Read Ebook: 續子不語 by Yuan Mei

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Ebook has 346 lines and 12416 words, and 7 pages

War-Lords of the Moon

Bruce Ross, on the Earth-Moon run, asked a simple question, "How are the stars behaving, Harry?" But Harrell Moore could only stare at him in horror. For the stars had run amok--cosmic engines of destruction in the hands of the twisted genius of the Moon!

A faint quiver ran through the great hull of the rocket ship, and passed. The harsh drumming of her motors died to a singing drone. Flight-Commander Bruce Ross nodded absently. The ship had shaken off the Earth-drag, and the speed indicator climbed fast. Eleven, twelve hundred miles an hour, the flagship of the rocket-ship fleet sped on its way to the Moon.

He moved to the forward telescope at the side of the control cabin and squinted at their objective. The pale circular bulk of the Moon loomed larger than when he had last observed it. He twisted to look through the rear telescope, and saw with satisfaction that the other seven ships of his fleet were following in echelon, each a mile and somewhat to the right of the one before it.

Ross grinned with pleasure. It wasn't his first trip to the Moon, but on that earlier occasion, when Magnus, King of the Moon People, had pledged a truce with the Earth's Council of Seven, he had commanded only the flagship. Now he had his own flagship, larger and more powerful than that outmoded rocket ship of five years ago, and seven more fighting ships besides. He strolled over to stand behind his navigator, plump, bespectacled Harrell Moore, who was squinting strainedly through the star-scope.

"How are the stars behaving, Harry?"

Moore's forehead was corrugated with concern. Without taking his eye from the scope he muttered softly, "Something funny going on, Bruce."

He moved back to let his chief step to the eye-piece. But before the flight-commander could take the seat a sliding door opened with a bang. The two turned, startled.

In the opening swayed a white-faced clerk. "Sir," he gasped, "there's trouble with communications!"

"Well?" snapped Ross.

The clerk brushed sweat off his brow. "The ray-type machine's gone dead, sir, and the ray-phone's crippled. We get only a weak muffled voice from the Council of Seven Headquarters!"

"How about the blinkers from the other ships?" snapped Ross.

"Blinkers are working, sir--" The clerk stopped short as Ross jumped to the rear of the control room.

"Jorgens!" snapped Ross. "Signal each ship, and ask if they've--they can get Seven Headquarters on the ray-type!"

"Aye, sir!" The signal chief hastened to the blinker buttons and began to rap out the message. He was half through it when a dull boom echoed like a sigh through the control room.

Ross and Moore exchanged startled glances. Jorgens, white of face, looked up, his hand poised as if paralyzed over the buttons. Then Ross jumped to the rear telescope, which commanded a view of his following seven ships.

There were only six. Where the seventh--the last in the staggered-line--should have been, a faint glow filled the air. Ross stared at it, heart-sick. Was that blow the last sign of his rear guard? A rocket ship blotted out--destroyed! But how? How?

"Jorgens!" he snapped. "You had the Moon on the ray-type a while ago! Try to get that Peak One station again!"

"Aye, sir," breathed Jorgens shakily. He tapped the black key, rattling the call signal feverishly, then snapped on the receiver. The prong-like type fingers made no move.

"The ray-phone!" rasped Ross.

The signal chief plugged the yellow cylinder into its gray socket, and flashed the light beside it. "First Fleet, calling Peak One!" he chanted. "Peak One, answer First Earth Fleet!"

Ross, Moore and Jorgens held their breath. No sound came through the ray-phone trumpet. Jorgens lifted a gray face toward Ross.

The fleet commander smiled wryly. "Let it go, Jorgens. Check all the batteries and connections before you try again."

As Jorgens nodded and disappeared to trail the snaky coils of insulated ray-tubes to their battery reserves, Ross turned to Moore. "Number Eight's gone," he said softly.

Moore blinked. "Gone? Where?"

"Where the woodbine twineth," said Ross.

Moore's breath came faster. "Wiped out?" He whipped off his spectacles and polished them absently, his jaw working on his half-forgotten chew of tobacco. "Gone," he muttered dazedly.

A sudden thought struck Ross. He gripped his navigator's shoulder. "The stars! You said there was something funny going on!"

Moore's eyes flashed. "Yes!" He slapped his glasses on. "Come on! Let me show you!" He led the way to the star-scope.

Ross, following, stopped as a signalman approached with a typed message--the answer to the blinker call that Jorgens had started. The first sentence was short and blunt. "Number Two reports ray-type dead, ray-phone weak." Messages from the other five ships were identical except in the case of Number Seven. An added sentence from the last ship of the line stood out on the page and Ross felt sick inside as he read it. "Number Seven also reports explosion on right quarter where Number Eight was flying. No sign of Number Eight."

At the star-scope Moore hovered as Ross applied his eye to the powerful lens. "That's Denabola you're on." The navigator's jaw worked, his eyes glittering.

"Dim," muttered Ross. "Clouds?"

"No!" exploded Moore. "Denabola was bright as ever, then suddenly went dim!"

Ross sat up quickly, a question in his staring eyes.

"You mean--the way the red stars go dim when we drain them of the red rays that power our ships and inter-planet communications?"

"Just that way," said Moore, blinking in excitement.

For a long moment their glances were locked. Then Ross heaved a stifled sigh. "This may mean a lot, Harry," he murmured. "I wonder if it might not even mean--"

"Whatever happened to Number Eight?" asked Moore quickly.

Slowly Ross nodded. "Let's see. Denabola's a blue star. Have you checked on any other blue stars?"

Moore took the seat at the star scope. "Only Vega. She's dim, too. Let me get Sirius." He twirled a knob at the side of the telescope barrel, then another, then straightened, with an explosive gasp. "Look at Sirius!"

Ross looked and caught his breath. Sirius, the brightest star in all the firmament, was a dull lackluster thing.

Flight-Commander Bruce Ross sat back at the star-scope and pushed his space helmet off his head. He ran a steady hand through his unruly blond hair, smoothing out the tight wrinkles in his broad forehead as if to silence the urgent question that hammered in his brain. Something was happening in the heavens, and all his lore of flying and fighting might be none too much to set against the celestial puzzle.

"Harry," he asked finally, "the Moon Men know all about our red-ray work. Do you suppose they've gone to work somehow on the blue stars?"

Moore screwed up his face, blinking behind his glasses. "Well," he said finally, "there's Horta."

Ross nodded. "I was thinking of Horta," he admitted grimly. He had never forgotten Horta, Lord of the Moon Caverns, the darkly hostile savant who had held out so long at that fateful conference when the Council of Seven, rulers of the Earth, had made their all-or-nothing flight to the Moon, there to lay the question of peace or war before Magnus, the Moon King, and his lords. The Seven had won Horta over finally by offering him all the Earth secrets of the red rays that had made Earth-Moon travel possible. They had even set up a ray reservoir in Horta's great cavern, and had shown him how the harnessed rays could provide power for ships and explosive for sky-torpedoes. Yet Horta had never succeeded in building any but tiny ships that could barely circle the Moon, and he had denied any success with the torpedoes. Only on the ray-type and the ray-phone, essential to Earth-Moon intercourse, had he followed instructions with real results.

"Blue rays, then?" muttered Ross, staring at Moore. He turned as Jorgens appeared hesitantly. "Well?"

"Garbled message by ray-phone from our Earth station, sir. From Censor Trowbridge, apparently." Jorgens handed over a sheet of paper. "We put it down as we heard it."

Ross and Moore bent over it eagerly. "... trouble ... Moon ... Four ... Magnus killed...." It ended with "... bridge."

Ross wheeled on Jorgens. "Magnus--killed? Is that what you heard?"

Jorgens shook his head. "That's what it sounded like," he insisted. He flicked a hand at the ray-phone. "And that's all we got. She went dead on us. But," he added hopefully, "the ray-type seems to be coming to life."

"Good! Work on it, Jorgens. And try for the Peak One Moon station, or Peak Four." Ross watched Jorgens join the little group of signalmen toiling over the ray-type machine, and shook his head. "Did you get that, Harry? Magnus killed."

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