"Where the woodbine twineth," said Ross.
Moore's breath came faster. "Wiped out?" He whipped off his spectacles
and polished them absently, his jaw working on his half-forgotten chew
of tobacco. "Gone," he muttered dazedly.
A sudden thought struck Ross. He gripped his navigator's shoulder.
"The stars! You said there was something funny going on!"
Moore's eyes flashed. "Yes!" He slapped his glasses on. "Come on! Let
me show you!" He led the way to the star-scope.
Ross, following, stopped as a signalman approached with a typed
message--the answer to the blinker call that Jorgens had started. The
first sentence was short and blunt. "Number Two reports ray-type dead,
ray-phone weak." Messages from the other five ships were identical
except in the case of Number Seven. An added sentence from the last
ship of the line stood out on the page and Ross felt sick inside as he
read it. "Number Seven also reports explosion on right quarter where
Number Eight was flying. No sign of Number Eight."
* * * * *
At the star-scope Moore hovered as Ross applied his eye to the powerful
lens. "That's Denabola you're on." The navigator's jaw worked, his eyes
glittering.
"Dim," muttered Ross. "Clouds?"
"No!" exploded Moore. "Denabola was bright as ever, then suddenly went
dim!"
Ross sat up quickly, a question in his staring eyes.
"You mean--the way the red stars go dim when we drain them of the red
rays that power our ships and inter-planet communications?"
"Just that way," said Moore, blinking in excitement.
For a long moment their glances were locked. Then Ross heaved a stifled
sigh. "This may mean a lot, Harry," he murmured. "I wonder if it might
not even mean--"
"Whatever happened to Number Eight?" asked Moore quickly.
Slowly Ross nodded. "Let's see. Denabola's a blue star. Have you
checked on any other blue stars?"
Moore took the seat at the star scope. "Only Vega. She's dim, too. Let
me get Sirius." He twirled a knob at the side of the telescope barrel,
then another, then straightened, with an explosive gasp. "Look at
Sirius!"
Ross looked and caught his breath. Sirius, the brightest star in all
the firmament, was a dull lackluster thing.
Flight-Commander Bruce Ross sat back at the star-scope and pushed his
space helmet off his head. He ran a steady hand through his unruly
blond hair, smoothing out the tight wrinkles in his broad forehead as
if to silence the urgent question that hammered in his brain. Something
was happening in the heavens, and all his lore of flying and fighting
might be none too much to set against the celestial puzzle.
"Harry," he asked finally, "the Moon Men know all about our red-ray
work. Do you suppose they've gone to work somehow on the blue stars?"
Moore screwed up his face, blinking behind his glasses. "Well," he said
finally, "there's Horta."
Ross nodded. "I was thinking of Horta," he admitted grimly. He had
never forgotten Horta, Lord of the Moon Caverns, the darkly hostile
savant who had held out so long at that fateful conference when the
Council of Seven, rulers of the Earth, had made their all-or-nothing
flight to the Moon, there to lay the question of peace or war before
Magnus, the Moon King, and his lords. The Seven had won Horta over
finally by offering him all the Earth secrets of the red rays that had
made Earth-Moon travel possible. They had even set up a ray reservoir
in Horta's great cavern, and had shown him how the harnessed rays could
provide power for ships and explosive for sky-torpedoes. Yet Horta had
never succeeded in building any but tiny ships that could barely circle
the Moon, and he had denied any success with the torpedoes. Only on the
ray-type and the ray-phone, essential to Earth-Moon intercourse, had he
followed instructions with real results.
* * * * *
"Blue rays, then?" muttered Ross, staring at Moore. He turned as
Jorgens appeared hesitantly. "Well?"
"Garbled message by ray-phone from our Earth station, sir. From Censor
Trowbridge, apparently." Jorgens handed over a sheet of paper. "We put
it down as we heard it."
Ross and Moore bent over it eagerly. "... trouble ... Moon ... Four ...
Magnus killed...." It ended with "... bridge."