CHAPTER XXII
_The Hiss of Death_
I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt--a painshooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not seemto move my left arm. Very queer! Then I moved it, and it hurt. I waslying twisted: I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash wasover. I am not dead. Anita--
She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in this silentblur--a soft, mellow Earth-light filtering in the window. The weight onme was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way acrossmy lap.
Not dead! Thank God, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, and Ilifted her. The Earth-light glowed on her pale face; but her eyes openedand she faintly smiled.
"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive."
I held her as though all life's turgid danger were powerless to touchus.
But in the silence my floating senses were brought back to reality by afaint sound forcing itself upon me. A little hiss. The faintestmurmuring breath like a hiss. Escaping air!
I cast off her clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"
* * * * *
For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our embrace.But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken--or cracked--andour precious air was hissing out.
Full reality came to me at last. I was not seriously injured. I foundthat I could move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp leftarm, but they were better in a moment.
And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not herblood.
Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giantfigure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. Awidening pool.
Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. Thissoundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its twomotionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I wereghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to the_Planetara's_ deck. It lay dashed against the dome-side.
The deck was aslant. A litter of wreckage. A broken human figureshowed--one of the crew, who at the last must have come running up. Theforward observation tower was down on the chart-room roof: in its metaltangle I thought I could see the legs of the tower look-out.
So this was the end of the brigands' adventure! The _Planetara's_ lastvoyage! How small and futile are human struggles! Miko's daringenterprise--so villainous, inhuman--brought all in a few moments to thissilent tragedy. The _Planetara_ had fallen thirty thousand miles. Butwhy? What had happened to Hahn? And where was Coniston, down in thisbroken hull?
And Snap. I thought suddenly of Snap.
* * * * *
I clutched at my wandering wits. This inactivity was death. The escapingair hissed in my ears. Our precious air, escaping away into the vacantdesolation of the Lunar emptiness. Through one of the twisted, slantingdome-windows a rocky spire was visible. The _Planetara_ lay bow-down,wedged in a jagged cradle of Lunar rock. A miracle that the hull anddome had held together.
"Anita, we must get out of here!"
I thought I was fully alert now. I recalled that the brigands had spokenof having partly assembled their Moon equipment. If only we could findsuits and helmets!
"We must get out," I repeated. "Get to Grantline's camp."
"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg. I saw themthere."
She was staring at the fallen Miko and Moa. She shuddered and turnedaway and gripped me. "In the forward storage room, by the port of theemergency lock-exit."
If only the exit locks would operate! We must get out of here, but findSnap first. Good old Snap! Would we find him lying dead?
We climbed from the slanting, fallen turret, over the wreckage of thelittered deck. It was not difficult, a lightness was upon us. The_Planetara's_ gravity-magnetizers were dead: this was only the lightMoon-gravity pulling us.
"Careful, Anita. Don't jump too freely."
We leaped along the deck. The hiss of the escaping pressure was like aclanging gong of warning to tell us to hurry. The hiss of death soclose!
"Snap--" I murmured.
"Oh, Gregg. I pray we may find him alive--!"
"And get out. We've got to rush it. Get out and find the Grantlinecamp."
* * * * *
But how far? Which way? I must remember to take food and water. If thehelmets were equipped with admission ports. If we could find Snap. Ifthe exit locks would work to let us out.
With a fifteen foot leap we cleared a pile of broken deck chairs. A manlay groaning near them. I went back with a rush. Not Snap! A steward. Hehad been a brigand, but he was a steward to me now.
"Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here. The air isescaping!"
But he sank back and lay still. No time to find if I could help him:there were Anita and Snap to save.
We found a broken entrance to one of the descending passages. I flungthe debris aside and cleared it. Like a giant of strength with only thisMoon-gravity holding me, I raised a broken segment of the superstructureand heaved it back.
Anita and I dropped ourselves down the sloping passage. The interior ofthe wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage light wasstill burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckageeverywhere: but the double-dome and hull-shell had withstood the shock.Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat, likeour air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling uponeverything. And our walls were bulging. The silence and the deadly chillof death would soon be here in these wrecked corridors. The end of the_Planetara_. I wondered vaguely if the walls would explode.
We prowled like ghouls. We did not see Coniston. Snap had been by theshifter-pumps. We found him in the oval doorway. He lay sprawled. Dead?No, he moved. He sat up before we could get to him. He seemed confused,but his senses clarified with the movement of our figures over him.
"Gregg! Why, Anita!"
"Snap! You're all right? We struck--the air is escaping."
* * * * *
He pushed me away. He tried to stand. "I'm all right. I was up a minuteago. Gregg, it's getting cold. Where is she? I had her here--she wasn'tkilled. I spoke to her."
Irrational!
"Snap!" I held him, shook him. "Snap, old fellow!"
He said, normally. "Easy, Gregg. I'm all right now."
Anita gripped him. "Who, Snap?"
"She! There she is."
Another figure was here! On the grid-floor by the door oval. A figurepartly shrouded in a broken invisible cloak and hood. An invisiblecloak! I saw a white face with opened eyes regarding me. The face of agirl.
Venza!
I bent down. "You!"
Anita cried, "Venza!"
Venza here? Why--how--my thoughts swept away. Venza here, dying? Hereyes closed. But she murmured to Anita. "Where is he? I want him."
Dying? I murmured impulsively, "Here I am, Venza dear." Gently, as onewould speak with gentle sympathy to humor the dying. "Here I am, Venza."
But it was only the confusion of the shock upon her. And it was upon usall. She pushed at Anita. "I want him." She saw me. This whimsical Venusgirl! Even here as we gathered, all of us blurred by the shock, confusedin the dim, wrecked ship with the chill of death coming--even here shecould make a jest. Her pale lips smiled.
"You, Gregg. I'm not hurt--I don't think I'm hurt." She managed to getherself up on one elbow. "Did you think I wanted you with my dyingbreath? Why, what conceit! Not you, Handsome Haljan! I was callingSnap."
* * * * *
He was down to her. "We're all right, Venza. It's over. We must get outof the ship--the air is escaping."
We gathered in the oval doorway. We fought the confusion of panic.
"The exit port is this way."
Or was it? I answered Snap, "Yes, I think so."
The ship suddenly seemed a stranger to me. So cold. So vibrationless.Broken lights. These slanting, wrecked corridors. With the ventilatingfans stilled, the air was turning fetid. Chilling. And thinning, withescaping pressure, rarifying so that I could feel the grasp of it in mylungs and the pin-pricks of my burning cheeks.
We started off. Four of us, still alive in this silent ship of death. Myblurred thoughts tried to cope with it all. Venza here. I recalled howshe had bade me create a diversion when the women passengers werelanding on the asteroid. She had carried out her purpose! In theconfusion she had not gone ashore. A stowaway here. She had secured thecloak. Prowling, to try and help us, she had come upon Hahn. Had seizedhis ray-cylinder and struck him down, and been herself knockedunconscious by his dying lunge, which also had broken the tubes andwrecked the _Planetara_. And Venza, unconscious, had been lying herewith the mechanism of her cloak still operating, so that we did not seeher when we came and found why Hahn did not answer my signals.
"It's here, Gregg."
Snap and I lifted the pile of Moon equipment. We located four suits andhelmets and the mechanisms to operate them.
"More are in the chart-room," Anita said.
But we needed no others. I robed Anita, and showed her the mechanisms.
"Yes. I understand."
* * * * *
Snap was helping Venza. We were all stiff from the cold; but within thesuits and their pulsing currents, the blessed warmth came again.
The helmets had admission ports through which food and drink could betaken. I stood with my helmet ready. Anita, Venza and Snap were bloatedand grotesque beside me. We had found food and water here, assembled inportable cases which the brigands had prepared. Snap lifted them, andsigned to me he was ready.
My helmet shut out all sounds save my own breathing, my pounding heart,and the murmur of the mechanism. The blessed warmth and pure air weregood.
We reached the hull port-locks. They operated! We went through in thelight of the head-lamps over our foreheads.
I closed the locks after us. An instinct to keep the air in the ship forthe other trapped humans lying there.
We slid down the sloping side of the _Planetara_. We were unweighted,irrationally agile with the slight gravity. I fell a dozen feet andlanded with barely a jar.
We were out on the Lunar surface. A great sloping ramp of cragsstretched down before us. Gray-black rock tinged with Earth-light. TheEarth hung amid the stars in the blackness overhead like a huge sectionof glowing yellow ball.
* * * * *
This grim, desolate, silent landscape! Beyond the ramp, fifty feet belowus, a tumbled naked plain stretched away into blurred distance. But Icould see mountains off there. Behind us the towering, frowningrampart-wall of Archimedes loomed against the sky.
I had turned to look back at the _Planetara_. She lay broken, wedgedbetween spires of upstanding rock. A few of her lights still gleamed.The end of the _Planetara_!
The three grotesque figures of Anita, Venza and Snap had started off.Hunchback figures with the tanks mounted on their shoulders. I boundedand caught them. I touched Snap. We made audiphone contact.
"Which way do you think?" I demanded.
"I think this way, down the ramp. Away from Archimedes, toward themountains. It shouldn't be too far."
"You run with Venza. I'll hold Anita."
He nodded. "But we must keep together, Gregg."
We could soon run freely. Down the ramp, out over the tumbled plain.Bounding, grotesque leaping strides. The girls were more agile, moreskilful. They were soon leading us. The Earth-shadows of their figuresleaped beside them. The _Planetara_ faded into the distance behind us.Archimedes stood back there. Ahead, the mountains came closer.
An hour perhaps. I lost count of time. Occasionally we stopped to rest.Were we going toward the Grantline camp? Would they see our tiny wavingheadlights?
Another interval. Then far ahead of us on the ragged plain, lightsshowed! Moving tiny spots of light! Headlights on helmeted figures!
We ran, monstrously leaping. A group of figures were off there.Grantline's party? Snap gripped me.
"Grantline! We're safe, Gregg! Safe!"
* * * * *
He took his bulb-light from his helmet: we stood in a group while hewaved it. A semaphore signal.
"_Grantline?_"
And the answer came. "_Yes. You, Dean?_"
Their personal code. No doubt of this--it was Grantline, who had seenthe _Planetara_ fall and had come to help us.
I stood then with my hand holding Anita. And I whispered, "It'sGrantline! We're safe, Anita, my darling!"
Death had been so close! Those horrible last minutes on the _Planetara_had shocked us, marked us.
We stood trembling. And Grantline and his men came bounding up.
A helmeted figure touched me. I saw through the helmet-pane the visageof a stern-faced, square-jawed, youngish man.
"Grantline? Johnny Grantline?"
"Yes," said his voice at my ear-grid. "I'm Grantline. You're Haljan?Gregg Haljan?"
They crowded around us. Gripped us to hear our explanations.
Brigands! It was amazing to Johnny Grantline. But the menace was overnow, over as soon as Grantline had realized its existence. As though thewreck of the _Planetara_ were foreordained by an all-wise Providence,the brigands' adventure had come to tragedy.
We stood for a time discussing it. Then I drew apart, leaving Snap withGrantline. And Anita joined me. I held her arm so that we had audiphonecontact.
"Anita, mine."
"Gregg, dear one."
Murmured nothings which mean so much to lovers!
* * * * *
As we stood in the fantastic gloom of the Lunar desolation, with theblessed Earth-light on us, I sent up a prayer of thankfulness. Not thata hundred millions of treasure were saved. Not that the attack uponGrantline had been averted. But only that Anita was given back to me. Inmoments of greatest emotion the human mind individualizes. To me, therewas only Anita.
Life is very strange! The gate to the shining garden of our love seemedswinging wide to let us in. Yet I recall that a vague fear still lay onme. A premonition?
I felt a touch on my arm. A bloated helmet visor was thrust near my own.I saw Snap's face peering at me.
"Grantline thinks we should return to the _Planetara_. Might find someof them alive."
Grantline touched me. "It's only humanity."
"Yes," I said.
We went back. Some ten of us--a line of grotesque figures bounding withslow, easy strides over the jagged, rock-strewn plain. Our lights dancedbefore us.
The _Planetara_ came at last into view. My ship. Again that pang sweptme as I saw her. This, her last resting place. She lay here in her opentomb, shattered, broken, unbreathing. The lights on her wereextinguished. The Erentz system had ceased to pulse--the heart of thedying ship, for a while beating faintly, but now at rest.
We left the two girls with some of Grantline's men at the admissionport. Snap, Grantline and I, with three others, went inside. There stillseemed to be air, but not enough so that we dared remove our helmets.
It was dark inside the wrecked ship. The corridors were black; the hullcontrol-rooms were dimly illumined with Earth-light straggling throughthe windows.
This littered tomb! Already cold and silent with death. We stumbled overa fallen figure. A member of the crew.
* * * * *
Grantline straightened from examining him.
"Dead."
Earth-light fell on the horrible face. Puffed flesh, bloated red fromthe blood which had oozed from its pores in the thinning air. I lookedaway.
We prowled further. Hahn lay dead in the pump-room.
The body of Coniston should have been near here. We did not see it.
We climbed up to the slanting littered deck. The dome had not exploded,but t
he air up here had almost all hissed away.
Again Grantline touched me. "That the turret?"
"Yes."
No wonder he asked! The wreckage was all so formless.
We climbed after Snap into the broken turret room. We passed the body ofthat steward who just at the end had appealed to me and I had leftdying. The legs of the forward look-out still poked grotesquely up fromthe wreckage of the observatory tower where it lay smashed down againstthe roof of the chart-room.
We shoved ourselves into the turret. What was this? No bodies here! Thegiant Miko was gone! The pool of his blood lay congealed into a frozendark splotch on the metal grid.
And Moa was gone! They had not been dead. Had dragged themselves out ofhere, fighting desperately for life. We would find them somewhere aroundhere.
But we did not. Nor Coniston. I recalled what Anita had said: othersuits and helmets had been here in the nearby chart-room. The brigandshad taken them, and food and water doubtless, and escaped from the ship,following us through the lower admission ports only a few minutes afterwe had gone out.
* * * * *
We made careful search of the entire ship. Eight of the bodies whichshould have been here were missing: Miko, Moa, Coniston, and five of thesteward-crew.
We did not find them outside. They were hiding near here, no doubt, morewilling to take their chances than to yield now to us. But how, in allthis Lunar desolation, could we hope to locate them?
"No use," said Grantline. "Let them go. If they want death--well, theydeserve it."
But we were saved. Then, as I stood there, realization leaped at me.Saved? Were we not indeed fatuous fools?
In all these emotion-swept moments since we had encountered Grantline,memory of that brigand ship coming from Mars had never once occurred toSnap or me!
I told Grantline now. His eyes through the visor stared at me blankly.
"What!"
I told him again. It would be here in eight days. Fully manned andarmed.
"But Haljan, we have almost no weapons! All my _Comet's_ space was takenwith mining equipment and the mechanisms for my camp. I can't signalEarth! I was depending on the _Planetara_!"
It surged upon us. The brigand menace past? We were blindlycongratulating ourselves on our safety! But it would be eight days ormore before in distant Ferrok-Shahn the non-arrival of the _Planetara_would cause any real comment. No one was searching for us--no one wasworried over us.
No wonder the crafty Miko was willing to take his chances out here inthe Lunar wilds! His ship, his reinforcements, his weapons were comingrapidly!
And we were helpless. Almost unarmed. Marooned here on the Moon with ourtreasure!
(_To be continued._)
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