by Earl
The passengers looked down on the shuddery desolation. Crags, precipices, towering mountains, deep gullies, and craters stood out with cameo-cut clarity in the whiteness and blackness of the airless satellite. Not a living thing moved on its arid, unweathered surface. Many crews of the earlier, cruder space ships had found death there.
The Starshell finally uptilted her nose and swung toward Earth. Five hours later there was to be a bisection of their orbits—and a bisection of the courses of fate for its occupants. . . . .
For Armand Karne, death! For William Darvy, blasted dreams! For Erlene Edgewood, stifled life! For Sir Alfred Pearson, dilemma! For Commander Alamo Jackson, invalid’s misery!
And then—
Boom!
A DULL, grinding thud thumped through the ship as nose engine exploded, instantly killing three of the crew on duty. With a sinister whoosh, air rushed out of the hull rent into the greedy maw of space.
Pressure-stats connecting to the corridors leading to the rear part of the ship instantaneously clicked, and ponderous felt-lined steel doors promptly hissed shut. The passengers’ quarters in the rear, and the rest of the crew were safe from asphyxiation, thanks to the robot emergency controls.
The captain of the ship picked himself out of the corner he had been thrown into, too stunned to be frightened. He snapped his eyes across his instruments and caught his breath again. Not so bad! The explosion had localized itself, thank God, in engine-B room. He had lost three men, but the passengers were safe—
Then he staggered back as his eyes flicked to the altimeter gauge, now registering height above the moon. God in heaven! The dial numbers were decreasing at a swiftly mounting rate! The titanic blast of the explosion at the nose had, by reaction, cut the ship’s velocity in half. They were caught in the moon’s grip, were dropping to its jagged surface—
The captain darted to his desk, snapped on the inter-ship phone system.
“Rear engines blast away immediately!” he roared into the mouthpiece. “Life and death—hurry!”
But no answer came from his crew.
The captain turned a sickly white. No buzz came from the phone at all—it was dead! His communication with his crew was cut off. And they were probably awaiting his orders, wondering, hoping, instinctively alarmed despite the absence of instruments to tell them what was happening.
The captain moaned. Why didn’t his chief pilot, in the auxiliary pilot cupola, give those orders? He had an independent phone system. It was impossible for both to be out of order. And his duplicate instruments must be showing the same near-disaster—The captain did not know that his chief pilot was lying unconscious, crumpled against the wall he had been thrown against. Yet there was only one thing to do, he knew, and in a moment he was racing down the corridor toward the rear of the ship. An emergency door blocked him, jammed though the air-pressure was normal.
Cursing softly, the captain was forced to climb the nearest companion-way and enter the passengers’ observation deck. It would take him longer this way to reach the rear engine compartment.
Only seconds left now—
Strangely, the observation deck was quiet. Dazed passengers, some just being helped off the floor, were still shocked into silence by the terrific force of the explosion. The captain, running down the long, wide deck, tried to keep from looking out of the great port-windows, but failed. He looked—and gasped.
The sky-filling expanse of jagged Lunar topography was rushing at them swiftly, inexorably—
“Captain!” a quavering voice called. “Captain! What’s happened? What—” As though this were a signal, other passengers began to scream out frantic questions. One man grasped the captain’s arm, tried to detain him. The captain, lashed out with his fist, the quickest way to free himself, and raced on, dodging past terror-stricken passengers.
HE came to the end of the long deck, leaped, over the supine form of a wasted, white-haired man beside an overturned wheelchair—
The captain took one last look out of the port-windows. With a ghastly certainty, he knew there was no hope now. No chance of reaching the engine room in time to have his waiting crew ram power through the rear rockets. A stupendous, needle-spired mountain peak loomed up, directly before the ship. Ashen-faced, the captain grasped the door-handle, twisted. It too was jammed!
Then—the crack of doom resounded!
The Starshell shuddered violently through its whole length, plowed for half a mile through soft stone, like a knife cutting cheese, and brought up abruptly with only its rearmost fin sticking free. The incredibly tough hull-metal used in space ships had once again proved its tremendous strength. A fortuitous landing in a smooth pumice-flat, and her horizontal speed, had saved the Starshell from utter demolition.
The violent landing tossed the ship’s human occupants around like bits of cork. Fortunately, the hull section adjacent to the observation deck withstood the battering and did not crack open gapingly anywhere. Somewhere, however’, a tiny split seam began to let out air gradually with a sharp whistle. And down the deck from the rear came curls of smoke—one of the fuel tanks had split and caught-fire!—
The captain, face bloody from a cut over the eye, came to consciousness fighting for breath. Each searing inhalation drew sharp, chemical smoke into his lungs. Never before faced with such a great and terrible emergency, he became a babbling, cringing wretch, devoid of the slightest initiative. He knelt there, staring horror-eyed at the groaning, screaming passengers, rocking his head in his hands.
It was a time for leadership, command. For quick, decisive action. There was still a chance to save many lives, if only one man would rise to the occasion.
Commander Alamo Jackson struggled to his knees, staring around in bewilderment. He had been thrown from his wheelchair against a bulkhead with crashing force, striking against the back of his head. It was a blow that might ordinarily have killed a man. But in the case of Commander Jackson it served only to give the brain within the skull a terrific jolt. He stared around in bewilderment, slowly shaking his head—
Suddenly his daze vanished. Almost at a glance he took in the situation. His eyes flashed fire. The brain behind them, suddenly released from a lesion that had pressed upon it for three years, began working with lightning rapidity. And with the lifting of the fog before his brain, his physical paralysis also disappeared, for that had been cerebral in origin.
He staggered to his feet, surprised to find them weak and unsteady. Then he remembered and a great surge of upwelling joy flowed through him. He looked at the wheelchair—his prison for three years, but no longer! No longer was he an invalid, no longer a pitiful half-idiot—
THE old man shook his head again, brought himself down to earth. There were things to be done here, or he would be a dead man among other dead men. His voice, stentorian once more, bellowed down the deck.
“Listen to me, all of you! No time to moan about this. We can save ourselves if we work fast. Do you hear me?”
The passengers quieted in surprise, looked at him wonderingly. What did this mean, coming in such commanding tones from one who had been a wheelchair invalid a few minutes before, useless of mind and body? As they looked at him, they sensed the change that had occurred in him. Their faces became hopeful, eager.
Only the captain broke the stillness, now laughing hysterically. Commander Jackson strode to him, picked him up by the shoulders with his two great hands and shook him like a rag doll, hissing scornful curses in his face. The captain sobered, pushing feebly with his hands.
Commander Jackson released him and again whirled to the passengers.
“Women and children to the central lounge, quickly!” he roared. “Men, with me! Half of you look for that leak, stop it with rubber or leather. The rest of you men follow me. We’ll put on space suits and put out that fire. Let’s go! And the first man that lays down on the job gets this!” He held up a brawny fist.
Hypnotized, strengthened intangibly by that great, booming confident voice, the p
assengers changed from panic-stricken sheep to willing soldiers. Commander Alamo Jackson flashed his eyes over them joyously, though the moment was grim.
Once again a leader! Once again men jumped at his command! Once again he was pitting indomitable human skill against the blind forces of nature. Once again—he was a man!
CHAPTER IV
Flight’s End
IN ANOTHER part of the ship, not so fortunate a section as the observation deck, a sharp ledge of rock buried in the pumice had stove in one quadrant of the hull. The automatic emergency locks had immediately sealed off this airless compartment from the rest of the ship.
Armand Karne, at the moment of landing, was thrown limply against the wall of his stateroom. He had instinctively ducked his head, taken the shock with his shoulder, and sprang up nimbly. He was almost carried off his feet in the next instant by the outward rush of air. He found himself gasping like a fish, out of water.
Panic struck him, blinded him, made bubbling moans arise from his aching, deflated lungs. Then, in a flash, he took a grip of his terrified self, remembered the detailed instructions all passengers were given before departure.
Jerking open the panel of a wall pocket, he dragged out the outfit therein, hastily strapped the small oxygen bottle to his chest. Then, with senses already swimming, he slipped the rubber mask over his nose and mouth, twisted tight the tourniquet arrangement until his flesh was bruised. A twist of the bottle valve and a sharp stream of the compressed air-gas bathed his air-tight mask.
He filled his lungs gratefully with the sweet vapor. Saved! Then his eyes encountered the figure of the guard, the Ranger, gasping and twitching on the floor. Saved—only for a later death on Earth! Only for an instant did the lightning thought hover in Karne’s mind that he could very well let the man die, and be free of his clutch. He shrugged. In another half minute he had fitted a second mask and bottle outfit to the Ranger’s face, and twisted the valve.
The strong oxygen quickly brought the man to his senses. His eyes stared about, took in the situation, then turned to Karne, startled, wondering, with an unvoiced thanks in them. Karne jerked him to his feet, waved a hand and sprang out into the corridor. They must get to the aerated portion of the ship—if such there were—as soon as possible, for the small bottles would not sustain their breath for more than ten minutes!
The Ranger grasped karne’s arm outside their room. With gestures and jerks of his head, he suggested that they look in other staterooms for possible rescue of others. Karne—nodded and they separated—each going in the opposite direction down the long, airless corridor.
Karne jerked the first door, peered in. Empty. Occupant probably on observation deck, there safe or dead. The next dozen staterooms were empty. He came to the end of, that corridor and opened, the final door. His eyes jerked wide. Three in here!
They lay still and white, unbreathing. Karne swept the two air-masks out of the wall receptacles and dived for the first figure, fitting one mask. Then to the second. The third did not need a mask. He lay with his head unnaturally twisted, and Karne knew that if he moved the body, the head would hang horribly to the chest because of a broken neck.
WHEN he sprang back to the first figure, kneeled over it, pumped the diaphragm exactly as one would resuscitate a half-drowned person. A few gasping breaths rewarded him after a minute, and when the breathing continued without his aid, Karne jumped, to the second figure and brought him to life.
Karne got up, sucking in his air-stream pantingly from the exertion. They were both still unconscious, but breathing regularly now. He kneeled beside the first figure again and began chafing the wrists. Then, though he hated to do it, he slapped the face stingingly, again and again.
At last a pair of blue eyes opened and the red-haired girl sat up, bewildered. She glanced around the room, at the figure of her father, then at the figure of the weak-chinned man with the broken neck. Horror flooded her eyes; horror, but not anguish. John Bedlow III would not be her husband after all—
Then she looked back at her rescuer again and smiled, though the smile was not visible behind her rubber mask. She watched him as he bent over her father, slapping His face till the stinging blood had wakened his dazed brain. She watched him as he helped them both to their shaky feet.
And all the while that she watched, her heart beat more and more strongly. This man—she knew it in a sudden flash—was her idea! At the brink of eternity she had found him!
SIR ALFRED PEARSON’S nightmare of endless struggle in a sea of choking blackness ended as he was washed ashore on a beach of exquisitely sweet honey. But it wasn’t honey; it was oxygen, forced into his starving lungs by the Ranger who knelt over him. Sir Pearson gazed gratefully into his savior’s eyes, then struggled to his feet.
The Ranger tugged at his arm, gesturing toward the corridor. Pearson followed, but remembered suddenly and turned back. He gasped then at the sight of the ruined tangle that had been his stateroom. By the veriest hair-breadth, he himself had escaped being crushed to a pulp. The stove in bulkhead had crashed through the composition walls, ground them to bits, gouged through the floor. Bunk-bed, wall-cabinet, wardrobe, suitcases—all had been destroyed.
Also a certain briefcase and a certain document stamped with the radium seal of the White Martian Tribunal—
Stunned, but with an ecstatic joy stealing through him, Sir Pearson allowed his rescuer to lead him put into the corridor. They arrived at the first emergency lock to the central compartment of the ship, and here met Armand Karne and those he had rescued. Apparently they were the only ones in this entire airless compartment.
The Ranger jerked the emergency lever. The outer door of the double lock obediently swung open. He beckoned the red-haired girl in. Only one at a time could stand in the tiny space. When he had swung the seal to, the girl threw the inside lever and the inner seal opened, allowing her to step into the aerated compartment beyond.
One after another, they all repeated this maneuver and finally stood together, safe from the airless hell they had vacated. They took off their tight, bruising masks thankfully, strode forward. A minute later they had joined the passengers who, under the magnetic command of Commander Jackson, were fighting the fire in the rear, carrying pails of water.
They too worked willingly to help this blazing-eyed, roaring-voiced man who had so recently been a mumbling paralytic in a wheelchair. The entire crew, with them their captain, were already donning space suits at Jackson’s command, to begin a thorough survey of the ship, its total damage and casualties.
AN HOUR later no longer threatened by imminent death, the entire group of surviving humanity sent up a hearty cheer as the radio operator reported contact with Earth and the early arrival of rescue ships. Then, as one, they all turned to the whitehaired Commander Jackson and made the close confines of the central compartment ring with their cheers.
Commander Alamo Jackson smiled with face uplifted, proudly, happily. For him, this hell had become his heaven. . . .
Standing to one side, the red-haired girl’s father said, “You shall have all the financial help you need, young man. We’re going to fight your case if it takes every penny of my fortune, and we’ll prove your innocence!”
Armand Karne found himself shamelessly glad that the space ship had had this wreck. . . .
But no more so than Erlene Edgewood, whose blue eyes dropped before his gaze, lest she give herself away with unmaidenly haste . . .
Sir Alfred Pearson laughed cheerfully when the captain, back from his survey of the ship, reported that all his belongings in his stateroom had been totally destroyed, and promised that the company would make good every penny of its value. . . .
On the captain’s list of those killed, solemnly read off to the survivors, was one name among others—William Darvy. . . .
The Earth express Starshell, lying wrecked, and having intersected the orbits of the moon and of fate, had completed its flight.
VALLEY OF LOST SOULS
An uncann
y mystery lay beneath the Blue Mist. . . . . . . then Allan Rand woke the sleepers of the . . .
CHAPTER I
The Mystery of the Valley
THEY stood at the crest of the long slope that led down and gazed into the valley of mystery. Towering walls of basalt hemmed it in on three sides. Only the narrow, sloping gorge at this end, boulder strewn, afforded a rough stairway by which to descend. It was almost as if nature had tried desperately to secrete this strange, misty mountain pocket from meddling man entirely.
A heavy bluish fog covered all of its floor and clung half way up the cliff faces. No single detail of the valley could be discerned through that curtain. What cryptic secrets lay behind it?
“Just gold,” was young Tom Curwood’s practicable attitude. That’s all I came for, and that’s all we’ll find, of course.” His square-chinned, deeply tanned face broke into an eager grimace at the thought of yellow metal.
His companion’s eyes stared into the valley dreamily, moodily. Of about the same age, Allan Rand, academically a doctor of science, felt his pulses quicken, but not at the thought of treasure.
“I’m not so sure—” he said slowly. “My father—” He half turned.
“It is a place of witchcraft,” their Castilian guide, Ramon, was murmuring, eyes oddly frightened. “Never before have I see such a mist that stop the sunlight. Caramba!” His nervous voice slanted into a stream of Spanish.
The guttural voice of their Indian helper, Queto, echoed from his side. “Valley of Lost Souls!” he grunted.
“No go in. My people no go in. Taboo!”
“Hear that?” said Allan Rand quickly.
“Legend and superstition!” scoffed Tom Curwood, his sharp confident laugh resounding from the opposing cliffs in amplified echoes. “Has there ever been treasure trove in out-of-way spots that wasn’t laid on thick with old wives’ tales?