Chapter 7: The Gateway to Hell

Spud O’Malley, at the controls of the ship, held the craft in a vertical lift while his eyes clung in horrible fascination to the mirrors that showed from a lower lookout the volcanic floor falling away. Amazement had almost stifled his breathing, until at last he let go a long breath that ended in a curse.

“The outrageous, damned things!” he breathed. “Jumping, they were, and leaping, and flying on their leather wings like a lot of black bats out o’ hell! And I’m thinkin’ that’s where they’ve taken Chet Bullard, and never again will he hold a ship like ‘twas in the hollow of his hand, and him settin’ it down like a feather!

“And: ‘Fly back home!’ he says to me. I can do it, too; thanks to his teachin’. But fly back and leave that bhoy in the hands of those murderin’ devils!--’tis little he knows the Irish!”

He was talking half under his breath, murmuring to himself as if it helped him to see clearly the situation that must be faced.

“But to get to him--that’s the trouble. I saw a big door go shut in that stone floor. They’re cunnin’, clever beasts; I’ll say that for ‘em. And there was a raft of ‘em; and plenty more down in hell where they live, I’ve no doubt.”

He moved forward on the ball-control, and the great ship swept like a silvery shadow through the night toward the distant, lighted crater rim. This he could see clearly, but the other side of the ring of mountains was black with shadow.

And, far out beyond, spread like a cloud over all the desolate world, was blackness. Spud drove the ship up another five thousand feet, and still that darkness spread out in inky pools where only an occasional mountain peak caught the flat rays of the sun.

And what had Chet called these dark areas? “Lake of Dreams” and “Lake of Death.” Spud’s superstitious mind was a-quiver with dread and an ominous premonition to which the empty, frozen wastes below him gave added force.

“I’ll have to wait,” he told himself. “The light of the Moon--I mean the Earth--is bright, but not bright enough. I’ll just wait till the Sun climbs higher. When it shines down into that hole that is the gateway to hell--and well I know it--then I can see what is there. Then, maybe, I can find some way to get inside; and I hope the lad lives till I get there.”

He circled back; swept down in a long, leisurely flight, and came again to the place of gently sloping rock where Chet had first landed. And he searched till he found the identical spot and laid the ship down on a level keel.

Far away the Sun was gilding the hard outlines of mountains that ringed them in. Spud did not know how long he must wait. Had he realized that it must be a matter of days it is probable he would have donned the metal suit and started out. But instead he busied himself in a careful investigation of the storeroom and a check-up of ammunition and supplies that were there.

The lunar day, as all Earth-men know, is a matter of nearly fifteen of Earth’s days. Spud O’Malley was wild with impatience when at last the Sun was striking less flatly across the land and he knew that the time had come when he could start.

He had sensed the change that took place in the world outside; from the lookouts of the control room he had seen the bare rocks lose their white markings of hoar frost and at last actually quiver with heat as the Sun beat upon them. He had seen the growing things that crept from every crevice and hollow--pale, colorless mosses that threw out long tendrils which licked across the hot rocks as if hungry for the nourishment the thin air brought.

Spud knew nothing of the carbon dioxide which these pale green growths could combine with water under the Sun’s hot rays and build into vegetable tissue. But he marveled again and again at the hungry things that made a mesh of ropy strands across the smooth area about the ship. They even hung in drooping masses from the weird rocks beyond; and, so light they were, they raised their heads hungrily in air, while the corded tendrils even threw themselves in contorted writhings at times when the Sun struck with increasing warmth.