Part 37 (1/2)

XXIV

The duty man at the exit locks stood at his window and watched me curiously. He saw me go up the spider stairs. He could see the figure he thought was Wilks, standing at the top. He saw me join Wilks, saw us locked together in combat.

For a brief instant the duty man stood amazed. There were two fantastic figures, fighting at the very brink of the cliff. They were small, dwarfed by distance, alternately dim and bright as they swayed in and out of the shadows. The duty man could not tell one from the other. To him it was Haljan and Wilks, fighting to the death!

The duty man sprang into action. An interior siren call was on the instrument panel near him. He rang it frantically.

The men came rus.h.i.+ng to him, Grantline among them.

”What's this? Good G.o.d, Franck!”

They had seen the silent, deadly combat up there on the cliff.

Grantline stood stricken with amazement. ”That's Wilks!”

”And Haljan,” the duty man gasped. ”He went out--something wrong with Wilks' actions--”

The interior of the camp was in a turmoil. The men, awakened from sleep, ran out into the corridors shouting questions.

”An attack?”

”Is it an attack?”

”The brigands?”

But it was Wilks and Haljan in a fight up there on the cliff. The men crowded at the bull's-eye windows.

And over all the confusion the alarm siren, with no one thinking to shut it off, was screaming.

Grantline, momentarily stricken, stood gazing. One of the figures broke away from the other, bounded up to the summit from the stair platform to which they had both fallen. The other followed. They locked together, swaying at the brink. For an instant it seemed that they would go over; then they surged back, momentarily out of sight.

Grantline found his wits. ”Stop them! I'll go out and stop them! What fools!”

He was hastily donning one of the Erentz suits. ”Cut off that siren!”

Within a minute Grantline was ready. The duty man called from the window, ”Still at it, the fools. By the infernal--they'll kill themselves!”

”Franck, let me out.”

”I'll go with you, Commander.” But the volunteer was not equipped.

Grantline would not wait.

The duty man turned to his panel. The volunteer shoved a weapon at Grantline.

Grantline jammed on his helmet, took the weapon.

He moved the few steps into the air chamber which was the first of the three pressure locks. Its interior door panel swung open for him. But the door did not close after him!