Merril led usacross the curve of the southern horizon, seeking to put us intoposition to attack the UN Moon Base in Clavius from the direction of theMoon's hidden face.
We swung low across unnamed mountain ranges and deep sheer valleyssteeped in shadow. The voice of the ranger in the _Arrow_ came softlythrough the open intercom into the tiny control room of the _Hound_. Awoman's voice, tense with excitement, but disciplined and controlled.
"Range five hundred miles, four seventy five, four fifty--"
And then Merril's voice, calm and reassuring, giving heart to all theuntried ones aboard with his steady conning commands.
"Four o'clock jet, easy, hold her. Drivers up one half standard. Steadygoes. Meet her. Steady--"
Line astern now, the two ships flashing low across the jagged lunarlandscape, and a world in the balance--
An alarm bell ringing suddenly, and my screen showing the fleetingoutline of a Russian monitor above, running across our stern. My ownvoice, sharp with command:
"Gun pointer!"
"Here, sir!"
"Get me that gunboat."
The _Hound's_ turret wound about with agonizing slowness as the monitorreached for the sky, clawing for altitude and safety. And then therecame a searing blast of fire and the fragments of the Russian gunboatraining down lazily, seeking their eternal rest in the pumice of Luna'shidden face.
But they had been warned at the UN Base. The monitor had left one dyingshriek in the ether, and the waiting garrison had heard. Merril knew it,and so did I. We moved forward calmly, into the jaws of hell.
* * * * *
The _Arrow_ attacked from ten o'clock, low on the horizon, the _Hound_from twelve o'clock high. We swept in over the batteries of pulsatingprojectors, raining down our bombs. The ground shuddered and shook withthe fury of exploding uranium and the sky was laced with a net of fierydeath. The _Hound_ shrieked her protest as I swung her about for anotherattack.
There was a sickening swerve and the smell of ozone in my ship.Somewhere, deep within her, a woman screamed and I felt the deck underme give as one of the questing beams from the fortress below cut intothe hull. Airtight doors slammed throughout the wounded vessel, and Idrove her to the attack again, hard. The last of the bombs clattered outof the vents, sending mushrooms of pumice miles into the black sky. Onebattery of guns below fell silent.
The _Arrow_ vanished into the night above and as suddenly reappeared,her forward tubes spewing red fire onto the Base below. Then Merrilpulled her up again and disappeared among the pale stars.
The _Hound's_ hurt was mortal, I could feel her dying under my hands,and tears streaked my face. Below decks, she was a shambles where thecutting beam from the ground had torn part of her heart out. Still Ifought her. There was no retreat from this last raid, nor did I wishany. There was a madness in us--a blood-lust as hot and demanding asever our lust for gold and treasure might have been.
I lashed the face of the fortress with the _Hound's_ forward tubes,frantically, filled with a hateful anguish. I felt my ship losing way,twisting and seeking rest on the jagged ground below, and thinking hehad deserted us, I cursed Merril in an ecstasy of blind fury.
Again and again the _Hound_ was hit. I knew then that Merril's plan hadbeen madness, a last gesture of defiance to the new age of unity amongmen. The _Hound_ fell at last, spitting fire and gall in a futile danceof death.
She struck on a high plateau, grinding into the pumice, rolling withmacabre abandon across the face of the high tableland. Then at last shewas still, hissing and groaning fitfully as she died, her buccaneeringdays gone forever.
I donned a suit and staggered, half dazed, out into the lunar night. Ahalf-dozen men and women from the crew had survived the impact and theystood by the wreckage, faces under the plastic helmets turned skyward.They were one and all stunned and bleeding from the violence of the_Hound's_ end, but they looked neither back nor around them. Their eyeswere filled with the insane glory of the drama being enacted in the sky.
The _Arrow_ had returned. She lanced down out of the night like a spearof flame, vengeful and deadly. Straight into the mouth of the screamingguns she dove, death spilling from her tubes. She bathed the Moon Basein fire, searing the men within--Russian and American alike--into thebrotherhood of death.
Miraculously, she pulled up out of her encircling net of flame. Wewatched in openmouthed wonder as she reached with sobbing heart for thesky just once again--and then, failing, crippled and dying, she hungabove the crater's rim, framed with deadly beams from below, but radiantin her own right--gleaming in the light of the sun.
This was defeat. We knew it as we stood by the tangled pile of steelitethat had been the _Hound_ and watched the _Arrow_ die. But nothing inthis life that I have lived ever told me so grandly that the Wall Decadewas ended--and our life of buccaneering with it--as the thing thathappened next.
The _Arrow's_ valve opened and a tiny figure stepped out--into space. Idid not need to be told that Jaq Merril was coming to meet the men hehad welded together against him.
Lazily, unreally, the tiny shape twisted over and over as it fell, untilat last it vanished amid the raw welter of craters and ridges beyond therazor wall of Clavius....
* * * * *
I have told a true tale, though one that will not be believed. I havetaken the Peacemaker of the histories and painted him _as he was_.
But men are ashamed, and the chronicles of history must be rewritten tohide their weaknesses, Jaq Merril has become a legend, and the man thatI knew is forgotten.
Merril--pirate, fighter, grandiose dreamer. That was my captain. Not thecolorless do-good creature of the legend. Merril fought for lust andgreed, and these are the things that will one day take men to the stars.He knew this truth, of course, and that was the substance of his greatdream. Because of it, there are no longer walls in space, and the menwho united to fight the Peacemaker will one day rule the universe.
Meanwhile, chroniclers will write lies about him, and Jaq Merril'slaughter will echo in some ghostly Valhalla beyond the farthest star.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _If: Worlds of Science Fiction_ January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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