Grantline Expedition, and suddenly, just as we started to descend, the controls snapped, and the Planetara tumbled like a spent rocket! Desperately I tried to check her, but only partially succeeded. We crashed horribly against the barren gray rock of the Moon. Anita, Venza, Snap and I lived through it, but we could not find the bodies of Miko and Moa in the wreckage. Evidently they, were still alive, somewhere.
We reached Johnny Grantline. The Planetara was a complete wreck. And, speeding to us from Mars, was Miko's brigand ship.
We were powerless—without means of leaving the Moon—and completely at the mercy of Miko's fast approaching brigands!
CHAPTER XXIII
The Prowling Watchman
"TRY it again," Snap urged. "Good God, Johnny, we've got to raise some Earth station! Chance it! Use your power—run it up to the full. Chance it!"
We were gathered in Grantline's instrument room. The duty-man, with blanched grim face, Bat at his senders. The Grantline crew shoved close around us, tense and silent.
Above everything we must make some Earth station aware of our plight. Conditions were against us. There/ were very few observers in the high— powered Earth stations who knew that an exploring party was on the Moon. Perhaps none of them. The Government officials who had sanctioned the expedition—and Halsey and his confrères in the Detective Bureau—were not anticipating trouble now. The Planetara was supposed to be well on her course to Ferrok-Shahn." It was when she was due to return that Halsey would be alert.
And it seemed, too, that nature was against as. The bulging half-Earth[1] hung poised near the zenith over our little crater. Its rotation through the hours was clearly visible. We timed our signals when the western hemisphere was facing us. But nature was against us. No clouds, no faintest hint of mist could fog the airless Lunar surface. But there were continuous clouds over the Americas.
"Try it again," Snap urged.
THESE bulging walls! Grantline used his power far beyond the limits of safety. He cut down his lights; the telescope intensifiers were permanently disconnected; the ventilators were momentarily stilled, so that the air here in the little room crowded with men rapidly grew fetid. All to save power pressure, that the vital Erentz system might survive.
Even so it was strained to the danger point. The walls seemed to bulge outward with the pressure of the room, the aluminite braces straining and creaking. And our heat was radiating away; the deadly chill of space crept in..
"Again!" ordered Grantline.
The duty-man flung on the power in rhythmic pulses. In the silence the tubes hissed. The light sprang through the banks of rotating prisms, intensified up the scale until, with a vague, almost invisible beam, it left the last swaying mirror and leaped through our overhead dome into space.
"Commander!" The duty-man's voice carried an appeal. These bulging walls! If they cracked, or even sprung a serious leak, the camp would be uninhabitable. ...
"Enough," said Grantline. "Switch it off. We'll let it go at that for now." It seemed that every man in the room had been holding his breath in the darkness. The lights came on again; the Erentz motors accelerated to normal The strain on the walls eased up, and the room began warming.
Had the Earth caught our signal? We did not want to waste the power to find out. Our receivers were dis-
- ↑ Between the half and the full illuminated disc, the complete Earth now was some ten days old.
