Brood of the Dark Moon
effects go out like circling waves in an endless ocean of time forever
beyond our reach.
"But we can do other acts, produce other causes, and sometimes we can
neutralize thereby the effects of the first. I do that now." He picked
up the second bundle in its wrapping of leaves; it was heavy for him to
manage with his wounded arm. "This is all that I have," he said! "I must
place it surely.
"Go down toward the ship," he ordered. "Wait where it is safe. Then
when the gas ceases you will have but three minutes. Three
minutes!--remember! Lose no time at the port!"
He had reached the base of the hill of mud. He was on the windward side;
above him the fumerole was grunting and roaring. And, to Chet, the thin
figure, gaunt and ungainly and absurd in its wrappings of dilapidated
garments, became somehow tremendous, vaguely symbolic. He could not get
it clearly, but there was something there of the cool, reasoning
sureness of science itself--an indomitable pressing on toward whatever
goal the law might lead one to; but Kreiss was human as well. He stopped
once and looked about him.
"A laboratory--this world!" he exclaimed. "Virgin! Untouched!... So much
to be learned; so much to be done! And mine would have been the glory
and fame of it!"
He turned hesitantly, almost apologetically, toward Chet standing
motionless and unspeaking with the wonder of this turn of events.
"Should you be so fortunate as to survive," began Kreiss, "perhaps you
would be so kind--my name--I would not want it lost." He straightened
abruptly.
"Go!" he ordered. "Get as near as you can!" His feet were climbing
steadily up the slippery ascent.
* * * * *
The faintest breath of the gas warned Chet back. Almost infinitely
diluted, it still set him choking while the tears streamed down his
face. But he worked his way as near the ship as he dared, and he saw
through the tears that still blinded his stinging eyes the tall figure
of Kreiss as he reached the top.
A table of steaming mud was there, and Kreiss was sinking into it as he
struggled forward. At the center was a hot throat where fumes like a
breath from hell roared and choked with the strangling of its own gas.
The figure writhed as a whirl of green enveloped it, threw itself
forward. From one outstretched hand an object fell toward the throat;
its leafy wrapping was whipped sharply for an instant by the coughing
breath....
And then, where the hot blast had been, and the forming clouds and the
erupting mud, was a pillar of fire--a white flame that thundered into
the sky.
Straight and clean, like the sword of some guardian angel, it stood
erect--a line of dazzling light in a darkening sky. And the fumes of
green had vanished at its touch.
But Kreiss! Chet found himself running toward the fumerole. He must save
him, drag him back. Then he knew with a certainty that admitted of no
question that for Kreiss there was no help: that for this man of science
the laws of cause and effect were no longer operative on the plane of
Earth. The heat would have killed him, but the enveloping gas must have
reached him first. And he had sacrificed himself for what?--that he,
Chet, might reach the ship!... Before Chet's eyes was a silvery cylinder
whose closed port was plainly marked.
* * * * *
No gas now! No glint of green! The way was clear, and the slim figure of
Chet Bullard was checked in its rush toward a mound of mud and the body
of a man that lay next to a blasting column of flame; he turned instead
to throw himself through the clean air toward the ship that was free of
gas.
"Three minutes!" This was what Kreiss had said; this was the allotted
time. In three minutes he must reach the ship, force open the long
unused port, get inside--!
At one side, across the level lava rock he saw Towahg. The savage was
running at top speed. He had thrown away his bow, dropping it lest it
impede his flight from this terrifying witchcraft he had seen. There had
been a witch-doctor in Towahg's tribe; the savage knew sorcery when he
saw it. But never had his witch-doctor changed green gas to a column of
fire; and this white sorcerer, Kreiss, powerful as he was, had been
struck down by the fire-god before Towahg's eyes. Towahg ran as if the
roaring finger of flame might reach after him at any instant.
Chet saw this in a glance--knew the reason for the black's desertion:
then lost all thought of him and of Kreiss and even of the waiting ship.
For, in the same glance, he saw, springing from behind a lava block, the
heavy figure of a man.
Black as any ape, hairy of face, roaring strange oaths, the man threw
himself upon Chet! It was Schwartzmann; and, mingled with profane
exclamations, were the words: "the ship--und I take it for mineself!"
And his heavy body hurled itself down upon the lighter man in the
instant that Chet drew his pistol.
But, tearing through Chet's mind, was no rage against this man as an
enemy in himself; he thought only of Kreiss' words; "Three minutes! Lose
no time at the port!" And now the brave sacrifice! It would be in vain.
He twisted himself about, so that his shoulder might receive the human
projectile that was crashing upon him.
CHAPTER XXIII
_The Might of the "Master"_
As with other measures of matters earthly, time is a relative gauge.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in those moments of mental stress
when time passes in a flash or, conversely, drags each lagging minute
into hours of timeless length.
"Three minutes!" The words clanged and reverberated through Chet's
brain. And it seemed, as he strained and struggled and was forced
backward and yet backward by the weight of his antagonist, that those
three minutes had long since passed, and other three's without end.
The enemy's leaping body had been upon him before the detonite pistol
was half drawn. And now he fought desperately; he felt only the jar of
blows that landed on his half-covered face. There was no sting or pain,
only the crashing thud that made strange clamor and confusion in his
head. But he ducked and blocked awkwardly with the one arm that held the
package Kreiss had given him, while the other hand that gripped the
pistol was twisted behind him.
No chance here for clever blocking, no room for quick foot-work; weight
was telling, and the weight was all in favor of his big opponent.
Chet knew that possession of the gun was vital. Flashingly it came to
him that Schwartzmann had not fired: his pistol, then, was lost, or he
was out of ammunition. And now Chet's hand that held the gun with the
six precious charges of detonite was fast in the clutch of a huge paw,
and the pain of that twisted arm was sending searing flashes to his
brain.
A twist of the body, and the pain relaxed. He dropped the leaf-wrapped
package to the ground, and, with the free hand, shot over a blow that
brought a grunt of pain from Schwartzmann and a gush of blood that
smeared the black, hairy face. He took one stiff jolt himself on his
half-averted head that he might counter with another to flatten that
crushed and painful nose.
* * * * *
For one brief instant Schwartzmann's free hand was raised protectingly
to his face so contorted with rage; for one brief instant, below that
big fist, there showed the contour of a jaw; and, with every ounce of
weight that Chet could put into the swing, he came up from under in that
same instant with a smashing left that connected with the exposed jaw.
The hand that gripped his gun-hand did not let go completely, but Chet
felt the steel-hard rigidity of that arm relax, and abruptly he knew
that he could beat this man down if he once got clear. He didn't need
the gun; he needed only to get both hands free. And, despite the arm
that clung and swung with his, he managed to wrench himself into a
sideways throw of his whole body at the instant he unclosed his hand.
The slim barrel of the detonite pistol described a flashing arc through
the clear air and clattered along the lava underneath a big shining
surface of metal.
And then, in a breath-taking flash of understanding, Chet knew.
He knew he was beside the ship: he saw the closed port and the
self-retracting lever that would open it, and he saw it through clear
air where no taint of the green gas was apparent.
He was certain that he had been fighting for an interminable time, yet
before him the air was clear. It was impossible, but true; and he threw
the half-stunned body of Schwartzmann from him. Then, instead of
following it with punishing blows, he sprang toward the port.
* * * * *
With one hand on the lever, he turned to dart a glance toward the column
of flame. It was gone! And in its place came green, billowing gas that
was coughed and spewed into the air to be caught up in the steady breeze
that blew directly from the vent.
Beside him, his antagonist, prone on the lava floor, dragged himself
beneath the ship to reach for the gun. Chet paid no heed; his every
thought--his whole being, it seemed--was focused upon the lever that
turned so slowly, that let fall, at last, a lock whose releasing
mechanism clanged loudly through the metal wall.
The outer port, a thin door that served only to streamline the opening,
swung open under Chet's hand. And, while he held his breath till his
pumping heart set his whole body to pulsing, he drew himself into the
ship as the green cloud wrapped thickly about. But first he bent to
grasp the knotted vines and leathery leaves that enclosed a bulky
package.
The port closed silently upon its soft-faced gasket; it was gas-tight
when no pressure was applied. And Chet stumbled and reached blindly till
he fell beside the huge inner compression port, while the breath of gas
that had touched him tore with ripping talons at his throat.
More measureless time--whether hours or minutes Chet could never have
told--and he sat upright and tried to believe the utterly incredible
story that his eyes were telling.
A short passage and a control room beyond! It was just as they had left
it; was it days or years before? The shattered control cage was there,
the familiar instrument board, the very bar of metal with which he had
wrought such havoc in that wild moment of demolition; it was all crystal
clear under the flooding light of the nitron illuminator!
* * * * *
Yes, it was true! He, Chet Bullard, was staring wide-eyed at his own
control-room, in his own ship--his and Walt's--and he was alone! The
remembrance of Walt and Diane, and the realization that now, by some
miracle, he might be of help, brought him to his feet.
He sprang toward a lookout where the last light of day was gone and a
monstrous moon shone down upon a world of ghastly green. Yet, through
the gas, every detail of the world outside showed clear; even the giant
fumerole that had been the funeral pyre of a man of science; even the
mound of ashes at its top which the moving air was blowing in dusty
puffs until spouting mud fell back to hide them from sight.
Chet cursed the gas for the dimness that clouded his eyes, and he rubbed
at them savagely as he turned and walked to a side lookout.
Through the riot of impressions of the fight outside the port, he had
known that there was a human body over which he stumbled at times. He
saw it now--the body of Schwartzmann's henchman, killed these long weeks
before but preserved in the ceaseless flow of gas.
But now, sprawled across it, was another and bulkier shape. Sightless
eyes stared upward from a face turned to the cruel gas clouds and the
hideous green moon above. The mouth sagged open in a black, bearded