Brigands of the Moon

by Ray Cummings

  XXVIII

  The broken, shaggy ramparts of the giant crater rose above us. Wetoiled upward, out of the foothills, clinging now to the crags andpitted terraces of the main ascent. An hour had passed since we turnedfrom the borders of Mare Imbrium. Or was it two hours? I could nottell. I only know that we ran with desperate, frantic haste.

  Anita would not admit that she was tired. She was more skillful than Iin this leaping over the broken rock masses. Yet I felt that herslight strength must give out. It seemed miles up the undulatingslopes of the foothills with the black and white ramparts of thecrater close before us.

  And then the main ascent. There were places where, like smooth blackfrozen ice, the walls rose sheer. We avoided them, toiling aside,plunging into gullies, crossing pits where sometimes, perforce, wewent downwards, and then up again. Or sometimes we stood, hot andbreathless, upon ledges, recovering our strength, selecting the bestroute upward.

  In tumbled mass of rock, honeycombed everywhere with caves andpassages leading into impenetrable darkness, there were pits intowhich we might so easily have fallen; ravines to span, sometimes witha leap, sometimes by a long and arduous detour.

  Endless climb. We came to the ledge with the plains of the MareImbrium stretching out beneath us. We might have been upon this mainascent for an hour; the plains were far down, the broken surface downthere smoothed now by the perspective of height. And yet still aboveus the brooding circular wall went up into the sky. Ten thousand feetabove us.

  "You're tired, Anita. We'd better stay here."

  "No. If we could only get to the top--the ship may land on the otherside--they would see us."

  There was as yet no sign of the brigand ship. With every stop forrest we searched the starry vault. The Earth hung over us, flattenedbeyond the full. The stars blazed to mingle with the Earthlight andillumine these massive crags of the Archimedes walls. But no speckappeared to tell us that the ship was up there.

  We were on the curving side of the Archimedes wall which fronted theMare Imbrium to the north. The plains lay Like a great frozen sea,congealed ripples shining in the light of the Earth, with dark patchesto mark the hollows. Somewhere down there--six or eight thousand feetbelow us now--Miko's encampment lay concealed. We searched for lightsof it, but could see none.

  Had Miko rejoined his party, left his camp and come here likeourselves to climb Archimedes? Or was our assumption wholly wrong:perhaps the brigand ship would not land near here at all!

  Sweeping around from the Mare Imbrium, the plains were less smooth.The little crater which concealed the Grantline camp was off in thecrater-scarred region beyond which the distant Apennines raised theirterraced walls. There was nothing to mark it from here.

  "Gregg, do you see anything up there?" She added, "There seems to be ablur."

  Her sight, sharper than mine, had picked it out. The descendingbrigand ship! A faintest, tiny blur against the stars, a few of themocculted as though an invisible shadow were upon them. A growingshadow, materializing into a blur--a blob, a shape faintly defined.Then sharper until we were sure of what we saw. It was the brigandship. It was dropping slowly, silently down.

  We crouched on the little ledge. A cave mouth was behind us. A gullywas beside us, a break in the ledge; and at our feet the sheer walldropped.

  We had extinguished our lights. We crouched, silently gazing up intothe stars.

  The ship, when we first distinguished it, was centered overArchimedes. We thought for a while that it might descend into thecrater. But it did not; it came sailing forward.

  I whispered into the audiphone, "It's coming over the crater."

  Her hand pressed my arm in answer.

  I recalled that when, from the _Planetara_, Miko had forced Snap tosignal this brigand band on Mars, Miko's only information as to thewhereabouts of the Grantline camp was that it lay between Archimedesand the Apennines. The brigands now were following that information.

  A tense interval passed. We could see the ship plainly above us now, agray-black shape among the stars up beyond the shaggy, towering craterrim. The vessel came upon a level keel, hull down. Slowly circling,looking for Miko's signal, no doubt, or for possible lights fromGrantline's camp. They might also be picking a landing place.

  We saw it soon as a cylindrical, cigarlike shape, rather smaller thanthe _Planetara_, but similar of design. It bore lights now. The portsof its hull were tiny rows of illumination, and the glow of lightunder its rounding upper dome was faintly visible.

  A bandit ship, no doubt of that. Its identification keel plate wasempty of official pass code lights. These brigands had not attemptedto secure official sailing lights when leaving Ferrok-Shahn. It wasunmistakably an outlaw ship. And here upon the deserted Moon there wasno need for secrecy. Its lights were openly displayed, that Miko mightsee it and join it.

  It went slowly past us, only a few thousand feet higher than ourlevel. We could see the whole outline of its pointed cylinder hull,with the rounded dome on top. And under the dome was its open deckwith a little cabin superstructure in the center.

  I thought for a moment that by some unfortunate chance it might landquite near us. But it went past. And then I saw that it was headingfor a level, plateaulike surface a few miles further on. It dropped,cautiously floating down.

  There was still no sign of Miko. But I realized that haste wasnecessary. We must be the first to join the brigand ship.

  I lifted Anita to her feet. "I don't think we should signal fromhere."

  "No. Miko might see it."

  We could not tell where he was. Down on the plains, perhaps? Or uphere, somewhere in these miles of towering rocks?

  "Are you ready, Anita?"

  "Yes, Gregg."

  I stared through the visors at her white solemn face.

  "Yes, I'm ready," she repeated.

  Her hand pressure seemed to me suddenly like a farewell. We wereplunging rashly into what was destined to mean our death? Was this afarewell?

  An instinct told me not to do this thing. Why, in a few hours I couldhave Anita back to the comparative safety of the Grantline camp. Theexit ports would doubtless be repaired by now. I could get her inside.

  She had bounded away from me, leaped down some thirty feet into thebroken gully, to cross it and then up on the other side. I stood foran instant watching her fantastic shape, with the great rounded,goggled, trunked helmet and the lump on her shoulders which held thelittle Erentz motors. Then I hurried after her.

  It did not take us long--two or three miles of circling along thegiant wall. The ship lay only a few hundred feet above our level.

  We stood at last on a buttelike pinnacle. The lights of the ship wereclose over us. And there were moving lights up there, tiny movingspots on the adjacent rocks. The brigands had come out, prowling aboutto investigate their location.

  No signal yet from Miko. But it might come at any moment.

  "I'll flash now," I whispered.

  "Yes."

  The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the lamp from myhelmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by ashot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship?

  Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with mytorch and flung its switch. My puny light beam shot up. I waved it,touched the ship with its faint glowing circle of illumination.

  They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there.

  I semaphored:

  _I am from Miko. Do not fire._

  I used open universal code. In Martian first, and then in English.

  There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again.

  _This is Haljan, one of the_ Planetara. _George Prince's sister iswith me. There has been disaster to Miko._

  A small light beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliffbeside the ship.

  _Continue._

  I went steadily on: _Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killedbut me and Prince's sister. We want to join you._

  I
flashed off my light. The answer came:

  _Where is the Grantline Camp?_

  _Near here. The Mare Imbrium._

  As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, some tenmiles or so from the crater base, a tiny signal light shot up. Anitasaw it and gripped me.

  "There is Miko's light!"

  It spelled in Martian, _Come down. Land Mare Imbrium._

  Miko had seen the signaling up here and had joined it! He repeated,_Land Mare Imbrium._

  I flashed a protest up to the ship: _Beware. That is Grantline!Trickery._

  From the ship the summons came, _Come up._

  We had won this first encounter! Miko must have realized hisdisadvantage. His distant light went out.

  "Come, Anita."

  There was no retreat now. But again I seemed to feel in the pressureof her hand that vague farewell. Her voice whispered, "We must do ourbest, act our best to be convincing."

  In the white glow of a searchbeam we climbed the crags, reached thebroad upper ledge. Helmeted figures rushed at us, searched us forweapons, seized our helmet lights. The evil face of a giant Martianpeered at me through the visors. Two other monstrous, towering figuresseized Anita.

  We were shoved toward the port locks at the base of the ship's hull.Above the hull bulge I could see the grids of projectors mounted onthe dome side, and the figures of men standing on the deck, peeringdown at us.

  We went through the admission locks into a hull corridor, up anincline passage, and reached the lighted deck. The Martian brigandscrowded around us.