XXII

I opened my eyes to a dark blur of confusion. My shoulder hurt--a pain shooting through it. Something lay like a weight on me. I could not seem to move my left arm. Then I moved it and it hurt. I was lying twisted. I sat up. And with a rush, memory came. The crash was over. I was not dead. Anita--

She was lying beside me. There was a little light here in the silent blur--a soft mellow Earthlight filtering in the window. The weight on me was Anita. She lay sprawled, her head and shoulders half way across my lap.

Not dead! Thank G.o.d, not dead! She moved. Her arms went around me, and I lifted her. The Earthlight glowed on her pale face.

"It's past, Anita! We've struck, and we're still alive."

I held her as though all of life's turgid dangers were powerless to touch us.

But in the silence my floating senses were brought back to reality by a faint sound forcing itself upon me. A little hiss. The faintest murmuring breath like a hiss. Escaping air!

I cast off Anita's clinging arms. "Anita, this is madness!"

For minutes we must have been lying there in the heaven of our embrace. But air was escaping! The _Planetara's_ dome was broken and our precious air was hissing out.

Full reality came to me. I was not seriously injured. I found I could move freely. I could stand. A twisted shoulder, a limp left arm, but they were better in a moment.

And Anita did not seem to be hurt. Blood was upon her. But not her own.

Beside Anita, stretched face down on the turret grid, was the giant figure of Miko. The blood lay in a small pool against his face. A widening pool.

Moa was here. I thought her body twitched; then was still. This soundless wreckage! In the dim glow of the wrecked turret with its two motionless, broken human figures, it seemed as though Anita and I were ghouls prowling. I saw that the turret had fallen over to the _Planetara's_ deck. It lay dashed against the dome side.

The deck was aslant. A litter of wreckage! A broken human figure showed--one of the crew who, at the last, must have come running up.

The forward observation tower was down on the chart room roof: in its metal tangle I thought I could see the legs of the tower lookout.

So this was the end of the brigands' adventure. The _Planetara's_ last voyage! How small and futile are humans' struggles. Miko's daring enterprise--so villainous--brought all in a few moments to this silent tragedy. The _Planetara_ had fallen thirty thousand miles. But why?

What had happened to Hahn? And where was Coniston, down in this broken hull?

And Snap! I thought suddenly of Snap.

I clutched at my wandering wits. This inactivity was death. The escaping air hissed in my ears. Our precious air, escaping away into the vacant desolation of the Lunar emptiness. Through one of the twisted, slanting dome windows a rocky spire was visible. The _Planetara_ lay bow down, wedged in a jagged cradle of Lunar rock. A miracle that the hull and dome had held together.

"Anita, we must get out of here!"

"Their helmets are in the forward storage room, Gregg."

She was staring at the fallen Miko and Moa. She shuddered and turned away and gripped me. "In the forward storage room, by the port of the emergency exit."

If only the exit locks would operate! We must find Snap and get out of here. Good old Snap! Would we find him lying dead?

We climbed from the slanting, fallen turret, over the wreckage of the littered deck. It was not difficult. A lightness was upon us. The _Planetara's_ gravity-magnetizers were dead; this was only the light Moon gravity pulling us.

"Careful, Anita. Don't jump too freely."

We leaped along the deck. The hiss of the escaping pressure was like a clanging gong of warning to tell us to hurry. The hiss of death so close!

"Snap--" I murmured.

"Oh, Gregg, I pray we may find him alive!"

With a fifteen foot leap we cleared a pile of broken deck chairs. A man lay groaning near them. I went back with a rush. Not Snap! A steward. He had been a brigand, but he was a steward to me now.

"Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here The air is escaping!"

But he sank back and lay still. No time to find if I could help him: there was Anita and Snap to save.

We found a broken entrance to one of the descending pa.s.sages. I flung the debris aside and cleared it. Like a giant of strength with only this Moon gravity holding me, I raised a broken segment of superstructure and heaved it back.

Anita and I dropped ourselves down the sloping pa.s.sage. The interior of the wrecked ship was silent and dim. An occasional pa.s.sage light was still burning. The pa.s.sage and all the rooms lay askew. Wreckage everywhere but the double dome and hull sh.e.l.l had withstood the shock.

Then I realized that the Erentz system was slowing down. Our heat, like our air, was escaping, radiating away, a deadly chill settling on everything. The silence and the deadly chill of death would soon be here in these wrecked corridors. The end of the _Planetara_.

We prowled like ghouls. We did not see Coniston. Snap had been by the shifter pumps. We found him in the oval doorway. He lay sprawled.

Dead? No, he moved. He sat up before we could get to him. He seemed confused, but his senses clarified with the movement of our figures over him.

"Gregg! Why, Anita!"

"Snap! You're all right? We struck--the air is escaping."

He pushed me away. He tried to stand. "I'm all right. I was up a minute ago. Gregg, it's getting cold. Where is she? I had her here--she wasn't killed. I spoke to her."

Irrational!

"Snap!" I held him. Shook him. "Snap, old fellow!"

He said normally, "Easy, Gregg. I'm all right."

Anita gripped him. "Who, Snap?"

"She--there she is...."

Another figure was here! On the grid floor by the door oval. A figure partly shrouded in a broken invisible cloak and hook. An invisible cloak! I saw a white face with opened eyes regarding me.

"Venza!" I bent down. "You!"

Venza here? Why ... how ... my thoughts swept on. Venza here--dying?

Her eyes closed. But she murmured to Anita, "Where is he? I want him."

I murmured impulsively, "Here I am, Venza dear." Gently, as one would speak with gentle sympathy to humor the dying. "Here I am, Venza."

But it was only the confusion of the shock upon her. And it was upon us all. She pushed at Anita. "I want him." She saw me; this whimsical Venus girl! Even here as we gathered, all of us blurred by shock, confused in the dim, wrecked ship with the chill of death coming--even here she could jest. Her pale lips smiled.

"You, Gregg. I'm not hurt--I don't think I'm hurt." She managed to get herself up on one elbow. "Did you think I wanted you with my dying breath? What conceit! Not you, Handsome Haljan! I was calling Snap."