Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 Part 37

"I'll go up, Snap, and try the engines. You don't mind staying down?

Executing my signals?"

"You idiot!" He gripped my shoulders. His eyes were gleaming, his face haggard, but his pale lips twitched with a smile.

"Maybe it's good-by, Gregg. We'll fall--fighting."

"Yes. Fighting. Coniston, you keep the pressure up."

With the broken set-tubes it took nearly all the pressure to maintain the few plates I had s.h.i.+fted. One slipped back to neutral. Then the pumps gained on it, and it s.h.i.+fted again.

I dashed up to the deck. Ah, the Moon was so close now! So horribly close! The deck shadows were still. Through the forward bow windows the Moon surface glared up at us.

I reached the turret. The _Planetara_ was steady. Pitched bow-down, half falling, half sliding like a rocket downward. The scarred surface of the Moon spread wide under us.

These last horrible minutes were a blur. And there was always Anita's face. She left Miko. Faced with death, he sat clinging. Ignoring her, Moa, too, sat apart. Staring--

And Anita crept to me. "Gregg, dear one. The end...."

I tried the electronic engines from the stern, setting them in the reverse. The streams of their light glowed from the stern, forward along our hull, and flared down from our bow toward the Lunar surface.

But no atmosphere was here to give resistance. Perhaps the electronic streams checked our fall a little. The pumps gave us pressure, just in the last minutes, to slide a few of the hull-plates. But our bow stayed down. We slid, like a spent rocket falling.

I recall the horror of that expanding Lunar surface. The maw of Archimedes yawning. A blob. Widening to a great pit. Then I saw it was to one side. Rus.h.i.+ng upward.

A phantasmagoria of uprus.h.i.+ng crags. Black and gray. Spires tinged with Earth-light.

"Gregg, dear one--good-by."

Her gentle arms around me. The end of everything for us. I recall murmuring, "Not falling free, Anita. Some hull-plates are set."

My dials showed another plate s.h.i.+fting, checking us a little further.

Good old Snap.

I calculated the next best plate to s.h.i.+ft. I tried it. Slid it over.

Good old Snap....

Then everything faded but the feeling of Anita's arms around me.

"Gregg, dear one--"

The end of everything for us....

There was an up-rush of gray-black rock.

An impact....

CHAPTER XXII

_The Hiss of Death_

I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt--a pain shooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not seem to move my left arm. Very queer! Then I moved it, and it hurt. I was lying twisted: I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was over. I am not dead. Anita--

She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in this silent blur--a soft, mellow Earth-light filtering in the window. The weight on me was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way across my lap.

Not dead! Thank G.o.d, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, and I lifted her. The Earth-light glowed on her pale face; but her eyes opened and she faintly smiled.

"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive."

I held her as though all life's turgid danger were powerless to touch us.

But in the silence my floating senses were brought back to reality by a faint sound forcing itself upon me. A little hiss. The faintest murmuring breath like a hiss. Escaping air!

I cast off her clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"

For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our embrace.

But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken--or cracked--and our precious air was hissing out.

Full reality came to me at last. I was not seriously injured. I found that I could move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, but they were better in a moment.

And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not her blood.

Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giant figure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. A widening pool.

Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. This soundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its two motionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I were ghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to the _Planetara's_ deck. It lay dashed against the dome-side.

The deck was aslant. A litter of wreckage. A broken human figure showed--one of the crew, who at the last must have come running up. The forward observation tower was down on the chart-room roof: in its metal tangle I thought I could see the legs of the tower look-out.

So this was the end of the brigands' adventure! The _Planetara's_ last voyage! How small and futile are human struggles! Miko's daring enterprise--so villainous, inhuman--brought all in a few moments to this silent tragedy. The _Planetara_ had fallen thirty thousand miles. But why? What had happened to Hahn? And where was Coniston, down in this broken hull?

And Snap. I thought suddenly of Snap.

I clutched at my wandering wits. This inactivity was death. The escaping air hissed in my ears. Our precious air, escaping away into the vacant desolation of the Lunar emptiness. Through one of the twisted, slanting dome-windows a rocky spire was visible. The _Planetara_ lay bow-down, wedged in a jagged cradle of Lunar rock. A miracle that the hull and dome had held together.

"Anita, we must get out of here!"

I thought I was fully alert now. I recalled that the brigands had spoken of having partly a.s.sembled their Moon equipment. If only we could find suits and helmets!

"We must get out," I repeated. "Get to Grantline's camp."

"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg. I saw them there."