CHAPTER II
_Into Space_
A pulsing pain that stabbed through his head was Chet's first consciousimpression. Then, as objects came slowly into focus before his eyes, heknew that above him a ray of light was striking slantingly through thethick glass of a control-room lookout.
Other lookouts were black, the dead black of empty space. Through them,sparkling points of fire showed here and there--suns, sending theirlight across millions of years to strike at last on a speeding ship.But, from the one port that caught the brighter light, came thatstraight ray to illumine the room.
"Space," thought Chet vaguely. "That is the sunlight of space!"
He was trying to arrange his thoughts in some sensible sequence. Hishead!--what had happened to his head?... And then he remembered. Againhe saw a clubbed weapon descending, while the face of Schwartzmannstared at him through bulbous eyes....
And this control-room where he lay--he knew in an instant where he was.It was his own ship that was roaring and trembling beneath him--his andWalt Harkness'--it was flying through space! And, with the suddenrealization of what this meant, he struggled to arise. Only then did hesee the figure at the controls.
The man was leaning above an instrument board; he straightened to starefrom a rear port while he spoke to someone Chet could not see.
"There's more of 'em coming!" he said in a choked voice. "_Mein Gott!_Neffer can we get away!"
* * * * *
He fumbled with shaking hands at instruments and controls; and now Chetsaw his chalk-white face and read plainly the terror that was writtenthere. But the cords that cut into his own wrists and ankles remindedhim that he was bound; he settled back upon the floor. Why struggle? Ifthis other pilot was having trouble let him get out of it byhimself--let him kill his own snakes!
That the man was having trouble there was no doubt. He looked once morebehind him as if at something that pursued; then swung the ball-controlto throw the ship off her course.
The craft answered sluggishly, and Chet Bullard grinned where he layhelpless upon the floor; for he knew that his ship should have beenthrown crashingly aside with such a motion as that. The answer wasplain: the flask of super-detonite was exhausted; here was the lastfeeble explosion of the final atoms of the terrible explosive that wasbeing admitted to the generator. And to cut in another flask meant theopening of a hidden valve.
Chet forgot the pain of his swelling hands to shake with suppressedmirth. This was going to be good! He forgot it until, through a lookout,he saw a writhing, circling fire that wrapped itself about the ship andjarred them to a halt.
The serpents!--those horrors from space that had come with the coming ofthe Dark Moon! They had disrupted the high-level traffic of the world;had seized great, liners; torn their way in; stripped them of everyliving thing, and let the empty shells crash back to earth. Chet hadforgotten or he had failed to realize the height at which this new pilotwas flying. Only speed could save them; the monsters, with their snoutsthat were great suction-cups, could wrench off a metal door--tear outthe glass from a port!
* * * * *
He saw the luminous mass crush itself against a forward lookout and feltthe jar of its body against their ship. Soft and vaporous, thesecloud-like serpents seemed as they drifted through space; yet theimpact, when they struck, proved that this new matter had mass.
Chet saw the figure at the controls stagger back and cower in fear; theman's bullet-shaped head was covered by his upraised arms: there wassome horror outside those windows that his eyes had no wish to see.Beside him the towering figure of Schwartzmann appeared; he had sprunginto Chet's view, and he screamed orders at the fear-stricken pilot.
"Fool! Swine!" Schwartzmann was shouting. "Do something! You said youcould fly this ship!" In desperation he leaped forward and reached forthe controls himself.
Chet's blurred faculties snapped sharply to attention. That yellow glowagainst the port--the jarring of their ship--it meant instantdestruction once that searching snout found some place where it couldsecure a hold. If the air-pressure within the ship were released; ifeven a crack were opened!--
"Here, you!" he shouted to the frantic Schwartzmann who was jerkingfrenziedly at the controls that no longer gave response. "Cut theseropes!--leave those instruments alone, you fool!" He was suddenlyvibrant with hate as he realized what this man had done: he had struckhim, Chet, down as he would have felled an animal for butchery; he hadstolen their ship; and now he was losing it. Chet hardly thought of hisown desperate plight in his rage at this threat to their ship, and atSchwartzmann's inability to help himself.
"Cut these ropes!" he repeated. "Damn it all, turn me loose; I can flyus out!" He added his frank opinion of Schwartzmann and all his men. AndSchwartzmann, though his dark face flushed angrily red for one instant,leaped to Chet's side and slashed at the cords with a knife.
The room swam before Chet's dizzy eyes as he came to his feet. He halffell, half drew himself full length toward the valve that he alone knew.Then again he was on his feet, and he gripped at the ball-control withone hand while he opened a master throttle that cut in this new supplyof explosive.
* * * * *
The room had been silent with the silence of empty space, save only forthe scraping of a horrid body across the ship's outer shell. The silencewas shattered now as if by the thunder of many guns. There was no timefor easing themselves into gradual flight. Chet thrust forward on theball-control, and the blast from their stern threw the ship as if it hadbeen fired from a giant cannon.
The self-compensating floor swung back and up; Chet's weight was almostunbearable as the ship beneath him leaped out and on, and the terrificblast that screamed and thundered urged this speeding shell to greaterand still greater speed. And then, with the facility that that speedgave, Chet's careful hands moved a tiny metal ball within its magneticcage, and the great ship bellowed from many ports as it followed themotion of that ball.
Could an eye have seen the wild, twisting flight, it must have seemed asif pilot and ship had gone suddenly mad. The craft corkscrewed andwhirled; it leaped upward and aside; and, as the glowing mass was thrownclear of the lookout, Chet's hand moved again to that maximum forwardposition, and again the titanic blast from astern drove them on and out.
There were other shapes ahead, glowing lines of fire, luminous masseslike streamers of cloud that looped themselves into contorted forms andwrithed vividly until they straightened into sharp lines of speed thatbore down upon the fleeing craft and the human food that was escapingthese hungry snouts.
Chet saw them dead ahead; he saw the outthrust heads, each ending in agreat suction-cup, the row of disks that were eyes blazing above, andthe gaping maw below. He altered their course not a hair's breadth as hebore down upon them, while the monsters swelled prodigiously before hiseyes. And the thunderous roar from astern came with never a break, whilethe ship itself ceased its trembling protest against the sudden blastand drove smoothly on and into the waiting beasts.
There was a hardly perceptible thudding jar. They were free! And theforward lookouts showed only the brilliant fires of distant suns and onemore glorious than the rest that meant a planet.
* * * * *
Chet turned at last to face Schwartzmann and his pilot where they hadclung helplessly to a metal stanchion. Four or five others crept in fromthe cabin aft; their blanched faces told of the fear that had grippedthem--fear of the serpents; fear, too, of the terrific plunges intowhich the ship had been thrown. Chet Bullard drew the metal control-ballback into neutral and permitted himself the luxury of a laugh.
"You're a fine bunch of highwaymen," he told Schwartzmann; "you'll steala ship you can't fly; then come up here above the R. A. level and getmixed up with those brutes. What's the idea? Did you think you wouldjust hop over to the Dark Moon? Some little plan like that in yourmind?"
Again the dark, heavy face of Schwart
zmann flushed deeply; but it washis own men upon whom he turned.
"You," he told the pilot--"you were so clever; you would knock this mansenseless! You would insist that you could fly the ship!"
The pilot's eyes still bulged with the fear he had just experienced."But, Herr Schwartzmann, it was you who told me--"
A barrage of unintelligible words cut his protest short. Schwartzmannpoured forth imprecations in an unknown tongue, then turned to theothers.
"Back!" he ordered. "Bah!--such men! The danger it iss over--yess! Thispilot, he will take us back safely."
He turned his attention now to the waiting Chet. "Herr Bullard, iss itnot--yess?"
He launched into extended apologies--he had wanted a look at this somarvelous ship--he had spied upon it; he admitted it. But this murderousattack was none of his doing; his men had got out of hand; and then hehad thought it best to take Chet, unconscious as he was and return withhim where he could have care.
* * * * *
And Chet Bullard kept his eyes steadily upon the protesting man and saidnothing, but he was thinking of a number of things. There was Walt'swarning, "this Schwartzmann means mischief," and the faked message thathad brought him from the hospital to get the ship from its hiding place;no, it was too much to believe. But Chet's eyes were unchanging, and henodded shortly in agreement as the other concluded.
"You will take us back?" Schwartzmann was asking. "I will repay you wellfor what inconvenience we have caused. The ship, you will return itsafely to the place where it was?"
And Chet, after making and discarding a score of plans, knew there wasnothing else he could do. He swung the little metal ball into asharply-banked turn. The straight ray of light from an impossiblybrilliant sun struck now on a forward lookout; it shone across theshoulder of a great globe to make a white, shining crescent as of agiant moon. It was Earth; and Chet brought the bow-sights to bear onthat far-off target, while again the thunderous blast was built up todrive them back along the trackless path on which they had come. But hewondered, as he pressed forward on the control, what the real plan ofthis man, Schwartzmann, might be....
* * * * *
Less than half an hour brought them to the Repelling Area, and Chet feltthe upward surge as he approached it. Here, above this magnetic fieldwhere gravitation's pull was nullified, had been the air-lanes for fastliners. Empty lanes they were now; for the R. A., as the flyingfraternity knew it--the Heaviside Layer of an earlier day--marked thedanger line above which the mysterious serpents lay in wait. Only thespeed of Chet's ship saved them; more than one of the luminous monsterswas in sight as he plunged through the invisible R. A. and threw ontheir bow-blast strongly to check their fall.
Then, as he set a course that would take them to that section of theArctic waste where the ship had been, he pondered once more upon thesubject of this Schwartzmann of the shifty eyes and the glib tongue andof his men who had "got out of hand" and had captured this ship.
"Why in thunder are we back here?" Chet asked himself in perplexity."This big boy means to keep the ship; and, whatever his plans may havebeen before, he will never stop short of the Dark Moon now that he hasseen the old boat perform. Then why didn't he keep on when he wasstarted? Had the serpents frightened him back?"
He was still mentally proposing questions to which there seemed noanswer when he felt the pressure of a metal tube against his back. Thevoice of Schwartzmann was in his ears.
"This is a detonite pistol"--that voice was no longer unctuous andself-deprecating--"one move and I'll plant a charge inside you that willsmash you to a jelly!"
* * * * *
There were hands that gripped Chet before he could turn; his arms werewrenched backward; he was helpless in the grip of Schwartzmann's men.The former pilot sprang forward.
"Take control, Max!" Schwartzmann snapped; but he followed it with aquestion while the pilot was reaching for the ball. "You can fly it forsure, Max?"
The man called Max answered confidently.
"_Ja wohl!_" he said with eager assurance. "Up top there would have beenno trouble yet for that _verdammt, verloren_ valve. That oneexperimental trip is enough--I fly it!"
Those who held Chet were binding his wrists. He was thrown to the floorwhile his feet were tied, and, as a last precaution, a gag was forcedinto his mouth. Schwartzmann left this work to his men. He paid noattention to Chet; he was busy at the radio.
He placed the sending-levers in strange positions that would effect ablending of wave lengths which only one receiving instrument could pickup. He spoke cryptic words into the microphone, then dropped into alanguage that was unfamiliar to Chet. Yet, even then, it was plain thathe was giving instructions, and he repeated familiar words.
"Harkness," Chet heard him say, and, "--Delacouer--_ja!_--Mam'selleDelacouer!"
Then, leaving the radio, he said, "Put my ship inside the hangar;" andthe pilot, Max, grounded their own ship to allow the men to leap out andfloat into the big building the big aircraft in which Schwartzmann hadcome.
"Now close the doors!" their leader ordered. "Leave everything as itwas!" And to the pilot he gave added instructions: "There iss no airtraffic here. You will to forty thousand ascend, und you will wait overthis spot." Contemptuously he kicked aside the legs of the bound manthat he might walk back into the cabin.
* * * * *
The take-off was not as smooth as it would have been had Chet's slimhands been on the controls; this burly one who handled them now was notaccustomed to such sensitivity. But Chet felt the ship lift and lurch,then settle down to a swift, spiralling ascent. Now he lay still as hetried to ponder the situation.
"Now what dirty work are they up to?" he asked himself. He had seen asullen fury on the dark face of Herr Schwartzmann as he spoke the namesof Walt and Diane into the radio. Chet remembered the look now, and hestruggled vainly with the cords about his wrists. Even a detonite pistolwith its tiny grain of explosive in the end of each bullet would notcheck him--not when Walt and Diane were endangered. And the expressionon that heavy, scowling face had told him all too clearly that some realdanger threatened.
But the cords held fast on his swollen wrists. His head was stillthrobbing; and even his side, not entirely healed, was adding to thetorment that beat upon him--beat and beat with his pulsing blood--untilthe beating faded out into unconsciousness....
Dimly he knew they were soaring still higher as their radio picked upthe warning of an approaching patrol ship; vaguely, he realized thatthey descended again to a level of observation. Chet knew in some cornerof his brain that Schwartzmann was watching from an under lookout with apowerful glass, and he heard his excited command:
"Down--go slowly, down!... They are landing.... They have entered thehangar. Now, down with it. Max! Down! down!"
* * * * *
The plunging fall of the ship roused Chet from his stupor. He felt thejolt of the clumsy landing despite the snow-cushioned ground; he heardplainly the exclamations from beyond an open port--the startled oath inWalter Harkness' voice, and the stinging scorn in the words of DianeDelacouer.
Herr Schwartzmann had been in the employ of Mademoiselle Delacouer, buthe was taking orders no longer. There was a sound of scuffling feet, andonce the thud of a blow.... Then Chet watched with heavy, hopeless eyesas the familiar faces of Diane and Walt appeared in the doorway. Theirhands were bound; they, too, were threatened with a slim-barreled pistolin the hands of the smirking, exultant Schwartzmann.
A tall, thin-faced man whom Chet had not seen before followed them intothe room. The newcomer was motioned forward now, as Schwartzmann calledan order to the pilot:
"All right; now we go. Max! Herr Doktor Kreiss will give you thebearings; he knows his way among the stars."
Herr Schwartzmann doubled over in laughing appreciation of his ownsuccess before he straightened up and regarded his captives with coldeye
s.
"Such a pleasure!" he mocked; "such charming passengers to take with meon my first trip into space; this ship, it iss not so goot. I will buildbetter ships later on; I will let you see them when I shall come tovisit you."
He laughed again at sight of the wondering looks in the eyes of thethree; stooping, he jerked the gag from Chet's mouth.
"You do not understand," he exclaimed. "I should haff explained. Yousee, _meine guten Freunde_, we go--ach!--you have guessed it already! Wego to the Dark Moon. I am pleased to take you with me on the trip out;but coming back, I will have so much to bring--there will be no room forpassengers.
"I could have killed you here," he said; and his mockery gave place fora moment to a savage tone, "but the patrol ships, they are everywhere.But I have influence here und there--I arranged that your flask of gasshould be charged with explosive, I discredited you, and yet I could notso great a risk take as to kill you all.
"So came inspiration! I called your foolish young friend here from thehospital. I ordered him to go at once to the ship hidden where I couldnot find, and I signed the name of Herr Harkness."
* * * * *
Chet caught the silent glances of his friends who could yet smilehopefully through the other emotions that possessed them. He ground histeeth as the smooth voice of Herr Schwartzmann went on:
"He led me here: the young fool! Then I sent for you--und this time Isigned his name--und you came. So simple!
"Und now we go in _my_ ship to _my_ new world. And," he added savagely,"if one of you makes the least trouble, he will land on the DarkMoon--yess!--but he will land hard, from ten thousand feet up!"
The great generator was roaring. To Chet came the familiar lift of theR. A. effect. They were beyond the R. A.; they were heading out and awayfrom Earth; and his friends were captives through his own unconscioustreachery, carried out into space in their own ship, with the hands ofan enemy gripping the controls....
Chet's groan, as he turned his face away from the others who had triedto smile cheerfully, had nothing to do with the pain of his body. It washis mind that was torturing him.
But he muttered broken words as he lay there, words that had referenceto one Schwartzmann. "I'll get him, damn him! I'll get him!" he waspromising himself.
And Herr Schwartzmann, who was clever, would have proved his clevernessstill more by listening. For a Mister Pilot of the World does not gethis rating on vain boasts. He must know first his flying, his ships andhis air--but he is apt to make good in other ways as well.