Brood of the Dark Moon
"Now we'll lose them; hang them right up in the air and leave them
there."
Another steep climb and a valley beyond, and in the hollow a tumbling
stream. There was no need to tell Towahg what to do, for he led straight
for the water, and his thick legs churned through it as he headed down
stream; nor did he stop until they had covered many miles.
Chet had wondered how they would leave the water without trace, but
again Towahg was ready. A stone where the water splashed would show no
mark of bare feet. From it he leaped into the air toward a swaying vine.
He missed, tried again, and finally grasped it. And the rest was a
repetition of what had been done before.
* * * * *
He lowered a vine as Chet had taught him, pulled the slim figure of Chet
up to the dizzy heights of the jungle trees, then took Chet's one arm in
a grip of chilled steel and threw him across his back, while he swung
sickeningly from limb to limb, up through the branches of another
grotesque tree where its queerly distorted limbs sagged and swung them
to its fellow some fifty feet away.
It was a wild ride for the pilot. "I've driven everything that's made
with an engine in it," he told himself, "but this one-ape-power craft
has them all stopped for thrills."
And at last when even Towahg's chest that seemed ribbed with steel, was
rising and falling with his great breaths, Chet found himself set down
on the ground, and he patted the black on the shoulder in the gesture
that meant approval.
"Water and air," he said; "it'll bother them to trail us over that
route. Towahg, you're there when it comes to trapeze work. Now, if you
can find the way back again--!"
And Towahg could, as Chet admitted when, after a series of eventless
days, they came again to the big divide above the reaches of Happy
Valley.
And the grip of Harkness' hand, and the tears in Diane's eyes brought a
choke to his throat until the voluble apologies of a penitent Herr
Kreiss and the antics of a Towahg, recipient of many approving pats,
turned the emotion into the safer channel of laughter.
"But I think we switched them off for good," Chet said, in conclusion of
his recital; "I believe we are as safe as we ever were. And I've only
one big regret:
"If I could just have been around somewhere when friend Schwartzmann
found his scouts had led him up a blind alley, it would have been worth
the trip. He did pretty well when he started cussing us out before; I'll
bet he pumped his vocabulary dry on them this time."
CHAPTER XVII
_Hunted Down_
Work on the house was resumed. "And when it is done," said Diane with a
gay laugh, "Walter and I shall have our wedding day. Now you see why you
were wanted so badly, Chet; it was not that we worried for you, but only
that we feared the loss of the one person on the Dark Moon who could
perform a marriage ceremony."
"And I thought all along it was my clever carpenter work that had
captivated you," responded Chet, and tried to fit the splintered end of
a timber into a forked branch that made an upright post.
And each day the house took form, while the sun shone down with tropical
warmth where the work was going on.
Only Harkness and Chet were the builders. Diane's strength was not equal
to the task of cutting tough wood with a crude stone ax, and Herr
Kreiss, though willing enough to help when asked, was usually in his own
cave, busied with mysterious experiments of which he would tell nothing.
Towahg, their only remaining Helper, could not be held. Too wild for
restraint of any kind, he would vanish into the jungle at break of day
to reappear now and then as silently as a black shadow. But he kept them
all supplied with game and fruit and succulent roots which his wilder
brethren of the forest must have shown him were fit for food.
And then came an interruption that checked the work on the house, that
drained the brilliant sunshine of its warmth and light, and turned all
thoughts to the question of defense.
The two had been working on the roof, while Diane had returned to the
jungle for another of the big leaves. She carried her bow on such trips,
although the weeks had brought them a sense of security. But for Chet
this feeling of safety vanished in the instant that he heard Harkness'
half-uttered exclamation and saw him drop quickly to the ground.
* * * * *
Beyond him, coming through the green smother of grass that was now as
high as her waist, was Diane. Even at a distance Chet could see the
unnatural paleness of her face; she was running fast, coming along the
trail they had all helped to make.
Chet hit the ground on all fours and reached for the long bow with which
he had become so expert; then followed Harkness who was racing to meet
the girl.
"An ape!" she was saying between choking breaths when Chet reached them.
"An ape-man!" She was clinging to Harkness in utter fright that was
unlike the Diane he had known.
"Towahg," Harkness suggested; "you saw Towahg!" But the girl shook her
head. She was recovering something of her normal poise; her breath came
more evenly.
"No! It was not Towahg. I saw it. I was hidden under the big leaves. It
was an ape-man. He came swinging along through the branches of the
trees: he was up high and he looked in all directions. I ran. I think he
did not see me.
"And now," she confessed, "I am ashamed. I thought I had forgotten the
horror of that experience, but this brought it all back.... There! I am
all right now."
Harkness held her tenderly close. "Frightened," he reassured her, "and
no wonder! That night on the pyramid left its mark on us all. Now, come;
come quietly."
He was leading the girl toward the knoll that they all called home. Chet
followed, casting frequent glances toward the trees. They had covered
half the distance to the barricade when Chet spoke in a voice that was
half a whisper in its hushed tenseness.
"Drop--quick!" he ordered. "Get into the grass. It's coming. Now let's
see what it is."
* * * * *
He knew that the others had taken cover. For himself, he had flung his
lanky figure into the tall grass. The bow was beside him, an arrow
ready; and the tip of polished bone and the feathered shaft made it a
weapon that was not one to be disregarded. Long hours of practice had
developed his natural aptitude into real skill. Before him, he parted
the tall grass cautiously to see the forest whence the sound had come.
The swish of leaves had warned Chet; some far-flung branch must have
failed to bear the big beast's weight and had bent to swing him to the
ground--or perhaps the descent was intentional.
And now there was silence, the silence of noonday that is so filled with
unheard summer sounds. A foot above Chet's head a tiny bat-winged bird
rocked and tilted on vermilion leather wings, while its iridescent head
made flickering rainbow colors with the vibrations of a throat that
hummed a steady call. Across the meadow were countless other flashing,
humming things, like dust specks dancing in the sun, but magnified and
intensely colored.
Above their droning note was the shrill cry of the insects that spent
their days in idle and ceaseless unmusical scrapings. They inhabited the
shadowed zone along the forest edge. And now, where the foliage of the
towering trees was torn back in a great arch, the insect shrilling
ceased.
As the strings of a harp are damped and silenced in unison, their myriad
voices ended that shrill note in the same instant. The silence spread;
there was a hush as if all living things were mute in dread expectancy
of something as yet unseen.
Chet was watching that arched opening. In one instant, except for the
flickering shadows, it was empty; the place was so still it might have
been lifeless since the dawn of time. And then--
* * * * *
Chet neither saw nor heard him come. He was there--a hulking hairy
figure that came in absolute silence despite his huge weight.
An ape-man larger than any Chet had seen: he stood as motionless as an
exhibit in a museum in some city of a far-off Earth. Only the white of
his eyeballs moved as the little eyes, under their beetling black brows,
darted swiftly about.
"Bad!" thought Chet. "Damn bad!" If this was an advance scout for a pick
of great monsters like himself it meant an assault their own little
force could never meet. And this newcomer was hostile. There was not the
least doubt of that.
Chet reached one hand behind him to motion for silence; one of his
companions had stirred, had moved the grass in a ripple that was not
that of the wind. Chet held his hand rigid in air, his whole body
seeming to freeze with a premonition that was pure horror; and within
him was a voice that said with dreadful certainty: "They have found you.
They have hunted you down."
For the thing in the forest, the creature half-human, half-beast, had
raised its two shaggy arms before it; and, with eyes fixed and staring,
it was walking straight toward them, walking as no other living thing
had walked, but one. Chet was seeing again that one--a helplessly
hypnotized ape that appeared from a pit in a great pyramid. And the
voice within him repeated hopelessly: "They have found you. They have
run you down."
Chet lay motionless. He still hoped that the dread messenger might pass
them by, but the rigidly outstretched arms were extended straight toward
him; the creature's short, heavily muscled legs were moving stiffly,
tearing a path through the thick grass and bringing him nearer with
every step.
* * * * *
Diane and Harkness had been a few paces in advance of Chet when they
dropped into the concealing grass. Chet could see where they lay, and
the ape-man, as he approached, turned off as if he had lost the
direction. He passed Chet by, passed where Walt and Diane were hiding
and stopped! And Chet saw the glazed eyes turn here and there about
their peaceful valley.
Unseeing they seemed, but again Chet knew better. Was he more
sensitively attuned than the others? Who could say? But again he caught
a message as plainly as if the words had been shouted inside his brain.
"Yes, the valley of the three sentinel peaks and the lake of blue; we
can find it again. Houses, shelters--how crudely they build, these
white-faced intruders!" Chet even sensed the contempt that accompanied
the thoughts. "That is enough; you have done well. You shall have their
raw hearts for your reward. Now bring them in--bring them in quickly!"
The instant action that followed this command was something Chet would
never have believed possible had his own eyes not seen the incredible
leap of the huge body. The ape-man's knotted muscles hurled him through
the air directly toward the spot where Walt and Diane were hidden. But,
had Chet been able to stand off and observe himself, he might have been
equally amazed at the sight of a man who leaped erect, who raised a long
bow, fitted an arrow, drew it to his shoulder, and did all in the
instant while the huge brute's body was in the air.
The great ape landed on all fours. When he straightened and stood
erect--his arms were extended, and in each of his gnarled hands he held
a figure that was helpless in that terrible grasp.
No chance to loose the arrow then, though the brute's back was half
turned. He had Harkness and Diane by their throats, and Chet knew by the
unresisting limpness of Harkness' body that the fearful fire in those
blazing eyes had them in a grip even more deadly than the hands of the
beast.
* * * * *
Thoughts were flashing wildly through Chet's brain. "Knocked 'em cold!
He'll do the same to me if I meet his eyes. But I can't shoot now;