“Come on,” he ordered. “Keep out of trouble, though. Olcott went a little too far when he jumped me. He can’t turn back any more…and that means he’s desperate.”
The girl nodded. Side by side they drove on toward the solitary crater of Linne, alone in the middle of the Mare Serenitatis. Once Templin thought he saw Olcott’s figure on top of a peak, watching them. But it didn’t reappear, and he decided he had been mistaken…
They loped into the ancient city of the long-dead lunar race, Templin in the lead but the girl only a hair’s-breadth behind. In the shadow of a giant ruined tower Templin gestured, and they came to a stop.
He switched off the transmitter of his helmet radio, motioned to the girl to do the same. When, somewhat puzzled, she obeyed, he leaned close to her, touching helmets.
“Keep your radio off!” he yelled, and the vibration carried his voice from his helmet to hers. “This is where Olcott’s outfit hides out, whoever they are. If they hear our radios it’ll be trouble.”
ELLEN NODDED, and the two of them advanced down the broad street of the ravished Lunarian metropolis. Glancing at the shattered buildings all about them, Templin found his mind dwelling on the peculiar tragedy of the Moon’s former inhabitants, who had risen from the animal, developed a massive civilization…and seen it wiped out into nothingness.
Ellen shuddered and moved closer to Templin. He understood her feeling; even to him, the city seemed haunted. The light of the giant sun that hung overhead was blinding; yet he found himself becoming jittery, seeing strange imaginary shapes that twisted and contorted in the utterly black shadows cast by the ruined walls. They circled a shattered Coliseum, looking warily into every crevice, when Templin felt Ellen’s gauntleted hand on his shoulder. He looked at her and touched helmets. Her face was worried. “Someone’s watching us, Temp,” she said positively, her voice metallic as it was transmitted by the helmets. “I feel eyes.”
“Where?”
“How do I know? In that big round building we just passed, I think. It feels exactly as if they keep going around and around the building at the same time we do, always staying on the far side from us.”
Templin considered. “Let’s look,” he said. “You go one way, I’ll go the other. We’ll meet on the other side.”
“Oh, Temp!”
“Don’t be frightened, Ellen. You have your gun—and I can take care of myself with my space knife.”
Her lip trembled. “All right,” she said. Templin watched her start off. She had drawn the gun and was holding it ready as she walked.
Templin went clockwise around the building, moving slowly and carefully, his hand always poised near the dirk at his belt. Almost anything might be lurking in the cavernous hollows in these old buildings. Olcott, he felt quite sure, was lurking somewhere nearby—and so were his mysterious friends. Templin stepped over a fallen carven pillar—strange ornamentation of curious serpentine beasts and almost-human figures straining toward the sky was on it—and froze as he thought he saw a flicker of motion out of the corner of his eye. But it was not repeated, and after a moment he went on.
He was clear back to his starting point before he realized that Ellen had disappeared.
TEMPLIN SWORE in the silence. There was no doubt about it. He had travelled completely around the circular building, and Ellen was gone.
He hesitated a second, feeling the forces of mystery gathering about him as they had about Ellen, then grimly dismissed the fantasy from his mind. There had to be a way of finding Ellen again…and at once.
His mind coldly alert, he circled the ancient Lunarian structure once more. Ellen was not in sight.
Templin stood still, thinking it over. Cautiously he retraced his tracks, eyes fixed on the soft Lunarian rock beneath him.
Fifteen yards away, he saw the marks of a scuffle on the ray-charred rock. Heavy space boots had been dragged there, making deep, protesting scars. Ellen.
Templin swore soundlessly and loosened his space knife in its scabbard. He stared up at the ruined Loonie temple. A crumbled arch was before him; inside the structure it disappeared into ultimate blackness. There was a curving corridor, heading downward in a wide spiral. He could see a dozen yards into it… then darkness obliterated his vision.
Templin shrugged and grinned tightly to himself. It looked so very much like a giant rat-trap. Foolish, to go into unknown danger on the chance that Ellen was there—but it was the foolish sort of risk he had always been willing to take.
He snapped on his helmet lamp and stepped boldly in.
Down he went, and down. The corridor was roughly circular in section, slightly flattened underfoot and ornamented with ancient carvings. Templin flashed his light on them curiously as he passed. They were a repetition of the weirdly yearning figures he had seen on the columns outside—lean, tenuous manlike things, arms stretched to the sky. Curious, how like they were to human beings, Templin thought. Except for the leanness of them, and the outsize eyes on the pearshaped head, they could almost have been men.
Templin grimaced at them and went on.
He had walked about a mile in the broad, downward spiral when he saw lights ahead.
Instinctively he snapped off his helmet lamp, stood motionless in the darkness, waiting to see if he had been noticed. But the lights, whatever they were, did not move; he waited for long minutes, and nothing came toward him. Obiviously he had not been seen.
Templin cautiously moved up toward them, watching carefully. They were too bright for helmet lamps, he thought; and too still. But what other lights could be down here in this airless cavern under the Moon? He crept up behind a rock overhang and peered out.
“Good Lord!” Stunned, Templin spoke aloud, and the words echoed inside his helmet. For now he could see clearly—and what he saw was unbelievable.
There were figures moving before the lights. A stocky figure of a man in a pressure suit that Templin knew to be Olcott, and others. And the other figures were—not human!
TEMPLIN stepped out in the open to see more clearly. Abruptly some atavistic sense made the hair on his neck prickle with sudden warning of danger—but it came too late. Templin whirled around, suddenly conscious of his peril. Figures were behind him, menacing figures that he could not recognize in the darkness, closing in on him. He grabbed instinctively for his space knife, but before he had it clear of its scabbard they were on him, bowling him over with the force and speed of their silent attack. He fell heavily, with them on top of him.
He struggled, writhing frantically, but there were too many of them. They held him down; he felt hands running over him, plucking his space knife from its scabbard. Then he felt himself being picked up by a dozen hands and carried face down toward the lights.
Templin made his mind relax and consider, fighting to overcome his rage at being taken so by surprise. He thought desperately of ruses for escape…
Then anger was driven out of his mind. He heard a thin, shrill whistle of escaping air within his helmet. It meant only one thing…his suit had been pierced in the struggle, and his precious air was leaking into the void outside.
He made a supreme, convulsive effort and managed to free one arm, but it was recaptured immediately and he was helpless. Templin groaned internally. He was a dead man, he knew—dead as surely as though the heart had been cut from his body. For his suit was leaking air and there was no way to stop it, no nearby pressure-dome into which to flee, nothing to do but die.
Templin resigned himself for death; he relaxed, allowing his captors to carry him along at a swift, jogging trot. His mind was strangely calm, now that death was so near. For anxiety and fright come only from uncertainty… and there was no more uncertainty… in Templin’s mind.