CHAPTER XXIII
_The Might of the "Master"_
As with other measures of matters earthly, time is a relative gauge.Nowhere is this more apparent than in those moments of mental stresswhen time passes in a flash or, conversely, drags each lagging minuteinto hours of timeless length.
"Three minutes!" The words clanged and reverberated through Chet'sbrain. And it seemed, as he strained and struggled and was forcedbackward and yet backward by the weight of his antagonist, that thosethree minutes had long since passed, and other three's without end.
The enemy's leaping body had been upon him before the detonite pistolwas half drawn. And now he fought desperately; he felt only the jar ofblows that landed on his half-covered face. There was no sting or pain,only the crashing thud that made strange clamor and confusion in hishead. But he ducked and blocked awkwardly with the one arm that held thepackage Kreiss had given him, while the other hand that gripped thepistol was twisted behind him.
No chance here for clever blocking, no room for quick foot-work; weightwas telling, and the weight was all in favor of his big opponent.
Chet knew that possession of the gun was vital. Flashingly it came tohim that Schwartzmann had not fired: his pistol, then, was lost, or hewas out of ammunition. And now Chet's hand that held the gun with thesix precious charges of detonite was fast in the clutch of a huge paw,and the pain of that twisted arm was sending searing flashes to hisbrain.
_With the free hand he shot over a blow._]
A twist of the body, and the pain relaxed. He dropped the leaf-wrappedpackage to the ground, and, with the free hand, shot over a blow thatbrought a grunt of pain from Schwartzmann and a gush of blood thatsmeared the black, hairy face. He took one stiff jolt himself on hishalf-averted head that he might counter with another to flatten thatcrushed and painful nose.
* * * * *
For one brief instant Schwartzmann's free hand was raised protectinglyto his face so contorted with rage; for one brief instant, below thatbig fist, there showed the contour of a jaw; and, with every ounce ofweight that Chet could put into the swing, he came up from under in thatsame instant with a smashing left that connected with the exposed jaw.
The hand that gripped his gun-hand did not let go completely, but Chetfelt the steel-hard rigidity of that arm relax, and abruptly he knewthat he could beat this man down if he once got clear. He didn't needthe gun; he needed only to get both hands free. And, despite the armthat clung and swung with his, he managed to wrench himself into asideways throw of his whole body at the instant he unclosed his hand.The slim barrel of the detonite pistol described a flashing arc throughthe clear air and clattered along the lava underneath a big shiningsurface of metal.
And then, in a breath-taking flash of understanding, Chet knew.
He knew he was beside the ship: he saw the closed port and theself-retracting lever that would open it, and he saw it through clearair where no taint of the green gas was apparent.
He was certain that he had been fighting for an interminable time, yetbefore him the air was clear. It was impossible, but true; and he threwthe half-stunned body of Schwartzmann from him. Then, instead offollowing it with punishing blows, he sprang toward the port.
* * * * *
With one hand on the lever, he turned to dart a glance toward the columnof flame. It was gone! And in its place came green, billowing gas thatwas coughed and spewed into the air to be caught up in the steady breezethat blew directly from the vent.
Beside him, his antagonist, prone on the lava floor, dragged himselfbeneath the ship to reach for the gun. Chet paid no heed; his everythought--his whole being, it seemed--was focused upon the lever thatturned so slowly, that let fall, at last, a lock whose releasingmechanism clanged loudly through the metal wall.
The outer port, a thin door that served only to streamline the opening,swung open under Chet's hand. And, while he held his breath till hispumping heart set his whole body to pulsing, he drew himself into theship as the green cloud wrapped thickly about. But first he bent tograsp the knotted vines and leathery leaves that enclosed a bulkypackage.
The port closed silently upon its soft-faced gasket; it was gas-tightwhen no pressure was applied. And Chet stumbled and reached blindly tillhe fell beside the huge inner compression port, while the breath of gasthat had touched him tore with ripping talons at his throat.
More measureless time--whether hours or minutes Chet could never havetold--and he sat upright and tried to believe the utterly incrediblestory that his eyes were telling.
A short passage and a control room beyond! It was just as they had leftit; was it days or years before? The shattered control cage was there,the familiar instrument board, the very bar of metal with which he hadwrought such havoc in that wild moment of demolition; it was all crystalclear under the flooding light of the nitron illuminator!
* * * * *
Yes, it was true! He, Chet Bullard, was staring wide-eyed at his owncontrol-room, in his own ship--his and Walt's--and he was alone! Theremembrance of Walt and Diane, and the realization that now, by somemiracle, he might be of help, brought him to his feet.
He sprang toward a lookout where the last light of day was gone and amonstrous moon shone down upon a world of ghastly green. Yet, throughthe gas, every detail of the world outside showed clear; even the giantfumerole that had been the funeral pyre of a man of science; even themound of ashes at its top which the moving air was blowing in dustypuffs until spouting mud fell back to hide them from sight.
Chet cursed the gas for the dimness that clouded his eyes, and he rubbedat them savagely as he turned and walked to a side lookout.
Through the riot of impressions of the fight outside the port, he hadknown that there was a human body over which he stumbled at times. Hesaw it now--the body of Schwartzmann's henchman, killed these long weeksbefore but preserved in the ceaseless flow of gas.
But now, sprawled across it, was another and bulkier shape. Sightlesseyes stared upward from a face turned to the cruel gas clouds and thehideous green moon above. The mouth sagged open in a black, beardedface, and one hand still clutched a pistol. It would have shattered hishuman opponent had the man been given an instant more, but against theenemy that rolled down and overwhelmed him in billowing clouds no weaponcould prevail. Herr Schwartzmann had fought his last fight.
* * * * *
The package--the last gift of Kreiss--was still securely wrapped. It layon the metal floor. Chet stooped to lift it, to work at the knottedvines and lay off the thick wrappings of fibrous leaves, until he stoodat last, under the white glare of the bubbling nitron bulb, to stare andstare wordlessly at the cage of metal bars in his hand.
Crude!--yes; no finely polished mechanism, this; no one of the manyconnection clips that the other had had, either. But Chet knew he couldsolder on the hundreds of wires that made the nervous system of thecontrol and fed the current to the cage; and Kreiss had believed itwould work!
There was no thought of delay in Chet's mind, no waiting for daylight.This was the fourth night since he had been in that place of horror,since, above him in that Stygian pit, an inhuman satanic _something_ hadsaid: "... the captives ... a sacrifice to Vashta ... on the sixthnight...."
Chet threw off the rags that once had been a trim khaki jacket and wentfeverishly to work. And through the time that was left he drove himselfdesperately. The hours so few and each hour so short! As he worked withseemingly countless strands of heavy cables, where each strand must betraced back and its point of connection determined, he knew how longeach dreadful minute must be for the two captives deep inside the DarkMoon.
* * * * *
It was as well, perhaps, that Chet did not have the power of distantsight, that he had no messenger like those from the pyramid who mighthave gone down in that place and have sent him by mental television apicture of what was there. For
he would have seen that which could havelent no clarity of vision to his deep-sunk eyes nor skill to the touchof fumbling, tired hands.
Walt Harkness, no longer under hypnotic control, stood in a dim-lit roomcarved from solid stone; stood, and stared despairingly at thesurrounding walls and at the pair of giant ape-men who guarded the onedoorway. And, clinging to his hand, was a girl; and she, too, had beenreleased from the invisible bonds. She was speaking:
"No, Walter; we both saw it; it must be true. It was Chet's pistol; hewas there in that horrible place. And I will not give up. He will saveus at the last; I know it! He will save us from the inhuman cruelty ofthose terrible things. He shoots straight, Chet does; and he will giveus a bullet apiece from the gun--the last kindly act of a friend. That'swhat the signal meant."
"Then why did he wait! Why didn't he do it then?" Walt Harkness had madethe same demand a hundred times.
And Diane answered as always: "I don't know, Walter, I--don't--know."
Chet, cursing insanely at strange machines--equilibrators thatcontrolled the longitudinal and transverse and rotative stability of theship and that refused to take their electrical charge--knew withhorrible certainty that the last night had come. But to the two humans,in the depths of this world where all knowledge of time was lost, theknowledge came only when they were dragged by their guards into afamiliar room.
* * * * *
Ape-men were all about; they stared unwinkingly at the captives whostared back again in an effort to keep their eyes averted from themonstrous repulsiveness on the platform above them, till their eyes weredrawn to meet the compelling gaze of the "Master" of a lost race.
A something which, at first glance, seemed all head--this was the"Master." The naked body, so skeleton-thin, was shrunken and distorted;it was withered and leathery-brown, like the aged parchment of mummifiedflesh. It was seated in a resplendent chair, whose radiating handleswere for its carrying; and, above it, the head, so incredibly repulsive,was made more hideous by its travestied resemblance to human form.
Soft, pulpy and wetly smooth--a ten-foot sac, enclosed in a membrane ofdead gray shot through with flickerings of color that flamed anddied--the whole pulsing mass was supported in a sling of golden cloth.And, dominating it, in the center of that flabby forehead, a focal pointfor the gaze of the horrified observers, was a single glassy and lidlesseye.
Cold, unchanging, entirely expressionless except for the fixed ferocitythat was there, the eye was a yellow disk of hate, where quivering linesof violet culminated in a central, flaming point; and that point ofliving fire swelled prodigiously before their staring eyes. It seemed toexpand, to slowly draw their senses--their very selves--from theirbodies, to plunge them down to annihilation in that fiery pit where asoundless voice was speaking.
"Slaves! Apes! Take the captives to the great altar rock of Vashta, tothe Holy of Holies. The others you were permitted to slaughter for ourfood; hold these two safely. For one shall die slowly for Vashta'spleasure, and one shall live on for mine. And we would not have themunder our mental control, so guard them well; the offering is morepleasing to Vashta when the blood in his cup flows from a creatureunbound both in body and mind." And the two helpless humans foundthemselves released from the flaming pit that became again but an eye inthe forehead of a loathsome thing.
* * * * *
They were fully conscious of their surroundings as they were herded upthrough the pyramid and out into the night, where rough, calloused handsseized them and dragged them to a smooth table-top of rock that stoodonly slightly above the ground before the great rocky pile. Stunned,waiting dumbly, they saw swarming ape-men clustered like bees on thelower pyramid face; they saw coverings of stone being removed and agreat recess laid open, while the ape-things dropped in awe before agrotesque and horrible beast-head carved from a single piece of stone.
The eyes of the beast shone with some cold, hidden light. They seemedfixed hungrily upon a cup in a distorted hand, and, though the cup wasempty, there was promise of its being filled. For little sluices ofstone sloped from the place where the captives stood, and they endedabove the cup so that the life-blood of a slaughtered creature, or asacrificed man, might pour splashingly in, a streaming draught for thisblood-thirsty god.
The arena filled with abominable life. Now, in the dark silence of amoonless night, the cold stars shone down on a gathering of spectators,wild and unreal--nameless, spectral horrors of a blood-chilling dream.
The flat capstone of the pyramid was the resting place of the "Master";his huge head showed pulpy and gray above the glittering gold of themetal carrying-chair where a misshapen body was seated. Others like himhad poured from the pyramid, carried by thousands of slaves to theirplaces about the arena.
Monsters of prodigious strength, their forebears must have been, butthis degenerate product of evolutionary forces had lost all firmness offlesh. Their bodies, sacrificed for the development of the bulbousheads, were mere appendages, fit only for the propagation of their kindand for the digestion of human food.
* * * * *
The clean air of night was polluted with abominable odors as it sweptover the exudations of those glistening, pulpy masses. To the twowaiting humans on the great sacrificial stone came a deadening of thesenses, as an executioner, armed with strange torturing instruments,drew near. But, of the two, one, clinging hopelessly to the other,abruptly stifled the dry choking sobs in her throat to lift her head insharp, listening alertness.
Walt Harkness was speaking in a dead, emotionless tone:
"Chet has failed us; he is probably dead. Good-by, dear--"
But his words were interrupted and smothered by a breathless, stranglingvoice. Diane Delacouer, staring with agonized eyes into the night wascalling to him:
"Listen! Oh, listen! It's the ship, Walter! It's the ship! It's not thewind! I'm not dreaming nor insane!--Chet is coming with the ship!"
It was as well that Chet Bullard could not see the two, could not hearthat voice, trembling and vibrant with an impossible, heart-grippinghope; and surely it was well that he could not share their emotionswhen, for them, the silence became faintly resonant, when the distant,humming, drumming reverberation grew to a nerve-shattering roar, whenthe black night was ripped apart by the passage of a meteor-ship thatshrieked and thundered through the screaming air close above the arena,while, with the rock beneath them still shuddering from the blastingvoice of that full exhaust, the sky above burst into dazzling flame.
* * * * *
For Chet in that control-room that was darkened that he might see theworld outside--Chet, grim and haggard and stained of face and withthin-drawn lips that bled unheeded where his teeth had clamped down onthem--Chet Bullard, Master Pilot of the World, had no thought noremotion to spare for aught beyond the reach of his hand. He was throwinghis ship at a speed that was sheer suicide over a strange terrainflashing under and close below.
He overshot the target on the first try. The twin beams of hissearchlights picked up the dazzling black and white of the arena; it wasbefore him!--under him!--lost far astern in one single instant that wasended as it began. But his hand, ready on a release key, pressed as hepassed, and the sky behind him turned blazing bright with the cloud offlare-dust that made white flame as it fell.
Such speed was not meant for close work; nor was a ship expected to hitdense air with a blast such as this on full. Even through the thickinsulated walls came a terrible scream. Like voices of humans in agony,the tortured air shrieked its protest while Chet threw on the bow-blastto check them and slanted slowly, slowly upward in a great loop whosetremendous size was an indication of the speed and the slow turning thatwas all Chet could stand and live through.
* * * * *
He came in more slowly the next time. Floodlights in the under-skin ofthe ship were blazing white, and whiter yet were the star-flares that hedropped one afte
r another. Brighter than the sunlight of the brightestday this globe had ever seen, the sky, ablaze with dazzling fire, shonedown in vivid splendor to drain every shadow and half-light and leaveonly the hard contrast of black and white.
In the nose of the ship was a .50 caliber gun. Chet sprayed the pyramidtop, but it is doubtful if the two below heard the explosions. They musthave seen the whole cap of the mountain of rock vanish as if,feather-light, it had been snatched up in a gust of wind. But perhapsthey had eyes only for each other and for a glittering, silvery shipthat came crashing toward the place where they stood, that checkeditself on thunderous exhausts; then touched the hard floor of the arenaas softly as the caress of a master hand on the controls.
But from them came no cry nor exclamation of joy; they were dazed, Chetsaw, when he threw open the port. They were walking slowly,unbelievingly, toward him till Diane faltered. Then Chet leaped forwardto sweep the drooping, ragged figure up into his arms while he hustledHarkness ahead and closed the port upon them all. But, still haggard andstern of face, he left the fainting girl to Harkness' care while hesprang for a ball-control and a firing key that released a hail oflittle .50 caliber shells whose touch could plough the earth with theripping sword of an avenging god.
And later--a pulverous mass where a huge pyramid had been; smoking rockin a great oval of shattered crumbling blocks; and, under all the coldlight of the stars, no sign of life but for a screaming, frantic mob ofape-men, freed and fleeing from the broken bondage of masters nowcrushed and dead!
All this Chet's straining, blood-shot eyes saw clearly before his handon the firing key relaxed, before he covered his eyes with tremblinghands as realization of their own release rushed overwhelmingly uponhim.
* * * * *
There were supplies of clothing in the ship--jackets, knee-lengthtrousers, silken blouses, boots, and even snug-fitting, fashionablecaps. Very unlike the ragged wanderers of the mountainous wastes werethe three who stood safely to windward of a spouting fumerole.
Mud, coughed hoarsely from a hot throat, and green, billowinggas!--there was nothing now to show that here was the scene of acompanion's last moments. With heads bared to the steady breeze that hadbeen their undoing, they stood silent for long minutes.
Behind them, at a still safer distance, where no chance flicker of afire-god's finger might strike him down as it had the white man, a blackfigure danced absurdly from foot to foot and indulged in unexpectedgyrations of joy.
For did not Towahg hold in one hand a most marvelous weapon of shining,keen-edged metal, with a blade that was longer than his two hands? Whatmember of the tribe had ever seen such an indescribably glorious thing?And, lacking the words even to propound that question, Towahg spunhimself in still tighter spirals of ecstasy.
Then there was the ax! Not made of stone but fashioned from the samemetal! And besides this a magic thing for which as yet there was noteven a name! It made flashing reflections in the sun; and if one held itjust so, and moved one's head before it, it showed a quite remarkablyattractive face of a man who was more than half ape--though Towahg hadnever yet been able to catch that man beyond the magic that the whitemen called "mirror."
He was still enthralled in his grotesque posturing when Diane lookeddown from the floating ship.
"He'll be the Lord Chief Voodoo Man for the whole tribe," she said, and,for the first time since they had stood at the fumerole, she managed tosmile. "And now," she asked, "are we off? What comes next?"
* * * * *
Chet's hand was on a metal ball in a crudely constructed cage of metalbars. He looked at Harkness, and, at the other's almost imperceptiblenod, he moved the ball forward and up.
"We're off!" Harkness agreed. "Off for Earth--home! And it will lookgood to us all. We will take up things where we left them when we wereinterrupted: there's no Schwartzmann to fear now. We can show our shipto the world--revolutionize all lines of transportation; and we canplan--"
He failed to finish the sentence. To his reaching vision there were,perhaps, more potentialities than he could compass in words.
And Chet Bullard, fingering the triple star on his blouse--the insigniathat had gone with him through all his hopes and despairs--looked outinto space and smiled.
Behind him a brilliant world went slowly dark; it became, after longwatching, a violet ring--then that was gone; the Dark Moon was lost inthe folds of enshrouding night. Ahead was an infinity of black spacewhere only the distant stars struck sparks of fire in the dark. Andstill he smiled, as if, looking into the unplumbed depths, he, too, madeplans. But he moved the little ball within his hand and swung the bowsights to bear upon a glorious globe--a brilliant, welcome beacon.
"Home it is!" he stated. "We're on our way!"
But there was needed the rising roar from astern that his words mighthave meaning; it thundered sonorously its resounding hum in a crescendoof power that brooked no denial, that threw them out and onward throughthe velvet dark.
The End.
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