Читать книгу Lunar Intrigue - John Russell Fearn - Страница 3

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“Scum!” growled Ace Durkan from the darkness, crossing his heavy lead-soled boots—for the purpose of gravity compensation. “Crawling scum, the whole lot of ’em! But they can’t do this to me, see? Not to Ace Durkan! I’ll get out of this damned lunar pen if I have to bite my way through the rocks! They can’t keep me away from Earth!”

“Aw, pipe down, Ace!” grunted another voice. “What’s the use of bellyaching now? They got you—same as they got all of us. And not even you’ll escape across the lava moats. The pen’s surrounded with ’em, remember. If you ask me, you got off light considering your record. And that final stunt of playing around with the Polar Power Station just hollered out for trouble.”

“So what?” Ace demanded venomously. “I set out to cripple the industry of the Earth, to make the big shots come into line—and I’ll still do it. Yes, even from the moon! They can’t frame me like this!”

He relapsed into simmering silence. Nobody spoke. Most of them were thinking of the audacity of the scheme which had caused him to be captured. On Earth, at North and South Poles stood the giant power houses which, through the Earth’s natural dynamo-like spin against the ether, absorbed the power thus generated and transferred it to the world for every conceivable use.

And Ace had dared to monkey around with the North Station! That was why he was in the belly of the pen ship right now. Only one thing puzzled the other cons. Why had Ace made such a slip-up as to get himself captured?

The cons said nothing to him, but they whispered among themselves. It was better, they considered, to be a friend of Ace Durkan’s than a foe. A blow from one of those fists could have felled an ox.

The journey was over at last. The grinding of the ship’s nose as she touched Luna sent a quiver through the vessel which aroused the sleeping convicts in a body. Within minutes, linked together by chain, they were marching, blinking their eyes, along the narrow catwalk of steel leading to the massive external airlock. They narrowed their eyes at the blinding glare that smote them as they tramped with their weighted boots into the open.

Ace Durkan, first in the line, spat his disgust at what he saw. No wonder the place was called “White Hell.”

Here, on the moon’s other side—eternally turned from Earth—was a gigantic valley, drawn thus in the moon’s plasma by the pull of the mother world; a valley filled up to a 500 ft. altitude with passable atmosphere. Here, throughout the month-long day, verdure flourished in a crushing heat which usually achieved 130° F. in the shade. Yet at night it was 100° F. below zero. Bad though the ranges of temperature were, they had nothing on the frightful extremes of the earthward side, unprotected by any atmosphere whatsoever and open to the void.

Ace’s eyes took in the view of the great penitentiary itself perched on a massive rock in the center of the valley. Around it, spanned by metal drawbridges of almost medieval style, was a mile wide moat of molten lava, ejected from the still hot core of the moon’s interior. Round the penitentiary itself was a twenty-foot wall with electrified wires round the top. Certainly it was no easy place to crack.

“Well, like your new home, big shot?” It was the sour voice of a granite-faced warder that spoke in Ace’s ear.

“Take more than that joint to hold me!” Ace retorted, smearing his hands down his tunic. “I’ve got ideas, see! Big ideas!”

“Yeah? Well, get movin’ while you think ’em out. Go on—quick! You’re holdin’ up the line.”

Ace marched on, scuffing up white dust round his heels as he went. He was perspiring freely by the time they had crossed the lava moat and entered the vast sundrenched yard. Here he was unfettered, taken apart from the rest into the broad, cool office of the Governor. He stood with feet apart, jaw projecting, the multiple fans blowing a cool draft round his red head.

A man with iron gray hair was busy at his desk. Ace glanced across at the opposite corner where a slim, dark girl was busy with a pile of papers. She caught his glance. He had time to see she was passably good looking, then she froze up at his impudent wink.

The man with the iron gray hair looked up sharply.

“Henry Durkan, eh?” He spoke grimly, leaned back in his chair and eyed Ace steadily.

“Yeah. Ace to you.”

“You’ll say ‘sir’ when you address me, Durkan—and if you know what’s good for you you’ll keep in line with regulations. You’ll be treated no better and no worse than the others here. I had you sent in here so I could see what sort of a man it is that had ringed a whole planet with crime.”

“So you figure I’m a sort of specimen, do you?” Ace breathed, slamming a mighty fist on the desk. “Well get this, Governor, I—”

“Take him out!” the Governor interrupted briefly. “Ore shift.”

Before he had a chance to continue Ace found himself whirled out into the corridor. Thereafter, sullen but passive, he went through the prison routine of haircut, measurement, allocation of duty, and so forth. He finished up in a cell with Soapy Andrews, a hatchet-faced con serving five years.

He made no observations, simply sat folded up on his bunk, hugging his knees, and gazing at the metal ceiling most of the time. At other times he watched Ace thoughtfully, but passed no comments. Accordingly Ace gave up ranting. No use raging at a guy who remained dumb.

The following day—by clock time since the day was a month long—Ace found himself busy with some hundred others just outside the prison yards, shoveling rock and ore into trucks—lunar ores, some of them rich with gold. Not that that was any advantage. Warders were dotted everywhere with flame guns and lashes. And behind them was that hellish moat of lava.

Ace was aware as he worked that the others watched him surreptitiously—some of them at least. Six of them kept talking to each other at intervals. Soapy Andrews in particular seemed to have thawed out completely for he had plenty to say, glancing at Ace as he talked.

Suddenly Ace slitted his eyes and dropped his shovel. He strode over to where Soapy was working and talking at the same time, whirled him round.

“Listen you!” He held him tightly by a fistful of front shirt. “I don’t like guys who talk about me when I’m not there to put my two cents worth in, see? What are you doin’? Tellin’ these mugs all about me? All you’ve weighed up about me in the cell, eh?”

“I was only tellin’ them you’re Ace Durkan—”

“So what? Any guy knows that! Now you get this—”

“And you get this, you big ape!” bellowed a warder, swooping down on the scene. “Get back to work, all of you! You too, Durkan! Step on it!”

Ace hesitated, fists clenched. The warder purpled.

“I said get back to work!” he bellowed, then snatching out his whip he whirled the vicious lashes round across Ace’s bare back. Ace winced for a moment as the tails bit deep, then he gave a taut grin.

Springing forward suddenly he lashed out his left fist into the warder’s stomach. As he doubled up, gasping, Ace slammed up his right with all his strength, felt his knuckles sting under the terrific impact. The warder reeled backward, crashing his length in white dust and lay still.

“Wise guy, eh?” Ace breathed, and the red bristles of his hair seemed to stand up in fury. Then warders were running from all directions, clutching his arms, his neck. A flame gun prodded in his back.

“Better take it easy,” hissed a voice. “One more break like that and you’re finished, Ace. It means the lethal chamber. O. K. boys, clap him in the Governor’s office for sentence.”

The other convicts stood watching in awe as he was bundled off down the slope to the executive building. Soapy Andrews’ axlike face broke into an admiring grin.

“It’s Ace all right, boys,” he muttered. “Nobody but Ace would have that much nerve, anyway—but I just wanted to make sure. That was why I kept my trap shut in the cell last night. He’s all right. We’d know him from his televized photo anyway. And he’s got that scar in his back too—the one he got in that gang fight two years back. Remember?”

“He’ll get the cooler for this,” observed “Death” Anderson grimly.

“Yes, but when he comes out we’ve got to rope him into the Clique,” Soapy went on quickly. “No time to lose. Can’t figure out how he came to get trapped. Looks to me as though it sort of queers things from the Earth end....”

They turned back to work as the warders came threateningly near.