He moved the few steps into the small air-chamber which was the first of the three pressure locks. Its interior door-panel swung open for him. But the door did not close after him!
Cursing the duty-man"s slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he turned to the corridor. The duty-man came running.
Grantline took off his helmet. "What in h.e.l.l--"
"Broken! Dead!"
"What!"
"Smashed from outside," gasped the duty-man. "Look there--my tubes--"
The control-tubes of the portes had flashed into a close-circuit and burned out. The admission portes would not open!
"And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside--!"
There was no way now of getting out through these pressure-locks. The doors, the entire pressure-lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered with from outside?
As though to answer Grantline"s amazed question there came a chorus of shouts from the men at the corridor windows.
"Commander! By G.o.d--look!"
A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking at the porte-entrance, had ripped out the wires there.
It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it vanish around the building corner.
It was a giant figure, larger than a normal Earthman. A Martian?
Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.
A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever, Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some of the other suits, and called for some of the hand bullet projectors.
But he could not get out through these main admission portes. He could have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure-changing mechanisms broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was no one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.
Grantline was shouting. "Get those weapons! That"s a Martian outside!
The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to go with me! We"ll go by the manual emergency exit!"
But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was there. It was a smaller, two-lock gateway of manual control, so that the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The lever would not open the panels!
Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? A traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?
The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The news spread. The camp was a prison. No one could get out.
And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again.
Crazily swaying--bouncing--striking the rail.
They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks, and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the other, they rolled, unheeding, to the brink. Here, beyond the midway ledge which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on down to the crater-floor.
The figures were rolling: then one shook himself loose, rose up, seized the other and, with a desperate lunge, shoved him--
The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling down into the shadows past the camp-level--down out of sight in the darkness of the crater-floor.
Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the windows, gasped.
"G.o.d! Was that Gregg Haljan who fell?"
No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp-ledge, another helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast, bounding toward the spider-staircase. It began mounting.
And now still another figure became visible--the giant Martian again.
He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw, too, no doubt, the second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his back to the building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps toward the ascending staircase.
Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the staircase? And was the third figure Miko?
Grantline"s mind framed the questions. But his attention was torn from them, and torn even from the swift silent drama outside. The corridor was ringing with shouts.
"We"re imprisoned! Can"t get out! Was Haljan killed? The brigands are outside!"
And then an interior audiphone blared a call for Grantline. Someone in the instrument room of the adjoining building was talking:
"Commander, I tried the telescope to see who got killed--"
But he did not say who got killed, for he had greater news.
"Commander! The brigand ship!"
Miko"s reinforcements from Mars had come.
CHAPTER XXV
_The Combat on the Crater-top_
Not Wilks, but Coniston! His drawling, British voice:
"You, Gregg Haljan! How nice!"
His voice broke off as he jerked his arm from me. My hand with the bullet-protector came up, but with a sweeping blow he struck my wrist. The weapon dropped to the rocks.
I fought instinctively, those first moments; my mind was whirling with the shock of surprise. This was not Wilks, but the brigand Coniston.
His blow wrenched him around. Awkward, fighting in the air-puffed suits, with only a body-weight of some thirty pounds! Coniston stumbled over the rocks. I had still scarce recovered my wits, but I avoided his outflung arms, and, stooping, tried to recover my revolver. It lay nearby. But Coniston followed my scrambling steps and fell upon me. My foot struck the weapon; it slid away and fell down a crag into a six-foot pit.
We locked together, and when I rose erect he had me around the middle.