Brigands of the Moon Part 42

"Yes."

The brigands had probably not yet seen us. I took the lamp from my helmet. My hand was trembling. Suppose my signal were answered by a shot? A flash from some giant projector mounted on the ship?

Anita crouched behind a rock, as she had promised. I stood with my torch and flung its switch. My puny light beam shot up. I waved it, touched the ship with its faint glowing circle of illumination.

They saw me. There was a sudden movement among the lights up there.

I semaph.o.r.ed:

_I am from Miko. Do not fire._

I used open universal code. In Martian first, and then in English.

There was no answer, but no attack. I tried again.

_This is Haljan, one of the_ Planetara. _George Prince's sister is with me. There has been disaster to Miko._

A small light beam came down from the brink of the overhead cliff beside the ship.

_Continue._

I went steadily on: _Disaster--the_ Planetara _is wrecked. All killed but me and Prince's sister. We want to join you._

I flashed off my light. The answer came:

_Where is the Grantline Camp?_

_Near here. The Mare Imbrium._

As though to answer my lie, from down on the Earthlit plains, some ten miles or so from the crater base, a tiny signal light shot up. Anita saw it and gripped me.

"There is Miko's light!"

It spelled in Martian, _Come down. Land Mare Imbrium._

Miko had seen the signaling up here and had joined it! He repeated, _Land Mare Imbrium._

I flashed a protest up to the ship: _Beware. That is Grantline!

Trickery._

From the ship the summons came, _Come up._

We had won this first encounter! Miko must have realized his disadvantage. His distant light went out.

"Come, Anita."

There was no retreat now. But again I seemed to feel in the pressure of her hand that vague farewell. Her voice whispered, "We must do our best, act our best to be convincing."

In the white glow of a searchbeam we climbed the crags, reached the broad upper ledge. Helmeted figures rushed at us, searched us for weapons, seized our helmet lights. The evil face of a giant Martian peered at me through the visors. Two other monstrous, towering figures seized Anita.

We were shoved toward the port locks at the base of the ship's hull.

Above the hull bulge I could see the grids of projectors mounted on the dome side, and the figures of men standing on the deck, peering down at us.

We went through the admission locks into a hull corridor, up an incline pa.s.sage, and reached the lighted deck. The Martian brigands crowded around us.

XXIX

Anita's words echoed in my memory: "We must do our best to be convincing." It was not her ability that I doubted, as much as my own.

She had played the part of George Prince cleverly, unmasked only by an evil chance.

I steeled myself to face the searching glances of the brigands as they shoved around us. This was a desperate game into which we had plunged.

For all our acting, how easy it would be for some small chance thing abruptly to undo us! I realized it, and now, as I gazed into the peering faces of these men from Mars, I cursed myself for the witless rashness which had brought Anita into this!

The brigands--some ten or fifteen of them here on deck--stood in a ring around us. They were all big men, nearly of a seven-foot average, dressed in leather jerkins and short leather breeches, with bare knees and flaring leather boots. Piratical swaggering fellows, knife-blades mingled with small hand projectors fastened to their belts. Gray, heavy faces, some with scraggly, unshaven beards. They plucked at us, jabbering in Martian.

One of them seemed the leader. I said sharply, "Are you the commander here? You speak the Earth English?"

"Yes," he said readily. "I am commander here." He spoke English with the same freedom and accent as Miko. "Is this George Prince's sister?"

"Yes. Her name is Anita Prince. Tell your men to take their hands off her."

He waved his men away. They all seemed more interested in Anita than in me. He added:

"I am _Set_ Potan." He addressed Anita. "George Prince's sister? You are called Anita? I have heard of you. I knew your brother--indeed, you look very much like him."

He swept his plumed hat to the grid with a swaggering gesture of homage. A courtierlike fellow this, debonair as a Venus cavalier!

He accepted us. I realized that Anita's presence was extremely valuable in making us convincing. Yet there was about this Potan--as with Miko--a disturbing suggestion of irony. I could not make him out.

I decided that we had fooled him. Then I remarked the steely glitter of his eyes as he turned to me.

"You were an officer of the _Planetara_?"

The insignia of my rank was visible on my white jacket collar which showed beneath the Erentz suit now that my helmet was off.

"Yes. I was supposed to be. But a year ago I embarked upon this adventure with Miko."

He was leading us to his cabin. "The _Planetara_ wrecked? Miko dead?"

"And Hahn and Coniston. George Prince too. We are the only survivors."

While we divested ourselves of the Erentz suits, at his command, I told him briefly of the _Planetara's_ fall. All had been killed on board, save Anita and me. We had escaped, awaited his coming. The treasure was here; we had located the Grantline camp, and were ready to lead him to it.

Did he believe me? He listened quietly. He seemed not shocked at the death of his comrades. Nor yet pleased: merely imperturbable.

I added with a sly, sidelong glance, "There were too many of us on the _Planetara_. The purser had joined us and many of the crew. And there was Miko's sister, the _Setta_ Moa--too many. The treasure divides better among less."