Brigands of the Moon

  XXXII

  I was only inactive a moment. I had thought Anita would have on herhelmet. But she was reluctant, or confused.

  "Anita, we've got to get out of here! Up through the overhead locks tothe dome."

  "Yes." She fumbled with her helmet. The climbing men on the ladderwere audible. They were already nearing the top. The trap door wasclosed; Anita and I were crouching on it. There was a thick metal barset in a depressed groove for the grid. I slid it in place; it wouldseal the trap for a short time.

  A degree of confidence came to me. We had a few moments before therecould be any hand-to-hand conflict. The giant electronic projectorwould eventually be used against Grantline; it was the brigands' mostpowerful weapon. Its controls were here, by Heaven, I would smashthem? That at least I could do!

  I jumped for the window. Miko's signals had stopped, but I caught aglimpse of his distant moving curve lights.

  A flash came up at me, as in the window I became visible to thebrigands on the ship's deck. It was a small hand projector, hastilyfired, for it went wide of the window. It was followed by a rain ofsmall beams, but I was warned and dropped my head beneath the sill.The rays flashed dangerously upward through the oval opening, hissedagainst our vaulted roof. The air snapped and tingled with a showerof blue-red sparks, and the acrid odor of the released gases settleddown upon us.

  The trajectory controls of the projector were beside me. I seizedthem, ripped and tore at them. There was a roar down on the deck. Theprojector had exploded. A man's agonizing scream split the confusionof sounds.

  It silenced the brigands on the deck. Under our floor grid, those onthe ladder had been pounding at the trap door. They stopped, evidentlyto see what had happened. The bombardment of our windows stoppedmomentarily.

  I cautiously peered out the window again. In the wreck of theprojector, three men were lying. One of them was screaming horribly.The dome side was damaged. Potan and other men were franticallyinvestigating to see if the ship's air was hissing out.

  A triumph swept over me. They had not found me so meek and inoffensiveas they might have thought!

  Anita clutched me. She still had not donned her helmet.

  "Put on your helmet!"

  "But Gregg--"

  "Put it on!"

  "I.... I don't want to put it on until you put yours on."

  "I've smashed the projector! We've stopped them coming up for awhile."

  But they were still on the ladder under our floor. They heard ourvoices: they began thumping again. Then pounding. They seemed now tohave heavy implements. They rammed against the trap.

  The floor seemed holding. The square of metal grid trembled, yielded alittle. But it was good for a few minutes longer.

  I called down, "The first one who comes through will be shot!" Mywords mingled with their oaths. There was a moment's pause, then theramming went on. The dying man on the deck was still screaming.

  I whispered, "I'll try an Earth signal."

  She nodded. Pale, tense, but calm. "Yes, Gregg. And I was thinking--"

  "It won't take a minute. Have your helmet ready."

  "I was thinking--" She hurried across the room.

  I swung on the Botz signaling apparatus. It was connected. Within amoment I had it humming. The fluorescent tubes lighted with theirlurid glare; they painted purple the body of the giant duty man wholay sprawled at my feet. I drew on all the ship's power. The tubelights in the room quivered and went dim.

  I would have to hurry. Potan could shut this off from the main hullcontrol room. I could see, through the room's upper trap, the primarysending mirror mounted in the peak of the dome. It was quivering,radiant with its light energy. I sent the flash.

  The flattened past full Earth was up there. I knew that the WesternHemisphere faced the Moon at this hour. I flashed in English, with theopen Universal Earth code:

  _Help. Grantline._

  And again: _Help. Archimedes region near Apennines. Attacked bybrigands._

  _Send help at once. Grantline._

  If only it would be received! I flung off the current. Anita stoodwatching me intently. "Gregg, look!"

  I saw that she had taken some of the glass globe-bombs which lay bythe foot of the ascending ladder. "Gregg, I threw some of them."

  At the window we gazed down. The globes she flung had shattered on thedeck. They were darkness bombs.

  Through the blackness of the deck, the shouts of the brigands came up.They were stumbling about. But the ramming of our trap went on, and Isaw that it was beginning to yield.

  "We've got to go, Anita!"

  From out of the darkness which hung like a shroud over the deck anoccasional flash came up, unaimed, wide of our windows. But thedarkness was dissipating. I could see now the dim glow of the decklights, blurred as through a heavy fog.

  I dropped another of the bombs.

  "Put on your helmet."

  "Yes--yes, I will. You put yours on."

  We had them adjusted in a moment. Our Erentz motors were pumping.

  I gripped her. "Put out your helmet light."

  She extinguished it. I handed her my projector.

  "Hold it a moment. I'm going to take that belt of bombs."

  The trap door was all but broken under the ramming blows of the men. Ileaped over the body of the dead duty man, seized the belt of bombsand strapped it around my waist.

  "Give me the projector."

  She handed it to me. The trap door burst upward! A man's head andshoulders appeared. I fired a bullet into him--the leaden pelletsinging down through the yellow powder flash that spat from theprojector's muzzle.

  The brigand screamed, and dropped back out of sight. There wasconfusion at the ladder top. I flung a bomb at the broken trap. A tinyheat ray came wavering up through the opening, but went wide of us.

  The instrument room was in darkness. I clung to Anita.

  "Hold on to my hand. You go first--here is the ladder!"

  We found it in the blackness, mounted it and went through the cubby'sroof-trap.

  I took another look and dropped another bomb beside us. The four footspace up here between the cubby roof and the overhead dome, wentblack. We were momentarily concealed.

  Anita located the manual levers of the lock-entrance.

  "Here, Gregg."

  I shoved at them. Fear leaped in me that they would not operate. Butthey swung. The tiny port opened wide to receive us. We clambered intothe small air-chamber; the door slid closed, just as a flash frombelow struck at it. The brigands had seen our cloud of darkness andwere firing up through it.

  In a moment we were out on the dome top. A sleek, rounded spread ofglassite, with broad aluminite girders. There were cross ribs whichgave us a footing, and occasionally projections--streamline fin-tips,the casings of the upper rudder shafts, and the upstanding stubbyfunnels into which helicopters were folded.

  We moved along the central footpath and crouched by a six-foot casing.The stars and the glowing Earth were over us. The curving dome top--ahundred feet or so in length, and bulging thirty feet wide beneathus--glistened in the Earthlight. It was a sheer drop and down thesecurving sides past the ship's hull, a hundred feet to the rocks onwhich the vessel rested. The towering wall of Archimedes was besideus; and beyond the brink of the ledge the thousands of feet down tothe plains.

  I saw the lights of Miko's band down there. He had stopped signaling.His little lights were spread out, bobbing as he and his men advancedup the crater's foothills, coming to join the ship.

  I had an instant's glimpse. Anita and I could not stay here. Thebrigands would follow us up in a moment. I saw no exterior ladder. Wewould have to take our chances and jump.

  There were brigands down there on the rocks. I saw three or fourhelmeted figures, and they saw us! A bullet whizzed by us, and thencame the flash of a hand ray.

  I touched Anita. "Can you make the leap? Anita dear...."

  Again it seemed that this must be farewell.

  "Gregg, dear one, we've got
to do it!"

  Those waiting figures would pounce on us.

  "Anita, lie here a moment."

  I jumped up and ran twenty feet toward the bow; then back toward thestern, flinging down the last of my bombs. The darkness was like acloud down there, enveloping the outer brigands. But up there we wereabove it, etched by the starlight and Earthglow.

  I came back to Anita. "We'll have to chance it now."

  "Gregg...."

  "Good-bye, dear. I'll jump first, down this side, you follow."

  To leap into that black patch, with the rocks under it....

  "Gregg--"

  She was trying to tell me to look overhead. She gestured, "Gregg,see!"

  I saw it, out over the plains, a little speck amid the stars. A movingspeck, coming toward us!

  "Gregg, what is it?"

  I gazed, held my breath. A moving speck out there. A blob now. Andthen I realized it was not a large object, far away, but small, andalready very close--only a few hundred feet off, dropping toward thetop of our dome. A narrow, flat, ten foot object, like a winglessvolplane. There were no lights on it, but in the Earthlight I couldsee two crouching, helmeted figures riding it.

  "Anita! Don't you remember!"

  I was swept with dawning comprehension. Back in the Grantline campSnap and I had discussed how to use the _Planetara's_ gravity plates.We had gone to the wreck and secured them, had rigged this littlevolplane flyer....

  The brigands on the rocks saw it now. A flash went up at it. One ofthe figures crouching on it opened a flexible fabric like a wing overits side. I saw another flash from below, harmlessly striking theinsulated shield.

  I gasped to Anita, "Light your helmet! It's from Grantline! Let themsee us!"

  I stood erect. The little flying platform went over us, fifty feet up,circling, dropping to the dome top.

  I waved my helmet light. The exit lock from below--up which we hadcome--was near us. The advancing brigands were already in it! I hadforgotten to demolish the manuals. And I saw that the darkness down onthe rocks was almost gone now, dissipating in the airless night. Thebrigands down there began firing up at us.

  It was a confusion of flashing lights. I clutched at Anita.

  "Come this way--run!"

  The platform barely missed our heads. It sailed lengthwise of the dometop, and crashed silently on the central runway near the stern tip.Anita and I ran to it.

  The two helmeted figures seized us, shoved us prone on the metalplatform. It was barely four feet wide; a low railing, handles withwhich to cling, and a tiny hooded cubby in front.

  "Gregg!"

  "You, Snap!"

  It was Snap and Venza. She seized Anita, held her crouching in place.Snap flung himself face down at the controls.

  The brigands were out on the dome now. I took a last shot as welifted. My bullet punctured one of them: he slid, fell scrambling offthe rounded dome and dropped out of sight.

  Light rays and silent flashes seemed to envelope us. Venza held theside shields higher.

  We tilted, swayed crazily, and then steadied.

  The ship's dome dropped away beneath us. The rocks of the open ledgewere beneath us. Then the abyss, with the moving, climbing specks ofMiko's lights far down.

  I saw, over the side shield, the already distant brigand ship restingon the ledge with the massive Archimedes' wall behind it. A confusionback there of futile flashing rays.

  It all faded into a remote glow as we sailed smoothly up into thestarlight and away, heading for the Grantline camp.