Beyond the Point of Unknown (Space Travel & Alien Contact Novels). Ray Cummings
he did know me for an enemy.
He stood now at the summit, peering to see where we had gone. He was no more than fifty feet from us.
"Anita, lie down."
I pulled her down on the rocks. I took aim with my projector. But I had forgotten our helmet lights. Miko must have seen them just as I pulled the trigger. He jumped sidewise and dropped, but I could see him moving in the shadows to where a jutting rock gave him shelter. I fired, missing him again.
I had stood up to take aim. Anita pulled me sharply down beside her.
"Gregg, he's armed!"
It was his turn to fire. It came—the familiar vague flash of the paralyzing ray. It spat its tint of color on the rocks near us, but did not reach us.
A moment later, Miko bounded to another rock.
Time passed—only a few seconds. I could not see Miko momentarily. Perhaps he was crouching; perhaps he had moved away again. He was, or had been, on slightly higher ground than the bottom of our bowl. It was dim down here where we were lying, but I feared that any moment Miko might appear and strike at us. His ray at any short range would penetrate our visor panes, even though our suits might temporarily resist it.
"Anita, it's too dangerous here!"
Had I been alone, I might perhaps have leapt up to lure Miko. But with Anita I did not dare chance it.
"We've got to get back to camp," I told her.
"Perhaps he has gone—"
But he had not. We saw him again, out in a distant patch of Earthlight. He was further from us than before, but on still higher ground. We had extinguished our small helmet lights. But he knew we were here and possibly he could see us. His projector flashed again. He was a hundred feet or more away now, and his weapon was of no longer range than mine. I did not answer his fire, for I could not hope to hit him at such a distance, and the flash of my weapon would help him to locate us.
I murmured to Anita, "We must get away."
Yet how did I dare take Anita from these concealing shadows? Miko could reach us so easily as we bounded away in plain view in the Earthlight of the open summit! We were caught, at bay in this little bowl.
The camp was not visible from here. But out through the broken gully, a white beam of light suddenly came up from below.
Haljan. It spelled the signal.
It was coming from the Grantline instrument room, I knew.
I could answer it with my helmet light, but I did not dare.
"Try it," urged Anita.
We crouched where we thought we might be safe from Miko's fire. My little light beam shot up from the bowl. It was undoubtedly visible to the camp.
Yes, I am Haljan. Send us help.
I did not mention Anita. Miko doubtless could read these signals. They answered, Cannot—
I lost the rest of it. There came a flash from Miko's weapon. It gave us confidence: he was unable to reach us at this distance.
The Grantline beam repeated:
Cannot come out. Ports broken. You cannot get in. Stay where you are for an hour or two. We may be able to repair ports.
I extinguished my light. What use was it to tell Grantline anything further? Besides, my light was endangering us. But the Grantline beam spelled another message:
Brigand ship is coming. It will be here before we can get out to you. No lights. We will try and hide our location.
And the signal beam brought a last appeal:
Miko and his men will divulge where we are unless you can stop them.
The beam vanished. The lights of the Grantline camp made a faint glow that showed above the crater edge. The glow died, as the camp now was plunged into darkness.
CHAPTER XXVII.
We crouched in the shadows, the Earthlight filtering down to us. The skulking figure of Miko had vanished; but I was sure he was out there somewhere on the crags, lurking, maneuvering to where he could strike us with his ray. Anita's metal-gloved hand was on my arm; in my ear-diaphragm her voice sounded eager:
"What was the signal, Gregg?"
I told her everything.
"Oh Gregg! The Martian ship coming!"
Her mind clung to that as the most important thing. But not so myself. To me there was only the realization that Anita was caught out here, almost at the mercy of Miko's ray. Grantline's men could not get out to help us, nor could I get Anita into the camp.
She added, "Where do you suppose the ship is?"
"Twenty or thirty thousand miles up, probably."
The stars and the Earth were visible over us. Somewhere up there, disclosed by Grantline's instruments but not yet discernible to the naked eye, Miko's reinforcements were hovering.
We lay for a moment in silence. It was horribly nerve straining. Miko could be creeping up on us. Would he dare chance my sudden fire? Creeping—or would he make a swift, unexpected rush?
The feeling that he was upon us abruptly swept me. I jumped to my feet, against Anita's effort to hold me. Where was he now? Was my imagination playing me tricks?...
I sank back. "That ship should be here in a few hours."
I told her what Grantline's signal had suggested; the ship was hovering overhead. It must be fairly close; for Grantline's telescope had revealed its identity as an outlaw flyer, unmarked by any of the standard code identification lights. It was doubtless too far away as yet to have located the whereabouts of Grantline's camp. The Martian brigands knew that we were in the vicinity of Archimedes, but no more than that. Searching this glowing Moon surface, our tiny local semaphore beams would certainly pass unnoticed.
But as the brigand ship approached now—dropping close to Archimedes as it probably would—our danger was that Miko and his men would then signal it, join it, and reveal the camp's location. And the brigand attack would be upon us!
I told this now to Anita. "The signal from Grantline said, 'Unless you can stop them.'"
It was an appeal to me. But how could I stop them? What could I do, alone out here with Anita, to cope with this enemy?
Anita made no comment.
I added, "That ship will land near Archimedes, within an hour or two. If Grantline can repair the ports, and I can get you inside...."
Again she made no comment. Then suddenly she gripped me. "Gregg, look there!"
Out through the gully break in our bowl the figure of Miko showed! He was running. But not at us. Circling the summit, leaping to keep himself behind the upstanding crags. He passed the head of the staircase; he did not descend it, but headed off along the summit of the crater rim.
I stood up to watch him. "Where's he going!"
I let Anita stand up beside me, cautiously at first, for it occurred to me it might be a ruse to cover some other of Miko's men who might be lurking near.
But the summit seemed clear. The figure of Miko was a thousand feet away now. We could see the tiny blob of it bobbing over the rocks. Then it plunged down—not into the crater valley, but out toward the open Moon surface.
Miko had abandoned his attack on us. The reason seemed plain. He had come here from his encampment with Coniston ahead to lure and kill Wilks. When this was done, Coniston had flashed his signal to Miko, who was hiding nearby.
It