BEDFORD LOOKED out of the thick glass of the cutter’s forward lower viewing port and shook his head. He expected robust security at the landing ground of Otterbein Base, but he had not counted on a mob of turbaned and khaki-clad Indian Army men swarming over the area.
“Have a care, Coxswain. Let’s not crush any sowars today when we set down,” he said and the helmsman smiled slightly in reply. The cutter settled gently to the gravel landing ground and had scarcely come to rest when Bedford heard an insistent banging on the main hatch. A Marine corporal undogged the hatch and swung it to the side to show a European of medium height and swarthy complexion in khaki drill and an officer’s Sam Brown belt, but no badges of rank on his bush jacket.
“Who’s that and what’s your purpose?” the man demanded.
“I am Lieutenant Bedford of HMAS Sovereign, and I’m here to see Captain Folkard.”
The man nodded. “Harrison, Punjab Frontier Force, and officer commanding, Otterbein Station.”
“Ah, Colonel Harrison, of course. I did not expect the commanding officer to meet us, sir.”
“Didn’t intend to. We’ve suffered a security breach. Regrettable. Losses, you know, losses all around.”
“Losses all around?” Bedford asked, and he felt his heart accelerate. “The young lady in the party was not…”
“What? There’s a lady down here, too? Damn me if I can keep track. But no, it’s your young officer, Ainsworth. Identified him from his papers. Sorry, one of those damned ants got him. Chopped him up rather badly. Care to look? No? Just as well. Private Anil Singh suffered the same fate. Ghastly. Good chap, Singh. Why’d your people take the cutter away and leave this Ainsworth behind alone, eh?”
“Our people did not take the cutter. The Selenites, probably the ones who attacked him, did. Five of them, with Russian-made Berdans. They took the cutter up and attacked Sovereign.”
“What’s that? Ants with Berdans? Well then, where are your people?”
Bedford stifled an exasperated sigh. “They are still here, Colonel. As I said, I came here to find my captain. I take it you haven’t seen him?”
Harrison looked around, as if he might find the others from Sovereign standing within arm’s reach, then he looked back at Bedford, his expression a mixture of irritation and confusion. “Well damn it, man, if they’re still here, who flew your cutter full of ants away?”
“One of the Selenites, I imagine, as only they were on board when they docked with us.” Bedford no longer kept the sarcasm from his voice, but it was lost on Harrison, as a good deal else seemed to be as well. Bedford caught a faint odour of gin on the colonel’s breath.
“What? No. Ants can’t fly one of those cutters. I’ve never seen one at any rate,” Harrison declared and then nodded forcefully, as if that settled everything.
Bedford judged Harrison the sort of man who considered the absolute boundaries of possibility to be the things he had actually witnessed with his own eyes. Bedford thought that made Harrison a singularly bad choice for lunar duty. Well, that was the Army for you.
“I wonder, Colonel, if you could have your men clear enough of the landing ground for my coxswains to bring the other three cutters down? One of the men is new to his job and I wouldn’t want him to injure any of your sowars.”
Harrison turned away to clear his men off the field as another man, of slighter build and in a suit coat instead of khaki, trotted up from the direction of the main building. He paused for a moment to catch his breath and mop his brow with a handkerchief, and then extended his hand.
“Professor Robert George, director of the base,” he said. Bedford shook his hand and introduced himself and again asked after the landing party.
“Captain Folkard and his men, and Doctor Grant’s niece, have gone in pursuit of Grant. Three Selenites accompanied them. They have been gone some hours, I know not in what direction.”
“You do not think they have approached the Heart?”
“The Heart is made up of many parts, Lieutenant. Colonel Harrison has posted guard details at those nearby parts we know of, but I doubt any man, even Grant, knows where every piece of the Heart is located.”
Bedford frowned. He hadn’t really expected to find Folkard and the others here at the base, but he had hoped for more useful intelligence than this. The Marines poured out the open hatchways of the cutters and now formed a double line on the gravel landing ground, barked into place by their colour sergeant. Major Larkins and his vice, Lieutenant Booth, joined Bedford and Director George.
“Ships troops assembled and ready,” Larkins said casually after Bedford made the introductions. “Your orders, Lieutenant?”
Bedford noted that Larkin stopped short of calling him “sir”. Larkins outranked Bedford, but as a Marine officer he was not in the ship’s chain of command, and so long as he was assigned to Sovereign, he obeyed its master. It may have rankled him to take orders from someone this junior to him, but that was the Navy for you. Colonel Harrison wandered back to join the group and Bedford used the opportunity of another round of introductions to think through what his next move should be.
“Colonel Harrison,” he said, “I believe the Berdan rifles suggest a continued Russian presence on Luna. Someone armed those red Selenites, someone taught them how to use a breach-loading rifle…”
“Not very well, I shouldn’t think, or you wouldn’t be standing here now,” Major Larkins put in.
“Thank you, Major, that may be true. But the fact remains someone did arm and train them, however inadequately, and most importantly someone taught one of them to fly a cutter equipped with a Grant-Stone-pattern aether propeller governor.”
“Oh, I see,” Director George said and mopped his brow again. “That is quite extraordinary. I should like to have seen the Selenite pilot your craft. I would not have thought they had the forelimb manual dexterity to do so.”
“Nevertheless,” Bedford said.
“Well I still don’t believe it,” Harrison grumbled. “Oh, the Russkies are probably behind it all, you’re right on the score, but I warrant some tsarist hero piloted the ants to your ship and jumped clear immediately before they docked, just to throw us off the scent.”
“How would he have survived?” Director George asked.
“Survived? How does that enter into it? Those chaps don’t put the same value on human life we do,” Harrison said.
Major Larkins looked at Harrison and then at Bedford. Bedford met his eyes and, though neither man’s expression changed, they understood each other: Harrison was a fool.
“It’s still very odd, though,” Harrison continued. “I haven’t seen evidence of Russians in this part of Luna for quite some time. Indeed, the only relic of their occupation left is the wreck of their flyer Borodino, on the opposite side of the reservoir.”
Bedford narrowed his eyes. “Take me there.”
THE COLD of the river water shocked Annabelle and by the time the raft floated into sight of the island she shuddered uncontrollably. She held tenaciously onto the log in front of her, her wrists thrust through loops of the ropey vines they’d used to lash the raft together. One hand also held her cane, peg and leather cup, there being too much chance of it coming loose in the water. Awkward as they were, she would be far worse off without them. She kicked underwater with her one leg, careful to never break the surface behind her. She had been embarrassed at first to feel her skirt and petticoat floating in the water under her arms, but none of the others had noticed and after twenty minutes of physical exertion and energy-draining cold, she no longer cared.
“Starboard side kick,” Charles whispered harshly. “Port side belay. Steady. There, that’s got it. Now all kick again.” He lifted himself up slightly to see over the log, through a gap left in the tangle of branches and moss. “So far we’re in luck. No guards on the beach. Easy now. Twenty more yards.”
Annabelle kicked but only weakly. Fortunately the river’s current carried them near enough to the island that the water became shallow and they were able to walk the raft into the shallows and then secure it against a rock outcropping. Annabelle dragged herself from the water and collapsed behind the cover of a large boulder.
“Doctor Staples, would you be good enough to stay here and look after Miss Somerset?” Charles asked. “She looks a bit done in, and no wonder. You did a fine job kicking, Miss. Now leave the rest to us.”
Annabelle nodded dully, too tired even to put on her artificial leg. She held it against her body and shivered uncontrollably, teeth chattering. The four sailors, themselves pale and shivering, checked their revolvers and set out stealthily through the undergrowth. After ten yards or so Charles turned and waved the Selenites forward.
“I return soon, friend Annabelle,” K’chuk said and then led his companions after Chief Charles.
Staples said nothing but merely lay on the shale and shivered, clearly as exhausted as Annabelle. The men and Selenites were gone perhaps fifteen minutes. Annabelle heard no sound of a scuffle, no gunfire. Then Chief Charles walked back, upright and making no effort at concealment, the revolver dangling loosely in his hand.
“Submersible’s gone and the island’s deserted. Looks like they went down river after all.”
EVEN BY the unusual travelling standards to which Nathanial had become accustomed, this latest vessel was beyond all expectations. Travel by foot from the prison was out of the question, so he had been scarcely surprised to have been escorted, with the anticipated brutality, to a great ship and subsequently to be held in a darkened chamber under the watch of a surly guard. Once more unto the brig, perhaps. However, he had to confess his surprise when peering through the sole porthole and being confronted with the murky depths of the river itself.
“Good heavens, I do believe we are in a submersible!” exclaimed Nathanial.
Phillips nodded grimly. “It would explain how the Drobates evaded detection while we were along the embankment. I can only imagine they discreetly surfaced, then descended below the depths to shadow our progress. You would hardly think the river deep enough!”
“One would hardly think that the barren surface of Luna would contain a network of populated caverns, Phillips, yet here we are. The full extent of the secrets of Luna has yet to be revealed, I wager,” said Nathanial, stroking his chin. “Captain Folkard, you are uncharacteristically quiet.”
Folkard gave a nod by way of acknowledgement. “Merely concerned at becoming a prisoner of war to an unknown enemy, Professor. Moreover, concerned that I have allowed two civilians to become prisoners, too. Neither you nor Phillips are military men, yet I have jeopardised your lives with this mission.”
“There are worse things that happen at sea, Captain,” offered Burroughs, in hope of reassuring his captain, Nathanial supposed. Stevenson, for his part, was unconscious, the effort of the short march between prison and submersible having proved to be quite exhausting after so many months in the prison colony.
“I feel, perhaps, that that particular idiom needs updating,” Folkard said dryly. “It is unfortunate that our whereabouts are unknown. We still know so little about these Drobates. It is difficult to anticipate what we will experience on our arrival at this City of Light and Science.”
Like Folkard, Nathanial was frustrated at his ignorance. From the vibrations in their chamber and the shadows of the rocky underwater canyon wall passing the porthole, they were travelling at a considerable speed for a submerged vessel. The Drobates evidently boasted engineering knowledge that far outstripped that of the human race.
He would have hoped for more information about the Drobates in order to calculate a plan for their escape, too: yet the most knowledgeable scholar among them was unconscious and the Drobates themselves seemed incapable of verbal communication. The knowledge Nathanial had, then, was as murky as the water itself.
BEDFORD THOUGHT it bizarre that beneath the Moon’s lifeless surface lurked a complex subterranean life in which hostilities between the British and the Russians—or the natives and settlers—continued in much the same way as on Earth. Still, one could say the same thing about any location or even any person: that beneath their surface appearance, there was significantly more than met the eye.
Colonel Harrison and one of his riflemen joined the party as guides for their journey around the reservoir. Larkins sent Booth slightly ahead with one of the Marine sections as skirmishers, while the rest of the party marched in columns of twos.
The march to Borodino’s crash site, over uneven rocky ground, took the better part of an hour, although Bedford gauged the actual distance as not much more than a mile. Borodino’s wreck lay in a pronounced hollow, so it was not visible from Otterbein base across the reservoir. The vessel had apparently crashed on its side but had since been levered upright and several large boulders moved against the hull to hold it level.
“Colonel, did your men do this?” Bedford asked.
“What? No. Not that I know of, anyway. Maybe one of those scientists got poking around, eh?” he answered. Bedford doubted that, unless the scientist had brought a substantial work party with him. Bedford walked around the flyer but saw no external evidence of repairs. Marines crowded for a closer look at this relic of Muscovite martial might until the colour sergeant barked them away.
“Awright, this ain’t a bloomin’ circus excursion! Form a perimeter twenty yards out. Bixby, your section on that rock outcropping there, Colvin along that rubble spill there, Johnson form a skirmish line in between along that long bank. Step to it!”
The Marines reformed their sections and trotted to their assigned posts. Colonel Harrison nodded in approval. Perhaps not entirely a fool, Bedford thought.
Bedford completed his circuit of the wreck and then scrambled up on one of the large boulders to reach the small deck and pilot house. Major Larkins followed him up. The door to the pilot house hung on one hinge and came off altogether when Bedford tried to move it.
“Looks as if someone placed this rather carefully to look derelict but hide the view in,” Larkins commented.
The interior of the pilot house bore little sign of the crash. The glass windows had been shattered but no broken glass littered the floor. The room had been swept clean and empty housings bore witness to the removal of several items of equipment, possibly for salvage. What was most interesting, however, was what had been added. Larkins did not notice, of course; he was not a naval officer. Bedford immediately went to it and knelt down to examine it more closely.
“What’s that, Bedford?” Larkins asked.
“It is an excellent model of the throttle controls of a Grant-Stone-pattern aether propeller governor.”
A shout of alarm from outside, followed by a shot and then a half-dozen more, cut short any further discussion. Larkins and Bedford dashed out onto the broken flyer’s deck and saw the Marines to their left, on the wall-like line of broken rock—the feature the colour sergeant described as a rubble spill—firing at a group of perhaps a dozen red Selenites scrambling forward among the rocks. Bedford started to draw his revolver but checked himself when he saw Larkins put his hands behind his back and calmly study the Marine section’s fire.
“Fast buggers, ain’t they?” Larkins said. “The ants, I mean, especially for their size. Not fast enough, though.”
Five of the Marines did the actual firing, taking careful aim and spacing their shots, while the section corporal walked behind them, directing their fire and steadying them. Some of the shots ricocheted off boulder, but as many of them hit home, and within a minute or two most of the red Selenites were casualties and the survivors pinned down behind large rocks. Bedford looked around and noticed the Marines on the opposite side of the flyer, the ones on the prominent outcropping, had, apparently out of curiosity, drifted down the slope toward the sound of the firing.
“Major Larkins, should those men be moving this way?” Bedford asked.
Larkins turned and looked, and then shouted a command with more volume than Bedford expected he had. “Number Three Section, guard your front!”
The men turned and started ascending the slope with long, measured bounds, but at almost the same time two red Selenites came over the top from the other side, then two more, and then a solid wave of them.
“Damn!” Larkins exclaimed, and now he drew his revolver, an example Bedford followed immediately. “Three Section, fire! Johnson, pull your section back to the flyer! Form a firing line facing those ants.”
“At the double, Johnson!” the colour sergeant shouted from below them as the men in the open skirmish line fell back towards the flyer in the long strides of the shuffling trot used to cover ground quickly in low gravity. “Two Section, fix swords!” The men drew their bayonets—called swords by the Marines, for some obscure reason Bedford had never learned—and clicked them onto the end of their Lee-Metfords as they came into position. “Section, guard! Prepare for rapid fire.” The men came to the guard position, sword-bayonets levelled, and threw the magazine cut-off switch on their rifles. Normally the Lee-Metford was fired as a breechloader, with the magazine blocked. After each shot the soldier opened the bolt and loaded another round by hand from his cartridge pouch, but now each action of the bolt would bring a round to the chamber from the magazine—eight rounds fast when you needed them, and it looked as if they needed them now. As rifle fire crackled from the rock outcropping, the Sikh private fell in beside the Marines by the flyer, his bayonet fixed to an older Martini-Henry breechloader. With Lieutenant Booth and the sergeant at one end and the colour sergeant at the other, it looked like an impressive firing line to Bedford.
On the rock outcropping, the red Selenites had the advantage of charging downhill toward the scattered Marines of Corporal Bixby’s section. Bedford saw a Marine fire and clearly kill a charging Selenite, but the beast’s momentum carried it skidding the few remaining yards down the hill and bowled the Marine over, sending him tumbling down the slope. The first shots had brought four or five Selenites down, but Bixby’s section had not switched to rapid fire and, as they hastened to reload from their cartridge pouches, the second wave of Selenites swarmed over them.
Bedford saw a red Selenite seize a screaming Marine in his mandibles, lift him aloft, and shake him, blood flying from the mortal wound.
“Have your firing line shoot, Larkins!” Bedford exclaimed.
“Can’t. Our chaps are in their line of fire.”
“Well they aren’t in mine!” On the elevated deck of the flyer Bedford had a clear shot at the red Selenites still climbing over the top of the rocky hill and began firing. His hand shook with reaction and several of his shots went wide of their mark, but the creatures were so closely packed that three or four rounds hit, and brought down two of them. Larkins began firing as well as Bedford paused to reload his revolver.
One or two of the Marines on the slope scrambled to the side or leaped down ahead of the Selenite charge, but the others disappeared under the wave of giant insects.
“Now, Larkins, for God’s sake fire!” Bedford shouted.
“You heard the lieutenant,” the colour sergeant called out from below. “Fire!”
Nine rifles barked almost as one, gore and pieces of carapace flew from the charging creatures, who shuddered from the impact of powerful rifle rounds, and the front line of red insects collapsed in a twitching, bleeding heap. More Selenites swarmed over the pile from behind but a second volley followed almost immediately, then another, and another, until the black powder smoke from the rifles all but blocked Bedford’s view of the hill.
“Cease firing,” Larkins ordered.
“Look to your front!” the colour sergeant ordered. “Even numbers, charge your magazines.”
As the smoke drifted away, Bedford saw the slope of the hill carpeted with dead and dying red Selenites, well over a score of them. Two of the creatures, apparently unharmed, disappeared over the crest of the rock outcropping,
“Larkins, I’d like to know where those fugitives are heading,” Bedford said.
“Right. Colour Sergeant, two men to that crest and observe the enemy movement,” Larkins shouted over the railing and the colour sergeant sent two privates bounding up the low hill, leaping over the still-twitching bodies of Selenites. He led the rest of the section forward more slowly, checking for surviving Marines under the carpet of Selenite dead and dispatching wounded Selenites with occasional rifle shots or sword-bayonet thrusts.
Bedford watched it dully, his mind momentarily numb with reaction to the battle which had started so suddenly, become hellishly violent, and then abruptly ended. It already seemed dream-like in his memory. He reloaded his revolver just to give himself something to do, so he would not look like a man stunned, although he very nearly was.
Larkins climbed down from the flyer to speak with two dishevelled Marines, one of them wounded, who escaped the massacre on the rock hill. Everyone seemed to have something constructive to do but Bedford. He shook himself to dispel the shroud of lethargy and followed Larkins down the boulder, then climbed the rocky hill past the Marines at their grisly work.
“Very well done, men,” he said as he passed them and several of them nodded grimly. He joined the two Marines stationary on the crest. The empty ground before them stretched toward the cavern wall four or five hundred yards away. “Any sign of them, men?”
“Don’t know as you can see it, sir, but there’s a black shadow to the right of that big boulder, about fifty yards out,” one of the privates said.
“The one as looks like a terrier,” the other one inserted.
“Well, I don’t see no terrier in it,” the first one said, “but it’s big and sort of squarish. See it, sir?”
“Right there?” Bedford asked and pointed.
“That’s it, sir. Saw one of them going down into that shadow beside it as we crested the hill. I’m betting it’s a tunnel of some sort.”
“What are your names?”
“I’m Williams and he’s Heighway, sir.”
“Williams, Heighway, good job spotting the tunnel, and that was a nice piece of work down below. Stay alert,” Bedford said. He started back down the hill but as he passed the work party he paused to watch them carefully check a fallen Marine for signs of life, without success. The twin chevrons on the bloody sleeve made him a corporal. What was this corporal’s name? Bixby. “I am sorry for your losses, men,” said Bedford, and then he finished climbing down.
Colonel Harrison stood with Larkins and Lieutenant Booth, and Bedford recalled he had not seen Harrison during the fight,
“How many men lost, Major?” Bedford asked as soon as he joined the group.
“Was that Corporal Bixby up there?” Larkins asked. “Thought so. The only casualties were in Bixby’s Three Section. Bixby himself and one other man dead, Higgins has a nasty wound in his leg, and Sutcliffe over there broke his arm falling down the hill.”
Bedford turned and saw the two wounded Marines sitting beside the wrecked flyer and recognised the man holding his arm and grimacing in pain as the Marine who had killed a Selenite and been knocked over by its dead body. At least he had survived.
“I’ve reassigned the two fit survivors to the other sections,” Larkins added. “What are your orders, sir?”
“Colonel Harrison, I imagine you will be returning to the base.”
“Yes, at once,” Harrison added. “Full alert, you know. Never seen these red buggers before. Damn me if they don’t come on like howling dervishes, don’t they? No howling, of course.”
“I wonder if I could prevail upon you to escort our two wounded back, as well? Your men might help Private Higgins. I think Sutcliffe can make the walk on his own.”
Harrison frowned for a moment, clearly anxious to get back to the security of the base as quickly as possible, but then he nodded. “Gehlot,” he called, “cala!” The private helping the work detail turned and slid down the slope of the hill and came smartly to attention. “We’re back to Otterbein. Give that fellow there a hand. Shall I pass word to your vessel by heliograph, Bedford?”
“Thank you, Colonel, but I do not believe it will be necessary. Private Sutcliffe, once you’re back at the base instruct all coxswains to dog their hatches from the inside and not to open them unless they see an officer outside and no red Selenites. Have one of the cutters take you and Higgins back up to Sovereign. When you arrive inform Lieutenant Blake of the battle here, but he is to take no further action at this time. Then off to sick bay with you. Understood?”
“Sir!”
As Bedford, Larkins, and Booth watched Harrison lead the small party away back around the lake, Larkins spoke. “I take it, then, that we are pressing on.”
“The replica of the aether propeller controls in Borodino identify this as the site used to train at least one red Selenite cutter pilot, perhaps more. Your men spotted the tunnel into which the last of these red Selenites escaped. That must also be how they managed to approach so closely without being seen. I cannot say where the captain and his party are, but this trail is fresh and it leads to the mind behind the attack on Sovereign. It is the only trail we have, and I cannot but think it is part of a larger whole, so follow it we shall.”
“Colour Sergeant!” Larkins called. “Cover those two bodies with stones. We’ll recover them and take them back to Sovereign for proper burial when we return. Then assemble the detail. Lieutenant Booth, take Sergeant Adams and a half-section as skirmishers and lead the column. Pick your own men.”
BEDFORD BROKE his fast, as did the Marines, with ship biscuit and tinned bully beef washed down with cold tea from his canteen. The better part of a day following the faint trail of the red Selenites had produced nothing, and eventually he had called a halt to rest. Four hours sleep was all he allowed, and now he used the time spent eating his unappetising breakfast to consider their options.
He expected that some changes had taken place in lunar politics since his last visit to the world, but he had no idea as to their extent. He had certainly received no insights on that matter from either Colonel Harrison or Director George, both of whom struck him as extremely myopic men, too focused on their own narrow interests to pay much attention to the broader situation. Case in point, the very presence of an aggressive new variety of Selenites near the base, and apparently in considerable numbers, had entirely escaped their notice.
Bedford remembered the hospitality of Queen Q’theletockus and her colony, the Esitonina, from his previous visit. His party must have been in or near their range now. When he left Sovereign he had entertained a vague notion of obtaining guidance from her and, if necessary, reinforcements. The attack they suffered at the Russian flyer, however, left him uncertain as to the intentions of Selenites in general. He had cautioned the men not to fire on any Selenites other than the red ones, who had already demonstrated their hostility. But was it not possible that all the Selenites had turned hostile towards the humans, or at least the British, in the seven months since his last visit to Luna?
He knew, of course, that K’chuk and his escort had agreed to accompany Folkard in his pursuit of Grant, but Bedford remained uncertain whether that act meant K’chuk represented the Selenites in general, or if it made him a rogue outsider. Bedford decided against resuming his acquaintance with Q’theletockus, at least for the moment. Foolish trust and hasty manoeuvres were a characteristic of Folkard’s recent actions on Luna, not Bedford’s.
The tunnel they had followed down from the vicinity of the wrecked flyer broadened out into a cavern below, and Lieutenant Booth and his three skirmishers had led the way, carefully checking for signs of Selenite traffic. The passage showed considerable evidence of use, including discarded leathery husks of some sort of fungus, apparently the inedible remains of meals. They also found a crumpled piece of paper with writing on it, but the letters were in the Cyrillic alphabet and indecipherable to anyone in Bedford’s command. In places the rock floor had been filled in with gravel to make the passage easier, in others long dripstones had been broken off to make the passage less hazardous and had been neatly stacked to the side. For hours the party had made their way from one roughly spherical cavern to another, through tunnels and fissures made passable by alien hands.
Bedford had been in many caverns on Earth, but the lunar caverns were little like them. Terrestrial caverns were formed by the passage of water through rock, wearing away the less resistant material and leaving twisting passages which followed the geological seams. Lunar caverns had apparently been formed by trapped gas in cooling molten rock, frozen bubbles inside a now-cold world, hence their spherical shape. Thousands of years had altered them, of course. Large parts of cavern roofs had fallen, partially filling in and levelling the bottom. Water passed through seams and fissures in the rock, wore wider passages, and left the familiar spear-like dripstones: stalactites hanging from the ceilings and stalagmites reaching up from the floor to meet them.
“Very well,” he called, seeing the men finishing the last mouthfuls of their meal, “we’ll bury these ration tins under some rocks and be on our way. Lieutenant Booth, your lead.”
“Sir.”
An hour later Bedford slid two yards down a smooth rock surface, slick with mud, and then helped Larkins who followed him. They climbed up and over a large fallen stone dripstone column to make room for the Marines following. Bedford puffed a bit in the thinner lunar atmosphere, but the passage would have been much more tiring had it not been for the reduced gravity. Booth and his skirmishers were no longer in sight, having rounded a bend in the passage. Bedford heard a voice cry out in alarm up ahead—and then a shot!
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Bedford heard Lieutenant Booth call out.
Bedford and Larkins hurried forward, drawing their revolvers as they went. They rounded the bend and saw Sergeant Adams holding his own rifle and that of another Marine, the unarmed Marine clearly beside himself with fright, and Booth, his arms outstretched and hands empty, trying to reassure a half-dozen Selenites, all of them having risen up on their hind legs in alarm.
“Ah, Lieutenant Bedford! Glad you’re here, sir,” Booth said. “These are some of the non-red ones you said not to harm. I hope you’re right, sir; they look about ready to eat me!”
ANNABELLE AND K’chuk huddled close to each other and clung to the raft. Seaman Henry lay protectively on the other side of her but propriety kept him from actually touching her. A raft was their only practical option, and in two hours they had fashioned one large enough to support all of their weight. They had gathered a supply of edible mushrooms as well, as all of them began to feel pangs of hunger. Annabelle’s leg kept her from helping with the heavy construction so she built a fire near the shore and roasted mushrooms for the others. A thick mushroom stew would have warmed them as well as filled their bellies, but they had no cook pot.
Now they floated down the river. At first their progress had been maddeningly slow, but then the river’s velocity increased dramatically as the canyon walls drew closer together. White caps covered the river’s surface and the raft threw a fine spray of icy water over the passengers as it bit through the wave crests. Now, hours later, they still bobbed and foamed and shivered through the frigid, choppy water. Charles steered them clear of hazards by means of a long sweep lashed to the back of the raft, but Annabelle could tell that even he tired. As warm and comforting as K’chuk’s flank was, she crawled back to the coxswain. A larger wave broke over the raft and soaked both of them, and Annabelle pushed wet tangled hair back out of her eyes before she spoke.
“Mister Charles, we must put in somewhere and rest. You cannot keep this up, and if you falter we are all lost.”
“I can go a while longer,” he answered over the roar of the river.
“Yes, I dare say you can. But what if, when you can no longer carry on, there are no convenient landing places? What if we suddenly come to a particularly dangerous and difficult stretch of the river just as your arms begins to fail you? I beseech you to look for a landing place now, while you have the remaining reserves of strength to pilot us there.”
Charles did not meet her eyes. He studied the river ahead of them, corrected to the side for a few seconds, then back as they slid past a nearly submerged boulder. Finally he nodded. “Very well. I see an island ahead with vegetation. We will land and make camp there.”
THE CORRUPTED scientist noted agitation among the red Selenites. A group with such meagre material effects could hardly be said to be packing up in the conventional sense; still, there was an air of finality in the way that they conducted their business in the underground cavern in which they had chosen to dwell.
Their very presence here was his doing. Humans, he had found, were simply too difficult to manage: their minds too susceptible to radical ideas such as free will. It was clear that the human race no longer knew what was best for it, while the Selenites ordered around by pacifistic fools such as K’chuk were simply too soft. Meeting this group had changed his opinion on the warlike potential of the Selenites, and he had used every resource at his disposal to transport them across the Great Gorge.
Time, however, could not be said to be on their side; already he was aware that the Heart was calling his enemies ever closer. His diversion against the British ship in the Gorge had failed. The British had sent troops anyway, and his attempt at an ambush against them had failed as well, had cost him more warriors than he could afford to lose. Perhaps he should have spent less time preparing for this task, and simply struck immediately, but how was he to know Sovereign would return at the worst possible moment? An attack a month ago—a week ago—would almost certainly have succeeded. Now, nothing was certain. Time to trust his fate to audacity.
He was certain that he would be reacquainted with an old enemy: if he knew his old rival the way that he believed that he did, he could almost guarantee his presence. Those imbeciles were completely unaware that their all-conquering ambition and their brazen arrogance made them as hated here as on Earth and on any other planet they had landed on. It would be impossibly dangerous for them to couple that lust for power with the incalculable depths of knowledge that the Heart contained. It was imperative, then, that his group, however modest in size and intellect, reach the Heart’s centre before his enemy did.
The Heart was his, and these creatures would keep him safe as he reached it.