16
Over us was turmoil, that screaming siren. Then suddenly it waschecked and we heard the thump and swish of what on Earth would havebeen called running footsteps and shouts.
Snap shoved me. "Don't stay there, you fool!"
We lunged up the passage. Figures barred it but they scattered; a bolthissed at us, but missed. At the kiosk a group of workers and severalpeering little brains leaped away in terror to let us pass.
We gained the open air. With the small gravity rays darting down withrepulsion upon the rocks we mounted like rockets out of the cauldron.The upper plateau lay silent in the starlight, but the cauldron behindus was ringing with alarm, and again the danger siren was blaring.
I changed my way of direction, swung it to the plateau rocks ahead.The arc of my flight was sharply bent as I went hurtling down. Overme, I saw Snap use the same tactics. I tried to aim for where we hadleft the girls and Molo. I could not see them down there amid thestarlit crags; and suddenly a wild apprehension filled me. How had wedared leave them to Molo's trickery?
Then, ahead and below me, I saw the slight figure of one of the girls,standing on a rock with arms outstretched to signal us. I changed myray to repulsion barely in time to avoid crashing. The landing flungme in a heap. Twenty feet away, Snap came whirling down. We pickedourselves up, saw Anita waving from the rock, and bounded to her.
The girls were safe. Venza sat intent, with unwavering watchful gazeacross the intervening space to where Molo had flattened himselfagainst his rock, not daring to move.
"Still got him," Venza exulted. "He wasn't willing to take any chanceswith us. You did it, Snap?"
"I'm a motor-oiler if we didn't. Come on; got to get out of this.They're after us! We wrecked the whole damn place, Venza. Wandl's anormal planet now. No more of this accursed dislocation of Earth."
We learned later that our hope and our assumption that we hadirretrievably wrecked the entire gravity control system of Wandl wasproven to be a fact. Wandl was, in effect, a normal celestial bodynow. The beams planted in Greater New York, Ferrok-Shahn and Grebharstill streamed across space. But there was no giant beam from Wandl toseize them, and Wandl now could not move through space of her ownvolition. Like Earth, and all other known planets, satellites, cometsand asteroids, she was subject now to all the normal natural laws ofcelestial mechanics. We had done a thorough job of it.
Now I shoved at Snap. "No time to talk. You tow the girls; I'll takeMolo. Got to get to the _Star-Streak_."
I lunged over and seized Molo. "We did it. Now for your vessel! Itwill be ill for you if she is not where you say she is."
"She will be there, Gregg Haljan."
He docilely put himself in position for me to hook my forearm underhis crossed, bound wrists and carry him. Snap rose up past us, towingthe girls. Over the nearby cauldron a figure mounted to gaze and seethe nature of this strange attacking enemy, and then sank back.
With Molo hanging to me, I mounted with my ray, following Snap and thegirls into the starlight, with the turmoil of the cauldron recedinguntil in a moment or so it was gone behind our horizon.
We headed now, not toward Wor, whence we had come, but over at anangle to the side. Our great bounding arcs soon left the mountainsbehind. We crossed the river, another portion of the forest, and cameover undulating lowlands.
It was a flight of under half an hour. The pursuit, if indeed anyonefollowed us, remained below our little segment of curving horizon.Everywhere there was evidence of the storm; the forest trees were laidflat, strewn like driftwood over the area. The river had in severalplaces lashed over its banks. The lowlands were dotted thick withglobe-dwellings. Some were hanging awry on their stems; others werepulled from their place, cracked and piled into a litter.
We kept well aloft. The surface scenes were only glimpses of wreckage,moving lights and people. And there were areas which the wind hadseemingly spared.
The confusion from the storm was mingled now with the spreading alarmfrom the gravity station; the sound of the danger siren there wasstill audible behind us. As we advanced into what now seemed theoutskirts of a city like Wor, with a pile of solid-looking metalstructures ranging the horizon ahead, I saw a distant spaceship riseup and wing away. Wandl was proceeding with the dispatching of herspace navy to oppose the distantly gathering ships of Earth, Venus,and Mars. No doubt with the wrecking of the control station, themasters of Wandl immediately recognized the paramount importance ofthe coming battle.
The huge, globular, disc-like ship sailed high over us, rotating withthe impulse of its rocket-streams. In a moment it was lost in thestars. And then another rose and followed it.
There were many human figures in the air around us now. I mountedhigher, and Snap with the girls followed me. The figures, intent upontheir own affairs, did not seem to heed us.
Molo's vessel lay alone upon a low metal cradle. No other ship wasnear it; but half a mile away on both sides we could see othersresting on their stages. Lights were moving around and upon them, butthe _Star-Streak_ was dark and neglected.
We poised a thousand feet over her, and to one side. I saw her as along, low, pointed vessel, dead gray in color, longer than the_Cometara_, and seemingly narrower, but very similar in aspect.
"Meka and I are supposed to be gathering our crew," said Molo. "No onebothers with my vessel. Will you take me to Wor now to get Meka?"
"I will not."
Snap was drifting down with the girls. They were near us. His armwaved at me with a gesture. And then came the muffled tone of hisvoice: "Shall we drop down, Gregg?"
"Yes, but cautiously. Have your gun ready."
Molo protested, "I would like to take Meka with us, and a few of mycrew. You will have trouble handling the _Star-Streak_, just us threemen."
"We'll take our chances."
We dropped swiftly down upon the dark and vacant platform. The grayhull of the _Star-Streak_ loomed beside us, her dome arched stillhigher. An inclined catwalk went up to her opened deck-port.
"I'll go first," I said softly to Snap. "Come quickly after me. Watchout: there might be someone on board."
Venza still clung to her weapon. Mine was in my hand as I lifted Molo.And, ignoring the incline, bounded the thirty feet for the deck-port.I landed safely, and stood Molo upon his feet. "Don't you move," Iadmonished him sternly.
He stood docilely against the cabin wall of the superstructure. No onehere. We had thought there might easily be one or two workers onboard.
Snap and the girls came sailing, one after the other, and landed onthe deck beside me. We stood silent, alert. No one appeared fromwithin the cabin or from the lengths of the deck. Venza was watchingMolo with her weapon upon him. Snap and I had planned this boarding:Anita and Venza to stay here and guard Molo while we searched theship, and inspected the controls. We started for the cabin door oval.
"Gregg!"
It was all the warning Snap could give. I was within the dim cabin,but he, behind me, was still on the deck. I whirled to see a dozendark forms leaping from the roof of the cabin superstructure. Snap wasall but buried by them. These were not men of Wandl, but Molo's piratecrew, Martians, Earthmen and Venusians. Snap's ray-gun spat as he wentdown; one of the men dropped away. I saw Venza turn with startledhorror, as the huge figure of Meka leaped down upon her and Anita fromthe roof.
For an instant, weapon in hand, I paused in the doorway. I could notfire into the turmoil of that struggling group, so instead plungedinto it, striking with my fists.
Molo was shouting, "Do not kill them! I was ordered not to kill them!"
These men, so different from the insect-like workers and the brains ofWandl, were solid in my grip; but we were all so weightless! I felledone, but others gripped me, pounded me. A struggling mass of bodies,arms and legs, we surged up to the superstructure roof and droppedupon it. My weapon was gone. Half a dozen adversaries had me pinioned.
Down on the deck I saw that Venza had lost her weapon; Molo and Mekawere clutching her. Snap was fighting
with several antagonists. Anitawas loose. She dove for the group in which Snap was struggling, hitthem, kicked and bounded upward, to be seized by two of my owncaptors.
"Anita, don't fight! They'll kill you!"
I tried to break loose, but four huge Martians were holding me.
"Oh, Gregg!"
There was horror in Anita's voice. Snap had broken away. At the opendeck-port he stood, as though undecided what to do. The deck wasalmost black around him; he was silhouetted against the outsidestarlight. From almost at his side, in the darkness, a tiny bolt spatupward at his head. His arms went wildly out; he tumbled backward. Atthe top of the boarding incline his body seemed spasmodically to kick,and the thrust whirled it down into the darkness.
The end of Snap! A pang went through me. Snap, my best friend!
Molo cursed the unknown man of his crew who had fired the shot. Butnone would admit who did it.
"Get to your posts," Molo roared in Martian. "Enough of you are here.Lash up the prisoners; we're launching away now." He thumped hisbrawny sister as she passed him. "Well played, Meka!"
These wily Martians! Molo had planned that Meka was to gather the crewand wait here at the ship for him and Wyk. If they returned with us ascaptives, it would be here that they would come. But if by chancethings went adversely, Molo reasoned we would act just as we did; andMeka and her men were lurking here in ambush, waiting for us.
All the many various ports swung shut. Anita, Venza, and I, with armsand legs bound, were taken by Molo to the forward observation andcontrol room.
The ship was resounding with signals. The interior controls in thehull-base raised the gravity-pull within the vessel to a strengthcomparable to that of Earth. Within a few minutes the _Star-Streak_lifted from the stage. Strange, weird Wandl fell away from us. Weslid upward through the atmosphere, following one of the globularWandl vessels, and headed into space toward the point where, a fewmillion miles distant, the ships of allied Earth, Venus, and Mars weregathering.