The Moon Colony

by William Dixon Bell

  CHAPTER XVII

  “Something’s Got Me”

  Down, down—on into a pit of bottomless depth, circling slowly,cautiously, and nosing steadily. Now they could look upward, and seethe stars shining out of a black sky, as if they were in a deep well;and still they descended past steep cliffs of white rock, walls assmooth as a rifle bore; then into a region of jagged walls, and stoneof volcanic ore; past innumerable dark holes that pierced gloomilyinto dreadful, mysterious places under the ground; whirling all thetime within the grasp of a crater ten miles in diameter.

  Suddenly it grew dark. The sun, in throwing its light into the craterhad been cut off by the slight rotations of the moon. It was a gloomthat caused Joan to close her eyes, and hold her breath.

  Would they never reach the bottom?

  Miles dropped away, and still the air held them up, and they sailed incircles. That his companion might follow, Epworth turned on his flashlight, and attached it to the wing of his glider.

  It was a flight like Mercury speeding as a messenger throughinscrutable space. Two little planes, with operators wearing airhelmets that dimmed vision, were slipping softly, silently, into thebowels of the moon, hunting a strange land in an unknown world.

  It necessitated matchless courage, and steady nerves. These two wenton seeking to save.

  They went on until complete darkness engulfed them—a darkness thatgrew steadily murky, oppressive, frightful. Still they continued.Where Epworth led, Joan was determined to follow. Would they ever beable to climb out? Would their small, inefficient gliders, theinvention of a moment, notwithstanding their propelling power, be ableto ascend that dizzy height? True that when they entered, the air wasso rare that they had to wear air helmets, and that now they put themaside to find heavier and better breathing; but the space was limited,there was no wind to get beneath the plane and elevate it; the wholemysterious dark world was as still as death, and as creepy as thegrave.

  Joan was on the verge of screaming aloud. Epworth was beginning to getnervous.

  He looked down, and thought he saw a light. Before he could settle hismind on this point he bumped against the ground. It was a light shock,and he felt no injury but it served to stop the flight of his glider.The next moment Joan bumped into him and also came to a stop. Thecontact came before he had an opportunity to call out to her to be onguard.

  “Julian! Julian!” she cried. “Where are you?”

  “Do not be alarmed,” he reassured. “I am here.”

  Disengaging the plane from her shoulders, and leaving the straps thatheld it tight on the wing, she advanced toward him. When she came tohim he was stepping out of the glider.

  “What now?” she inquired dryly. “We are in the bottom of MountAgrippa, and, if you will excuse the slang, it certainly has a grip Ido not like.”

  “I believe I see a dim light off there,” he pointed out with his indexfinger. “Do you see it?”

  “Perhaps it is an underground volcano,” she suggested. “I feel warm.”

  “Merely underground heat. Were it a volcano it would be brighter.However we will not know unless we investigate.”

  Shifting his tear gun, which he had attached to his belt, to aconvenient place, and holding his flash light in his hand, the youngman led the way cautiously. They were on a level, ashy floor, in whichtheir feet buried at each step; but without pausing to investigate thecharacter of the soil they strode forward steadily. It was a longerwalk than he thought it would be, and presently they became aware thatthere was a roof over their heads—a roof of earth. When Joan made thisdiscovery she was for turning back.

  “No,” Epworth decided. “The light ahead is getting stronger. Presentlywe will be somewhere.”

  This conclusion was not justified by what they saw but the light beganto get brighter, and after a time they could see each other.

  “It is spooky,” Joan breathed out, lagging behind a little.“Absolutely unhuman. There is no sun, there is no heat, but we cansee. What causes it?”

  “It is a phosphorescent glow emanating from the walls of the crater,”Julian replied thoughtfully. “That is the only ex——”

  “Help! Help, Julian!” Joan screamed. “Something’s got me. Something——”

  Her utterances were cut off by two long, thin, bone-like tentaclestwisting around her neck. At the same second Epworth was attacked.

  The young man however was as swift as an eagle, and had been ever onthe alert. He recognized the fact instantly that the crickets wereupon them, and that he could not fight them with his flash light.Dropping the light, which was attached to his clothing by a cord, hedrew his tear gun and swept a stream of tear gas into the face of theThings around him. The gas stopped them instantly, and with an agilebound he darted to Joan’s side. She was in the hands of six crickets,their bodies dimly visible in the phosphorous light. They werestanding on their hind legs, and were making a saddle of their middleextremities while pushing Joan into the saddle with their front hands.

  Epworth’s tear gun proved highly efficient. It gassed the two who madethe saddle. This caused the other four to drop the girl. Instantly theyoung man shot the tear gas above Joan’s head into their faces, caughtthe girl and dragged her to him. A stream of the insects came at him,chirping savagely. Darting to the side of the cave he carried hiscompanion with him.

  The effort seemed useless, for now his retreat was cut off by an armyof the hopping monsters. The only thing left him was to back againstthe wall, and use his tear gun. This he did.

  The crickets, with their singing chirps, became suddenly appallingwith their din. Epworth shuddered, side stepped, and undertook to pushJoan behind him in order to protect her. The move was fatal. Stumblingover a boulder, he fell backward head over heels into a hole in thewall.

  In a desperate effort to save Joan he twisted her in his arms, andplaced her above his body with a view of making a cushion of his bodywhen they struck terra firma. How far it was to the bottom of thishole he had no way of ascertaining. It might be two thousand feetdeep. These moon holes were tremendous affairs. All he knew was thathe was falling and that the crickets were sending out musical notes oftriumph.

  However, since coming to the moon he had discovered that he could jumpa long ways and land without being hurt; that he could even leap off ahigh cliff without danger to life or limb, and now he found that theywere not falling fast, and this gave him encouragement.

  They struck bottom abruptly. Epworth was jarred and bruised some, butnot seriously hurt although he lay as if stunned for several seconds.Joan was unhurt, and during the descent had regained her fullfaculties, which were leaving her under the choking power of thecricket tentacles. The second they were still she twisted out ofEpworth’s arms, caught his flash light, which had been knocked out ofcircuit by the fall, and began to work with it hysterically. In abrief period she had it in action and was throwing a narrow stream oflight around.

  They had landed on a large ledge suspended over a bottomless chasm,and behind them there was a big tunnel. As they were dangerously closeto the edge of the precipice she staggered to her feet and pulledEpworth away from the danger point.

  “My,” she whispered, “I thought we were goners.”

  Without waiting for Epworth to speak she stepped to the tunnel andshot her light ray into its gloomy depth. For several seconds thelight pierced the gloom for fifteen feet, flickered, and died out. Thebattery had been exhausted, and now they were in murky, terrifyinggloom with a deep chasm on three sides. In dying despair the girlcovered her face with her hands.

  Epworth, breathing heavily, sat up.

  “Let me have the flash light,” he suggested.

  “It has gone out for good,” she replied in a hopeless voice, at thesame time handing him the tube. “I can’t get a ray out of it.”

  Epworth fumbled with it for a moment in the dark.

  “The batteries are dead,” he explained. “How foolish not to havelooked into this before we started.”

  “Great heavens
!” Joan moaned. “Lost in the center of the moon, and nolight to direct our steps.”

  “Never say die,” the young man encouraged. “Take my hand. It is myleft. I am holding my automatic in my right.”

  They groped forward. Action was at the moment necessary to keep Joanfrom losing her mind. On and on they stumbled. Each step they expectedto plunge heels-over-head into another deep chasm but persistentlythey followed the twisting meanderings of the passage.

  Suddenly Joan stopped and sniffed the air, trembling violently.

  “There—there—is something alive in this place,” she muttered feebly.“I—I—smell something awful—horrid,and—and—I—feel—a—sinister—presence.”

  Epworth sniffed with his nostrils. The scent was now overpowering,musty, terrifyingly rotten.

  “You must be mistaken about there being living beings in here,” heprotested. “That smell would indicate that we have stumbled on thecrickets’ graveyard.”

  “Or, or, or,” Joan caught his hand convulsively to keep fromscreaming, “their commissary department. Maybe—maybe—living beings areconfined here until they rot, and are then eaten as food.”

  Epworth could not suppress the shudder that swept over him from headto foot.