_The Lunar Cubes_
For a long time Sarka and Jaska remained still, like sentinels,
listening to the strange discord which seemed to emanate from behind
the hill at whose base they crouched.
"Look!" said Sarka at last. "There against the sky, beyond and between
those two waving tentacles! Note that column of light, scarcely
lighter than the light which surrounds it everywhere? It looks like a
massive column just lighter than everything around it, yet so little
lighter that you have to watch closely to see it at all?"
Jaska stared for all of a minute, before she thought back her answer.
"I see it," she said.
"Note now whether it goes, as it reaches outward into Space!"
Jaska followed the mighty height of the thing, outward and outward,
and then gasped.
"Sarka," she said, "its end touches the Earth in the very heart of
that strange glow we spoke about!"
"Exactly! And people of Earth know nothing about it, because it is
invisible to them! It is only from Outside that the glow it makes
against the Earth is visible! If we can divert its direction, or
render it useless in any way, the Moon will no longer be thrust away
by its force!"
A pause of indecision, then Sarka thought again:
"Let us go, Jaska! Keep behind me, right on my heels!"
Slowly, fighting against something that seemed determined to pull, or
hurl, them outward from the surface of the Moon with each forward
movement they made, they essayed the side of the hill, pausing at the
end of what seemed like hours in a sort of hollow just large enough
to mask their bodies and stared over its edge into one of the craters
of the Moon. Out of the depths of that crater came the discordant
sounds, which now were almost deafening, and out of that crater too
came the almost invisibly bluish column whose outer tip touched the
Earth.
* * * * *
Right before them, so close that they all but rested in its shadow,
was one of those monster aircars, its tentacles moving to and fro as
though wafted into motion by some vagrant breeze. But since neither
Sarka nor Jaska could feel the breeze, Sarka knew that it was life
which caused the waving motion of those tentacles of terror.
"Note," he said to Jaska, "that there is a tiny trap-door in the
bottom of the aircar, and that the thing rests on a half-dozen of
those tentacles!"
"I see," came Jaska's reply.
Jaska went on:
"Note the gleaming thing on the ground, right below the aircar? I
wonder what it is?"
They studied the thing there, which seemed to be a huge jewel of some
sort that glittered balefully in the eery light of the Moon. It was,
perhaps, twice the size of an average man's torso, and was almost
exactly cubical in shape. As Sarka studied the thing, he sensed that
feeling flowed out of it--that the cube, whatever it was, was alive!
He tore his glance away from it, and realized that he accomplished the
feat with a distinct effort of will--as though the cube had willed to
hold his gaze, knew he was there. His eyes, peering around the inner
slope of the crater--which dipped over, some hundreds of feet down,
and plunged downward to some unknown depth--noted a broad, flat stone,
off to his right; and around the rim of the crater he counted a full
hundred of the aircars, all with their tentacles waving as if they
belonged to sentient creatures.
* * * * *
Below each one, as he studied them and strained his eyes to make out
details, he caught the baleful gleam of other cubes like the first he
had seen. The aircars, it seemed, were either sentinels, at the lip of
the crater, or were the dwelling places of sentinels--and the cubes
were those sentinels!
It seemed absurd, but it came to Sarka in a flash that that was the
answer, and his eyes came back to the first cube, because it was
nearer and more easy to study.
"I will not be swayed by the will of the thing," Sarka told himself.
"Nor will I allow it to analyze me! Jaska, do you do likewise!"
Beside him, Jaska shivered. He turned to look at her. Her face was
coldly white, and her eyes were big with terror and fascination as she
stared at that first cube, resting so balefully there under the first
aircar.
He shook her, and she seemed to bring her eyes to his with a terrific,
will-straining effort.
"Look at me!" he told her, telepathically. "Keep your eyes on me, for
to look at the cube spells danger!"
But his own eyes went back to the thing, and he studied it closely. A
cold chill raced through his body as he noted that its gleam was
becoming dull, fading slowly out. It had gleamed brightly at first,
and now was losing its sheen, fading away to invisibility. He thought
he should be able, regardless of gleam or color, to see its outline;
but its outline, too, seemed to be becoming faint, indistinct.
* * * * *
Then, in a trice, it was gone, and a feeling of uneasiness, more
compelling than he had ever known before, coursed through the soul of
Sarka. Where had the cube gone? What was it? What was its purpose? He
tore his eyes away from the spot where he had last seen it, and stared
away to the shadow beneath the second nearest aircar, where he had
glimpsed another of the cubes.
The cube there, too, was fading out.
"Sarka! Sarka! Look!" came to his brain the thoughts of Jaska.
Sarka turned and stared at her, and a feeling of fear for which he
could not account at all took fast hold of him. The eyes of Jaska,
wide and staring as they had been when he commanded her to look away
from the cube under the aircar, were staring at that flat, table-like
rock, off to his right.
There, almost in the center of the rock, a gleaming something was
taking shape! Just a dull spot, in the center of the yellow glow; then
the beginning of the outline of a cube. Then, all at once, the cube
itself, gleaming and baleful!
Sarka gasped in terror. He had seen the cube vanish, its glow
disappear, and now here it was, almost close enough to touch, on a
rock beside him, gleaming and baleful as before! That it was the same
cube he had seen under the first aircar, he somehow knew without being
told. That it was a sentient _thing_ he also knew, for now there was
no mistaking the fact that, but for the presence in the little hollow
of Jaska and Sarka, the cube would not have moved.
* * * * *
Swift as light, Sarka's right hand darted to his belt, where his ray
director should be nestled against his need of it. And with his first
movement, the cube's brilliance vanished instantly, the cube
disappeared, and appeared again right before the face of Sarka, so
close he could touch it! Yet he did not turn the ray director against
it, nor did he extend his hand to touch the thing--because he was
afraid to do so!
Even as the cube appeared before his eyes, thrice baleful and menacing
in its close proximity, his eyes darted back to that broad flat rock,
where the second gleaming cube now appeared!
"Great God, Jaska!" he sent mentally, "what does it mean?"
"These," she answered bravely back, "are Moon-soldiers! And, unless
we manage not to appear furtive, we are undone!"
Still Sarka made no move, while other gleaming cubes appeared on the
flat rock. Five other cubes appeared beside the first, at the rim of
the hollow which held the forms of Jaska and Sarka. The cubes were
closing on them, oddly like a squad of Earthlings in the olden times,
advancing by rushes against an entrenched enemy!
The buzzing sound which they had first heard now seemed accentuated,
but, instead of being outside of the listeners, seemed inside them,
hammering against their very brains! Messages were being sent to them,
or passed back and forth between and among the cube-men about
them--and they hadn't the slightest idea how to make answer, know
whether an answer was expected of them, or what the cube-men thought
about them!
Since there was nothing else to do, they lay there, hands clasped, as
children in the dark clasp hands, and waited for what might transpire.
* * * * *
Suddenly the discord from the inside of the crater ceased, and all was
still, while it came to Sarka that the cube-men who stood before him
were in grim communication with something invisible to Sarka and
Jaska, somebody, perhaps, deep in the bowels of the Moon, over inside
the crater.
They knew, those two, that the cube-soldiers were reporting their
presence, and asking instructions; that the Moon had gone silent to
listen, and that within a few moments their fate would be decided.
What should they do?
In his hand Sarka held his ray director, with which he knew he could
blast one or all of the cubes into nothingness. But still he held his
hand, made no move.
Something, however, had to be done, for the discord was starting
again, growing in volume. It made Sarka think, oddly enough, of a deaf
mute fighting for speech! Then came the first intelligible sound....
A burst, from the depths of the crater, of sardonic laughter!
"Dalis!" said Sarka, and moved. While Sarka moved, Jaska held fast to
his arm. Casting her fear to the winds, furious because of the
laughter of Dalis, Sarka thrust his ray director back into his belt
and stood upright.
Bending over he seized the first of the gleaming cubes and hurled it
over the edge of the crater, saw it start plummeting down. But even
before it fell out of sight within the crater its gleam had dulled
until it was almost impossible to see the thing. Racing as though
racing against time, Sarka caught up cube after cube and hurled them
all after the first.
* * * * *
Out of the crater there came no sound of heavy objects striking,
though Sarka felt there should have, for the cubes were almost as
heavy as a man.
Then his hair almost stood on end under his helmet, for under that
first aircar, where he had first seen it, the initial cube was again
gleaming into life!
The thing had dissolved while being hurled over the rim, and reformed
in its proper place, its station as silent sentinel under the aircar!
These cubes then, were indeed sentinels--sentinels impossible to
injure. Though no force had been used against Sarka and Jaska, Sarka
had the feeling that they were powerless, and that here on the edge of
a crater of the Moon awful forces were being mustered against them.
Mustered slowly, sluggishly, yet surely, as though the mentality which
mustered them knew them helpless, and that there was no need to hurry!
As for Jaska, she merely clung to Sarka and waited--trusting him no
matter what might transpire.
On a blind chance, Sarka brought out his ray director again, turned
its muzzle toward that invisibly-blue column, pressed with his
fingers, moving the director back and forth.
Instantly the blue column seemed to break short off, while the broken
upper portion started racing outward toward the Earth. Sarka watched
it, and noted that the yellowish glow on the Earth, even as he
watched, was fading out--disappearing!
"If the ray will smash the blue column, Jaska," he said, "it will also
destroy its source! Come! We will go look for it!"
And, holding her hand tightly, he rose to his feet and strode boldly
down the inner slope of the vast crater.