Beyond the Point of Unknown (Space Travel & Alien Contact Novels). Ray Cummings

      CHAPTER XXIV.

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      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 rushing to him, Grantline among them.

      "What's this? Good God, 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!

      Cursing the man's slowness, he waited a few seconds. Then he turned to the corridor. The duty man came running.

      Grantline took off his helmet. "What in hell—"

      "Broken! Dead!"

      "What!"

      "Smashed from outside," gasped the duty man. "Look there—my tubes—"

      The control tubes of the ports had flashed into a short circuit and burned out. The admission ports would not open!

      "And the pressure controls smashed! Broken from outside!"

      There was no way now of getting through the pressure locks. The doors, the entire pressure lock system, was dead. Had it been tampered with from outside?

      As if to answer Grantline's question there came a chorus of shouts from the men at the corridor windows.

      "Commander! By God—look!"

      A figure was outside, close to the building! Clothed in suit and helmet, it stood, bloated and gigantic. It had evidently been lurking at the port entrance, had ripped out the wires there.

      It moved past the windows, saw the staring faces of the men, and made off with giant bounds. Grantline reached the window in time to see it vanish around the building corner.

      It was a giant figure, larger than an Earth man. A Martian?

      * * * * *

      Up on the summit of the crater the two small figures were still fighting. All this turmoil had taken no more than a minute or two.

      A lurking Martian outside? The brigand, Miko? More than ever, Grantline was determined to get out. He shouted to his men to don some of the other suits, and called for some of the hand projectors.

      But he could not get out through these main admission ports. He could have forced the panels open perhaps; but with the pressure changing mechanism broken, it would merely let the air out of the corridor. A rush of air, probably uncontrollable. How serious the damage was, no one could tell as yet. It would perhaps take hours to repair it.

      Grantline was shouting, "Get those weapons! That's a Martian outside! The brigand leader, probably! Get into your suits, anyone who wants to go with me! We'll go by the manual emergency exit."

      But the prowling Martian had found it! Within a minute Grantline was there. It was a smaller two-lock gateway of manual control, so that the person going out could operate it himself. It was in a corridor at the other end of the main building. But Grantline was too late! The lever would not open the panels!

      Had someone gone out this way and broken the mechanisms after him? A traitor in the camp? Or had someone come in from outside? Or had the skulking Martian outside broken this lock as he had broken the other?

      The questions surged on Grantline. His men crowded around him. The news spread. The camp was a prison! No one could get out!

      And outside, the skulking Martian had disappeared. But Wilks and Haljan were still fighting. Grantline could see the two figures up on the observatory platform. They bounded apart, then together again. Crazily swaying, bouncing, striking the rail.

      They went together in a great leap off the platform onto the rocks, and rolled in a bright patch of Earthlight. First one on top, then the other.

      They rolled unheeding to the brink. Here, beyond the midway ledge which held the camp, it was a sheer drop of a thousand feet, on down to the crater floor.

      The figures were rolling; then one shook himself loose; rose up, seized the other and, with desperate strength, shoved him—

      The victorious figure drew back to safety. The other fell, hurtling down into the shadows past the camp level—down out of sight in the darkness of the crater floor.

      Snap, who was in the group near Grantline at the window gasped, "God! Was that Gregg who fell?"

      No one could say. No one answered. Outside, on the camp ledge, another helmeted figure now became visible. It was not far from the main building when Grantline first noticed it. It was running fast, bounding toward the spider staircase. It began mounting.

      And now still another figure became visible—the giant Martian again. He appeared from around the corner of the main Grantline building. He evidently saw the winner of the combat on the cliff, who now was standing in the Earthlight, gazing down. And he saw too, no doubt, the second figure mounting the stairs. He stood quite near the window through which Grantline and his men were gazing, with his back to the building, looking up to the summit. Then he ran with tremendous leaps toward the ascending staircase.

      Was it Haljan standing up there on the summit? Who was it climbing the stairs? And was the third figure Miko?