Science fiction -- Periodicals; Science fiction, American -- Periodicals
"I'll hold her at fifty thousand," he told Harkness. "Watch for some
outline that you can remember from last time."
There was an irregular area of continental size; only when they had
crossed it did Harkness point toward an outflung projection of land.
"That peninsula," he exclaimed; "we saw that before! Swing south and
inland.... Now down forty, and east of south.... This ought to be the
spot."
Perhaps Harkness, too, had the flyer's indefinable power of
orientation. He guided Chet in the downward flight, and his pointing
finger aimed at last at a cluster of shadows where a setting sun
brought mountain ranges into strong relief. Chet held the ship steady,
hung high in the air, while the quick-spreading mantle of night swept
across the world below. And, at last, when the little world was
deep-buried in shadow, they saw the red glow of fires from a hidden
valley in the south.
"Fire Valley!" said Chet. "Don't say anything about me being a
navigator. Wait, you've brought us home, sure enough."
"Home!" He could not overcome this strange excitement of a home-coming
to their own world. Even the man who stood, pistol in hand, behind him
was, for the moment, forgotten.
Valley of a thousand fires!--scene of his former adventures! Each
fumerole was adding its smoky red to the fiery glow that illumined the
place. There were ragged mountains hemming it in; Chet's gaze passed
on to the valley's end.
Down there, where the fires ceased, there would be water; he would
land there! And the ship from Earth slipped down in a long slanting
line to cushion against its under exhausts, whose soft thunder echoed
back from a bare expanse of frozen lava. Then its roaring faded. The
silvery shape sank softly to its rocky bed, as Chet cut the motor that
had sung its song of power since the moment when Schwartzmann had
carried him off--taken him from that frozen, forgotten corner of an
incredibly distant Earth.
* * * * *
"Iss there air?" Schwartzmann demanded. Chet came to himself again
with a start: he saw the man peering from the lookout to right and to
left as if he would see all that there was in the last light of day.
"Strange!" he was grumbling to himself. "A strange place! But those
hills--I saw their markings--there will be metals there. I will
explore; later I return: I will mine them. Many ships I must build to
establish a line. The first transportation line of space. Me, Jacob
Schwartzmann--I will do it. I will haff more than anyone else on
Earth; I will make them all come to me crawling on their bellies!"
Chet saw the hard shine of the narrowed eyes. For an instant only, he
dared to consider the chance of leaping upon the big, gloating figure.
One blow and a quick snatch for the pistol!... Then he knew the folly
of such a plan: Schwartzmann's men were armed; he would be downed in
another second, his body a shattered, jellied mass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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