XX
Moonlight upon Earth so gently shines to make romantic a lover'ssmile! But the reality of the Lunar night is cold beyond human belief.Cold and darkly silent. Grim desolation. Awesome. Majestic. A frowningmajesty that even to the most intrepid human beholder is inconceivablyforbidding.
And there were humans here now. On this tumbled plain, betweenArchimedes and the mountains, one small crater amid the million of itsfellows was distinguished this night by the presence of humans. TheGrantline camp! It huddled in the deepest purple shadows on the sideof a bowl-like pit, a crudely circular orifice with a scant two milesacross its rippling rim. There was faint light here to mark thepresence of the living intruders. The blue glow radiance of Morrelltube lights under a spread of glassite.
The Grantline camp stood midway up one of the inner cliff walls of thelittle crater. The broken, rock-strewn floor, two miles wide, lay fivehundred feet below the camp. Behind it, the jagged, precipitous cliffrose another five hundred to the heights of the upper rim. A broadlevel shelf hung midway up the cliff, and upon it Grantline had builthis little group of glassite dome shelters. Viewed from above therewas the darkly purple crater floor, the upflung circular rim where theEarthlight tinged the spires and crags with yellow sheen; and on theshelf, like a huddled group of birds' nests, Grantline's domes hungand gazed down upon the inner valley.
The air here on the Moon surface was negligible--a scant onefive-thousandth of the atmospheric pressure at the sea level on Earth.But within the glassite shelter, a normal Earth pressure must bemaintained. Rigidly braced double walls to withstand the explosivetendency, with no external pressure to counteract it. A tremendousnecessity for mechanical equipment had burdened Grantline's small shipto capacity. The chemistry of manufactured air, the pressureequalizers, renewers, respirators, the lighting and temperaturemaintenance of a space-flyer was here.
There was this main Grantline building, stretched low and rectangularalong the front edge of the ledge. Within it were living rooms, messhall and kitchen. Fifty feet behind it, connected by a narrow passageof glassite, was a similar though smaller structure. The mechanicalcontrol rooms, with their humming, vibrating mechanisms were here. Andan instrument room with signaling apparatus, senders, receivers,mirror-grids and audiphones of several varieties. And anelectro-telescope, small but modern, with dome overhead like a littleEarth observatory.
From this instrument building, beside the connecting pedestrianpassage, wire cables for light, and air tubes and strings and bundlesof instrument wires ran to the main structure--gray snakes upon theporous, gray Lunar rock.
The third building seemed a lean-to banked against the cliff wall, aslanting shed-wall of glassite fifty feet high and two hundred inlength. Under it, for months Grantline's bores had dug into the cliff.Braced tunnels were here, penetrating back and downward into the veinof rock.
The work was over. The borers had been dismantled and packed away. Atone end of the cliff the mining equipment lay piled in a litter. Therewas a heap of discarded ore where Grantline had carted and dumped itafter his first crude refining process had yielded it as waste. Theore slag lay like gray powder flakes strewn down the cliff. Trucks andore carts along the ledge stood discarded, mute evidence of the weeksand months of work these helmeted miners had undergone, strugglingupon this airless, frowning world.
But now all that was finished. The catalytic ore was sufficientlyconcentrated. It lay--this treasure--in a seventy foot pile behindthe glassite lean-to, with a cage of wires over it and an insulationbarrage hiding its presence.
The ore shelter was dark; the other two buildings were lighted. Andthere were small lights mounted at intervals about the camp and alongthe edge of the ledge. A spider ladder, with tiny platforms sometwenty feet one above the other, hung precariously to the cliff-face.It descended the five hundred feet to the crater floor; and, behindthe camp, it mounted the jagged cliff-face to the upper rim height,where a small observatory platform was placed.
Such was the outer aspect of the Grantline Treasure Camp near thebeginning of this Lunar night, when, unknown to Grantline and his men,the _Planetara_ with its brigands was approaching. The night wasperhaps a sixth advanced. Full night. No breath of cloud to mar thebrilliant starry heavens. The quadrant Earth hung poised like a giantmellow moon over Grantline's crater. A bright Earth, yet no air washere on this Lunar surface to spread its light. Only a glow, minglingwith the spots of blue tube light on the poles along the cliff, andthe radiance from the lighted buildings.
No evidence of movement showed about the silent camp. Then a pressuredoor in an end of the main building opened its tiny series of locks. Abent figure came out. The lock closed. The figure straightened andgazed about the camp. Grotesque, bloated semblance of a man! Helmeted,with rounded dome hood, suggestion of an ancient sea diver, yetgoggled and trunked like a gas-masked fighter of the twentiethcentury.
He stopped presently and disconnected metal weights which were uponhis shoes.
Then he stood erect again, and with giant strides bounded along thecliff. Fantastic figure in the blue lit gloom! A child's dream ofcrags and rocks and strange lights with a single monstrous figure inseven league boots.
He went the length of the ledge with his twenty foot strides,inspected the lights, and made adjustments. Came back, and climbedwith agile, bounding leaps up the spider ladder to the dome of thecrater top. A light flashed on up there. Then it was extinguished.
The goggled, bloated figure came leaping down after a moment.Grantline's exterior watchman making his rounds. He came back to themain building. Fastened the weights on his shoes. Signaled.
The lock opened. The figure went inside.
It was early evening. After the dinner hour and before the time ofsleep according to the camp routine Grantline was maintaining. NineP.M. of Earth Eastern American time, recorded now upon his Earthchronometer. In the living room of the main building Johnny Grantlinesat with a dozen of his men dispersed about the room, whiling away asbest they could the lonesome hours.
"All as usual. This cursed Moon! When I get home--if I ever do--"
"Say your say, Wilks. But you'll spend your share of the gold leaf andthank your constellations that you had your chance to make it."
"Let him alone! Come on, Wilks, take a hand here. This game is not anygood with three."
The man who had been outside flung his hissing helmet recklessly tothe floor and unsealed his suit. "Here, get me out of this. No, Iwon't play. I can't play your cursed game with nothing at stake!"
A laugh went up at the sharp look Johnny Grantline flung from where hesat reading in a corner of the room.
"Commander's orders. No gambling gold leafers tolerated here."
"Play the game, Wilks," Grantline said quietly. "We all know it'sinfernal--this doing nothing."
"He's been struck by Earthlight," another man laughed. "Commander, Itold you not to let that guy Wilks out at night."
A rough but good-natured lot of men. Jolly and raucous by nature intheir leisure hours. But there was too much leisure here now. Theirmirth had a hollow sound. In older times, explorers of the frozenPolar zones had to cope with inactivity, loneliness and despair. Butat least they were on their native world. The grimness of the Moon waseating into the courage of Grantline's men. An unreality here. Aweirdness. These fantastic crags. The deadly silence. The nights,almost two weeks of Earth time in length, congealed by the deadlyfrigidity of space. The days of black sky, blazing stars and flamingSun, with no atmosphere to diffuse the Sun's heat radiating so swiftlyfrom the naked Lunar surface that the outer temperature still wascold. And day and night, always the beloved Earth disc hanging poisedup near the zenith. From thinnest crescent to full Earth, then back tocrescent.
All so abnormal, irrational, disturbing to human senses.
With the mining work over, an irritability grew upon Grantline's men.And perhaps since the human mind is so wonderful, elusive a thing,there lay upon these men an indefinable sense of disaster. JohnnyGrantline felt it
. He thought about it now as he sat in the roomcorner watching Wilks being forced into the plaget game, and he foundthe premonition strong within him. Unreasonably, ominous depression!Barring the accident which had disabled his little spaceship when theyreached this small crater hole, his expedition had gone well. Hisinstruments, and the information he had from the former explorers, hadenabled him to pick up the catalyst vein with only one month ofsearch.
The vein had now been exhausted; but the treasure was here--enough tosupply every need on his Earth! Nothing was left but to wait for the_Planetara_. The men were talking of that now.
"She ought to be well midway from Ferrok-Shahn by now. When do youfigure she'll be back here and signal us?"
"Twenty days. Give her another five now to Mars, and five in port.That's ten. We'll pick her signals in three weeks, mark me!"
"Three weeks. Just give me three weeks of reasonable sunrise andsunset! This cursed Moon! You mean, Williams, next daylight."
"Ha! He's inventing a Lunar language. You'll be a Moon man yet."
Olaf Swenson, the big blond fellow from the Scandia fiords, came andflung himself down beside Grantline.
"Ay tank they bane without enough to do, Commander ----"
"Three weeks isn't very long, Ole."
"No. Maybe not."
From across the room somebody was saying, "If the _Comet_ hadn'tsmashed on us, damn me but I'd ask the Commander to let some of ustake her back."
"Shut up, Billy. She _is_ smashed."
"You all agreed to things as they are," Johnny said shortly. "We alltook the same chances--voluntarily."
A dynamic little fellow, this Johnny Grantline. Short of tempersometimes, but always just, and a perfect leader of men. In stature hewas almost as small as Snap. But he was thick-set, with asmooth-shaven, keen-eyed, square-jawed face; and a shock of browntousled hair. A man of thirty-five, though the decision of his manner,the quiet dominance of his voice made him seem older. He stood up now,surveying the blue lit glassite room with its low ceiling closeoverhead. He was bow-legged; in movement he seemed to roll with astiff-legged gait like some sea captains of former days on the deck ofhis swaying ship. Odd looking figure! Heavy flannel shirt andtrousers, boots heavily weighted, and bulky metal-loaded belt strappedabout his waist.
He grinned at Swenson. "When the time comes to divide this treasure,everyone will be happy, Ole."
The treasure was estimated to be the equivalent of ninety millions ingold leaf. A hundred and ten millions in the gross as it now stood,with twenty millions to be deducted by the Federated Refiners forreducing it to the standard purity for commercial use. Ninetymillions, with only a million and a half to come off for expeditionexpenses, and the _Planetara's_ share another million. A nice littlestake.
Grantline strode across the room with his rolling gait.
"Cheer up, boys. Who's winning there? I say, you fellows--"
An audiphone buzzer interrupted him, a call from the duty man in theinstrument room of the nearby building.
Grantline clicked the receiver. The room fell into silence. Any callwas unusual--nothing ever happened here in the camp.
The duty man's voice sounded over the room.
"Signals coming! Not clear. Will you come over, Commander?"
Signals!
It was never Grantline's way to enforce needless discipline. Heoffered no objection when every man in the camp rushed through theconnecting passages. They crowded the instrument room where the tenseduty man sat bending over his radio receivers. The mirrors wereswaying.
The duty man looked up and met Grantline's gaze.
"I ran it up to the highest intensity, Commander. We ought to getit--"
"Low scale, Peter?"
"Yes. Weakest infra-red. I'm bringing it up, even though it uses toomuch of our power."
"Get it," said Grantline shortly.
"I got one slight television swing a minute ago--then it faded. Ithink it's the _Planetara_."
"_Planetara_!" The crowding group of men chorused. How could it be the_Planetara_?
But it was. The call came in presently. Unmistakably the _Planetara_,turned back now from her course to Ferrok-Shahn.
"How far away, Peter?"
The duty man consulted the needles of his dial scale. "Close! Veryweak infra-red. But close. Around thirty thousand miles, maybe. It'sSnap Dean calling."
The _Planetara_ here within thirty thousand miles! Excitement andpleasure swept the room. The _Planetara_ had for so long been awaitedeagerly!
The excitement communicated to Grantline. It was unlike him to beincautious; yet now with no thought save that some unforeseen andpleasing circumstance had brought the _Planetara_ ahead of time;incautious, Grantline certainly was!
"Raise the barrage."
"I'll go. My suit is here."
A willing volunteer rushed out to the shed.
"Can you send, Peter?" Grantline demanded.
"Yes. With more power."
"Use it."
Johnny dictated the message of his location which we received. In hisincautious excitement he ignored the secret code.
An interval passed. No message had come from us--just Snap's routinesignal in the weak infra-red, which we hoped Grantline would not get.
The men crowding Grantline's instrument room waited in tense silence.Then Grantline tried the television again. Its current weakened thelights with the drain upon the distributors, and cooled the room witha sudden deadly chill as the Erentz insulating system slowed down.
The duty man looked frightened. "You'll bulge out our walls,Commander. The internal pressure--"
"We'll chance it."
They picked up the image of the _Planetara_. It shone clear on thegrid--the segment of star-field with a tiny cigar-shaped blob. Clearenough to be unmistakable. The _Planetara_! Here now, over the Moon,almost directly overhead, poised at what the altimeter scale showed tobe a fraction under thirty thousand miles.
The men gazed in awed silence. The _Planetara_ coming....
But the altimeter needle was motionless. The _Planetara_ was hangingpoised.
A sudden gasp went about the room. The men stood with whitening faces,gazing at the _Planetara's_ image. And at the altimeter's needle. Itwas moving now. The _Planetara_ was descending. But not with anorderly swoop.
The grid showed the ship clearly. The bow tilted up, then dipped down.But then in a moment it swung up again. The ship turned partly over.Righted itself. Then swayed again, drunkenly.
The watching men were stricken in horrified silence. The _Planetara's_image momentarily, horribly, grew larger. Swaying. Then turningcompletely over, rotating slowly end over end.
The _Planetara_, out of control, was falling!