"_But Awfully Dumb...._"
Harkness would never forget the helpless body in his arms, nor the
tender look that came slowly to the opened eyes that gazed so steadily
into his. And yet it was Chet that she seemed to want for the thousand
little services during the week that followed. And Harkness tried to
still the hurt in his heart, and he told himself that it was her
happiness be wanted more than his; that if she found greater pleasure
in having Chet near, then his love was unworthy if it placed itself as
a bar to that other happiness.
He talked by signs with the hairless one whom he called Towahg. It was
the sound the other made as he struck upon his chest. And he learned
that Towahg could guide him to the ship.
The tribe had left them alone. Only Towahg seemed inclined to
friendliness; and Harkness frequently saw the one who was their leader
in ugly, silent contemplation of them when Towahg brought food and
water to their cave.
Diane was recovering, but her progress was slow. She was able at once
to walk and go slowly about, but the least exertion tired her. It had
been a close call, Harkness knew, and he realized that some time must
pass before she could take up the hardships of the trail. And in the
meantime much might happen.
He felt that he must reach the ship at the first possible moment and
return for the others; Towahg would show him the way. He explained the
plan to Chet and Diane only to meet with emphatic dissent.
"You would go alone?" the girl exclaimed. "To meet heaven knows what
dangers? No, no, Walter; you must not! Wait; I am stronger; I can go
soon, I know."
Chet, too, was for delay--Diane was better, and she would improve
steadily. They could carry her, at first. But Harkness looked at the
jungle he must penetrate and knew that he was right.
* * * * *
He gave Towahg a bow and arrows like his own and those that Chet kept
for defense, but the arrows were of sharpened wood without detonite
tips. He grinned toward Chet as he showed the savage how to handle the
marvellous thing.
"We've advanced these people a thousand years in the science of arms,"
he said. "They should make Diane their first Minister of Munitions, or
worship her as their own lovely goddess of the chase."
A weapon that would throw farther than the strongest man could cast a
spear--here was magic indeed! And Towahg knelt and grovelled on the
ground at his benefactor's feet.
Harkness made light of the dangers he must face, but he knew in his
own mind he might fail. And the time of leaving found him curiously
depressed. He had gripped Chet's hand, then turned to Diane for what
might be a last good-by. The quick enfoldment of her soft body in his
arms was as unpremeditated as the kiss he placed upon her lips.... He
swung away abruptly, and fell in behind his guide without a word. The
way led first across the place of smoke and fire.
Danger ahead on this strange trail; he knew it well. But he took it as
it came; and his guide, and his crude weapon, and his steady eye and
sureness of foot on rocky crags all saw him through. And he mentally
mapped the hills and valleys and the outcrops of metals that he would
explore some later time. Only seven of the short six-hour days of this
little earth had passed when he drew near the ship.
He was ready for an attack. There was the broken rubble that marked
the entrance of the cave. Beneath it, he knew, were mangled, horrible
remains. This one beast alone, it seemed, had been the ruler of the
valley, for no other appeared.
The mass that had blocked the doorway was crystalline now, and broke
to brittle fragments at a blow. He entered the familiar cabin of the
ship. There was nothing disturbed; the sealed inner door had barred
entrance to any inquiring beasts.
Far down the valley he saw a naked, running figure. Towahg had
escorted this sky-god to the great bird that had brought him, but the
courage of even so advanced a tribesman as he must have limits. He was
still running along the path they had come when Harkness closed and
sealed the door.
* * * * *
There was an instrument among their stores for taking samples of gas.
Harkness attached it to the ship before he left, and he took a few
precious minutes for a flight into the heights. That gas up there was
fatal to the monsters of space: he must secure a sample and learn its
composition.
A closing of the switch on wires that led to the instrument outside,
and he knew that the container had emptied its contents of water,
drawn in the gas and sealed itself.
Then the swift descent.
He flew low as he circled back. They had traveled far on their journey
below ground; it was even a longer route where he and Towahg had
circled about. But it was the only route he knew; he could take no
chances on a short-cut and a possible long-drawn search for the little
valley.
He followed the trail. The quick dusk was near; but in an hour's slow
flying, while his eyes searched the hills and hollows, the valley was
in sight.
He came down slowly in a black sky, with only the soft, muffled roar
of the lower exhausts. It was growing dark, and he leaned from an open
door to see more clearly his position. All was different from the air,
and he needed time and careful scrutiny to get the bearings of the
place.
The soft thunder from below was in his ears when a sound pierced
through. His own name! And it was Diane's voice calling him in a
terrified tone.
"Walter!" she cried. "Help! Help! Oh, Walter, come quickly!"
* * * * *
The scene below was lighted by fitful fires. He was above the upper
valley, a hundred yards from their cave: his mind was oriented in an
instant, and he knew each foot of ground.
And here, where neither Diane nor Chet should be, was Diane. He saw
her running in the bright glare of his landing light that he now
switched on; saw a black shape hurl itself upon her; she was
struggling. He threw himself back at the controls to send the ship
like a thunderbolt upon the earth.
A pistol was in his hand as he leaped from the still-rocking ship and
threw himself upon the thing that ran and tried to carry a struggling
burden in its arms.
He could not fire; but he brought the pistol down upon a heavy skull.
The hairy figure seemed never to feel the blow. It dropped the body of
Diane and turned, and its slavering, shining fangs were set in a
horrible face that Harkness recognized.
It was the leader of the tribe, and he had dared to attack. But where
was Chet? What of his arrows and their detonite tips? These thoughts
were crowding through his mind in the instant that ape-like fingers
gripped at his throat--the instant while he was bringing the pistol
forward and up.
A light charge of detonite in pistol ammunition--but no living body
could withstand the shock. Harkness leaped over the fallen foe to
reach the girl. She was half risen to a sitting posture as he came.
"_Dieu!_" she was whispering; "_Ah, le bon Dieu!_" Then she cried out:
"Walter! Oh, Walter, they have killed Chet! Down there!" Her hand was
pointing. She grasped at Harkness' hand to draw herself to her feet
and race with him toward the cave.
* * * * *
"Just at dark," she explained gaspingly as they ran. "It was their
chief, and there were others with him. They leaped upon Chet--before
he could reach for his bow. They had seemed so friendly after you
left--but they were short of food--"
Her voice was sobbing now, but she kept on, and she set a pace that
Harkness could not outdistance.
"One aimed a spear at me, and Chet threw himself between. I saw the
spear strike--then I ran. I thought I heard your motors--I screamed
for you--"
They were nearing the caves. A fire was burning in the open glade
where grotesque figures leaped and danced in cannibal glee about a
figure that lay motionless upon the ground.
The tattered, wind-blown clothing--the curling hair, blond in the
fire's light--it was Chet.... And now Harkness could fire.
His pistol held twenty rounds. He emptied it into the shrieking group,
then jammed in more of the shells and fired again. He fired until no
target remained, and every savage figure was either vanished among the
trees or inert and lifeless upon the ground, their only motion the
stirring of their hairy coverings in the breeze.
* * * * *
Harkness was beside the prostrate figure. He raised Chet's head within
his arms; Diane's brown head leaned close, her gasping breath broken
by dry sobs. The firelight flickered upon the closed lids to give them
semblance of life.
"Chet," said Walter Harkness softly. "Chet, old man--can't you speak?
We'll save you, Chet; you're not done for yet." But he felt as he
spoke that the words were a horrible lie; the blood that ran slowly
now from a wound in Chet's side seemed to speak more truly than did
he.
Yet Chet Bullard opened his eyes. His breath was the merest flutter;
the listeners bent their heads close to hear.
"Made it, did you?" asked Chet in a ghastly whisper. "And you've saved
Diane?... Good!... Well, it's been a great trip.... It's been worth
the price...."
Harkness seized at the girl's name. Here was something that might
strike home to the sinking man; might rouse him.
"Yes, Diane is saved," he told Chet: "saved for you, old fellow. You
must live--for Diane's sake. You love her, and she needs you."
Again the tired eyes opened. Once more the fluttering breath formed
words; lips moved to bring a pale ghost of Chet's ready smile like a
passing light across his face.
"Needs me? Diane?" It was a question and a denial. He was looking
straight at Harkness as he added: "It's you she needs.... You're one
square old sport, Walt, but dumb--awfully dumb...."
* * * * *
Glorious adventure!--and the price is so often death. "A great trip,"
Chet Bullard had said; "it's been worth the price." Chet was prepared
to pay in full.
But--there was the ship! Walt Harkness, as she finished bandaging the
body of the unconscious man, stared first at the metal cylinder,
gleaming, brilliant in the Earthlight; then his gaze went to the Earth
that had risen over distant peaks with the glory of a thousand moons.
And he dared to hope.
He brought the ship softly to rest close to where Chet lay, then
placed the limp form on the self-adjusting floor of the control room.
There must be no shifting of the body as the pull of gravitation
ceased. Soft blankets made a resting place for him.
The entrance port was closed and sealed; and the ship rose gently
under his touch. And, below them, the mirrors showed a world that sank
away. Diane's head was pressed near to his to watch that vanishing
world.
Each rugged mountain was softened in the Earthlight's mellow glow;
they melted together, and lost all sharpness of form. And the light
faded and vanished as they rose into the blanket of gas that blocked
off the return rays and made of this world a dark moon.
No regret now for the territory that was unexplored. Harkness told
himself he would return. And, with the vanishing of that world his
thoughts were only of the little flame of life that still flickered in
Chet's body, and of the Earth, and of the metal ball that was swinging
them out and away.... The sound of the stern exhaust built up and up
to the roaring thunder that meant the blast was opened full....