Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 Part 35

But the mirrors were steadying. We had no recording-tape apparatus; the rest of the message was lost. The mirrors pulsed and then steadied.

No further message came. There was an interval while Miko waited. He held Anita in the hollow of his great arm.

"Quiet, little bird. Do not fear me. I have work to do, Anita--this is our great adventure. We will be rich, you and I. All the luxuries three worlds can offer, all for us when this is over. Careful, Moa! This Haljan has no wit."

Well could he say it! I, who had been so witless to let this come upon us! Moa's weapon prodded me. Her voice hissed at me with all the venom of a reptile enraged. "So that was your game, Gregg Haljan! And I was so graceless to admit love for you!"

Snap murmured in my ear, "Don't move, Gregg! She's reckless."

She heard it. She whirled on him. "We have lost George Prince, it seems.

Well, we will survive without his ore knowledge. And you, Dean--and this Haljan--mark me, I will kill you both if you cause trouble!"

Miko was gloating. "Don't kill them yet, Moa. What was it Grantline said? Near the crater of Archimedes? Ring us down, Haljan! We'll land."

He signaled the turret. Gave Coniston the Grantline message, and audiphoned it below to Hahn. The news spread about the s.h.i.+p. The bandits were jubilant.

"We'll land now, Haljan. Ring us down. Come, Anita and I will go with you to the turret."

I found my voice. "To what destination?"

"Near Archimedes. The Apennine side. Keep well away from the Grantline camp. We will probably sight it as we descend."

There was no trajectory needed. We were almost over Archimedes now. I could drop us with a visible, instrumental course. My mind was whirling with a confusion of thoughts. What could we do? What could we dare attempt to do? I met Snap's gaze.

"Ring us down, Gregg," he said quietly.

I nodded. I pushed Moa's weapon away. "You don't need that. I obey orders."

We went to the turret. Moa watched me and Snap, a grim, cold Amazon. She avoided looking at Anita, whom Miko helped down the ladders with a strange mixture of courtierlike grace and amused irony. Coniston gazed at Anita with falling jaw.

"I say! Not George Prince? The girl--"

"No time for argument now," Miko commanded. "It's the girl, masquerading as her brother. Get below, Coniston. Haljan takes us down."

The astounded Englishman continued gazing at Anita. "I mean to say, where to on the Moon? Not to encounter Grantline at once, Miko? Our equipment is not ready."

"Of course not. We will land well away. He won't be suspicious--we can signal him again after we land. We will have time to plan, to a.s.semble the equipment. Get below, I told you."

The reluctant Coniston left us. I took the controls. Miko, still holding Anita as though she were a child, sat beside me. "We will watch him, little Anita. A skilled fellow at this sort of work."

I rang my signals for the s.h.i.+fting of the gravity plates. The answer should have come from below within a second or two. But it did not. Miko regarded me with his great bushy eyebrows upraised.

"Ring again, Haljan."

I duplicated. No answer. The silence was frightening. Ominous.

Miko muttered, "That accursed Hahn. Ring again!"

I sent the imperative emergency demand.

No answer. A second or two. Then all of us in the turret were startled.

Transfixed. From below came a sudden hiss. It sounded in the turret: it came from s.h.i.+fting-room call-grid. The hissing of the pneumatic valves of the plate-s.h.i.+fters in the lower control room. The valves were opening; the plates automatically s.h.i.+fting into neutral, and disconnecting!

An instant of startled silence. Miko may have realized the significance of what had happened. Certainly Snap and I did. The hissing ceased. I gripped the emergency plate-s.h.i.+fter switch which hung over my head. Its disc was dead! The plates were dead in neutral. In the positions they were only placed while in port! And their s.h.i.+fting mechanisms were imperative!

I was on my feet. "Snap! Good G.o.d, we're in neutral!"

Miko, if he had not realized it before, was aware if it now. The Moon-disc moved visibly as the _Planetara_ lurched. The vault of the heavens was slowly swinging.

Miko ripped out a heavy oath. "Haljan! What is this?"

He stood up, still holding Anita. But there was nothing that he could do in this emergency. "Haljan--what--"

The heavens turned with a giant swoop. The Moon was over us. It swung in dizzying arc. Overhead, then back past our stern; under us, then appearing over our bow.

The _Planetara_ had turned over. Upending. Rotating, end over end.

For a moment or two I think all of us in that turret stood and clung.

The Moon-disc, the Earth, Sun and all the stars were swinging past our windows. So horribly dizzying. The _Planetara_ seemed lurching and tumbling. But it was an optical effect only. I stared with grim determination at my feet. The turret seemed to steady.

Then I looked again. That horrible swoop of all the heavens! And the Moon, as it went past, seemed expanded. We were falling! Out of control, with the Moon-gravity pulling us inexorably down!

"That accursed Hahn--" Miko, stricken with his lack of knowledge of these controls, was wholly confused.

A moment only had pa.s.sed. My fancy that the Moon-disc was enlarged was merely the horror of my imagination. We had not fallen far enough yet for that.

But we were falling. Unless I could do something, we would crash upon the Lunar surface.

Anita, killed in this _Planetara_ turret. The end of everything for us.

Action came to me. I gasped, "Miko, you stay here! The controls are dead! You stay here--hold Anita."

I ignored Moa's weapon which she was still clutching mechanically. Snap thrust her away.

"Sit back! Let us alone! We're falling! Don't you understand?"

This deadly danger, to level us all! No longer were we captors and captured. Not brigands for this moment. No thought of Grantline's treasure! Trapped humans only! Leveled by the common, instinct of self-preservation. Trapped here together, fighting for our lives.

Miko gasped. "Can you--check us? What happened?"

"I don't know. I'll try."