CHAPTER IV
_The Return to the Dark Moon_
No man faces death in so shocking a form without feeling the effects.Death had flicked them with a finger of flame and had passed them by.Chet Bullard found his hands trembling uncontrollably as he fumbled fora book and opened it. The tables of figures printed there were blurredat first to his eyes, but he forced himself to forget the threat thatwas past, for there was another menace to consider now.
And uppermost in his mind, when his thoughts came back into someapproximate order, was condemnation of himself for an opportunity thatwas gone.
"I could have jumped him," he told himself with bitter self-reproach; "Icould have grabbed the pistol from Kreiss--the man was petrified." Andthen Chet had to admit a fact there was no use of denying: "I was asparalyzed as he was," he said, and only knew he had spoken aloud when hesaw the puzzled look that crossed Harkness' face.
Harkness and Diane had drawn near. In a far corner of the little roomSchwartzmann had motioned to Kreiss to join him; they were as far awayfrom the others as could be managed. Schwartzmann, Chet judged, neededsome scientific explanation of these disturbing events; also he neededto take the detonite pistol from Kreiss' hand and jam it into his ownhand. His eyes, at Chet's unconscious exclamation, had come with instantsuspicion toward the two men.
"Forty-seven hours, Walt," the pilot said, and repeated it loudly forSchwartzmann's benefit; "--forty-seven hours before we return to thisspot. We are driving out into space; we've crossed the orbit of the DarkMoon, and we're doing twenty thousand miles an hour.
"Now we must decelerate. It will take twenty hours to check us to zerospeed; then twenty-seven more to shoot us back to this same point inspace, allowing, of course, for a second deceleration. The same figuringwith only slight variation will cover a return to the Dark Moon. As wesweep out I can allow for the moon-motion, and we'll hit it at a safelanding speed on the return trip this time."
* * * * *
Chet was paying little attention to his companion as he spoke. His eyes,instead, were covertly watching the bulky figure of Schwartzmann. As hefinished, their captor shot a volley of questions at the scientistbeside him; he was checking up on the pilot's remarks.
Chet was leaning forward to stare intently from a lookout, his head wasclose to that of Harkness.
"Listen, Walt," he whispered; "the Moon's out of sight; it's easy tolose. Maybe I can't find it again, anyway--it's going to take some nicenavigating--but I'll miss it by ten thousand miles if you say so, andeven the Herr Doktor can't check me on it."
Chet saw the eyes of Schwartzmann grow intent. He reached ostentatiouslyfor another book of tables, and he seated himself that he might figurein comfort.
"Just check me on this," he told Harkness.
He put down meaningless figures, while the man beside him remainedsilent. Over and over he wrote them--would Harkness never reach adecision?--over and over, until--
"I don't agree with that," Harkness told him and reached for the stylusin Chet's hand. And, while he appeared to make his own swiftcomputations, there were words instead of figures that flowed from hispen.
"Only alternative: return to Earth," he wrote. "Then S will hold off;wait in upper levels. Kreiss will give him new bearings. We'll shoot outagain and do it better next time. Kreiss is nobody's fool. S means tomaroon us on Moon--kill us perhaps. He'll get us there, sure. We mightas well go now."
* * * * *
Chet had seen a movement across the room. "Let's start all over again,"he broke in abruptly. He covered the writing with a clean sheet of paperwhere he set down more figures. He was well under way whenSchwartzmann's quick strides brought him towering above them. Again thedetonite pistol was in evidence; its small black muzzle moved steadilyfrom Harkness to Chet.
"For your life--such as is left of it--you may thank Herr DoktorKreiss," he told Chet. "I thought at first you would have attempted tokill us." His smile, as he regarded them, seemed to Chet to be entirelyevil. "You were near death twice, my dear Herr Bullard; and the dangeris not entirely removed.
"'Forty-seven hours' you have said; in forty-seven hours you will landus on the Dark Moon. If you do not,"--he raised the pistolsuggestively--"remember that the pilot, Max, can always take us back toEarth. You are not indispensable."
Chet looked at the dark face and its determined and ominous scowl."You're a cheerful sort of soul, aren't you?" he demanded. "Do you haveany faint idea of what a job this is? Do you know we will shoot anothertwo hundred thousand miles straight out before I can check this ship?Then we come back; and meanwhile the Dark Moon has gone on its way. Hadyou thought that there's a lot of room to get lost in out here?"
"Forty-seven hours!" said Schwartzmann. "I would advise that you do notlose your way."
Chet shot one quizzical glance at Harkness.
"That," he said, "makes it practically unanimous."
Schwartzmann, with an elaborate show of courtesy, escorted DianeDelacouer to a cabin where she might rest. At a questioning look betweenDiane and Harkness, their captor reassured them.
"Mam'selle shall be entirely safe," he said. "She may join you herewhenever she wishes. As for you,"--he was speaking to Harkness--"I willpermit you to stay here. I could tie you up but this iss not necessary."
And Harkness must have agreed that it was indeed unnecessary, for eitherKreiss or Max, or some other of Schwartzmann's men, was at his sidecontinuously from that moment on.
* * * * *
Chet would have liked a chance for a quiet talk and an exchange ofideas. It seemed that somewhere, somehow, he should be able to find ananswer to their problem. He stared moodily out into the blackness ahead,where a distant star was seemingly their goal. Harkness stood at hisside or paced back and forth in the little room, until he threw himself,at last, upon a cot.
And always the great stern-blast roared; muffled by the insulated walls,its unceasing thunder came at last to be unheard. To the pilot there wasneither sound nor motion. His directional sights were unswervingly uponthat distant star ahead. Seemingly they were suspended, helpless andinert, in a black void. But for the occasional glowing masses of strangeliving substance that flashed past in this ocean of space, he mustalmost have believed they were motionless--a dead ship in a dead, blacknight.
But the luminous things flashed and were gone--and their coming,strangely, was from astern; they flicked past and vanished up ahead.And, by this, Chet knew that their tremendous momentum was unchecked.Though he was using the great stern blast to slow the ship, it wasdriving stern-first into outer space. Nor, for twenty hours, was there achange, more than a slackening of the breathless speed with which thelights went past.
Twenty hours--and then Chet knew that they were in all truth hungmotionless, and he prayed that his figures that told him this werecorrect.... More timeless minutes, an agony of waiting--and adimly-glowing mass that was ahead approached their bow, swung off andvanished far astern. And, with its going, Chet knew that the return tripwas begun.
He gave Harkness the celestial bearing marks and relinquished the helm."Full speed ahead as you are," he ordered; "then at nineteen-forty onW.S. time, we'll cut it and ease on bow repulsion to the limit."
And, despite the strangeness of their surroundings, the ceaseless,murmuring roar of the exhaust, the weird world outside, where endlessspace was waiting for man's exploration--despite the deadly menace thatthreatened, Chet dropped his head upon his outflung arms and slept.
* * * * *
To his sleep-drugged brain it was scarcely a moment until a hand wasdragging at his shoulder.
"Forty-seven hours!" the voice of Schwartzmann was saying.
And: "Some navigating!" Harkness was exclaiming in flattering amazement."Wake up, Chet! Wake up! The Dark Moon's in sight. You've hit it on thenose, old man: she isn't three points off the sights!"
The bow-blast was roaring full on. Ah
ead of them Chet's sleepy eyesfound a circle of violet; and he rubbed his eyes savagely that he mighttake his bearings on Sun and Earth.
As it had been before, the Earth was a giant half-moon; like amirror-sphere it shot to them across the vast distance the reflectedglory of the sun. But the globe ahead was a ghostly world. Its blackdisk was lost in the utter blackness of space. It was a circle, markedonly by the absence of star-points and by the halo of violet glow thatedged it about.
Chet cut down the repelling blast. He let the circle enlarge, then swungthe ship end for end in mid-space that the more powerful stern exhaustmight be ready to counteract the gravitational pull of the new world.
Again those impalpable clouds surrounded them. Here was the envelopinggas that made this a dark moon--the gas, if Harkness' theory wascorrect, that let the sun's rays pass unaltered; that took the lightthrough freely to illumine this globe, but that barred its returnpassage as reflected light.
Black--dead black was the void into which they were plunging, until thedarkness gave way before a gentle glow that enfolded their ship. Thegolden light enveloped them in growing splendor. Through every lookoutit was flooding the cabin with brilliant rays, until, from below them,directly astern of the ship, where the thundering blast checked theirspeed of descent, emerged a world.
* * * * *
And, to Chet Bullard, softly fingering the controls of the first ship ofspace--to Chet Bullard, whose uncanny skill had brought the tiny speckthat was their ship safely back from the dark recesses of theunknown--there came a thrill that transcended any joy of the firstexploration.
Here was water in great seas of unreal hue--and those seas were his!Vast continents, ripe for adventure and heavy with treasure--and they,too, were his! His own world--his and Diane's and Walt's! Who was thisman, Schwartzmann, that dared dream of violating their possessions?
A slender tube pressed firmly, uncompromisingly, into his back to givethe answer to his question. "Almost I wish you had missed it!" HerrSchwartzmann was saying. "But now you will land; you will set us down insome place that you know. No tricks, Herr Bullard! You are clever, butnot clever enough for that. We will land, yess, where you know it issafe."
From the lookout, the man stared for a moment with greedy eyes; thenbrought his gaze back to the three. His men, beside Harkness and Diane,were alert; the scientist, Kreiss, stood close to Chet.
"A nice little world," Schwartzmann told them. "Herr Harkness, you havefiled claims on it; who am I to dispute with the great Herr Harkness?Without question it iss yours!"
He laughed loudly, while his eyes narrowed between creasing wrinkles offlesh. "You shall enjoy it," he told them; "--all your life."
And Chet, as he caught the gaze of Harkness and Diane, wondered how longthis enjoyment would last. "All your life!" But this was ratherindefinite as a measure of time.
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