For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our
embrace. But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken and
our precious air was hissing out.
Full reality came to me. I was not seriously injured. I found I could
move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, but
they were better in a moment.
And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not her
own.
Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giant
figure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. A
widening pool.
Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. This
soundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its two
motionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I were
ghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to the
_Planetara's_ deck. It lay dashed against the dome side.
The deck was aslant. A litter of wreckage! A broken human figure
showed--one of the crew who, at the last, must have come running up.
The forward observation tower was down on the chart room roof: in its
metal tangle I thought I could see the legs of the tower lookout.
So this was the end of the brigands' adventure. The _Planetara's_ last
voyage! How small and futile are humans' struggles. Miko's daring
enterprise--so villainous--brought all in a few moments to this silent
tragedy. The _Planetara_ had fallen thirty thousand miles. But why?
What had happened to Hahn? And where was Coniston, down in this broken
hull?
And Snap! I thought suddenly of Snap.
I clutched at my wandering wits. This inactivity was death. The
escaping air hissed in my ears. Our precious air, escaping away into
the vacant desolation of the Lunar emptiness. Through one of the
twisted, slanting dome windows a rocky spire was visible. The
_Planetara_ lay bow down, wedged in a jagged cradle of Lunar rock. A
miracle that the hull and dome had held together.
"Anita, we must get out of here!"
"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg."
She was staring at the fallen Miko and Moa. She shuddered and turned
away and gripped me. "In the forward storage room, by the port of the
emergency exit."
If only the exit locks would operate! We must find Snap and get out of
here. Good old Snap! Would we find him lying dead?
We climbed from the slanting, fallen turret, over the wreckage of the
littered deck. It was not difficult. A lightness was upon us. The
_Planetara's_ gravity-magnetizers were dead; this was only the light
Moon gravity pulling us.
"Careful, Anita. Don't jump too freely."
We leaped along the deck. The hiss of the escaping pressure was like a
clanging gong of warning to tell us to hurry. The hiss of death so
close!
"Snap--" I murmured.
"Oh, Gregg, I pray we may find him alive!"
With a fifteen foot leap we cleared a pile of broken deck chairs. A
man lay groaning near them. I went back with a rush. Not Snap! A
steward. He had been a brigand, but he was a steward to me now.
"Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here The air is
escaping!"
But he sank back and lay still. No time to find if I could help him:
there was Anita and Snap to save.
We found a broken entrance to one of the descending passages. I flung
the debris aside and cleared it. Like a giant of strength with only
this Moon gravity holding me, I raised a broken segment of
superstructure and heaved it back.
Anita and I dropped ourselves down the sloping passage. The interior
of the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional passage light
was still burning. The passage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckage
everywhere but the double dome and hull shell had withstood the shock.
Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat,
like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling on
everything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would soon be
here in these wrecked corridors. The end of the _Planetara_.
We prowled like ghouls. We did not see Coniston. Snap had been by the
shifter pumps. We found him in the oval doorway. He lay sprawled.
Dead? No, he moved. He sat up before we could get to him. He seemed
confused, but his senses clarified with the movement of our figures
over him.
"Gregg! Why, Anita!"
"Snap! You're all right? We struck--the air is escaping."
He pushed me away. He tried to stand. "I'm all right. I was up a
minute ago. Gregg, it's getting cold. Where is she? I had her
here--she wasn't killed. I spoke to her."
Irrational!
"Snap!" I held him. Shook him. "Snap, old fellow!"