_Heart of the Moon_
In the grasp of the winged creatures' long, clawed hands Chet was
helpless. He was struggling vainly when they released their hold and he
felt himself falling into a pit that, as far as he knew, was a
bottomless abyss. He was still struggling to right himself in mid-air
when he struck.
To fall even so short a distance on Earth would have meant instant
death. Here, where gravitation's pull was but one-sixth that of Earth,
he still struck on a rocky floor with a thud that made him sick for lack
of breath.
Above him was a pale circle of light. Tipping the edge of a vast crater
mouth high above was a rim of brilliance. Earthlight! Chet was suddenly
certain that he was seeing that glow for the last time as the circle
went black, and there came to him the unmistakable clang of metal where
a door was shut.
Through the countless mingled emotions that filled him he was wondering
what manner of creatures these were into whose hands he had fallen.
Intelligent, beyond a doubt, in their own way; he could not question the
evidence of his own eyes and ears. They were able to work in metals and
to seal the mouth of this lunar tomb.
But he was still alive; he could not give up now. This adventure upon
which he had launched with such high hopes had turned out differently
than expected; but, he told himself, it was not ended yet.
And, instead of a lifeless globe, he had found this: a place peopled
with strange, half-human life. And, more marvelous still, instead of
Haldgren, whom he had come to seek, there had been a girl!
* * * * *
Chet had recovered his ability to breathe, had made sure that the oxygen
tank was intact; and now he called softly into the blackness of this
dark vault where he had seen her thrown.
"Are you alive?" he asked. "Can you hear me?"
For answer came quick rustling of moving bodies, the smooth rasping of
wings on leathery wings, hands that fumbled for him, then closed about
arms and legs and throat, while in his ears was a chattering of
high-pitched squeals. Again he was lifted in air, held there in the grip
of a score of lean, long-fingered hands. He was nerving himself to
undergo without flinching whatever new torture might be in store. Yet he
thrilled inexplicably as through the sounds of these things about him,
he heard a muffled: "Yes--yes! Oh, I am glad--"
The sentence was unfinished. Before Chet's eyes a light was growing. A
mere slit at first, it grew to a luminous circle in the rocky floor. And
as it opened, he felt the pressure of his metal suit upon his body,
where before it had been slightly ballooned by the pressure of oxygen he
had maintained.
With the opening of this door to another subterranean chamber had come a
renewed atmospheric pressure. And now, in the denser gas, he saw, in
ghastly silhouette against the lighted pit, flying figures that floated
and soared on outstretched wings of inky black.
* * * * *
Beside him and above he heard the swishing flutter of other wings; he
felt himself lifted from the floor; he was being floated out above the
luminous pit by the flying things that held him.
No direct glare came from below, but a soft violet radiance. It shone
full upon him--past him--to light up and give detail to those faces that
had been featureless before. Chet had just one moment of fascinated
staring into the diabolical, pasty faces where narrow, red eyes stared
back into his. Then the squealing voices were stilled!
One, louder than the rest, rasped an order. And again Chet felt the
hands relax; once more he was falling, down--down--and still down--until
he knew that his velocity of fall meant an impact he could never
survive.
And, curiously, as he fell, his mind was entirely unconcerned with his
own fate. For himself, he had accepted death. But he saw for what seemed
like hours a vision of a familiar control room and an Irish pilot who
sat by the controls. He was looking sharply ahead, he was checking
speed, he was landing softly--safely--on a familiar field of Earth....
That passed; and, following, came a feeling of regret, a deep hurt and
a rage at his own inability to be of help. For, above him, through the
luminous air, he saw another body falling, and he knew that the girl,
too, had been thrown to the same fate.
* * * * *
Those eyes of blue had locked with his for but a few brief seconds. Who
she was--what she was--he had no way of knowing. But in that instant of
mental meeting there had passed a flash between the two that had burned
deeply into Chet's real and hidden self.
Chet, himself, had he been in laughing mood, might have smiled at the
idea of affection being born in that brief time. Yet he might have asked
instead how long was needed to bridge the sharp gap of a radio-power
transmitter; how much time was needed for anode and cathode each to
recognize the other. Something of this was passing in confusion through
his mind while his more conscious faculties were tensing his body for
the fatal impact he knew must come.
Without thinking the thought in words he knew that the luminous walls
had receded. They were more distant now; their glow came to him from far
above, and, as his falling body turned again and again in air, he saw
that below him was nothing but a vast emptiness filled with luminous
vapors that swirled and writhed.
Then the last gleam of lighted walls faded; he was falling at terrific
speed through a black tempest whose winds tore and screamed about him.
* * * * *
It was his own falling speed that made these winds; there remained with
him enough of reasoning power to realize this. And he waited, and
marveled that he could fall so tremendous a distance. First had been
the great shaft down which he had plunged; then, as it widened, had come
this greater void. The crater of Hercules must have opened, into a vast
shell or a cavern of incredible depth. The winged things of the Moon
knew of it; they had cast him to his death--him and the girl.
Her slowly turning body was not far away; it was as if they two hung
suspended in air, while frightful blasts of whatever gas filled this
space whipped and shrieked past and wrapped them round with a terrific
pressure. And then the tempest ceased. Slowly the blasts diminished; the
pressure relaxed; gradually the sense of falling passed away, and with
this there came a glimpse of light.
Again the walls glowed as they had before, but far off in the distance.
Chet saw them grow luminous while he seemed hung motionless in space.
Then once more they drew away from him; once more he knew he was falling
away from that light--plunging again into the depths he had traversed.
And now, despite the oxygen that came to him uninterruptedly, he found
his head swimming. The limit of human endurance had been reached.
Desperately he tried to bring his reason to bear upon this miracle that
had happened. He had not struck; instead of falling to his death he had
cushioned against something; he was falling again where, not far away,
another metal-clad figure hung limply in air and fell as he fell. And
with that knowledge the whirling turmoil within his brain ended in a
blood-red flashing that went finally to merciful darkness....
* * * * *
That darkness still wrapped him thickly about when he regained
consciousness--a darkness saved from utter black only by a faint
luminosity that seemed to penetrate and be part of the air about him.
Still hardly more than half-conscious, lying, it seemed, on a soft bed
where he was weightless, he stirred and flung out one arm. From his
fingertips he saw whirls of violet light sweep out and away, as vortices
might have been set in motion by a swimmer in a more liquid medium.
Fascinated, failing utterly to comprehend where he was, he moved his
hands deliberately, swept one arm from side to side--and a number of
luminous whirlpools went spinning out into space. And then he
remembered.
He remembered the terrific fall that miraculously brought him back to a
place of light like that where his fall had begun. He remembered
beginning the second fall; and, while he still could not know what it
meant, he knew that he must have been unconscious for hours. And, with
that, his thoughts came back to the girl. For the first time he found
leisure to give mental voice to his wonderment.
The mystery of it all!--of her presence here on the Moon! Again he was
overwhelmed with the wonder of his surprising discovery. It was nearly
beyond belief; almost he doubted the reality of what his own eyes had
seen.
* * * * *
But there was no doubting his own presence here in this strange place.
The unreality of it--the strangeness of his own sensations--were borne
in upon him. Where was he? he asked. What was this soft cushion upon
which he rested so lightly? He tried to sit up and found that he merely
twisted his body and set other eddies of light into motion.
Cautiously, he swung one arm out as far as he could reach. There was
nothing there. He moved the arm down; reached with his hand beneath
him--and still there was nothing tangible! Through his mind swept a
gripping fear, a wordless, incoherent terror of something he could not
name. Desperately he wanted to touch something firm and solid; lay his
hands upon something he knew was real; and he flung out arms and legs in
a paroxysm of futile effort.
He seemed hung in nothingness, an utter emptiness where nothing moved;
only the ghostly whirls of light that ran lazily away from his beating
hands until they died silently away into darkness, swallowed up in this
unspeakable horror of soundless space. And, when he had quieted again,
he knew with a dreadful certainty that there was nothing there; he was
suspended in a great void--immersed in an ocean of some unknown gas.
The sense of loneliness that filled him was devastating. He could have
faced death as he had faced it before, unflinchingly; that was all in
the day's work. But here was something that tested sanity itself. Could
he but touch something substantial, he told himself, it would help him
to keep a grip on reality; even to see and feel one of the winged
horrors would be in a way a relief.
* * * * *
His struggles had ceased; all about him the atmosphere was quivering and
writhing with whirling light that swirled and danced and mingled one
glowing vortex with another. Then it, too, died; and, through the dark
that was relieved only by the faint luminosity of the quiescent gas, he
saw far off a point of light.
Here was something to which he could pin his eyes; something outside of
himself and the horror of nothingness in which he was immersed. He
stared through the window of his helmet while the light grew and
expanded into nebulous, cloudy glowing that faded and was gone.
Again it came and died; and a third time. And then Chet Bullard swore
loudly and harshly within the silence of his own metal sheath, while he
cursed his own dullness that had kept him from instant comprehension.
That light was far away, but, "Keep moving!" Chet called, hoping that
his voice might span the void. "Keep moving so I can see your light!
I'll try to swim over."
He threw himself over with a convulsive jerk and flattened the palms of
his hands in a breaststroke, while he kicked with his feet against the
dense atmosphere about him. And he saw with delight that the whirling
ripples of light moved back of him; he felt that he was making some
headway, slight though it must be.
* * * * *
He saw her at last, and heard her call:
"I am swimming, too," she cried. "How wonderful to see you! This
loneliness! It is horrible--unbearable!"
"I understand," Chet said; "it is pretty bad."
Then, at sound of a stifled sob, he gripped one reaching hand hard and
tried to bring himself out from under the pall that numbed his own mind;
he even attempted to force a note of lightness into his words.
"I've flown everything with wings," he told her, "but this is the first
time I ever flew myself. Guess I was never properly designed."
Feeble, this attempt at humor; but there was none to note the strained
edge in his tone, only a girl, whose metal-clad hand closed in a tight
hold upon his.
"You can joke--_now_," she said with a catch in her voice that showed
how desperately hard she was trying to meet Chet's fortitude and force
her own words to steadiness. "That takes--real nerve. I like that!"
Then she added: "But it's hopeless; you know that. They've got us. And
now that some of them have been killed they will--they will--"
And the trace of Chet's strained smile that lingered on his lips, could
she have seen it, would have appeared grim.
"Whatever it was you didn't say, I agree with. I imagine the finish will
not be pleasant." Once more he was facing the inevitable; and, as
before, he faced it squarely and knowingly, then put it completely from
his mind. There was so much he must know before that adventure's end was
reached.
"Tell me," he demanded, "who are 'they'? Where are they? How many are
there of them? And where have they got us? What kind of a place is this,
where all natural laws are suspended, where gravitation is at zero?
"And, for heaven's sake, tell me: who are you? Where are you from? How
did you get here on the Moon?"
* * * * *
That uncontrollable catch in the girl's voice had taken on a trace of
brave laughter that overlay the trembling sob in her throat.
"That is a lot of information," she said, "and I am afraid it will not
make much difference if you know. Oh, I wish I had some atom of
encouragement for you! I do not know who you are either--and you have
been so brave! You have come here, I brought you with my signals for
help--brought you to your death.
"For it _is_ death! This is the end of our adventuring--mine and yours
as well--here at the center, the exact center of the Moon."
"Ah-h!" answered Chet Bullard softly, as understanding came to him. "I
should have guessed it. The atmospheric pressure and density--and we
fell past the center, then back again; we've been vibrating back and
forth until we came to rest at last. And now we die! Well, it might have
been worse."
He was staring out through the little window of his helmet, staring into
the faintly luminous atmosphere, facing the end of his brave fling with
fortune. It was an instant before he realized that there was something
moving in the void. He pressed softly upon the hand he held and pointed.
"See!" he said in a hushed tone. "There is something there!"
* * * * *
It took form slowly, a shapeless, round blur in the pale light. Inch by
inch it drifted toward them, until Chet moved one hand abruptly and
found he had created a ripple of light by which he could see more
clearly. And he saw before him a bulging, membraneous sac.
It had been smoothly spherical before; it heaved itself into strange
protuberances as he watched. He flipped his hand to set up another
vortex of light, and he saw the first rip that formed in the membrane.
Before his staring eyes the bag burst open; and Chet, who had wished for
some substantial thing, even a denizen of this wild world, found his
wish fulfilled. For the thin membrane tore in a score of places to
release a body from within--a shapeless, huddled mass of chalk-white
flesh in a wrapping of black leather that unfolded before his eyes and
became wings which waved feebly in their first attempt at flight.
The pallid body, supple as a giant worm, jerked spasmodically and turned
sightless eyes toward the watching Earth-folk. Then, as if drawn by some
magnet, invisible in the distance, the black wings began to beat the
air, and the creature moved off in a straight line toward some unknown
goal.
* * * * *
Another of the membraneous spheres drifted past in the light that came
from those fluttering wings. A second showed in repulsive shininess.
Chet was aware that there were many of the things about.
"Eggs!" he exclaimed with a disgust that partook of nausea, "And the
damnable thing hatched--right here!--before our eyes!"
And the girl gave the final explanation: "The Moon is just a great
shell. They lay their eggs, these half-human creatures that you saw, and
attach them to the inner surface of that shell. Then at a certain period
they come loose and float away. I never knew what became of them; now I
understand at last."
"You know all this!" protested Chet. "How can you know it? How long have
you been here?"
"I kept track of time for a while," said the voice beside him; "then I
forgot it when they took Frithjof away. But it must be about five years.
Five years of terror and vain hopes and wild plans for escape! And now
it ends--after five years!"
And Chet Bullard, within his metal helmet, was repeating in
bewilderment: "Five years! Haldgren left five years ago! What does it
mean?"
Nor did he pause to realize that through his amazement was woven a
thread of another hue, tinged faintly with jealousy that demanded of
him: "Frithjof! Who is Frithjof who was taken away?"
Chet's mind was filled with a confusion of questions that jostled one
another to silence when he tried to give them expression. And there was
little time for questioning.
* * * * *
He saw other floating eggs whose membraneous coverings had turned
leathery and opaque. And he saw white phantom figures who gathered those
eggs. One came near till Chet could make out the repulsive face and
black, staring eyes with their fiery red center. It was one of the
things that had captured him; he saw it move swiftly on broad wings. It
held a leathery egg in its curled-claw hands while its long tail whipped
around and laid the egg open with one slash of a sharp spiked point.
One more of the young of this horrible species was liberated and went
winging away into the dark, only the whirls of light in the atmosphere
marking the beating of its wings.
Chet's eyes followed it to see far out beyond a light that expanded as
it drew near. The beaten atmospheric gas was whipped to cold flame where
some ten or a dozen phantom demons came swiftly on toward the waiting
humans.
They were swarming about in an instant. Chet had no time for even a
shouted warning before he felt himself seized by their long, bony claws.
Then a net of rough-fibered rope was flung about him, and he felt it
draw tight as the winged beasts lifted him up and out into the void.
"Wrong again!" Chet told himself ruefully. "We don't die at the center
of the Moon, after all!" But, as the whipping wings drove whirling
blasts of violet light back upon him he could find nothing of comfort in
the thought that some different experience still lay ahead.