she set a pace thatHarkness could not outdistance.

  "One aimed a spear at me, and Chet threw himself between. I saw thespear strike--then I ran. I thought I heard your motors--I screamedfor you--"

  They were nearing the caves. A fire was burning in the open gladewhere grotesque figures leaped and danced in cannibal glee about afigure that lay motionless upon the ground.

  The tattered, wind-blown clothing--the curling hair, blond in thefire's light--it was Chet.... And now Harkness could fire.

  His pistol held twenty rounds. He emptied it into the shrieking group,then jammed in more of the shells and fired again. He fired until notarget remained, and every savage figure was either vanished among thetrees or inert and lifeless upon the ground, their only motion thestirring of their hairy coverings in the breeze.

  * * * * *

  Harkness was beside the prostrate figure. He raised Chet's head withinhis arms; Diane's brown head leaned close, her gasping breath brokenby dry sobs. The firelight flickered upon the closed lids to give themsemblance of life.

  "Chet," said Walter Harkness softly. "Chet, old man--can't you speak?We'll save you, Chet; you're not done for yet." But he felt as hespoke that the words were a horrible lie; the blood that ran slowlynow from a wound in Chet's side seemed to speak more truly than didhe.

  Yet Chet Bullard opened his eyes. His breath was the merest flutter;the listeners bent their heads close to hear.

  "Made it, did you?" asked Chet in a ghastly whisper. "And you've savedDiane?... Good!... Well, it's been a great trip.... It's been worththe price...."

  Harkness seized at the girl's name. Here was something that mightstrike home to the sinking man; might rouse him.

  "Yes, Diane is saved," he told Chet: "saved for you, old fellow. Youmust live--for Diane's sake. You love her, and she needs you."

  Again the tired eyes opened. Once more the fluttering breath formedwords; lips moved to bring a pale ghost of Chet's ready smile like apassing light across his face.

  "Needs me? Diane?" It was a question and a denial. He was lookingstraight at Harkness as he added: "It's you she needs.... You're onesquare old sport, Walt, but dumb--awfully dumb...."

  * * * * *

  Glorious adventure!--and the price is so often death. "A great trip,"Chet Bullard had said; "it's been worth the price." Chet was preparedto pay in full.

  But--there was the ship! Walt Harkness, as she finished bandaging thebody of the unconscious man, stared first at the metal cylinder,gleaming, brilliant in the Earthlight; then his gaze went to the Earththat had risen over distant peaks with the glory of a thousand moons.And he dared to hope.

  He brought the ship softly to rest close to where Chet lay, thenplaced the limp form on the self-adjusting floor of the control room.There must be no shifting of the body as the pull of gravitationceased. Soft blankets made a resting place for him.

  The entrance port was closed and sealed; and the ship rose gentlyunder his touch. And, below them, the mirrors showed a world that sankaway. Diane's head was pressed near to his to watch that vanishingworld.

  Each rugged mountain was softened in the Earthlight's mellow glow;they melted together, and lost all sharpness of form. And the lightfaded and vanished as they rose into the blanket of gas that blockedoff the return rays and made of this world a dark moon.

  No regret now for the territory that was unexplored. Harkness toldhimself he would return. And, with the vanishing of that world histhoughts were only of the little flame of life that still flickered inChet's body, and of the Earth, and of the metal ball that was swingingthem out and away.... The sound of the stern exhaust built up and upto the roaring thunder that meant the blast was opened full....

  CHAPTER XI

  "_Nothing to Be Done_"

  Unmoving, their ship seemed, through the long hours. Yet there werelights that passed swiftly and unnoticed, and the unending thunderfrom the stern gave assurance that they were not floating idly in thevast sea of space.

  The sun was behind them, and ahead was Earth in midday glory; Harknesscould not tear his eyes away from that goal. He stood always at thecontrols, not because there was work to be done, but for the feelingit gave him of urging the ship onward.

  Diane ministered to Chet and dressed the wound. There were few wordsexchanged between them.

  The menace that had emptied Earth's higher levels of all aircraft wasstill there. No ships were in sight, as Harkness guided his shiptoward the great sphere. His speed had been cut down, yet still heoutraced the occasional, luminous, writhing forms that threwthemselves upon them. Then the repelling area--and he crashed silentlythrough and down, with their forward exhaust roaring madly to holdthem in check.

  A sea and a shoreline, where a peninsula projected like a giantboot--and he knew it for Italy and the waters of the Mediterranean.

  "Vienna," Diane was telling him; "go to Vienna! It is nearby. And Iknow of a surgeon--one of the greatest!"

  And an hour later, a quiet, confident man was telling them: "Butyes!--of a certainty he will live. It is fortunate that you were notvery far away when the accident occurred." And only then did Harknesscatch Diana's eyes in an exchange of glances where unbearable reliefwas tempered with amusement.

  * * * * *

  The great hospital had its own landing stages on its broad roof. Theirship was anchored there, an object to excite the curiosity of agathering throng.

  "Not a healthy place for me, here in Vienna," Harkness remarked. Hewas lifting the ship from its anchorage, its errand of mercy done.

  "Now where?" he pondered aloud. The strain of the flight was tellingon him.

  The girl recognized the strained look in his eyes, the deep lines thattheir experiences had etched upon his face. Gently she drew his handfrom the controls.

  "I will take it," she said. "Trust
me. Lie down and rest."

  Harkness had witnessed an example of her flying skill; she couldhandle the ship, he knew. And he threw himself upon a cot in the cabinto sink under the weight of overpowering fatigue.

  He felt the soft shock of their landing. Diane was calling him, herhand extended to lead him from the open port. But he was wrenchedsharply from the lethargy that held him at sight of his surroundings,and the memories they recalled.

  They were in a park, and their ship rested upon a spacious lawn.Beyond were trees where a ship had shot crashingly throughstorm-tossed limbs. And, before him, a chateau, where a window hadframed the picture of a girl with outstretched arms.

  "Trust me," Diane had said. And he did trust her. But did she not knowwhat this meant? She was delivering him into the enemy's hands. Heshould have kept himself from sight until he had rallied hisforces.... He was stammering words of protest as she led him towardthe door. Armed guards were already between him and the ship.

  * * * * *

  In a dark-panelled room Herr Schwartzmann was waiting. His gasp ofamazement as he sprang to his feet reflected the utter astonishmentwritten upon his face, until that look gave place to one ofsatisfaction.

  "Mademoiselle," he exclaimed, "--my dear Mademoiselle Diane! We hadgiven you up for lost. I thought--I thought--"

  "Yes," said Diane quietly, "I believe that I can well imagine what youthought."

  "Ah!" said Herr Schwartzmann, and the look of satisfaction deepened."I see that you understand now; you will be with us in this matter. Wehave plans for this young man's disposal."

  The puzzled wonder that had clouded the steady eyes of Walter Harknesswas replaced by cold anger and more than a trace of contempt.

  "You can forget those plans," he told Schwartzmann. "I have plans ofmy own."

  "Poof!" exclaimed the heavy, bearded man. "We will crush you likethat!" He struck one heavy fist upon the desk. "And what will you do?"

  "Several things," said Harkness evenly. "I shall rid the upper levelsof the monsters: I have a gas that will accomplish that. I shallrestore the world's flying to normal. And, with that attended to, Iwill give you my undivided attention--raise forty kinds of hell withHerr Schwartzmann and the interests he represents.

  "Forgery! Theft! The seizing of my properties by virtue of a lyingdocument! You shall see what this leads to. Your companies will bewrecked; not a decent man or woman engaged in the business of a decentworld will deal with you: that is a small part of what I plan."

  The dark face of Herr Schwartzmann was flushed with anger. "You willnever leave this place--" he began. But Harkness would not let him goon: his voice was as hard as the metal of his ship.

  "You and your assassins!" he said contemptuously. "You don't daretouch me. There is another man who knows--and Diane, too." He pausedto look into the eyes of the girl, which were regarding him with aninscrutable expression. "I do not know why she brought me here, butDiane also knows. You can't throttle us all."

  "Diane!" The exclamation was wrung involuntarily from Schwartzmann'slips. "You speak of Mademoiselle Vernier so familiarly?"

  * * * * *

  The girl's cool voice broke in. She had watched the meeting of the menin silence; she spoke now as one taking matters into her own quitecapable hands.

  "You may omit the incognito, Herr Schwartzmann," she said; "it is nolonger required. I have enjoyed a birthday since last we met: it waspassed in a place of darkness and anguish, where strong men and braveforgot their own suffering to try by every means to bring comfort to agirl who was facing death. For that reason I say that I enjoyed it.... Andthat birthday was my twenty-first. You know what that means."

  "But Mademoiselle Vernier--pardon!--Mam'selle Delacoeur, surely youwill support me. My trustee-ship during all these successful years--"

  "Is at an end," said the cool voice.

  "I learned more than you were aware of in this last year while Ifamiliarized myself with the interests that would soon be mine. No,Herr Schwartzmann, your methods do not appeal to me; they are ananachronism in the world of to-day."

  Harkness was standing in stunned silence. "Delacoeur!" Diane wasMademoiselle Delacoeur! But that name had been borne by the wealthiesthouse of France! Old Delacoeur had died, possessed of millions beyondcounting--and he had left a daughter--Diane!

  His mind could not grasp the full significance of this. But one thingwas clear: he could not aspire to the love of one of the queens ofEarth. Whatever faint hope that remained in his heart was lost.... Thecool voice was still speaking.

  "You may leave now," she was saying--this girl who had been hiscomrade, so unfailingly tender, so true and steady in the face ofincredible dangers. And Herr Schwartzmann took his dismissal as onewho cannot dispute his superior.

  * * * * *

  The room was silent. Harkness stood with downcast eyes that followedwith meticulous precision the intricacies of design in the rug onwhich he stood. A voice was speaking. Not the cool, imperative voiceof Mademoiselle Delacoeur, mistress of vast estates, but the voice ofDiane--the Diane he had learned to love--and it tore at his emotionsuntil his mind was a whirl of conflicting thoughts.

  A tender voice: and there was laughter in it and in the eyes that hisown came despondently to meet.

  "Such a man, this Walter Harkness!" she was saying. "So hard, sovindictive! Ah, the trouble he will make for me because of myconscienceless agents!"

  Harkness threw out his hands in a helpless gesture. "Don't taunt me,"he said. "You know you have me tied. You've drawn the charges from allmy guns. There is nothing to be done."

  Diane Delacoeur drew near. The raillery was gone from her voice, andthe hand that she placed on his arm was trembling.

  "Nothing?" she inquired. "Then, if friendly rivalry is impossible,would you consider, could there not be arranged--a merger of ourinterests? I am not thinking now of wealth, of which you will have farmore than I: there are so much greater things in life--"

  The eyes that clung to his were pleading now. And within them was thelight that Walter Harkness at last could understand and define. Hetook the trembling hand in one of his that was suddenly strong, andwith the other he raised a lovely face that no longer dared to meethis look.

  "You mean--" he began, and fumbled for words to express an emotionthat was beyond words. "Chet said--why, he said--that you needed me--"

  Her reply came mingled with a tremulous laugh.

  "I have the greatest regard," she whispered, "for Chet's judgement.But--do you--need me?"

  Walt Harkness held the soft body close; bent nearer to catch thewords. And he answered them with his own lips in an ecstasy of emotionthat made nothing of the thrills to be found in that otherconquest--of a Dark Moon.

  A SCIENTIFIC HELL

  Science playing the role of an up-to-date Persephone, visiting theunderworld realm of Pluto to wrest from it hidden cosmic secrets, wasdescribed recently at a meeting of the American Geographical Societyat the Engineering Building by Prof. Harlow Shapley, Harvardastronomical wizard, who told of the ultra-modern scientific versionof Ulysses's descent into Hades or Dante's visit to hell.

  Prof. Shapley, to whom 10,000,000 light-years are like a day to anyordinary mortal, and whose astronomical investigations have led him tothe center of the cosmos, told the scientists present to descend tothe bowels of the earth and construct therein "Plutonic Laboratories,"where a man could learn many things unknown about beginnings andendings, and where, incidentally he may find a way of utilising thetremendous heat energy stored up in the "scientific hell."

  Under the general theme of the "Third Dimension in Geography," Prof.Shapley talked about the past, present and future of the earth-moonsystem; how in 50,000,000 years our days and months will beforty-seven times as long as they are now; how after that the moonwill again approach the earth until it is broken up by tidaldisruption into ring fragments circulating around the earth like thering around Saturn; and of shoo
ting stars coming from far-away solarsystems.

  "The temperature under the surface of the earth," said Prof. Shapley,"increases one degree Fahrenheit at every seventy-six feet, aboutseventy degrees per mile. In some places in California we get thetemperature of boiling water at a depth of less than a mile. Thecenter of the earth is roughly 4,000 miles below the surface.

  "Because of this intense internal heat of the earth it would probablybe impossible to maintain permanent laboratories at greater depthsthan two miles," said the lecturer, "and, in addition, theinstallation and maintenance of Plutonic laboratories will be ascientific adventure of great difficulty and expense. Yet, if carriedon in connection with the work of existing mines and borings it maymark the coming decade as one of the important epochs in man's attemptto understand the earth.

  "These Plutonic laboratories, placed at various depths under thesurface, fully equipped with modern scientific apparatus, andmaintained indefinitely, will contribute to our knowledge in a dozenimportant fields of geophysic and astronomy."

  What Prof. Shapley pointed to as merely a possible by-product of theproposed scientific "descent into Hades" is the commercial possibilityof tapping the earth's internal source of heat. There is 31,000,000times as much natural heat in the earth than in all the coal resourcesof the world. He stated that Sir Charles Parsons and John L. Hodgson,both noted British engineers, are already engaged in work on thisproblem.