_Imprisoned!_
The duty-man at the exit locks of the main building stood at his
window and watched me curiously. He saw me go up the spider-stairs. He
could see the figure he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw
me join Wilks, saw us locked together in combat.
For an instant the duty-man stood amazed. There were two fantastic,
misshapen figures swaying in the Earthlight five hundred feet above
the camp, fighting desperately at the very brink. They were small,
dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed in and
out of the shadows. Soon the duty-man could not tell one from the
other. Haljan and Wilks--fighting to the death!
The duty-man recovered himself and sprang into action. An interior
siren-call was on the instrument panel near him. He rang it, alarming
the camp.
The men came rushing to him, Grantline among them.
"What's this? Good God, Franck!"
They saw the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff. The two
figures had fallen together from the observatory platform, dropped
twenty feet to a lower landing on the stairs. They lay as though
stunned for a moment, then fought on.
Grantline stood stricken with amazement. "That's Wilks!"
"And Haljan," the duty-man gasped. "Went out--something wrong with
Wilks--acting strangely--"
The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men awakened from
sleep, ran out into the corridors, shouted questions.
"An attack?"
"Is it an attack?"
"The brigands?"
* * * * *
But it was Wilks and Haljan in a fight out there on the cliff. The men
crowded at the bulls'-eye windows.
And over all the confusion the alarm siren, with no one thinking to
shut it off, was screaming with its electrical voice.
Grantline, stricken for that moment of inactivity, stood gazing. One
of the figures broke away from the other, bounded up to the summit
from the stair-platform to which they had fallen. The other followed.
They locked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed
to Grantline that they would go over; then they surged back,
momentarily out of sight.
Grantline found his wits. "Stop them! I'll go out to stop them! What
fools!"
He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits which stood at the lock
entrance. "Shut off that siren, Franck!"
Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty-man called from the
window:
"Still at it! By the infernal, such fools! They'll kill themselves!"
The figures had swayed back into view, then out of sight again.
"Franck, let me out."
Grantline was ready. He stood, helmet in hand.
"I'll go with you, Commander."
But the volunteer was not equipped. Grantline would not wait.
"I'm going at once. Hurry, Franck."
The duty-man turned to his panel. The volunteer shoved a weapon at
Grantline. "Here, take this."
Grantline jammed on his helmet.
* * * * *
He moved the few steps into the small air-chamber which was the first
of the three pressure locks. Its interior door-panel swung open for
him. But the door did not close after him!
Cursing the duty-man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he
turned to the corridor. The duty-man came running.
Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell--"
"Broken! Dead!"
"What!"
"Smashed from outside," gasped the duty-man. "Look there--my tubes--"
The control-tubes of the portes had flashed into a close-circuit and
burned out. The admission portes would not open!
"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside--!"
There was no way now of getting out through these pressure-locks. The
doors, the entire pressure-lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered
with from outside?
As though to answer Grantline's amazed question there came a chorus of
shouts from the men at the corridor windows.
"Commander! By God--look!"
A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and
helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking
at the porte-entrance, had ripped out the wires there.
It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made
off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it
vanish around the building corner.
It was a giant figure, larger than a normal Earthman. A Martian?
* * * * *
Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still
fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.
A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever,
Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some
of the other suits, and called for some of the hand bullet projectors.
But he could not get out through these main admission portes. He could
have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure-changing
mechanisms broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A
rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was no
one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.
Grantline was shouting. "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside!
The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to
go with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit!"
But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was
there. It was a smaller, two-lock gateway of manual control, so that
the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at
the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The
lever would not open the panels!
Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? A
traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the
skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?
The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The
news spread. The camp was a prison. No one could get out.
And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and
Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on
the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again.
Crazily swaying--bouncing--striking the rail.
* * * * *
They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks,
and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the
other, they rolled, unheeding, to the brink. Here, beyond the midway
ledge which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on
down to the crater-floor.
The figures were rolling: then one shook himself loose, rose up,
seized the other and, with a desperate lunge, shoved him--
The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling
down into the shadows past the camp-level--down out of sight in the
darkness of the crater-floor.
Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the windows, gasped.
"God! Was that Gregg Haljan who fell?"
No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp-ledge, another
helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main
building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast,
bounding toward the spider-staircase. It began mounting.
And now still another figure became visible--the giant Martian again.
He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He
evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was
standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw, too, no doubt,
the second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window
through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his back to the
building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps
toward the ascending staircase.
Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the
staircase? And was the third figure Miko?
Grantline's mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn from
them, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridor
was ringing with shouts.
"We're imprisoned! Can't get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands are
outside!"
And then an interior audiphone blared a call for Grantline. Someone in
the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking:
"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed--"
But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news.
"Commander! The brigand ship!"
Miko's reinforcements from Mars had come.