Brood of the Dark Moon

(A Sequel to "Dark Moon")

By Charles Willard Diffin

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Stories August, September, October and November 1931. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. The Message
CHAPTER II. Into Space
CHAPTER III. Out of Control
CHAPTER IV. The Return to the Dark Moon
CHAPTER V. A Desperate Act
CHAPTER VI. "Six to Four"
CHAPTER VII. The Red Swarm
CHAPTER VIII. Doomed
CHAPTER IX. A Premonition
CHAPTER X. A Mysterious Rescuer
CHAPTER XI. The Sacrificial Altar
CHAPTER XII. In the Shadow of the Pyramid
CHAPTER XIII. Happy Valley
CHAPTER XIV. A Bag of Green Gas
CHAPTER XV. Terrors of the Jungle
CHAPTER XVI. Through Air and Water
CHAPTER XVII. Hunted Down
CHAPTER XVIII. Besieged!
CHAPTER XIX. "One for Each of Us"
CHAPTER XX. On to the Pyramid
CHAPTER XXI. The Monstrous Something
CHAPTER XXII. Sacrifice
CHAPTER XXIII. The Might of the "Master"

List of Illustrations

He landed one blow on the nearest face.

One, swifter than the rest, dashed upon him.

The inky waters were ablaze with fire.

With the free hand he shot over a blow.

CHAPTER I

The Message

In a hospital in Vienna, in a room where sunlight flooded through ultraviolet permeable crystal, the warm rays struck upon smooth walls the color of which changed from hot reds to cool yellow or gray or to soothing green, as the Directing Surgeon might order. An elusive blending of tones now seemed pulsing with life; surely even a flickering flame of vitality would be blown into warm livingness in such a place.

Even the chart case in the wall glittered with the same clean, brilliant hues from its glass and metal door. The usual revolving paper disks showed white beyond the glass. They were moving; and the ink lines grew to tell a story of temperature and respiration and of every heart-beat.

On the identification-plate a name appeared and a date: "Chet Bullard—23 years. Admitted: August 10, 1973." And below that the ever-changing present ticked into the past in silent minutes: "August 15, 1973; World Standard Time: 10:38—10:39—10:40—"

For five days the minutes had trickled into a rivulet of time that flowed past a bandaged figure in the bed below—a silent figure and unmoving, as one for whom time has ceased. But the surgeons of the Allied Hospital at Vienna are clever.

10:41—10:42—The bandaged figure stirred uneasily on a snow-white bed....

A nurse was beside him in an instant. Was her patient about to recover consciousness? She examined the bandages that covered a ragged wound in his side, where all seemed satisfactory. To all appearances the man who had moved was unconscious still; the nurse could not know of the thought impressions, blurred at first, then gradually clearing, that were flashing through his mind.

Flashing; yet, to the man who struggled to comprehend them, they passed laggingly in review: one picture followed another with exasperating slowness....

Where was he? What had happened? He was hardly conscious of his own identity....

There was a ship ... he held the controls ... they were flying low.... One hand reached fumblingly beneath the soft coverlet to search for a triple star that should be upon his jacket. A triple star: the insignia of a Master Pilot of the World!—and with the movement there came