Brood of the Dark Moon: (A Sequel to "Dark Moon")Diffin, Charles Willard
Science
Brood of the Dark Moon: (A Sequel to "Dark Moon")
Diffin, Charles Willard
Science fiction
"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 homecoming 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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