Brigands of the Moon

ument room, perched in the network over the Planetara's deck. The bulge of the dome enclosed us; it ro

lumined, hung, a great silver ball, over our bow quarter. Behind it, to one side, Mars floated like the red tip of a smoldering cigar in the blackness. The Earth, behind our stern, was di

leaping corona, burst through the blackness behind us. The

ood to consider them. I had been in the radio room several hours. When the Planetara started, and my few routine duties were o

ster, whom Carter and Halsey had not bothered to me

I went to the door of A22. It was on the deck level, in a tiny transverse passage just off the main lounging room. Its name-grid glowed with the letters: Anita Prince. I stood in my s

metal door. It seemed as though that little oval

e. George Prince-Anita's brother-he whom I had been warned to watch.

o sound from these cabins. A20 was without windows, I knew. But Anita's room had a window and a door which gave upon the de

windows of the arching dome a flood of moonlight threw long, slanting shadows down the deck. At the corner where t

o one in sight save the observer on his spider bridge, high in the bow network

eard footsteps. From the direction of

e. "Cooling

," I

ent into the smoki

Johnson was a great one for his regular sleep-it was wholly unlike him to be roaming about the ship at such an ho

s chart room which stood in the center of the narrowi

at?" he hal

hns

the moonlit deck. "Gregg-take this." He handed me a

lp him to make the photographs." He was barely whispering. "I won't be with you-no use making it look as though we were doing anything unusual.

away toward h

ent on. We had wired his cubby with the insulator; within i

n George Pr

ut I saw his sister. Snap

isted for this voyage. "A real beauty, so I've heard. Acc

ree with h

ith routine cosmos-radios from the Earth, followin

er looking?"

ot a t

would swing upon her direct course for Mars. There was nothing which could cause passenger comment in this

pposed to be upon the Earthward side of the Moon. While Snap had rushed

etched black and white, clear and clean. Grim, forbidding desolation, this unchanging Moon. In romance, moonlight may shimmer and sparkle to ligh

g at al

for an hour now to pick up the f

ble amount of ore," said Snap. "We s

he magnified images; the spectro, with its wave length selection, pi

was no

e-the pin point of movement which might have been Grantline's expedition could so easily be hiding

him? He might not be on this he

ere about the Planetara this voyage, ran rife with fears for Johnny Grantli

he firmament blazed with its vivid glories; the Sun behind us was a ball

to the naked eye. It poised over the bow, and presently, as the Planetara swung upon its cou

oid eyeshade shoved high on his fo

re

barding it! It glowed, gleamed phosphorescent, and the a

gth were soon obvious. A richly radioactive ore body was conc

it, Greg

p exclaimed triumphantly, "Here he

decod

voyage. Will give you our location

"That's all. He

flung, the air was faintly hissing. An interference there! I saw a tiny swirl of purple sparks. Someone-some hostile ra

he absorbers to let in the out

e, opened our door and stepp

added aloud, "Well, Snap, I'm going to bed

the dome, and forward and aft. Twenty feet beneath me was the metal roof of the cabi

thing was moving! Footsteps moving away from me down the deck! I followed; and suddenly I wa

e was smoking. I noticed that his cigar held a long frail ash. It could not have been him I was chasing. He was

wild-eyed appearance, and t

hat in th

n my way to bed-worked

-I could hear nothing. I dashed forward into the main lounge. It was empty, dim and silent, a silence broken presently by a faint click

e of these rooms! I listened at each of the

he call to awaken the passengers. It startled me. I moved swiftly away.

I think that's th

er, "All rig