The ship dropped short-lived rocket landing flares, circled and came
in for a fast landing on the cleared strip of brittle-crusted ash.
Some distance from the hastily-patched and now hastily abandoned mine
buildings, Tod Denver and Darbor paused and shot hasty, fearful
glances toward the landed ship. By Earthlight, they could distinguish
its lines, though not the color. It was a drab shadow now against the
vivid grayness of slopes. Figures tiny from distance emerged from it
and scattered across the flat and up into the clustered buildings. A
few stragglers went over to explore and investigate Denver's space
sled in the unlikely possibility that he and the girl had trusted to
its meager and dubious protection.
Besides the ship, the hunters would find evidence of recent occupation
in the living quarters, from which Denver had removed the frozen
corpse before permitting Darbor to assist with the crude remodeling
which he had undertaken. Afterward, when the mine buildings and
exposed shafts had been turned out on futile quest for the fugitives,
the search would spread. Tracks should be simple enough to follow,
once located. Denver had anticipated this potential clue to the
pursuit, and had kept their walking to the bare, rocky heights of the
spur as long as possible.
He hoped to be able to locate the old Martian working, but the chance
was slim. Calculating the shadow-apex of Mitre Peak at 2017 ET was
complicated by several unknown quantities. Which peak was Mitre Peak?
Was that shadow-apex Earth-shadow or Sun-shadow? And had he started
out in the correct direction to find the line of deep-cut arrow
markings at all?
The first intangible resolved itself. One mitre-shaped peak stood out
alone and definite above the sharply defined silhouettes of the
mountains. It must be Mitre Peak. It had to be.
The next question was the light source casting the shadow-apex. There
were two possible answers. It was possible to estimate the approximate
location of either sun or Earth at a given time, but calculations
involved in working out too many possibilities on different Earth-days
of the Lunar-day made the Earth's shadow-casting the likeliest
prospect. Neither location was particularly exact, and probably Laird
Martin had expected his directions to be gone into under less
harrowing circumstances than those in which Denver now found himself.
With time for trial and error one could eventually locate the place.
But Denver was hurried. He trod upon one of the markings while he
still sought the elusive shadow apex.
After that, it was a grim race to follow the markings to the old
mines, and to get under cover behind defensible barricades in time to
repel invasion.
They played a nerve-wracking game of hare and hounds in tricky floods
of Earthlight, upon slopes and spills of broken rock, amid a goblin's
garden of towering jagged spires. It was tense work over the bad
going, and the light was both distorted and insufficient. In shadow,
they groped blindly from arrow to arrow. In the patches of Earthglare,
they fled at awkward, desperate speed.
Life and death were the stakes. Life, or a fighting chance to defend
life, possible wealth from the ancient workings, made a glittering
goal ahead. And ever the gray hounds snapped at their heels, with
death in some ugly guise the penalty for losing the game.
Charley was ecstatic. He gamboled and capered, he zoomed and
zigzagged, he essayed quick, climbing spirals and almost came to
grief among the tangled pinnacles on the ridge of the hogback. He
swooped downward again in a series of shallow, easy glides and began
the performance all over again. It was a game for him, too. But a game
in which he tried only to astound himself, with swift, dizzy miracles
of magnetic movement.
Charley enjoyed himself hugely. He was with the two people he liked
most. He was having a spirited game among interlaced shadows and
sudden, substantial obstacles of rock. He nuzzled the fleeing pair
playfully, and followed them after his own lazy and intricate and
incredibly whimsical fashion. His private mode of locomotion was not
bounded by the possibilities involved in feet and tiring legs. He
scampered and had fun.
It was not fun for Tod Denver and Darbor. The girl's strength was
failing. She lagged, and Denver slowed his pace to support her
tottering progress.
Without warning, the mine entrance loomed before them. It was old and
crumbly with a thermal erosion resembling decay.
It was high and narrow and forbiddingly dark.
Tod Denver had brought portable radilumes, which were needed at once.
Inside the portals was no light at all. Thick, tangible dark blocked
the passage. It swallowed light.
Just inside, the mine gallery was too wide for easy defense. Further
back, there was a narrowing.
* * * * *
Denver seized on the possibilities for barricading and set to work,
despite numbed and weary muscles. Walking on the Moon is tiring for
muscles acquired on worlds of greater gravity. He was near exhaustion,
but the stimulus of fear is strong. He worked like a maniac, hauling
materials for blockade, carrying the smaller ingredients and rolling
or dragging the heavier. A brief interval of rest brought Darbor to
his side. She worked with him and helped with the heavier items.
Fortunately, the faint gravity eased their task, speeded it.
For pursuit had not lagged. Their trail had been found and followed.
From behind his barricade, Denver picked off the first two hired thugs
of the advance guard as they toiled upward, too eagerly impatient for
caution. A network of hastily-aimed beams of heat licked up from
several angles of the slope, but none touched the barricade. The
slope, which flattened just outside the entrance made exact shooting
difficult, made a direct hit on the barricade almost impossible,
unless one stood practically inside the carved entrance-way. Denver
inched to the door and fired.
The battle was tedious, involved, but a stalemate. Lying on his belly,
Denver wormed as close as he dared to the break of slope outside the
door. There, he fired snap shots at everything that moved on the
slopes. Everything that moved on the slopes made a point of returning
the gesture. Some shots came from places he had seen no movement.
It went on for a long time. It was pointless, wanton waste of
heat-blaster ammunition. But it satisfied some primal urge in the
human male without solving anything.
Until Darbor joined him, Denver did not waste thought upon the
futilities of the situation. Her presence terrified him, and he urged
her back inside. She was stubborn, but complied when he dragged her
back with him.
"Now stay inside, you fool," she muttered, her voice barely a whisper
in his communication amplifier.
"You stay inside," he commanded with rough tenderness. They both
stayed inside, crouched together behind the barricade.
"I think I got three of them," he told her. "There seemed to be eight
at first. Some went back to the ship. For more men or supplies, I
don't know. I don't like this."
"Relax," she suggested. "You've done all you can."
"I guess it's back to your gilded cage for you, baby," he said. "My
money didn't last."
"Sometimes you behave like a mad dog," she observed. "I'm not sure I
like you. You enjoyed that butchery out there. You hated to come
inside. What did it prove? There are too many of them. They'll kill
us, eventually. Or starve us out. Have you any bright ideas?"
Denver was silent. None of his ideas were very bright. He was at the
end of his rope. He had tied a knot in it and hung on. But the rope
seemed very short and very insecure.
"Hang on, I guess. Just hang on and wait. They may try a rush. If they
do I'll bathe the entrance in a full load from my blaster. If they
don't rush, we sit it out. Sit and wait for a miracle. It won't happen
but we can hope."
Darbor tried to hug the darkness around her. She was a Martian,
tough-minded she hoped. It would be nasty, either way. But death was
not pleasant. She must try to be strong and face whatever came. She
shrugged and resigned herself.
"When the time comes I'll try to think of something touching and
significant to say," she promised.
"You hold the fort," Denver told her. "And don't hesitate to shoot if
you have to. There's a chance to wipe them out if they try to force in
all at once. They won't, but--"
"Where are you going? For a walk?"
"Have to see a man about a dog. There may be a back entrance. I doubt
it, since Martian workings on the Moon were never very deep. But I'd
like a look at the jackpot. Do you mind?"