"Two or three hundred feet out," I directed. I gestured. "Grantline
said to meet out there. I'll tow others."
"Yes. Around the stern you'll find--God! Haljan, look!"
A mile from us the enemy ship was in view. Passing--no! Stopping! With
incredible retardation she had plunged into view, was here, and yet
had no great forward velocity. She seemed no more rapid than a great
air liner winging past, so close that her reddish-tinged bulging hull
length showed clearly. The discs were gone. The funnel set on top of
her was sloped diagonally toward us as she rolled on her side, so that
momentarily I could see down into it. There was some mechanism down
there. The bow radiance was a narrow opalescent beam in advance of the
bow.
"Slowing, Haljan!"
"Yes, stopping. Don't try to meet Grantline. Tow your men away!"
"Or should we board the _Cometara_ and hide?"
"No. They've come back to bombard her."
I kicked at him violently. With his two drifting figures clinging
behind, he swung past me. I headed behind the stern. Upon its dangling
framework several of our men were glued, lying there inert. I caught a
glimpse of the interior of the stern, the littered deck; men lying
there had been stricken before they had time to get into their suits.
On the outside, forward, I saw Grantline come rounding the bow, towing
a figure and heading for another. On the outside of the bow-peak a
group of others were perched, gesticulating for help. I started that
way; then I saw another, and nearer figure in a power suit heading for
them. I swung back. There were two figures on the outside of the
under-hull whom I could more quickly reach. Inverted flies. Their feet
were on the keel. They stooped and waved toward me.
I took a swoop. Passing close down the hull, my rocket-streams struck
the hull plates and gave me sudden downward velocity. I shot down, out
past the keel. And again I saw the enemy ship. She hung poised, no
more than two miles away. And as I looped over, with all the black,
star-strewn firmament in a dizzy whirl, the great Moon-disc, first
above, and then below me, I saw the bow-beam of the enemy swinging. It
came to the _Cometara_, and there it clung.
I had gone perhaps fifty feet below the keel with my dive when I
righted. I was mounting. I saw the opalescent ten-foot circle of the
beam moving along the _Cometara_ hull. It seemed to do no damage; then
suddenly it darted down and clung to me.
I felt nothing save the impact of a gentle push, something shoving
with a ponderable force against me.
I saw the _Cometara_ receding, the heavens swinging as I turned over.
The red disc of the distant Earth swooped. The Moon surface
momentarily seemed rotating and lifting above me.
I was helpless, rolling, then whirling end-over-end. Then again I
steadied. The beam was gone from me.
I saw the _Cometara_, a full mile away from me! The enemy ship was
again in motion, moving toward me, and between the _Cometara_ and the
Earth. And the beam was steady upon the _Cometara's_ mid-section.
The _Cometara_ had a new velocity now. I could not miss it. She was
dwindling rapidly in visual size; relative to me, she was receding,
falling upon the Moon. More than that she was being pushed downward by
the repulsive force of the strange enemy beam upon her. I stared, as
with all the little dots which were our men around and upon her, she
went down into the void.
I found myself presently alone up here, with the enemy ship hovering
nearby. Its maneuvering to thrust the wrecked _Cometara_ toward the
Moon had brought it within a mile of me. The bow-beam was still on the
_Cometara_; and then abruptly it vanished.
The _Cometara_ had almost dwindled beyond the sight of my unaided
vision. By chance, undoubtedly, the beam had fallen upon me and thrust
me from the wreck. I was alone up here now with the enemy, but they
may not have noticed me, or cared. I found my power mechanism intact.
I turned it on; slowly, like a log in water, I began moving away.
A minute. Five minutes. The _Cometara_ was lost. Grantline, all the
men, were lost; with that added downward thrust they could never free
themselves from the falling wreck.
I was jerked out of my thoughts by the sight of an oncoming red blob.
Something was coming from the enemy ship, red with the sunlight and
earthlight, silvered by the Moon and the stars. It took form. It was a
disc, another of those cursed whirling discs, sent to annihilate me!
Then, when it was a quarter of a mile away, I saw that it was a disc
which was turning slowly. Rocket radiances came from its rotating
circumference; it came sailing directly at me, so swiftly that my own
velocity was futile.
Another minute and I was caught. I saw that the disc was some fifteen
feet in diameter, and that it bulged, so that within its convex floor
and ceiling was a space of several feet.
I cut off my power and with pounding heart lay waiting. The space-suit
had no weapons for equipment save a knife hung in the belt. I drew it
out, held it in my gloved fingers.
The disc sailed upon its level, vertical axis. Its rotation slowed; I
saw little windows set around its convex middle. It came up and bumped
me with its metal side. I kicked away, shoved off. Shapes were moving
in a dim interior light behind the port-panes. Little hand-beams of
radiance darted out. They seemed to seize me, draw me.
I found myself glued helplessly to the convex outer surface of the
disc. The rotation gathered speed again, but I looked presently only
at the gleaming surface to which I was pinned. Had I been a metal bar
upon the horns of an electro-magnet, I could not have been more
helpless.
An interval passed. With the contact plate of my fingers against this
hull it seemed that I could hear voices within, strange,
indistinguishable words. I twisted, but could not see into the port.
Again the rotation was slowing. The near shape of the enemy vessel
swung close and past; and again and again I saw that we were over it,
dropping down into the wide black opening of the funnel-top. It yawned
presently like a great black tunnel, into which we fell.
The jar of landing knocked me loose, and no doubt the attraction
radiance also released me. I fell another space, bounced up and sank
back. I thought that something like a sliding port-door closed over
me.
And then, in the dimness, figures were gripping me. I lashed and
struck, but the knife was wrenched away.