CHAPTER X
_One Stroke for Freedom_
In that subterranean chamber of the Moon, where the angry red of stilldeeper fires flared fitfully; where winged demons, like evil creaturesof a drug-crazed dreamer's mind, darted shrieking through the sulphurousair, it was a slender, blue-eyed girl who took control of events.
She it was who, when the explosions of detonite had ceased, saw the fallof a body from high above. She saw it strike upon a mound of deadMoon-beasts; saw the homely, human features as the body rolled to thefloor; and it was she who threw herself upon it protectingly when one ofthe enemy wounded dragged his broken wings trailing across the stonethat he might reach that human face with his distended claws.
"A man!" Anita Haldgren screamed. "It's a man--help me!" And Chet wasbeside her in an instant to drag the limp body to safety.
"Spud!" he shouted. "It's Spud O'Malley! He never went back! He camedown here to save us!"
He grabbed up the gun where it had fallen; saw the empty magazine; thenflung himself down beside the unconscious figure of Spud while he toreat the fastenings of the second weapon.
"His suit!" he shouted to the girl. "Get his suit! It's there where hefell! Bring yours and mine, too!"
He was hardly able to gage his own strength here where all weights wereone-sixth of their equivalent on Earth. He stooped and swung the chunkybody of Spud across his shoulder as easily as he would have lifted achild. And, having done it, he was entirely at a loss as to where to go.
Across the great room was a throng of leaping, flapping things; morewere pouring in from open doors. Chet stood hesitant and bewildered,until Anita spoke.
"Come!" she called, and darted toward a narrow entrance.
* * * * *
The clamorous shrieking from the horde of Moon-beasts marked theirswooping assault upon the two, and Chet paused to send them three shotsthat checked the advance. Then, with the body of Spud held tightly, hesprang where Anita had gone.
She was waiting, but gave Chet no chance to question her. "Come!" shecommanded again, and ran on as before. But, as Chet gained her side, sheoffered between gasping breaths an explanation.
"Five years they kept us ... like animals in a cage ... but there was aplace ... a sacred place ... they let us go there.... And they let usmake signal lights from outside ... they called it magic.
"And now Frithjof has escaped ... he will go to the sacred room ... onlythere would he be safe...."
They had turned and twisted through narrow passages. Anita, it seemed,was plotting a course through less frequented thoroughfares of thisstrange city. But they came at last to a vast auditorium into which theypeered from a half-opened door.
The room was of preposterous size, and Chet marveled at the minds thathad conceived and wrought so tremendous an undertaking. And he sawplainly in his own mind the throngs of serene-faced beings who must havefolded their white wings softly about them to gather there for worship.But more plainly still he saw the jostling, squealing crowd that wasthere that instant before his eyes.
Hundreds of them--thousands, it might be--and the sound of their shrillvoices made hideous echoes from the high-flung ceiling of the greathall. The dry rustling of their leather wings was an unceasing rush ofsound.
* * * * *
Some who seemed to be leaders stood above the rest on a platform whichformed the base of a terraced formation against the far wall of theroom. Even at a distance Chet could see and wonder at the simple beautyof that place of metals and jewels where the great ones of an earlierrace had once stood.
Back of those who harangued the crowd the terraces built themselves upto a pyramid against the rock wall; and on either side, opening uponthe platform base, was a doorway of noble proportions, whose metal doorsof burnished reds and browns were closed.
"The sacred room," whispered Anita, "beyond those doors. Frithjof hasclosed them. He is there. I know it--I know it!"
Chet was still holding the body of O'Malley. Only his choked breathingshowed that he still lived, but now he stirred and struggled in Chet'sgrasp, while he struck out blindly and hoarse sounds came from histhroat.
Chet clapped one hand over the pilot's mouth. "For the love of heaven,Spud," he said fiercely, "be still! Don't speak--don't say a word! It'sChet--Chet Bullard! I've got you, we're all right!"
The pilot's struggles ceased, and Chet eased him to the floor where hesat still gasping for breath; the fumes from that place of death hadbeen strangling in his throat.
Beside him Chet heard the girl repeating in softest tones the name shehad heard for the first time.
"Chet--Chet Bullard! How odd a name! But I love it--I couldn't help butlove it."
* * * * *
In the great room were some who had turned toward the sound of Chet'sscuffling; they were walking slowly toward the half-opened door.
"Come!" said Anita Haldgren again, and fled like a slender,golden-haired wraith down the narrow hall.
More twisting passages until Chet was hopelessly lost. But he no longerneeded to carry O'Malley, who was running beside him, and he hadimplicit faith in the girlish guide who went before. He was notsurprised when they came after many detours to a narrow door of wroughtmetals in white and gold, whose inset designs were worked in glowingjewels.
Nor was he surprised when the door opened in response to a series ofknocks from Anita's hand that spelled SOS in the code he knew, and aman, whose long hair and beard hung about a face as handsome as that ofa Viking of old, stood motionless in that doorway.
But the surprise of that flaxen-haired giant can be only imagined when ayoung man whom he had never seen on Earth or Moon stepped forward fromhis sister's side with outstretched hand.
"I am Bullard," said the slim young man, "Master Pilot of the World--orat least that was my rating up to the time I left in search of you. Andnow, Pilot Haldgren, we've a ship outside, and, if you'd care to go backwith us--"
And with equal casualness the blond Viking replied: "You came in searchof us! You saw our signals! After all this time! Yes, we shall be gladto go back with--we shall be glad--yes--"
But his deep, rumbling voice broke into something like a sob, and heturned with outstretched arms to stumble blindly toward his sister, whoburied her face in his torn and ragged blouse.
* * * * *
"You came in search of us--you came through space just to find andrescue us!" Haldgren, it seemed, could not recover from the effects ofthis unbelievable fact. He was gripping hard at the hand of ChetBullard, while his other great arm was thrown about the shoulders ofSpud O'Malley.
"But now that you are here, what is to be done? Every exit will beguarded; we are shut off from the outer world by a hundred locked doorsand by thousands of those beasts."
He took his arm from Spud's shoulder to point toward the great doors,beyond which was a rising clamor of shrill sound.
"They will break in here soon; they would have been here before had theyknown of the old lost entrance of the priests that Anita and I found.We're as bad off as ever, I am afraid. There will be no holding themnow."
"I can hold some," said Chet, and touched his weapon. Haldgren noddedhis shaggy head.
"Some, but not many of the thousands we must face before ever we fightour way through to the outer world. No, my friend Bullard, that willnever save us; we are doomed!"
But Chet, unwilling to accept or share the other's convictions, wasseeing again the great room beyond those doors--a room of vastproportions; of high-arched, vaulted ceiling where sweeping curves allcentered and ended in one tremendous central point. It hung down, thatpoint, a blazing pendant--an inverted keystone; through some magic ofthat ancient people all the colors of the spectrum had been made to ebband flow like rainbows of living light.
* * * * *
But something deeper than the beauty of this had impressed Chet. Amaster pilot does n
ot study design of structures, even structures meantfor travel through the air, without gaining knowledge of architecturalfundamentals; his mind, subconsciously, had been following strains andstresses through those super-imposed curves. He turned abruptly toHaldgren with a question.
"It seemed to me when I was following Anita that we climbed upward; wewere always running upward through the passages. We must be near thesurface of the Moon; is that true?"
Haldgren nodded slowly. "I think so--yes! In the great room out thereare windows of quartz high in the ceiling. You could not see them fromwhere you were, but they are there. I have seen them lighted; I think itwas the light of the sun."
"In that case," said Chet quietly, "I will ask you to open those doors."
"But they will come in!" the big man protested.
"They will not come in."
Chet turned to the girl. "I will ask you, my dear, to accompany me--ifyou have faith."
And, to that, Anita Haldgren granted not even a word of reply. She movedmore swiftly than her brother to a controlling lever in the wall ... andthe ponderous doors swung slowly back.
* * * * *
Beyond those opening doors a din of shrieks went abruptly still. Theyrose again in a squeaking babel of amazement and again were silenced asChet Bullard stepped through the arch. Beside him was the slender figureof Anita; following was a stocky man whose unhandsome, face was alightwith a broad grin.
"Go to it, my bhoy!" Spud O'Malley was saying. "I don't know what you'reup to, but you'll be countin' me in--and here's hopin' you give thosedevils hell!"
And, behind them all, in great strides that brought him up with therest, came Haldgren, recovered now from the stupefaction that had heldhim momentarily. The four went silently where Chet led to the highestpoint of the great terraced rostrum.
It was a stepped pyramid, Chet found, split in half and the half placedagainst the wall. There was a stairway of smaller steps where priests,some thousands of years before, had made their way to the top. And thedust of centuries arose in smoky puffs as the four trod that path wherethe holy ones had gone. Below them the silence was ending in sibilanthissing calls as the black-winged beast-men watched that procession tothe heights. Some few had launched themselves into the air, Chet sawwhen he turned.
"Tell them to go back," he said to Anita; "tell them to listen to what Ihave to say!" There followed immediately the sound of Anita's soft voicedistorted to shrill sounds that echoed throughout the hall.
"Tell them now," said Chet when the hall was still, "that I have comefrom another world. Tell them that I hold the thunderbolts of theirancient gods in my hands. Then tell them if they permit us to depart wewill go and leave them in peace. But if they try to harm us, the templeof their gods will be destroyed, and they, too, shall die. Tell them!"
* * * * *
There was something of unwonted solemnity in the voice of the masterpilot--something of quiet power and the dignity that became a messengerof the gods--as he gave his orders and faced the throng.
And there was the patience of a god who is sickened of slaughter as hefaced the discordant din and the threatening forward surge of the demonthrong below. The girl had spoken, and the air was black with theirthreshing wings, while still Chet waited with outstretched hand.
To the creatures below--the things half-men and half-beasts--the shiningtube in that extended hand meant nothing of threat. And even to theIrish pilot, who stood silently watching, the gesture seemed futile.
"You've overplayed your hand, lad," he said in a tone of despair. "'Tisno little gun like that will stop them now!"
He was watching that hand and the shining tube; watching in amazementas he saw it swing slowly up toward the advancing horde risen level withthem in the air--up above their massed blackness of wings--on and up,until the tube was pointing toward the base of a carven pendant, whoseblending colors were fairy lights at play.
And still the weapon waited until the snarling faces of the enemy wereclose. Then the pistol cracked once, and the roar of its exploding shellcame thundering after.
For an instant all motion ceased; the very wings of the flying beastsseemed frozen rigid in mid-flight. Then the whole of the vast room wasin motion.
* * * * *
A rush of escaping air whirled upward the black-winged monsters in aninverted maelstrom of shrieking winds. And, falling to meet them, camean enormous pendant whose rioting colors seemed glorying in their owndeath. And with that came the swift disintegration of the vaulted archeswhere the one central supporting point of their intricate maze had beenshattered; till, with a crashing avalanche of sound that obliterated thethundering echoes of the detonite charge, the entire ceiling, thatseemed now like the roof of a mighty world, roared down to destruction.
The pyramidal rostrum was at one side. A cascade of shattered rock felllike a curtain before it--a kindly curtain that hid from human sight thehideous slaughter of a demoniac mob. It was still falling; theimprisoned air was gathering added force to rush upward, screaming as ifthe very winds were insane with joy at their release, when the greatarms of Frithjof Haldgren closed about the others of the group and halfcarried them, half hurled them, down the slope.
* * * * *
The echoing clang of great doors was still with them as the bellowingvoice of Haldgren was heard.
"Get into your suits! The internal pressure is lost." Even as he spokethe big man was clutching at his throat, though the closing doors of thesacred room had given them respite. "Quick! They have emergency doors.They will close them--but this part is cut off. In only minutes therewill be no air!"
But it was Chet who snapped shut the closure of Anita Haldgren's suitbefore he pulled on his own. And he grinned happily through the glass ofhis helmet as he saw the others safely encased, while their suits slowlybulged as the pressure of the air about them went down and their owntanks of oxygen took up the task of maintaining one atmosphere ofpressure.
In silence the great doors of the sacred room swung back; in silence, asbefore, the Earth-folk passed through where chaos had reigned. Chetchecked them; he threw one arm clumsily around the figure of AnitaHaldgren while he turned to her brother.
"The door is open, Frithjof Haldgren," he said, and pointed upward atthe black vault of the heavens where a massive ceiling had been. In thatimmensity of space, framed in the torn outlines of a shattered world,shone a great globe--a globe like a giant moon. The Earth, unbelievablybright, was beckoning them once more.
"The door is open," Chet repeated; "do you still wish to go home?"