Part 31 (1/2)

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 s.h.i.+p. 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 s.h.i.+fting 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 s.h.i.+fting room call grid. The hissing of the pneumatic valves of the plate s.h.i.+fters in the lower control room. The valves were opening; the plates automatically s.h.i.+fting 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 s.h.i.+fter 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 s.h.i.+fting 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.