Page:Stirring Science Stories, March 1942.djvu/18

 them around with a hand on either shoulder, and sent a hard-driven fist thudding into the jaw of the Moster on his left. The blow jolted hot lightning back along his arm to the elbow.

Then he was raining a flurry of slashing short blows on the other. Slowly he beat the intruder back against the wall. A soft cry of helpless despair checked his onslaught; the light blazed high from the fire, and he saw before him the swaying blood-bruised form of a woman!

"Please don't hit me again," she begged. "We did not know that you were a man. We thought the Little People had all gone so we came back through the tunnel tonight. This is our home you see."

"Lord I'm—I'm so sorry," stammered Rolf. "I didn't know you were a woman or Rolf Cameron is the name."

The girl dropped into a rough chair before the fireplace, her breath a broken panting thing. Rolf hurried to light the tallow candles in their ugly rock candlesticks. Then he found a seat on the logs piled beside the fireplace's great maw.

"My name is Janet Larsen," she broke a long moment of silence. "We are the survivors of a colony of scientists who hid here almost two centuries ago when the Great Change destroyed Earth's civilization. Most of that time we have busied ourselves with the rebuilding and repair of a wrecked spaceship that crashed a few miles away.

"But that is ended," she sighed. "All the men are dead. We cannot escape to the stars now. Mankind is doomed."

"Glmmp," groaned a voice from behind them and another girl emerged from the shadows. "I'm the human punching bag. Call me Jean. Boy, do you ever pack a wallop!"

"Jean!" admonished her sister, "why must you use those awful archaic expressions? That, that—slang I think you call it.

"She's been reading some of the ancient books of the Middle Ages," Janet explained to Rolf, "early Twentieth Century literature."

"Oh," smiled Rolf. "Then we'll feel right at home together. Sit down, babe. Where'd you learn to swing sucha wicked sap?"

"Geeze," gasped Jean breathlessly, plumping herself down beside Rolf, "you do know the lingo!"

ERE we are stranded on Earth," Janet was saying several days later as they sat close together on a sun-warmed rock ledge overlooking the autumn-hued little hollow where the cabins squatted placidly. "If father and the others had only been with Jean and I in the cavern when the Little People attacked them we would be halfway to Ganymede by now. The Vulcan would not be an earth-bound hulk of metal. But they were all pulled down—and eaten."

"Why the Jovian moons?" Rolf wanted to know.

"Well," Janet answered slowly, "because a few years before the Great Change two Martian spaceships loaded with colonists from the three planets Venus, Earth and Mars, set out for the moons of Jupiter. They were never heard from again but we feel certain that some of them must have landed safely. Venus and Mars are of course overrun by the Little People so we knew that only on some distant world we might find human beings like ourselves."

"Why not go anyway?" Rolf questioned. "I would like to see Earth from empty space before I die. I have always dreamed of spaceflight and of exploring some new world. Eventually the runts will find us and jab out our eyes; so why not take a chance on blasting off for Ganymede or Io? Better to die in space than in these forsaken canyons."

"You are right!" cried Janet impulsively springing to her feet and facing the man. Her eyes burned with a prophetic flame. "We'll blast off this very night. The labor of two centuries shall not be wasted. And we will reach our goal. I know it."

"It is a small target to shoot for," Rolf told her soberly, "but with the food and supplies already stored in the Vulcan we can live for fifty years in space. We should find a habitable sphere in that time."

"Hiyuh, Big Boy," rang out a cheery greeting from the trail above the engrossed pair. "Trying to play Romeo to Janet? No use playing up to her, Rolf. Her heart is pure asbestos. She thinks necking is a kin to hanging."

"Listen, brat," Janet cried, her face flushing beautifully, "do you ever think of anything but wisecracks? Beat it!"

"Begorra!" squealed Jean. "You've got her talking human, Rolfy. Ain't love the nuts?"

Rolf grinned back at the irrepressible little tomboy taunting her older sister. He could not decide which girl was the most charming—the blonde, tousle-headed, tanned Jean in her mannish breeches and sweater, or the dark-haired, simply dressed Janet, so charming and thoughtful. Both girls were attractive, intelligent young women—almost beautiful. He was half in love with both of them.

"We're heading out into space in a few hours, kid," he told Jean.

"I'm no kid!" Jean exploded, tears bursting from her eyes suddenly as she raced madly away down the narrow trail toward the cabins.

"Weeell," gasped Janet, laughter bubbling deep down in her throat, "you do have a strange effect on the opposite sex, Rolf."

From the bushes nearby there sounded the patter of little feet and the tiny figure of Jek ran toward them. Rolf's hand dropped to the worn handle of the revolver now belted around his waist. Jek was panting and his eyes were glassy with strain.

"Have found us," he choked out "Little People come thick