The World with a Thousand Moons

Dark's black eyes were triumphant as he told his Martian lieutenant, 'Kenniston and Holk Or brought back the equipment all right, and also brought some people who'll bring big ransom. Their wrecked ship is a few miles south. You go down there with half the men here and help the others bring up the equipment.'

Kin Ibo, looking a little apprehensively out at the jungle, obeyed. Dark motioned Kenniston and the other captives toward one of the huts by the big ship.

'That hut will be your quarters until we get the Falcon repaired,' declared the pirate leader. 'Any of you who try to leave it will be shot at sight. I hope you'll not be foolish enough to attempt escape.'

'That's right, folks, you wouldn't have a chance,' Holk Or told them earnestly. 'Even if you could get out through the electric wall, the Vestans would get you. They're thick in the jungle around here.'

They silently entered the hut. Its broad open windows admitted enough of the dazzling moonslight to brighten its interior.

A dark, eager-looking young Earthman sprang up as they entered, and rushed to pump Kenniston's hand.

'Lance, you got back safely!' he exclaimed. 'Thank the Lord—I've been worrying myself almost crazy about you.'

'How about you, Ricky?' Kenniston asked his young brother anxiously. 'You're all right?'

Ricky Kenniston nodded quickly. 'Sure, I'm okay. But things haven't been so good here, Lance. The Vestans have got a half-dozen pirates who ventured outside the wall in the last few days. These creatures literally haunt the jungles around here now—I think they've been drawn here from all over the asteroid.'

Ricky looked wonderingly at Gloria and the others who were entering the hut. 'Lance, who are all these people? Are they prisoners of Dark too?'

'Yes, we're prisoners,' Hugh Murdock told him bitterly, with a savage glance at Kenniston. 'We're prisoners because your brother sacrificed us all to get back here and save your neck.'

'Lance, you didn't do that?' Ricky exclaimed in distress.

'I had to, Ricky,' Kenniston protested. 'It meant your life if I didn't.'

'Of course,' Murdock agreed ironically. 'What importance are we, compared to saving your young brother's life?'

Kenniston spoke slowly, to Murdock and Gloria and the others. 'It wasn't merely Ricky's life at stake that made me sacrifice you all. It was more than that. I tried to tell you before, but you wouldn't listen.'

Kenniston went across the hut and brought back the square black medicine-case of his young physician- brother. He opened it, and out of the vials and instruments inside he took a square bottle of milky fluid.

'This is what I sacrificed everything to save,' Kenniston said simply.

They all stared. 'What is it?' Gloria asked, puzzled.

'It's Ricky's discovery,' Kenniston said. 'It's a preventative and cure for gravitation-paralysis.'

Captain Walls, himself an old-time space-man, was first of the group to appreciate the significance of the statement. The captain gasped.

'A preventative for gravitation-paralysis? Kenniston, are you sure?'

Kenniston nodded gravely. 'Yes. Ricky had been working on the problem a long time, back in the Institute of Planetary Medicine. He thought he'd found a way to prevent gravitation-paralysis, the most awful scourge of all the outer System, the thing that's doomed so many space-men. But his formula required rare elements found only in the outer planets.

'Ricky and I,' he continued, 'went out there and secured those elements. He made up this formula, and tried it on a gravitation-paralysis case—a space-man who's lain paralyzed for years. The formula was designed to strengthen the human nervous system against the shock of varying gravitations, to re-establish an already damaged nerve-web. And it worked.'

Kenniston's voice was husky as he concluded. 'It worked, and that living log became a man again. The formula was a success. Ricky and I started back for Earth, where he intended to announce the discovery and arrange for its manufacture on a big scale. But, on the way back, Dark's pirates captured us.'

Kenniston flung out his hand in a tortured gesture. 'That's why I went to any lengths to save Ricky's life! It's because Ricky is the only person who knows the intricate formula of this serum. If he were to die, the secret of the cure would die with him. And that would mean that thousands on thousands more of space-men would be stricken into living death by gravitation-paralysis in the future, just as so many thousands of old friends and shipmates of mine have been stricken in the past!'

Captain Walls was the first to speak. Quietly, the plump master of the Sunsprite extended his hand.

'Kenniston, will you shake hands with me? And will you forgive me for everything? You did absolutely right. I'm an old space-man and I know what gravitation-paralysis is.'

Gloria's dark eyes were glimmering with tears. 'If we'd only known,' she murmured to Kenniston. 'No one could blame you for sacrificing a lot of worthless idlers like us, for a thing like this.'

'But you're going to be all right—all of you,' Kenniston assured her. 'John Dark will make you pay a big ransom, but you can afford that and you'll get back safely to Earth.'

'Thank Heaven for that!' exclaimed Mrs. Milsom. 'I can't understand all this scientific talk of yours, but I do know that that pirate chief means no good to me. Didn't you see the lustful looks he gave me?'

The laugh that greeted this lessened the tension. Kenniston turned as Ricky plucked at his arm.

'What about ourselves, Lance?' Ricky asked quietly. 'Dark still won't let us go, you know. He still needs me as a doctor.'

Hugh Murdock stepped forward. 'Dark would let you both go, for a big enough ransom. I'd like to pay it for you.'

The handsomeness of Murdock's gesture moved Kenniston. He was only able to mutter his thanks.

While Ricky was treating Captain Walls' burned arm, the officer kept looking fascinatedly at that square bottle of milky fluid.

He said hesitantly, 'I've a son—back on Earth. For five years he's lain in a cot from the gravitation-paralysis that hit him out on Jupiter. Do you suppose—'

Ricky nodded. 'Yes, Captain. I'm sure that we can cure him, now.'

There was an uproar out in the clearing. Kenniston went to the door and looked out.

The electric wall had temporarily been dropped, and Kin Ibo and the main body of the pirates were hastily entering the camp with their improvised power-sledges that bore heavy loads of machinery and materials.

Kenniston heard Kin Ibo reporting shrilly to John Dark, 'We lost two men to the Vestans on the way here— and nearly lost two more! All this activity has drawn them from all over the asteroid! Look at that!'

Outside the electric wall, which had been hastily re-raised, could be glimpsed the shapes of lurking asteroidal animals. Meteor-rats, big striped cats, flame-birds—and every one of those lurking animals bore attached to its neck one of the little gray Vestan parasites.

John Dark was saying harshly, 'We've got to have the rest of those materials to repair the Falcon.'

'I tell you, it'd be suicide to try another trip through those jungles!' expostulated the Martian. 'Those Vestans are devils!'

'Bah, you Martians are all alike—no good when your superstitions get aroused,' snorted Dark contemptuously. 'I'll take the men down myself. Come on, men—unload those sledges and we'll go back to the wreck.'

His indomitable personality drove the scared, unwilling pirates into the task. Again the electric wall was faded out for a moment to let them out.

When they returned some time toward morning, Kenniston heard the crash of atom-guns heralding their approach. And when the wall was momentarily dropped, John Dark and his men stumbled into the camp with their loaded sledges in sweating haste.

'Turn on the wall again—quick!' bellowed Dark's bull voice. 'The jungle's swarming with the gray devils now —they got five of us on the way back!'