Through the Meteor-Moons
Kenniston went cold with dismay. He told himself numbly that it was
impossible Hugh Murdock could have discovered the truth. But the grim
expression on Murdock's face and the naked hate in his eyes were
explainable on no other grounds.
The young businessman's finger was tense on the trigger of the
atom-pistol. Resistance would be senseless. Mechanically, Kenniston
slipped from his bunk and threw on his slacks and space-jacket. Holk
Or was doing the same, the big Jovian's battered green face almost
ludicrous in astonishment.
"Now perhaps you'll tell us what this means," Kenniston said harshly,
his mind racing. "Have you lost your senses?"
"I've just come to them, Kenniston," rapped Murdock. "What fools we
all were, not to guess that you two belong to Dark's pirates!"
Kenniston's lips tightened. It was clear now that Murdock had actually
discovered something. From Holk Or came an angry roar.
"Devils of Pluto, I'm no pirate!" the big Jovian lied magnificently.
"Whatever gave you this crazy idea?"
Murdock's hard face did not relax. He waved the atom-pistol. "Go into
the main cabin," he ordered. "Walk ahead of me."
Helplessly, Kenniston and Holk Or obeyed. His mind was desperate as he
shouldered down the corridor. The throbbing of the rockets told him
the _Sunsprite_ was still forging through the void. They must be very
near Vesta by now--and now this had to happen!
The others had been awakened by the uproar and streamed into the main
cabin after Murdock and his two prisoners. Kenniston glimpsed Gloria,
slim in a silken negligee, her dark eyes round with amazement.
"Hugh, have you gone crazy?" she exclaimed stupefiedly.
Murdock answered without looking toward her. "I've found out the
truth, Gloria. These men belong to John Dark's crew. They were taking
us into a trap."
"Holy smoke!" gasped Robbie Boone, his jaw sagging as the chubby youth
stared at Kenniston and Holk Or. "They're pirates?"
"I think you must be losing your mind!" Gloria stormed at Hugh
Murdock. "This is ridiculous."
Holk Or yawned elaborately. "Space-sickness hits people in queer ways,
Miss Loring," the Jovian told Gloria confidentially. "Some it just
makes sick, but others it makes delirious."
"I'm not delirious, and you two know it," Murdock retorted grimly. He
spoke to Gloria and the others, without taking his eyes or the muzzle
of his pistol off his two captives.
"I thought from the first that this Kenniston's story of finding the
wreck of Dark's ship on Vesta was a thin one," Murdock declared. "And
yesterday my suspicions were increased when I went down and looked
over the cargo of equipment they brought. It's not equipment to dig
out a buried wreck. It's equipment to _repair_ a damaged ship--John
Dark's ship!
"Suspecting that, last 'night' I sent a telaudiogram to Patrol
headquarters at Earth. I gave full descriptions of Kenniston and this
Jovian and inquired if they had criminal records. An answer came
through an hour ago. This fellow Holk Or has a record of criminal
piracy as long as your arm, and was definitely known to be one of John
Dark's crew!"
There was an incredulous gasp from the others. Murdock still grimly
watched Kenniston and the Jovian as he concluded.
"The Patrol hasn't yet sent through Kenniston's record, but it's
obvious enough that he's one of Dark's men too, and that his story
that he and the Jovian are meteor-miners is a flat lie."
"I can't understand this," muttered young Arthur Lanning, staring. "If
they're Dark's men, why should they induce us to go to Vesta?"
"Can't you see?" said Hugh Murdock. "John Dark's ship did crash on
Vesta after being wrecked--that must be true enough. But Dark and his
pirates weren't dead as the Patrol thought. They had to have machines
and material to repair their ship. So Dark sent these two men to Mars
for the materials. The two couldn't get a ship there any other way, so
they made use of our cruiser by selling us that treasure yarn!"
* * * * *
Kenniston winced. He knew now that he had underestimated Murdock, who
had put together the evidence quickly when his suspicions were roused.
Gloria Loring, looking at Kenniston with wide dark eyes, saw the
change in his expression. Into her white face came an incredulous
loathing.
"Then it's true," she whispered. "You did that--you deliberately
planned to lead us all into capture?"
"Aw, you're all space-struck," growled Holk Or, bluffing to the last.
Murdock spoke over his shoulder. "Call Captain Walls, Robbie."
"No need to--here he comes now!" yelped the excited youth.
Captain Walls, entering the cabin in urgent haste, had eyes only for
Kenniston in the first moment.
"Ah, there you are, Mr. Kenniston!" the captain exclaimed relievedly.
"I was just coming for you. We've reached Vesta! I've ordered the
pilot to slow down, for I want you to pilot us through the swarm--"
The captain's voice trailed off. His eyes bulged as for the first time
he perceived that Murdock was covering the two men with a gun.
"We're not going in to Vesta, captain," rapped Murdock. "John Dark and
his pirates are on the asteroid--_alive_!"
Captain Walls' plump face went waxy as he heard the name of the most
dreaded corsair of the System.
"Dark--living?" he stuttered. "Good God, you must be joking!"
Mrs. Milsom, her dumpy figure shivering and her teeth chattering with
terror, pointed a finger at Kenniston and the Jovian.
"They're two of the pirates!" she shrilled. "They might have murdered
us all in our beds! I knew this would happen when we left Earth--"
Kenniston's mind was seething with despair as he stood there with
hands upraised. His whole desperate plan was ruined at this last
moment.
He wouldn't _let_ it be ruined! He would get this cargo of machines
and materials to John Dark if it meant his life!
"Turn back at once toward Mars, captain," Gloria was saying quietly to
the stunned officer. Her face was still very pale.
Kenniston, standing tense, had had an idea. A desperate chance to make
a break, in the face of Murdock's atom-gun.
The captain had said that he had just ordered the pilot to slow down
the _Sunsprite_. In a moment would come the shock of the braking
rocket-tubes firing from the bows--
That shock came an instant after the wild expedient flashed across
Kenniston's mind. It was only a jarring vibration through the fabric
of the ship, for the pilot knew his business.
It staggered them all on their feet, for just a moment. But Kenniston
had been waiting for that moment. As Hugh Murdock moved his gun-arm
involuntarily to balance himself, Kenniston lunged forward.
"The bridge, Holk!" he yelled as he hurled himself.
Kenniston's shoulder hit the captain and sent him caroming into
Murdock. The two men sprawled on the floor.
Holk Or, with instant understanding, already had the door of the cabin
open. They plunged out into the corridor together.
"Our only chance is to make the bridge and grab the controls!"
Kenniston cried as they raced down the corridor. "We can keep them
long enough to land on Vesta--"
Hiss--_flash!_ The crackling blast of the atom-gun tore into the lower
steps of the ladder up which he and the Jovian frantically climbed.
Murdock was running after them as he fired, and there were shouts of
alarm.
Kenniston and Holk Or burst into the glassite-walled bridge. Bray, the
pilot, turned for a startled moment from his rocket-throttles.
Beyond the pilot, the transparent front wall framed a square of black
space in which bulked the monstrous sphere of the nearby asteroid.
The World with a Thousand Moons! It loomed up only a few hundred miles
away, a big, pale-green sphere encircled by the vast globular swarm of
hundreds on hundreds of gleaming little meteor-satellites.
"Why--what--" stammered the pilot, bewildered.
Kenniston's fist caught his chin, and the man sagged to the floor.
"Bar the door, Holk!" yelled Kenniston as he leaped toward the
rocket-throttles.
"Hell, there's only a catch!" swore the Jovian. He braced his brawny
shoulders against the metal door. "I can hold it a little while."
* * * * *
Kenniston's hands were flashing over the throttles. The _Sunsprite_
was moving at reduced speed toward the meteor-enclosed asteroid.
The cruiser shook to the bursting roar of power, as he opened up all
the tail rockets. It plunged visibly faster toward the deadly swarm
around Vesta, picking up speed by the minute.
Rocking, creaking, quivering to the dangerous rate of acceleration
Kenniston was maintaining, the little ship rushed ahead. But now there
was loud hammering at the bridge-room door.
"Open up or we'll burn that door down!" came Captain Walls' yell.
Kenniston didn't turn. Hunched over the throttles, peering tensely
ahead, he was tautly estimating speed and direction. His eyes searched
frantically for the periodic break in the outer meteors.
There was a muffled crackling and the smell of scorched metal flooded
the bridge-room. A hoarse exclamation of pain came from Holk Or.
"They got my arm through the door, damn them!" cursed the Jovian.
"Hurry, Kenniston!"
Kenniston was driving the _Sunsprite_ full speed toward the whirling
cloud of meteors around the asteroid. He had spotted the break in the
cloud, the periodic opening caused by the gravitational influence of
another nearby asteroid.
It was not a real opening. It was merely a small area in the swarm
where the rushing meteors were not so thick, and where a ship had a
chance to worm through by careful piloting.
Kenniston only remotely heard the struggle that Holk Or was putting up
to hold the door against the hammering crowd outside. His mind was
wholly intent on the desperately ticklish piloting at hand.
He cut speed and eased the _Sunsprite_ down into that thinner area of
the meteor-swarm. Space around them now seemed buzzing with rushing,
brilliant little moons.
The meteorometers had gone crazy, blinking and buzzing unceasing
warning, their needles bobbing all over the direction-dials.
Instruments were useless here--he had to work by sight alone. He eased
the cruiser lower through the swarm, his fingers flashing over the
throttles, using quick bursts of the rockets to veer aside from the
bright, rushing meteors.
"Hurry!" yelled Holk Or hoarsely again, over the tumult. "I
can't--hold them out much longer--"
Down and down went the _Sunsprite_ through the maze of meteor-moons,
twisting, turning, dropping ever lower toward the green asteroid.
A last gasping shout from Holk Or, and the door crashed off its
burned-through hinges. Kenniston, unable to turn from the
life-or-death business of threading the swarm, heard the Jovian
fighting furiously.
Next moment a hand gripped Kenniston's shoulder and tore him away from
the controls. It was Murdock, his eyes blazing, his gun raised.
"Raise your hands or I'll kill you, Kenniston!" he cried.
"Let me go!" yelled Kenniston, struggling to get back to the
throttles. "You _fool_!"
He had just glimpsed the jagged moonlet rushing obliquely toward them
from the left, bulking suddenly big and monstrous.
_Crash!_ The shock flung them from their feet, and the _Sunsprite_
gyrated crazily in space. There was a blood-chilling shriek of
outrushing air from the fore part of the ship, and the slam-slam-slam
of the automatic air-doors closing, down there.
The cruiser's whole bows had been crushed in by the glancing blow of
the meteor. Now, ironically, the ship was falling clear of the
meteor-swarm for Kenniston's piloting had almost won through it before
the impact. But the _Sunsprite_ was falling helplessly, turning over
and over as it plunged down toward the green surface of the jungled
asteroid.
* * * * *
"My God, we're struck!" came Captain Walls' thin yell.
"This is your fault!" Murdock blazed at Kenniston. "You damned pirates
will die for this!"
"Let me at those controls or we'll all die together in five minutes!"
Kenniston cried. "We'll crash to smithereens unless I can make a
tail-tube landing--"
Heedless of Murdock's gun, he jumped to the controls. His hands flew
over the throttles, firing desperate quick bursts of the tail
rocket-tubes to bring them out of the spin in which they were falling.
The brake-rockets in the bow were gone. The ship was crippled, almost
impossible to handle. And the dark green jungles of Vesta's surface
were rushing upward with appalling speed.
Kenniston's frantic efforts brought the _Sunsprite_ out of the spin.
By firing the lateral rockets, he kept it falling tail-downward.
"We're goners!" yelled someone in the stricken ship. "We're going to
crash!"
Air was screaming outside the plummeting ship. Kenniston, his hands
superhumanly tense on the throttles, mechanically estimated their
distance from the uprushing green jungles.
He glimpsed a little black lake in the jungle, and near it the big
circle of an electrified stockade. He recognized it--John Dark's
camp!
Then, a thousand feet above the jungle, Kenniston's hands jerked open
the throttles. The tail rockets spouted fire downward.
Sickening shock of the sudden check almost hurled him away from the
controls. His hands jabbed the throttles in and out with lightning
rapidity, checking their further fall with one quick burst after
another.
A sound of rending branches--a staggering sidewise shock that flung
him from his feet. A jarring thump, then silence. They had landed.