Chet

“ And he answered in words that echoed Chet's real thoughts and that took the smile from his lips.
"But, no," said Herr Kreiss; "it is the contrary that I desire. Here we are; here we stay for the rest of our lives. I would wish those years to be undisturbed. I have no wish to quarrel with what primitive inhabitants this globe may hold. There is much to study, to learn. I shall pass the years so.
"And now," he questioned, "where is it that we go? Where shall be our home?"
Chet, too, looked inquiringly at Harkness. ”

“ Chet saw them dead ahead; he saw the out-thrust heads, each ending in a great suction-cup, the row of disks that were eyes blazing above, and the gaping maw below. He altered their course not a hair's breadth as he bore down upon them, while the monsters swelled prodigiously before his eyes. And the thunderous roar from astern came with never a break, while the ship itself ceased its trembling protest [179] against the sudden blast and drove smoothly on and into the waiting beasts. ”

“ Chet had no mind for explanations. Before him were a score of yawning clefts in a rocky floor; one was larger than the rest; there were figures whose white bodies glowed red in its reflected light as they floated on black wings high above; the light of those hidden fires blazed and died intermittently. There death was waiting, while these demons—these degenerate half-men, living products of a dying race—whipped the air in a frenzy of expectation as they darted above those chasms that were like rifts in the rock roof of hell. ”

“ And there came to Chet, crouched beneath the altar, hardly breathing, listening, tense, a battering of questioning thoughts. He heard no answer from Harkness and Diane, but he knew that their minds were open pages to the one from whom those thought-waves issued.
"Where are you from?—what part of this globe?... Another world? Impossible! This is our own world, Rajj. It is alone. There is no nearby star." ”

“ They moved like wooden toys half-come to life. And they, too, vanished where Walt and Diane had gone through the high arch of the jungle's open door.
Chet knew Kreiss was beside him; at a short distance, Towahg, staring above the palisade, buried his unkempt, hairy head in the shelter of his arms. All of Towahg's savage bravery had oozed away at direct sight of the pyramid men; Chet, even through his heavy-hearted dismay, was aware of the courage that must have carried this primitive man to their rescue on that other black night when the pyramid had been about to swallow, them up. ”

“ And, with its going, Chet knew that the return trip was begun.
He gave Harkness the celestial bearing marks and relinquished the helm. "Full speed ahead as you are," he ordered; "then at nineteen-forty on W.S. time, we'll cut it and ease on bow repulsion to the limit."
And, despite the strangeness of their surroundings, the ceaseless, murmuring roar of the exhaust, the weird world outside, where endless space was waiting for man's exploration—despite the deadly menace that threatened, Chet dropped his head upon his outflung arms and slept. ”

“ The open arena!—the high bank of great steps in their bold markings of black and white! They could never hope to scale them; they would never even reach them alive, for the savage horde would overwhelm them before they had crossed the Earth-lit ground.
"All right," said Chet in acceptance of their unspoken thoughts, "up it is! Here's a hand, Diane—up you go! Now watch your step, and climb as if a thousand devils were after you, for there's all of that!"
The wave of bodies was washing against the pyramid's base when Chet drew Kreiss, the last of the four, into the shadow of the huge capstone. ”

“ And now and then, by way of brightening the tedium of their job he and his gang would call to a girl passing in the street below, "Hoo-Hoo! Hello, sweetheart!"
There was nothing vicious in it, Chet would have come to the aid of beauty in distress as quickly as Don Quixote. Any man with a blue shirt as clean, and a shave as smooth, and a haircut as round as Chet Ball's has no meanness in him. ”

“ Chet said hotly. His heat was for Job, not for Hayes. “I’ll teach him something!”
He went out behind the barn, still whistling and calling, and the others followed him. Their dogs were in the car in which they had come from{50} Rockland. The three men walked across the garden to the brow of the hill above the river and Chet blew his whistle till he was purple of countenance. The other two were secretly amused, as men are apt to be amused when they find that an idol has feet of clay. For Job was a famous dog. ”

“ Chet knew in some corner of his brain that Schwartzmann was watching from an under lookout with a powerful glass, and he heard his excited command:
"Down—go slowly, down!... They are landing.... They have entered the hangar. Now, down with it, Max! Down! down!"
he plunging fall of the ship roused Chet from his stupor. He felt the jolt of the clumsy landing despite the snow-cushioned ground; he heard plainly the exclamations from beyond an open port—the startled oath in Walter Harkness' voice, and the stinging scorn in the words of Diane Delacouer. ”

“ More often, those to whom he speaks seek to reassure him, for it is plain to any man that there is no murder in Chet, nor any malice nor anything but a very human large-heartedness toward every man and beast.
In Tantry’s time Chet was a bachelor living alone at his farm above Fraternity, cooking and caring for himself, managing well enough. He had been a granite cutter, a fisherman upon the Banks, a keeper of bees. Now he farmed his rocky hillside farm. He was a man of middle age—a small man with a firm jaw and a pair of bushy eyebrows and deep-set piercing eyes. ”

“ There was a sound of scuffling feet, and once the thud of a blow.... Then Chet watched with heavy, hopeless eyes as the familiar faces of Diane and Walt appeared in the doorway. Their hands were bound; they, too, were threatened with a slim-barreled pistol in the hands of the smirking, exultant Schwartzmann.
A tall, thin-faced man whom Chet had not seen before followed them into the room. The newcomer was motioned forward now, as Schwartzmann called an order to the pilot:
"All right; now we go. Max! Herr Doktor Kreiss will give you the bearings; he knows his way among the stars." ”

“ Chet heard Harkness saying in a horrified whisper. "Those beaks that were like tubes! And they—they—" He stopped as if in fear of the words that would tell what they themselves had escaped.
Chet turned the body to its former position; that dreadful face beneath a pitiless sun was a sight no other eyes should see. "Let's go on to the ship," he said. "We'll get some ammunition, go back and get Diane—"
He did not finish the thought. ”

“ Great vortices of whirling light rolled out to either side in an endless pyrotechnical display to show the power of those flailing wings that were bearing Chet and his companion through the dark void—bearing them to some destination Chet could not envisage.
His body turned in space at times, and he saw the spreading cone of luminous gas behind them like the wake of a great ship in a phosphorescent sea. The hiss and threshing of many wings came unceasingly. Once he swung close to another body clad like his own and, like him, enmeshed in a net. ”

“ In the center, like an altar for the worship of some wild, gargantuan god, was a stepped pyramid of the same startling black and white. Banded like the walls, it rose to half their height to finish in a capstone cut square and true.
An altar, perhaps; an arena, beyond a doubt, or so it seemed to Chet. He was first to put the impression in words.
"A stadium!" he marvelled; "an arena for the games of the gods!"
"The gods," Diane breathed softly, "of a wild, lost world—" But Chet held to another thought.
"Who—who built it?" he asked. "It's tremendous! There is nothing like it on Earth!" ”

“ Before Chet's eyes a light was growing. A mere slit at first, it grew to a luminous circle in the rocky floor. And as it opened, he felt the pressure of his metal suit upon his body, where before it had been slightly ballooned by the pressure of oxygen he had maintained.
With the opening of this door to another subterranean chamber had come a renewed atmospheric pressure. And now, in the denser gas, he saw, in ghastly silhouette against the lighted pit, flying figures that floated and soared on outstretched wings of inky black. ”

“ Chet did not chain him. There was no need, he thought. Tantry could scarce walk at all, much less follow him to the fringe of woodland down the hill.
When he was ready he and Mac went through{68} the barn and across the garden into the meadow and across this meadow and the wall beyond till the hill dropped steeply toward the river. Repeated commands kept Mac to heel, though the dog was fretting with impatience. Not till they were at the edge of the wood did Chet wave his hand and bid the dog go on.
“Now find a bird, Mac,” Chet commanded. “Go find a bird.” ”

“ Chet had switched on the steady buzz of the stationary-ship signal, and the wireless warning was swinging passing craft out and around their station. Within the quiet cabin a man stood to stare and stare, unspeaking, until his pilot laid a friendly hand upon the broad shoulders.
"You're cleaned," said Chet Bullard. "It's a washout! But you'll build it up again; they can't stop you—"
But the steady, appraising eyes of Walter Harkness had moved on and on to a rippling stretch of water where land had been before. ”

“ An earthquake, one time, had split the stone, and Chet was more than satisfied to avoid the broad entrance where the rocks made a gateway and where hostile eyes might be watching.
He stood for long minutes in the cleft in the rocks where the hard earth of the arena made a floor before him, where the huge steps of ribboned white and black swung out on either hand, and where, directly ahead, in the same hard, contrasting strata, a pyramid lifted itself to finish in a projecting capstone. And now that he faced it he found himself curiously cool. ”

“ Then the long rat-tails came whipping over, the demon-heads, ripping down with slashing blows on the pilot's head and shoulders. Off at one side, a dozen paces away, a slender figure tore loose from gripping claws. Chet saw it; he freed himself for an instant to leap to her side. She was tugging at a bar of gold, a scepter in the hands of a sculptured figure in the wall. It would have been a serviceable weapon, but it bent slowly. Another of the beasts was upon her as Chet sprang. ”

“ 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 coming along the same trail seemed certain. ”

“ Chet's face, despite his apprehension, drew into a whimsical, silent grin. "No chance to ambush him, whoever he is or whatever it is," he told himself. "But that works two ways: he can't jump us when we're prepared; not in daylight, anyway."
And he asked himself a question he could not answer: "I wonder," he whispered softly, "—I wonder what these plants will do at night!"
Almost they could see the swift descent of the sun. Each flashing glint of light through the dense growth came from lower down toward the invisible horizon. ”

“ The Commander smiled, too; smiled coldly, complacently, while his head shook.
"Again you are mistaken," he told Chet; "never again will you fly as much as one foot above Earth."
And still Chet's grin persisted. "Commander," he said, "a man in your position should not make so many mistakes. I am going—I give you warning now—going to the Moon. ”

“ And he stared and stared, not at the rioting throng before him, but at something he could in part comprehend—a glowing, flashing jewel that rested in his hand. And slowly there crept into his eyes a look of understanding, while a ghost of a smile twitched and tugged at the corners of his mouth.
The hall, which one instant was a bedlam of roaring voices, went silent as Chet Bullard raised his hand. He was still smiling as he bowed toward the white-haired man whose happy face belied the moisture in his eyes; then he faced the throng, and his voice held no hint of trembling or uncertainty. ”

“ No—do not kill them. Not now; bring them to us alive. The pleasure will come later. And where are the other two? Find them!" It was here that Chet let out a wordless, blood-curdling shriek from lungs and throat that were tight with breathless waiting.
He must face the big brute about, and his wild yell did the work. Startled by that cry that must have reached even those calloused, savage nerves, the ape-man leaped straight up in the air. He whirled as he sprang, to face whatever was behind him, and he threw the bodies of Harkness and Diane to the ground. ”

“ They were leading the pack on a long journey; Chet wanted to be sure they were following and had not turned back. He left a plain mark of his boot from time to time, and knew that this mark would be shown to Schwartzmann. With that to lead him there would be no stopping the man: he would drive his army of blacks despite their superstitious fears.
The short days and nights formed an endless succession to Chet. Only once did he see a familiar place, as they passed a valley and he saw where their ship had rested on that earlier voyage. ”