"Signals coming! Not clear. Will you come over, Commander?"
Signals!
It was never Grantline"s way to enforce needless discipline. He offered no objection when every man in the camp rushed through the connecting pa.s.sages. They crowded the instrument room where the tense duty man sat bending over his radio receivers. The mirrors were swaying.
The duty man looked up and met Grantline"s gaze.
"I ran it up to the highest intensity, Commander. We ought to get it--"
"Low scale, Peter?"
"Yes. Weakest infra-red. I"m bringing it up, even though it uses too much of our power."
"Get it," said Grantline shortly.
"I got one slight television swing a minute ago--then it faded. I think it"s the _Planetara_."
"_Planetara_!" The crowding group of men chorused. How could it be the _Planetara_?
But it was. The call came in presently. Unmistakably the _Planetara_, turned back now from her course to Ferrok-Shahn.
"How far away, Peter?"
The duty man consulted the needles of his dial scale. "Close! Very weak infra-red. But close. Around thirty thousand miles, maybe. It"s Snap Dean calling."
The _Planetara_ here within thirty thousand miles! Excitement and pleasure swept the room. The _Planetara_ had for so long been awaited eagerly!
The excitement communicated to Grantline. It was unlike him to be incautious; yet now with no thought save that some unforeseen and pleasing circ.u.mstance had brought the _Planetara_ ahead of time; incautious, Grantline certainly was!
"Raise the barrage."
"I"ll go. My suit is here."
A willing volunteer rushed out to the shed.
"Can you send, Peter?" Grantline demanded.
"Yes. With more power."
"Use it."
Johnny dictated the message of his location which we received. In his incautious excitement he ignored the secret code.
An interval pa.s.sed. No message had come from us--just Snap"s routine signal in the weak infra-red, which we hoped Grantline would not get.
The men crowding Grantline"s instrument room waited in tense silence.
Then Grantline tried the television again. Its current weakened the lights with the drain upon the distributors, and cooled the room with a sudden deadly chill as the Erentz insulating system slowed down.
The duty man looked frightened. "You"ll bulge out our walls, Commander. The internal pressure--"
"We"ll chance it."
They picked up the image of the _Planetara_. It shone clear on the grid--the segment of star-field with a tiny cigar-shaped blob. Clear enough to be unmistakable. The _Planetara_! Here now, over the Moon, almost directly overhead, poised at what the altimeter scale showed to be a fraction under thirty thousand miles.
The men gazed in awed silence. The _Planetara_ coming....
But the altimeter needle was motionless. The _Planetara_ was hanging poised.
A sudden gasp went about the room. The men stood with whitening faces, gazing at the _Planetara"s_ image. And at the altimeter"s needle. It was moving now. The _Planetara_ was descending. But not with an orderly swoop.
The grid showed the ship clearly. The bow tilted up, then dipped down.
But then in a moment it swung up again. The ship turned partly over.
Righted itself. Then swayed again, drunkenly.
The watching men were stricken in horrified silence. The _Planetara"s_ image momentarily, horribly, grew larger. Swaying. Then turning completely over, rotating slowly end over end.
The _Planetara_, out of control, was falling!
XXI
On the _Planetara_, in the radio room, Snap and I stood with Moa"s weapon upon us. Miko held Anita. Triumphant, possessive. Then as she struggled, a gentleness came to this strange Martian giant. Perhaps he really loved her. Looking back on it, I sometimes think so.
"Anita, do not fear me." He held her away from him. "I would not harm you. I want your love." Irony came to him. "And I thought I had killed you. But it was only your brother."
He partly turned. I was aware of how alert was his attention. He grinned. "Hold them, Moa. Don"t let them do anything foolish.... So, little Anita, you were masquerading to spy on me? That was wrong of you."
Anita had not spoken. She held herself tensely away from Miko. She had flashed me a look, just one. What horrible mischance to have brought on this catastrophe!
The completion of Grantline"s message had come unnoticed by us all. We remained tense.
"Look! Grantline again!" Snap said abruptly.
But the mirrors were steadying. We had no recording mechanism; the rest of the message was lost.
No further message came. There was an interval while Miko waited. He held Anita in the hollow of his great arm.
"Quiet, little bird. Do not fear me. I have work to do, Anita, this is our great adventure. We will be rich, you and I. All the luxuries these worlds can offer--all for us when this is over. Careful, Moa!
This Haljan has no wit."
Well could he say it. I, who had been so witless as to let this come upon us! Moa"s weapon prodded me. Her voice hissed at me with all the venom of a reptile enraged. "So that was your game, Gregg Haljan! And I was so graceless as to admit love for you!"
Snap murmured in my ear, "Don"t move, Gregg! She"s reckless."
She heard it. She whirled on him. "We have lost George Prince, it seems. Well, we will survive without his scientific knowledge. And you, Dean--and this Haljan, mark me--I will kill you both if you cause trouble!"