Brood of the Dark Moon
A naked, murdered man!--and ripe fruit! What was the meaning of this?
Chet asked himself a score of questions and found the answer to none.
But one thing he knew now beyond a doubt: Herr Professor Kreiss had been
wrong. This was truly an altar for the performance of unknown and savage
rites, and the altar itself and the whole encircling arena had been
created by some intelligence. People--things--embodied intelligences of
some sort had carved these stones. Chet was oppressed by a feeling of
impending danger.
His thoughts came back sharply to the things on the stone: the absurdly
contrasting exhibits: a naked body and fruit! But were they so
different? he asked himself, and knew in the same instant that they were
not. They were one and the same; they differed only in kind. They were
both food!
* * * * *
From the darkness beyond came a shuffling of feet. From the black
passage someone was coming--drawing near to the portal--and coming
slowly, steadily through the dark. The pad of animal feet would have
been unnerving--or the stealthy footfalls of an approaching savage--but
this was neither; it was a scuffing, shuffling sound. The sweat stood
out in beads on Chet's forehead and a trickle of it reached his eyes. He
dashed it away with the back of his hand while he drew silently into the
shadow of the overhanging stone. He held his breath as he watched in the
darkness.
His pistol came noiselessly from his belt. Yet, how could he fire it? he
asked himself in a moment of frantic planning. Only seven cartridges
left!--they would need them all; and to fire now would bring more
enemies upon them. He returned the gun to his belt and stooped to weigh
a fragment of stone in his hand: this must serve him as a weapon.
The dragging footsteps were near, where the passage mouth loomed black.
The light of a distant Earth, struck slantingly across to leave this
face of the pyramid in half-darkness. From that far and peaceful world
the light poured floodingly down; it shone in under the projecting
capstone; it struck upon the raised altar and revealed in ghastliest
detail the gruesome offering there. And surely the strangest sight of
all that that Earth-light disclosed was when it shone golden upon a
black and hairy body of a beast that was half man, half ape. The
creature moved slowly forward, walking erect, with its furry arms
stretched gropingly ahead. In the full light it went shuffling on like
one who is blind or who walks in the dark, until it stopped before the
altar stone and stood rigidly waiting.
* * * * *
Waiting for what? Chet was making demands upon his reason that was
already taxed beyond its capacity. He heard nothing, and he knew with
entire certainty that there was no audible call, yet he sensed the
message at the instant the ape-man moved.
"Flesh!" said the message. "Bring flesh! Bring it now!"
And, with glazed, wide-open eyes which plainly saw, but could not
comprehend, the ape-thing stared at the altar-stone. It bent forward,
took the fresh-killed body by the throat, and slung it across one
shoulder as easily as a child might handle a doll; then it turned and
vanished once more into the waiting dark.
"God!" breathed Chet when the vision had passed. "God help us! What does
it mean?"
He took one backward step, then another, and made his way in silence
along the path he had come. He must get back to the others to tell them
of what he had seen; to help them to flee from this place of horror that
was more terrible for its qualities of the unknown.
* * * * *
He gave his companions the story in staccato sentences. "And the ape-man
was unconscious," he concluded; "he was an automaton only, directed by
another brain. I know it. I got that message, I tell you; it was radioed
by someone or by something--sent direct to that big ape's brain.
"Now let's get out of here. Diane had it right when she said that the
place was evil. But she didn't make it strong enough. It's foul with
evil! It's damned! Come on, I'm leaving now!"
Chet's whispered words were uttered with all the emphasis that horror
could instill. He knew that he spoke truth. But he could not know how
mistaken was his last positive assertion.
"I'm leaving now!" Chet had said, and how desperately he wanted to put
this place behind him only he himself could know. He took one step
toward the place where they could descend; then Harkness' hand pulled
him roughly to his knees.
"Down!" Harkness was commanding; "get down, Chet! They're coming--a
swarm of them--through the gate!"
The pilot heard them before he saw them. They began a chant as they
poured through the entrance, a weird, wailing note like the cry of a
stricken animal that cries on and on. Then he saw the swarm.
They came in a cataract of black bodies that spilled through that stone
portal and down the long slope. They formed a ragged column on the
ground and came on toward the pyramid, where, unseen, three men and a
girl from another world were crouching.
"Back!" Chet ordered in a whisper. "Keep low--in the shadow! Get around
in back of the pyramid. We can make a run for it!"
* * * * *
They crept swiftly along the rocky step where the deep angle was in
shadow. They reached the rear slope where Chet had climbed. And each one
knew without the speaking of a word that retreat was not to be
considered. The open arena!--the high bank of great steps in their bold
markings of black and white! They could never hope to scale them; they
would never even reach them alive, for the savage horde would overwhelm
them before they had crossed the Earth-lit ground.
"All right," said Chet in acceptance of their unspoken thoughts, "up it
is! Here's a hand, Diane--up you go! Now watch your step, and climb as
if a thousand devils were after you, for there's all of that!"
The wave of bodies was washing against the pyramid's base when Chet drew
Kreiss, the last of the four, into the shadow of the huge capstone. The
noise of their climbing had been covered by the wailing cry that came
piercing shrilly from the throng far below. And they had been unseen,
Chet was sure; unless the one furtive shadow that he had seen draw away
from the crowd and slip around toward the rear of the pyramid meant that
some one of the tribe had found their trail.
From the front of the shadowed top came the shuffling of heavy, dragging
feet on the stone. It was the same as before. Chet had held some vague
idea of fighting off the horde from the top of the steps, for here was
the only place where they could ascend. He had forgotten this other one
for the moment, and he realized in a single flashing instant that here
was a worse menace than the pack.
Only one, it was true, one ape-man who would be no match for them! But
Chet remembered those blind, staring eyes and the message that had come
to him. Those eyes had seen the horrible food upon the altar; some other
brain had seen it too. The ape-man was an instrument only; there was
some hidden horror in back of him, something that saw with his eyes,
something that must never see them, cowering and huddled in the shadow
of that great stone.
* * * * *
The shuffling was coming from the right; Chet clutched silently at the
others to draw them away and toward the left. They retreated to the
corner, turned it, and went on toward the front; then stopped in silent
waiting where the shadow ended. The front, where the altar stood, was in
the full glare of Earth.
For the moment they were safe, but what of the time when the ape-man
returned? He had descended to the ground; when he climbed back again
would he retrace his steps? Or would he come this side and trap them
here where the light of their own Earth made any forward step
impossible?
Below them the wailing ceased. Chet leaned forward to see the black
horde, silent and motionless. Approaching them was the "big ape" he had
seen at the altar. His hands were reaching blindly before him and he
moved as would a human when entranced.
He reached the huddled blacks; his groping hands hovered hesitantly
above a cowering, hairy form. Presently the ape-man passed on to the
next, and his hands rested on the creature's face. From the massed
figures there rose a moan, and Chet felt poignantly the animal misery of
it. Suddenly all emotion was transformed to startled attention. From the
slope at the rear had come the rattle of loose stones!
Far below, in plain view, was the one who had descended--Chet knew that
his eyes could never mistake that blind, groping figure--but from the
slope they could not see, from around the far edge of the pyramid, a
clicking stone sent a repeated warning.
Chet laid a hand on Harkness' arm. "Get set, Walt!" he warned. "Get
ready for trouble. There's something coming: it may come this way!"
CHAPTER XII
_In the Shadow of the Pyramid_
They waited, unbreathing, listening to the occasional stealthy sounds.
The pistol was still in Chet's belt; the three men were crouched before
Diane, in their hands the crude weapons that they had made.
And then the sounds ceased. The menace seemed to have passed, or to be
withheld; the men had been tensely prepared for some minutes when Diane
spoke softly.
"Look below," she whispered; "the savages! That big one seems to be
choosing them--selecting some from among them."
Chet forced himself to look away from that corner of the rocky step
where he had been expecting an unknown enemy to appear, and he stared
below them where the Earth-light from the fully risen globe swept across
the arena.
He was amazed at the numbers of the savages that the full light
disclosed. There were hundreds--yes, thousands--of them, he estimated.
And they were standing in black, clotted masses, standing awed and
silent in a world that was all black and white in a dazzling contrast,
while there passed among them one with outstretched arms.
The black, hairy hands would hover over a cowering head; the eyes, Chet
knew, were staring widely, blindly, at the shivering creature before
him. And if Chet's surmise was correct, there was another--a hidden,
mysterious something--who was taking the message of those eyes as the
ape-man's brain transmitted it; taking it and sending back instructions
as to which victims should be selected.
Often the hands passed on; but soon they would descend to touch the
savage face of another in the assemblage. At the touch the selected one
jerked sharply erect, then walked stiffly from the ranks to join a group
that was waiting.
At last there were nearly a hundred savage figures in that group, all
grown men, young and in the full flood of their savage strength. No
women were chosen, nor children, though there were countless little
black bodies huddled with the others.
* * * * *
A prolific race, indeed, Chet thought, and this human automaton down
there was leaving the women to produce more victims; leaving the
children till they were fully grown, taking only the best and strongest
of the pack--for what?
His question was answered in part in the next instant. While the wailing
cry quivered again upon the air, the chosen hundred took up their
somnambulistic walk. The messenger from the pyramid came after like a
herdsman driving cattle to the slaughter. They passed from Chet's view
as they rounded the rear of the pyramid, and then he heard the scuff and
clatter of their ascent.
No need to explain to the others; each of the four saw all too clearly
their predicament. From the rear, coming steadily on, was the savage
throng; before them, plainly visible from below, was the lighted edge