Part 6 (1/2)
It came now from the side; it swelled larger and larger before his eyes.
Their own s.h.i.+p seemed unmoving; only the unending thunder of the generator told of the frantic efforts to escape. They seemed hung in s.p.a.ce; their own terrific speed seemed gone--added to and fused with the orbital motion of the Dark Moon to bring swiftly closer that messenger of death. The circle expanded silently; became menacingly huge.
Chet was whispering softly to himself: ”If I'd got hold of her an hour sooner--thirty minutes--or even ten.... We're doing over twenty thousand an hour combined speed, and we'll never really hit it.... We'll never reach the ground.”
He turned this over in his mind, and he nodded gravely in confirmation of his own conclusions. It seemed somehow of tremendous importance that he get this clearly thought out--this experience that was close ahead.
”Skin friction!” he added. ”It will burn us up!”
He has a sudden vision of a flaming star blazing a hot trail through the atmosphere of this globe; there would be only savage eyes to follow it--to see the line of fire curving swiftly across the heavens.... He, himself, was seeing that blazing meteor so plainly....
His eyes found the lookout; the globe was gone. They were close--close!
Only for the enveloping gas that made of this a dark moon, they would be seeing the surface, the outlines of continents.
Chet strained his eyes--to see nothing! It was horrible. It had been fearful enough to watch that expanding globe.... He was abruptly aware that the outer rim of the lookout was red!
For Chet Bullard, time ceased to have meaning; what were seconds--or centuries--as he stared at that glowing rim? He could not have told. The outer sh.e.l.l of their s.h.i.+p--it was radiant--s.h.i.+ning red-hot in the night.
And above the roar of the generator came a nerve-ripping shriek. A wind like a blast from h.e.l.l was battering and tearing at their s.h.i.+p.
”Good-by!” He has tried to call; the demoniac shrieking from without smothered his voice. One arm was across his eyes in an unconscious motion. The air of the little room was stifling. He forced his arm down; he would meet death face to face.
The lookout was ringed with fire; it was white with the terrible white of burning steel!--it was golden!--then cherry red! It was dying, as the fire dies from glowing metal plunged in its tempering bath--or thrown into the cold reaches of s.p.a.ce!
In Chet's ears was the roar of a detonite motor. He tried to realize that the lookouts were rimmed with black--cold, fireless black! An incredible black! There were stars there like pinpoints of flame! But conviction came only when he saw from a lookout in another wall a circle of violet that shrank and dwindled as he watched....
A hand was gripping his shoulder; he heard the voice of Walter Harkness speaking, while Walt's hand crept to raise the triple star that was pinned to his blouse.
”Master Pilot of the World!” Harkness was saying. ”That doesn't cover enough territory, old man. It's another rating that you're ent.i.tled to, but I'm d.a.m.ned if I know what it is.”
And, for once, Chet's ready smile refused to form. He stared dumbly at his friend; his eyes pa.s.sed to the white face of Mademoiselle Diane; then back to the controls, where his hand, without conscious volition, was reaching to move a metal ball.
”Missed it!” he a.s.sured himself. ”Hit the fringe of the air--just the very outside. If we'd been twenty thousand feet nearer!... He was moving the ball: their bow was swinging. He steadied it and set the s.h.i.+p on an approximate course.
”A stern chase!” he said aloud. ”All our momentum to be overcome--but it's easy sailing now!”
He pushed the ball forward to the limit, and the explosion-motor gave thunderous response.
CHAPTER IV
_The Return to the Dark Moon_
No man faces death in so shocking a form without feeling the effects.
Death had flicked them with a finger of flame and had pa.s.sed them by.
Chet Bullard found his hands trembling uncontrollably as he fumbled for a book and opened it. The tables of figures printed there were blurred at first to his eyes, but he forced himself to forget the threat that was past, for there was another menace to consider now.