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  Wonder Stories, January, 1934

  Wonder Stories

  2

  Moon Plague

  by Raymond Z. Gallun

  EISURELY, old Steve Jubiston made

  which were certainly not like the footprints

  his way along a narrow valley toward

  which a party of men, shod with space-boots,

  L the laboratory-camp which his would make. They were too large, and their employer had established on the shape was oval. Old Steve felt a tingling thrill surface of the moon several months before. He ripple along his spine.

  was returning from that which, on earth, might Warily, he glanced along the ravine-have been termed a casual afternoon stroll. A like cleft, which branched off to the right from short jaunt of this sort had recently become

  the valley which he had been following. The

  one of his usual pastimes when he had nothing sun, which had already declined far down the

  better to do.

  western sky, left most of it in dense shadow, It had been some time since old Steve

  which his eyes, accustomed to the intense

  had been care-free, but he now had some time

  glare, could not penetrate. It was into these on his hands. His big, awkward body rolled

  shadows, peculiar to the moon, where

  forward with slow and distinctly sailorish atmospheric diffusion of light is practically strides. He whistled a blissful ditty inside the lacking, that the indentations disappeared.

  oxygen helmet of his space-suit, and his small They came from up the valley, in the general

  blue eyes twinkled behind the glazed view-

  direction of the laboratory-camp. That they

  window, as they roved hither and yon, taking

  had been recently made was evident, for he

  in the weirdly beautiful aspects of the lunar had traversed the valley when he had started

  scenery. His metal-shod boot kicked casually

  out on his jaunt, and they had not been there.

  at a fragment of obsidian that glinted in the Old Steve felt a wave of apprehension.

  sunlit dust of the trail. Now and then he would He fumbled at the apparatus at his belt,

  pause to hurl a stone boyishly up at the steep closing two small switches. “Mr. Melconne!”

  granite hilltops, and the rugged walls of small he called softly into the radio transmitter with craters that towered about him, or to examine which his helmet was equipped. “Mr.

  a bit of blue lichen,[footnote 1] which was one Melconne! It’s me—Steve. Can’t you hear

  of the very few forms of plant life which the me? Mr. Melconne—!”

  almost airless lunar surface could support.

  For a long minute he stood

  Steve rounded a peculiar spire of grey

  statuesquely, like a hound at stance, listening, rock, that was a well-known landmark to him.

  his mind troubled and uneasy.

  Then abruptly he stopped. The happy

  But no reassuring word came through

  whistling died on his lips, and his battered

  his phones. Only the quick rustling of his own features became solemn and concerned.

  pulse, magnified by the total absence of other Unconsciously, he assumed a half-sound, throbbed in his ears.

  crouching attitude, on guard. The fine

  “They might have gone away from the

  volcanic dust of the ground about him was

  radio for a few seconds,” he told himself

  marked with many curious indentations, inwardly, in an effort to rid his mind of the

  Moon Plague

  3

  tense unrest that had come over it. But no, that paradise about him. His eyes roved to the sky.

  was against the rigid rules of the camp. While Instead of the normal blue of the earthly

  any member of the expedition was afield, firmament, it was dark slate-grey, sprinkled there must always be some one at the radio.

  with countless stars, even though the sun was Steve’s eyes dropped again to the well above the horizon. Those stars did not peculiar-oval markings in the ashy lunar soil.

  blink kindly; they merely stared, with an

  Best to investigate without a second’s delay.

  inscrutable brightness. It would not take much No harm at least to do so.

  of loneliness in this empty world, to make a

  He started forward in long, easy raving maniac of a mart.

  bounds, for the weak gravity of the moon

  offered little resistance to his athletic muscles.

  IN a sort of panic, Steve scrambled down to

  And always, as he leaped over jagged rocks

  the crater’s floor. Using his small flashlight, and tortured volcanic crevices, those strange he made his way to the squat, circular

  oval indentations marked the dust under his

  structure which for three months had been the feet, and continued ahead of him, along the

  lunar explorers’ home. The airlock was

  trail toward the camp.

  closed, but beside it there was a gaping rent in He came at last to a place where a

  the double wall of sheet aluminum, and the

  crude stairway had been recently cut in the

  layers of cold-resisting packing between them.

  outer slope of a small crater’s wall by

  Old Steve’s hard-set jaw tightened. His

  members of his party. Agilely he climbed it,

  impulse was to rush headlong into the dark

  and peered intently into the inky shadows that interior of the building, yet something deep

  shrouded the volcano’s floor. The laboratory

  and primal within him warned him to caution.

  building, located at the bottom, was as He advanced warily, now and then calling in a completely hidden as if it did not exist.

  hoarse whisper the names of the members of

  Steve’s eyes narrowed. Yes, there his party: “Mr. Melconne! Claire! Walker!”

  must be trouble here, otherwise there would

  His only answer was an eloquent, deathly

  be lights burning in the laboratory. He paused, stillness.

  his head hunched between massive shoulders,

  The bright beam of his flashlight

  the excessive breadth of which was enhanced

  bobbed here and there over the walls and

  by the fantastic garb which he wore. Then

  floor. The latter was splotched with peculiar slowly, cautiously, he started forward, down

  dried areas of a substance which had probably the stair cut in the steep, inner slope of the originally been a greenish, slimy fluid. The

  crater. He called again. Nothing came through living quarters were in wild disorder;

  his phones.

  furniture, cooking utensils, and articles of

  He became suddenly conscious of the

  clothing were scattered haphazardly about.

  brooding silence that hung, thick and heavy,

  Steve passed into the test room. Apparatus and over the fantastic world about him. The pit

  equipment here had been hastily dismantled

  beneath was filled with a dense, almost and carried off. The air-purifying machinery tangible blackness, like a lake of ink. His eyes had been completely and methodically

  blinked at the farther rampart of the crater, wrecked.

  glaring grey-white in the intense sunlight, yet He made his way to the hang
ar, which

  somehow drab and sombre. He saw the was next to the test room. The great doors distorted pinnacles looming beyond—twisted,

  were flung wide, and both the spaceship that

  motionless nightmares of this bizarre devils’

  had brought the expedition to the moon and

  Wonder Stories

  4

  the small auxiliary flier were gone.

  the building, then!

  Steve’s flashlight groped over the

  Presently, after a feverish search, he

  floor, and wavered upon a huddled form. He

  found him trying to creep across the floor in approached it. It was a human form, the main living room. With awkward unprotected by any space-armor. The eyes gentleness, Steve raised him, and placed him bulged hideously, and the face was bloated

  in a broken bunk.

  and purple under the short, black beard. The

  “Hurt, kid?” he questioned, while he

  teeth, between the curling lips, were flecked examined him as well as he could for

  with foamy blood.

  indications of serious injury. He could not

  To have hinted in any way that old

  remove the boy’s space armor, for to do so

  Steve Jubiston was soft, would have been the

  now that the air-tight walls of the building had supreme insult to him; yet now, something

  been pierced, would of course have been

  that was very like a dry sob escaped from his immediately fatal.

  throat.

  “It’s not serious,” Claire Melconne

  The man on the floor was Frank reassured him. “Pretty well bruised up though, Walker, Steve’s side-kick during many an and I feel sort of sick .... Say, I’m sorry, but—

  interesting episode on the Pacific, and in ports well, Steve—Garth Jubiston did this. Garth

  of the Far East. Steve was down on his knees, and about twenty plant-men. You know, the

  chafing the cold hands between his space-

  specimen I shot just after we arrived. Garth

  gloves before he realized that his act was

  has evidently become pretty familiar with

  useless—that this was a corpse.

  them. Same kind of things. I—”

  He stared in vague bewilderment about

  “Garth?” Steve questioned. His voice

  the dark hangar, at a loss as to what move to was almost a harsh whisper, that was

  make. Who had done this? The fact that much

  nevertheless full of meaning. “But, kid, he

  of the laboratory equipment had been taken

  must be dead! He left us six weeks ago. He

  away, suggested that a man, or a group of men couldn’t have lived all that time without food, with scientific interests was back of the deed.

  water, and oxygen! Think again!”

  A thought came to old Steve, and for a

  fleeting instant he fancied he knew who the

  criminal was. That thought brought with it an CHAPTER II

  emotion that was stronger and more Garth and the Plant-Men devastating than mere physical terror. It struck close to his pride, his self-respect, his hopes and his dreams. But no, he had guessed OLD STEVE was thankful for the darkness wrongly. That fellow was dead. Besides, the

  that hid the look of pain which crossed his

  tracks—

  face. Garth Jubiston was Steve’s younger

  Out of the lonely silence, which brother. But the expression on the old sailor’s seemed for the moment filled with the piping, face passed quickly. His lips became a hard

  chuckling whisperings of a thousand little line.

  demons, there came a human voice. Steve

  “No, Steve, he’s alive,” Claire told

  started, then strained his ears to catch the

  him. “The mere fact of the existence of the

  words coming through his phones. Someone

  plant-men indicates that air and water are

  was calling his name weakly. It was Claire

  available somewhere around here, probably in

  Melconne’s voice. The boy was somewhere in

  subterranean grottoes, as Garth once said. And

  Moon Plague

  5

  where there’s air and water, there might easily time breaking in. They just used their rocks.

  be food.

  The walls crumpled up and broke like

  “Say, Steve, I know this thing is tough

  cardboard. I potted two of them with my

  any way you look at it; but I’ve got an idea

  automatic as they rushed in. Dad got another.

  that maybe Garth has got a good reason for

  Then a plant-man grabbed me in his tendrils,

  not being quite responsible for what he’s and threw me down upon the floor. I must doing. He’s sick, Steve. He staggered a little have been completely out for at least a minute.

  when he was leading his forces toward the

  When I came to, I could tell by the thumping

  laboratory, and I got a glimpse of his face. His on the floor under me that they were still in eyes were staring, and there was something

  the place. I managed to get into the closet. I across his nose and down along one cheek.

  thought I’d get a few shots at them through

  Thought at first that it was grease or some

  the crack of the door, but I must have passed other kind of dirt; but no, it was grey and

  out again. Somehow, they didn’t find me.

  fuzzy. Reminded me of something; a grey,

  That’s all I remember until I heard you. I

  parasitic growth which I found on some white

  couldn’t answer right away. We’ve got to do

  lichens a couple of miles north of camp just a something, Steve—quick. Our air’ll be gone

  few hours ago. Garth found a similarly in a few hours. We’ve got to go—” Claire diseased lichen before all this trouble started, Melconne’s voice trailed away.

  if you can remember ....

  Old Steve nodded slowly to himself.

  “I was in the test room, getting my

  He was getting the fantastic affair straight at diseased lichen ready for the specimen chest, last. Plant-men—Garth. It was a bizarre

  when I happened to look out of the window. I

  thought that Garth should be associating with saw Garth and his band just climbing over the those strange lunar creatures; and it was still crater rim. With their long legs, the plant-men more bizarre that Garth should lead them

  looked almost like big, hungry spiders against men in the laboratory, that he should scrambling down a wall. It was sort of queer

  cause the death of Walker, and place the rest to see them so active out there, where there’s of them in a position where extinction within a practically no atmosphere. You have to think a few hours seemed inevitable.

  couple of times before you remember that

  they’ve got thick, heat-resisting, cold-

  GARTH Jubiston was Steve’s junior by ten

  resisting, evaporation-resisting shells over years. He had been left an orphan when he their bodies, and that they are really green

  was a small boy, and the responsibility of his plants which can, with the aid of sunshine, of raising had devolved upon his older brother.

  which there is plenty, manufacture their own

  Since Steve’s job carried him far and wide

  oxygen from the thin atmosphere of carbon-

  over the world, he hadn’t seen Garth for long dioxide [Footnote 2] which exists around here.

  stretches of time; but old Steve had gotten the

  “Not one of them was less than boy through school. Garth was ambitious, and eighteen feet tall. Garth was in their midst, he had something which Steve did not

  apparently directing them, as they
came possess—a flash of genius. His advance had loping toward the laboratory. It was then that I been rapid. Everyone who had known Garth

  saw his face .... All the plant-men carried big had admitted that his record had been above

  rocks, and I knew that they meant trouble. I

  reproach.

  warned Walker and Dad, and then got into my

  Finally, because of his ability, and

  space-suit. But those things didn’t waste much because of his friendship with Claire

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  6

  Melconne, with whom he had become enough to give a fair idea of what it had been acquainted while holding an important like in life. It had stood perhaps eighteen feet instructorship in a large American university, tall. Its two stalky, many-jointed legs were

  he had joined the expedition.

  covered with countless matted brown fibres,

  Everything had gone well until some

  resembling roots. A tough, leathery mantle of time after their arrival on the sidereal sphere.

  bright leaf-green, oddly reminiscent of a

  Claire had shot the plant-man—the only one

  military cape, hung over its spiny ovoid body.

  they had seen. Garth had been intensely From the edge of this, its tactile tendrils, or interested in the creature. Shortly afterward, tentacles, projected. The creature had no head.

  they had prepared a collection of strange lunar At the top of its body was a sort of hard brown lichens, to be taken, back to earth. Among

  shell, resembling the calyx of an enormous

  them had been the white lichen with the flower. It was not difficult to imagine that parasitic grey spots—the one Garth had found.

  when the occasion demanded, the plant-man’s

  Almost immediately, Garth had entire vulnerable anatomy, including his long become irritable and abusive. During the next legs, could be drawn into, and sealed in this few hours, he had made two trips alone and on shell, which might serve as a protection during foot, away from the camp. Then, when all the

  the intense cold of the lunar nights. Sprouting others were sleeping, he had returned, and had from between the sections of this integument, gathered together a few of his belongings was a long forked stalk, bearing two globular before starting out again. The brief note he