28 chapters
5 hour read
Selected Chapters
28 chapters
(A Sequel to "Dark Moon")
(A Sequel to "Dark Moon")
CHAPTER I. The Message CHAPTER II. Into Space CHAPTER III. Out of Control CHAPTER IV. The Return to the Dark Moon CHAPTER V. A Desperate Act CHAPTER VI. "Six to Four" CHAPTER VII. The Red Swarm CHAPTER VIII. Doomed CHAPTER IX. A Premonition CHAPTER X. A Mysterious Rescuer CHAPTER XI. The Sacrificial Altar CHAPTER XII. In the Shadow of the Pyramid CHAPTER XIII. Happy Valley CHAPTER XIV. A Bag of Green Gas CHAPTER XV. Terrors of the Jungle CHAPTER XVI. Through Air and Water CHAPTER XVII. Hunted Do
47 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Message
The Message
In a hospital in Vienna, in a room where sunlight flooded through ultraviolet permeable crystal, the warm rays struck upon smooth walls the color of which changed from hot reds to cool yellow or gray or to soothing green, as the Directing Surgeon might order. An elusive blending of tones now seemed pulsing with life; surely even a flickering flame of vitality would be blown into warm livingness in such a place. Even the chart case in the wall glittered with the same clean, brilliant hues from it
19 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
He landed one blow on the nearest face.
He landed one blow on the nearest face.
He landed one blow on the nearest face; he had one glimpse of a clubbed weapon swinging above him—and the world went dark....
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Into Space
Into Space
A pulsing pain that stabbed through his head was Chet's first conscious impression. Then, as objects came slowly into focus before his eyes, he knew that above him a ray of light was striking slantingly through the thick glass of a control-room lookout. Other lookouts were black, the dead black of empty space. Through them, sparkling points of fire showed here and there—suns, sending their light across millions of years to strike at last on a speeding ship. But, from the one port that caught the
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Out of Control
Out of Control
Walter Harkness had built this ship with Chet's help. They had designed it for space-travel. It was the first ship to leave the Earth under its own power, reach another heavenly body, and come back for a safe landing. But they had not installed any luxuries for the passengers. In the room where the three were confined, there were no self-compensating chairs such as the high-liners used. But the acceleration of the speeding ship was constant, and the rear wall became their floor where they sat or
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Return to the Dark Moon
The Return to the Dark Moon
No man faces death in so shocking a form without feeling the effects. Death had flicked them with a finger of flame and had passed them by. Chet Bullard found his hands trembling uncontrollably as he fumbled for a book and opened it. The tables of figures printed there were blurred at first to his eyes, but he forced himself to forget the threat that was past, for there was another menace to consider now. And uppermost in his mind, when his thoughts came back into some approximate order, was con
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
A Desperate Act
A Desperate Act
The ship that Chet Bullard and Harkness had designed had none of the instruments for space navigation that the ensuing years were to bring. Chet's accuracy was more the result of that flyer's sixth sense—that same uncanny power that had served aviators so well in an earlier day. But Chet was glad to see his instruments registering once more as he approached a new world. Even the sonoflector was recording; its invisible rays were darting downward to be reflected back again from the surface below.
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
"Six to Four"
"Six to Four"
Perhaps to every person in that control room there came, as Chet's quiet, emotionless tones died away, the same mental picture; for there was the same dazed look on the countenances of all. They were seeing an ocean of space, an endless void of empty black. And across that etheric sea was a whirling globe. They had seen it from afar; they had seen its diminutive continents and its snow-clad poles.... They would never see it again.... Earth!—their own world!—home! And now for them it was only a m
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Red Swarm
The Red Swarm
It was a matter of a half hour later when Harkness ordered them all outside. He had accepted Kreiss as an addition to their ranks and had made himself plain to Schwartzmann. To the scientist he said. "You remarked that no ship could hold two commanding pilots: that goes for an expedition like this, too. I am in command. If you will take orders we will be mighty glad to have you with us." And to Schwartzmann, in a different tone: "I am sparing you and your men. I ought to shoot you down, but I wo
5 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
One, swifter than the rest, dashed upon him.
One, swifter than the rest, dashed upon him.
It was red—vividly, dazzlingly red! The body of a reptile—a wild phantasm of distorted dreams—was supported by short, quivering wings. The body was some five feet in length, and it was translucent. A shell, like the dried husk of some creature long dead!—yet here was something alive, as its quick attack proved. It had a head of dry scales which ended in a projecting black-tipped beak that came like a sword, straight and true for Chet's heart. It seemed an age before he could bring his pistol up
4 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Doomed
Doomed
The sun was high when they ventured forth. Diane would have come, but the two men would have none of it. They remembered the sight they had seen; they knew what was left of a man's body lying on the rocks above; and they ordered the girl to stay hidden while Kreiss remained with her as a guard. There were only the four who lay hidden in the woods; Schwartzmann and Max, with the remaining three men, were gone. Harkness' calls were unanswered, and he ceased the halloo. "Better keep quiet," he advi
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
A Premonition
A Premonition
Fire Valley had been the home of the ape-men. On that earlier journey Walt and Chet had seen them, had fought with the tribe, and had lived for a time in their caves that made dark shadows high on the rock wall. And they knew that the wood the ape-men used for their spears was well suited for bows. Back in the caves they found discarded spears and some wood that had been gathered for shafts. Tough, springy, flexible, it was a simple matter for the men to convert these into serviceable weapons. S
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
A Mysterious Rescuer
A Mysterious Rescuer
Their way led through tangled growths of trees and vines that were like unreal things of a dream. Unreal they were, too, in their strange degree of livingness, for there were snaky tendrils that drew back as if in fear at their approach and stalks that folded great, thorny leaves protectingly about pulpy centers at the first touch of a hand. The world of vegetation seemed strangely sentient and aware of their approach. Only the leprous-white trees remained motionless; their red-veined trunks tow
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Sacrificial Altar
The Sacrificial Altar
"I am off the trail," Harkness admitted. "Towahg guided me before; I wish he were here to do it now." They had pushed on for another short day, Harkness leading, and Chet bringing up the rear and casting frequent backward glances in a vain effort to catch a glimpse of some other moving figure. Smothered at times in a dense tangle of vegetation, where they sweated and worked with aching muscles to tear a path; watching always for the flaming, crimson buds on grotesque trees, whose limbs were wavi
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
In the Shadow of the Pyramid
In the Shadow of the Pyramid
They waited, unbreathing, listening to the occasional stealthy sounds. The pistol was still in Chet's belt; the three men were crouched before Diane, in their hands the crude weapons that they had made. And then the sounds ceased. The menace seemed to have passed, or to be withheld; the men had been tensely prepared for some minutes when Diane spoke softly. "Look below," she whispered; "the savages! That big one seems to be choosing them—selecting some from among them." Chet forced himself to lo
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Happy Valley
Happy Valley
"Towahg!" Chet marveled; "you little devil! It's you who has been following us all this time!" "I wish he hadn't been so bashful," Harkness added. "If he had come out and showed himself he would have saved us a lot of trouble." But Harkness stepped forward and patted the black shoulder that quivered with joy beneath his touch. "Good boy, Towahg!" he told the grinning ape-man. Monkey-like, Towahg had to imitate, and this time he gave a reproduction of his own acts. He wriggled toward the entrance
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
A Bag of Green Gas
A Bag of Green Gas
Under a tree on the edge of the open ground a notched stick hung. Six sharply cut V's showed red through the white bark, then one that was deeper; another six and another deeper cut; more of them until the stick was full: so passed the little days. "Some time," Herr Kreiss had promised, "I shall determine with accuracy the length of our Dark Moon days; then we will convert these crude records into Earth time. It is good that we should not lose our knowledge of the days on Earth." He made a cerem
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Terrors of the Jungle
Terrors of the Jungle
Towahg had learned the names of these white-skinned ones who came down from whatever heaven was pictured in his rudimentary mind. His pronunciation of them was peculiar: it had not been helped any by reason of Diane's having been his teacher. Her French accent was delightful to hear, but not helpful to a Dark Moon ape-man who was grappling with English. But he knew them by name, using always the French "Monsieur," and when Chet repeated: "Monsieur Kreiss—he go," pointing through the jungle, and
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Through Air and Water
Through Air and Water
It was midday when they approached the heights they had reached on their flight from Fire Valley. Off to one side must lie the arena with the pyramid within. And within the pyramid—! Chet took his thoughts quickly away from that. Or perhaps it was the shrieking chatter from ahead that gave him other things to think of. Towahg had heard them before, but Chet had not understood his signs. And now the chorus of an approaching pack of ape-men was louder with each passing minute. That they were comin
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Hunted Down
Hunted Down
Work on the house was resumed. "And when it is done," said Diane with a gay laugh, "Walter and I shall have our wedding day. Now you see why you were wanted so badly, Chet; it was not that we worried for you, but only that we feared the loss of the one person on the Dark Moon who could perform a marriage ceremony." "And I thought all along it was my clever carpenter work that had captivated you," responded Chet, and tried to fit the splintered end of a timber into a forked branch that made an up
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Besieged!
Besieged!
"I've felt it for some time," Chet confessed. "I've wakened and known I had been dreaming about that damnable thing. And, although it sounds like the wildest sort of insanity, I have felt that there was something—some mental force—that was reaching out for our minds; searching for us. Well, if there is anything like that—" He was about to say that the trail made by Kreiss and the apes who tracked him would have given this other enemy a direction to follow, but Kreiss himself dropped down beside
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
"One for Each of Us"
"One for Each of Us"
For men who had come from a world where wars and warfare were things of the past, Chet, and Harkness had done effective work in preparing a defense. The knoll made a height of land that any military man would have chosen to defend, and the top of the gentle slope was protected by the barricade. On each side of the inverted U that ended at the water's edge an opening had been left, where they passed in and out. But even here the wall had been doubled and carried past itself: no place was left for
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The inky waters were ablaze with fire.
The inky waters were ablaze with fire.
Fire that threw itself in flaming balls; that broke into many parts and each part, like a living thing, darted crazily about; that leaped into the air to fall again among ape-men who screamed frenziedly in animal terror. "It unites with water," Kreiss was saying: "a spontaneous liberation and ignition of hydrogen." The white-coated hand had dumped another mass into the primitive engine of war. "Now pull—so—and I cut it!" And the leaping, flashing fires tore furiously in redoubled madness where a
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
On to the Pyramid
On to the Pyramid
It was like Walt Harkness to rush impetuously after where Diane was being drawn away; but who, under the same circumstances, would have done otherwise? Yet it was like Chet, too, to keep a sane and level head, to check the first wild impulse to dash to their rescue, to realize that he would be throwing himself away by doing it and helping them not at all. It was like Chet to stop and think when thinking was desperately needed, though what it would lead to he could not have told. There were many
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Monstrous Something
The Monstrous Something
The way to the top of the pyramid was long. One look Chet allowed himself out over this world—one slow, sweeping gaze that took in the bare floor at the pyramid's base, a level platform of rock some distance in front of the pyramid, the hard black and white of the walled oval, the sea of waving green that was the jungle beyond, and, beyond that, hills, misty and shimmering in the noonday heat. And nestled there, beyond that last bare ridge, must be the valley of happiness, Diane Delacouer's "Hap
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
Sacrifice
Sacrifice
"Down in the pyramid! You went down there?" Herr Kreiss forgot even his absorbing experiments to exclaim incredulously at Chet's report. Guided by Towahg, Chet had returned to Happy Valley. There had been six days and nights to be spent, and he felt that he should tell Kreiss what he had learned. "Yes," said Chet dully; "yes, I went down." He was seated on a rock in the enclosure they had built. He raised his deep-sunk, sleepless eyes to stare at the house where he and Walt had worked. There Wal
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
The Might of the "Master"
The Might of the "Master"
As with other measures of matters earthly, time is a relative gauge. Nowhere is this more apparent than in those moments of mental stress when time passes in a flash or, conversely, drags each lagging minute into hours of timeless length. "Three minutes!" The words clanged and reverberated through Chet's brain. And it seemed, as he strained and struggled and was forced backward and yet backward by the weight of his antagonist, that those three minutes had long since passed, and other three's wit
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
With the free hand he shot over a blow.
With the free hand he shot over a blow.
A twist of the body, and the pain relaxed. He dropped the leaf-wrapped package to the ground, and, with the free hand, shot over a blow that brought a grunt of pain from Schwartzmann and a gush of blood that smeared the black, hairy face. He took one stiff jolt himself on his half-averted head that he might counter with another to flatten that crushed and painful nose. For one brief instant Schwartzmann's free hand was raised protectingly to his face so contorted with rage; for one brief instant
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter