"Come on then." Crane started for the doorway.
"We're not locked up? Not guarded?"
"No, but prisoners all the same. In the damndest place. Wait."
They came out on a balcony that limned a seemingly bottomless pit
with a huge vertical shaft that dropped centrally from high above and
vanished in the depths below.
"What in hell is it?" demanded Bonwitt.
"You haven't seen anything yet." Crane moved to the cage of a lift.
"Cripes! An elevator on the moon!" None of it made sense to Bill
Bonwitt.
"We sure stumbled into something, Chief," agreed Crane.
As they dropped sickeningly in the cage, the engineer saw that the
controls of the automatic elevator were of craftsmanship like none he
had ever seen.
* * * * *
Crane said: "I don't understand it, either. They didn't tell me much,
but kept me with them till Gates had landed below. I saw enough to
scare the devil out of me, though."
"Why do you suppose they didn't knock us off like they did Andy
Pauchek?" wondered Bonwitt.
"They want us to join up with them. At least Peterson does. Gates would
cut our throats in a minute."
"M-mm. He's tough. Let's see; he came on the job a month before
Peterson, didn't he?"
"Right, Chief. And they were thick as thieves from the start."
"Don't we ever reach the bottom?" asked Bonwitt impatiently.
"It's a long way down but we're nearly there." Crane puckered his sandy
brows. "Nobody can make cables that long," he opined.
Bonwitt examined the controls again. "It's a gravity lift," he decided.
"Nothing like it on Earth. Suppose Peterson's found an underground
civilization here?"
The ethertype man grinned. "I knew you'd get it. Peterson told me or
I'd never have guessed. Until I saw the damn creatures."
"You did see them?"
"Hundreds. They're queer--like Pauchek."
"So-o. That explains a lot. Peterson's been here before, often. I still
don't get it about Pauchek, though."
The lift slowed down and stopped. Crane led the way out onto a second
balcony, a gigantic sweeping curve of it.
They were in a vast hollowed-out space. An inner world within the
moon! Damply warm and redolent of life. Its vastness stretched off into
the distance, beyond sight. Most amazing was its source of light, an
enormous green-white globe that loomed in the near distance. A cold but
luminous sun within the moon!
"It's real," chuckled Crane, watching Bonwitt.
Below them was a wider balcony, a ledge on which were ordered rows of
great machines with naked little brown men scurrying in their midst.
To the right was the great grandad of all of those machines, a huge
drum-like affair with tapered helices at crazy angles and with the big
steel shaft they'd seen up above projecting from its vertical upper
bearing and vanishing through the bore in the rock overhead.
"Lord!" gasped Bonwitt. "A motor! What can it drive?"
"You'll soon learn," said an oily voice at his shoulder.
The engineer wheeled to stare into Peterson's close-set, glittering
eyes. Gates, saturnine, contemptuous, was with him.
* * * * *
"You go to Don Peel right away," the super told Bonwitt. "Crane goes
with Gates. To see our ethertype."
"But--" Crane started to object.
"You'll go with Gates." Peterson fingered his strange weapon.
The two ethertype operators disappeared into a passage mouth.
"Who's Don Peel?" asked Bonwitt.
"The king--Gosak, they call him--a simpleton whom I've taught a little
English. He's in the palm of my hand, though I handle him with gloves.
I want you to play up to him."
"Suppose I don't. Suppose I warn him?"
"You won't." Peterson carelessly sighted his curious weapon on a
rock ledge in the passageway. The thing bucked to a screaming hiss
that belched from its snout. No more than that, but the rock spurted
incandescence and puffed out of existence. "No, you won't shoot your
mouth off, Bonwitt."
"What's the idea?" growled the engineer. "What're you up to?"
"All in good time, my boy. Here we are; remember what I said."
They entered a small, softly lighted room. Two wizened, breech-clouted
men bowed to the super and he jabbered unintelligible words. An inner
door opened and the two Earthmen went through.
"Bonji, Don Peel. Bonji, Gosak," the super mouthed, spreading his pudgy
hands and salaaming before a turbaned brown man squatted in the center
of a waist-high circular table that surrounded him.
"Bonji," this one replied gravely. "This new helper?"
"Yes, Don, this is Bonwitt. Crane's with Gates."
The little brown man looked out keenly from under overhanging brows,
eyes gleaming like a cobra's. "You sure we can trust?"
Peterson nodded with assurance.
Don Peel bared momentarily a mouthful of yellow fangs between lips that
writhed hideously. Bonwitt's stomach went sick.
"Good; you fix." The Gosak dismissed them with a scrawny hand.
* * * * *
"Had to do that," the erstwhile super explained in the outer passage,
"to keep him happy. Or his men'd be taking pot shots at you."
"That would be nice. They probably will anyway."
"No, no. Everything's hunky-dory now, so long as you co-operate. We go
to my hangout now and I'll give you the dope."
So cocksure was the man that Bonwitt's ire rose dangerously. He
controlled himself with an effort. He'd have to find out what was what,
pretend compliance with any plan, and--wait.
Peterson's hangout, as he had termed it, was a drafting room and
office combined. The desk and drawing table were of curious Lunar
construction. There were a few chairs and a filing cabinet. Maps and
drawings on the walls. Maps of Earth and Luna; drawings of queer
machines and structures. One was a cross-section of the moon as Bonwitt
was beginning to know it existed. The core, the inner sun, was not
central, he saw.
"Look, Bill." Peterson poked a thick finger at this drawing. "Here's
where we are; four hundred miles under the crater called Nemesis."
"Four hundred--" Bonwitt gaped, seeing the vertical shaft on the
drawing, piercing its way upward through tunnel and many bearings to
the surface, "--impossible!"
"So I thought in the beginning. But much is possible here. That shaft,
for instance. The Selenites have its weight almost completely nullified
with anti-gravity forces. They know something, the devils."
"But the sun, or whatever it is, isn't pictured central. In fact, it
seems to contact one side of the moon's central cavity."
"Naturally. That's why the same face of Luna is always towards Earth;
it's on the heavy side, of course. Here, sit down, Bill."
Peterson indicated a chair, which Bonwitt took. "And," continued the
ex-super, "that sun, as you call it and as it properly is, can be
shifted from normal position. That's what was done last night; that's
why Luna shifted on her axis. A test. I knew, of course, but pretended
ignorance back on the other side. Now you're in it, I can tell you.
"The brown men are native to the moon but not to our solar system.
Their ancestors inhabited the body's surface when it had an atmosphere
and was warm in the light of a distant sun. They burrowed when they
learned their planet was to be hurled into space by a cataclysm which
was to break up its solar system. And when, in the distant past, their
world was captured by ours as a satellite, they had to remain beneath
the surface. They burrowed deeper, found this inner realm, this world
within a world. The inner sun then was still quite hot; it yet holds
nearly enough heat for their comfort and sustenance.
"Through countless ages, this race has been dissatisfied. They wanted
to live outside as did their forbears, but could only go to the surface
in space-suits. They began planning a migration to Earth. The huge
motor, the shaft, the crater, are the results. The means."
"To migrate?" Bonwitt was incredulous.
"Yes."
"Peaceful, or warlike, this migration?"
"They plan peace if possible, war if necessary."
"And you--where do you fit in? Are you one of these guys who wants to
save our world?"
"Stop it; stop it--until you know. You see, the mercury-filled crater
above is to become a great mirror for reflecting sunlight earthward.
Along the resultant light beam the Selenites plan to travel in cars
which are propelled in concentrated photon streams--"
"_Wait_ a minute," the engineer interrupted. "The crater faces away
from Earth."
Peterson grinned anew. "Now it does, yes. But the moon will be turned
around until it faces Earth."
"Turned a-_round_!"
"Just that. That's the why of last night's test. The sun inside here is
to be shifted by projected forces until the center of gravity of the
moon's total mass is at the proper focus. Then the shell turns over
until the crater Gates called Nemesis is in the right position. By
now the motor spins the mercury until centrifugal force reverses the
natural convexity and the ten mile vat of mercury becomes a big concave
mirror.
"The reflected light beam can be narrowed down to any desired size by
changing the concavity--altering the motor speed. Just by shifting
Luna's inner sun."
"Why," gasped Bonwitt, "if all the sun's heat over a ten mile diameter
mirror were focussed on a spot say one mile in diameter on our Earth,
one hundred times normal sun energy would be concentrated in this area.
Anything would be instantly consumed."
"You've hit the nail on the head," said Peterson. "_One_ nail. That's
Gates's nail, which I intend to pull out. But the Lunarians plan only
to make a plane mirror of the mercury crater, which would not overheat
anything on Earth but only provide a lane through which their photon
cars can pass. They believe they can effect a peaceful colonization."
"What do you mean, Gates's nail?" Bonwitt's lips set grimly.
"World conquest! Worse--revenge. He intends to blast all big cities to
ruin, then resume the dictatorship that was once his father's."
"His father's?" Memory came to the young engineer of history.
Establishment of the World Government in 1975. Exiling a man who had
set himself up as World Dictator. Yes, his name had been Gates. He
had died in Siberia. And _this_ Gates was the son--explaining the
signalling to Earth. A party of adherents waited there for a millennium
or something. "But _you_ helped with his signals," Bonwitt accused.
"I did," grinned the older man, "to keep this screwball's gang together
where I can blast _them_ out of existence as soon as I get Gates. Gates
discovered inner Luna and, the fool, told me about it. Played right
into my hands."
Bonwitt shuddered. Here was a double-crosser of the first water. "How
do you plan to upset the beans and where do you profit yourself?" he
asked.
"I'll kill off the Selenites--there's only a million or so--with a
supersonic generator Gates developed. Their brains are susceptible to a
certain vibration rate; they'll die like flies. And Gates won't be here
to interfere. There'll be no more Selenites; _I'll_ dictate to Earth.
I'll blast some forests and a couple of villages to show them I can do
it. Perfect, isn't it?"
The engineer stared. Peterson was a madman, a wholesale killer at
heart--worse. "What would be your terms?" Bonwitt asked steadily.
"Not harsh. I don't want to be a dictator nor to destroy cities. I
hate politics and war both. But I'll control Earth just the same--with
wealth and power. I'll demand personal title to the moon and to
Atomic's two space ships. To the larger ship for distant planet
exploration now under construction as well. Also a billion dollars in
gold delivered to me here on Luna. With these advantages, I can do
anything I want to. Care to join me or not?"
Mad, totally mad, this scheme of Peterson's. But just mad enough to
come near succeeding unless he were stopped. The world would, in panic,
concede anything if ever he should get as far as turning over the moon
and burning forests and villages. For that matter, his madness might
then flare up to the point of wreaking wholesale destruction as Gates
proposed and intended. Bonwitt would have to play for time.
"Sure, I'll join up," he lied. "Who wouldn't?"
* * * * *
Peterson smiled paternally. "Right; who wouldn't? And once I get
control, see how many more will join up. Beats working for Atomic,
doesn't it?"
Bonwitt nodded dully. Fantastic as the thing was, the engineer
recognized the danger to Crane and himself. The world could take
care of itself. But the Selenites? Here were Gates and Peterson both
plotting their destruction. For all Bonwitt knew, Gates might be
planning the same thing against Peterson. If either won out it would be
bad for a certain engineer and an ethertype man. Maybe--
"I'd like to see your ethertype myself," he told Peterson. "It's the
one you used to communicate with Peel from the workings, isn't it?"
"Huh? How'd you know that?" The super tensed suspiciously, then
relaxed. "Oh, Crane guessed, I suppose. Sure, you can see it. Follow
me."
When they reached the ethertype room, it was to see Gates, wild of eye
and disheveled of clothing, standing over Crane with one of the odd
pistols in his hand. Crane's head was missing--blasted away. With a
screech of pure animal fury, Bonwitt dived at the killer. Off guard,
the big ethertype man went down and his pistol clattered into a corner.
But he was up in a flash and the engineer was in for a battle.
He ducked too late and took a right to his temple that set him spinning
and seeing stars. A left cross spun him back and, by enraging him,
cleared his head. He clinched to get breath, then flung the big radio
man off and drove him against the table. Gates staggered and hung
on under a rain of body blows, rallied to come back with a left and
a right that both jolted Bonwitt's jaw. Then he was tearing at the
engineer's eyes with clawed fingers, bearing him to the floor.
So it was to be that kind of fighting! Bonwitt heaved up and got a full
Nelson on his wriggling foe that nearly snapped his spine. He downed
Gates, panting, cursing between his teeth. He could see Crane's poor
headless body sprawled there. The sight robbed him of all knowledge of
what he was doing and he did not return to normal until the voice of
Peterson halted him. Only then did he realize that he had been banging
Gates's head against the metal floor with all the force of a pounding
sledge.
"He's dead," gloated Peterson. "Save your strength."
Bonwitt saw that it was true. His antagonist's skull was a thing
squashed, unrecognizable. Sick at the stomach, he reeled to his feet.
Peterson stood regarding him with a cryptic smile, a pistol in either
hand, his own and Gates's. "Good work," he approved. "Saved me trouble.
But we'll have to get rid of the bodies. Have to tell Peel I've sent
the two to the workings temporarily."
He eyed the panting engineer sharply and was apparently satisfied, for
he thrust the two pistols in his belt. But he wasn't taking any chances
with the powerful and alert Bonwitt; he'd been quick to snatch that
second pistol out of reach during the fight.
* * * * *
The succeeding days were nightmares of uncertainty to Bonwitt. Under
Peterson's eye constantly, no way of getting the upper hand over the
man occurred to him. And, could he have done that, he'd still have the
Selenites to account to. Besides, even if he could remove Peterson and
get himself away, there was little time left in which to do it. It was
self-preservation now.
The big geared down motor was already starting to churn the mercury in
the crater above into rotation. Its starting torque must be terrific
to get that huge mass of metal in motion. Even to think of so enormous
a disc, liquid or solid, in rotation was staggering; the speed must
be not in revolutions per minute but a fraction of one turn in that
terrestrial measure of time. For, even at one revolution per minute,
the peripheral speed of the mass would be 31.416 miles a minute. Not
only an impossible figure but far in excess of that needed.
Time fled on wings. Bonwitt did his best to locate the supersonic wave
generator. If he could find this and warn Peel he might circumvent
Peterson and perhaps earn from the brown men a gratitude that would
pave the way for Earth's acceptance of them as colonists.
The more he contacted them the more he liked the little brown folk and
the more he sympathized with their wish to get to the good green Earth.
Essentially harmless, they were most admirable in their manner of
living and considerate in their relations one to the other.
Undoubtedly, New York had long since known of the absence of four
important men from the Lunar workings. By now, quite likely, they had
sent over one of the transports to learn what was wrong. But nothing
could be done from there; they didn't even know of inner Luna.
Bonwitt's nerves drew tautly near the breaking point. Peterson was
waiting until the last minute to loose his supersonic vibrations on the
unsuspecting brown folk. He'd have to wait till the moon had turned
over and the beam of reflected sunlight was directed earthward. For the
huge machines necessary to these important preliminaries needed many
men in their operation. After that, these men could be dispensed with.
One man could operate the final controls; one could blast out an entire
city if he wished; one could operate the ethertype and make terms. Two
were better; perhaps that was why Bonwitt was still alive.
All too quickly came the day. Huge machines hummed and groaned. The
great gelid sun began to roll slowly over the inner surface of the
satellite. The outer shell of the moon started rotating. Luna was
turning over. The great mirror of liquid metal above was revolving at
precisely the speed to produce a plane surface, astronomically plane.
Peel was at the final control with Peterson beside him, watching the
viewing plate. Bonwitt was there, too. Peel's customary two guards....
The engineer hadn't had time to find the supersonic wave generator.
How could Peterson get away to activate it? Bill's eyes dropped
accidentally to the man's feet, one of which was edging toward the base
of the control pedestal. A hidden button was there; this wholesale
murder was to be accomplished by remote control!
On the vision plate, Earth swung into view. The hitherto unseen side
of the moon was facing it. What a furore must be upsetting both
amateur and professional astronomers at home! Only a thin crescent was
Earth now, with a vast dim area lighted only by moonlight from here.
Soon there'd be a brilliant circle up there, a circle ten miles in
diameter, sharp against the near-blackness. And, if Peterson won, it
would close in gradually until there would be a searing, blazing speck
consuming everything within its one mile circle. Not if Bonwitt could
stop it. The super's foot, he saw, was nearing the secret button.
The sense of swaying motion ceased; the moon once more was still,
ominously so. Earth rushed forward in the viewplate as the
magnification of the radio telescope was multiplied. Peel depressed
a lever and, in slightly more than a second of time, there flashed
a circle of sunlight that enclosed nighttime New York City and its
environs. What a panic this must be starting! Peterson's foot moved
suddenly. In the same instant, Bonwitt flung himself upon him, slamming
him to the floor.
[Illustration: _Peterson's foot slipped suddenly. In the same instant
Bonwitt flung forward, slamming him to the floor._]
"Peel! Peel!" he yelped, fighting to keep the maniac's hands from his
pistols. "He'll kill you all. Believe me, Peel!"
Then, amazingly, there was the screaming hiss of a lunar weapon.
Peterson's head exploded almost in his face with brilliant
pyrotechnics. Peel had killed the man and was standing there grinning
in a most friendly manner, pistol holstered, waiting for the engineer
to rise.
"Thanks, good friend," Peel was saying. "We knew he traitor but not
find machine. Pauchek learn some but not know all. _You_ fix."
That explained the incident of the unfortunate machinist. Bonwitt could
only goggle at the Gosak of inner Luna as he rose to face him.
"You fix," repeated the little brown ruler. "You keep my people safe.
Now we ready to talk your people. We go help they. They help we. Not?"