_The Prowling Watchman_
"Try it again," Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise some
Earth station! Chance it! Use your power--run it up to the full.
Chance it!"
We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty-man, with
blanched grim face, sat at his senders. The Grantline crew shoved
close around us, tense and silent.
Above everything we must make some Earth station aware of our plight.
Conditions were against us. There were very few observers, in the
high-powered Earth stations who knew that an exploring party was on
the Moon. Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had
sanctioned the expedition--and Halsey and his confrères in the
Detective Bureau--were not anticipating trouble now. The _Planetara_
was supposed to be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn. It was when she
was due to return that Halsey would be alert.
And it seemed, too, that nature was against us. The bulging
half-Earth[1] hung poised near the zenith over our little crater. Its
rotation through the hours was clearly visible. We timed our signals
when the western hemisphere was facing us. But nature was against us.
No clouds, no faintest hint of mist could fog the airless Lunar
surface. But there were continuous clouds over the Americas.
[Footnote 1: Between the half and the full illumined disc, the
complete Earth now was some ten days old.]
"Try it again," Snap urged.
* * * * *
These bulging walls! Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of
safety. He cut down his lights; the telescope intensifiers were
permanently disconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so
that the air here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew
fetid. All to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might
survive.
Even so it was strained to the danger point. The walls seemed to bulge
outward with the pressure of the room, the aluminite braces straining
and creaking. And our heat was radiating away; the deadly chill of
space crept in.
"Again!" ordered Grantline.
The duty-man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence the
tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating prisms,
intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible beam,
it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead dome
into space.
"Commander!" The duty-man's voice carried an appeal. These bulging
walls! If they cracked, or even sprung a serious leak, the camp would
be uninhabitable....
"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for
now."
It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath in
the darkness. The lights came on again: the Erentz motors accelerated
to normal. The strain on the walls eased up, and the room began
warming.
Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power to
find out. Our receivers were disconnected. If an answering signal
came, we could not know it. One of the men said:
"Let's assume they saw us." He laughed, but it was a high-pitched,
tense laugh. "We don't dare even use the telescope. Our rescue ship
will be right overhead, visible to the naked eye before we see it.
Three days more--that's what I'll give it."
* * * * *
But the three days passed, and no rescue ship came. The Earth was
almost at the full. We tried signaling again. Perhaps it got
through--we did not know. But our power was weaker now. The wall of
one of the rooms sprang a leak, and the men were hours repairing it. I
did not say so, but never once did I feel that our signals were seen
on Earth. Those cursed clouds! The Earth almost everywhere seemed to
have poor visibility.
Four of our eight days of grace were all too soon passed. The brigand
ship must be half-way here by now.
They were busy days for us. If we could have captured Miko and his
band, our danger would have been less imminent. With the treasure
insulated so that its Gamma rays could not betray us, and our camp in
darkness, the arriving brigand ship might never find us. But Miko knew
our location: he would signal his oncoming ship when it was close and
lead it to us.
Three times during those days--and the days which followed
them--Grantline sent out searching parties. But it was unavailing.
Miko, Moa and Coniston, with their five underlings, could not be
found. We searched all the territory from the camp to the _Planetara_,
and off to the foot-crags of Archimedes, and a score of miles into the
flatness of the Mare Imbrium. There was no sign of the brigands. Yet
we knew they could be near here--it was so easy to hide amid the
tumbled crags, the ravines, the gullies, the numberless craters and
pit-holes: or underground in the vast honeycombed subterranean
recesses.
* * * * *
We had at first hoped that the brigands might have perished. But that
was soon dispelled! I went--about the third day--with the party that
was sent to the _Planetara_. We wanted to salvage such of its
equipment, its unbroken power units, as might be available. And Snap
and I had worked out an idea which we thought might be of service. We
needed some of the _Planetara's_ smaller gravity-plate sections. Those
in Grantline's wrecked little _Comet_ had stood so long that their
radiations had gone dead. But the _Planetara's_ were still
efficacious.
We secured the fragments of Newtonia.[2] But our hope that Miko might
have perished was dashed. He too had returned to the _Planetara_! The
evidence was clear before us. The vessel was stripped of all its power
units save those which were dead and useless. The last of the food and
water stores was taken. The weapons in the chart-room--the Benson
curve-lights, bullet projectors, and heat-rays--had vanished.
[Footnote 2: An allusion to the element Newtonia, named in memory of
the great founder of celestial mechanics, Sir Isaac Newton.
Artificially electronized, this metal element may be charged either
positively or negatively, thus to attract or repell other masses of
matter. The gravity plates of all space-ships were built of it.]
Other days passed. The Earth reached the full, and began waning. The
twenty-eight day Lunar night was in its last half. No rescue ship came
from Earth. We had ceased our efforts to signal, for we needed all our
power to maintain ourselves. The camp would be in a state of siege.
That was the best we could hope for. We had a few short-range weapons,
such as Bensons, heat-rays and rifles. A few hundred feet of effective
range was the most any of them could obtain. The heat-rays--in giant
form one of the most deadly weapons on Earth--were only slowly
efficacious on the airless Moon. Striking an intensely cold surface,
their warming radiations, without atmosphere to aid them, were slow
to act. Even in a blasting heat-beam a man in his Erentz helmet-suit
could withstand the ray for several minutes.
* * * * *
We were, however, well equipped with explosives. Grantline had brought
a large supply for his mining operations, and much of it was still
unused. We had, also, an ample stock of oxygen fuses, and a variety of
oxygen light flares in small fragile glass-globes.
It was to use these explosives against the brigands that Snap and I
were working out our scheme with the gravity-plates. The brigand ship
would come with giant projectors and with some thirty men. If we could
hold out against them for a time, the fact that the _Planetara_ was
missing would bring us help from Earth.
"A month," said Grantline. "A month at the most. If we can hold them
off that long--even in a week or two help may come."
Another day. A tenseness fell on us all, despite the absorption of our
feverish activities. To conserve the power, the camp was almost dark,
we lived in dim, chill rooms, with just a few weak spots of light
outside to mark the watchmen on their rounds. We did not use the
telescope,[3] but there was scarcely an hour when one or the other of
the men was not sitting on a cross-piece up in the dome of the little
instrument room, casting tense searching gaze into the black, starry
firmament. A ship might appear at any time now--a rescue ship from
Earth, or the brigands from Mars.
* * * * *
Anita and Venza during these days could aid us very little save by
their cheering words. They moved about the rooms, trying to inspire
us; so that all the men, when they might have been humanly sullen and
cursing their fate, were turned to grim activity, or grim laughter,
making a joke of this coming siege. The morale of the camp now was
perfect. An improvement indeed over the inactivity of the former
peaceful weeks!
[Footnote 3: An old-fashioned telescope, of limited field and needing
no electronic power, would have been immensely serviceable to
Grantline, but his was of the more modern type.]
Grantline mentioned it to me. "We'll put up a good fight, Haljan.
These fellows from Mars will know they've had a task before they ever
sail off with this treasure."
I had many moments alone with Anita. I need not mention them. It
seemed that our love was crossed by the stars, with an adverse fate
dooming it. And Snap and Venza must have felt the same. Among the men
we were always quietly, grimly active. But alone.... I came upon Snap
once with his arms around the little Venus girl. I heard him say:
"Accursed luck! That you and I should find each other too late, Venza.
We could have a mighty lot of fun in Great-New York together."
"Snap, we will!"
As I turned away, I murmured: "And, pray God, so will Anita and I."
The girls slept together in a small room of the main building. Often
during the time of sleep, when the camp was stilled except for the
night watch, Snap and I would sit in the corridor near the girls'
door-grid, talking of that time when we would all be back on our
blessed Earth.
* * * * *
Our eight days of grace were passed. The brigand ship was due--now,
to-morrow, or the next day.
I recall, that night, my sleep was fitfully uneasy. Snap and I had a
cubby together. We talked, and made futile plans. I went to sleep, but
awakened after a few hours. Impending disaster lay heavily on me. But
there was nothing abnormal nor unusual in that!
Snap was asleep. I was restless, but I did not have the heart to
awaken him. He needed what little repose he could get. I dressed, left
our cubby and wandered out into the corridor of the main building.
It was cold in the corridor, and gloomy with the weak blue light. An
interior watchman passed me.
"All as usual, Haljan."
"Nothing in sight?"
"No. They're looking."
I went through the connecting corridor to the adjacent building. In
the instrument-room several of the men were gathered, scanning the
vault overhead.
"Nothing, Haljan."
I stayed with them awhile, then wandered away. The outside man met me
near the admission lock-chambers of the main building. The duty-man
here sat at his controls, raising the air-pressure in the locks
through which the outside watchman was coming. The relief sat here in
his bloated suit, with his helmet on his knees. It was Wilks.
"Nothing yet, Haljan. I'm going up to the peak of the crater to see if
anything is in sight. I wish that damnable brigand ship would come and
get it over with."
Instinctively we all spoke in half whispers, the tenseness bearing in
on us.
The outside man came out of his helmet. He was white and grim, but he
grinned at Wilks.
"All is usual." He tried the familiar jest at Wilks, but his voice was
flat: "Don't let the Earthlight get you!"
Wilks went out through the portes--a process of no more than a minute.
I wandered away again through the corridors.
* * * * *
I suppose it was half an hour later that I chanced to be gazing
through a corridor window. The lights along the rocky cliff-edge were
tiny blue spots. The head of the stairway leading down to the abyss of
the crater floor was visible. The bloated figure of Wilks was just
coming up. I watched him for a moment making his rounds. He did not
stop to inspect the lights. That was routine; I thought it queer that
he passed them.
Another minute passed. The figure of Wilks went with slow bounds over
toward the back of the ledge where the glassite shelter housed the
treasure. It was all dark off there. Wilks went into the gloom, but
before I lost sight of him he came back. As though he had changed his
mind he headed for the foot of the staircase which led up the
cliff-face to where, at the peak of the little crater, five hundred
feet above us, the narrow observatory platform was perched. He climbed
with easy bounds, the light on his helmet bobbing in the gloom.
I stood watching. I could not tell why there seemed to be something
queer about Wilks' actions. But I was struck with it, nevertheless. I
watched him disappear over the peak of the summit.
Another minute went by. Wilks did not reappear. I thought I could make
out his light on the platform up there. Then abruptly a tiny white
beam was waving from the observatory platform! It flashed once or
twice, then was extinguished. And now I saw Wilks plainly, standing in
the Earthlight, gazing down.
Queer actions! Had the Earthlight touched him? Or was that a local
signal-call which he had sent out? Why should Wilks be signalling?
What was he doing with a hand-helio? Our watchmen, I knew, had no
reason to carry one.
And to whom could Wilks be signalling across this Lunar desolation?
The answer stabbed at me: to Miko's band!
I waited another moment. No further light. Wilks was still up there!
* * * * *
I went back to the lock entrance. Spare suits and helmets were here
beside the keeper. He gazed at me inquiringly.
"I'm going out, Franck, just for a minute." It struck me that perhaps
I was a meddlesome fool. Wilks, of all Grantline's men, was, I knew,
most in his commander's trust. The signal could have been some part of
this night's ordinary routine, for all I knew.
I was hastily donning an Erentz suit. I added, "Let me out. I just got
the idea Wilks is acting queerly." I laughed. "Maybe the Earthlight
has touched him."
With my helmet on I went through the locks. Once outside, with the
outer panel closed behind me, I dropped the weights from my belt and
shoes and extinguished my helmet-light.
Wilks was still up there. Apparently he had not moved. I bounded off
across the ledge to the foot of the ascending stairs. Did Wilks see me
coming? I could not tell. As I approached the stairs the platform was
cut off from my line of vision.
I mounted with bounding leaps. In my flexible gloved hand I carried my
only weapon, a small bullet projector with oxygen firing caps for use
in this outside near-vacuum. The leaden bullet with its slight mass
would nevertheless pierce a man at the distance of twenty feet.
I held the weapon behind me. I would talk to Wilks first.
I went slowly up the last hundred feet. Was Wilks still up there? The
summit was bathed in Earthlight. The little metal observatory platform
came into view above my head.
Wilks was not there. Then I saw him standing on the rocks nearby,
motionless. But in a moment he saw me coming.
I waved my left arm with a gesture of greeting. It seemed to me that
he started, made as though to leap away, then changed his mind and
waited for me.
I sailed from the head of the staircase with a twenty-foot leap and
landed lightly beside him. I gripped his arm for audiphone contact.
"Wilks!"
Through the visors his face was visible. I saw him, and he saw me. And
I heard his voice.
"You, Haljan! How nice!"
It was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston!