Part 48 (1/2)

The flattened past full Earth was up there. I knew that the Western Hemisphere faced the Moon at this hour. I flashed in English, with the open Universal Earth code:

_Help. Grantline._

And again: _Help. Archimedes region near Apennines. Attacked by brigands._

_Send help at once. Grantline._

If only it would be received! I flung off the current. Anita stood watching me intently. ”Gregg, look!”

I saw that she had taken some of the gla.s.s globe-bombs which lay by the foot of the ascending ladder. ”Gregg, I threw some of them.”

At the window we gazed down. The globes she flung had shattered on the deck. They were darkness bombs.

Through the blackness of the deck, the shouts of the brigands came up.

They were stumbling about. But the ramming of our trap went on, and I saw that it was beginning to yield.

”We've got to go, Anita!”

From out of the darkness which hung like a shroud over the deck an occasional flash came up, unaimed, wide of our windows. But the darkness was dissipating. I could see now the dim glow of the deck lights, blurred as through a heavy fog.

I dropped another of the bombs.

”Put on your helmet.”

”Yes--yes, I will. You put yours on.”

We had them adjusted in a moment. Our Erentz motors were pumping.

I gripped her. ”Put out your helmet light.”

She extinguished it. I handed her my projector.

”Hold it a moment. I'm going to take that belt of bombs.”

The trap door was all but broken under the ramming blows of the men. I leaped over the body of the dead duty man, seized the belt of bombs and strapped it around my waist.

”Give me the projector.”

She handed it to me. The trap door burst upward! A man's head and shoulders appeared. I fired a bullet into him--the leaden pellet singing down through the yellow powder flash that spat from the projector's muzzle.

The brigand screamed, and dropped back out of sight. There was confusion at the ladder top. I flung a bomb at the broken trap. A tiny heat ray came wavering up through the opening, but went wide of us.

The instrument room was in darkness. I clung to Anita.

”Hold on to my hand. You go first--here is the ladder!”

We found it in the blackness, mounted it and went through the cubby's roof-trap.

I took another look and dropped another bomb beside us. The four foot s.p.a.ce up here between the cubby roof and the overhead dome, went black. We were momentarily concealed.

Anita located the manual levers of the lock-entrance.