Miko was gloating. "Don"t kill them yet, Moa. What was it Grantline said? Near the crater of Archimedes. Ring us down, Haljan. We"ll land."
He signaled the turret, gave Coniston the Grantline message, and audiphoned it below to Hahn. The news spread about the ship. The bandits were jubilant.
"We"ll land now, Haljan. Come, Anita and I will go with you to the turret."
I found my voice. "To what destination?"
"Near Archimedes. The Apennine side. Keep well away from the Grantline camp. We will probably sight it as we descend."
There was no trajectory needed. We were almost over Archimedes now. I could drop us with a visible, instrumental course. My mind was whirling with a confusion of thoughts. What could we do? I met Snap"s gaze.
"Ring us down, Gregg," he said quietly.
I nodded. I pushed Moa"s weapon away. "You don"t need that--"
We went to the turret. Moa watched me and Snap, a grim, cold Amazon.
She avoided looking at Anita, whom Miko helped down the ladders with a strange mixture of courtierlike grace and amused irony. Coniston stared at Anita.
"I say, not George Prince? The girl--"
"No time for explanations," Miko commanded. "It"s the girl, masquerading as her brother. Get below, Coniston. Haljan takes us down."
The astounded Englishman continued to gaze at Anita. But he said, "I mean to say, where to on the Moon? Not to encounter Grantline at once, Miko? Our equipment is not ready."
"Of course not. We will land well away--"
The reluctant Coniston left us. I took the controls. Miko, still holding Anita as though she were a child, sat beside me. "We will watch him, Anita. A skilled fellow at this sort of work."
I rang my signals for the shifting of the gravity plates. The answer should have come from below within a second or two. But it did not.
Miko regarded me with his great bushy eyebrows upraised.
"Ring again, Haljan."
I duplicated. No answer. The silence was ominous.
Miko muttered, "That accursed Hahn. Ring again!"
I sent the imperative emergency demand.
No answer. A second or two. Then all of us in the turret were startled. Transfixed. From below came a sudden hiss. It sounded in the turret; it came from the shifting room call grid. The hissing of the pneumatic valves of the plate shifters in the lower control room. The valves were opening; the plates automatically shifting into neutral, and disconnecting!
An instant of startled silence. Miko may have realized the significance of what had happened. Certainly Snap and I did. The hissing ceased. I gripped the emergency plate shifter switch which hung over my head. Its disc was dead! The plates were dead in neutral: in the position they were placed only in port! And their shifting mechanisms were imperative!
I was on my feet. "We"re in neutral!"
The Moon disc moved visibly as the _Planetara_ lurched. The vault of the heavens was slowly swinging.
Miko ripped out a heavy oath. "Haljan! What is this?"
The heavens turned with a giant swoop. The Moon was over us. It swung in a dizzying arc. Overhead, then back past our stern; under us, then appearing over our bow.
The _Planetara_ had turned over. Upending. Rotating, end over end.
For a moment I think all of us in the turret stood and clung. The Moon disc, the Earth, Sun and all the stars were swinging past our windows.
So horribly dizzying. The _Planetara_ seemed lurching and tumbling.
But it was an optical effect only. I stared with grim determination at my feet. The turret seemed to steady.
Then I looked again. That horrible swoop of all the heavens! And the Moon, as it went past seemed expanded. We were falling! Out of control, with the Moon gravity pulling us down!
"That accursed Hahn--"
A moment only had pa.s.sed. My fancy that the Moon disc was enlarged was merely the horror of my imagination. We had not fallen far enough for that.
But we were falling. Unless I could do something, we would crash upon the Lunar surface.
Anita, killed in this turret: the end of everything--every hope.
Action came to me. I gasped, "Miko, you stay here! The controls are dead! You stay here and hold Anita--"
I ignored Moa"s weapon. Snap thrust her away.
"We"re falling, you fool--let us alone!"
Miko gasped, "Can you--check us? What happened?"
"I don"t know--"
I stood clinging. This dizzying whirl. From the audiphone grid Coniston"s voice sounded.
"I say, Haljan, something"s wrong. Hahn doesn"t signal."
The lookout in the forward tower was clinging to our window. On the deck below our turret a member of the crew appeared, stood lurching for a moment, then shouted and ran, swaying, aimless. From the lower hull corridors our grids sounded with the tramping of running steps.
Panic among the crew was spreading over the ship. A chaos below deck.
I pulled at the emergency switch again. Dead....
"Snap, we must get down. The signals."
Coniston"s voice came like a scream from the grid. "Hahn is dead. The controls are broken!"
I shouted, "Miko, hold Anita! Come on, Snap!"
We clung to the ladders. Snap was behind me. "Careful, Gregg! Good G.o.d!"
This dizzying whirl. I tried not to look. The deck under me was now a blurred kaleidoscope of swinging patches of moonlight and shadow.
We reached the deck. It seemed that from the turret Anita"s voice followed us. "Be careful!"