Spacewrecked on Venus Part 3

"Our equipment," said Quentin, pointing to the food stores and other articles the cave men had hastily disarranged. "They came to steal!"

"But the man!" I insisted.

"A renegade!"

Cragley shook his head. "It's queer," he said. "I don't know what to make of it."

An examination of our equipment proved we had suffered few losses.

Several boxes of synthetic food were gone, and one of the crew had lost his electric pistol. Aside from these thefts, nothing else appeared to be missing. Cragley tripled the guards, and the rest went back to sleep once more. Nothing else occurred during that night. I was unable to get the fleeing renegade out of my mind. There was something familiar about the figure as I had seen it revealed in the glare of the firelight just before the savages disappeared in the jungle.

The thefts of the food and pistol were logical enough in view of the fact that the troglodytes had stolen them, but, guided by the man, why had they neglected stealing the platinum? Evidently, they were unaware of its presence.

Murky morning suffused the perpetually clouded sky, and once more we pushed on toward our goal, distant Deliphon--so near and yet so far.

Much to the relief of everyone, we came out of the jungle into a comparatively open country. High gra.s.ses grew about us, but the going was much easier than we had experienced while in the jungle. The land before us was a bit rolling and hilly. Leafy copses dotted the landscape as far as the eye might reach. In the open, the danger from lurking beasts was at a minimum. Our hopes rose higher.

It was around noon when the s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p from the south cruised into view above us. Cragley viewed it in consternation.

"The brigands! Now we're up against it!"

For a moment, pandemonium reigned among the frightened pa.s.sengers. All had plans, each one trying to put his own into force at once. Out of the chaos, Captain Cragley gathered order.

"Head for the bushes!" he cried. "We're all armed! If they come too close, let them have it!"

The a.s.surance in Cragley's voice I knew was faked. Like him, I realized the desperate odds which confronted us. The s.h.i.+p was high above. We had plenty of time to scurry for cover before it dropped lower. Cragley and Quentin arranged us to the best advantage, and we waited for the initiative of the outlaws of Venus.

The s.h.i.+p descended several hundred feet away. Our retreat into the bushes had been carefully watched. Several men left the craft and came slowly, uncertainly, toward our position.

"Stop where you are!" snapped Cragley from his place of concealment.

"Come across wi' the metal!" shouted one of them in a high pitched voice. "An' get outa there--or get riddled!"

Cragley's reply was a blue spurt from the muzzle of his pistol. The distance was much too far for accurate firing, but the charge went dangerously close. The outlaws immediately turned tail and ran for their craft. We waited for their next act, knowing that the battle had only commenced.

The s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p shot skyward, circling our wide clump of bushes. The survivors of the _C-49_ tensed themselves for a destructive bombardment from above. It did not come. Captain Cragley was plainly surprised. He was aware that the outlaw s.h.i.+p carried instant death if they chose to use it.

The craft hovered some two hundred feet above us. Cruising slowly in a circle, it suddenly dropped four objects well outside our improvised stronghold. The projectiles were shaped like torpedoes. The explosions which were expected never came. The projectiles stood straight up from the ground, their front ends imbedded deeply. It was all a strange procedure. Cragley was nonplussed.

"They probably contain explosives," ventured Quentin, answering the question he knew stood out in the captain's mind.

"I'm not so sure of that," said Cragley.

Meanwhile, I had been doing some rapid thinking. Anxiously, I watched the s.h.i.+p above us, keeping myself partially screened from view of any sniper who might be looking down. I turned to the captain, a wild plan outlined in my mind.

"Let me go out there," I offered. "I can----"

"Not on your life!" he exclaimed, placing a restraining hand upon my arm. "It's death to go out there!"

"It's death to remain," I a.s.sured him earnestly.

"But not definitely certain," he maintained. "For some reason or other they're holding off from us. We have an advantage of some kind, but d.a.m.ned if I know what it is."

"Look!" cried Quentin.

He pointed to three of the four projectiles which were visible from where we lay. They were glowing strangely with intense light. A jagged beam of electricity leaped out from the airs.h.i.+p. Instantly iridescent shafts of light spread from the nearest projectile to the ones on either side of it. The shafts made a flas.h.i.+ng display, crooked, forked and darting.

"Lightning bolts!" exclaimed Cragley. "We're surrounded by a fence of them!"

"Penned in--like rats in a trap!"

"What will they do now?"

"Hard to tell. Probably pick us off one by one at their leisure. They seem to be going to a lot of unnecessary trouble for no reason at all."

Three sharp blasts of sound issued from the outlaw s.h.i.+p. A pause, and then followed three more. I watched Cragley to see what action, if any, he would take. He seemed undecided. I began to grow uneasy.

"Not a chance of breaking through that screen of electricity," said Quentin. "They got us right where they want to keep us."

"But why?"

Quentin shook his head. "If it was just the platinum, they could destroy every one of us, then come in here and take it."

CHAPTER III

Weird figures suddenly burst the walls of flaming death. They were outlaws attired in strange accoutrements. A series of metal rings surrounded them, connected to their bodies with spokes. The electrical discharges darted all over the rings. As they came closer, we discovered that they were not surrounded by separate rings but with a continuous spiral which narrowed together at the top of the head. The other end dragged on the ground.

"Electric resistors of some kind!" muttered Cragley whose face wore a hopeless expression. "They walked right through those lightning bolts!"

Quentin aimed his pistol and fired at one of the slowly advancing figures. The spiral glowed faintly. The outlaw continued his approach.

"There goes our last chance!" I cried. "We might just as well toss up the sponge!"

Cragley was thinking fast. It was unlike him to give up without a fight.

But what was he to do when his weapons had been shorn of their force, leaving him utterly helpless before the superior strength of the brigands.

Several figures rushed from the bushes. They were panic-stricken pa.s.sengers. In alarm, despite the warning cry the captain hurled at them, they rushed straight past the advancing figures with their enc.u.mbering spirals. Frightened, bewildered, and hemmed in by the play of lightning, they ran directly in the path of the electric fence. The crackling bolts enfolded three of them before the fourth became startled out of his madness, retreating from the flas.h.i.+ng death.

One of the spiral clad figures turned and regarded the frightened man for a moment. Raising his electric pistol, he fired, and the pa.s.senger from the ill-fated _C-49_ joined his companions who had futilely rushed the electric barrier.

A voice from the s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p of the brigands suddenly gave out an order.

The voice came from a speaker and was many times amplified.

"Crew and pa.s.sengers of the _C-49_--come out in the open. Bring the platinum with you. Keep away from the electric fence unless you wish to die. Come out--or we shall come in and hunt you down."