Charley enjoyed himself hugely. He was with the two people he liked most. He was having a spirited game among interlaced shadows and sudden, substantial obstacles of rock. He nuzzled the fleeing pair playfully, and followed them after his own lazy and intricate and incredibly whimsical fashion. His private mode of locomotion was not bounded by the possibilities involved in feet and tiring legs. He scampered and had fun.

It was not fun for Tod Denver and Darbor. The girl's strength was failing. She lagged, and Denver slowed his pace to support her tottering progress.

Without warning, the mine entrance loomed before them. It was old and crumbly with a thermal erosion resembling decay.

It was high and narrow and forbiddingly dark.

Tod Denver had brought portable radilumes, which were needed at once.

Inside the portals was no light at all. Thick, tangible dark blocked the pa.s.sage. It swallowed light.

Just inside, the mine gallery was too wide for easy defense. Further back, there was a narrowing.

Denver seized on the possibilities for barricading and set to work, despite numbed and weary muscles. Walking on the Moon is tiring for muscles acquired on worlds of greater gravity. He was near exhaustion, but the stimulus of fear is strong. He worked like a maniac, hauling materials for blockade, carrying the smaller ingredients and rolling or dragging the heavier. A brief interval of rest brought Darbor to his side. She worked with him and helped with the heavier items.

Fortunately, the faint gravity eased their task, speeded it.

For pursuit had not lagged. Their trail had been found and followed.

From behind his barricade, Denver picked off the first two hired thugs of the advance guard as they toiled upward, too eagerly impatient for caution. A network of hastily-aimed beams of heat licked up from several angles of the slope, but none touched the barricade. The slope, which flattened just outside the entrance made exact shooting difficult, made a direct hit on the barricade almost impossible, unless one stood practically inside the carved entrance-way. Denver inched to the door and fired.

The battle was tedious, involved, but a stalemate. Lying on his belly, Denver wormed as close as he dared to the break of slope outside the door. There, he fired snap shots at everything that moved on the slopes. Everything that moved on the slopes made a point of returning the gesture. Some shots came from places he had seen no movement.

It went on for a long time. It was pointless, wanton waste of heat-blaster ammunition. But it satisfied some primal urge in the human male without solving anything.

Until Darbor joined him, Denver did not waste thought upon the futilities of the situation. Her presence terrified him, and he urged her back inside. She was stubborn, but complied when he dragged her back with him.

"Now stay inside, you fool," she muttered, her voice barely a whisper in his communication amplifier.

"You stay inside," he commanded with rough tenderness. They both stayed inside, crouched together behind the barricade.

"I think I got three of them," he told her. "There seemed to be eight at first. Some went back to the ship. For more men or supplies, I don't know. I don't like this."

"Relax," she suggested. "You've done all you can."

"I guess it's back to your gilded cage for you, baby," he said. "My money didn't last."

"Sometimes you behave like a mad dog," she observed. "I'm not sure I like you. You enjoyed that butchery out there. You hated to come inside. What did it prove? There are too many of them. They'll kill us, eventually. Or starve us out. Have you any bright ideas?"

Denver was silent. None of his ideas were very bright. He was at the end of his rope. He had tied a knot in it and hung on. But the rope seemed very short and very insecure.

"Hang on, I guess. Just hang on and wait. They may try a rush. If they do I'll bathe the entrance in a full load from my blaster. If they don't rush, we sit it out. Sit and wait for a miracle. It won't happen but we can hope."

Darbor tried to hug the darkness around her. She was a Martian, tough-minded she hoped. It would be nasty, either way. But death was not pleasant. She must try to be strong and face whatever came. She shrugged and resigned herself.

"When the time comes I'll try to think of something touching and significant to say," she promised.

"You hold the fort," Denver told her. "And don't hesitate to shoot if you have to. There's a chance to wipe them out if they try to force in all at once. They won't, but--"

"Where are you going? For a walk?"

"Have to see a man about a dog. There may be a back entrance. I doubt it, since Martian workings on the Moon were never very deep. But I'd like a look at the jackpot. Do you mind?"

Darbor sighed. "Not if you hurry back."

Deep inside the long gallery was a huge, vaulted chamber. Here, Denver found what he sought. There was no back entrance. The mine was a trap that had closed on him and Darbor.

Old Martian workings, yes. But whatever the Martians had sought and delved from the mooncrust was gone. Layered veins had petered out, were exhausted, empty. Some glittering, crystalline smears remained in the crevices but the crystals were dull and life-less. Denver bent close, sensed familiarity. The substance was not unknown. He wetted a finger and probed with it, rubbed again and tested for taste.

The taste was sharp and bitter. As bitter as his disappointment. It was all a grim joke. Valuable enough once to be used as money in the old days on earth. But hardly valuable enough, then, even in real quant.i.ty, to be worth the six lives it had cost up to now--counting his and Darbor's as already lost. First, Laird Martin, with his last tragic thoughts of a tiny girl on Earth, now orphaned. Then the three men down the slope, hideous in their bulged and congealing death.

Himself and Darbor next on the list, with not much time to go. All for a few crystals of--Salt!

The end was as viciously ironic as the means had been brutal, but greed is an ugly force. It takes no heed of men and their brief, futile dreams.

Denver shrugged and rejoined his small garrison. The girl, in spite of the comradeship of shared danger, was as greedy as the others outside.

Instinctively, Denver knew that, and he found the understanding in himself to pity her.

"Are they still out there?" he asked needlessly.

Darbor nodded. "What did you find?"

He debated telling her the truth. But why add the bitterness to the little left of her life? Let her dream. She would probably die without ever finding out that she had thrown herself away following a mirage.

Let her dream and die happy.

"Enough," he answered roughly. "But does it matter?"

Her eyes rewarded his deceit, but the light was too poor for him to see them. It was easy enough to imagine stars in them, and even a man without illusions can still dream.

"Maybe it will matter," she replied. "We can hope for a miracle. It will make all the difference for us if the miracle happens."

Denver laughed. "Then the money will make a difference if we live through this? You mean you'll stay with me?"

Darbor answered too quickly. "Of course." Then she hesitated, as if something of his distaste echoed within her. She went on, her voice strange. "Sure, I'm mercenary. I've been broke in Venusport, and again here on Luna. It's no fun. Poverty is not all the n.o.ble things the copybooks say. It's undignified and degrading. You want to stop washing after a while, because it doesn't seem to matter. Yes, I want money. Am I different from other people?"

Denver laughed harshly. "No. I just thought for a few minutes that you were. I hoped I was at the head of your list. But let's not quarrel.

We're friends in a jam together. No miracle is going to happen. It's stupid to fight over a salt mine, empty at that, when we're going to die. I'm like you; I wanted a miracle to happen, but mine didn't concern money. We both got what we asked for, that's all. If you bend over far enough somebody will kick you in the pants. I'm going out, Darbor. Pray for me."

The blankness of her face-plate turned toward him. A glitter, dark and opaque, was all he could make out.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I know it was the wrong answer. But don't be a fool. He'll kill you, and I'm afraid to be in the dark, alone."

"I'll leave Charley with you."

Denver broke the girl's clasp on his arm and edged slow to the doorway. He shouted.

"Hey, Caltis!"