_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
for a book and opened it. The tables of figures printed there were
blurred at first to his eyes, but he forced himself to forget the
threat that was past, for there was another menace to consider now.
And uppermost in his mind, when his thoughts came back into some
approximate order, was condemnation of himself for an opportunity that
was gone.
"I could have jumped him," he told himself with bitter self-reproach;
"I could have grabbed the pistol from Kreiss--the man was petrified."
And then Chet had to admit a fact there was no use of denying: "I was
as paralyzed as he was," he said, and only knew he had spoken aloud
when he saw the puzzled look that crossed Harkness' face.
Harkness and Diane had drawn near. In a far corner of the little room
Schwartzmann had motioned to Kreiss to join him; they were as far away
from the others as could be managed. Schwartzmann, Chet judged, needed
some scientific explanation of these disturbing events; also he
needed to take the detonite pistol from Kreiss' hand and jam it into
his own hand. His eyes, at Chet's unconscious exclamation, had come
with instant suspicion toward the two men.
"Forty-seven hours, Walt," the pilot said, and repeated it loudly for
Schwartzmann's benefit; "--forty-seven hours before we return to this
spot. We are driving out into space; we've crossed the orbit of the
Dark Moon, and we're doing twenty thousand miles an hour.
"Now we must decelerate. It will take twenty hours to check us to zero
speed; then twenty-seven more to shoot us back to this same point
in space, allowing, of course, for a second deceleration. The same
figuring with only slight variation will cover a return to the Dark
Moon. As we sweep out I can allow for the moon-motion, and we'll hit
it at a safe landing 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 he finished, their captor shot a volley of questions
at the scientist beside him; he was checking up on the pilot's
remarks.
Chet was leaning forward to stare intently from a lookout, his head
was close to that of Harkness.
"Listen, Walt," he whispered; "the Moon's out of sight; it's easy to
lose. Maybe I can't find it again, anyway--it's going to take some
nice navigating--but I'll miss it by ten thousand miles if you say so,
and even the Herr Doktor can't check me on it."
Chet saw the eyes of Schwartzmann grow intent. He reached
ostentatiously for another book of tables, and he seated himself that
he might figure in comfort.
"Just check me on this," he told Harkness.
He put down meaningless figures, while the man beside him remained
silent. Over and over he wrote them--would Harkness never reach a
decision?--over and over, until--
"I don't agree with that," Harkness told him and reached for the
stylus in Chet's hand. And, while he appeared to make his own swift
computations, there were words instead of figures that flowed from his
pen.
"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
out again and do it better next time. Kreiss is nobody's fool. S means
to maroon us on Moon--kill us perhaps. He'll get us there, sure. We
might as 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 paper where he set down more figures. He was well under way
when Schwartzmann's quick strides brought him towering above them.
Again the detonite pistol was in evidence; its small black muzzle
moved steadily from Harkness to Chet.
"For your life--such as is left of it--you may thank Herr Doktor
Kreiss," he told Chet. "I thought at first you would have attempted to
kill us." His smile, as he regarded them, seemed to Chet to be
entirely evil. "You were near death twice, my dear Herr Bullard; and
the danger is not entirely removed.
"'Forty-seven hours' you have said; in forty-seven hours you will land
us on the Dark Moon. If you do not,"--he raised the pistol
suggestively--"remember that the pilot, Max, can always take us back
to Earth. 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
have any faint idea of what a job this is? Do you know we will shoot
another two 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. Had you 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
not lose your way."
Chet shot one quizzical glance at Harkness.
"That," he said, "makes it practically unanimous."
Schwartzmann, with an elaborate show of courtesy, escorted Diane
Delacouer to a cabin where she might rest. At a questioning look
between Diane and Harkness, their captor reassured them.
"Mam'selle shall be entirely safe," he said. "She may join you here
whenever she wishes. As for you,"--he was speaking to Harkness--"I
will permit 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
either Kreiss or Max, or some other of Schwartzmann's men, was at his
side continuously from that moment on.
* * * * *
Chet would have liked a chance for a quiet talk and an exchange of
ideas. It seemed that somewhere, somehow, he should be able to find an
answer to their problem. He stared moodily out into the blackness
ahead, where a distant star was seemingly their goal. Harkness stood
at his side 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 was neither sound nor motion. His directional sights were
unswervingly upon that distant star ahead. Seemingly they were
suspended, helpless and inert, in a black void. But for the occasional
glowing masses of strange living substance that flashed past in this
ocean of space, he must almost have believed they were motionless--a
dead ship in a dead, black night.
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 was
driving stern-first into outer space. Nor, for twenty hours, was there
a change, more than a slackening of the breathless speed with which
the lights went past.
Twenty hours--and then Chet knew that they were in all truth hung
motionless, and he prayed that his figures that told him this were
correct.... More timeless minutes, an agony of waiting--and a
dimly-glowing mass that was ahead approached their bow, swung off and
vanished far astern. And, with its going, Chet knew that the return
trip was begun.
He gave Harkness the celestial bearing marks and relinquished the
helm. "Full speed ahead as you are," he ordered: "then at
nineteen-forty on W.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 endless
space was waiting for man's exploration--despite the deadly menace
that threatened, Chet dropped his head upon his outflung arms and
slept.
* * * * *
To his sleep-drugged brain it was scarcely a moment until a hand was
dragging 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 the nose, old man: she isn't three points off the sights!"
The bow-blast was roaring full on. Ahead of them Chet's sleepy eyes
found a circle of violet; and he rubbed his eyes savagely that he
might take his bearings on Sun and Earth.
As it had been before, the Earth was a giant half-moon; like a
mirror-sphere it shot to them across the vast distance the reflected
glory of the sun. But the globe ahead was a ghostly world. Its black
disk was lost in the utter blackness of space. It was a circle, marked
only by the absence of star-points and by the halo of violet glow that
edged it about.
Chet cut down the repelling blast. He let the circle enlarge, then
swung the ship end for end in mid-space that the more powerful stern
exhaust might be ready to counteract the gravitational pull of the new
world.
Again those impalpable clouds surrounded them. Here was the enveloping
gas that made this a dark moon--the gas, if Harkness' theory was
correct, that let the sun's rays pass unaltered; that took the light
through freely to illumine this globe, but that barred its return
passage as reflected light.
Black--dead black was the void into which they were plunging, until
the darkness gave way before a gentle glow that enfolded their ship.
The golden light enveloped them in growing splendor. Through every
lookout it was flooding the cabin with brilliant rays, until, from
below them, directly astern of the ship, where the thundering blast
checked their speed of descent, emerged a world.
* * * * *
And, to Chet Bullard, softly fingering the controls of the first ship
of space--to Chet Bullard, whose uncanny skill had brought the tiny
speck that was their ship safely back from the dark recesses of the
unknown--there came a thrill that transcended any joy of the first
exploration.
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 this
man, Schwartzmann, that dared dream of violating their possessions?
A slender tube pressed firmly, uncompromisingly, into his back to give
the answer to his question. "Almost I wish you had missed it!" Herr
Schwartzmann was saying. "But now you will land; you will set us down
in some place that you know. No tricks, Herr Bullard! You are clever,
but not clever enough for that. We will land, yess, where you know it
is safe."
From the lookout, the man stared for a moment with greedy eyes; then
brought 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
have filed 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
of flesh. "You shall enjoy it," he told them; "--all your life."
And Chet, as he caught the gaze of Harkness and Diane, wondered how
long this enjoyment would last. "All your life!" But this was rather
indefinite as a measure of time.