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Brood of the Dark Moon
(_A Sequel to "Dark Moon"_)
_By Charles Willard Diffin_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding StoriesAugust, September, October and November 1931. Extensive research did notuncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication wasrenewed.]
List of Illustrations
_He landed one blow on the nearest face._
_One, swifter than the rest, dashed upon him._
_The inky waters were ablaze with fire._
_With the free hand he shot over a blow._
CHAPTER I
_The Message_
[Sidenote: Once more Chet, Walt and Diane are united in a wild ride tothe Dark Moon--but this time they go as prisoners of their deadly enemySchwartzmann.]
In a hospital in Vienna, in a room where sunlight flooded throughultraviolet permeable crystal, the warm rays struck upon smooth wallsthe color of which changed from hot reds to cool yellow or gray or tosoothing green, as the Directing Surgeon might order. An elusiveblending of tones now seemed pulsing with life; surely even a flickeringflame of vitality would be blown into warm livingness in such a place.
Even the chart case in the wall glittered with the same clean, brillianthues from its glass and metal door. The usual revolving paper disksshowed white beyond the glass. They were moving; and the ink lines grewto tell a story of temperature and respiration and of every heart-beat.
On the identification-plate a name appeared and a date: "ChetBullard--23 years. Admitted: August 10, 1973." And below that theever-changing present ticked into the past in silent minutes: "August15, 1973; World Standard Time: 10:38--10:39--10:40--"
For five days the minutes had trickled into a rivulet of time thatflowed past a bandaged figure in the bed below--a silent figure andunmoving, as one for whom time has ceased. But the surgeons of theAllied Hospital at Vienna are clever.
10:41--10:42--The bandaged figure stirred uneasily on a snow-whitebed....
* * * * *
A nurse was beside him in an instant. Was her patient about to recoverconsciousness? She examined the bandages that covered a ragged wound inhis side, where all seemed satisfactory. To all appearances the man whohad moved was unconscious still; the nurse could not know of the thoughtimpressions, blurred at first, then gradually clearing, that wereflashing through his mind.
Flashing; yet, to the man who struggled to comprehend them, they passedlaggingly in review: one picture followed another with exasperatingslowness....
Where was he? What had happened? He was hardly conscious of his ownidentity....
There was a ship ... he held the controls ... they were flying low....One hand reached fumblingly beneath the soft coverlet to search for atriple star that should be upon his jacket. A triple star: the insigniaof a Master Pilot of the World!--and with the movement there cameclearly a realization of himself.
Chet Bullard, Master Pilot; he was Chet Bullard ... and a wall of waterwas sweeping under him from the ocean to wipe out the great HarknessTerminal buildings.... It was Harkness--Walt Harkness--from whom he hadsnatched the controls.... To fly to the Dark Moon, of course--
What nonsense was that?... No, it was true: the Dark Moon had raised thedevil with things on Earth.... How slowly the thoughts came! Whycouldn't he remember?...
Dark Moon!--and they were flying through space.... They had conqueredspace; they were landing on the Dark Moon that was brilliantly alight.Walt Harkness had set the ship down beautifully--
* * * * *
Then, crowding upon one another in breath-taking haste, came clearrecollection of past adventures:
They were upon the Dark Moon--and there was the girl, Diane. They mustsave Diane. Harkness had gone for the ship. A savage, half-human shapewas raising a hairy arm to drive a spear toward Diane, and he, Chet, wasleaping before her. He felt again the lancet-pain of that blade....
And now he was dying--yes, he remembered it now--dying in the night on agreat, sweeping surface of frozen lava.... It was only a moment beforethat he had opened his eyes to see Harkness' strained face and theagonized look of Diane as the two leaned above him.... But now he feltstronger. He must see them again....
He opened his eyes for another look at his companions--and, instead ofblack, star-pricked night on a distant globe, there was dazzlingsunlight. No desolate lava-flow, this; no thousand fires that flared andsmoked from their fumeroles in the dark. And, instead of Harkness andthe girl, Diane, leaning over him there was a nurse who laid one coolhand upon his blond head and who spoke soothingly to him of keepingquiet. He was to take it easy--he would understand later--and everythingwas all right.... And with this assurance Chet Bullard drifted againinto sleep....
* * * * *
The blurring memories had lost their distortions a week later, as he satbefore a broad window in his room and looked out over the housetops ofVienna. Again he was himself, Chet Bullard, with a Master Pilot'srating; and he let his eyes follow understandingly the moving picture ofthe world outside. It was good to be part of a world whose everymovement he understood.
Those cylinders with stubby wings that crossed and recrossed the sky;their sterns showed a jet of thin vapor where a continuous explosion ofdetonite threw them through the air. He knew them all: the pleasurecraft, the big, red-bellied freighters, the sleek liners, whose multiplehelicopters spun dazzlingly above as they sank down through the shaft ofpale-green light that marked a descending area.
That one would be the China Mail. Her under-ports were open before thehold-down clamps had gripped her; the mail would pour out in anavalanche of pouches where smaller mailships waited to distribute thecargo across the land.
And the big fellow taking off, her hull banded with blue, was one ofSchwartzmann's liners. He wondered what had become of Schwartzmann, theman who had tried to rob Harkness of his ship; who had brought thepatrol ships upon them in an effort to prevent their take-off on thatwild trip.
For that matter, what had become of Harkness? Chet Bullard was seriouslydisturbed at the absence of any word beyond the one message that hadbeen waiting for him when he regained consciousness. He drew thatmessage from a pocket of his dressing gown and read it again:
"Chet, old fellow, lie low. S has vanished. Means mischief. Think best not to see you or reveal your whereabouts until our position firmly established. Have concealed ship. Remember, S will stop at nothing. Trying to discredit us, but the gas I brought will fix all that. Get yourself well. We are planning to go back, of course. Walt."
Chet returned the folded message to his pocket. He arose and walkedabout the room to test his returning strength: to remain idle wasbecoming increasingly difficult. He wanted to see Walter Harkness, talkwith him, plan for their return to the wonder-world they had found.
* * * * *
Instead he dropped again into his chair and touched a knob on thenewscaster beside him. A voice, hushed to the requirements of thesehospital precincts spoke softly of market quotations in the far cornersof the earth. He turned the dial irritably and set it on "WorldNews--General." The name of Harkness came from the instrument to focusChet's attention.
"Harkness makes broad claims," the voice was saying. "Vienna physicistsridicule his pretensions.
"Walter Harkness, formerly of New York, proprietor of HarknessTerminals, whose great buildings near New York were destroyed in theDark Moon wave, claims to have reached and returned from the Dark Moon.
"Nearly two months have passed since the new satellite cra
shed into thegravitational field of Earth, its coming manifested by earth shocks anda great tidal wave. The globe, as we know, was invisible. Although stillunseen, and only a black circle that blocks out distant stars, it isvisible in the telescopes of the astronomers; its distance and itsorbital motion have been determined.
"And now this New Yorker claims to have penetrated space; to have landedon the Dark Moon; and to have returned to Earth. Broad claims, indeed,especially so in view of the fact that Harkness refuses to submit hisship for examination by the Stratosphere Control Board. He has filednotice of ownership, thus introducing some novel legal technicalities,but, since space-travel is still a dream of the future, there will benone to dispute his claims.
"Of immediate interest is Harkness' claim to have discovered a gas thatis fatal to the serpents of space. The monsters that appeared when theDark Moon came and that attacked ships above the Repelling Area arestill there. All flying is confined to the lower levels; fastworld-routes are disorganized.
"Whether or not this gas, of which Harkness has a sample, came from theDark Moon or from some laboratory on Earth is of no particularimportance. Will it destroy the space-serpents? If it does this, ourhats are off to Mr. Walter Harkness; almost will we be inclined tobelieve the rest of his story--or to laugh with him over one of thegreatest hoaxes ever attempted."
Chet had been too intent upon the newscast to heed an opening door athis back....
* * * * *
"How about it, Chet?" a voice was asking. "Would you call it a hoax orthe real thing?" And a girl's voice chimed in with exclamations ofdelight at sight of the patient, so evidently recovering.
"Diane!" Chet exulted, "--and Walt!--you old son-of-a-gun!" He foundhimself clinging to a girl's soft hand with one of his, while with theother he reached for that of her companion. But Walt Harkness' arm wentabout his shoulders instead.
"I'd like to hammer you plenty," Harkness was saying, "and I don't evendare give you a friendly slam on the back. How's the side where they gotyou with the spear?--and how are you? How soon will you be ready tostart back? What about--"
Diane Delacouer raised her one free hand to stop the flood of questions."My dear," she protested, "give Chet a chance. He must be dying forinformation."
"I was dying for another reason the last time I saw you," Chet remindedher, "--up on the Dark Moon. But it seems that you got me back here intime for repairs. And now what?" His nurse came into the room with extrachairs; Chet waited till she was gone before he repeated: "Now what?When do we go back?"
Harkness did not answer at once. Instead he crossed to the newscaster inits compact, metal case. The voice was still speaking softly; at a touchof a switch it ceased, and in the silence came the soft rush of soundthat meant the telautotype had taken up its work. Beneath a glass apaper moved, and words came upon it from a hurricane of type-barsunderneath. The instrument was printing the news story as rapidly as anyvoice could speak it.
Harkness read the words for an instant, then let the paper pass on towind itself upon a spool. It had still been telling of the gigantic hoaxthat this eccentric American had attempted and Harkness repeated thewords.
"A hoax!" he exclaimed, and his eyes, for a moment, flashed angrilybeneath the dark hair that one hand had disarranged. "I would like totake that facetious bird out about a thousand miles and let him playaround with the serpents we met. But, why get excited? This is allSchwartzmann's doing. The tentacles of that man's influence reach outlike those of an octopus."
* * * * *
Chet ranged himself alongside. Tall and slim and blond, he contrastedstrongly with this other man, particularly in his own quiet self-controlas against Harkness' quick-flaring anger.
"Take it easy, Walt," he advised. "We'll show them. But I judge that youhave been razzed a bit. It's a pretty big story for them to swallowwithout proof. Why didn't you show them the ship? Or why didn't you letDiane and me back up your yarn? And you haven't answered my otherquestions: when do we go back?"
Harkness took the queries in turn.
"I didn't show the old boat," he explained, "because I'm not ready forthat yet. I want it kept dark--dark as the Dark Moon. I want to do mypreliminary work there before Schwartzmann and his experts see our ship.He would duplicate it in a hurry and be on our trail.
"And now for our plans. Well, our there in space the Dark Moon iswaiting. Have you realized, Chet, that we own that world--you and Dianeand I? Small--only half the size of our old moon--but what a place! Andit's ours!
"Back in history--you remember?--an ambitious lad named Alexander sighedfor more worlds to conquer. Well, we're going Alexander onebetter--we've found the world. We're the first ever to go out into spaceand return again.
"We'll go back there, the three of us. We will take no others along--notyet. We will explore and make our plans for development; and we willkeep it to ourselves until we are ready to hold it against anyopposition.
"And now, how soon can you go? Your injury--how soon will you be wellenough?"
"Right now," Chet told him laconically; "today, if you say the word.They've got me welded together so I'll hold, I reckon. But where's theship? What have you done--" He broke off abruptly to listen--
* * * * *
To all three came a muffled, booming roar. The windows beside themshivered with the thud of the distant explosion; they had not ceasedtheir trembling before Harkness had switched on the news broadcast. Andit was a minute only until the news-gathering system was on the air.
"Explosion at the Institute of Physical Science!" it stated. "This isVienna broadcasting. An explosion has just occurred. We are giving apreliminary announcement only. The laboratories of the ScientificInstitute of this city are destroyed. A number of lives have been lost.The cause has not been determined. It is reported that the laboratorieswere beginning analytical work, on the so-called Harkness Dark Moongas--
"Confirmation has just been radioed to this station. Dark Moon gasexploded on contact with air. The American, Harkness, is either acriminal or a madman; he will be apprehended at once. This confirmationcomes from Herr Schwartzmann of Vienna who left the Institute only a fewminutes before the explosion occurred--"
And, in the quiet of a hospital room, Walter Harkness drew a long breathand whispered; "Schwartzmann! His hand is everywhere.... And that samplewas all I had.... I must leave at once--go back to America."
He was halfway to the door--he was almost carrying Diane Delacouer withhim--when Chet's quiet tones brought him up short.
"I've never seen you afraid," said Chet; and his eyes were regarding theother man curiously; "but you seem to have the wind up, as the oldflyers used to say, when it comes to Schwartzmann."
* * * * *
Harkness looked at the girl he held so tightly, then grinned boyishly atChet. "I've someone else to be afraid for now," he said.
His smile faded and was replaced by a look of deep concern. "I haven'ttold you about Schwartzmann," he said; "haven't had time. But he'spoison, Chet. And he's after our ship."
"Where is the ship; where have you hidden it? Tell me--where?"
Harkness looked about him before he whispered sharply: "Our old shop--upnorth!"
He seemed to feel that some explanation was due Chet. "In this day itseems absurd to say such things," he added; "but this Schwartzmann is athrow-back--a conscienceless scoundrel. He would put all three of us outof the way in a minute if he could get the ship. _He_ knows we have beento the Dark Moon--no question about that--and he wants the wealth he canimagine is there.
"We'll all plan to leave; I'll radio you later. We'll go back to theDark Moon--" He broke off abruptly as the door opened to admit thenurse. "You'll hear from me later," he repeated; and hurried DianeDelacouer from the room.
But he returned in a moment to stand again at the door--the nurse wasstill in the room. "In case you feel like going for a hop," he told Chetcasually, "Diane
's leaving her ship here for you. You'll find it upabove--private landing stage on the roof."
Chet answered promptly, "Fine; that will go good one of these days." Allthis for the benefit of listening ears. Yet even Chet would have beenastonished to know that he would be using that ship within an hour....
* * * * *
He was standing at the window, and his mind was filled, not withthoughts of any complications that had developed for his friendHarkness, but only of the adventures that lay ahead of them both. TheDark Moon!--they had reached it, indeed; but they had barely scratchedthe surface of that world of mystery and adventure. He was wild witheagerness to return--to see again that new world, blazing brightlybeneath the sun; to see the valley of fires--and he had a score tosettle with the tribe of ape-men, unless Harkness had finished them offwhile he, himself, lay unconscious.... Yes, there seemed little doubt ofthat; Walt would have paid the score for all of them.... He seemedactually back in that world to which his thoughts went winging acrossthe depths of space. The buzz of a telephone recalled him.
It was the hospital office, he found, when he answered. There was amessage--would Mr. Bullard kindly receive it on the telautotype--levernumber four, and dial fifteen-point-two--thanks.... And Chet depressed akey and adjusted the instrument that had been printing the newscast.
The paper moved on beneath the glass, and the type-bars clicked moreslowly now. From some distant station that might be anywhere on or abovethe earth, there was coming a message.
The frequency of that sending current was changed at some centraloffice; it was stepped down to suit the instrument beside him. And thetype was spelling out words that made the watching man breathless andintent--until he tore off the paper and leaped for the call signal thatwould summon the nurse. Through her he would get his own clothes, hisuniform, the triple star that showed his rating and his authority inevery air-level of the world.
That badge would have got him immediate attention on any landing field.Now, on the flat roof, with steady, gray eyes and a voice whose veryquietness accentuated its imperative commands, Chet had the staff of thehospital hangars as alert as if their alarm had sounded a generalambulance call.
* * * * *
Straight into the sky a red beacon made a rigid column of light; a radiosender was crackling a warning and a demand for "clear air." From theforty level, a patrol ship that had caught the signal came corkscrewingdown the red shaft to stand by for emergency work.... Chet called hercommander from the cabin of Diane's ship. A word of thanks--Chet'snumber--and a dismissal of the craft. Then the white lights signaled"all clear" and the hold-down levers let go with a soft hiss--
The feel of the controls was good to his hands; the ship roared intolife. A beautiful little cruiser, this ship of Diane's; her twinhelicopters lifted her gracefully into the air. The column of red lighthad changed to blue, the mark of an ascending area; Chet touched aswitch. A muffled roar came from the stern and the blast drove himstraight out for a mile; then he swung and returned. He was nosing up ashe touched the blue--straight up--and he held the vertical climb tillthe altimeter before him registered sixty thousand.
Traffic is north-bound only on the sixty-level, and Chet set his ship ona course for the frozen wastes of the Arctic; then he gave her the gunand nodded in tight-lipped satisfaction at the mounting thunder thatanswered from the stern.
Only then did he read again the message on a torn fragment oftelautotype paper. "Harkness," was the signature; and above, a briefwarning and a call--"Danger--must leave at once. You get ship and standby. I will meet you there." And, for the first time, Chet found time towonder at this danger that had set the hard-headed, hard-hitting WaltHarkness into a flutter of nerves.
* * * * *
What danger could there be in this well-guarded world? A patrol-shippassed below him as he asked himself the question. It was symbolic of aworld at peace; a world too busy with its own tremendous development tofind time for wars or makers of war. What trouble could this manSchwartzmann threaten that a word to the Peace Enforcement Commissionwould not quell? Where could he go to elude the inescapable patrols?
And suddenly Chet saw the answer to that question--saw plainly whereSchwartzmann could go. Those vast reaches of black space! IfSchwartzmann had their ship he could go where they had gone--go out tothe Dark Moon.... And Harkness had warned Chet to get their ship andstand by.
Had Walt learned of some plan of Schwartzmann's? Chet could not answerthe question, but he moved the control rheostat over to the last notch.
From the body of the craft came an unending roar of a generator wherenothing moved; where only the terrific, explosive impact of burstingdetonite drove out from the stern to throw them forward. "A good littleship," Chet had said of this cruiser of Diane's; and he nodded approvalnow of a ground-speed detector whose quivering needle had left the 500mark. It touched 600, crept on, and trembled at 700 miles an hour withthe top speed of the ship.
There was a position-finder in the little control-room, and Chet's gazereturned to it often to see the pinpoint of light that crept slowlyacross the surface of a globe. It marked their ever-changing location,and it moved unerringly toward a predetermined goal.
* * * * *
It was a place of ice and snow and bleak outcropping of half-coveredrocks where he descended. Lost from the world, a place where even thehigh levels seldom echoed to the roar of passing ships, it had been aperfect location for their "shop." Here he and Walt had assembled theirmystery ship.
He had to search intently over the icy waste to find the exact location;a dim red glow from a hidden sun shone like pale fire across distantblack hills. But the hills gave him a bearing, and he landed at lastbeside a vaguely outlined structure, half hidden in drifting snow.
The dual fans dropped him softly upon the snow ground and Chet, as hewalked toward the great locked doors, was trembling from other causesthan the cold. Would the ship be there? He was suddenly a-quiver withexcitement at the thought of what this ship meant--the adventure, theexploration that lay ahead.
The doors swung back. In the warm and lighted room was a cylinder ofsilvery white. Its bow ended in a gaping port where a mighty exhaustcould roar forth to check the ship's forward speed; there were otherports ranged about the gleaming body. Above the hull a control-roomprojected flatly; its lookouts shone in the brilliance of the nitronilluminator that flooded the room with light....
Chet Bullard was breathless as he moved on and into the room. His wildexperiences that had seemed but a weird dream were real again. The DarkMoon was real! And they would be going back to it!
* * * * *
The muffled beating of great helicopters was sounding in his ears;outside, a ship was landing. This would be Harkness coming to join him;yet, even as the thought flashed through his mind, it was countered by aquick denial. To the experienced hearing of the Master Pilot this soundof many fans meant no little craft. It was a big ship that was landing,and it was coming down fast. The blue-striped monster looming large inthe glow of the midnight sun was not entirely a surprise to Chet'sstaring eyes.
But--blue-striped! The markings of the Schwartzmann line!--He had hardlysensed the danger when it was upon him.
A man, heavy and broad of frame, was giving orders. Only once had Chetseen this Herr Schwartzmann, but there was no mistaking him now. And hewas sending a squad of rushing figures toward the man who struggled toclose a great door.
Chet crouched to meet the attack. He was outnumbered; he could never winout. But the knowledge of his own helplessness was nothing beside thatother conviction that flooded him with sickening certainty--
A hoax!--that was what they had called Walt's story; Schwartzmann had sonamed it, and now Schwartzmann had been the one to fool them; themessage was a fake--a bait to draw him out; and he, Chet, had taken thebait. He had led Schwartzmann here; had delivered their ship into h
ishands--
_He landed one blow on the nearest face._]
He landed one blow on the nearest face; he had one glimpse of a clubbedweapon swinging above him--and the world went dark.