Astounding Stories, August, 1931 Part 13

But the tall man stood uncompromisingly erect. "Never," he said, "have I seen a ship large enough to hold two commanding pilots. I take your orders in all things, Herr Schwartzmann--all but this. If we die--we die."

Schwartzmann sputtered: "We should haff turned away. Even yet we might. It will--it will--"

"Perhaps," agreed Kreiss, still in that precise, cla.s.s-room voice, "perhaps it will. But this I know: with an acceleration of one thousand m.p.h. as this young man with the badge of a Master Pilot says, we cannot hope, in the time remaining, to overcome our present velocity; we can never check our speed and build up a relatively opposite motion before that globe would overwhelm us. If he has figured correctly, this young man--if he has found the true resultant of our two motions of approach--and if he has swung us that we may drive out on a line perpendicular to the resultant--"

"I think I have," said Chet quietly. "If I haven't, in just a few minutes it won't matter to any of us; it won't matter at all." He met the gaze of Herr Doktor Kreiss who regarded him curiously.

"If we escape," the scientist told him, "you will understand that I am under Herr Schwartzmann's command; I will be compelled to shoot you if he so orders. But, Herr Bullard, at this moment I would be very proud to shake your hand."

And Chet, as he extended his hand, managed a grin that was meant also for the tense, white-faced Harkness and Diane. "I like to see 'em dealt that way," he said, "--right off the top of the deck."

But the smile was erased as he turned back to the lookout. He had to lean close to see all of the disk, so swiftly was the approaching globe bearing down.

It came now from the side; it swelled larger and larger before his eyes. Their own ship seemed unmoving; only the unending thunder of the generator told of the frantic efforts to escape. They seemed hung in s.p.a.ce; their own terrific speed seemed gone--added to and fused with the orbital motion of the Dark Moon to bring swiftly closer that messenger of death. The circle expanded silently; became menacingly huge.

Chet was whispering softly to himself: "If I'd got hold of her an hour sooner--thirty minutes--or even ten.... We're doing over twenty thousand an hour combined speed, and we'll never really hit it....

We'll never reach the ground."

He turned this over in his mind, and he nodded gravely in confirmation of his own conclusions. It seemed somehow of tremendous importance that he get this clearly thought out--this experience that was close ahead.

"Skin friction!" he added. "It will burn us up!"

He had a sudden vision of a flaming star blazing a hot trail through the atmosphere of this globe; there would be only savage eyes to follow it--to see the line of fire curving swiftly across the heavens.... He, himself, was seeing that blazing meteor so plainly....

His eyes found the lookout: the globe was gone. They were close--close! Only for the enveloping gas that made of this a dark moon, they would be seeing the surface, the outlines of continents.

Chet strained his eyes--to see nothing! It was horrible. It had been fearful enough to watch that expanding globe.... He was abruptly aware that the outer rim of the lookout was red!

For Chet Bullard, time ceased to have meaning; what were seconds--or centuries--as he stared at that glowing rim? He could not have told.

The outer sh.e.l.l of their ship--it was radiant--shining red-hot in the night. And above the roar of the generator came a nerve-ripping shriek. A wind like a blast from h.e.l.l was battering and tearing at their ship.

"Good-by!" He had tried to call; the demoniac shrieking from without smothered his voice. One arm was across his eyes in an unconscious motion. The air of the little room was stifling. He forced his arm down: he would meet death face to face.

The lookout was ringed with fire; it was white with the terrible white of burning steel!--it was golden!--then cherry red! It was dying, as the fire dies from glowing metal plunged in its tempering bath--or thrown into the cold reaches of s.p.a.ce!

In Chet's ears was the roar of a detonite motor. He tried to realize that the lookouts were rimmed with black--cold, fireless black! An incredible black! There were stars there like pinpoints of flame! But conviction came only when he saw from a lookout in another wall a circle of violet that shrank and dwindled as he watched....

A hand was gripping his shoulder; he heard the voice of Walter Harkness speaking, while Walt's hand crept over to raise the triple star that was pinned to his blouse.

"Master Pilot of the World!" Harkness was saying. "That doesn't cover enough territory, old man. It's another rating that you're ent.i.tled to, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what it is."

And, for once, Chet's ready smile refused to form. He stared dumbly at his friend; his eyes pa.s.sed to the white face of Mademoiselle Diane; then back to the controls, where his hand, without conscious volition, was reaching to move a metal ball.

"Missed it!" he a.s.sured himself. "Hit the fringe of the air--just the very outside. If we'd been twenty thousand feet nearer!..." He was moving the ball; their bow was swinging. He steadied it and set the ship on an approximate course.

"A stern chase!" he said aloud. "All our momentum to be overcome--but it's easy sailing now!"

He pushed the ball forward to the limit, and the explosion-motor gave thunderous response.

CHAPTER IV

_The Return to the Dark Moon_

No man faces death in so shocking a form without feeling the effects.

Death had flicked them with a finger of flame and had pa.s.sed them by.

Chet Bullard found his hands trembling uncontrollably as he fumbled for a book and opened it. The tables of figures printed there were blurred at first to his eyes, but he forced himself to forget the threat that was past, for there was another menace to consider now.

And uppermost in his mind, when his thoughts came back into some approximate order, was condemnation of himself for an opportunity that was gone.

"I could have jumped him," he told himself with bitter self-reproach; "I could have grabbed the pistol from Kreiss--the man was petrified."

And then Chet had to admit a fact there was no use of denying: "I was as paralyzed as he was," he said, and only knew he had spoken aloud when he saw the puzzled look that crossed Harkness' face.

Harkness and Diane had drawn near. In a far corner of the little room Schwartzmann had motioned to Kreiss to join him; they were as far away from the others as could be managed. Schwartzmann, Chet judged, needed some scientific explanation of these disturbing events; also he needed to take the detonite pistol from Kreiss' hand and jam it into his own hand. His eyes, at Chet's unconscious exclamation, had come with instant suspicion toward the two men.

"Forty-seven hours, Walt," the pilot said, and repeated it loudly for Schwartzmann's benefit; "--forty-seven hours before we return to this spot. We are driving out into s.p.a.ce; we've crossed the orbit of the Dark Moon, and we're doing twenty thousand miles an hour.

"Now we must decelerate. It will take twenty hours to check us to zero speed; then twenty-seven more to shoot us back to this same point in s.p.a.ce, allowing, of course, for a second deceleration. The same figuring with only slight variation will cover a return to the Dark Moon. As we sweep out I can allow for the moon-motion, and we'll hit it at a safe landing speed on the return trip this time."

Chet was paying little attention to his companion as he spoke. His eyes, instead, were covertly watching the bulky figure of Schwartzmann. As he finished, their captor shot a volley of questions at the scientist beside him; he was checking up on the pilot's remarks.

Chet was leaning forward to stare intently from a lookout, his head was close to that of Harkness.

"Listen, Walt," he whispered; "the Moon's out of sight; it's easy to lose. Maybe I can't find it again, anyway--it's going to take some nice navigating--but I'll miss it by ten thousand miles if you say so, and even the Herr Doktor can't check me on it."

Chet saw the eyes of Schwartzmann grow intent. He reached ostentatiously for another book of tables, and he seated himself that he might figure in comfort.

"Just check me on this," he told Harkness.

He put down meaningless figures, while the man beside him remained silent. Over and over he wrote them--would Harkness never reach a decision?--over and over, until--

"I don't agree with that," Harkness told him and reached for the stylus in Chet's hand. And, while he appeared to make his own swift computations, there were words instead of figures that flowed from his pen.

"Only alternative: return to Earth," he wrote. "Then S will hold off; wait in upper levels. Kreiss will give him new bearings. We'll shoot out again and do it better next time. Kreiss is n.o.body's fool. S means to maroon us on Moon--kill us perhaps. He'll get us there, sure. We might as well go now."

Chet had seen a movement across the room. "Let's start all over again," he broke in abruptly. He covered the writing with a clean sheet of paper where he set down more figures. He was well under way when Schwartzmann's quick strides brought him towering above them.

Again the detonite pistol was in evidence; its small black muzzle moved steadily from Harkness to Chet.