Brood Of The Dark Moon Part 9

Schwartzmann's heavy face had lost its stolid look; it was alive with rage. He thrust his head forward to glare at the men, while he stood firmly, his feet far apart, two heavy fists on his hips. He whirled abruptly and caught Diane by one arm. He pulled her roughly to him and encircled the girl's trim figure with one huge arm.

"Put you _all_ on one island?" he shouted. "Did you think I would put you _all_ out of the s.h.i.+p? You"--he pointed at Harkness--"and you"--this time it was Chet--"go out now. You can die in your d.a.m.ned gas that you expected would kill me! But, you fools, you imbeciles--Mam'selle, she stays with me!" The struggling girl was helpless in the great arm that drew her close.

Harkness' mad rage gave place to a dead stillness. From bloodless lips in a chalk-white face he spat out one sentence:

"Take your filthy hands off her--now--or I'll--"

Schwartzmann's one free hand still held the pistol. He raised it with deadly deliberation; it came level with Harkness' unflinching eyes.

"Yes?" said Schwartzmann, "You will do--what?"

Chet saw the deadly tableau. He knew with a conviction that gripped his heart that here was the end. Walt would die and he would be next. Diane would be left defenseless.... The flas.h.i.+ng thought that followed came to him as sharply as the crack of any pistol. It seemed to burst inside his brain, to lift him with some dynamic power of its own and project him into action.

He threw himself sideways from under the pilot's hand, out from beneath the heavy metal bar--and he whirled, as he leaped, to face the man. One lean, brown hand clenched to a fist that started a long swing from somewhere near his knees; it shot upward to crash beneath the pilot's outthrust jaw and lift him from the floor. Max had aimed the bar in a downward sweep where Chet's head had been the moment before; and now man and bar went down together. In the same instant Chet threw himself upon the weapon and leaped backward to his feet.

One frozen second, while, to Chet, the figures seemed as motionless as if carved from stone--two men beside the half-opened port--Harkness in convulsive writhing between two others--the figure of Diane, strained, tense and helpless in Schwartzmann's grasp--and Schwartzmann, whose aim had been disturbed, steadying the pistol deliberately upon Harkness--

"Wait!" Chet's voice tore through the confusion. He knew he must grip Schwartzmann's attention--hold that trigger finger that was tensed to send a detonite bullet on its way. "Wait, d.a.m.n you! I'll answer your question. I'll tell you what we'll do!"

In that second he had swung the metal bar high; now he brought it cras.h.i.+ng down in front of him. Schwartzmann flinched, half turned as if to fire at Chet, and saw the blow was not for him.

With a splintering crash, the bar went through an obstruction. There was sound of gla.s.s that slivered to a million mangled bits--the sharp tang of metal broken off--a crash and clatter--then silence, save for one bit of gla.s.s that fell belatedly to the floor, its tiny jingling crash ringing loud in the deathly stillness of the room....

It had been the control-room, this place of metal walls and of s.h.i.+ning, polished instruments, and it could be called that no longer. For, battered to useless wreckage, there lay on a metal table a cage that had once been formed of curving bars. Among the fragments a metal ball that had guided the great s.h.i.+p still rocked idly from its fall, until it, too, was still.

It was a room where nothing moved--where no person so much as breathed....

Then came the Master Pilot's voice, and it was speaking with quiet finality.

"And that," he said, "is your answer. Our s.h.i.+p has made its last flight."

His eyes held steadily upon the blanched face of Herr Schwartzmann, whose limp arms released the body of Diane; the pistol hung weakly at the man's side. And the pilot's voice went on, so quiet, so hushed--so curiously toneless in that silent room.

"What was it that you said?--that Harkness and I would be staying here?

Well, you were right when you said that, Schwartzmann: but it's a hard sentence, that--imprisonment for life."

Chet paused now, to smile deliberately, grimly at the dark face so bleached and bloodless, before he repeated:

"Imprisonment for life!--and you didn't know that you were sentencing yourself. For you're staying too, Schwartzmann, you contemptible, thieving dog! You're staying with us--here--on the Dark Moon!"

CHAPTER VI

"_Six to Four_"

Perhaps to every person in that control room there came, as Chet's quiet, emotionless tones died away, the same mental picture; for there was the same dazed look on the countenances of all.

They were seeing an ocean of s.p.a.ce, an endless void of empty black. And across that etheric sea was a whirling globe. They had seen it from afar; they had seen its diminutive continents and its snow-clad poles.... They would never see it again....

Earth!--their own world!--home! And now for them it was only a moon, a tremendous, glorious moon, whose apparent nearness would be taunting and calling them each day and night of their lives....

It was Diane Delacouer who dared to break the hard silence that bound them all. From wide eyes she stared at Walt Harkness; then her lips formed a trembling smile in which Chet, too, was included.

"You saved us," she whispered; "you saved us, Chet ... but now it looks as if we all were exiles."

She crossed slowly, walking like one in a dream, to stand close to Walt Harkness. And Chet Bullard also roused himself; but it was toward the stupefied, hulking figure of Schwartzmann that he moved.

He reached for the detonite pistol, and this man who had been their captor was too stunned to make any resistance. Chet jammed the weapon under his belt.

"Close that port!" he ordered the two men who had half-opened it at Schwartzmann's command. "Keep that poison gas out."

There was a flash of color that swept by the open port--some flying creature of vivid crimson: Chet had no time to see what manner of bird or beast it was. But it was alive! He crossed to examine the spectro-a.n.a.lyzer, and the two men disregarded his order and slipped into the rear cabin.

"Seems all clear to me, Walt," he said; and Harkness confirmed his findings with a quick glance.

"O.K.!" he a.s.sured Chet; "that air is all right to breathe."

He glanced from a lookout port. "The air's moving now," he said. "That gas--whatever it was--is gone; it must have settled down here in the night. Some new vent that has opened since we were here before.

"But suppose we forget that and settle matters in here," he suggested; and Chet nodded a.s.sent.

"Call your men!" Harkness ordered Schwartzmann.

The man had recovered his composure; again his heavy face was flushed beneath a stubble of beard. He made no move to comply with Harkness'

demand.

But there was no need: from the cabin at the rear came the scientist, Kreiss. His face was pale and drawn, and he stared long and searchingly at Chet Bullard. His breath still whistled in his throat; the poison gas had nearly done for him.

At his heels were the two who had been working at the port. Two others, who had held Harkness, were drawn off at one side, where they mumbled one to another and shot ugly glances toward Chet.

This, Chet knew, accounted for all. Even the pilot, Max, had roused from the sleep that a blow on the chin had induced and was again on his feet.

For him no explanation was needed; the shattered cage of the ball-control told its own story.

Harkness seated Mademoiselle Delacouer on a bench at the pilot's post.

"You will want to be in on this," he told her, "but I'll put you here in case they get rough. But don't worry," he added; "we'll be ready for them now."

Then he turned to Schwartzmann: "Now, you! Oh, there are plenty of things I could call you! And you would understand them perfectly, though they are all words that no gentleman would use."