_The Gateway to Hell_
Spud O'Malley, at the controls of the ship, held the craft in a vertical
lift while his eyes clung in horrible fascination to the mirrors that
showed from a lower lookout the volcanic floor falling away. Amazement
had almost stifled his breathing, until at last he let go a long breath
that ended in a curse.
"The outrageous, damned things!" he breathed. "Jumping, they were, and
leaping, and flying on their leather wings like a lot of black bats out
o' hell! And I'm thinkin' that's where they've taken Chet Bullard, and
never again will he hold a ship like 'twas in the hollow of his hand,
and him settin' it down like a feather!
"And: 'Fly back home!' he says to me. I can do it, too; thanks to his
teachin'. But fly back and leave that bhoy in the hands of those
murderin' devils!--'tis little he knows the Irish!"
He was talking half under his breath, murmuring to himself as if it
helped him to see clearly the situation that must be faced.
"But to get to him--that's the trouble. I saw a big door go shut in that
stone floor. They're cunnin', clever beasts; I'll say that for 'em. And
there was a raft of 'em; and plenty more down in hell where they live,
I've no doubt."
He moved forward on the ball-control, and the great ship swept like a
silvery shadow through the night toward the distant, lighted crater rim.
This he could see clearly, but the other side of the ring of mountains
was black with shadow.
And, far out beyond, spread like a cloud over all the desolate world,
was blackness. Spud drove the ship up another five thousand feet, and
still that darkness spread out in inky pools where only an occasional
mountain peak caught the flat rays of the sun.
* * * * *
And what had Chet called these dark areas? "Lake of Dreams" and "Lake of
Death." Spud's superstitious mind was a-quiver with dread and an
ominous premonition to which the empty, frozen wastes below him gave
added force.
"I'll have to wait," he told himself. "The light of the Moon--I mean the
Earth--is bright, but not bright enough. I'll just wait till the Sun
climbs higher. When it shines down into that hole that is the gateway to
hell--and well I know it--then I can see what is there. Then, maybe, I
can find some way to get inside; and I hope the lad lives till I get
there."
He circled back; swept down in a long, leisurely flight, and came again
to the place of gently sloping rock where Chet had first landed. And he
searched till he found the identical spot and laid the ship down on a
level keel.
Far away the Sun was gilding the hard outlines of mountains that ringed
them in. Spud did not know how long he must wait. Had he realized that
it must be a matter of days it is probable he would have donned the
metal suit and started out. But instead he busied himself in a careful
investigation of the storeroom and a check-up of ammunition and supplies
that were there.
* * * * *
The lunar day, as all Earth-men know, is a matter of nearly fifteen of
Earth's days. Spud O'Malley was wild with impatience when at last the
Sun was striking less flatly across the land and he knew that the time
had come when he could start.
He had sensed the change that took place in the world outside; from the
lookouts of the control room he had seen the bare rocks lose their white
markings of hoar frost and at last actually quiver with heat as the Sun
beat upon them. He had seen the growing things that crept from every
crevice and hollow--pale, colorless mosses that threw out long tendrils
which licked across the hot rocks as if hungry for the nourishment the
thin air brought.
Spud knew nothing of the carbon dioxide which these pale green growths
could combine with water under the Sun's hot rays and build into
vegetable tissue. But he marveled again and again at the hungry things
that made a mesh of ropy strands across the smooth area about the ship.
They even hung in drooping masses from the weird rocks beyond; and, so
light they were, they raised their heads hungrily in air, while the
corded tendrils even threw themselves in contorted writhings at times
when the Sun struck with increasing warmth.
"A dead world!" said Spud scornfully. "How much the scientists back
there don't know! First those livin', flyin' devils; and now this! The
whole place is fairly wrigglin' with life."
* * * * *
It was then that he made one last flight over the inner crater and saw
light on the floor of stone in the funneled depths. Then he sent the
ship like a rocket down to the shelf of rock where Chet had begun his
descent; and he worked with trembling fingers to adjust the metal suit
and regulate the oxygen supply.
He waited only to strap a couple of detonite pistols about him; then,
with never a backward look, he let himself out through the air-locking
doors and started pell-mell toward the inner crater.
Like Chet, he had learned to gage his tremendous strength; like the
master pilot, he threw himself down the rocky slope. But where Chet had
leaped and stumbled in the darkness, O'Malley worked in full light.
He came at last to the rocky floor where molten stone in ages past had
hardened to seal the throat of this vent. Hundreds of feet across, Spud
estimated; smooth in appearance from above, but broken with deep
crevasses and excrescences where hot, fluid stone had frozen in its
moment of bubbling turbulence. And, in one place, where the floor was
smooth, Spud found what he was searching for: a circular, metal ledge
that projected above the smooth rock; and, within it, a still smoother
sheet of what appeared to be hammered metal.
"A door it is," whispered the pilot, half-fearful of listening ears,
"and the gateway to Hell!" He grinned broadly at some thought. "And here
I've been told 'twas, of all places, the easiest to get into; one little
slip from grace and there you were! Sure, and the priests were as wrong
as the scientists. It must be Heaven that's easy to crash, for the front
door of Hades is shut fast without even a keyhole to peep through."
* * * * *
Then his face sobered to its customary homely lines. "The poor bhoy!" he
exclaimed. "I've got to get in some way. I wonder how hard and thick it
is."
He was raising a mass of black, shining rock in his hands--a fragment
that his strength would not have moved a fraction of an inch on Earth.
He steadied it above his head, preparing to crash it upon the metal
door; then waited; stared incredulously at the black metal sheet;
lowered the great stone silently and turned to leap mightily yet with
never a sound for the shelter of an upflung saw-toothed ridge.
And, from its shelter, he watched the black door swing smoothly into the
air, while, from the gaping black mouth of the pit beneath, incredible
man-shapes of fish-belly white drew themselves up to the edge of the pit
and perched there, where they might stretch their long necks into the
light of the Sun.
Below them, Spud saw, dangled long, rat-like tails; and their wings,
black and leathery, hung down too from their backs or dragged on the
rocks behind where some three or four of the owl-eyed creatures crawled
out and walked across the rock toward the place where an Irish pilot
waited and stared with unbelieving and horrified eyes from the
concealment of his rocky fort.